Terror-weary French set aside worries

France is proud of its human rights traditions -- but after a wave of jihadist attacks few are standing in the way of a new anti-terror law that campaigners say erodes freedoms.

Backed overwhelmingly by MPs in parliament's lower house on Tuesday, the law makes permanent elements of the state of emergency enacted after the 2015 Islamic State attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead.

Without seeking permission from a judge, authorities will be able to limit the movements of suspected jihadist sympathisers, close places of worship accused of condoning terror, and carry out more on-the-spot identity checks.

After several more Islamist assaults, President Emmanuel Macron's government has been able to push the law through with minimal fuss -- much to the dismay of rights campaigners.

"There is a numbness of public opinion with regard to the defence of our liberties, a numbness that gets renewed with every terrorist attack," said lawyer Emmanuel Daoud, a member of the International Human Rights Federation.

The latest bloodshed came last weekend when 29-year-old Tunisian Ahmed Hanachi stabbed two young women to death in Marseille before he was killed by anti-terror troops.

It brought to 241 the number killed by suspected jihadists on French soil since 2015, in major attacks including the truck assault in Nice and the shooting at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The new law -- expected to come into force on November 1 -- exposed major differences in parliament, with hard-left MPs urging it to be scrapped and rightwingers pushing for even tougher measures.

But most citizens appear to back the changes: 57 percent approve of the bill, according to a poll published by Le Figaro newspaper last week, even if 62 percent think it will reduce their freedoms.

- Environmentalists' squat raided -

"A huge majority of French people do not feel affected by the state of emergency and its implications," said Nicolas Hervieu of the rights research centre at Nanterre University.

The state of emergency has been extended six times, partly to protect major events such as last year's football European Championships hosted by France and this year's presidential elections.

It is the longest state of emergency in France since the 1954-62 Algerian war.

Authorities have carried out 4,300 searches and put 600 people under house arrest since November 2015, according to the interior ministry -- sometimes in questionable circumstances.

In late 2015, "an environmentalists' squat was searched by dozens of police," recalled Raphael Kempf, lawyer for the activists targeted in the operation.

"There was absolutely no link with terrorism."

Interior Minister Gerard Collomb has argued France cannot go on under a state of emergency forever, calling the new law a "lasting response to a lasting threat".

And proponents have argued that the legislation is designed solely for tackling the terror threat -- not for launching raids on eco-warriors.

Critics in France and beyond, however, are not convinced.

"The normalisation of emergency powers has grave consequences for the integrity of rights protection in France, both within and beyond the context of counter-terrorism," UN human rights expert Fionnuala Ni Aolain warned.

France has progressively tightened its legal arsenal to tackle terror threats since 2012 with around 10 different laws, leading Macron's predecessor Francois Hollande to claim police had all the powers they needed before he left office in May.

Speaking about the first state of emergency declared in November 2015, Macron himself said it was justifiable "only because it is temporary."

Lawyer Daoud expressed regret that campaigners have not managed to "spark dialogue and debate" over the changes, with citizens apparently willing to accept tighter limits on liberties in the name of security, after two years of bloodshed.

"It's an unprecedented decline in our public and private freedoms," he said.

"If a democracy as old as this deals with the conflict between liberty and security in this way, in casting aside all the principles which govern our penal procedures, there is something to worry about in Europe and beyond."

Source: AFP