France is still in a state of emergency, and certain people are feeling the pain
By Sarah Murphy
“This is the power of culture against the culture of force.” — That’s a lyric from French rapper Médine’s latest track, Rappeur2Force.
In our AJ+ video, Médine, a Muslim of Algerian descent, talks to us about injustices committed against Muslims and people with North African roots under France’s ongoing state of emergency.
But hold up — the horrific attacks in Paris were on Nov. 13, 2015. France is still under a state of emergency?
If you live on this side of the Atlantic and you’ve been, say, wrapped up in all the presidential primary race hoopla, you could be forgiven for not knowing that, in fact, France’s state of emergency is set to stay in place through May 26.
What this means is that the ordinary protection of civil liberties under French law will remain suspended — in the name of securing the state against a continuing threat of terrorist attack — through the end of spring.
(Psst! Rappeur2Force is the track playing throughout the background of our video with Médine. If you want to listen to the full track and read the lyrics, head over to Genius. Don’t speak French? Google translate is your friend.)
Security versus liberty versus… discrimination
One big problem with this suspension of civil liberties is that it disproportionately impacts Muslims and people of North African descent. It’s this subpopulation that’s feeling the harsh effect of having their regularly-protected rights and freedoms set aside while authorities conduct pre-dawn raids and issue house arrests.
Among other powers, France’s emergency legislation lets police and administrative authorities:
- Conduct raids of homes and businesses at any time of day, without a warrant or judicial oversight.
- Place anyone they deem a threat to security or public order under a form of house arrest (called an “assigned residence order”) that requires the individual to follow strict curfews and to check in at local police stations multiple times per day.
Many agree that such extraordinary measures were warranted in the immediate aftermath of the November attacks.
But months later, it’s the ongoing implementation of this state of emergency that has experts at the UN’s Office of the High Commission for Human Rights warning of France’s “excessive and disproportionate restrictions on fundamental freedoms.” Human rights groups have accused France of discrimination and oppression.
“France has carried out abusive and discriminatory raids and house arrests against Muslims under its sweeping new state of emergency law.” — Human Rights Watch, Feb. 3, 2016
In separate reports, both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International document case after case of individuals and families whose lives have been disrupted by raids and house arrests. We’re talking jobs and businesses lost, reputations ruined, children traumatized. Not to mention trust in the French government… well, compromised.
Between Nov. 14, 2015 and March 11, 2016, authorities carried out almost 3,500 raids. And as of the beginning of February, authorities placed between 350 and 400 people under house arrest. All of this has led to the initiation of just five terrorism-related investigations, according to Human Rights Watch.
And according to both rights groups, a vast majority of those targeted under these extraordinary measures are Muslims and of North African descent.
In the words of Human Rights Watch’s France Country Director Bénédicte Jeannerod:
“[France’s extended emergency rule] endangers human rights and could worsen stigmatization and alienation of the very people who could potentially play a role in preventing violent radicalization.”
But wait, there’s more
The French government is also pushing to incorporate the provisions for declaring a state of emergency into the constitution. (It’s currently just a regular law. In fact, it’s a law that was created back in 1955 during the brutal war that led to Algeria’s independence from colonial France.) Included in this push is a new controversial proposal: to strip French-born dual nationals of their French citizenship if they’re convicted of terrorism-related charges.
Let’s unpack that: France has a lot of French-born dual nationals, many of whom have dual citizenship with countries in North Africa that were formerly colonized by France, like Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. That has politicians and rights groups accusing the government of trying to create a two-tiered citizenry under a constitution that’s meant to treat all French-born citizens equally. It’s symbolic. And people are getting really, really upset.
One of those very upset people is former French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, who was born in French Guiana. She resigned in protest after openly pushing back against this provision. Taubira made her official departure in style, by the way: by bicycle, smiling in front of supporters and lots of cameras.
Another person speaking out against this? That’s Médine. In Rappeur2Force, he raps, “I’m an approximate French. I feel like a giraffe with vertigo.”
In an interview with AJ+, Médine explained the lyric:
“I wrote this sentence… to highlight this climate around the stripping of nationality… When I say ‘I feel like a giraffe with vertigo,’ well, I think this is the worst thing that could happen to a giraffe. To live its whole life with this nausea, this vertigo, and never be able to feel calm… I will have to live with this vertigo. …But no matter what, I will denounce this vertigo.”
Want to listen one more time? Here ya go:
