French Sports Code
In forceWhen, through repeated actions that jeopardise the safety of persons or property at sporting events, through the commission of a serious act at one of these events, through membership of an association or de facto grouping that has been dissolved pursuant to article L. 332-18 or by virtue of his or her participation in activities that an association whose activities have been suspended has been prohibited from carrying out pursuant to the same article, a person constitutes a serious threat to public order, the representative of the State in the département and, in Paris, the Préfet de Police may, by means of a reasoned order, prohibit that person from entering or being in the vicinity of venues where such events take place or are broadcast in public.
The order, which is valid throughout France, specifies the type of sporting event concerned. It may not exceed a period of twelve months. However, this period may be extended to twenty-four months if, within the previous three years, the person concerned has been banned.
When a person against whom this measure is ordered has been definitively sentenced to the additional penalty provided for in article L. 332-11 for the same acts, he/she shall inform the administrative authority, which shall then immediately terminate his/her measure in favour of this additional penalty. The same applies if the person has been acquitted of the same offences by a final criminal judgment on the grounds that the offences have not been established or are not attributable to him or her.
The representative of the State in the département and, in Paris, the Préfet de Police may also impose, by the same order, on the person subject to this measure the obligation to respond, at the time of the sporting events covered by the ban, to summonses from any authority or any qualified person that they designate. The same order may also stipulate that the obligation to respond to these summonses applies at the time of certain sporting events, which it designates, taking place on the territory of a foreign State. This obligation must be proportionate to the person's behaviour.
The obligation provided for in the third paragraph of this article may only be imposed if it is clear that the person to whom it is addressed intends to evade the prohibition measure provided for in the first paragraph.
Failure to comply with any of the orders issued in application of the preceding paragraphs is punishable by one year's imprisonment and a fine of €3,750.
The Préfet of the département and, in Paris, the Préfet of the police, shall communicate to the sports associations and societies, as well as to the approved sports federations, the identity and photograph of the persons subject to the ban referred to in the first paragraph. In addition, it may communicate them to the supporters' associations mentioned in article L. 332-17.
The identity of the persons mentioned in the first paragraph may also be communicated to the authorities of a foreign country when it is hosting a sporting event in which a French team is taking part, as well as to international sporting bodies when they are organising a sporting event in which a French team is taking part.
A Conseil d'Etat decree sets out the terms and conditions for the application of this article.
