Current Events > French woman faces trial, $12,000 fine for insulting Macron on Facebook

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A woman in northern France is to be put on trial on charges of insulting President Emmanuel Macron after describing him as 'filth' in a Facebook post, a prosecutor said on Wednesday. The woman risks a fine of 12,000 euros but not prison if convicted at the trial due to be held in June.

She was arrested on Friday and held in custody for questioning after the state's local administrative office filed a complaint over her Facebook post, the prosecutor in the northern town of Saint Omer, Mehdi Benbouzid, told AFP.

The complaint focused on a post on her Facebook page made on March 21, the day before Macron gave a lunchtime interview to TF1 television to defend his controversial pension reforms that have sparked nationwide protests.

"This piece of filth is going to address you at 1:00 pm... it's always on television that we see this filth," she wrote.

The woman, in her 50s, had been a supporter of the 2018-2019 "Yellow Vest" protests that shook Macron during his first mandate. She stands accused of "insulting the president of the republic" and will stand trial on June 20 in Saint Omer, the prosecutor said.

"They want to make an example of me," the woman told La Voix du Nord regional newspaper which first reported the accusations.

The woman, named by the paper as Valerie, said she was astonished when she answered the knock on the door on Friday morning to find police had come to arrest her.

"I asked them if it was a joke, I had never been arrested," she said. "I am not public enemy number one." The months-long protest movement against the pension reform has sent social tensions spiralling in France and Macron and his government refuse to give way.

New clashes between police and protesters erupted Tuesday and unions have announced a new day of strikes and protests on April 6.

Full Article: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230329-french-woman-faces-trial-for-insulting-macron-on-facebook
https://i.imgur.com/TfyMsN8.jpg

Imagine if everybody who mocked Trump or Biden had to pay a fine

You could pay off the nation's debt.

Laws like this are the worst. No one should be uninsultable or uncriticizable. Absolutely ridiculous to fine someone 12,000 euros for this.

Pathetic country and president.

Inohira posted...

Pathetic country and president.

thatll be 12k pls

I didn't know France had been taken over by the Taliban. Wasn't the right to free speech a liberty afforded to all first world countries?

LeCh0nk posted...

Wasn't the right to free speech a liberty afforded to all first world countries?

uh, no. are you american?

MedeaLysistrata posted...

uh, no. are you american?

No. Canadian.

Been looking it up. Seems like the right to free speech ends at race, religion, and sex

In France, as in the United States, people are free to express their opinions. But in France that freedom of speech ends at insulting others based on their race, religion or sex.
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/02/10/384959376/the-french-debate-free-speech-versus-hate-speech

This doesn't seem to fall under that umbrella. A more recent article doesn't seem to indicate insulting a political leader is illegal either, but maybe I'm misinterpreting?

https://areomagazine.com/2021/05/13/free-speech-in-france-and-the-prophet-muhammad/
In France, freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, which calls it one of the most precious rights of man (Article XI). The foundational French conception of free speech rights differs from the American one. While the First Amendment, enacted in 1791, simply prohibits Congress from abridging the freedom of speech, the French Declaration of 1789 includes explicit exceptions: no one may be disturbed on account of his opinions, even religious ones, as long as the manifestation of such opinions does not interfere with the established Law and Order; and any citizen may speak, write and publish freely, except what is tantamount to the abuse of this liberty in the cases determined by Law. (French law has allowed citizens to insult religion since the 1881 abolition of the crime of blasphemy, under the 29 July 1881 Freedom of the Press law, which also legalised the related secular crime of infringing upon religious morality.) Perhaps due to this historical difference, current French law tends to limit free speech more than American law doesfor example, it prohibits incitement to racial hatred, under the Pleven Act of 1972, and Holocaust denial, under the Gayssot Act of 1990.

Yes, though I've been told it's against TOS before.

LeCh0nk posted...

No. Canadian.

ok, so why aren't you aware that people can't say whatever they want?

LeCh0nk posted...

no one may be disturbed on account of his opinions, even religious ones, as long as the manifestation of such opinions does not interfere with the established Law and Order; and any citizen may speak, write and publish freely, except what is tantamount to the abuse of this liberty in the cases determined by Law.

they obviously value religion less than political order

pff, so much for democracy...

Is there an offence of 'insulting the president'?

I'll see what comes of this.

That's what happens when you keep on electing conservatives.

She should have done what happened with Hollande. Because he was such a boring, do-nothing president they started to call him Flanby (which, for the people who haven't heard of it, is considered to be one of the most bland, boring, ubiquitous deserts in France) up until his plane was struck by lightning and he was then called creme brulee.

MedeaLysistrata posted...

ok, so why aren't you aware that people can't say whatever they want?

I am aware of that. I just didn't think it extended to describing someone as filth.

Obviously things like death threats, racism, instigating violence, etc should not be allowed, but fining somebody a huge amount for insulting the leader is some dictator level shit.

And some of ya'll pretend America is the worst country in the world. lmao.

Xi thinks the fine is too soft.

ellis123 posted...

That's what happens when you keep on electing conservatives.

He's not conservative though. Frances government is known to be far from conservative.

They should go so so so much further then the yellow vests did in response to this.

UnfairRepresent posted...

The complaint focused on a post on her Facebook page made on March 21, the day before Macron gave a lunchtime interview to TF1 television to defend his controversial pension reforms that have sparked nationwide protests.

"This piece of filth is going to address you at 1:00 pm... it's always on television that we see this filth," she wrote.

WTF, I've been insulted worse at my job.

Fuck. I read the poll as "Do you think it should be illegal to insult your leaders?" I totally voted for the wrong one.