"Rioters pay" bill: the Senate wants the crowd to pay, the Republic must judge actions

What the Senate is examining

The text bears an administrative title, "bill on the compensation of damage resulting from violence or degradation committed in public space". Tabled in the Senate on 16 September under the fast-track procedure, it is carried by Laurent Nuñez, Gérald Darmanin and Stéphanie Rist on behalf of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, according to the legislative file published by the Senate. It reached the chamber this Tuesday, 27 October, from 4:30 pm, and debates are due to continue on Wednesday, according to NosParlementaires.

Its core comes down to one idea. According to the AFP dispatch, anyone who "knowingly took part" in a group intended to commit damage, or who remained in a gathering after two warnings, could be held jointly liable for the damage, up to a limit of 10,000 euros per person. As Public Sénat reports, this liability could be incurred even if the person did not break anything themselves. For those unable to pay, the sums could be deducted from personal housing benefits and family allowances.

The law committee hardened the text on 21 October. It added the RSA (minimum income) to the benefits that can be seized, with a "minimum left to live on" for the most vulnerable, relaxed the use of drones, raised the penalty for taking part in a violent group from one to three years in prison, and provided for a ban from French territory for certain convicted foreigners, according to NosParlementaires and Public Sénat. Le Club des juristes states that this work was done behind closed doors, drawing on participants quoted by Mediapart. Finally, the government tabled an amendment requiring content calling for insurrection or for taking up arms against the State to be removed within one hour.

The positions at stake

The bill's supporters put forward an argument that must be taken seriously. On 17 October, 2,201 shops were vandalised, according to CCI France as cited by AFP, following the violence that had already followed PSG's Champions League victory. Sébastien Lecornu believes taxpayers cannot always be asked to repair what rioters have destroyed. LR rapporteur David Margueritte sees in it, according to Public Sénat:

une réponse ferme, claire et opérationnelle (a firm, clear and operational response) — David Margueritte

He even argues that the text protects the freedom to demonstrate, by deterring those who hijack it. Bruno Retailleau has made it a marker of the "return of order". The Conseil d'État gave a favourable opinion, Le Club des juristes notes. The new RN group, for its part, wants to go further: raising the cap, denying social housing, seizing the disabled adults' allowance, Public Sénat reports.

On the left, the criticism is head-on. Ecologist Anne Souyris and the communist group are defending a motion to reject the bill, according to AFP. Communist senator Fabien Gay fears that no demonstration could be held any longer, and the president of the La France insoumise group in the National Assembly, Mathilde Panot, speaks of a weapon against all mobilisations, according to Public Sénat. A collective bringing together the CGT, student organisations and the Syndicat de la magistrature, among others, denounces in an op-ed in Le Monde a serious attack on the freedom to demonstrate, while Amnesty International is calling for the bill to be withdrawn, according to AFP.

Analysis: a good question, a bad answer

No one disputes that looted shopkeepers must be compensated, or that rioters' impunity fuels distrust of the State. A right faithful to the sense of the State cannot leave broken shop windows unanswered. But republican order rests on a simple principle: we answer for our own actions, not for those of the crowd around us.

Yet this is precisely the principle the text upends. Making a peaceful protester jointly liable for damage committed by others, simply because they did not leave quickly enough, amounts to placing the financial risk of collective action on everyone. The foreseeable effect is to deter those with the least leeway from demonstrating, that is, precisely low-income families. Parliamentary debates this summer also show the idea does not command consensus: in July, deputies rejected a similar amendment targeting participants in rave parties, as well as a suspension of family allowances, NosParlementaires recalls.

The seizure of social benefits raises a second problem. Family allowances and housing benefits are meant for a household's children and its roof, not for punishment. Adding the RSA, even with a minimum left to live on, turns national solidarity into an instrument of sanction. Social Gaullism has never confused firmness with relegation.

Finally, the timing raises questions. Examining this text in the middle of a high school student movement, as Public Sénat points out, gives the impression of legislating in the heat of emotion, when criminal law already makes it possible to prosecute identified perpetrators and the State already has a recourse action against them.

Conclusion: punish rioters, not protesters

There is a fairer path: strengthen investigative resources to identify the real perpetrators, create a rapid compensation fund for shopkeepers financed by the State and then recovered from those convicted, and keep solidarity out of the realm of sanctions. At the very least, the Senate should remove the joint liability of mere bystanders and the seizure of social benefits. Otherwise, the Constitutional Council will probably have to say whether one can pay for a fault one did not commit. The question remains open: do we want to punish rioters, or make people pay for the right to take to the streets?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.