drones fly to the rescue of law enforcement

Parades watched from the sky. This “historic and festive” 1st of May wanted by the inter-union will also have been that of a first in the history of the social movement since a little everywhere on the territory – in particular in Paris, Bordeaux, Nantes and Lyon, but also in Le Havre or Tours – the prefects have issued orders authorizing drones, these flying machines equipped with cameras, to fly over the heads of the thousands of demonstrators mobilized for the 13th unitary rally against the pension reform.

In this, the authorities obeyed the message sent on Saturday April 29 by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who urged them to use more widely this new device for maintaining order, established by the law relating to the responsibility Criminal Justice and Internal Security of January 2022, the implementation of which was authorized by a decree of April 19.

Since that date, the police forces have been authorized to use these surveillance aircraft for “the prevention of attacks on the security of persons and property in particularly exposed places” but also for “the security of gatherings with the aim of maintaining or to restore public order”. What they did for the first time during the demonstration against the A69 motorway project in the Tarn, on April 22, then during the Wuambushu operation against illegal immigration in Mayotte, or even for the final of the French Football Cup on April 29.

A disputed use

To justify the use of drones during the May Day parades, the authorities invoked the risk of violent outbursts from radical “black blocks” groups or yellow vests and the possibility of better managing, thanks to aerial views, the flow of demonstrators to adapt the security system. “The drones are also there to protect the unions,” argued the Paris police chief, Laurent Nunez.

Their use is nonetheless contested by several organizations – the Association for the Defense of Constitutional Liberties (Adelico), the Syndicate of Lawyers of France and the Human Rights League – which denounce a “massive surveillance operation and systematic” and consequently filed interim releases before the administrative courts against four of these prefectural orders.

In Bordeaux as in Lyon, the magistrates rejected these appeals for “lack of urgency”. In Paris, the court also rejected the request, finding that the use of drones was, in the circumstances, perfectly legal. Only that of Rouen set conditions for the execution of the decree, limiting the perimeter and the time of flight over the procession of Le Havre.

Go to the Council of State

“Four totally inconsistent decisions which show that the courts are unable to exercise their role of control in the face of an ambiguous device, the conditions of use of which remain to be specified, as recommended by the National Commission for Computing and Liberties », Underlines Jean-Baptiste Soufron, lawyer for Adelico.

For this, Me Soufron makes an appointment with the Council of State which must examine on May 16 an appeal against the decree authorizing the use of drones by the police, the next episode of a legal and political controversy which lasts. for almost three years now.

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