The media treatment of the marital sphere of an elected official is based on a precise legal framework, not merely on moral convenience. Addressing the private life of Amine El Khatmi and his wife requires an understanding of the criteria that separate legitimate information from an invasion of privacy. The Court of Cassation, in a ruling dated April 12, 2018 (n°17-17.456), reminded that only information “strictly necessary” for the public interest debate justifies the disclosure of marital details of an elected official.
Article 9 of the Civil Code and political figures: the real scope of protection
The protection of private life in French law revolves around Article 9 of the Civil Code. For a political figure like Amine El Khatmi, this text retains its full significance. Public engagement does not suspend the right to marital privacy.
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The case law of the Court of Cassation and the European Court of Human Rights has consolidated this principle over the years. The determining criterion remains the contribution to the public interest debate. The name of an elected official’s spouse, her professional activities, and their family habits are only considered legitimate information if there is a direct and demonstrable link to the public function exercised.
In practice, we observe that most content published about local elected couples does not meet this criterion. An article describing the fashion tastes, vacations, or domestic rituals of a political couple without linking them to a public issue crosses the line. The test to apply before any publication is binary: does this information alter the understanding of a public action by the elected official? If the answer is no, the information is not meant to be disseminated.
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The question of the private life of Amine El Khatmi and his wife illustrates this tension between public curiosity and effective legal protection.
GDPR and personal data of elected officials: concrete obligations for publishers
Competing sites treat discretion as an ethical stance. We recommend considering it first as a regulatory obligation governed by the GDPR.
The CNIL, in an updated fact sheet in 2023 on “Data published on the Internet,” specifies that even for well-known individuals, the reuse and indexing of content concerning family life must respect the principles of minimization and purpose. A publisher who aggregates family photos, mentions of the spouse’s first name, or details about an elected official’s place of residence is processing personal data within the meaning of the European regulation.
Minimization and purpose applied to editorial processing
The principle of minimization requires collecting only data that is adequate, relevant, and limited to what is necessary. Applied to the case of an article about Amine El Khatmi’s couple, this means:
- Not publishing the full name of the spouse if she does not hold a public office herself and has not consented to this exposure
- Not indexing family life photos taken from private social networks, even if these contents were temporarily accessible
- Not cross-referencing information from distinct sources to reconstruct a detailed profile of the couple (address, habits, social circle)
The individuals concerned can request the de-referencing of content that infringes on their privacy. This procedure, exercised with search engines, can lead to the removal of search results associating the name of the elected official with irrelevant intimate information.
Right to the image of the non-elected spouse: a zone of editorial fragility
The spouse of an elected official does not benefit from a personal notoriety. His or her right to image remains that of any private individual. The publication of a photograph, even taken in a public place, generally requires the consent of the person if they are identifiable and constitute the subject of the image.
We observe that online media frequently make an analytical error by considering that the status of the spouse automatically derives from that of the elected official. European case law clearly distinguishes the two situations. Publishing a photo of Amine El Khatmi’s wife at an official event she voluntarily attends is subject to different treatment than disseminating a snapshot taken outside a store.
Criteria for legality for editorial illustration
Before illustrating an article about a political figure’s couple, three checks are necessary:
- Was the person photographed participating in a public event related to the official’s function, or were they in a strictly private context?
- Was the image obtained with the explicit or implicit consent of the subject (facing the camera, press conference)?
- Does the use of the image serve to illustrate a matter of public interest or simply to attract clicks on content without informative value?
The answers to these questions determine the legality of the publication. A publisher who cannot positively answer all three criteria takes a real legal risk.
Responsible editorial treatment: writing without voyeurism about Amine El Khatmi and his wife
The quality of an article about the private life of an elected official is measured by what it chooses not to say. A good article about a political couple addresses the function, not the intimate.
The editorial framing must start from the public question. If Amine El Khatmi takes a stance on secularism, education, or local politics, the article addresses these topics. The fact that he is married adds informative value only if his marital commitment directly illuminates his public action (for example, a joint associative commitment of the couple).
Any mention of the couple that does not pass this filter is editorial padding. The curiosity of the readership does not constitute a valid legal reason. The “right to know” of the public, as defined by the European Court of Human Rights, only covers information contributing to a democratic debate, not the satisfaction of curiosity about the intimate sphere.
A rigorous editorial treatment protects both the rights of the individuals concerned and the credibility of the media. Content that crosses the line of indiscretion is exposed to summary proceedings based on Article 9, with penalties that can reach significant amounts per day of online maintenance.