2023-11-24 02:57:35
The administrative court on Thursday authorized the surveillance of the Strasbourg Christmas Market, the 453rd edition of which opens on Friday, by drones, after an interim appeal filed by three Strasbourg residents, including two lawyers, against a prefectural order to this effect.
The request was rejected by the court’s judge, who considered that, taking into account “the size of the area to be secured, the expected crowds and the particular configuration of the premises including many narrow streets”, the circumstances “justified a particular deployment of security forces, supplemented by the use of two drones”, indicates the Strasbourg court in a press release.
“Detect abnormal crowd movements more quickly”
They “will make it possible to detect abnormal crowd movements more quickly and direct law enforcement interventions in a more rapid and relevant manner” to protect the population. The measure was presented by Josiane Chevalier, prefect of Bas-Rhin: for the first time in 453 editions, the Strasbourg Christmas Market, which opens on Friday, will be subject to surveillance by two drones from the national police, in the context of the transition to the “emergency attack” level of the Vigipirate plan.
For the lawyers of the three Strasbourg residents, this drone surveillance is carried out “to the detriment of fundamental freedoms”, for “a gain in terms of security which is not obvious”. According to the judge, “the technical methods of using drones” are not “disproportionate to the pursued objective of public safety”.
The measure comes “in a context of terrorist attacks having already struck the city of Strasbourg during the Christmas market and the recent increase in the level of terrorist risk throughout the national territory”, recalls the administrative court.
At the hearing Thursday morning, the lawyers stressed that drones were not only used to monitor potential crowd movements, but to “monitor behavior on an individual scale, making it possible to observe people going to a doctor’s office.” “lawyer, doctor or an LGBT welcoming place, allowing for example to deduce the sexual orientation of a person”.
The plaintiffs denounce the “disproportionate perimeter” authorizing drone flights
However, according to the judge, “apart from (the) objectives of maintaining order, the use of images for other purposes (is) strictly prohibited”, except in the case of discovery “by chance, of a criminal offense whose seriousness would require reporting to the public prosecutor.” The judge “did not find a serious and manifestly illegal attack on private life or the secrecy covering the legal profession”, indicates the court.
The lawyers also recalled that according to the jurisprudence of the Court of Cassation, “the terrorist threat has been permanent in France since 1994”, and considered that another prefectural decree, prohibiting the wearing of masks on the Christmas market, was “in link with drones and the need to recognize faces”.
They contested the “extreme perimeter” authorizing drone flights, larger than the perimeter of the market, and the “mind-blowing number of people targeted”, when nearly three million visitors are expected. In defense, representatives of the prefecture stressed that the drones flew at a minimum altitude of 120 meters, but without denying that they allowed individual identification. For the judge, drones will not be able to visualize and identify faces “because of the pixelation of the images”.
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