REPLACING FRANCE’S STATE OF EMERGENCY:
The government wants to make some emergency measures permanent.
France’s state of emergency went into force overnight from November 13-14, 2015, following the deadliest terror attacks on French soil in modern history, when a series of coordinated shooting and bomb attacks left 130 people dead in and around Paris. Since then it has been extended a total of six times, making it France’s longest state of emergency since the measure was established in 1955.
On November 1, France is set to replace the state of emergency with a tough new anti-terror law that will permanently grant law enforcement agencies extended powers to search homes, close religious sites viewed as promoting radical ideas and restrict the movements of suspected jihadist sympathisers.
MORE:
In the two years since the state of emergency went into force, the interior ministry says it has prevented 32 terror attacks in France, 13 of them in 2017 alone.
Nevertheless, some plots have gone undetected. In all, 239 people have been killed in Islamist-related terror attacks in France over the past two years. According to the Paris-based Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, France is considered the No. 1 Western target for the Islamic State (IS) group and accounts for as much as 30 percent of the group’s foiled and successful attacks.
In all, more than 4,600 warrantless raids have been carried out, and which have been largely based on unconfirmed intelligence reports and anonymous tips. Some 80 percent of these searches – or about 3,600 – took place in the first six months following the November 13 attacks. In comparison, just 58 searches were recorded between July and November of this year.
AFP wrote the report.