THE French government has agreed to send its draconian new law against photographing police to the constitutional council after opposition parties said it could violate France’s constitution.

The Global Security Law banning people from releasing images of police officers’ faces if “intended to cause harm” was passed on Tuesday night in the face of opposition from France’s Socialist and Communist parties as well as Jean-Luc Melenchon’s France Unbowed.

Mr Melenchon said after the law passed that “an authoritarian regime is being put in place. The Macronistes are in the process of putting France in a cage.” 

It comes soon after President Emmanuel Macron’s imposition of a law against “Islamic separatism” that orders French imams to sign up to a charter of “republican values.”

As the law was debated French police were filmed trashing a refugee camp in Paris, lifting tents into the air to hurl those inside to the ground and battering migrants with batons.

The “night of shame,” as it was quickly dubbed, has prompted an official investigation, but critics warn that journalists could be punished for recording similar incidents in future. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin admitted to being “shocked by some of the images,” but Communist councillor for Paris Ian Brossat hit back: “It isn’t the images that are shocking, it’s the actions.”

The law was supposedly a response to the online hounding of police officers for their role in putting down Yellow Vests protests in the winter of 2018-19. Police used extreme violence in suppressing the movement, with journalists recording hundreds of serious injuries including cases where demonstrators lost eyes and limbs.