France’s history is marked by efforts to control and limit free speech/ freedom of expression when interests of the state are threatened.
For example, lets take the Paris massacre of 1961. When Algerian peaceful protests against an unjust curfew was responded to with terrible violence.
Upwards of two hundred Algerians were murdered in the streets of Paris – no-one really knows how many as many protestors drowned in the river Seine after being clubbed unconscious and thrown in by police or simply disappeared in the roundups that followed.
It took 51 years for this massacre to be publicly acknowledged by French officials. The event and subsequent mass arrests were covered-up by authorities with help from French & international press who parroted the official story of “Algerian mobs rioting in Paris”.
Just one example of many illustrating how freedoms are protected, or trampled on depending on political interests and who threatens them.