France’s Macron says he will lift state of emergency
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron in a major speech vowed Monday to lift a state of emergency that has been in place since 2015, but also to harden permanent security measures to fight Islamic extremism and other threats.
Mr. Macron has said little since his election May 7, cultivating something of an air of mystery about his exact intentions. He broke that semisilence on Monday in a speech lasting well over an hour to a rare, extraordinary joint session of the French Parliament at Versailles.
Laying out his political, security and diplomatic priorities at the chateau of Versailles, Mr. Macron said his government “will work to prevent any new attack, and we will work to fight [the assailants] without pity, without regrets, without weakness.”
At the same time, seeking to place France at the center of a new age of enlightenment, the youngest French leader since Napoleon insisted on the need to “guarantee full respect for individual liberties” amid concerns that new measures would allow police too many powers.
Mr. Macron vowed to maintain France’s military interventions against extremists abroad, especially in Africa’s Sahel region and in Iraq and Syria. He also insisted on the importance of maintaining “the path of negotiation, of dialogue” for long-term solutions.
In his bid to strengthen the European Union following Britain’s vote to leave, he announced Europe-wide public conferences later this year in an effort to reinvigorate the bloc.
He said he understood why many Europeans see the EU as bureaucratic, distant and uncaring.
“I firmly believe in Europe, but I don’t find this skepticism unjustified,” he said.
He added that European countries should work more closely to help political refugees while fighting migrant-smuggling and strengthening borders against illegal migration.
That statement came a day after French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb — along with his German counterpart — agreed on new measures meant to help Italy as it struggles to cope with rising migrant arrivals, pledging to boost support for the Libyan coast guard and speed up their relocation under an EU accord.
Mr. Macron has pledged to fulfill his campaign promise to bring about deep changes in France, notably through labor reform and a series of measures to put more transparency and ethics into politics.
He said French voters no longer accept the conflicts of interest and corruption scandals that “used to seem almost normal” in the country’s political landscape.
He notably vowed to end the special court, mostly composed of lawmakers, that judges government members for crimes committed while in charge. They will be judged by regular judges, with a procedure to deter poiticians from using courts to attack rivals.
Implicitly addressing the French media, he called for an end to “this continuous search for scandal, the permanent violation of the presumption of innocence, the manhunt where sometimes reputations are destroyed.”
Mr. Macron said he wants to speed up lawmaking to better adapt the process to a rapidly changing society.