Europe

In France, the government is preparing to pass a new law that would presume any shooting by a police officer or gendarme to be lawful. The bill on “presumption of self-defense for law enforcement” will be debated in the National Assembly on July 7. If passed, it would mark a historic shift that would effectively grant law enforcement a “license to kill.”

This new bill is based on an older piece of legislation passed in 2017, known as Article L.435-1 of the Internal Security Code. Behind this abstract name lies a major change: the law broadens the circumstances under which law enforcement officers may use their weapons. Specifically, a police officer or gendarme may open fire on a person whom they believe is “likely” to pose a danger. However, since its adoption, the number of fatal shootings by police targeting vehicles has been five times higher than before 2017.

It is against this already alarming backdrop that the new bill is being proposed. Rather than addressing the flaws in the 2017 law, the new bill supported by the government exacerbates them. Until now, whenever a police officer fired a weapon, an investigation was required to verify whether the conditions set forth in Article L.435-1 had been met. Under the new law, this verification would no longer even be necessary: whenever a police officer uses their weapon, the use of force would automatically be considered lawful.