The French government has been accused of weaponising an anti-terror law adopted in the wake of the 2015 Paris attacks to keep dozens of people away from massive protests sweeping the country. Lawyers and rights groups denounce an abuse of power with potentially dangerous repercussions for individual liberties and the right to protest.

Issued on: 12/11/2026 - 18:32Modified: 12/11/2026 - 18:38

The protests roiling France over the past two months have seen hundreds of thousands of demonstrators march in towns and cities across the country, exercising a cherished right to voice discontent over underfunded schools, the cost of living and police brutality.

Some, however, have been stripped of that right, in the name of the fight against terror.

After peaceful rallies gave way to widespread rioting and looting on October 17, the government began using special anti-terror powers to bar several dozen people from attending further demonstrations – without prior approval from judges. They included students, trade unionists, far-left activists and environmental campaigners with no criminal record, most of whom had never been investigated for terrorism.

It marked the largest use of such discretionary powers since the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, when more than 500 people were ordered to stay home or barred from getting anywhere near the venues, leading several to lose their jobs.

For lawyers, unions and rights groups, it also marked a turning point in the policing of protest movements.

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“It’s the first time such measures are taken against political activists, by attempting to put a ‘terrorist’ label on them,” said Aïnoha Pascual, a lawyer representing several people barred from attending nationwide protests on October 24 and 31. She denounced “a complete perversion of counterterrorism laws”, part of a growing list of government measures aimed at stifling protests.

Emergency powers

The power used to restrict people’s movement is called an “individual measure of administrative control and surveillance”, known by the French acronym, MICAS. It is a legacy of the sweeping house arrest orders issued under a state of emergency declared in the early hours of November 14, 2015, in the wake of France’s deadliest ever terrorist attacks.

Certain emergency powers were enshrined in French law under a Counter-Terrorism Act adopted two years later, allowing the Interior Ministry to restrict people’s movements when there are “serious reasons” to believe they constitute a grave security threat and have terrorist ties.

People hit by MICAS orders are required to report at the local police station on a weekly or daily basis, and sometimes twice a day. Failure to abide by the restrictions can result in a three-year prison sentence and a €45,000 fine.

The law states that such powers are intended “solely for the purpose of preventing acts of terrorism from being committed” – which lawyers say is clearly not the case with the current MICAS orders.

Instead, “they are being used in situations where there is absolutely no terrorist threat whatsoever, against people who are not terrorists,” said Jean-Baptiste Soufron, a lawyer and member of the Association for the Defence of Constitutional Liberties (Adelico).

“They’re not even aimed at rioters,” Soufron added. “They clearly target political activists, barring them from attending demonstrations in the hope that this will weaken the protest movement.”

Terror threats – or ‘small fry’?

The decision to issue a MICAS order is based on intelligence reports and can target individuals with no criminal record. It does not require prior approval by a judge, though it can be challenged afterwards in court.

Souffron noted that the recent orders barring people from attending protests were often issued at the last minute, “effectively making it impossible for a judge to examine them in time”.

The ability to bypass judicial supervision, at least for a short time, hands the government considerable discretionary powers, said Nicolas Klausser, a researcher at the Centre Marc Bloch whose work specialises in the legal ramifications of state surveillance.

“The measure effectively allows the Interior Ministry to determine for itself who constitutes a terrorist threat, whereas normally, in criminal matters, it is up to a judge to rule,” he explained. “In this case, we can see that the authorities are trying to establish a direct link between taking part in protests and terrorist acts.”

When lawmakers grilled Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez on the matter on November 3, he said he had signed “more than a hundred” MICAS orders related to the protests.

He added that they targeted “the upper end of the spectrum”, implying they involved people high up on the radar of French counterterrorism.

Sources contacted by newspaper Le Canard enchaîné told a different story.

According to the investigative and satirical weekly, “only a handful” of those targeted are actually being monitored by counterterrorism services. It described the rest as “small fry linked to far-left groups”.

In its latest edition on Wednesday, Le Canard enchaîné said the idea to deploy MICAS measures against protesters had come from Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin, who ordered their mass use when serving as interior minister during the Paris Olympics. The report, which cited “several senior civil servants”, said the government has since decided to suspend their use against protesters following public outcry.

The alleged direct involvement of senior ministers underscores the potential to weaponise such anti-terror powers for political purposes, said Klausser.

“While Micas would normally emerge from the bottom up, based on intelligence warnings that climb up the chain of command, in this case it appears the order came from above,” he explained. “Critics of the 2017 law had warned that it left ample scope for abuse of power. They’ve been proven right.”

‘Ecoterrorists’

Klausser said the use of MICAS orders is part of ongoing government efforts to “legitimise” the notion that certain far-left activists present a grave threat to public order. Darmanin has repeatedly flagged the threat from so-called “ecoterrorists”, a term he first used in 2022 in the wake of violent clashes between police and demonstrators opposed to the construction of giant reservoirs for agricultural irrigation.

Following the violent unrest on October 17, ministers were quick to pin the blame on “ultra-left” groups. At subsequent fast-tracked trials, however, most of the people convicted turned out to be opportunistic looters with no political leaning.

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“Terms such as ‘ecoterrorism’, ‘insurrection’ and ‘sabotage’ are routinely brandished as bogeymen to instil fear and then justify labelling political activists as terrorists,” said Pascual, who has defended several activists branded as “ecoterrorists” over the years.

“Either the government is pretending they’re terrorists because they have no other way of barring them from protests, or they genuinely believe that what happened on October 17 was terrorism – or perhaps a bit of both,” she added. “Either way, it takes some nerve to claim that political violence and looting shops constitutes terrorism, particularly on the eve of commemorations for victims of the November 13 attacks.”

In statements defending its use of MICAS orders, the Interior Ministry has argued that the “insurrectionary” nature of the protests constitutes a terror threat. It has pointed to the fire that ravaged the town hall of Limoges on October 17, and online calls to target symbols of capitalism and the state, as evidence of an intent to “seriously disrupt public order by intimidating the population and the public authorities”.

The ministry’s arguments were broadly rejected at a court hearing in Paris on Tuesday, including by the public rapporteur, a judge tasked with giving an independent opinion on the case.

“Not all violence directed against the state, nor all political violence, is necessarily of a terrorist nature,” said the rapporteur, according to a Mediapart journalist who attended the hearing. Protest calls “cannot be regarded as intended to sow terror, but rather as an expression of intense anger towards the ruling authorities and as a means of placing them in great difficulty”, she added.

Government in ‘panic’ mode

To suggest that the protest movement has placed the authorities in “great difficulty” is an understatement. The violence witnessed on October 17, coupled with weeks of mass protests and school blockades, has piled pressure on France’s embattled minority government as it struggles to win support for a deficit-cutting budget.

The widespread rioting sparked “a moment of panic, prompting the Interior Ministry to explore all options at its disposal”, said Klausser. “And they’ve made full use of those options.”

The MICAS orders come on the heels of a slew of other measures critics say have severely curtailed the right to protest. They include outright bans on rallies, changes to protest routes and localised curfews.

“The use of such an arsenal, over such a long period, is indicative of a permanent state of emergency,” Marion Ogier, a lawyer for France’s Human Rights League (LDH), told a press conference earlier this month.

Rights groups have also denounced the widespread use of police custody to deter student protesters who kicked off the movement at high schools across France. In the three weeks leading up to October 14, police detained 6,877 people at school blockades and marches, 86 percent of them minors. It was more than the number detained during 18 months of often violent clashes with Yellow Vest protests that began in 2018.

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While the authorities have highlighted the “serious acts of violence” committed by protesters, lawyers have denounced a weaponisation of police custody to intimidate protesters, stressing that the majority of those detained were later released without charges. They have also accused police of abusing minors held for up to 48 hours, alleging insults, beatings and depriving them of food and sleep.

“That’s on top of the repression witnessed at protests themselves,” said Pascual, referring to police’s ample use of “non-lethal” weapons that have maimed dozens of protesters. “When attending a protest can result in being teargassed, injured or ending up in jail, quite a few people are likely to stay away.”

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