Why France’s Far-Left Proposal to Repeal ‘Apology for Terrorism’ Laws Isn’t Radical Enough
The abuse of "apology for terrorism" laws became particularly evident after Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7. What if the cure was worse than the disease?
This article was originally published by Le Point in French. Below is a translated version that has been published with permission from the magazine. I also conducted a lengthy interview with Le Point, which you can find here.
Article 11 of the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen guarantees all citizens the right to “speak, write and publish freely.” The Constituent Assembly disagreed on the extent of this freedom, inserting a vague clause exempting “the abuse of this liberty as determined by law”.
Four years later, the Revolution descended into the Reign of Terror, where speech restrictions became routine. The “Law of Suspects” allowed arrests for language deemed supportive of tyranny or hostile to liberty. In 1794, the “Law of Great Terror” mandated the death penalty for speech crimes such as criticizing the National Convention, spreading false news, or undermining revolutionary principles. During this period, around 17,000 people were executed, many for political heresy.
The Declaration still forms an integral part of French law. Yet, more than two centuries after the Terror, France continues to wrestle with how to counter the enemies of liberty while upholding the freedom of expression.
Waves of deadly Jihadist terrorism have led successive French governments to try and keep a sometimes-fragile social peace by clamping down on extreme voices. This includes increasing the use of the nebulous offense of “apology of terrorism.”
However, there is mounting evidence that the cure has become worse than the disease when it comes to this provision's collateral damage on free expression. For this reason, the far-left party La France Insoumise (LFI) has proposed to remove the crime of “apology for terrorism” from the criminal code and return it to the 1881 press (criminal) law, with the intent of providing stronger safeguards for free expression.
However, LFI’s proposal has been met with furious rejections. According to Les Républicains’ Othman Nasrou "Cette proposition de loi est indigne, c'est une insulte à toutes les victimes du terrorisme” ("This proposed law is disgraceful; it is an insult to all the victims of terrorism”). Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, described it as “innommable.” The cordon sanitaire around the LFI bill reaches across the political spectrum—Macronists as well as Socialists have voiced their strong opposition.
But the real problem with LFI’s proposal is not that it goes too far; it’s that it doesn't go far enough.
A Completely Distorted Use of The Law
It is understandable that the French want to give no quarter to the jihadist ideology whose adherents have spread death and destruction across the Republic, killing editors, cartoonists, teachers, priests, police officers, and hundreds of ordinary citizens. However, criminalizing “apology” — as opposed to “incitement” — of terrorism” opens the door for politicization, abuse, and the targeting of controversial but peaceful speech. This was clear even before this offense was moved to the criminal code in 2014.
In the 2000s, the French courts upheld the prosecution of a cartoonist, Denis Leroy, for condoning terrorism with a published cartoon about the 9/11 attacks featuring the caption, “Nous en avons tous rêvé . . . Le Hamas l'a fait” (We all dreamed of it . . . Hamas did it). This cartoon was undoubtedly offensive and insensitive, but convicting a newspaper cartoonist for offensive cartoons that use sarcasm and exaggeration to depict events far from France invites thorny questions about where to draw the line.
After the attack on Charlie Hebdo in 2015, the French government declared free speech inviolable. But that year, according to Human Rights Watch, over 2,300 cases of “apology of terrorism” were recorded. In 2016, 306 people were convicted, and 232 received prison sentences. Some of the examples are striking. An 8-year-old was questioned by police on January 28, 2015 following remarks made in class on January 8, the day after the attack on Charlie Hebdo; in 2016, an 18-year-old received a three-month suspended sentence for naming his Wi-Fi network "DAESH 21;" a vegan activist was convicted for a Facebook post applauding the death of a butcher in a 2018 terrorist attack.
The misuse of "apology for terrorism" laws has become particularly evident in the aftermath of Hamas’ devastating attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. This tragic event reignited global tensions and heightened sensitivities, but it also exposed how far France's enforcement of the law has strayed from its original intent. Between October 7, 2023, and April 23, 2024, the Paris prosecutor's office recorded 386 referrals related to the Israel-Palestine conflict—a stark increase compared to the 500 reports of online hate speech across all topics in 2022.
Prominent members of civil society, including politicians, academics, journalists, and trade union leaders, have found themselves under investigation — not for inciting violence but for speech that falls well short of this threshold.
One striking example is the case of LFI MP Mathilde Panot, who was summoned by police in April 2024 over the party’s October 7, 2023 communiqué. The statement referred to Hamas’ murder of 1,200 Israelis as an “armed offensive” and a response to “Israel's occupation policy” and called for an end to Israeli “colonization.” But it also mourned the deaths of Israelis and Palestinians alike, warned against a spiral of violence, and called for a ceasefire.
This expansive application of the law prompted the president of the Commission nationale consultative des droits de l’homme to remind the justice minister that “historical contextualization of the October 7 attacks” does not equate to glorifying terrorism. Such cases illustrate how vague and expansive definitions of “apology for terrorism” risk criminalizing legitimate political expression, further eroding France's proud tradition of open debate.
Similarly, the current situation prompted former counter-terrorism judge Marc Trévidic to conclude recently, “On est dans un véritable abus, un usage totalement dévoyé de la loi” (“We are dealing with a true abuse, a completely distorted use of the law”).
These speech restrictions align with a wider crackdown on civil society organizations under the Macron presidency. By November 2023, 34 organizations had been banned by decree under President Macron, more than any other President during the lifetime of the Fifth Republic. In several cases, glorification of terrorism was among the reasons for this draconian response. This further erodes the culture of, and a principled approach towards, free speech.
Wrong in Principle and Practice
Most people in democracies are free speech pragmatists and willing to give up some speech in return for other important values, not least safety. However, the choice between free speech and safety may well be a false one.
A 2023 study found that in democracies, greater freedom of expression often reduces violent social conflict. More specifically, a comprehensive study of 162 countries found that free speech is "unambiguously associated with less terrorism in democracies".
Meanwhile, a 2023 study across three continents revealed that speech repression often backfires, significantly increasing the likelihood of political violence among those directly affected by crackdowns. These findings should prompt deep reflection among lawmakers about whether criminalizing glorification of terror actually helps to reduce terrorist violence. Free speech acts as a safety valve that can channel extreme ideology in non-violent ways, but allowing people with extreme views to speak out also makes it easier for police and intelligence to identify those who may be willing to go from words to action.
As a society, we must also ask whether it’s better to suppress ideas that challenge fundamental values or allow the enemies of freedom and democracy to show their true colors so that they can be confronted in the open.
Restricting free speech to counter the threat from the Jihadist’s Veto also risks reinforcing Islamist propaganda, enabling claims that republican values are hypocritical tools to suppress minorities and protect only Western or government interests. This undermines democracy and free expression while bolstering the simplistic narrative of “oppressed and oppressor,” which has united people on the far left and Islamists in the embrace of extremist ideas in the first place.
It’s highly unlikely that the Fifth Republic’s fight against 21st-century “separatists” and “enemies of liberty” will result in the public mass beheading of political heretics as happened during the Terror. Yet, France’s history should nonetheless caution the current custodians of the Declaration of the Rights of Man against the dangers of sacrificing free speech in the name of protecting liberty.
2025 would be a fitting time for France to chart a different course. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten's cartoons of Muhammed that led to terror and global crisis. The republication of those cartoons and others depicting Muhammed was the motivation behind the brutal attack against Charlie Hebdo 10 years ago. Showing Charlie Hebdo’s caricatures as part of educating high-school students about freedom of expression motivated a jihadist to assassinate Samuel Paty 5 years later.
Standing before Samuel Paty’s coffin lying in state at the Sorbonne, President Macron solemnly proclaimed: “Nous défendrons la liberté que vous enseigniez si bien . . . Nous ne renoncerons pas aux caricatures, aux dessins, même si d’autres reculent (“We will defend the freedom that you taught so well . . . We will not give up on caricatures, on drawings, even if others back down”).
However, that freedom must be defended on the basis of principle and consistency, even when our human impulses towards intolerance tell us to silence the voices of extremism. People who incite or aid terrorism should be vigorously prosecuted. But for those whose words do not cross that line we should reserve only moral judgement.
France’s blood-stained past decade suggests that the current schizophrenic approach to freedom of expression is ineffective in practice, creates cynicism, and erodes a fundamental freedom for which countless French pioneers of Republican Enlightenment values have paid a high price. Those today who benefit from the promise of freedom of expression should be careful not to destroy the very values they want to protect.
As such, the main flaw in LFI’s proposal is that it’s too modest and not sufficiently radical.
Jacob Mchangama is the Executive Director of The Future of Free Speech and a research professor at Vanderbilt University. He is also a senior fellow at The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and the author of Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media.