European parliamentarians have condemned the UK for arresting a critic of Emmanuel Macron under anti-terror legislation.
Politicians sitting in the European Parliament have written to Home Secretary Suella Braverman about the arrest of French publisher Ernest Moret, denouncing the decision to incarcerate the Emmanuel Macron critic as “unjustifiable”.
Moret was detained by anti-terror police shortly after arriving in London, with officers in the country claiming it was in relation to the Frenchman allegedly attending anti-government protests that have recently taken place in France. Moret was subsequently arrested for refusing to give police his phone passcode.
The detention of the publisher has garnered widespread condemnation both in the UK and beyond, with elected officials from across Europe signing a letter to Suella Braverman denouncing the detention as an assault on free speech.
“The police officers claimed that Ernest had participated in demonstrations in France as justification for this act – a quite remarkably inappropriate statement for a British police officer to make and which seems to clearly indicate complicity between French and British authorities on this matter,” The Guardian reports the MEPs from a variety of countries, including France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, as writing.
“We consider these actions to be outrageous and unjustifiable infringements of basic principles of freedom of expression and an example of the abuse of anti-terrorism,” the letter continued.
It went on to allege that the arrest was ultimately undertaken on behalf of Macron’s government, with the politicians describing Moret’s detention as further evidence that France was drifting away from liberal democracy.
“This assault on the freedom of expression of a publisher is yet another manifestation of the slide towards repressive and authoritarian measures taken by the French government in the face of widespread popular discontent,” they wrote.
In response to the letter, the UK Home Office thanked the MEPs for writing to them, adding that the document will be “processed and a response provided in due course”.
Such a theory that the UK government are doing the bidding of the Macron administration has reportedly been backed by politicians sitting in France’s parliament.
“Ernest’s account of his interrogation suggests that the British authorities were really acting on a request, with a script, from the French police authorities, as the questions he was asked concerned exclusively his political and intellectual activities in France,” La France Insoumise politician Aurélie Trouvé remarked regarding the arrest.
Moret’s colleagues and work acquaintances have also come out to blame the French government for the arrest, with one writer who has previously worked with the Frenchman describing it as a “blatant assault on the freedom of expression”.
Although the French government has yet to respond to such allegations, the suggestion that the arrest was at least in part backed by the European nation seems consistent with the current modus operandi of authorities, who have been desperate to restore order to the country amid ongoing protests against the French President.
Sparked by controversial pension reforms the country’s government forced through without a vote, protests have now morphed into a general anti-Macron fervour, with police going so far as to confiscate saucepans from members of the public in areas the French head-of-state is visiting for fear they could use them to make noise aimed at disrupting Macron’s stately activities.
Macron himself has done very little to try and appease the masses, mocking the use of kitchen utensils to disrupt a visit to a French town earlier this week.