Last modified: 2009-10-02 by ivan sache
Keywords: law | outrage | penal code | mayor | sash |
Links: FOTW homepage |
search |
disclaimer and copyright |
write us |
mirrors
See also:
In spring 2003, the new law on internal security was promulgated, including an article on the outrage to the national symbols (anthem and flag); the Penal Code was amended accordingly. This was the first time that outrage to the flag was legally considered as an offence in France.
Law No. 2003-239 pour la sécurité intérieure - for the internal security -, promulgated on 18 March 2003 by President of the Republic Jacques Chirac, was published in the French official gazette No. 66, 19 March 2003.
Title V of the Law (Dispositions diverses - Miscellaneous
provisions) includes:
Article 113.
Après l'article 433-5 du code pénal, il est inséré un article 433-5-1 ainsi rédigé :
"Art. 433-5-1. - Le fait, au cours d'une manifestation organisée ou réglementée par les autorités publiques, d'outrager publiquement l'hymne national ou le drapeau tricolore est puni de 7 500 euros d'amende.
Lorsqu'il est commis en réunion, cet outrage est puni de six mois d'emprisonnement et de 7 500 euros d'amende. Article 113.
After Article 433-5 of the Penal Code shall be added Article 433-5-1, written as follows:
"Art. 433-5-1 - The fact, during an event organized or controlled by public authorities, to publicly outrage the national anthem or the Tricolor flag, shall be fined 7,500 euros.
When committed collectively, the outrage shall be punished with 6 months in jail and fined 7,500 euros.
Article 113 was originally tabled at the National Assembly as Bill No. 3236 by MP Rudy Salles on 16 July 2001. The bill was mostly motivated by two football matches during which the "Marseillaise" was booed by "supporters": France-Algeria, 18 November 2001, and the final of the French Cup Lorient-Bastia, 11 May 2002, forcing President Jacques Chirac to leave the presidential stand. This context explains the odd wording of the Law ("during an event organized or controlled by public authorities").
Article 433-5-1 was added to the Penal Code as prescribed by the Law, in Part IV ("Crimes and offences against the nation, the State and the
public peace, Title III ("Offences against the authority of the
State"), Chapter III ("Offences to the public administration committed
by individuals"), Section 4 ("Outrage").
As of today, Article 433-5-1 of the Penal Code was used only twice in
a flag case.
On 19 August 2005, a man was arrested by the police after having removed the national flag hoisted on the facade of the town hall of Aurillac (Auvergne) and threw it down to the crowd gathered for a local festival; the flag was subsequently burned to ashes. The Court of Aurillac discharged the defendant, who had apologized and refunded the municipal administration, but the public prosecutor's office appealed. The Court of Appeal of Riom eventually fined the defendant 300 euros.
On 24 February 2007, during a demonstration to support a member of the former terrorist group Action Directe, the photographer Laurent Belet removed the national flag hoisted over the entrance of the jailhouse of Lannemezan and replaced it with a red and black anarchist flag. Three vehicles and seven members of the Gendarmerie were subsequently commissioned to stop the perpetrator's motorbike. Since Belet did not had the flag when arrested, he was kept in police custody for 48 hours and eventually prosecuted for "collective flag theft". The court of Tarbes discharged him on 7 November 2007.
The two cases have revealed the lack of consistency, not to say the pointlessness, of the law; jurists and policemen had warned it would be nearly impossible to implement. Jurists have pointed out that the sentence defendents could appeal to the European Court of Human Rights for a limitation of their freedom of expression. Moreover, the law is totally incoherent since only the French flag is protected; the defendents would not have been fined if they had burned a Chinese flag. The Law did not prevent the "Marseillaise" to be booed again in football stadiums, before the matches France-Morocco (16 November 2007) and France-Tunisia (14 October 2008). The "outrage" seems to have been well organized and is specific to football (nothing happened before the handball match France-Tunisia).
Ivan Sache, 30 May 2009
On 26 July 1999, MP Bernard Derosier submitted the following written question to the competent ministry:
Is it legally prescribed to hoist the Tricolor
flag on the premises of a polling station?
The answer, published in the Official Gazette of the
National Assembly, is "No".
There is neither a law nor a regulation
prescribing such an hoisting.
Ivan Sache, 13 April 2001
On 15 March 1999, MP Thierry Mariani submitted the following written question to the competent ministry:
Is there a regulation on the wearing of the
Tricolor sash by the Mayor and the Deputies Mayors?
The answer, published in the Official Gazette of the
National Assembly, is "Yes".
According to Article R. 122-2 of the Municipal Code, "the Mayors shall
wear the Tricolor sash with golden-fringed gloves for public
ceremonies and every time the exercise of their functions may require
that distinctive emblem of their authority".
This is the only regulation about that matter, which deals only
with the circumstances in which the sash shall be worn. However,
according to a well-established custom, the Municipal Councillors (the
Mayor and the Deputies Mayors) wear the Mayoral sash from right
shoulder to left side. The gloves are placed on the left, to the
waist. Wearing the blue stripe upwards and the red one downwards is
more natural, because it matches the unfurling of the national emblem
from hoist, as prescribed by Article 2 of the
Constitution of 4 October 1958: 'The
national emblem is the tricolor, blue, white, red, flag.' Wearing the
sash girding one's loins is also possible.
Ivan Sache, 13 April 2001
The Decree regulating the use of flags by merchant, fishing and yachting vessels, from 19 August 1929, modified on 24 November 1934, refers to the Law of 17 December 1926 on the disciplinary and penal Code of the Merchant Navy, and, especially, to Article 63 of this Code.
Article 1.
In ports and harbours, the captains of French merchant, fishing and yachting vessels shall hoist the national ensign:a. On Sundays, public and official holidays
b. In any circumstance concerning water and port police or maritime police, upon request by Maritime Prefets or Navy Commanders in military ports, by the Administrator of Maritime Affairs in commercial ports, and by the French Consuls in the foreign ports.Article 2.
On sea, the vessel captains shall hoist the national ensign:a. When entering or leaving a port.
b. Upon any request by a French or foreign war vessel.Article 3.
The national ensign shall be hoisted on stern or mizzen horn.Article 4.
The shipowners may, if they find it acceptable, supplement the national ensign with a house flag or pennant.
Such flags or pennants may be used only after authorisation of the administrator of the Maritime Affairs of the port in which the vessel is registered.
The house flag or pennant shall be hoisted on mast head. It shall never be hoisted in places prescribed for the national ensign.
The national ensign shall always be hoisted when the house flag or pennant is hoisted.Article 4bis.
French merchant vessels sailing within floating signal reach of a French war vessel, at sea or in a port or harbour, shall hoist their house flag and salute the war vessel using the national ensign.
The salute is executed by hoisting three times the national ensign.
Source: Vexillacta [vxl] #9, September 2000
Translated from French by Ivan Sache, 28 September 2000