Justice upholds ban on rival Paris rallies

Paris is dealing with a public-order fight, not just a free-speech one. On Friday, May 8, the Paris administrative court kept in place police bans on two rival demonstrations planned for Saturday, May 9 — one by the far-right Comité du 9-Mai, the other an antifascist counter-rally. The point of the ruling was simple: officials convinced the court that these two events, in this political moment, created too much risk of clashes. ### Who was supposed to march? The far-right event was the annual Comité du 9-Mai march, organized in memory of Sébastien Deyzieu, an ultranationalist activist who died in Paris in 1994 after fleeing police onto a rooftop. The counter-event was a declared antifascist march under the slogan “Pas de nazis dans Paris,” backed by groups including Solidaires Paris, the CNT, Marche des Solidarités, Antifasciste Paris 20e, and the NPA. (france24.com) ### Why did police ban both? The Paris police prefecture argued that the problem was not one side in isolation but the combination of both. Officials said the political climate was “tense and very polarized,” the declared routes converged, and recent months had seen rising reciprocal violence between antagonistic groups. In other words — two groups that openly define themselves against each other were set to move through nearby parts of Paris on the same day. (ici.fr) ### What made the far-right march especially sensitive? Last year is the big reason this became harder to defend. In 2025, about 1,000 ultraright activists marched in Paris after a court had suspended an earlier ban, and images from that procession showed masked participants and Nazi salutes. This year’s police order also referenced the February death in Lyon of far-right activist Quentin Deranque, folding that into a broader picture of heightened tension on the extreme right. (france24.com) ### So what did the court actually decide? The court rejected emergency challenges to the prefecture’s orders. That meant the bans stayed in force for the Comité du 9-Mai march and the antifascist counter-demonstration planned for Saturday. But the judges did not back every restriction the prefecture tried to impose — on Thursday night they suspended the ban on a separate “village contre l’extrême droite” event at Place du Panthéon on Friday. (france24.com) ### Why is this different from last year? Because last year the court partly went the other way. In 2025, judges suspended the ban on the Comité du 9-Mai march, which allowed that procession to go ahead, while an antifascist demonstration remained banned. This time, the court accepted the prefecture’s argument that the risk picture had worsened enough to justify stopping both Saturday street mobilizations. (france24.com) ### What are the organizers saying? The Comité du 9-Mai says the ban could make things less controllable, not more, because supporters were still expected in Paris for the weekend. Its spokesman, Jean-Eudes Gannat, said the group would seek urgent relief from the Conseil d’État and floated replacing the march with a silent gathering at Place des Pyramides. That is basically the group’s argument in one line — banning an announced procession does not make the people disappear. (france24.com) ### Why does this matter beyond one weekend? Because France is testing where the line sits between protecting the right to demonstrate and preventing ideologically charged street confrontations before they start. Paris authorities lost that argument on the far-right march last year. This week, with stronger evidence and a rougher backdrop, they won it. (france24.com) ### Bottom line? The state did not outlaw a general opinion here — it blocked two specific rival mobilizations on a day officials thought could tip into violence. The court agreed, and that makes this less a symbolic free-speech case than a concrete judgment about risk in Paris right now. (france24.com)