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French parliament to vote on anti-extremism bill

The French parliament on Tuesday votes on a bill to battle Islamist extremism, which the state argues is needed to bolster the secular system but critics say breaches religious freedom.

Published: 16 February 2021 08:01 CET

French parliament to vote on anti-extremism bill

French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech to present his strategy to fight "separatism", on October 2nd 2020.. Photo: AFP

With an eye on 2022 elections, President Emmanuel Macron has championed the bill which seeks to tighten rules on issues ranging from religious teaching, online hate to polygamy.

It has been debated in a highly charged atmosphere in France after three attacks late last year by extremists including the beheading in October of teacher Samuel Paty, who had shown his pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

The law is dubbed the anti-separatism bill as ministers fear Islamists are creating communities that reject France's secular identity and laws, as well as its values such as equality between the sexes.

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France, home to Europe's largest Muslim community, is still shaken by the succession of massacres committed by Islamist militants from January 2015 that left hundreds dead.

The National Assembly lower house is expected to vote on the legislation in the afternoon after a total of 135 hours of debates that saw some 313 amendments adopted.

Macron's ruling party has a large working majority, meaning the legislation is expected to pass, but the upper house Senate will also examine the draft legislation in the coming months and could amend it.

'Hostile ideology'

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said after the final debate on Saturday that the bill “provides concrete responses to… the development of radical Islam, an ideology hostile to the principles and values on which the Republic is founded.”

Paty's killing prompted the inclusion of the specific crimes of online hate speech and divulging personal information on the internet that could be used to harm a public-sector worker.

Paty was the subject of an online hate campaign started by a parent of a child at his school who objected to him showing the Prophet cartoons.

Under the legislation, doctors will also be fined or jailed if they perform a virginity test on girls, while it also extends sanctions on polygamy.

The state will also have far greater powers to close down places of worship that are found to air “theories or ideas” that “provoke hate or violence towards a person or people.”

One of the most contentious articles concerns home schooling, with the rules considerably sharpened to require official authorisation on grounds of health or handicap for children to learn at home.

But for the right-wing opposition The Republicans (LR) the bill does not go far enough, notably by not restricting the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in spaces like universities.

“It's a small law on a big subject,” said LR MP Julien Ravier. The right, which has the majority in the Senate, may try to toughen it further when it enters the upper house.

Nearly 200 people demonstrated in Paris on Sunday against the bill accusing it of “reinforcing discrimination against Muslims”.

A US envoy on religious freedom last year criticised the bill as “heavy-handed” and it has sparked unusually critical coverage in English-language media, even prompting Macron to write personally to the Financial Times to defend it.

Analysts have said Macron, who came to power in 2017 as a centrist reformer, has noticeably tacked to the right over the last months as he scents that his 2022 presidential reelection battle will come down to a run-off duel with far right National Rally (RN) leader Marine Le Pen.

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Le Pen, who has proposed banning the Muslim headscarf in all public places in France, said at the debate she was “disappointed” by the scope of the bill.

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A hung parliament with a large eurosceptic, anti-immigration contingent could weaken France’s international standing and threaten Western unity in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

With the country on tenterhooks, last week saw more than 200 tactical-voting pacts between centre and left wing candidates in seats to attempt to prevent the RN winning an absolute majority.

This has been hailed as a return of the anti-far right “Republican Front” first summoned when Marine Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie faced Jacques Chirac in the run-off of 2002 presidential elections.

Following the pacts, opinion polls forecast that the RN would fall short of the 289 seats needed for an outright majority in the 577-seat National Assembly, while still becoming the largest party.

Such an outcome could allow Macron to possibly build a broad coalition against the RN and keep Gabriel Attal as prime minister on a caretaker basis.

But it could also herald a long period of paralysed politics in France, as it prepares to host the Olympics from July 26th.

“Today the danger is a majority dominated by the far right and that would be catastrophic,” Attal said in a final pre-election interview with French television on Friday.

Many in France remain baffled over why Macron called an election which could end with the RN doubling its presence in parliament and his contingent of centrist MPs halving in number.

But the president, known for his theatrical gestures, appears intent on executing what he calls a “clarification” of French politics, which he hopes will eventually leave three clear camps of far right, centre and hard left.

The final opinion polls published by two organisations on Friday projected the RN would win between 170 to 210 seats, followed by the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) broad left-wing coalition on 145 to 185 and Macron’s centrists on 118 to 150.

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While Macron’s Ensemble alliance is forecast to come third, the more successful NFP is a fragile mix of several warring factions ranging from traditional Socialists to the hard-left La France Insoumise (LFI) of firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon.

“France is on the cusp of a seismic political shift,” said analysts at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), warning that even if Macron controlled the government after the election he would face “legislative gridlocks”.

This would weaken “France’s voice on the European and international stage.”

Macron, who disappeared from public view over recent days in order not to provoke the electorate further, has vowed to serve out his term until 2027, when he must step down.

That is when Le Pen scents her best chance to win the Elysée presidential palace at the fourth attempt.

Le Pen has angrily denounced what she has described as Macron’s vision for “one party” rule spanning the right to left by excluding the RN and lashed out at the French elites, which she says conspire against it.

But after the success of the first round, the RN had a sometimes tricky final week of campaigning with a handful of scandals involving RN candidates – including one who had been photographed wearing a Nazi military cap.

After voting began on Saturday in France’s overseas territories, polls opened in mainland France at 8am and were due to close by 8pm.

Preliminary results – which usually give a very close idea of the final outcome – are published shortly afterwards.

A total of 30,000 police, including 5,000 in Paris, have been deployed this weekend to head off trouble.

Follow all the latest news and analysis in English from 8pm on Sunday HERE