It’s a partial victory for France’s Palestine solidarity movement. On Wednesday, the State Council — France’s highest administrative court — rejected Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin’s blanket ban on rallies against Israel’s continuous bombing and threatened ground invasion of Gaza, in retaliation to Hamas’s October 7 attacks on southern Israel. Yet the principle of freedom of protest can hardly be considered secure.

Darmanin’s circular to territorial police prefects on October 12 decreed that all such demonstrations should be forbidden, citing the supposed risks to public order. But, in an apparent defeat for the interior minister, the State Council stipulated that the decision to ban a protest could only be made on a case-by-case basis — an application of France’s habitual practice of subjecting preannounced protests to authorization by prefectures.

“The State Council has played its role as a watchdog,” says Vincent Brengarth, attorney of the Comité Action Palestine, which brought the case before the State Council. He says that he’s very “relieved” by this “symbolic victory” in favor of freedom of expression and the right to protest. “This will make it easier to push back against a series of decisions and talking points that have been extremely dangerous for people looking to hold protests . . . there can be no systematic bans on protests in France.”