Could France opt for the establishment of a state of emergency? This is what part of the right wants. After the nocturnal events that have punctuated several cities in France, and which follow the tragedy of Nanterre, some elected officials fear a conflagration like the riots of 2005, and are calling for the establishment of a state of emergency.
“(…) The establishment of the state of emergency / curfew is necessary to restore order”, tweeted this Thursday, June 29 Marion Maréchal, vice-president of Reconquest, the political party created at the end of 2021 by Éric Zemmour, who also called in a press release published this morning on Twitter for “the establishment of the state of emergency from this evening”.
The boss of the Republicans (LR) Éric Ciotti also called for “the immediate triggering of the state of emergency wherever incidents have broken out”. Asked about LCI, the more moderate President LR of the Senate Gérard Larcher estimated that “if it seems necessary that it be triggered in certain perimeters: you have to be efficient”.
For his part, the leader of the LR deputies also tweeted this Thursday morning: “Nothing excuses the violence of the thugs. Nothing excuses gang law and their dictatorship of fear. Emmanuel Macron must understand this. Like Jacques Chirac in 2005, he must declare a state of emergency”.
But what exactly is a state of emergency? Born in 1955 following a wave of attacks perpetrated by the National Liberation Front (FLN) on the eve of the Algerian war, the state of emergency is defined by a restriction of certain individual freedoms backed by a strengthening of the powers of the public authority. Decided in the Council of Ministers, it can be established on all or part of the national territory “either in the event of imminent danger resulting from serious attacks on public order, or in the event of events presenting, by their nature and their seriousness , the character of public calamity”, specifies the text of 1955.
As part of this exceptional regime, the Minister of the Interior and the prefects can, for example, prohibit gatherings, set up protective perimeters, or even establish a curfew. In March 2020, as Covid-19 spread like wildfire in France, a new exceptional regime – “the state of health emergency” – was born, with its share of new restrictions, in France. foremost among which is the freedom to come and go.
In addition to the health crisis, the state of emergency was declared five times under the Fifth Republic: in 1958, after the Algiers coup of May 13; in 1961, after the putsch of the generals of Algiers; in 1984 at the start of the Kanak revolt in New Caledonia; in 2005 when riots broke out in response to the deaths of two young people pursued by police. Finally, more recently, the state of emergency triggered following the attacks of November 13, 2015.
If the calls in favor of the establishment of the state of emergency multiply on the right, the secretary general of the union of commissioners of the French national police, David Le Bars, estimated on RMC this Thursday morning that “this is not the time”. And to recall that in 2005, “the state of emergency had been decreed eight or nine days after” the facts having triggered a conflagration of the French suburbs. In addition, unlike Pierre-Henri Dumont, spokesman for the Republicans in the National Assembly who believes that the state of emergency would “restore order”, David Le Bars believes that “the state of emergency is for those who obey the law, and those who do not obey it will continue to commit abuses.” Questioned in the middle of the day on the question, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne considered that “the circumstances” were not met.
Before his departure for Brussels, the Head of State gathered this Thursday morning an interministerial crisis unit (CIC) place Beauvau, at the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior, in the presence of the Minister of the Interior, the Keeper of the Seals and the Minister of the City. The establishment of the state of emergency would not have been mentioned for the moment.
