Guides
Understanding the right to protest, and where it comes from.
In-depth articles on what the law says, how to notify and organise a gathering, and the history of the struggles that made protesting a freedom. Every claim points to an official source.
Understanding the law
What the freedom to protest guarantees, and its limits.
- 3 min readThe right to protest: the essentialsWhere the freedom to protest comes from, what it protects, and how a demonstration differs from a meeting or an unlawful assembly.Read the article
- 3 min readNotifying a demonstration in France: a guideTo whom, when and how to notify a march or a gathering; what the notification contains; what you risk without it.Read the article
- 3 min readWhen a demonstration is banned: limits and remediesUnder what conditions the authority may ban a gathering, how to challenge its decision quickly, and what the Constitutional Council struck down in 2019.Read the article
- 3 min readTaking part in a demonstration: what the law saysWhat is allowed, what is penalised, how orders to disperse work, and what to know about concealed faces and carrying weapons.Read the article
History
How this right was won, regulated, and sometimes threatened.
- 3 min readFrom 1789 to 1935: how the freedom to demonstrate was recognised, then regulatedFrom the Revolution’s first principles to the 1935 decree-law that founds today’s notification regime, through workers’ struggles.Read the article
- 3 min readFrom 1936 to today: social gains, tragedies and recent lawsPopular Front, Charonne, May 1968, the 1983 March for Equality, the 1995 decision and the 2019 law: the main recent milestones.Read the article
- 3 min readAround the world: great marches and great principlesFrom Peterloo to the Salt March, from Washington to Gdańsk: how gatherings changed laws, and how international law protects them today.Read the article
In practice
Preparing a peaceful gathering, step by step.
A few words to find your way
The vocabulary of assembly law, in plain language.
- Demonstration
- Collective expression of an opinion or a demand in public space: a march, a parade or a static gathering.
- Prior notification
- Written information given to the authority (town hall, or the Paris police prefecture) before a demonstration on the public road. It is not a request for permission.
- Receipt (récépissé)
- Acknowledgement given to the organisers once the notification is registered. Keep it and carry it.
- Clear days (jours francs)
- Whole days, weekends included, counting neither the day of filing nor the day of the demonstration.
- Public meeting
- A gathering in an enclosed place, free in principle and without prior permission. Distinct from a demonstration on the public road.
- Unlawful assembly (attroupement)
- A gathering on the public road likely to disturb public order. It may be dispersed after two orders to disperse have had no effect.
- Order to disperse (sommation)
- A formal warning to disperse, given by the authority before any use of force.
- Public order
- The notion that justifies restrictions: public safety, tranquillity and health. Any restriction must be necessary, suitable and proportionate.
- Urgent liberty injunction (référé-liberté)
- An emergency procedure before the administrative court to suspend a serious infringement of a fundamental freedom, in principle decided within 48 hours.