State of Emergcy

By Alex Lantier for WSWS. French President François Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls presented to the council of ministers yesterday an amendment inscribing the state of emergency in the French constitution. Even the fragmentary initial reports that emerged from the meeting show that it opened the way to the lasting imposition of police-state rule in France. The amendment that Hollande proposed would allow the president to call a state of emergency the duration of which would be set by legislation. The amendment places no restrictions on how long a state of emergency parliamentarians could decide to allow. It also permits a stepped-up use by police of their already enormous powers of repression and electronic surveillance of the population. Moreover, by proposing to extend the deprivation of nationality to dual nationals condemned for “terrorist crimes,” including dual nationals born French, the ruling Socialist Party (PS) is openly affirming its sympathies for the ideas of the neo-fascist National Front (FN).