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ID checks, bag searches and fines

Key points

  • You must prove your identity, otherwise you can be held for checks for up to 4 hours.
  • Never give a false identity.
  • A drone can only film a demonstration with the prefect's written authorisation (see below).
  • Near stations, toll booths and demonstrations, checks and searches are possible on the prosecutor's order (see below).
  • A full bag search is reserved for a judicial police officer in specific cases; a pat-down is done by someone of the same sex.
  • €135 fine: don't pay on the spot if you want to contest; you have 45 days after the notice.

Disclaimer

General information about French law, not legal advice. If you face prosecution or want to contest a fine, ask a lawyer or a legal team.

ID check and identity verification

  • In France, you are not legally required to carry an ID card (except foreign nationals, who must be able to prove their right to stay), but you must prove your identity by any means during a lawful police check.12
  • If you have no ID or refuse to state your identity: the police can hold you on the spot or at the station for an identity verification (vérification d'identité) for up to 4 hours (8 hours in Mayotte).1
  • During an identity verification (which is not police custody):
    • you have the right to have the public prosecutor and any person of your choice notified;1
    • taking fingerprints or photographs is prohibited, unless expressly authorised by the prosecutor if you still refuse to give your identity.1
  • Never give a false identity: giving the name of another real person is a serious criminal offence.1

Bag search and security pat-down

Not all bag checks have the same legal basis:34

  1. Visual inspection of a bag (opening the bag to look inside without putting hands in): allowed during a preventive check or to enter a perimeter, with your consent. If you refuse, access can be denied or a senior police officer (OPJ) can be called.3
  2. Full bag search (putting hands inside and examining the contents): treated as a search (perquisition). It can only be carried out by an OPJ (or under their authority), in the case of an offence in progress (flagrant délit), a serious threat to public safety, or under a written order from the public prosecutor (réquisition), which is very common on protest days.34

  3. Security pat-down (palpation de sécurité) (over clothing, to look for dangerous objects): must be performed by an officer of the same sex as you.3

  4. Stay calm and do not physically obstruct the search (risk of being charged with resisting an officer / rébellion), but if an item is confiscated without you being placed in custody, ask for a receipt or write down the time, place and badge number.4

On-the-spot fine (€135): do not pay right away

At protests, police sometimes issue fixed penalty fines (in particular €135 for taking part in a protest banned by prefectural order):56

  • Never pay on the spot if you intend to contest the fine: paying counts as admitting the offence and permanently ends any right of appeal.6
  • You do not have to sign the electronic terminal if you dispute the allegation.
  • Wait until you receive the fine notice (avis de contravention) by post at home: you have 45 days from the date it was sent to file an exemption request (requête en exonération) (by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt or online via ANTAI) with supporting evidence (for example: no published ban order, no dispersal warnings given, or inability to leave a kettle).67
  • Contest together: the Collectif d'Action Judiciaire offers a kit to contest these fines (strategies, collective defence, template letters). On the first page of the kit it lists as possible arguments a lack of legal basis, the suspension or expiry of the ban order and a wrong perimeter, and advises contacting other people fined for the same facts.8 This is a collective's view, not a statute: ask a lawyer or a legal team.

Guide "Dispersal, warnings and kettling" · Guide "Police custody"

Near stations, toll booths and demonstrations

Checks are not the same everywhere.9

  • Border zones, stations, ports and international airports: anyone's identity can be checked, without any particular reason, within 20 km of the border and in the publicly accessible areas of stations, ports and airports open to international traffic (designated by order), as well as at the motorway toll booths concerned. Limit: 12 consecutive hours in the same place, and no systematic checks on everyone present.
  • Written orders from the prosecutor: to look for offences they specify (terrorism, weapons, explosives, theft, handling stolen goods, drug trafficking), in places and for a period of 24 hours (renewable), police can check anyone's identity, search vehicles (with the driver present) and bags (with the owner present).9 You get a written record if you ask for it.
  • Preventing a serious threat to safety (article 78-2-4): vehicle or bag search with your consent or, failing that, on the prosecutor's instructions; you can be held 30 minutes at most meanwhile.10
  • Around a demonstration (article 78-2-5): on a written order from the prosecutor, a visual inspection and search of bags and vehicle searches can take place at the scene and its immediate surroundings, to look for a weapon (taking part in a demonstration while armed, art. 431-10). The Constitutional Council specified that these operations can only target specified places and limited periods.1112
  • In all cases: if you cannot or will not prove your identity, police can hold you 4 hours at most to check it (art. 78-3, see above).13

Texts being recodified

These articles will be repealed and recodified from 2029 (order no. 2025-1091 of 19 November 2025). Check the version in force.

Drones over a demonstration

Police and gendarmerie can film a demonstration with a drone if the prefect authorised it in a written, reasoned decision, only if the gathering is "likely to cause serious disorder", and for the duration of the gathering.14

  • The drone cannot record sound, use facial recognition, or be automatically linked to other files.14
  • The public is informed "by any appropriate means", unless circumstances forbid it.14
  • Footage is in principle erased after 7 days, unless a judicial, administrative or disciplinary procedure is under way.14
  • The Constitutional Council required the prefect to check that no less intrusive means exist, and renewal only if the drone remains the only means.15
  • To ask for access or erasure of your data: write to the responsible service, then complain to the CNIL if there is no answer.16 To challenge the prefect's authorisation: référé-liberté or référé-suspension before the administrative judge, with an association or a lawyer.17
  • Do not try to destroy a drone: that is damage to property (art. 322-1).

This article (L242-5) was amended by the law of 18 August 2026: check the version in force.

In one of these situations? stopped for an ID check, bag search or fine (€135) · homeless, sleeping rough · targeted by racism or ethnic profiling

Sources

Each note links to the source of the information. Most sources are in French. Laws change: check the date of the source and, if in doubt, ask a lawyer.

  1. Service-Public — Contrôle d'identité · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩↩↩↩↩

  2. Service-Public — Retenue pour vérification du droit au séjour · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  3. Service-Public — Vehicle search, bag search or security pat-down · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩↩↩↩

  4. Syndicat de la magistrature — Guide du manifestant arrêté · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩↩↩

  5. Amnesty International France — Nos droits en manifestation · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  6. Service-Public — Fixed penalty fine (amende forfaitaire) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩↩↩

  7. Conseil d'État, 10 juin 2021, n° 444849 — schéma national du maintien de l'ordre · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  8. Collectif d'Action Judiciaire — kit to contest banned-demonstration fines (Instagram post) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  9. Légifrance — Code of Criminal Procedure, identity checks (art. 78-1 to 78-7, incl. 78-2 and 78-2-2; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩↩

  10. Légifrance — Code of Criminal Procedure, art. 78-2-4 (vehicle and bag searches; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  11. Légifrance — Code of Criminal Procedure, art. 78-2-5 (searches around demonstrations; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  12. Constitutional Council — Decision no. 2019-780 DC of 4 April 2019 ('anti-rioters' law) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  13. Légifrance — Code of Criminal Procedure, art. 78-3 (identity verification; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  14. Légifrance — Internal Security Code, cameras on aircraft (L242-1 to L242-8; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩↩↩↩

  15. Constitutional Council — Decision 2021-834 DC of 20 January 2022 (drones, §21-31; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  16. CNIL — Video surveillance (rights of access, erasure, complaint; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  17. Council of State — File an appeal (emergency procedures; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

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