Outcry over journalist's treatment in France

PARIS - The police treatment of a journalist accused of libel who was dragged from his home in front of his young sons has raised questions about freedom of speech in France and the tactics employed by the police and the judicial system here.

At 6:40 a.m. Friday, Vittorio de Filippis, a writer and former publisher of the left-leaning newspaper Liberation, opened the door to three armed police officers as his 14-year-old son watched, and another son, age 10, listened through the bedroom door.

In an interview yesterday, Filippis said he was refused a telephone call to his lawyer, handcuffed on his way to the tribunal, and strip-searched twice before being taken to see a judge and charged with libel against Xavier Niel, the founder of the French Internet provider Free.

By yesterday, the affair had grown into a polarizing national debate. Opposition politicians and rights groups warned of an ever more repressive climate for journalists, while two ministers in President Nicolas Sarkozy's government defended the police and the judge who ordered the detention of Filippis.

Later in the day, however, Sarkozy's office issued a statement indicating that he wanted to downgrade libel from a criminal offense to a civil offense. A draft bill decriminalizing libel would be discussed in Parliament at the start of 2009, the statement said.

According to Justice Minister Rachida Dati, Filippis had ignored repeated court summonses before Justice Muriel Josi signed the warrant to bring him in by force. When someone "does not comply with summons, we send him a warrant to bring him in," Dati told lawmakers in the Senate, France's upper house of Parliament, yesterday, calling the action taken in the case of Filippis "completely normal."

Beyond the squabbles over legal procedure, the case has highlighted the larger question of how much freedom of speech exists here. France ranks 35th in press freedom in a list of countries established by Reporters Without Borders - just below Mali - and Sarkozy himself has not shied from suing a journalist.