France's top constitutional authority said on Thursday it had rejected a key article of a new security law that could see prosecutions of people who publish footage of police officers in action, reports Yahoo! News.
Sending President Emmanuel Macron's government back to the drawing board, the Constitutional Council said that lawmakers who passed the controversial legislation had not set out clearly enough what would constitute a breach of the law in such situations.
Article 52, which sparked massive street protests at the end of last year, is part of a security law drafted by Macron's ruling party and adopted by parliament on April 15.
It says anyone causing police officers or other members of security forces to be identifiable during an operation could face up to five years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros ($90,000).
But the Council, known in France as "The Wise Ones", said the law failed to specify whether this related only to live operations or also to past ones, and what exactly constituted a police "operation".
It also said it was unclear whether any "malevolent" intent to identify officers was already grounds for prosecution, or whether only the actual publishing of images was punishable.
"The Constitutional Council concluded therefore that the legislative body did not sufficiently define the elements that constitute the offence in question", it said in its ruling.