The Atlantic

Will France's State of Emergency Become Permanent?

A proposed counterterrorism law has some human-rights groups concerned.
Source: Gonzalo Fuentes / Reuters

Last Thursday, France’s parliament to extend the country’s national state of emergency for the sixth time, leaving in place what has been its longest uninterrupted state of emergency since the Algerian War of the 1960s. In a parliamentary address last Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron to “restore the liberties of the French” by lifting the orderand replacing it with a new, more permanent counterterrorism law. The legislation, which is expected to be taken up by both houses of parliament in the coming months, will “explicitly target terrorists to the exclusion of all other Frenchmen,” Macron lawmakers in a rare address at the Palace of Versailles. The measure, he added, will include “full and permanent respect for [France’s] constitutional requirements and … traditions of

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