I don't think this is about "ideological conformity". No one is stopping you thinking, or saying, whatever you want at any time. The problem is when you use a platform to broadcast that message to a wider audience, especially one like Twitter that will show your posts to people who don't follow you.
Well it seems this law actually does that.
And of course, the rules don't apply to them. Just look at the president of France, if you want to see a particularly bad fuckup. He, and his wife, have confessed, publicly, on TV, repeatedly to having a paedophilic relationship, where she abused her job to fuck children (she was even cheating on her husband doing it). He was 15, she was 40 years old at the time. Not only have they not been sued (in France, both would be punished)
Needless to say, a whole bunch of people were sued for stating this during the campaign, as well as for a bunch of other negative things they said about him.
"in France, both would be punished"
It seems absurd to me that both the victim and the abuser would be punished. Do you have any source for this?
The burden of proof for libel action is very different to the burden of proof for criminal liability. It's the difference between civil and criminal law - they're worlds apart. You can't really compare the two, despite them both being based around the act of writing something on the internet. Posting something potentially libellous on Twitter won't get you convicted of a crime, but it absolutely could get you sued.
Likewise, public confessions satisfy the standard of proof for criminal liability. If you say "I'm glad I killed this guy" next to what looks like a corpse with 100 people watching, you can be convicted of murder without the police so much as checking it's indeed a corpse, based on testimony (does not even need to be direct testimony, done in court, it can be a police officer saying one of the hundred confirmed this to them) of one person. If you say it on TV, well the laws on this predate TVs, I'm sure it will work the same.
And, technically, since he was a minor, French law says the public prosecutor HAS to sue the adult (ie. her), no choice. Don't you love "someone think of the children" laws? Needless to say, this didn't happen.
That's not quite as clear cut as you put it. Sexual majority is 15 years old in France.
Now, since she was his teacher, it could be argued that it was not a consensual relationship (if there even was an actual act, I don't pretend to know), but that would be something for courts to decide.
In short, this is a terrible example of your point.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorit%C3%A9_sexuelle_en_Fran...
People doing that kind crap have no limit to how low they're willing to drop their common decency to promote their shitty political agenda: They spread their lies over social networks, alienate the debate with inane affairs and waste valuable resources from the judicial system.
I'm glad those idiots are getting sued.
They literally arrested and prosecuted someone for an off color joke. This is as straightforward a case of “them” stopping you from saying what ever you want at any time as it gets.