France has taken a major step towards one of its most divisive policing reforms in years after lawmakers approved a bill that critics have branded a 'licence to kill', warning it could make fatal police shootings more likely while making justice harder to obtain.
Backed by the government and long championed by the far right, the proposal would give officers involved in fatal shootings the benefit of the doubt. Instead of investigators starting from a neutral legal position, officers would initially be presumed to have acted within the law unless evidence proves otherwise.
