Filming the police in France: what to know before, during and after

In the context of the high-school mobilisations that swept France in September–October 2026, many people, a majority of them minors, are filming police interventions while wondering whether they have the right to, whether they are taking a risk, and what to do with their footage.

Index has been investigating police violence since 2020, and starts from one observation: filming the police sometimes means taking a risk.

This guide is therefore not a call to film the police, still less a call addressed to minors. It is for those who find themselves witnessing a scene with a phone in hand, or who are already filming and have questions. We try to answer them by cross-referencing existing resources in France and abroad; the links are at the bottom of the page. Terms specific to the French system are glossed on first use.

In France, it is your right. Filming, photographing or recording police officers and gendarmes on duty in public space is legal: no law forbids it. The right derives from freedom of expression and information. A circular from the Ministry of the Interior dated 23 December 2008 states it plainly: police officers (policiers) cannot object to being recorded while carrying out a mission, and it is out of the question to arrest the person filming for that reason, to take away their equipment or to destroy the recording. In May 2021, France’s Constitutional Council (Conseil constitutionnel) struck down the article of the “Global Security” law that sought to punish the “malicious” dissemination of images of police officers. Only a few intervention units (GIGN, RAID, BRI: the national gendarmerie and police special-intervention units) are entitled to anonymity by decree; they are not deployed in public-order operations.

What a police officer has no right to do: forbid you from filming, demand that you delete a video, take your phone or look through its contents outside a judicial framework.

What they can do, in practice: most officers respect this framework; some do not, and they have the means not to. Phones are snatched, videos deleted under duress, people filming are pushed around, gassed or arrested on another pretext. You are within your rights to keep filming. You must also know what you risk by doing so.

Disseminating footage is a separate question, and this is where French law can bite. Since the law of 24 August 2021, article 223-1-1 of the Criminal Code punishes revealing or disseminating information that identifies a person with the aim of exposing them, or their family, to a direct risk of harm. In practice: publishing a video in which a police officer is recognisable is not forbidden. Publishing the same video with their name, the name of their police station or a comment urging others to go after them can lead to criminal prosecution for this offence, on complaint by the officer or their union or at the initiative of the prosecutor’s office (parquet), with up to five years’ imprisonment and a €75,000 fine when the person targeted holds public authority. An insulting or accusatory comment can also be prosecuted as insult, defamation or contempt (outrage); after a tense demonstration, contempt is one of the most frequent charges in the summonses that follow. This is one of the two reasons not to publish in a rush.

The legal framework only protects after the fact, and it is not respected everywhere. The observatories of civil liberties and police practices of the Ligue des droits de l’Homme (LDH) have documented, since 2016, cases of people confronted, pushed around or threatened because they were filming, including observers identified by a bib, whose status was nevertheless recognised by the Conseil d’État (France’s supreme administrative court) in June 2021. The leading international guides, written for other countries, those by WITNESS in the United States or Netpol in the United Kingdom, start from the same observation: filming can make you a target. France is no exception.

Another example: in France, wearing the individual identification number (RIO, référentiel des identités et de l’organisation) has been mandatory for police officers and gendarmes since 2014, and the Conseil d’État has given the Ministry of the Interior until 31 December 2026 to make this obligation effective, after a first injunction that had no effect in 2023. In practice, many officers deployed at the high-school mobilisations do not wear their number and hide their faces under balaclavas. This failure makes it harder to identify an officer who is implicated and, for the person filming, it is a sign that the framework is not being upheld.

Any recommendation on how to film therefore comes after a single rule: protect yourself and the people around you.

Know what you risk. A person filming near an intervention can be pushed, hit, gassed or arrested; their phone can be seized or smashed. Similar situations have been documented at every social movement in France since 2016, by the LDH, by Amnesty International, by the press.

Keep your distance. We advise staying at least several metres from the scene. A picture taken from afar is less detailed, but it exists. If a police officer walks towards you to make you back off, you have the right to stay; stepping back is often the safest choice, and it also protects your footage.

Film in a group. If you see someone filming, consider filming too, from another angle. It protects that person, who is no longer the only one visible, and it gives two points of view on the same scene, which matters a great deal for understanding it afterwards. If you can, stand a few metres from them. The LDH observatories always work in teams of three, for this reason.

No livestreaming. We advise against going live. A livestream exposes your position and identity in real time and shows the faces of everyone present. You could endanger the people in the images, as well as yourself, unintentionally.

Minors: take extra care. If you are a minor, these precautions apply twice over. The risk of being targeted, arrested or injured is the same for you as for an adult, and you have no obligation to take it in place of the adults present.

Index has worked with witness footage for years. A few simple good practices in how you film and save your footage can make the difference when it comes to using it as evidence of violence committed.

• Film continuously. A video that starts before the action and stops after is worth more than three fragments. If you have to stop, restart right away.
• Film wide. A shot that shows people in full and the space around them makes it possible to understand who is doing what.
• Show a location marker at some point in the video: a street name, a shop sign, a recognisable façade. It is what allows the scene to be placed and linked to other footage.
• No need to turn on location. GPS coordinates in the metadata strengthen a video’s evidentiary value, but they also establish your presence at the scene, which can be turned against you. A visible marker in the image and the recording time are almost always enough to place the scene.
• Avoid digital zoom. It degrades the image and adds nothing.
• Hold the phone horizontally, with both hands. The horizontal format follows movement better and leaves you peripheral vision of what is happening around you, which matters for your safety.
• Keep the sound. Do not comment aloud: what matters is what the police officers, the people being arrested and the witnesses say. Your own words, once recorded, can also be used against you.
• Do not touch the file. No filter, no overlaid text, no editing, no renaming. The original file, with its metadata (date, time, sometimes position), is the strongest form of evidence, for use in any judicial proceedings. If you want to publish a modified version, work on a copy.

We advise you not to publish right away. For at least two reasons:

• the people identifiable in your footage, demonstrators, passers-by, people being arrested, may be exposed to prosecution or reprisals;
• identifiable police officers, associated with a comment or a name, can turn the publication against you.

A raw post on social media immediately after the events can have serious consequences for you and for the people visible. The same footage, published the next day after blurring and review, has lost nothing.

Send a copy to someone you trust, asking them not to publish it either. If your phone is seized or broken, the footage exists elsewhere.

If you decide to make your footage public, three questions, in order:

• Who is identifiable? Do the people concerned agree? If in doubt, blur or do not publish.
• What does the video show, and what do you know otherwise? Your account has value: the context, what happened before and after, what you saw outside the frame. Give it as testimony (“I saw…”), distinct from the description of the images (place, date, time, what can be seen). Avoid naming an officer and characterising the facts (“attempted murder”, “assault”): characterisation is for the judge, and a public accusation can be held against you.
• What do you risk yourself, by being identified as the author? If the answer worries you, do not publish under your name and pass the footage to a trusted third party. You can seek advice from a demonstrators’ defence collective, often called a “legal team”, a lawyer, a media outlet, including Index, before publishing it under your name.

This grid is adapted from the decision tree published by WITNESS for witnesses of police violence in the United States.

To blur the faces of people who are not officers on duty: for a photo, Image Scrubber works in the browser, offline, and also strips the metadata; Signal’s “blur” function does the same on an image before sending. For a video, Anonymous Camera (iOS, free) automatically blurs faces, and the YouTube editor lets you blur an area before upload. In every case, blur a copy and keep the original intact.

If the police ask you to delete your footage or to unlock your phone, in the street: they have no right to. No one can access the contents of your phone without your consent or a court decision. We advise you not to give your passcode and not to unlock the device. In police custody (garde à vue), the situation is different: refusing to hand over a code can itself be held against you in some cases. Before doing anything: you have the right to ask to speak to a lawyer, and you should.

No one, including a police officer, should be able to get into your phone without your agreement. This is prepared before the demonstration:

• Lock your phone with a six-digit code.
• Turn off face or fingerprint unlock, which can be forced without your consent.
• Learn how to launch the camera from the lock screen.
• Check that encryption is on and that you know how to locate and remotely wipe the device. Amnesty International, Nothing2Hide and the Electronic Frontier Foundation publish detailed guides, in French, on these settings; La Quadrature du Net compiled, in September 2025, a bibliography of digital self-defence for mobilisations.

“Le 17”, Flagrant Déni (the title echoes 17, the emergency number for the police in France): seventeen practical and legal guides for victims of police violence and their relatives. Where and when to file a complaint, how to have injuries recorded, how to gather footage and witnesses’ contact details, which collectives to turn to. Each guide has been reviewed by lawyers. (In French.)

Le Guide du manifestant arrêté (The Arrested Demonstrator’s Guide), Syndicat de la magistrature, 2024 edition (free PDF): the reference text since 2005 if you or a relative are arrested. Identity checks, police custody, offences charged to demonstrators, immediate trial, police databases, with concrete advice for each situation. (In French.)

Legal brief “Filming law enforcement” (Point droit « Filmer les forces de l’ordre »), Paris Observatory of Civil Liberties (LDH / SAF), February 2023: the most complete legal summary in French on the right to film and to disseminate, with the text of the circular of 23 December 2008 and an analysis of the Global Security law.

Nos droits en manifestation (Our rights at demonstrations), Amnesty International France (updated February 2026): a clear, accessible FAQ designed for a young audience. Unauthorised demonstrations, kettling, checks, searches, the right to film: what the police can and cannot do. (In French.)

Filming the Police — USA, WITNESS (v3.1, 2022; Spanish and Arabic versions): the reference sheet since Ferguson, which this guide draws on. Safety, details to capture (badge numbers, licence plates, superiors, surveillance cameras), preparing your phone, what to do with the file.

Sharing Videos of Police Violence, WITNESS: a decision tree for the moment when you hesitate to publish. Who is identifiable, who agrees, what do I risk, to whom to pass the footage rather than publish.

Filming and Photographs at Actions, Green & Black Cross (United Kingdom): the view of a demonstrators’ defence collective. What the police cannot do with your images, and why you should never put online images in which other demonstrators are recognisable.

Netpol’s Guide to Police Surveillance, Network for Police Monitoring (United Kingdom): how the police gather intelligence at demonstrations and how to protect yourself. This is where the recommendation not to livestream comes from.

Sécuriser son smartphone avant une manifestation (Securing your smartphone before a demonstration), Amnesty International (in French): the settings to apply the day before, in ten minutes. Locking, camera from the lock screen, remote location and wiping, flash and sounds.

Prévention smartphone (Smartphone prevention), Nothing2Hide (in French): a more technical sheet, by an association that trains journalists and activists in digital protection. Encryption, six-digit code, disabling biometrics, iPhone Lockdown Mode.

3 applis pour le 18 septembre et après (3 apps for 18 September and after), La Quadrature du Net (September 2025): messaging, browsing and storage for mobilisations, with a useful reminder of the limits of any app, and a bibliography of digital and legal self-defence at the end of the article. (In French.)

Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations, United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and UC Berkeley (2020): the international standard for collecting, authenticating and preserving digital images so that they stand up in court. It is the framework within which Index works; it explains why the original, the metadata and the chain of custody matter so much.

Outside France. Rules on filming the police, on disseminating the footage and on searching phones vary widely from one country to another. The WITNESS, Green & Black Cross and Netpol guides above cover the United States and the United Kingdom; for anywhere else, look for a local civil-liberties or press-freedom organisation before relying on this text.