French vote on anti-terror law

STATE OF EMERGENCY: LOWER HOUSE TO DECIDE ON CONTROVERSIAL BILL AFTER 241 KILLINGS

Bill which will give authorities the power to place people under house arrest.

Paris

French lawmakers will vote today on a tough new counter-terrorism law designed to end the country’s two-year state of emergency which critics say expands police powers at a cost to civil liberties.

The vote comes following a string of attacks in France since 2015 and just two days after more bloodshed in the southern port city of Marseille when a suspected Islamist knifeman killed two women.

While Interior Minister Gerard Collomb defends the Bill as a “lasting response to a lasting threat”, it has come under fire from the French left and human rights groups.

“What makes us angry is that it’s a state of emergency that would become permanent and roll back our freedoms,” said Christine Lazerges, the head of the national consultative committee on human rights, a state body.

The law, designed to replace the state of emergency that France has been under since the November 2015 Paris attacks, would come into force on November 1 if approved by both houses of parliament.

The lower house will vote today on the Bill which will give authorities the power to place people under house arrest, order house searches and ban public gatherings without the prior approval of a judge.

The state of emergency was meant to be temporary but was extended six times for various reasons, such as the need to protect major sporting and cultural events, as well as presidential and parliamentary elections earlier this year.

The vote comes after a knifeman stabbed two women to death on Sunday at the main train station in Marseille shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”). He was shot dead by soldiers.

The Islamic State claimed the attacker was one of its “soldiers”, though a source close to the in- vestigation said no solid evidence linked him to the group.

The stabbings bring to 241 the number of people killed in jihadist attacks in France since January 2015. –