French privacy law trumps the public's right to know (Feature)

By Siegfried Mortkowitz Apr 12, 2010, 6:07 GMT

Paris - When the new French budget minister, Francois Baroin, saw a photograph of himself and his actress girlfriend on the front page of the weekly Paris Match, he reacted as many other politicians have - he called his lawyer.

The photograph in question showed the dapper 44-year-old Baroin posing with actress Michele Laroque under the headline 'The new glamour couple of politics.'

The six-page spread inside the magazine, ostensibly about his political career, included four more photographs of the couple.

'I will attack,' Baroin told Europe 1 radio earlier this month. 'It's a question of principle. I have never been involved in exposing my private life. Everything that has been revealed about my private life was more or less stolen.'

He added that he had agreed that Paris Match could run a political profile of him, 'but I did not agree on the publication of photos that reveal my private life.'

If he goes ahead and sues, Baroin will benefit from one of Europe's strictest privacy laws, a law based on a single sentence in Article 9 of the Civil Code: 'Everyone has the right to privacy.'

That right was added to the Civil Code in 1970, but the French respect for privacy can be traced back to 1858, when the family of the actress Rachel was awarded damages after the unauthorized publication of a portrait of her on her death bed.

In 1995, the right to privacy was declared a constitutional right by the French Constitutional Court.

Under article 9 of the Civil Code, the right to privacy includes not only the disclosure of a person's private life but also the unauthorized taking of photographs and their publication.

This means that Baroin is within his rights to file a complaint because Paris Match did not use the photographs in the manner and for the purpose he had agreed, or in the way in which he wanted to project his image.

In other Western countries, such as Britain and the United States, Baroin would have no say in how the photos are used.

In these countries, the right to privacy is severely limited by another right, that of public interest - that is, the public's right to know how its leaders and other celebrities behave.

A case in point is that of former US Democratic Senator Gary Hart, whose political career was destroyed when photos of him cavorting on a yacht with his mistress were published during the primary campaign for the 1988 presidential election.

According to attorney Frederic Gras, in France 'the right to privacy is an absolute right, not relative. There is no exception.'

He said that 'this judicial practise is part of a tradition, a French conception based on one's own interests. No one wants his own private life exposed, even if there is nothing to hide. Therefore, we accept the reign of secrecy for everyone.'

The only exception to the law, Gras said, was if a public official was involved in a romantic affair that influenced the way he or she performed their duties.

In France, the magazine Paris Match - which covers domestic and international news as well as celebrity lifestyles - has often been the victim of France's strict law on privacy.

Former presidential candidate Segolene Royal - who is known in western media as 'the photogenic Socialist' - has won two suits against the magazine.

The last court case took place in 2009, after Paris Match published photographs of Royal and a man identified as her new boyfriend on holiday in the Spanish resort of Marbella.

'These are stolen images,' she complained to reporters. 'Every time I take a step, I am pursued and harassed.'

Then she sued the weekly for invasion of privacy and demanded 50,000 euros (currently 67,000 dollars) in damages. The court awarded her 16,000 euros.

She was also awarded 8,000 euros in March 2008 after Paris Match had taken photos of her in a church without her knowledge and published them without her consent.

Prince Albert II of Monaco has also benefited from France's privacy law. In 2005, he sued Paris Match for publishing photographs of a son he had out of wedlock with an American woman.

The court found that the magazine had intruded on his right to privacy and awarded him 50,000 euros in damages.

In an unusual step, the court also ordered Paris Match to print on the cover of its next issue, in large red letters, the statement: 'Paris Match has been convicted at the demand of Prince Albert II of Monaco.'

Albert later admitted having fathered the boy, which prompted Paris Match to appeal its conviction.

The magazine's editor-in-chief at the time, Alain Genestar, charged that to condemn a magazine for printing the truth was nothing less than censorship.

However, the magazine's appeal was rejected by the country's highest appeals court, the Court of Cassation.

In France, privacy still trumps truth.