Tens of thousands demonstrated in Paris and several French cities on Sunday 20 September 2026 against a proposed law establishing a presumption that police and gendarmerie officers used their weapons lawfully, in a nationwide mobilisation aimed at preventing the bill from being placed on the Senate’s agenda after its approval by the National Assembly.
According to estimates by the Paris police, 21,000 people took part in the Paris march, which began at Place de la République and headed towards Place de la Nation. The mobilisation also spread to cities including Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse. Prefectures put the declared turnout in Marseille and Lyon at 4,500, compared with 3,700 in Toulouse, while estimates for demonstrations across the country indicated that nearly 50,000 people took part.
Families of people who died in incidents linked to police violence led the Paris march, carrying photographs and banners bearing the victims’ names. The families also delivered speeches from the lorry at the front of the procession, recalling cases from France’s recent history of police violence.
Before the mobilisation, Samia Khalfaoui said the families had chosen to lead the march because their voices needed to be heard in their own words. The protests followed calls from human rights organisations, trade unions and left-wing parties, including Amnesty International and the Human Rights League, as well as the Magistrates’ Union, the Stop State Violence collective and the Truth for Adama committee.
Political and rights groups oppose the proposal
More than 150 organisations, local groups and political parties, including the Socialist Party, the Greens and La France Insoumise, signed an appeal entitled “No to State Violence” opposing the proposal. The National Assembly approved the bill at first reading on 7 July.
It would presume that police and gendarmerie personnel acted within the law when using their weapons, while allowing the presumption to be rebutted by contrary evidence. This concerns a presumption that the requirements of absolute necessity and strict proportionality set out in Article L. 435-1 were met after a shooting. The government says the amendment does not expand the circumstances in which security forces are permitted to open fire.
Supporters of the proposal say it would prevent police and gendarmerie officers from being permanently treated as suspects or automatically placed in pre-trial detention after using their weapons. Opponents, however, argue that the mechanism reverses the burden of proof, could make it more difficult to establish the facts of a shooting and prove that it was unlawful, and places greater responsibility on victims and their families to find evidence.
Fears over obstructed investigations and impunity
Opponents on the left warn that investigations into whether police shootings were lawful could be affected or obstructed, describing the bill as giving security forces a “licence to kill” and increasing the risk of impunity. Critics of the law also referred to a report issued by the Court of Auditors in July, which called for greater transparency from the police.
A petition opposing the proposal had collected more than 730,000 signatures before being shelved in July, at the same time as the National Assembly approved the proposed mechanism. In Paris, demonstrators held banners reading “Our lives deserve to be lived, not taken, no to a licence to kill” and “More power equals more abuses”, while groups in the crowd chanted anti-police slogans.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of La France Insoumise and a candidate in the 2027 presidential election, took part in the march alongside Mathilde Panot and several MPs from the movement.
Panot calls for licence-to-kill law to be scrapped
At a press conference, Panot said the movement sought to scrap what she called a “licence-to-kill” law, adding that it should not be placed on the Senate’s agenda and warning that its implementation would, in her view, lead to more killings by police.
Security forces briefly fired tear gas near the end of the Paris march, shortly before the afternoon. A journalist at the scene saw a person with a head injury, while another on-the-ground account reported that a glass shopfront had been smashed and attributed it to far-left activists.
