France’s State of Emergency comes to an end today
France’s State of Emergency (SE) is set to finish today, after a record 719 days, as President Emmanuel Macron’’s new anti-terrorism laws come into force instead.
The emergency procedure was declared on the night of November 13, 2015 by then-President François Hollande, in reaction to the terrorist attacks in Paris, explains French news source 20 Minutes.
The government then extended the SE six times, notably in Spring 2016 as an added security measure for the Tour de France and the Euro 2016 football tournament, again after the attack in Nice, and again during the presidential elections.
This has meant that the SE has held for a record amount of time (almost two years). In that time, 625 weapons suspected of terrorist involvement have been seized, along with 4,300 raids on suspected addresses, 600 house arrests, and 11 closures of cult meeting-places.
Since his election, Emmanuel Macron has been tasked with preparing new anti-terrorism laws, in part as a means to finally lift the SE without reducing the level of protection to citizens.
Ultimately, this law will allow those held under house arrest due to suspected terrorist links the ability to move around within their commune and able to continue their normal working life (so they can be monitored for longer).
Any house raids specifically related to terrorism will be permitted to take place between 6h and 21h; and the minister of the interior (the equivalent to the UK’s Home Secretary) will be given powers to shut down any cult meeting places, and require identity checks at borders, without further authorisation.
Similarly, demonstrations and other gatherings are now widely permitted.
A State of Emergency is legally able to be declared when certain events are so grave and important that they can cause public panic and have serious consequences for law and order, or public supplies and services.
The law states that the situation must present “imminent peril resulting in serious attacks on the public order”.
This would not only refer to terrorist attacks; it could also happen after a serious natural disaster such as a serious hurricane. The SE does not necessarily need to involve the entire country; sometimes it can be applied to specific areas if necessary.
Once such example was in 2005, when then-President Jacques Chirac invoked the SE to put an end to the riots in Paris that year, allowing him to impose a curfew and directly reduce the levels of nighttime violence.
