The Senate passes the 'casseurs-payeurs' bill and widens it: deductions from CAF benefits and RSA, an exclusion order for foreigners. Why none of it applies yet, and how to tell when it does

Overnight from 27 to 28 October, the French Senate passed at first reading the government bill on compensation for violence and damage in public spaces, known as the 'casseurs-payeurs' bill. The vote was 229 for and 105 against (AFP figures). Yesterday we covered the start of the debate. We now know what the Senate is sending on. The key point: none of these measures applies yet.

What the text contains

The reference is the text adopted by the Senate's law committee (no. 87, filed on 21 October):

• Joint liability (Article 1). Someone who knowingly joined a group preparing violence or damage, or who stayed in an attroupement after the legal sommations (police warnings), becomes jointly liable for the damage, up to €10,000 per person. People who stayed for a 'motif légitime' (a legitimate reason) are excluded.
• Interdiction du territoire français (Article 1er ter). Foreign adults convicted of the offences listed in the text may receive an additional penalty: a ban from French territory for up to ten years. The court can decline to impose it only by giving specific reasons.
• Deductions from benefits (Article 4). To recover civil damages after a final conviction, family allowances, housing benefits and the RSA can be seized.

According to AFP, senators added about twenty provisions to the original five articles during the sitting. After a second vote, the complément familial, the allocation de rentrée scolaire and the prime d'activité were added to the benefits that can be seized. The text also gained new administrative bans on joining protests, eviction from social housing, wider use of drones and algorithmic video surveillance, and a procedure for removing online calls to riot within 24 hours. The final version passed by the Senate is not yet on senat.fr: the bill's page was updated on 28 October but shows no 'texte adopté' number. That is why the additions to the committee text are reported here on AFP's authority.

Also according to AFP, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said he will ask the Conseil d'État to review the extended list of benefit deductions.

The road still ahead

The Senate is only the first chamber. The Constitution sets out the next steps:

1. Accelerated procedure. The government triggered it on 16 September. Under Article 45 of the Constitution, each chamber reads the text once. The Prime Minister can then convene a commission mixte paritaire of deputies and senators to agree a joint version.
2. Assemblée nationale. The deputies take the text next. AFP notes there is no stable majority in the Assemblée.
3. If the chambers cannot agree, the government can ask the Assemblée nationale to have the final say.
4. Conseil constitutionnel. Before promulgation, the law can be referred for a constitutional check by the President, the Prime Minister, the president of either chamber, 60 deputies or 60 senators. The Council rules within one month.
5. Promulgation. The President signs the law within 15 days of the definitively adopted text being sent to the government.
6. Entry into force. Under Article 1 of the Code civil, a law applies from the date it sets itself. If it sets none, it applies from the day after publication in the Journal officiel. Provisions that need implementing measures (usually décrets) take effect only once those measures do.

What this means in practice

• 'The Senate passed it' does not mean 'the law applies'. Until the text is published in the Journal officiel, the existing rules stand. This is true of any bill, not just this one.
• Where to check. The bill pages on senat.fr and assemblee-nationale.fr show which stage a text has reached. The version in force is on Légifrance.
• Penalties are not retroactive. The 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man, which the Conseil constitutionnel applies, requires that no one be punished except under a law passed and promulgated before the offence. This covers penalties such as the territorial ban. How the civil recovery mechanisms will work will only be clear from the final text.
• In the committee text, benefit deductions depend on a final conviction, not on merely being present at a protest.

Anyone with a question about their own situation would usually turn to an avocat: advising on individual cases is a lawyer's job, not ours.