France: Olympic Games under control

Johann Bihr. We wanted to highlight the instrumentalisation of criminal justice for the purposes of maintaining law and order in this issue of Dedans Dehors. This takes different forms. A “clean-up”, if not a “social purge”, of the streets has been underway for several weeks now, particularly in Seine-Saint-Denis. The authorities are targeting all forms of unauthorised use of public space, particularly street vending and the sale of counterfeit cigarettes. Tackling these relatively minor offences is a priority for the Bobigny public prosecutor’s office, and the toughening of sanctions against them is already palpable. Up until now, street vending has been subject to a warning from Court (rappel à la loi). According to our sources, it is now being referred to a court hearing based on prior recognition of guilt (comparution sur reconnaissance préalable de culpabilité, CRPC), and sometimes even to an immediate trial (comparution immédiate), both of which increase the likelihood of being incarcerated for a minor offence. In addition, convictions are systematically accompanied by restraining orders (interdictions de paraître) in the areas where the Olympic events will be held. The authorities are working hard to make the streets look pretty and presentable for tourists and cameras from all over the world.

What is even more worrying is that criminal procedure is being used under the guise of terrorism prevention. The administrative measures inherited from the state of emergency, which were incorporated into ordinary law in 2017, are being used in the context of the Olympic Games.

The dynamic was initiated with the “Counter-terrorism action plan” memo from the Ministry of the Interior, sent on 6 May to prefects, police and intelligence services. The main aim of the memo is to pre-emptively neutralise any potential threat, i.e. any person suspected of radicalisation. Prefects are encouraged to make greater use of extremely restrictive measures, such as house arrest (assignations à résidence) and individual administrative control and surveillance measures (mesures individuelles de contrôle administratif et de surveillance, MICAS). The document also calls on the State services to prosecute as many people as possible who are deemed to be suspects, including for offences unrelated to terrorism, so as to neutralise them and control their movements. It is still difficult to measure the real impact of these procedures, but we will be keeping a close eye on them over the coming weeks.

This instrumentation of criminal justice goes against the logic that suspicions should lead to the gathering of evidence, the opening of an investigation and, at the end of a fair trial, the imposition of sanctions. Here, the justice system is called upon to take measures to serve a predetermined end: the neutralisation of certain people deemed “undesirable”.

JB. In the absence of a crystal ball, let us refrain from making predictions. But many legal professionals are worried about the potentially self-fulfilling effect of the intensification of penal and security measures. The tenfold increase in police presence, as well as emphasis from the Ministry of Justice on strict policing practices and on the repression of offences related to the unauthorised use of public space all contribute to increasing the risk of conviction. The organisational plans of the jurisdictions hosting the events, notably Paris and Bobigny, foresee an increased use of immediate trials. This procedure is particularly expeditious and severely limits trial preparation. It also multiplies by eight the likelihood of being sentenced to a prison term.

The prison authorities are well aware that the prisons are already bursting at the seams and that the situation must not get any worse. They know that the cameras of the world are focused on France. We have documented the way in which the prison administration has been preparing for this situation for several months. They are on a warpath and will be mobilised very intensively throughout the summer, as will the justice and police services.

It has pulled out all the stops to try and find space in the prisons of the Île-de-France region. The margin for manoeuvre is very limited. This mainly involves transfers from the most overcrowded facilities, in particular remand prisons, to those that are a little less so, in particular detention centres elsewhere in France.

This policy of optimising the prison estate has been in place for several years, leading to detention centres being 98% occupied on average.
Transfers lead to a breakdown in family ties and rehabilitation projects, and create difficulties in terms of cohabitation between prisoners. People with very short remaining sentences find themselves in facilities where everything is organised around long remaining sentences. The tight flow of remand prisons is imported into detention centres: staff find themselves having to manage highly accelerated entry and release processes and no longer have the time to build pathways to preparation for release.

Besides having significant perverse effects, this policy turns prisoners into pure adjustment variables and seems to be producing more than limited results. On 1 June, the prisons in the Île-de-France region were still as overcrowded as ever.

JB. We aim to put the Olympics back on a continuum, with a before and after. The criminal security system crystallises all the abuses of recent years: criminalisation and invisibilisation of disadvantaged groups, increased use of immediate trials, administrative measures depriving people of their liberty, and so on. What existed before the Olympics has now been made abundantly clear. What will be the legacy of this event in terms of security? Feedback from the Olympic Games in other countries shows that the exceptional measures put in place are often largely maintained. During the Olympics, Vancouver passed a law allowing homeless people to be forcibly sheltered. It has never been repealed and remains in force in the rest of the province.

The French NGO La Quadrature du Net describes the Olympic Games as an accelerator of surveillance worldwide. In Japan, certain laws on surveillance were only adopted on the impertus of the organisation of the Olympic Games. We fear that the Olympic Games system, while exceptional, will become permanent, since it is based on the measures of the Internal Security and Counter-Terrorism Act (* Sécurité intérieure et lutte contre le terrorisme*, SILT), introduced following the state of emergency. It is this law that allows for reinforced protection perimeters and house arrests.

There is every reason to fear that these measures will be extended to other events, whether it be screening extended beyond sports venues or algorithmic video surveillance.

The latter has been passed over in the name of the Olympic Games, but the experiment will run until March 2025, well beyond the Games. It is hard to imagine how cameras will miraculously disappear in April 2025.

This issue of Dedans Dehors therefore seeks to explore the role of major events of this kind in the shift to new levels of surveillance and repression. This dynamic has already been at work in the management of protests in recent years. It is growing strongly with the Olympics, and it is unlikely that there will be any turning back.