Presumption of legality for police shootings: what the Pauget bill would change

Placed on the National Assembly’s agenda for 7 July 2026, a bill tabled by Éric Pauget (LR), MP for the Alpes-Maritimes, seeks to change the legal framework governing the use of firearms by law enforcement. During its first reading in January 2026, the government secured the adoption of a central amendment replacing the “presumption of self-defence” of the original text with a “presumption of lawful use of weapons”. In its explanatory statement, the government claims to base this presumption on statutory authorisation (Article 122-4 of the Criminal Code) rather than on self-defence alone, and both the rapporteur and the Interior Minister present it as a broadening of the framework of Article L. 435-1 (of the Internal Security Code). In concrete terms, the text as adopted provides that officers “are presumed to have acted in one of the cases authorised” by that article, a presumption that may “be rebutted by any evidence to the contrary”. Its central effect is a reversal of the burden of proof: it would fall to prosecutors – in practice, to the victims’ families – to prove that a shooting was not justified. This single article was adopted in the chamber on 22 January 2026 (by 103 votes to 74), but the sitting ended at midnight without a vote on the bill as a whole: it is this examination that resumes on 7 July, and at this stage the text has not been passed.

A presumption in favour of law enforcement has long been championed by the Rassemblement national, which included it in Marine Le Pen’s 2022 presidential programme, and demanded by Alliance Police nationale, the largest police union. The text tabled by Éric Pauget takes up the principle.

It follows on from the law of 28 February 2017, known as the Cazeneuve law, which created Article L. 435-1 of the Internal Security Code. That article authorises law enforcement officers to open fire on the occupants of a vehicle whenever they consider them likely to endanger their lives or physical integrity, or those of others. According to tallies kept by associations and journalists, at least 35 vehicle occupants have been killed under this framework since the law came into force, roughly five times more than before.

More broadly, the number of people who died during law enforcement operations stood at 66 in 2024 – including 27 by firearm – and 49 in 2025, including 19 by firearm. In October 2024, during the review of France by the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the expert José Manuel Santos Pais noted that France had become the European Union country with the highest number of people killed or injured by police shootings.

Procedurally, this presumption would have direct consequences for investigations. Under current law, an officer who has used their weapon may be taken into police custody, which lets investigators take their account and gather the first evidence. By presuming the lawfulness of the use of the weapon, the Pauget bill undermines the basis on which police custody rests and compromises the collection of initial evidence. Yet the European Court of Human Rights, in its case law on Article 2 of the Convention, imposes on States an obligation to conduct an effective, prompt, and impartial investigation whenever a person dies as a result of action by public authorities. That case law places the burden of proof on the State when a person dies or is injured while under the control of law enforcement, for instance in police custody: it then falls to the authorities to provide a satisfactory and convincing explanation (ECHR, Anguelova v. Bulgaria, 2002). By assuming from the outset that the use of the weapon was lawful, the presumption would reverse this logic and weaken this procedural dimension of the right to life.

Far from correcting the legal framework established by the Cazeneuve law in 2017, this bill makes it worse: presuming the lawfulness of police shootings would grant law enforcement even broader protection. At a time when deaths linked to police action have risen sharply since 2017, adopting it could only accelerate this trend. For this reason, Index calls for the bill to be withdrawn.