Cameras with algorithms, multiple investigations… Despite criticism from the left who sees it as a security Trojan horse, the National Assembly largely adopted, on Tuesday March 28, at first reading the “Olympic and Paralympic Games” bill ( JOP).
Comfortably validated in the Senate, dominated by the right, the text experienced the same fate at the Palais Bourbon. It was approved with 400 votes in favor, including those from the right and the extreme right, 93 against and 54 abstentions.
Ecologists and rebels voted against, while the socialists and communists mostly abstained, all worried about potential security abuses. The most controversial article, on so-called “intelligent” video surveillance, paves the way for an experiment that would combine images taken by cameras and drones, and algorithms.
“This is an essential step that you allow us to take” and “we will make these Games a success for our country”, launched the Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra. The text must now be examined in a joint committee. If deputies and senators agree on a common version, it will be submitted to the final vote of the Assembly (April 11) and the Senate (April 12).
“A kind of blank check”
The experiment will concern large “sporting, recreational or cultural events”. It must end on December 31, 2024 but could begin as soon as the law is promulgated, and concern for example the next Rugby World Cup in September-October.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin insisted on the safeguards and defended the process: analyzing the images to automatically detect potentially risky acts or gestures, and report them to agents behind a wall of screens to send colleagues to check on the situation or intervene.
But the list of “events” and behaviors to be detected will be fixed by decree. To the chagrin of the deputies of the left alliance Nupes, who are worried about what will be retained, in spite of the examples given by the minister: “a start of fire, bottlenecks of population, a parcel or a bag abandoned “.
“It’s mostly a text about security after the Olympics. On certain aspects you are asking us for a kind of blank check, ”lamented the socialist Roger Vicot. Because if the stated objective is to secure the millions of people expected for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the opposition deputies suspect the executive of wanting to use the experience as a springboard to generalize this surveillance technology. after the event.
The associations for the defense of freedoms are against this video surveillance, like the National Bar Council. “It will be more convenient to find members of Earth Uprisings,” said environmentalist Sandra Regol. The Minister of the Interior announced earlier that he was initiating the procedure for the dissolution of the group, one of the organizers of the demonstration in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres) against the “megabasins”, which gave rise on Saturday to violent clashes with the gendarmes.
Referrals to the Constitutional Council
Beyond video surveillance, the Green MP deplores other measures that could apply to environmental activists. In his line of sight in particular, provisions which will continue after the Games, such as the strengthening of sanctions in the event of intrusion into a sports arena, or the extension of the field of “screening”, that is to say the conduct administrative investigations of persons.
Participants as well as accredited persons on competition sites and fan-zones may be targeted, with the exception of fans. A mandatory stadium ban penalty in the event of a serious breach of the security of sporting events will also be created.
A health center in the Olympic and Paralympic village in Saint-Denis will be built, but the opposition deplores that the structure does not survive the Olympics, in a department lacking caregivers.
The text provides for measures derogating from the rules of Sunday rest, and support systems for the transport of spectators with disabilities. Genetic tests will strengthen the anti-doping arsenal of the authorities, despite the demands of the opposition to limit them to the Olympics.
Rebellious and socialists have already announced referrals to the Constitutional Council. The MoDem deputy Philippe Latombe, support of the text, also invited the government to quickly seize the Elders.
