On 15 November 2023, the French Senate reviewed a draft law, modifications to the Penal Code, that aim to crush dissent using hefty fines of up to EUR 15,000 and threat of jail time.
Anyone daring to criticise medical treatments could fall foul of this law. Considering the “covid vaccines are safe and effective” false narrative propagated by the government, this law is nothing short of outrageous.
As the proposed law stands, anyone criticising mRNA injections, for example, could face 3 years in jail. As Died Suddenly posted on Twitter, Article 4 of the new law – or “Article Pfizer” as freedom fighters are referring to it – is a prejudgment of “alternative medicine” and a threat to whistle-blowers.
Two days ago, the Bill containing Article 4 was adopted after its first reading in the French equivalent of the UK House of Commons or US House of Representatives. However, only after Article Pfizer was voted down and then reinstated with different wording.
How the French Parliament Works
The French government has a President, a National Assembly (the lower house and the equivalent to the House of Representatives or House of Commons), and a Senate (the upper house).
The Assemblée Nationale (English: National Assembly) sits in what is called the Hémicycle. Its legislators are known as députés. The Hémicycle is a large room that is in the shape of a half circle which seats, currently, 577 députés representing the different regions of France.
For an ordinary proposition of law, texts must be first reviewed by a permanent parliamentary commission, or a special commission designated for this purpose. During the discussion in the commission, or in open debates in the National Assembly, the Government and Parliament can add, modify or delete articles of the proposal.
Propositions of laws, or bills, are examined in turn by each of the two chambers of Parliament – the National Assembly and Senate – until the text is identical. This process is called “The Shuttle.” Because both houses may amend a bill, it may take several readings to reach an agreement between the National Assembly and the Senate.
The government is empowered to stop The Shuttle after two readings in each House. The Prime Minister then calls for a meeting of the Joint Mediation Committee which is composed of seven members from each House. They are entrusted with the task of drawing up a compromise on the clauses on which agreement has not been reached.
If this mediation procedure fails to produce a compromise, the government can proceed to a new reading in each house and then ask the National Assembly to vote on the text as presented at its final reading. However, this situation has arisen for about 10 % of laws introduced since 1958, the year of the creation of France’s Fifth Republic.
Renaissance lost its absolute majority in the 2022 elections but remains the largest party in the National Assembly. Originally known as En Marche! and La République En Marche!, the party was founded in 2016 by French President Emmanuel Macron.
Further reading: Proposed laws, from tabling to promulgation, French National Assembly and The legislative process, French Senate
Article Pfizer is Deleted, Reinstated, Rewritten and …
On 15 November 2023, a Bill to modify the Penal Code that aims to facilitate and strengthen criminal proceedings in an effort to “strengthen the fight against sectarian abuses” was tabled in the French Senate.
The Bill aims, in particular, to facilitate and strengthen criminal proceedings against the perpetrators of sectarian abuses, to strengthen support for victims of these abuses and to protect against risks and dangerousness. sectarian excesses in the field of health.
In the original draft, Article 4 of the Bill read (French to English translation using Google):
As we noted in a previous article, “in the current state of medical knowledge” can mean anything; it means what that the “experts” say it means.
On 13 December, the Senate’s Law Commission changed the text. The Commission deleted articles 1 and 4, considering that neither the need to legislate on these points nor the legal robustness of the mechanisms had been proven.
Article 4 was deemed to be an infringement on freedoms. The Council of State warned that it would risk infringing on freedom of expression, in particular in the context of “general and impersonal discourse, for example, held on a blog or a social network” and “by incriminating challenges to the current state of therapeutic practices, freedom of scientific debate and the role of whistle-blowers”.
The text adopted by the Commission was then debated in the Senate. On 19 December 2023, the Senate adopted the Bill as amended by the Commission, with Articles 1 and 4 omitted. The next step was for this text to be passed to the National Assembly.
Read more: Bill to strengthen the fight against sectarian abuses, French Senate
The Law Commission of the National Assembly reinstated Articles 1 and 4 and on 7 February 2024, adopted the amended Bill.
(Note: From this point, we will refer to the Law Commission of the National Assembly as the Law Committee or “the Committee” to avoid confusion with the Senate’s Law Commission.)
The French legislature broadcaster La Chaîne Parlementaire (“LCP”) said that the amendment to reinstate Article 1 was adopted by the Committee without any difficulty as was restoring Article 2, which had also been abolished by the Senate.
“Article 4, also deleted by the Senate and relating to therapeutic abuses, sparked more debate. According to the explanatory memorandum of the bill, this article aims in particular to create a ‘new offence of provocation to abandonment or abstention of care’,” LCP wrote. But, after debate, the amendment to reinstate Article 4 was finally adopted.
After its adoption by the Committee, the next step was for the text to be debated in the Hémicycle of the National Assembly (the equivalent of a debate in the UK House of Commons).
After debating for two days, on Wednesday, the National Assembly voted in favour of the Bill – 151 députés voted in favour and 73 against – and the Bill, including Article Pfizer, was adopted. However, this did not come without a fight.
On Tuesday, after being reinstated by the Committee on 7 February, Article 4 was deleted in the Hémicycle. A concern for rights and freedoms in the Hémicycle prevailed because as Thomas Ménage (Rassemblement National) put it: Article 4 gave rise to “a crime of opinion” and risked provoking “the gagging of the scientific debate.”
“The government won its case in the Law Committee but was defeated in the chamber,” LCP wrote. “During the vote [on Tuesday], most opposition groups voted in favour of [removing Article 4] … The amendments to delete Article 4 – tabled by députés from Les Républicains, Rassemblement National, Gauche Démocrate et Républicaine, as well as LIOT – were adopted by 8 votes (116 in favour, 108 against) … With this choice, the National Assembly followed in the footsteps of the Senate.”
A few minutes after this vote, the house adjourned. The debate resumed on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, 14 February, at the end of the examination of the Bill, the chairman of the Law Committee, Sacha Houlié (Renaissance), took the floor in the Hémicycle and requested a second deliberation. And the Bill’s sponsor, Brigitte Liso (Renaissance), tabled an amendment to reinstate – and rewrite – Article 4 to protect whistle-blowers, which was part of the reason Article Pfizer had been rejected by the Senate.
“This objective is reaffirmed in the text of the amendment, according to which ‘the information reported or disclosed by the whistle-blower under the conditions provided for in Article 6 of the above-mentioned law ‘does not constitute a provocation’ within the meaning of Article 4 of this Bill,” LCP wrote.
The re-worded Article 4 was reinstated after a vote won by 182 votes in favour and 137 against, and the Bill as a whole was finally passed, at first reading, by 151 votes to 73.
So it seems there is some protection afforded to those they recognise as whistle-blowers. What about the rest of us? On the flip side, corporate media, “fact-checkers,” doctors and politicians who provoke someone to “abandon or refrain from following a therapeutic or prophylactic medical treatment” could also fall foul of this law. For example, in the case of covid, those discouraging and banning the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
Further resources: Early Covid Treatment, FLCCC Alliance and Early Covid-19 Treatment Guidelines, World Council for Health and Covid-19 Treatment Protocol, Dr. Vladimir Zelenko
The Bill will now be sent back to the Senate for deliberation. As the Senate had previously deleted Articles 1, 2 and 4, there could be a fair bit of shuttling before both houses’ text are identical. Although, as this week has proved, debates in the French Parliament can be unpredictable.