France’s highest administrative court upheld the legality of a directive from the country’s interior minister barring all pro-Palestinian demonstrations while stating that pro-Palestinian demonstrations must be prohibited on a case-by-case basis.
The interior minister had commanded that “pro-Palestinian protests, because they are likely to generate disturbances to public order, must be banned” in a note dated October 12 that was forwarded to local police authorities.
The organization Comite Action Palestine appealed the blanket ban command, claiming that it was unjustified and infringed on the right to free speech and assembly.
The Conseil d’Etat affirmed the note’s authenticity but ruled that municipal authorities could not forbid a demonstration simply because it was in support of the Palestinians or because of the note.
The intention of the minister’s note, according to the Conseil d’Etat, was to instruct authorities to “ban all protests that support the Palestinian cause, that publicly justify or valorize, directly or indirectly, terrorist acts like those committed in Israel on October 7 by members of Hamas,” despite the judges’ regret for the approximate wording of the note.
It said that protests that “support Hamas (…) are of a nature to provoke disturbances to public order” in light of the unrest and rise in antisemitism in France.
