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# "No to a licence to kill." Thousands demonstrated in 100 towns and cities across France
- URL: https://www.ilesanglo-normandes.com/no-to-french-p-licence-to-kill/
- Published: 2026-09-26T06:30:50.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-27T07:57:01.000Z
- Description: A draft law long pushed-for by the far-right would erode the rule of law itself by giving French police - already Europe's deadliest force - the presumption of "legitimate defence" when they kill or maim civilians.
- Author: îles

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d1/c7/d1c79ccb-3da4-4ed2-8fda-9b60db236f61/content/images/2026/09/20260920_154237.jpg)

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"Justice pour Adama," "Justice pour Rayana," "Justice pour Cédric." Adama Traoré's sister, Rayana Badaoui's mother, Cédric Chouviat's father, one after another the families of people killed following interventions by French police stepped up to the microphone. "On n'oublie pas ! On pardonne pas !" "We don't forget! We don't forgive!" 

With a sea of banners: "Permis de vivre" "Right to live," or "Bienvenue en Postdémocratie" "Welcome to post-democracy," around 150,000 people, according to organisers, 50,000 according to the Ministère de l'Intérieur (Home Office) marched in 100 towns and cities across France on 20th September to denounce the draft law as a "permis de tuer." A "licence to kill."

Voted by the National Assembly on 7th July, due to go before France's upper law-making house the Senate, in October, the bill would mean any shot fired by a police officer would automatically be considered legally justified, with the onus on families of victims to prove otherwise. The draft text "provides that, in the performance of their duties, national police officers and gendarmes who make 'absolutely necessary and strictly proportionate' use of their weapons 'are presumed to have acted' within the bounds of the law." 

This presumption of legality, long-championed by France's far-right, marks a tipping point in the rule of law in the eyes of lawyers, judges unions and NGOs, essentially challenging the concept of equality and right to life. The bill was proposed by Eric Paguet, of the hard-right party Ligue Républicaine, and given further support by president Macron's government: French interior minister, Laurent Nûnez, becomes the first in the role to support such a far-right measure. In total, the bill received [313 votes for and 199 against](https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/actualites-accueil-hub/reconnaitre-une-presomption-de-legitime-defense-pour-les-forces-de-l-ordre-dans-l-exercice-de-leurs-fonctions-adoption-de-la-proposition-de-loi?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com) in the National Assembly. 94 of the far-right's 122 members of Parliament voted in favour.

730,000 people across France meanwhile signed a [petition](https://petitions.assemblee-nationale.fr/initiatives/i-6334?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com) lodged by Issam El Khalfaoui, whose teenage son Souheil was shot dead by a Marseille police officer in 2021\. The petition declared that the law's adoption would be a "serious breach of the constitutional principle of equality." Exceeding the 500,000 signatures required to force a debate, the president of the National Assembly closed the petition without one. 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d1/c7/d1c79ccb-3da4-4ed2-8fda-9b60db236f61/content/images/2026/09/20260920_144227.jpg)

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Assa Traoré addressing marchers. 

France's magistrates union, Le Syndicat de la Magistrature together with the French lawyers union representing more than 1000 lawyers, Le Syndicat des Avocat\*es de France, slammed the bill before it was passed in the National Assembly as eroding "the pillars of the rule of law: the right to life and the state’s obligation to be held accountable in cases of death at the hands of law enforcement."

"In practical terms, a law enforcement officer who has used their firearm could no longer be placed in police custody, which would hinder the collection of his or her account, the gathering of initial evidence, and, ultimately, the establishment of the truth," they declared in a joint statement with other organisations opposing the law. "This lack of investigation into the use of firearms will have a direct impact on the number of fatal shootings."

Both legal professional unions joined the 160 organisations calling for the nationwide protest initiated by SAVE, Stop Aux Violences d'Etat (Stop State Violence) an association for families of those killed by police. France's League of Human Rights, La France insoumise, the largest leftwing party, plus feminist association Nous Toutes, and NGOs Greenpeace France and Amnesty International were also among signatories. 

Addressing Paris marchers Sunday, Assa Traoré decried the proposed law as being "a manual for police officers on how to kill without any consequences.” 

One of the foremost voices in the movement against police violence, Traoré called for the urgent repeal of the 2017 l[oi Cazeneuve](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000034104023?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com), and its specific clause - Article L.435-1\. This expanded the circumstances under which police officers can shoot, to include on vehicles driving away, if they believe the people in the vehicle are going to be dangerous. 

“This law killed Olivio Gomez, this law killed Souheil El Khalfaoui, this law killed Rayana, this law killed Gaye Camara—it has claimed many lives," Traoré told the Paris march. Among families present, Noura Badaoui, Rayana's mother. In 2022 her daughter was a passenger in a car shot at by police officers in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. The 21-year-old died from a bullet to the head. Police officers claimed “self-defence." Three years after she was shot while sitting in the front passenger seat, Rayana's case was dismissed.

> "Even before 2017, men and women were dying in working-class neighbourhoods." Assa Traoré

Rayana is one of at least 35 vehicle occupants killed by law enforcement officers invoking Article L.435-1\. 

Since 2017, the French police force has become the deadliest in Europe. Fatalities are now five times higher than before the law's introduction. “France has become the European Union country with the highest number of people killed or injured by law enforcement officers,” noted international human rights legal expert, Jorge Contesse, during the United Nations Committee Against Torture’s review of France in April 2025 - as cited by the joint release. Amnesty International and figures from Basta! an independent media outlet [track](https://basta.media/la-police-tue-voici-les-chiffres?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com)ing fatal police interventions in France confirm that jump. In the past two years: 49 people died in 2025, 19 of them by firearms; 66 in 2024, 27 involving firearms.

"We mustn’t be afraid to call it what it is," Traoré told Paris marchers. "There is racism within the French police force, and until we acknowledge that racism exists, we won’t be able to save our lives. We’re not talking about individual police officers - it’s the system itself we’re denouncing." 

Men and women have long been dying in working-class neighbourhoods, Traoré said. In summer 2016 her younger brother Adama Traoré was arrested on the day of his 24th birthday. He never came home. His family has spent 10 years fighting through the courts for the truth about what happened to him inside the police station of the Paris suburb of Persan, Val-d’Oise. Earlier this year Adama's case was also thrown out by France's Appeals Court, judged a "[non-lieu](https://www.gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr/gendinfo/actualites/2026/la-cour-de-cassation-confirme-le-non-lieu-des-gendarmes-mis-en-cause-dans-la-mort-d-adama-traore?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com)." The family's lawyer is now taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights. 

"In what kind of country does a sister grow up thinking that one day her little brother might be killed?" asked actress Judith Godrèche, among celebrities present, in her speech to the Paris march. "In a world where the state can commit crimes with total impunity." 

"A law enforcement agency that is not held accountable not only loses its legal legitimacy, but also loses the trust of the people it is supposed to protect," stated the petition lodged by El Khalfaoui, whose son Souheil was 19 when he was killed. "This bill weakens the police just as much as it weakens the rule of law."

"We cannot accept this law where they kill our children," declared Mounia Merzouk, whose only son, Nahel, was shot and killed by police in Nanterre, a Paris suburb, at 17 years-old. A video capturing Nahel's death shows the moment when he is driving away representing no threat to the officers who then fatally shot him. The teenager's killing triggered huge protests in summer 2023, largely portrayed by France's mainstream media as urban rioting. 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d1/c7/d1c79ccb-3da4-4ed2-8fda-9b60db236f61/content/images/2026/09/--SAVE_marche20_POST_NON_EDITABLE_NOIR-1.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d1/c7/d1c79ccb-3da4-4ed2-8fda-9b60db236f61/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-23-at-16-04-20-Villes-mobilis--es-----Permis-de-tuer-----SAVE-1.png)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d1/c7/d1c79ccb-3da4-4ed2-8fda-9b60db236f61/content/images/2026/09/20260920_145853-2.jpg)

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“We say ‘a youth’ instead of ‘a child’; we say ‘youths’ instead of ‘our children,'" said Godrèche in her speech. Citing Robert Badinter, who campaigned to abolish the death penalty in France in 1981, she said the draft law would effectively reintroduce the French state's right to kill. 

"The death penalty was a thing of the past—but no, it’s the present. This summer it hit 40 degrees in the shade... So tomorrow, when our children take to the streets for the climate, what's going to happen? What will become of them?...Tomorrow, when women take to the streets to protest—or queer people, environmentalists, ZAD \[ecologist\] activists, or undocumented people? Tomorrow, who else will die as a result of this automatically authorised pull on the trigger?” 

Addressing members of the National Assembly and the Senate directly, Godrèche urged: "Do not issue a license to kill. The state has no right to decide life or death over young people; these are our children." 

La France insoumise founder, 2027 presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, plus fellow LFI members who fought against the bill - Mathilde Panot and Thomas Portes - alongside mayor Bally Bagayoko of the Parisian suburb Saint-Denis, were among those marching from place de la République. 

As people arrived at place de la Nation late afternoon under the grey Paris sky, a group of riot police [charged](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdhKJlhqXhU/?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com), some of them striking at demonstrators with truncheons - injuring a number, including one man who needed hospital treatment for a [blow](https://www.instagram.com/p/Ddjh50RgImf/?hl=fr&img%5Findex=1&ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com) to the head. 

Riot police also fired the toxic chemicals referred to as 'tear gas', into the crowd, which included young children and elderly people most at risk from its' health impacts. The French police's indiscriminate use of tear gas at dangerous proximity has been flagged by [Amnesty International](https://www.amnesty.fr/actualites/gaz-lacrymogenes-quels-dangers-que-dit-la-loi/?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com). 

Two elderly woman, one supported by a walking stick, the other clutching saline solution ready to rinse her eyes, retreated back through the crowd to avoid the fumes. "We no longer live in a democracy," one sighed. 

#### How French laws are made: Read More

The French Parliament is made up of two chambers, the National Assembly and the Senate. 

Any bill, whether tabled by the government or by a member of Parliament, is discussed first by the National Assembly then in turn by the Senate - to reach an agreement on the clauses to be examined in a process called The Shuttle. And then voted on in both. 

Members of the two Houses are elected by two different electoral systems. The 348 French Senators are [elected through indirect universal suffrage for six years](https://www.senat.fr/lng/en/senators/the-senatorial-elections.html?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com).

At the National Assembly, the proposed law was voted by [313 votes for and 199 against](https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/17/scrutins/7987?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com). It will next go before the Senate vote in October. 

Every three years, half of the Senate's seats are put up for election. The next election is Sunday 27th September. Municipal councillors elected in the March elections, now vote for members of the Senate. 

****Article 49.3.**

However, there also exists a bypass for law-making called Article 49.3\. The government can trigger Article 49.3 for a bill or draft legislation to adopt it without it being put to a vote. 

When Article 49.3 is triggered, opposition members of Parliament have 24 hours to lodge a motion of no confidence 

Article 49.3 results in the immediate suspension of debate on the text of the law in the National Assembly.

Under president Macron, France's most unpopular president with a current approval rating of [16](https://www.ipsos.com/fr-fr/barometre-politique-ipsos-bva-la-tribune-dimanche?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com)%\* the use by successive governments of Article 49.3 has multiplied. Because the government does not have a majority in the National Assembly, the use of 49.3 has evolved from rare occasions into a standard mode of functioning for the minority government. French lawyers and judges unions have denounced the use of 49.3 as an affront to democratic process. 

\*Approval rating conducted by a poll of 1000 people living in France: "What is your view of Emmanuel Macron’s performance as president of the Republic?"

  
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*\*this article was updated to include the joint statement by Le Syndicat de la Magistrature and the French lawyers union.*