A draft law that passed in its first reading by the French Senate on October 27, 2026, contains measures that would severely undermine the rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression, and are incompatible with France's human rights treaty obligations, Human Rights Watch said today. The so-called "vandals pay" bill is now pending review by the National Assembly.
"Penalizing people engaged in their right to peaceful protest is the wrong answer to tackling violent disorder in France," said Eva Cossé, senior Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Lawmakers in both houses should reject this problematic bill entirely."
The bill was introduced by the government on September 16 under a fast-track procedure. It was pushed forward and significantly toughened by opposition conservative senators in response to weeks of nationwide high school protests over what students see as the government's under-investment in their education, and the violence that took place alongside school and cost-of-living protests on October 17 that included significant clashes with law enforcement and widespread looting and property damage across France. The bill builds on the momentum of legislation adopted in August to address serious public disorder, developed in response to concerns over illegal dance parties, football-related rioting, and racing vehicles on the streets.
While the purpose of the current legislation is ostensibly to address and deter violence and property damage, the text adopted by the Senate introduces measures that pose a serious threat to human rights, including the essence of the right to peaceful protest, Human Rights Watch said. The French authorities have also failed to put forward evidence that existing criminal justice measures are insufficient to address violent disorder or criminal damage.
The draft law provides for joint civil liability for property damage during a protest. It would allow courts to order individual participants, including the parents of children who participated, to pay up to €10,000 in damages-or perform community service-whether or not the individual committed acts of violence or caused the damage.
People could be penalized simply for "knowingly" participating in an "unlawful assembly" (attroupement), defined in the French criminal code as "any gathering of people on a public highway or in a public place that is likely to disturb public order," or for failing to disperse after the police issue orders for a second time. Legal commentators have said that the requirement for prior dispersal orders is not an ineffective safeguard, because such orders are in practice either not issued or are not sufficiently audible.
Being present during a protest considered an unlawful assembly, or failing to leave the area fast enough following police orders to disperse, could trigger severe financial consequences. The bill requires prosecutors to share suspects' identities with prefects, the interior minister's local representative, and local authorities so they can pursue damage claims in civil court, even if the prosecutor has decided not to pursue criminal charges.
The bill would allow criminal penalties of up to one year in prison and a €15,000 fine for organizers of banned protests, and six months in prison and a €7,500 fine for participants, or in some cases, a summary fine of €500 to avoid prosecution. Existing law allows six months in prison and a €7,500 fine only for protest organizers. Punishments can be doubled for people who cover their faces. The bill also gives prefects the power, without prior judicial oversight, to preemptively ban individuals from protests for 24 hours on the basis of police intelligence or evidence of repeated or serious violent behavior during the three preceding years.
The bill broadens existing security and administrative measures that jeopardize rights, Human Rights Watch said. To recover court-ordered damages, after a conviction, the draft law allows the state to confiscate social security payments-child benefit, early-years child allowance, family supplement, family support allowance, back-to-school allowance, and solidarity allocation-from parents to pay for damages caused by their children under age 18. This measure risks disproportionally affecting low-income households.
It would also allow the authorities to deny social housing to adults convicted of "unlawful assembly" or serious public order offenses near residential buildings in the preceding three years, and to seek to evict families from social housing if a member of the household repeatedly engages in such acts.
The bill broadens existing powers under counterterrorism, child protection, and drug laws, that oblige tech companies, without a court order, to take down within 24 hours online content that authorities deem capable of provoking offenses, under the threat of blocking the site and massive fines.
The draft law extends the use of video surveillance to monitor public gatherings, and permits algorithmic processing to potentially identify protesters, measures first introduced for the Paris 2024 Olympics. Senators added a new provision to authorize recording and transmitting footage from drones and other police aircraft to track, identify, and prosecute individuals for protest-related offenses, raising the prospect of general drone surveillance by police. Previous laws imposed stricter conditions on police drone deployments to monitor protests.
This draft law is part of a broader trend of erosion of the civic space and the rule of law in France, Human Rights Watch said.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights, to which France is a party, protect the rights to peaceful assembly and association and to freedom of expression. Although the treaties allow for restrictions on these rights, they must be subject to strict tests of necessity and proportionality.
In particular, the European Court of Human Rights has consistently emphasized that peaceful participants in a protest may not be held responsible for reprehensible acts committed by others, and that "this is true even when the demonstration results in damage or other disorder." The court has previously found France violated this standard, ruling that even a lower end disciplinary sanction imposed on a protester who did not commit any culpable act, was not permitted. The court reminded France that in seeking to pursue a legitimate aim, the result must not to be to discourage people, for fear of sanctions, from being able to express their views including through peaceful protest.
Punishing individuals for the actions of others, and jailing and fining people simply for engaging in peaceful protest as a means of deterring violent disorder are not legitimate restrictions on those rights. The other measures in the bill also raise human rights concerns including in relation to the right to a fair trial, the right to privacy, and the rights to social security and housing.
"This bill is a human rights disaster," Cossé said. "It undermines human rights that are central to a functioning democracy, punishes people for the actions of others and not only risks, but seems designed to deter, participation in peaceful protest."
