29/09/2023, 12:35 SANCHEZ v. FRANCE - 45581/15 (Judgment : No Article 10 - Freedom of expression-{general} : Grand Chamber) [2023] ECHR 418 (1… 32. Referring further to the provisions of section 93-3 of Law no. 82652 of 29 July 1982 and to the facts of the case, the Court of Appeal ruled as follows: “It is established and not in dispute that these two texts were published on the public ‘wall’ of [the applicant’s] Facebook account, by two of his friends, [S.B.] and [L.R.], on 24 October 2011. Section 93-3 of the Law of 29 July 1982, amended by the Law of 21 June 2004, provides that the criminal liability of the producer of a website intended for communication to the public, giving access to comments posted by users, will only be engaged, in respect of such comments, where it can be established that the producer had had knowledge of their content before they were posted, or otherwise where he or she failed to act promptly to delete the comments at issue upon becoming aware of them. In the present case, there is no evidence in the record that the applicant had been informed of the content of the comments before they were posted. However, [the applicant], as an elected member of the Front National and a public figure, had knowingly made his Facebook ‘wall’ public and had therefore authorised his friends to post comments on it. By thus acting, out of choice, he became responsible for the content of the comments posted thereon. His status as a politician required him to be all the more vigilant. He cannot claim not to have been aware of the remarks posted on his website on 24 October, especially as he stated during the investigation that he consulted it every day. He did not, however, remove the remarks, which were subsequently deleted by [S.B.] himself. Alerted by the latter to the reaction of the civil party, he did not delete [L.R.’s] comment either, and it was still visible on his website when consulted by the investigators on 6 December 2011. He cannot be regarded, as the court below rightly found, as having promptly put an end to the dissemination of the impugned comments. He legitimised his position by explaining that such comments appeared to him to be compatible with freedom of expression. The fact they were left on his ‘wall’ was therefore deliberate on his part. In the light of the foregoing, the court below was justified in finding the defendant guilty as charged and the judgment is upheld in respect of his guilt ...” 33. The applicant appealed on points of law to the Court of Cassation, relying in particular on Article 10 of the Convention. In a single ground of appeal, he argued: that, for the offence to be made out, the comments had to contain encouragement or incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence, and not merely give rise to a strong feeling of rejection or hostility towards a group or person; that the mere fear of a risk of racism could not deprive citizens of the freedom to express their views on the consequences of immigration in certain towns or neighbourhoods, the comments having specifically deplored the transformation of the town of Nîmes by immigrants of North African origin and of the Muslim faith; that the summons to appear before the court had been unlawful; and, lastly, that the impugned remarks had in no way targeted Leila T. personally and had been distorted in the Court of Appeal’s judgment. https://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2023/418.html 15/100