Fight against

“Freedom of expression (…) applies not only to ‘information’ or ‘ideas’ that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population. This is what pluralism, tolerance and open-mindedness are all about, without which there can be no “democratic society”.

European Court of Human Rights, Handyside v. the United Kingdom, 1976.

“If since 1789, and in a constant manner, it has corresponded to the people to judge (…), there have been accidents, that is to say, exceptions. And these accidents, these exceptions, have always been a survival of the monarchic conception of justice”.

François Mitterrand, in the National Assembly in 1963, opposing the State Security Court created by De Gaulle to repress his opposition.

“The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited” (article 51 of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts).

Aware that war must remain within the framework of the law, the firm campaigns for it never to be allowed to depart from the fundamental principles that guarantee our humanity.

“Extradition shall not be granted (…) when the crime or offense is of a political nature or when the circumstances indicate that the extradition is sought for political purposes” Article 696-4 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Although extradition for political purposes is prohibited, states use it as a means of global repression.

“In this disproportionate confrontation between man and society, the lawyer faces fear, popular emotionalism, judges and the law (…). (…) Sometimes he has to confront the laws themselves (…). In the political arena, in particular, the lawyer’s force of opposition can save, if not men, then at least liberties.”

Gisèle Halimi, in the National Assembly on April 22, 1982