“I am outraged”, belches Francis Lalanne. The 63-year-old artist saw his legal attack against Twitter declared void by the Paris Court of Justice. On June 7, the then candidate for the legislative elections had filed a request for legal summons from the social network to the blue bird. In question: tweets that he considers “inaccurate and misleading” about him, and that he intended to have Twitter delete, under penalty of 1,000 euros per day of delay. These messages accused him of collusion with Russia after the singer accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of lying about his presence in Kyiv (see below).
“We were simply looking to enforce the anti-fake news law passed in 2018,” says his lawyer Emmanuel Ludot. the invoked text urges the platforms to implement “measures to combat the dissemination of false information likely to disturb public order or alter the sincerity of one of the ballots”. Also, after the suspension of his Twitter account last July, Francis Lalanne complained of that of his new account, in the middle of the electoral campaign, on May 26, 2022.
This Francis #Lalanne is a fucking genius. A genius for bullshit, indecency and auditory torture. But a genius nonetheless. I hope to have the opportunity to tell him before he moves to Russia 😂#Ukraine pic.twitter.com/kggaska1Il
— Nicolas Puiravau (@nikop17) February 27, 2022
If the unfortunate candidate, eliminated in the first round in Charente, disappeared from Twitter it is because he multiplied the controversial tweets, like this one, which had earned him the suspension of his first account: “They will never confirm that the deaths are because of the vaccines, otherwise they would admit that they are organizing a crime against humanity!So people will officially die of anything but vaccines!’ “also plague against the perpetual refusal of the platform to certify its accounts, “as if by chance”. Contacted by Capital, Twitter France declined our request for comment.
Francis Lalanne’s account has been suspended by Twitter pic.twitter.com/onhSLV2abi
— Matthew Audibert (@MattAudibert) July 10, 2021
Procedural defect
Finally, the Court of Justice of Paris pronounced the nullity of the summons because of the “violation, by the plaintiffs, of the rules relating to the postulation”. Concretely, the lawyer of Francis Lalanne is registered with the bar of Reims… whereas the summary procedure took place in Paris. However, “for the past two years, a reform of civil procedure has made it necessary to have a lawyer applying even in the event of summary proceedings, and before the court, the lawyer must be local”, explains Charles Simon, expert lawyer in the field. . Clearly, Emmanuel Ludot should have called on a colleague registered with the Paris bar to legitimize the procedure.
