Politics
Macron Delivers Lengthy Free Speech Warning, Defines Free Speech As Whatever He Decides It Is
By Mor Michael, . BSN Network. Satire.
PARIS, France: French President Emmanuel Macron announced this week that the United States has gotten free speech completely wrong, a claim he delivered in a prepared address broadcast on national television, published across state media channels, and later posted to his official government website without any interference from anyone.
Macron described the American model of free expression as "the opposite of free speech," which he defined as speech that is free in the sense that the French government has reviewed it and found nothing to object to.
"What we defend is not the absence of rules," Macron said, from a podium, into a microphone, in front of cameras, to a room of people who were not arrested for being there. "It is a conception of freedom that implies responsibilities."
France's responsibilities, in practice, have included prosecuting citizens for posts on X, pressuring Meta and Google to remove content flagged by government regulators, and maintaining a legal framework under which a person can be fined for saying something a judge decides was not nice enough.
The country also maintains ARCOM, a state broadcasting regulator with the authority to pull content from air for reasons that include, but are not limited to, the content having aired.
Marc-Antoine Vidal, a constitutional law professor at the Université de Paris, described Macron's framework as internally consistent.
"The President is not saying you cannot speak," Vidal explained. "He is saying that certain speech is not speech in the protected sense, because it does not meet the threshold of speech that deserves protection. The category is defined by the government. This is very different from censorship, which is when the government restricts speech. You see the distinction."
Vidal said he had published six books on this subject and that all of them were available for purchase.
In Washington, legal commentator Jonathan Turley noted that Macron's formulation had a certain logical elegance: any speech the French government suppresses was, by definition, not free speech to begin with, and therefore no free speech has ever been suppressed in France, and France's record is perfect.
Macron also took aim at social media platforms, which he argued have allowed misinformation to flourish under the cover of American free speech absolutism. He called for European nations to develop their own standards for online content, governed by democratically elected officials who would determine, through a process he did not outline, which information was mis and which was not.
A spokesperson for the Elysée Palace confirmed that the President's remarks were protected speech.
France is currently ranked 11th in the World Press Freedom Index, down from 4th a decade ago, a development French officials attributed to the index's American-influenced bias toward publishing things.
Macron is expected to deliver a follow-up address next month on the subject of government transparency, the date and location of which have not been released to the press.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jonathan-turley-frances-free-speech-crackdown-shows-what-happens-when-politicians-define-truth