The head of state is regularly mocked during the demonstrations, but this time the authorities certainly deemed the affront too serious. An activist against pension reform has been prosecuted for calling Emmanuel Macron “garbage” on social networks. This figure of the Yellow Vests of the North will be tried for contempt of a person holding public authority denouncing an attempt at intimidation.
A few days earlier, it was Thomas Ghestem, a teacher from Nice, who had to deal with justice for having manhandled a puppet bearing the effigy of the head of state. Summoned to the police station for the same offense and “public provocation to commit a crime or offense without intent”, he was defended by his unions. “These methods of intimidation have been applied in several cities in France: they are intolerable and unacceptable,” they wrote in a press release. On social networks, some Internet users have denounced the protection available to the sacrosanct presidential figure, but what is it really?
This protection has in fact been largely relaxed over the past ten years. There was still recently an offense of insulting the Head of State, punishable by three months to one year’s imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros, until 2000, then a simple fine of the same amount Next. “It was a very banal offense such as insult or defamation, but for the president, we made it a special offense in order to solemnize the thing”, explains Philippe Conte, professor of law at the University Panthéon- Assas, who recalls that few French people were convicted for insulting the head of state during the Fifth Republic.
The offense disappeared in 2013 following a legal battle between the French State and Hervé Éon, an activist who had held up a sign “Casse-toi pauv’ idiot” in front of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008 (in reference to the famous sentence pronounced by the former President of the Republic). The case reached the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled at the time that the offense had “a chilling effect on satirical interventions which can play a very important role in the free debate of questions of general interest”, forcing the French State to repeal it.
Protected by case law
If Thomas Ghestem – the owner of the puppet – was released without any charges being brought against him, the activist from the North will have to answer for his actions in court next June. Contempt against a person holding public authority is punishable by a fine ranging from 7,500 to 15,000 euros, which may go up to one year’s imprisonment. But there is little chance that the Yellow Vest will be condemned in view of the case law.
Last December, the Court of Cassation ruled in favor of a Varois prosecuted for public insult for having displayed a sign representing Macron made up as Hitler on which was written: “Obey. Get vaccinated”, considering that the “satirical” photomontages, were part “in the debate of general interest” on the vaccination pass.
Regarding the activist from the North, “her remarks are part of a context of debate of general interest that represents the pension reform. It is therefore strongly protected under its freedom of political expression, ”said Nicolas Hervieu, jurist professor at Sciences-po and specialist in freedoms. “If she is convicted, she can always seize the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) which risks, as in the Éon case, to give her reason and to condemn the French State once again”, adds Philip Conte.
In this case, being President of the Republic is therefore a … disadvantage for Emmanuel Macron. When the singer Marc Rebillet had insulted him in the middle of a concert in Le Touquet in August 2022, the State had not bothered to sue him, certainly considering that the prosecution had little chance of succeeding. .