France employs measures to keep ‘potential terror threats’ away from Olympics

French authorities are making unprecedentedly broad use of discretionary powers under an anti-terror law to keep hundreds of people they deem to be potential security threats away from the Olympics.

Many of those affected by the measures are minorities who largely come from backgrounds in former French colonies.

They are forbidden from leaving their neighbourhoods and required to report daily to police.

Some of those now restricted in their movements, with orders that don’t require prior approval from judges, include a man who had mental health issues in the past but is now receiving treatment.

There also is a business student who believes he’s been targeted in part because he’s Muslim and his father was born in Morocco, and a halal food delivery driver who risks losing his job because he is banned from moving too far from his home, their lawyers say.

Those affected also include Amine, a bank apprentice who is now forbidden from leaving his suburb south of Paris — except to report at 6:30 pm daily to a local police station.

The France-born 21-year-old has no criminal record and has not been charged with any crime, he and his lawyer say.

Amine believes French intelligence services have mistaken him for someone else who posted decapitation images and threats against LGBTQ+ people on a video-sharing app.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin says the restrictions aim to prevent “very dangerous” people from attacking the games.

Darmanin says he’s applied them to more than 500 people this year as part of France’s security preparations for the games and the Olympic torch relay which took place ahead of the opening ceremony.

‘A terribly dangerous tool’

The use of the restrictions for the Olympics appears unprecedented in scope, some lawyers say.

The power in question is known as the “individual measure of administrative control and surveillance” (MICAS), under France’s anti-terror law.

Over 500 people saw their movements curtailed this year and Darmanin says it’s now less than 200 remaining during the games. That compares with 205 people subjected to MICAS restrictions in the first 26 months of the 2017 law going into effect, according to a French Senate report from 2020.

“It’s really directly connected to the Olympic Games,” said Paris lawyer Margot Pugliese. She described the powers as “a horror” and “really the total failure of the rule of law” because they can only be contested in court after they have been applied.

“It is a terribly dangerous tool whenever there is a repressive government,” Pugliese said.

Lawyers say some of their clients have no prior convictions and only tenuous links to suspected extremism.

Of the lawyers AP spoke to, about half of their clients have immigrant backgrounds, mostly with family roots in North Africa.

Darmanin says minorities aren’t being singled out and that people suspected of left- or right-wing extremism are under surveillance, too.

Fearing terror attacks, French authorities have massively ramped up security for the Olympics.

The anti-terror preventive effort also includes the liberal use of police powers to restrict the movements of people the ministry deems potential threats.

The measures can only be challenged afterwards in court, which some of those affected are now doing — a few successfully.

The anti-terror law empowers France’s interior minister to restrict anyone’s movements when there are “serious reasons” to believe they’re a grave security threat and have terror ties or sympathies.