Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, Media, Society

France Continues Crackdown On Journalists

France appears to be launching a crackdown on the free press with the same vigor it has shown in destroying free speech guarantees in the nation famous for its 1784 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of all the Citizen. Recently, we discussed how the French government was criminally investigating journalists who uncovered false statements by French officials on the country’s role in the war in Yemen. Now, a senior reporter at the renowned French Le Monde has been called in for questioning after Ariane Chemin revealed that a security aide to President Emmanuel Macron has been summoned for questioning by the domestic intelligence service.

I noted in the earlier story that I was highly critical in a column after French President Emmanuel Macron received a standing ovation in calling for the United States to follow France’s lead in stomping out some forms of free speech. This story shows how hostile the French government has become to core guarantees of freedom.

Ariane Chemin was called in by the same government office — the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI).

The alleged crime was a quintessential act of journalism. Chemin wrote a series of articles over the former presidential bodyguard Alexandre Benalla. Benalla was fired last year after he was filmed roughing up a protester in one of the biggest scandals to shake Macron to date. Chemin not only wrote about how Benalla donned a police helmet before beating the demonstrator but how the Elysee allegedly covered up the affair. The coverage also touched on the role of Hformer air force officer Chokri Wakrim, the partner of Marie-Elodie Poitout, the ex-head of security at the prime minister’s office. Poitout later resigned.

It is a curious disconnect. Despite Macron’s record against free speech and the free press, he received glowing coverage on this visit and continues to garner relatively favorable treatment in the American press coverage.

24 thoughts on “France Continues Crackdown On Journalists”

  1. France has a sordiid history. What gets ignored by Americans is the collusion with the Germans during the occupation in WWII in rounding up Gypsies and Jews and killing them.

    1. WikiLeaks tweet @ 1:21 PM – 23 May 2019
      ‏
      “This is madness. It is the end of national security journalism and the first amendment.”
      ‏

    2. thats how i would have read pentagon papers case with respect to him but i guess we’re gonna find out now.

      Deep State makes its move in the open i guess

  4. Judging by quality of the work the US Version instead of being cracked down are downing crack.

  5. Having the right to speak your own thoughts and opinions is one of the most basic human rights.

    We must protect our First Amendment rights or lose them, ourselves.

  6. Ruhollah Khomeini aka Ayatollah Khomeini….Spending life in exile

    NEAUPHLE-LE-CHATEAU, France — From a sleepy village outside Paris, the man who would become the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran sat cross-legged beneath an apple tree, delivering messages daily to hundreds of followers clamoring to glimpse the glowering cleric in the black turban.

    His lectures fiercely denounced the Shah of Iran as “the Jewish agent, the American serpent whose head must be smashed with a stone,” became common items in the markets of Iran.

    In October 1965, after less than a year, he was allowed to move to Najaf, Iraq, where he stayed until 1978, when he was expelled by then-Vice President Saddam Hussein. By this time discontent with the Shah was becoming intense and Khomeini visited Neauphle-le-Château, a suburb of Paris, France on a tourist visa on 6 October 1978. Jimmy “Hee Hee” Carter wasn’t informed by the French NATO ally.

  7. nation famous for its 1784 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of all the Citizen

    The French Revolution is nothing to emulate, nor anything coming from it. The period of the Declaration of The Rights of Man (1789) gave birth to the Reign of Terror (1792). Yet here you are referencing such a shameful period when anarchy, terror and paranoia were king as if we should return to our “roots”. Oh, but wait, you also crow about Roe v Wade

    Robespierre, is that you?

    1. Yeah, it’s pretty bad when LEA raids someone’s home when ringing the doorbell and submitting court papers will do

  9. Eurosceptic parties are polling at north of 40% of the vote in France in anticipation of elections to the European parliament. There’s every reason to believe that Macron’s party will not prove to be institutionally durable and no reason to believe as yet that the establishment parties are poised for a comeback. (The Socialists and their allies are currently polling at 5% and the heirs to the Gaullist and Giscardian dispensations are polling at about 15%).

        1. As we speak,

          1. Much of Europe suffers from economic sclerosis consequent to poor incentives in the political economy.

          2. Political establishments are loyal to their social peers, not their countrymen (a character like Peter Sutherland made this explicit). Population replacement is policy.

          3. The same learned helplessness governs institutional policy that you see here, even when you don’t have the hag-Chancellor inviting refugee invasions.

          4. Most places in Europe (France a qualified exception) have dysfunctional state-society relations and dysfunctional inter-generational relations. The dysfunctions are systematic promotion of cultural norms injurious to sustainable development. The result is manifest in fertility statistics (which are horrible for Germany, the Mediterranean, and much of Eastern Europe).

          Europe’s survival depends on dismantling the Brussels apparat and following national policies of sustainable development.

            2. Demographic transition. Has been happening since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution and still continues in Developing Nations. As people move from labor intensive agriculture to industrialism children stop being an economic asset that can provide productive labor and become an economic drain requiring increasingly larger amounts of investment in things like education.

              With improved medical care and especially with improved sanitation, children become more likely to survive to adulthood. At first this leads to a drop in the death rate while birth rates remain high. As people come to trust that the death rate has actually dropped and their children are likely to survive the birthrate begins to decline as well.

              The economic disadvantages of many children contributes further to the drop in birthrate. Currently there are no Industrialized nations that are producing at the replacement level. Without immigration all Industrialized nations would have falling population. A good example of this is Japan which allows almost no immigration and severely limits guest workers. Japan has resorted to paying women to have more children, with limited success.

  10. “It is a curious disconnect. Despite Macron’s record against free speech and the free press, he received glowing coverage on this visit and continues to garner relatively favorable treatment in the American press coverage.”
    *************
    Of course, he does and it’s not so curious: He’s a globalist; they are globalist. He’s corrupt; they’re corrupt. He’s hates the working class with their quaint notions of patriotism; they hate the working class with their quaint notions of patriotism. It’s marriage not coverage.

    1. Agreed. The establishment media care about their prerogatives, not about liberty.

      1. Does professor Turley believe the MSM is above politics, money and serving itself?

  12. Macron is desperate and sees journalists as aiding the Yellow Vest Movement. Typical despot but it’s a mixed bag considering the globalist press are as throughly corrupt there as they are here. In a fight between enemies of democracy, there Is nothing but a good result. Carry on.

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