Eleven protesters had filed an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights, arguing France had impeded their right to freedom of expression.

But the ECHR found that France had not interfered with the activists expressing themselves, and that the judicial proceedings could in fact be considered "part of their communication strategy".

The suspended fines of 200 to 500 euros ($230 to $590) had been among the "most lenient sanctions possible" and therefore not disproportionate, the court based in the French city of Strasbourg added.

All town halls in France display the president's portrait, with Emmanuel Macron's showing him perched on the edge of his desk with two mobile phones and the memoirs of French resistance hero and post-war president Charles de Gaulle behind him.

The group behind the 2019 portrait thefts, Non-Violent Action COP21 (ANV-COP21), claimed some 130 pictures had been stolen across France that year.

They said it was their "moral duty" to act in the face of what they called the inaction of Macron's government on climate change.

The 11 plaintiffs in the ECHR case had exhausted all legal avenues in France, from lower courts to the supreme court, in three separate cases after stealing portraits in Paris and two other locations in eastern France.

France's highest court has since the 2019 incident however changed its position.

In 2023, it approved the acquittal of another group of activists over stealing the president's picture, arguing it had not been an attack on his dignity and that climate change was a subject of "general interest".

It added that the official images of Macron were only worth 8.90 euros ($10), frame not included.

Other defendants have since been acquitted in similar cases.

Critics had targeted Macron's portrait before 2019.

In October 2017, mayors in the central Creuse region turned his picture around so that Macron faced the wall, to protest cuts to local government budgets and job losses.