100ième victime

exceptional measures for exceptional circumstances, not as a new normality

Since the mass assassinations of November 13 in Paris, France is in a “legal” state of emergency (état d’urgence). Which has been once again re-conducted a few days by the Parliament and which could even become part of the Constitution if the planned vote succeeds in a few days! Emergency state that gives more and more emergency powers to the executive branch of the French State and thus to the police, with lesser controls from the judiciary and the parliamentary branches of the State. Beyond this arbitrary reduction of civil liberties and rights, from the prohibition of demonstrations to extra-judiciary house arrests, recently denounced by Amnesty International and the UN and many local organisations, the government is pushing for another change in the Constitution that would deprive binationals terrorists of their French nationality. Quite absurd (as if those terrorists cared!), discriminatory (what of Égalité?!), schizophrenic  (“de-naturalising” someone  does not turn him or her into an alien, nor erases the fact that she or he was born and raised in France), and anti-republican… Even though I remain sceptic of their real impact, there are several petitions around calling for the end of the emergency state and the dismissal of the de-naturalisation.