France anti-terrorism law perused

Mohammed Al-Dabouli

The French authorities have recently announced that Iran stood behind a failure terrorist attack that targeted a rally of an Iranian opposition group in Paris last June. Soon, Paris took a host of legal measures to avoid such similar hostile acts in the future. An Iranian diplomat was expelled and members of a terror network linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard were arrested.

No doubt, these recent developments could arouse anew the controversy on the effectiveness of the French anti-terrorism legislations. France, just like many other European states, have been hard hit by terrorists especially after the rise of the so called “Islamic State” (IS/Daesh) in 2014.

The deadliest of these incidents were the Bataclan Theater carnage, Paris, November13, 2015, and an attack in Nice, July 14, 2016, when a 19-tonne cargo truck was deliberately driven into crowds celebrating Bastille Day.

In October 2017, the French National Assembly (Parliament) endorsed a new law for combating  terrorism.

The bill was approved by 415 votes to 127, with 19 abstentions. The broad approval mirrored a strong desire to counter the phenomenon. The new law then had various implications.

First: Lifting state of emergency

The bill led to lifting a two-year state of emergency that had been in place since the Bataclan Theater attack. It was well known that the French political powers did not welcome the emergency imposed in November 2015.

The state of emergency was extended six times, and managed to foil up to 30 planned terrorist attacks targeting France, according to security experts. However, French sources said that it was not so effective as other attacks claimed the lives of up to 250 victims over the two years.

Emergency had also proved seriously inadequate to face terrorism, embodied in a discourse of hatred that was adopted by the extremist rightist groups, and the use of mosques as platforms for terrorists. The new bill came to offer a comprehensive confrontation with terrorism.

Secondly, Decisive measures to counter terrorism

The October 2018 anti-terrorism law received broad support on the official and popular levels, reflected in the approval of 415 legislators. President Emmanuel Macron, backed the bill and expressly declared that he would not submit the law for prior constitutional review.

Macron defended the security legislation staunchly.

“We’re fighting terrorism with determination and we will continue to do so within the bounds of the law and with the oversight of judges,” the president told the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

For his part, Interior Minister, Gérard Collomb said that the bill was the best response to terrorist threats.

On the popular level, polls shew that up to 57 per cent of the French people supported the legislation, which comprised a multitude of decisive measures to face terrorism and predict attacks, such as:

• The closure of places of worship when “words, writings, activities, ideas or theories” that incite or endorse terrorism, and incitement “to hatred and discrimination” are used there. In order to regulate the use of this power, a prior adversarial procedure is provided for as well as a time limit which shall be no less than 48 hours, allowing an interim order application to be lodged before an administrative judge.
• Security zones: The authorities can seal off areas around a place or an event, such as a concert, that they deem vulnerable to attack. People willing to enter the area will be subjected to searches by the police or private security guards.
• Identity checks: The bill gives the police more powers to carry out stop-and-search operations .Under EU border rules, security services can already carry out identity spot checks in border areas and train stations.The bill expands that to include areas around train stations as well as a vast swathe of territory around international ports and airports, up to a radius of 20 kilometres, a provision that could include a large section of the mainly immigrant Paris suburb
• House arrest: The bill allows the interior minister to place suspected jihadist sympathisers who are not accused of a specific crime under a loose form of house arrest, without the prior approval of a judge. Under the state of emergency, the individual was confined to his or her home.
• Home searches: A local police chief can ask a judge for a warrant to search – the bill uses the term “visit” – the homes of people with suspected terror links for evidence.

The person whose home is searched can be held for four hours, during which documents, data and objects can be seized.

• Wiretapping: The bill allows the intelligence agencies to continue to use algorithms to tap into phone and email communications to try detect suspicious behaviour

Thirdly: Bill goes in harmony with anti-terrorism laws

There is a strong tendency in the European countries in general to adopt severe procedures against terrorist threats. The October 2017 bill was issued as part of a system of the French laws to counter terrorism, in particular, the June 2016 bill on organized crime, imposing restrictions on funding terrorism, and the intelligence bill amended in 2016 to allow wiretapping on persons around terrorist elements.

It was also in harmony with a European “legislation wave” issuing stricter laws at the face of terrorism.

Fourth: Rightists’ fears

Despite the broad official and popular welcome of the anti-terrorism bill, it was severely criticized by several human rights advocates for its controversial items, especially the on closing places of worship. They argued that such places could be closed merely due to ideas and theories that officials view as “inciting violence,’ with no obvious criteria defining what a “discourse of violence or hatred” is.

Rightists also feared that the security bodies would misuse their broad powers of arrest or inspection against ethnic groups, Muslims in particular.

A rights organization argued that France was gradually weakening the judiciary on the anti-terror efforts, viewing the new bill then as “normalization of the state of emergency.”

Fifth:  Will the bill prevent further terrorist attacks?

In fact, the anti-terrorism bill by itself is not likely to effectively prevent new terrorist attacks, but it has to be within an overall strategy that includes legal, intellectual and social confrontation to dry off sources of the phenomenon. So far in 2108, Paris has managed to avoid more terrorist attacks, only limited-scale ones hit the south.

It was also noticed that the French authorities started to take pre-emptive measures against potential terrorist spots that could play role in recruiting and spreading discourse of hatred.

At the beginning of October 2018, the police raided the “Al-Zahraa Center”, north of the country, for disseminating Shiite thinking, and arrested 11 of its officials.