The New York Times - USA (2020-12-01)

A12 N THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALTUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2020

PARIS — French lawmakers
will completely rewrite a legisla-
tive provision restricting the shar-
ing of images of police officers
that was pushed by the govern-
ment but has faced fierce opposi-
tion over the past week, a top offi-
cial in President Emmanuel Ma-
cron’s party announced on Mon-
day, in an effort to defuse a
mounting crisis over the measure.
The provision — Article 24 of a
contentious new security bill un-
der review by the French Parlia-
ment — had come under fire from
journalist unions, free speech ad-
vocates and left-wing opposition
parties. It is not yet clear what will
replace the provision.
But Christophe Castaner, the
head of Mr. Macron’s party, La
République en Marche, in the
lower house of Parliament, said on
Monday that lawmakers would
come up with a “completely new
writing” of the article, the clearest
sign so far that the president
wants to defuse perceptions that
France is on an increasingly re-
pressive drift.
“France mustn’t be the country
of any violence nor any infringe-
ment upon any freedom whatso-
ever,” Mr. Castaner said at a news
conference at the National As-
sembly, the lower house of Parlia-
ment, after Mr. Macron met with
several ministers and party lead-
ers to discuss the growing crisis.
Under the current version of the
bill, Article 24 prescribes a pen-
alty of a year in prison and a fine of
some $54,000 for anyone who
broadcasts “the face or any other
identifying element” of police offi-
cers in action if the goal is to
“physically or mentally harm”
them.
Mr. Castaner acknowledged
that there were “doubts” and
“misunderstandings” around the
provision, which aims to protect
officers from online calls to vio-
lence but was denounced by crit-
ics as an infringement on the right
to document police brutality. But
he stressed that it was not being
scrapped or suspended.
Tens of thousands of protesters
took to the streets of cities across
France over the weekend to pro-
test the provision, which arrived
in Parliament amid simmering
tensions over Mr. Macron’s secu-
rity agenda in the wake of a string
of Islamist terrorist attacks. And
opposition to Article 24 was fueled
last week after a national outcry
over the beating of a Black music
producer by Paris police officers
that was caught on security cam-
era footage.
While the demonstrations were
mostly peaceful, there were some
violent clashes between the police
and demonstrators.
An independent photographer
from Syria, Ameer al-Halbi, was
badly hurt in Paris when he was
hit in the face by a police officer
wielding a baton. Gérald Dar-
manin, the French interior min-
ister, said nearly 100 security
forces had also been wounded, in-
cluding one police officer in riot
gear who was beaten by demon-
strators in Paris.
Details on who exactly would
rewrite Article 24 and what a new
version might contain were
scarce. The bill that includes the
provision, which would also au-

thorize the use of drones to film

citizens in public and allow

footage from body cameras worn

by police to be live-streamed to

authorities, was passed by the Na-

tional Assembly last week and will

be examined by the French Sen-

ate in January.

Mr. Castaner’s announcement

did little to immediately mollify

Mr. Macron’s political opponents.

Parties on the left, and even some

of Mr. Macron’s own party mem-

bers, said the provision should be

scrapped entirely. Politicians on

the right — who control the Senate

and are much more amenable to

Mr. Macron’s security policies —

expressed irritation that they

were being bypassed.

“French society has never been

so divided, and Article 24 is con-

tributing to that,” Pierre Person, a

lawmaker for La République en

Marche and the former No. 2 in

the party, told Le Parisien on Mon-

day.

Mr. Person said it was a “reali-

ty” that police officers were some-

times maliciously targeted. But

because Article 24 was “badly

written,” he said, it “offers a bad

response to the problem, divides

and creates suspicion.”

Journalists and free speech ad-

vocates were among the first to

oppose the article, fearing it would

prevent reporters and citizens

from documenting cases of police

brutality.

But opposition to the measure

gained even wider traction after

the beating of Michel Zecler, a 41-

year-old Black music producer, in

a case that has shocked the coun-

try and forced the government to

reckon with persistent accusa-

tions of police brutality and rac-

ism.

Graphic video posted by Loop-

sider, a digital news outlet,

showed three officers pummeling

Mr. Zecler with fists, feet and a ba-

ton on Nov. 21 in the entrance to a

recording studio in Paris, while

another threw a tear-gas canister

through the window. Mr. Zecler

said that several officers had also

used a racial slur against him.

President Emmanuel Macron

said in a statement on his Face-

book page on Friday that the im-

ages of the beating “shame us”

and he asked the government to

come up with proposals to restore

public confidence in the police — a

demand he has already made

twice this year, first in January

when a deliveryman died after po-

lice officers pinned him to the

ground and put him in a choke-

hold, then again in June amid the

global fallout over George Floyd’s

killing.

The four police officers involved

in the beating of Mr. Zecler, who

have been suspended, were

placed under formal investigation

late Sunday and charged with as-

sault, including the use of a weap-

on, a French judicial official said

on Monday. Some were also

charged with the use of racial in-

sults, the official said.

The official, who was not autho-

rized to speak publicly about a

continuing investigation, said the

three officers accused of beating

Mr. Zecler had also been charged

with forgery of official documents

— over suspicions that the officers

had lied in their police report

about the events — while the offi-

cer accused of throwing the tear-

gas canister had also been

charged with damaging private

property.

The authorities have not pub-

licly identified the officers beyond

their ages: 44, 35, 31 and 23. Two of

them have been detained, while

the others, including the one ac-

cused of throwing the tear-gas

canister, were released under ju-

dicial control.

Rémy Heitz, the Paris prosecu-

tor, said Sunday that the officers

had admitted under questioning

that their blows against Mr. Zecler

“were not justified.”

But they told investigators that

they had been acting “under the

influence of fear,” Mr. Heitz said,

because they had been unable to

bring a struggling Mr. Zecler un-

der control in the cramped en-

trance to the recording studio af-

ter trying to stop him for failing to

wear a mask, which is mandatory

in France because of the coronavi-

rus pandemic.

Mr. Heitz also said the officers,

who have not been involved in

previous incidents, denied using a

racial slur.

Mr. Darmanin, the French inte-

rior minister, said Monday that it

was unfair to depict the entire po-

lice institution as violent because

of the actions of a few.

But he acknowledged that there

“might be” longstanding “struc-

tural problems” in France’s secu-

rity forces, like insufficient train-

ing for new recruits and a lack of

proper resources and equipment,

that contribute to issues like po-

lice violence.

“One can ask the question of

why there are men and women

who, in a totally disproportionate

and unspeakable way, carry out

acts that sicken and shame all of

us,” Mr. Darmanin told a parlia-

mentary hearing.

France Plans

To Rewrite

Bill Blocking

Police Photos

By AURELIEN BREEDEN

KIRAN RIDLEY/GETTY IMAGES

MICHEL ZECLER/GS GROUP, VIA AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES JOEL SAGET/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Clockwise from top: demonstrators clashing with the Paris police over a bill restricting the sharing of images of officers; people gathered by a banner reading “Police,

blurring, justice blind” on the statue Le Triomphe de la Republique; an image from security camera footage of Michel Zecler, a producer, being beaten by the police.

PARIS — In its first award since
a pedophilia scandal revealed
deep-rooted collusion within its
ranks, one of France’s top literary
juries avoided the appearance of
any potential conflicts of interest
on Monday by crowning the novel
of a little-known female author
from a small publishing house.
Judges of the Renaudot gave
the prize for best novel to Marie-
Hélène Lafon, an outsider of
France’s clubby literary circles.
Her book, “Histoire du fils,’’ was
published by Buchet-Chastel, a
company with an annual catalog
of about 50 works and the first-
time winner of a major award.
The jury of the Renaudot has
been under intense scrutiny since
members acknowledged reward-
ing the pedophile writer Gabriel
Matzneff in the essay category in
2013 to help revive his career and
cheer him up. Its fierce resistance
to change has come to embody the
tight grip of an established elite on
France’s literary institutions.
This year, like many before it,
the short list for the prize was
made up of literary insiders
whose novels were published by
leading companies and whose ties
to several of the jurors were
widely known. So the choice of Ms.
Lafon was a safe one for a jury
girding itself for criticism.
“I’m aware that there are ethi-
cal stakes at work behind all this,’’
Ms. Lafon said after the award

was announced over Zoom be-

cause of coronavirus restrictions.

“The situation is perilous. We’re

walking on a tightrope.’’

But the choice of Ms. Lafon’s

novel was applauded as a recogni-

tion of literary quality by experts

and literature fans on social me-

dia. The saga traverses a century

and looks at a family secret that

the main character tries to unrav-

el by reconstructing the genealo-

gy of his family.

The novel is “a beautiful piece of

work” from a writer whose rural

background has long inspired her

books, said Marie-Rose Guarnieri,

a bookstore owner and a critic of

France’s major literary juries, on

which jurors usually serve for life.

Two decades ago, Ms. Guarnieri

established the Wepler, a literary

prize with a jury that changes ev-

ery year.

But Ms. Guarnieri said she did

not believe the choice reflected a

profound shift in the Renaudot’s

outlook. Over the years, the jury

has tried to deflect occasional crit-

icism by rewarding an unknown

author from a small publisher, she

said.

“When they begin to realize

that we can see how they work,”

Ms. Guarnieri said, “and espe-

cially the big conflicts of interest

that arise from this way of select-

ing books, they make a big swing

in the other direction.’’

Reached by phone, Georges-

Olivier Châteaureynaud, the pres-

ident of the Renaudot, declined to

comment.

Dominique Bona, the only wom-

an among the Renaudot’s nine ju-

rors and a member of the French

Academy, told the Agence France-

Presse news agency that her jury

had become a “scapegoat.’’ The ju-

rors, she said, are “genuinely in-

spired by the love we all have for

literature.’’

Following decades of tradition,

the Renaudot announced its win-

ner immediately after the

Goncourt, France’s top prize,

made its choice known.

The prize for best novel went to

Hervé Le Tellier, a former journal-

ist, for “L’Anomalie,” a science fic-

tion thriller that revolves around

the double lives of passengers

aboard a Paris-New York flight. It

was published by France’s most

prestigious publishing house, Gal-

limard, which has now captured

38 Goncourt awards since the cre-

ation of the prize in 1903.

Early this year, a tell-all book

about Mr. Matzneff led to unset-

tling revelations about collusion

inside the Renaudot jury. The

writer’s editor, Christian Giudi-

celli, and friends — all members of

the jury — awarded him the prize

for best essay in 2013. All of the

Renaudot’s current nine jurors

were part of the jury that year.

Mr. Giudicelli has been ques-

tioned in a continuing police in-

vestigation into Mr. Matzneff’s

pedophilia and has drawn criti-

cism for the role he played in fur-

thering his friend’s career. Activ-

ists in the city of Vichy have

pressed him to step down from a

literary jury financed by the local

government, where he has also

long been a juror.

“As long as Mr. Giudicelli is not

suspended, the city is officially

considering suspending our finan-

cial participation in the prize,’’

Frédéric Aguilera, the mayor of

Vichy, said in a phone interview

Monday.

The spotlight on the Renaudot

has also raised questions about

the legitimacy of France’s other

top prizes, including the

Goncourt.

Jurors serve for life — or until

age 80 at the Goncourt — and se-

lect prize winners in a process rife

with conflicts of interests. None

adhere to the strict standards of

Britain’s Booker or the Pulitzer in

the United States, whose juries

change every year and whose ju-

rors recuse themselves over po-

tential conflicts of interest.

Still, differences exist among

the top prizes, and the Renaudot

suffers from the most potential

conflicts of interests, with four of

its current jurors working for pub-

lishers whose books were among

award candidates this year.

The Goncourt is considered —

in France at least — the cleanest

jury. Alone among top prizes, the

Goncourt has carried out reforms,

in 2008, that barred jurors from

working at a publishing company

and created a mandatory retire-

ment age of 80.

“What’s extraordinary is that a

reform was necessary,’’ said

Pierre Assouline, a writer and ju-

ror on the Goncourt since 2012. “A

conflict of interest in the world of

business is condemned right

away. But not here.’’

The Renaudot never consid-

ered picking up any of the

Goncourt’s changes, longtime ju-

rors said. Over the past 20 years,

potential conflicts of interest have

only increased at the jury.

From 2010 to 2019, on average,

nearly three of the Renaudot ju-

rors shared publishing ties with a

laureate for the novel category —

up from barely one between 2000

and 2009, according to an analysis

by The New York Times.

Though the Goncourt’s reforms

were short of the standards at the

Booker or Pulitzer, they had an

immediate impact on the compo-

sition of the prize winners. Before

the overhaul, prizes were monop-

olized by big publishers with

strong ties to the Goncourt jurors.

Actes Sud, once a small pub-

lisher that — on principle — has

long refused to allow its editors to

serve on juries, had been almost

completely shut out of the big

awards for decades. But since the

2008 reforms, Actes Sud has

scooped up four Goncourt prizes,

including in 2012 for Jérôme Fer-

rari’s novel “The Sermon on the

Fall of Rome.’’

The financial windfall was im-

mediate: Only 9,700 copies had

been sold before the novel made

the Goncourt’s first list. Inclusion

on the list helped sales rise to

52,000, and then they skyrocketed

to 370,000 after the award.

Other top juries, like the Femi-

na, debated emulating the

Goncourt, but ultimately decided

against any change, said Chris-

tine Jordis, a Femina juror since

1996 and a longtime editor and

professional reader at Gallimard.

Ms. Jordis said she had led the

fight against barring jurors from

working at publishing companies,

believing that her years as an edi-

tor gave her expertise.

Spurning Tradition, French Literary Jury Crowns Little-Known Author

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

and CONSTANT MÉHEUT

Marie-Hélène Lafon’s “Histoire

du fils’’ won the Renaudot.

THOMAS SAMSON/A.F.P. — GETTY IMAGES

The first prize given

after a scandal over

rampant cronyism.