How a French judge was digitally cut off by the USA
74 comments
·November 21, 2025nmridul
petcat
EU is in a very tough spot right now. They're getting squeezed on all sides economically by USA and China while simultaneously facing a Russian invasion on their eastern borders. The relationship with the American administration has deteriorated badly and any action seen as "retaliation", such as this policy blockade, would almost definitely result in USA withdrawing even more support for Ukraine in the war. I think, unfortunately, that will lead to a quick victory for Russia unless EU nations want to put boots on the ground.
It's a bad situation.
RyJones
I've been to Kyiv five times to deliver aid via help99.co, and I've spent many, many hours with Europeans driving trucks from Tallinn to Kyiv.
The people volunteering and driving know Europe is at war. They all say nobody else where they live realizes this.
It's frustrating.
NooneAtAll3
EU got itself a Cuba
too bad that Cuba is right on its own border :)
hardlianotion
It’s kind of hard to see how much more support the US could withdraw from Ukraine, judging by the last article I read that gave Ukraine until Thursday to accept the latest peace deal negotiated between USA and Russia.
If we are in the world you describe, EU might as well do as it wants - its downside has been capped.
VWWHFSfQ
> unless EU nations want to put boots on the ground.
Is such a thing even possible in the EU? I understand that it's an economic and policy bloc. Does Brussels have the authority to raise an army from EU members?
watwut
> USA withdrawing even more support for Ukraine in the war
USA all but openly support Russia by now.
jdibs
A referendum about whether the EU should "put boots on the ground" seems like a good idea to me as long as only those who vote yes get deployed.
eru
> A referendum about whether the EU should "put boots on the ground" seems like a good idea to me as long as only those who vote yes get deployed.
Politics (almost) never works like this. In a secret vote, you don't even know who voted yes or no or at all.
Forgeties79
That sounds to me like a bunch of individual countries deciding to independently put boots on the ground. At that point what are they voting on as a group?
I also wonder what good any sort of military/defensive pact is if any country can unilaterally decide when or when not to participate. It means you can’t depend on it and you may as well not have it then right? To be clear I am not saying military pacts are a good thing, but they do currently exist and participating counties can’t (at least shouldn’t) just pretend they aren’t part of one when it’s inconvenient.
mothballed
And the people who vote yes should have to actually go themselves and lead from the front, not pull a Putin and simply declare war (er, special operation) while hiding under a bunker.
lukan
Depends on the point of view.
I see it as a great opportunity, that we in the EU get our shit together, to not be dependant on the US anymore. Nor russia. Nor china.
So far we still can afford the luxory of moving the european parliament around once a month, because we cannot agree on one place. Lots of nationalistic idiotic things going on and yes, if those forces win, the EU will fall apart.
If russia graps most of Ukraine, this would be really bad(see the annexion of chzech republic 1938, that gave Hitler lots of weapons he did not had), but it is totally preventable without boots on the ground (russia struggles hard as well). Just not if too many people fall for the russian fueled nationalistic propaganda.
yohannparis
I don't understand the point you are trying to make. Could you please explain it?
linehedonist
The underlying article in Le Monde: https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2025/11/19/nico...
Archive link: https://archive.is/TleMk
dariosalvi78
Same is happening to Francesca Albanese, UN rapporteur on Palestinian Territories, Italian citizen.
The US is pure mafia.
delichon
Ideally it would be considered a qualification for a judge to have experienced oppression by state actors, like a cop benefits from experiencing the sparky end of a taser before using one, and it will become so rare that we have to simulate it.
enlguy
Only the U.S. would actually sanction someone for trying to indict a war criminal.
stronglikedan
Of course that's not true. Any country is capable of it, and any country would do it if it were in their interests. Generalizations generally degrade the conversation.
Eddy_Viscosity2
I don't think that's true. Lots of countries out there led by thugs. It used to be that the US stood out because it took the law seriously and believed in its ideals to do the right thing (not that it always succeeded, but it did its best). Looks like that time has passed.
zidad
The US has always been led by Thugs. If you think they ever took international or humanitarian law seriously they would not be scared to join the ICC, and you've only been paying attention to propaganda, not what the US has actually been doing since the inception of those laws.
embedding-shape
> It used to be that the US stood out because it took the law seriously and believed in its ideals to do the right thing
I think it looked like that, because the US always been very effective at propaganda, and until the internet and the web made it very easy for people to communicate directly with each other without the arms of media conglomerates. It's now clearer than ever that US never really believed in its own ideals or took their own laws seriously, there are too many situations pointing at the opposite being true.
a2tech
I’m an American and I can safely vouch that myself and most of the people I know deeply believe in the American ideals that have been presented as gospel for decades—fair play, hard work, rule of law, loving our neighbors (regardless of legal status), and to a one, believe that as soon as you swear your oath at the immigration court, you’re an American, regardless of the circumstances of your birth.
The situation we find ourselves in is that the American of today does not represent us well. I have hopes for the future, but time will tell.
DangitBobby
I'm skeptical things would have lasted this long if the "US never really believed in its own ideal or took their own laws seriously". I think you're letting your cynicism for this moment run away with you.
gessha
> used to be that the US stood out because it took the law seriously
The US looked like it stood out but it has its own internal and external legal problems such as slavery, Native American repressions, the legacy of slavery, anti-Asian policies, coup-ing foreign countries, etc etc etc
DangitBobby
We are a country made up of apes, just like all the others. Nothing is perfect, and us constantly fucking it up doesn't mean we didn't care about it, as a nation.
demarq
Remember all the thuggery and whatever we are seeing now was happening back then.
What has changed is we know about it.
usrnm
Not sure about that. Internally, maybe it was true at some point, cannot say, but if we look at the US as an international player, when exactly was it ready to sacrifice its own interests for any kind of justice or greater good? And if you are not ready to pay the price, then all this talk of a higher moral ground is just that, an empty talk.
Eddy_Viscosity2
I don't disagree, but I think there was a genuine perception by many people that the US were the good guys. The change is that its not even trying to pretend to be this anymore.
skrebbel
> It used to be that the US stood out because it took the law seriously and believed in its ideals to do the right thing
The "The Hague Invasion Act", where the US authorizes itself to invade an ally (the Netherlands) to break war criminal suspects out of prison, was signed in 2002. The US has always been a "rules for thee but not for me" type of place and the digital sanction discussed here fits in a long line of behaviors by the US government. Trump has changed the scale and intensity of it all but the basic direction has always been the same.
Eddy_Viscosity2
Well the fact that they made a law to enable this is a sign of at least some belief in the law. These days Trump would just do the invasion regardless of what the law says, and get away with it. Case example: ordering the navy to blow up Venezuela boats.
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chatmasta
The ICC somehow managed to create an institution even more useless than the UN. The very concept of an International Criminal Court, operating in some idealistic moral space above war and diplomacy, is completely divorced from the reality of realpolitik and total war. If everyone agreed to arbitrate world matters in the ICC, why even have militaries?
wongarsu
A leader is difficult to arrest and prosecute while they are in power. But it does have a political cost for them (both being branded as wanted by the ICC, and how complicated international travel becomes, including your host country burning political capital by not arresting you). But of course the real cost comes if you ever fall from power. The ICC means we don't have to invent laws on the spot like we did in the Nuremberg trials for the Nazis, we can use established laws, courts and processes
throw0101c
> If everyone agreed to arbitrate world matters in the ICC, why even have militaries?
That's… kind of the point? To not have to kill and destroy each other to settle disputes.
crazygringo
I hate to break it to you, but plenty of countries would do this.
One country's war criminal is another country's military hero. Same as it ever was.
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aqme28
This is a weapon that the US has been honing for a long time. Pretty much every modern company has some footprint in the US (for example, maybe trades on a US stock market) and is liable for even mild sanctions violations to the tune of millions at least.
317070
And the EU apparently has the counter ready apparently, which would make such companies liable for millions when they enact US sanctions in the EU.
I'm very curious what would happen then? Nothing presumable, as nothing ever happens, or it might be another step to separate the EU market from the US.
pixl97
Good. We've been in the age of super national global corporations living playing fast and loose. Maybe this will keep them from gobbling up even more power.
prasadjoglekar
TLDR: he's a member of the ICC. Issues warrants against Israeli political leaders. Neither Israel nor the USA (nor China, Russia, India) are parties to the international conventions that formed the ICC.
He's being sanctioned as a result by the USA, which flowed down to US companies who must follow US law.
317070
The article continues that he asks for the EU to activate an existing blocking regulation (Regulation (EC) No 2271/96), which prevents third countries like the USA from enforcing sanctions in the EU. Activating it would make American companies following US sanction in Europe liable for damages.
I think that is the most important point in the article.
mongol
Palestine is party to it and Gaza is part of Palestine
7952
The ICC could be considered to have jurisdiction over Gaza though. Although obviously that is debatable.
ur-whale
Chalk up one more to the very long list of why centralizing institutions is a horrible idea because it creates freedom-killing choke points that the flavor-of-the-day hegemon can use as it damn pleases.
In a decentralized world, the US could huff and puff as much as they please, no one would give two fucks.
But when the US have an actual say in every cent that moves from account A to account B in every country that still harbors the illusion of sovereignty ... well your sovereignty does not actually exist.
dominicq
This is infuriating. The EU should block US sanctions violating EU interests. I'm also definitely moving my personal stuff out of US and into EU, starting with Gmail.
zidad
Exactly! Same here. But man it's going to be a painful move, so much is coupled to that. I already have a GrapheneOS phone, which ironically has to be a Pixel to run it.
mothballed
Almost every bank in FATF white and gray list countries use the dollar in some way, so although your actions will help, in the end if you're sanctioned and you depend on traditional finance systems you are fucked.
There is a guy on here, weev (username rabite) who was soft sanctioned by the US and can't use banks that transact in the dollar. Last I read of his comments, he was in Ukraine or Transnistria, surviving off of crypto and direct rents from crypto purchased real estate.
bjord
all of the above is true, but just to be clear about who we're discussing, weev is a genuine neo-nazi
zidad
Sure, but clearly that is not a requirement to be sanctioned nowadays, it just shows how f*d you are when you DO get sanctioned, and the bar for that is lowering by the day it seems.
mothballed
Weev might be a real neo-nazi, but to be clear, right now an entire country (Ukraine) has also been claimed of being neo-nazis and life-altering state action taken against them without some due process to determine they are. Weev hasn't been convicted of anything serious (nor I think anything at all) that has stuck.
pfdietz
Ultimately this sources back to Europe being dependent on the US for defense.
aDyslecticCrow
How is is defence relevant in this article? This is abusing of the private sector monopoly of alot of internet infrastructure. Nothing of this is military in nature.
pfdietz
If Europe weren't militarily dependent they'd be less subservient on this and other positions.
As the US becomes less ideologically predisposed to defend Europe, expect the US to take more advantage of the dependency, as the threat to walk away will become more real.
stefantalpalaru
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stefantalpalaru
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H1BCurryChef
oh the h0rror
> ..... he calls on the EU to activate an existing blocking regulation (Regulation (EC) No 2271/96) for the International Criminal Court, which prevents third countries like the USA from enforcing sanctions in the EU. EU companies would then no longer be allowed to comply with US sanctions if they violate EU interests. Companies that violate this would then be liable for damages.
That is from that article..