In France, legal experts take political fact checking to the next level

The U.S. presidential election campaign last fall brought the concept of “fact checking” to the fore. In France, the presidential candidates are being “law checked.”

This spring’s campaign has featured an array of remarks and policy statements that raised not only eyebrows but legal questions: Are some proposals unconstitutional? Outside a president’s jurisdiction? Unfeasible for a country that’s a member of the European Union?

Enter Les Surligneurs — a group of university lecturers and legal researchers who have taken it upon themselves to track what the candidates are saying, and then publicly comment on legal questions that arise.

At a time when so much attention is focused on false and misleading news, Les Surligneurs (it translates as “the highlighters”) are doing their bit to hold politicians accountable and raise the level of public debate on their website lessurligneurs.eu.

“The law, particularly in this election, plays a big role, and can’t be left only to political judgment,” said Vincent Couronne, the instigator of the project and a lecturer in law at Versailles Instituts Publiques, a research lab at the Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.

About 20 researchers have joined the effort. They can’t be exhaustive, he said in an email exchange, but they aim to be politically impartial.

“The work that involves reading, listening to or watching the news is the most time-consuming and requires the most organization,” he said. So he arranged for students at a political science school, Sciences Po Saint-Germain-en-Laye, to track what candidates are saying and send daily updates on anything legally questionable.

Each question is vetted by the site’s editors, who decide if it should be written up — if the issue needs to be clarified so voters can better understand whether a politician can deliver on a promise.

“Our presence on social media allows us to reach anyone, if they’re interested at all in politics,” Couronne said. “Still, we’re followed in particular by journalists or legal experts. The journalists use our articles to refine their analyses.”

Libération newspaper has been printing some of them.

It’s important to use academic expertise to help journalists, and through them to help voters, Couronne said.

“To make promises that can’t be kept and are dangerous doesn’t help anyone, and doesn’t serve democracy.” wallace.mtl@gmail.com