associations want them banned

Since the publication in the Official Journal on April 20, 2023 of a decree allowing the use of drones by police and gendarmes, these devices have been deployed to monitor demonstrations. Several associations which denounce the use of these drones equipped with cameras have decided to attack the decree before the Council of State, which examines their request this Tuesday, May 16.

Before that, they had filed several applications for interim release, often rejected by the administrative courts. A first round of appeals had been filed in several cities in France by lawyers’ unions and associations to have the decrees authorizing the use of drones during the demonstrations of May 1st withdrawn.

Private life

In Le Havre, a first decision framed the use of drones. The administrative court had partially suspended, on April 30, the prefectural decree considering it necessary to reduce the area and the time slot where the use of drones could be accepted.

The judge in chambers had considered that the authorization granted was “likely to contribute to the security of the demonstration” given the “disorders of public order” committed during previous mobilizations. On the other hand, he considered that the overflight by drones exceeded “in time and space” and thus carried “a serious and manifestly illegal attack on the freedom to come and go and the right to respect for private life”.

Authorization without restriction

In Paris, Lyon and Bordeaux, the courts have authorized the use of surveillance drones without restriction. In the last two cities, the administrative courts did not recognize the “urgent” nature of the appeals. On the merits, the Bordeaux court also considered that several conditions justify the use of drones, in particular the complex configuration of the premises and the risk of incidents on the sidelines of the procession.

In his order, the Parisian summary judge considered that “the applicants do not establish” that the decree “causes a serious and manifestly illegal violation of the rights and freedoms of which they claim ignorance”.

New remedies

Since May 1, other appeals have been filed. As in Bordeaux, after the prefecture set up drones to monitor a static rally against the pension reform on May 9. SUD PTT as well as the Union of Lawyers of France (SAF) underlined the “excessive” nature of this decision, arguing that only 500 people were expected during this mobilization. But the administrative court rejected the summary, pointing out “that some of the previous demonstrations, during which the violence took place, took place under similar conditions”.

A few days earlier, the Rouen administrative court had suspended a prefectural decree providing for the use of drones as part of a rally against the motorway bypass project to the east of the city. According to the organizers, the gathering was intended to be “family and festive” while the prefect of Eure considered that it was “likely to cause serious disturbances to public order”, in particular because it was co-organized by the The Uprisings of the Earth collective, which the government was considering disbanding.

“This festival is presented as (…) family”, had underlined the judge for whom “the only circumstance that it is co-organized by the collective Les Uprisings of the Earth (…) is not enough to characterize the possibility of occurrence of serious disorders to public order”.

Two weeks after the demonstrations of May 1, the decision of the Council of State is expected in the afternoon of this Tuesday.

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