Extra or not extra territorial
(BRUSSELS2) On the occasion of the special "presidential elections" open since 17 p.m., some Belgian journalists repeat at length that, broadcasting from the Belgian "embassy" in Paris, they benefit from the status of extra -territorial and are not subject to French criminal law. This appears to be an error in my opinion. There is no extra-territoriality of the embassy, even less so for people who do not benefit from diplomatic immunity. Simply the embassy enjoys a status of inviolability which allows not to arrest people inside without authorization of the State concerned. Leaving the embassy, journalists can be picked up quite legally by the police if they have committed a crime because they are and remain on French territory. It is rather the fact that RTBF broadcasts are broadcast through transmitters located in Belgium which allows them to escape French law which prohibits the publication of polls before the time of the closing of the polls. . This is where the difficulty of extra-territorial application of French law lies.
