News / France

French lawmakers to debate controversial reforms

Friday, 05 February 2016 11:23 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 05 February 2016 11:25 AM ]

French lawmakers at the National Assembly in Paris, France, June 16, 2015 (photo by AFP)

French lawmakers are to start debating constitutional changes that would allow Paris to strip convicted French-born terrorists of citizenship and make it easier to enforce emergency measures.

French President Francois Hollande called for the measures to be written into the constitution after terror attacks in and around Paris on November 13, 2015.

In the wake of the attacks, Holland declared a state of emergency in the country. The current state of emergency expires on February 26 and is expected to be extended.

The government now wants to write the measures to ease the enforcement of emergency measures into the constitution.

Some rights groups, however, question the efficiency of the measures, arguing that they give excessive powers to the security services and gradually wear away citizens’ rights.

According to the French Human Rights League (LDH), only four legal procedures relating to terrorism had recently emerged from more than 3,000 police raids.

A state of emergency lasting more than 12 days still needs a parliament approval.

In a report, Amnesty International said earlier that the state of emergency has led to thousands of warrantless house searches and hundreds of curfew orders, disrupting the lives of countless people.

The emergency state enabled French authorities to keep people in their homes without trial, search houses without judicial approval and block websites deemed suspicious.

Another amendment that the lawmakers are going to debate is the proposal to strip citizens of their French citizenship if they are convicted in terror cases.

The measure has sparked protests across the country, and led to the resignation of Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, who called it “discriminatory and useless” in preventing the radicalization of French citizens.

“I hope the stripping of nationality will not be written into the constitution,” Taubira told Le Monde newspaper on Tuesday.

The proposal will be put to a vote in the lower house of the parliament – the National Assembly – on Wednesday. If passed, it will then have to be approved by the upper house, the Senate, before it can be written into the constitution.

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