Kuwait Times

With threat ‘very high’, France to extend state of emergency

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President Emmanuel Macron wants a sixth extension of France’s state of emergency since the Paris attacks of November 2015, his prime minister said yesterday, adding that the terror threat “remains very high”. The new president, elected on May 7, also wants legislatio­n to boost the powers of the security forces, Edouard Philippe said, two days after the Manchester concert suicide bombing that claimed 22 lives.

“France and the United Kingdom are fighting the same enemy,” Philippe said after a meeting of his defense council. “The terrorist threat remains, in Europe, in our two countries, at a very high level.” Macron is seeking a new extension of the state of emergency, which expires on July 15 after being extended “to preserve our democracy”— referring to France’s just-ended presidenti­al election and upcoming legislativ­e polls. The president’s office earlier said he was seeking to extend the state of emergency until November 1.

The measures allow security forces to monitor suspects and carry out searches without warrants, place suspects under house arrest, and ban public gatherings. They were first imposed after the worstever terror attacks on French soil struck Paris on November 13, 2015, leaving 130 people dead. Then president Francois Hollande declared that France was “at war” and deployed troops to patrol the streets. Currently, some 7,000 troops are supporting police, Philippe said yesterday, adding that their number could rise to 10,000, with an additional 60,000 reservists standing by.

The extensions of the state of emergency, with rationales including ensuring the protection of the Euro 2016 football tournament and this year’s elections, have met with little public opposition. But in December last year the left-leaning judges’ union called the measures a “lasting drug” and the outgoing Socialist justice minister, Jean-Jacques Urvoas, said “getting accustomed to this unusual situation would pose a risk to our democracy of normalizin­g the exceptiona­l.”

‘The new normal’

In January, Amnesty Internatio­nal released a report titled “Dangerousl­y disproport­ionate: The ever-expanding national security state in Europe”, warning that states of emergency such as that observed in France are part of “the new normal”. The London-based rights group noted that the emergency laws allowed French police to put environmen­tal activists under house arrest ahead of the UN Climate Conference in Paris in 2015.Nearly 70 people are currently under house arrest in France under the emergency rules, compared with nearly 300 in the wake of the November 2015 Paris attacks. —AFP

 ??  ?? PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron (2nd left) salutes passers-by on his way to the British embassy in Paris to present his condolence­s to the British ambassador to France, Edward Llewellyn, with French Minister for European Affairs Marielle de...
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron (2nd left) salutes passers-by on his way to the British embassy in Paris to present his condolence­s to the British ambassador to France, Edward Llewellyn, with French Minister for European Affairs Marielle de...

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