Disquiet grows over French state of emergency

When a state of emergency was imposed in France after the November attacks, numb and terror-weary citizens welcomed the show of force.

 

But a sense of creeping unease over civil liberties has turned to outright opposition in many quarters as French President Francois Hollande indicated this week he would seek to renew the measure for another three months.

 

The state of emergency was imposed after gunmen and suicide bombers attacked a string of Parisian cafes and restaurants, a concert hall and football stadium, leaving 130 dead and hundreds injured on November 13.

 

It has led to over 2,500 police raids and hundreds of arrests under emergency policing powers that government wants written into the constitution.

 

The French Human Rights League (LDH), one of many bodies now questioning the efficacy of the harsher measures, said recently that only four legal procedures relating to terrorism had emerged from the spate of police operations.

 

“The political trap of a state of emergency is closing on the government (because) there will always be a good reason to keep” it in place, said LDH lawyer Patrice Spinozi.

 

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