French lawmakers to vote on controversial anti-terror law
France’s lower house will vote on a controversial anti-terrorism law today.
The law seeks to give authorities the power to search property, shut down public spaces and put terror suspects under house arrests, effectively codifying parts of France’s emergency laws, which have been in place since November 2015.
Today’s vote comes three days after a suspected Islamist attacker stabbed two people to death in Marseille’s main train station. The attack is France’s sixth serious terror incident since the November 2015 Bataclan attack—a total of 222 people have been killed and 815 injured in the past two years.
Judges, lawyers and rights activists are concerned that the measures—which Emmanuel Macron campaigned on—will limit personal freedoms; those on the right wing of French politics say they don’t go far enough.
Despite a number of lawmakers allied with Mr Macron’s LREM dissenting, today’s vote is expected to pass.
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