France: state of emergency extended for three months

The pretext for the extraordinary measure is the wave of violent protests against police repression by immigrant youth in the impoverished slums that surround Paris and other French cities. The riots began on October 27 and have waned in recent days.

The elemental eruption of anger over entrenched poverty, discrimination, police abuse and overtly racist remarks by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has been met by the authorities with massive police repression. Some 3,000 arrests have been made since the rioting began, and 1,700 CRS riot police have been garrisoned in the slum neighbourhoods.

Now the Gaullist government of President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin is seizing on the unrest to establish a precedent for authoritarian forms of rule with vast implications for the democratic rights of the French population as a whole.

The state of emergency was extended under the provisions of a 1955 law that, until this month, had not been invoked for half a century. The decision was taken on the morning of November 15 by the Council of Ministers, and voted for in the afternoon by the National Assembly. It arms the French state with repressive powers normally associated with civil war conditions.

The measure was passed in the Assembly by 346 to 148. The Gaullist UMP (Union for a Popular Movement) and the centre-right UDF (French Union for Democracy) voted in favour, while the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Left Radicals and the Greens voted against. The Senate, controlled by the UMP, will endorse the decision on Thursday.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2005/nov2005/fran-n17.shtml