Justice, American Style; France is looking for ways to crack down on crime.

Byline: Eric Pape and Adam Piore

It was hardly an intimidating crowd. Instead of jeans and T shirts, the demonstrators wore black legal robes with crisp white bibs. Most were Parisian lawyers, and many carried briefcases as they marched almost primly to the National Assembly, where police waited at barricades. But the insults the barristers hurled were anything but gentle. They hoped to head off a controversial package of new criminal legislation known as "Perben II," which many French consider to be alarmingly reminiscent of measures advocated by the reviled conservative across the sea, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. "This isn't right for France," said Abderrahem Karim, a bespectacled defense lawyer quivering with indignation. Why, these laws are positively... "American!"

Some might disagree, but there you have it. Spurred by post-9/11 security concerns and election-year politics, France is cracking down on crime in a big way. And the debate over what that means for civil liberties is just beginning. Many of the changes envisioned by Justice Minister Dominique Perben and his allies--passed last Wednesday--are nothing short of draconian, according to critics, and will undercut key elements of France's criminal-justice system.

Begin with the plan to introduce American-style plea bargaining into French courts. The government claims it would help clear a backlog of cases. But at the same time, other recent laws have toughened punishments for misdemeanors. More are proposed that would mandate harsh sentencing guidelines, meting out years of jail time for often minor offenses. Critics worry that prosecutors will intimidate defendants into confessing to crimes they may not have committed, pure-ly in order to avoid the risk of losing at trial and facing those sentences. France's sacred privacy laws are also under assault. Unless blocked by the courts, Perben II will allow police as of mid-March to tap phones, install hidden cameras and microphones and order other forms of undercover surveillance--currently permitted only in espionage cases.

Worse may be to come. Lawmakers are already preparing the next round of reforms, inspired by America's controversial "three strikes, you're out" laws. (In California, where the first such law was passed in 1994, offenders convicted of a second felony face harsh mandatory sentences, with a "third strike" requiring a minimum of 25 years in prison, barring extraordinary circumstances.) A new French proposal starts down the same path: criminals ...