[Peace-discuss] French Constitutional Amendment On State Of Emergency

Sat Dec 26 09:40:40 EST 2015

I never thought this could happen in a Western European country. 

This paves the way for neo-liberal capitalism to push deep austerity upon
the Working class and strip what remnants of democracy are left to fully
consolidate the corporate State. Anyone who opposes or resists, violently or
non-violently will be labeled a terrorist. The French people need to take to
the streets to oppose and DEFY this in mass before it is too late.

French Constitutional Amendment On State Of Emergency

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 <https://www.popularresistance.org/category/educate/> Educate!
<https://www.popularresistance.org/tag/citizenship/> Citizenship,
<https://www.popularresistance.org/tag/france/> France,
<https://www.popularresistance.org/tag/state-of-emergcy/> State of Emergcy,
<https://www.popularresistance.org/tag/terrorism/> Terrorism 
By Alex Lantier,  <http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/12/24/cons-d24.html>
www.wsws.org
December 25th, 2015

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Hollande Also Proposes Denying Citizenship For Terrorist Crimes

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).

Deprivation of nationality, a policy traditionally advocated by the FN, was
employed under the Nazi Occupation amid the French authorities
participation in the Holocaust.

The French state pronounced collective deprivations of French nationality
under the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime to deprive Jewish refugees in
France who had been naturalized of their citizenship. The law of July 22,
1940 deprived 15,154 people of their French citizenship, including
approximately 6,000 Jews as well as leaders of the Resistance. Vichy first
interned Jews deprived of French citizenship in concentration camps and
then, after passing a Franco-German accord on July 2, 1942, began deporting
them out of France towards death camps to the east.

The proposals by the PS underscore the sharp shift towards the extreme right
of the entire political establishment, including its social-democratic
components and their pseudo-left satellites, such as the Left Front and the
New Anti-capitalist Party in France.

These forces defended in 2014 the NATO powers decision to back a
fascist-led putsch in Kiev and refused this year to travel to Moscow to
celebrate the 70h anniversary of the Soviet Unions victory against Nazi
Germany in World War II. Now, the PS government is highlighting its
counter-revolutionary historical sympathies inside France itself.

PS Justice Minister Christiane Taubira had announced during a trip to
Algiers on December 20-21 that the PS had in fact definitively ruled out new
measures on deprivations of citizenship. She told Algerian Channel 3 radio
that this was a subject that will go away, as it created a problem for
the fundamental principle that one can acquire full citizenship through
residence in France.

Taubira was echoing the position of the PS only a few years ago. In 2010,
Valls denounced a debate on imposing new measures on deprivation of
citizenship by right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy as foul and absurd.
However, Taubira learned upon her return to France that the PS would take a
decision on this issue in meetings to which she was not invited.

Observing Valls and Hollandes rush to propose measures they previously
denounced as foul, Le Monde concluded that Taubira had been reduced to a
sort of political cover for the government, to reassure a left-wing
electorate increasingly disturbed by the head of states turn to law and
order.

This debate underscores that far deeper political issues are involved in the
state of emergency than police matters on how to prevent terrorist attacks.

A deep crisis of the capitalist regime is shaking Europe. As austerity
devastates workers across the continent, and imperialist wars in the Middle
East are provoking growing opposition, the ruling class is pushing for a
broad ideological reorientation towards the far right.

The PS is appealing to nationalism and racism in order to fashion an
ultra-reactionary political consensus that will allow it to continue
imposing its unpopular measures. The fact that this operation has produced a
return to measures championed by the Vichy regime underscores the immense
dangers posed.

Hollande initially proposed the preparation of a constitutional amendment on
November 16, three days after the terror attacks in Paris, at a joint
session of parliament at Versailles. He said the amendment would allow for a
state of emergency in France for the duration of the war on terror. It
would allow the police to use the vast powers of surveillance and repression
under the state of emergency against anyone police believed posed even a
potential threat to public order, based on their behavior, friendships,
statements, or plans.

Hollande was thus proposing to give a blank check for the elimination of
freedom of opinion and the installation of a police
<https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/11/19/pers-n19.html> dictatorship of
indefinite duration.

Now, the media are seeking to somehow reassure the public that the state of
emergency poses no threat to democracy. Hollandes amendment has been
modified, L Obs wrote, after numerous debates. Several reports indicated
that high-ranking judicial officials and legislators had firmly criticized
parts of the first text presented by the PS. Valls staff insisted yesterday
that the new amendment, due to be debated by the National Assembly, would
not establish a permanent state of emergency.

The council of ministers did not publish the new amendment proposed by
Hollande, so it is of course impossible to establish its precise contents.
However, the entire political evolution of the PS suggests that it aims to
use the law-and-order measures and the political hysteria surrounding the
state of emergency to try to crush political opposition inside France and to
found an authoritarian regime.

The PS banned outright protests against the Gaza war last year and recently
against the COP-21 ecological summit, and it is now backing the illegal mass
sacking of Sodexo workers in Marseille for striking.

Another indication of the character of the PS proposals on the state of
emergency is the close link that exists between Hollande and the military
dictatorship in Egypt. Only a few hours after the November 13 attacks,
Hollande received a phone call from General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to discuss
how to fight terrorism.

Sisi, who overthrew Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Mursi, runs a
bloody dictatorship under a state of emergency, citing the threat of
Islamist terrorism. He has ordered army units to shoot thousands of unarmed
protesters in the streets of Egypt, had police imprison and torture tens of
thousands of workers and youth, and had Egypts obedient judicial system
impose mass death sentences against members of oppositional political
parties.

According to RFI, Sisi called Hollande just after the terror attacks to
present his condolences and those of Egypt 
 Relations between Presidents
Sisi and Hollande go well beyond simple protocol. French sources said there
is friendship between the two men. Official sources in Cairo said that the
two presidents discussed reinforced cooperation in the anti-terror struggle,
especially against the Islamic State.

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