The Big Picture

France in Focus: Are civil liberties under threat?

The fourth in a four-part series examining France’s struggle to live up to its founding ideals.

Freedom is a key right preserved and protected by most countries around the world, and in France, it is one of the central tenets of its very identity.

But in recent years, the French government has been accused of restricting some of the freedoms it is meant to uphold.

In this episode of The Big Picture: France in Focus, we examine how civil liberties, the rights protecting French people against state actions, are increasingly under threat.

From the right to protest, to the protection against police violence, freedom for sections of the French population is being eroded by the French state.