Parliament finally passes controversial anti-“separatism” bill

Published on : 07/23/2021 – 18:04

The Parliament put an end, Friday, July 23, to the controversial bill against separatism, adopted definitively via a final vote of the Assembly and strongly criticized by the left and the right.

After seven months of back and forth between the Palais Bourbon and the Senate, the text “Respect for the principles of the Republic”, presented as a remedy for “the Islamist takeover bid”, was validated by the deputies by 49 votes in favor, 19 against and 5 abstentions.

In a last stand, Jean-Luc Mélenchon defended in vain a last motion of preliminary rejection against an “anti-republican law” with “anti-Muslim vocation” according to him.

But the text is “of general scope” and “does not deal with relations with a single religion”, assured the chairman of the special commission François de Rugy (LREM).

Supported by Minister Gérald Darmanin, it contains a battery of measures on the neutrality of the public service, the fight against online hatred, the protection of civil servants and teachers, the supervision of family education, the reinforced control of associations, better transparency of cults and their funding, and even the fight against virginity certificates, polygamy or forced marriages.

Opposition of left and right

LFI, PCF, PS and LR deputies voted against, for different reasons. The Socialists in particular see it as a “missed appointment with the Republic” and a mark of “mistrust of associations”, when the right sums it up to “an addition of measures” without “ambition” to “roll back the Islamists “.

Right and left however agree on the risks for freedom of association, which motivate respective appeals to the Constitutional Council.

Only the three groups in the majority block, LREM and its partners Modem and Agir, have come out in favor. Isabelle Florennes (MoDem) however expressed “some caveats”, deploring the final absence of measures on neutrality within polling stations or in universities.

>> Law on separatism: a law against Islamism or against Islam?

The RN abstained, as did the elected representatives of the Libertés et Territoires group and also two “marchers” from the left wing, Sonia Krimi and Sandrine Mörch.

This adoption came after that, Thursday, of the bill “prevention of acts of terrorism and intelligence”, which provides for the perpetuation in common law of devices resulting from the state of emergency experienced since 2017 via the law “security and the fight against terrorism “(Silt).

For the government, the two sovereign texts are articulated like a double blade in the face of the “threat”. New “freedom-killing laws” which participate in “the security runaway”, strongly denounce the defenders of public freedoms.

At the Palais Bourbon, the majority has refocused a text strongly righted by the Senate with measures against the wearing of the veil or strengthening “neutrality” at the university. Senators also relaxed the rules for home education.

An adoption that has been delayed because of the new anti-Covid bill

The final exchange in the Upper Assembly dominated by the right-wing opposition ended on Tuesday with the adoption of a motion of rejection by the rapporteurs Jacqueline Eustache-Brinio (LR) and Dominique Vérien (centrist), by 205 votes against 115.

The rapporteurs regretted that “the majority of the deputies do not intend to find with the Senate the means to progress on the serious subjects which are the neutrality of the State, secularism and living together”.

General rapporteur of the bill to the Assembly, Florent Boudié (LREM) had denounced him “the pathological obsession” of senators on the sensitive issue of the veil.

The bill attacks in small touches the balances of the law of 1905, the freedoms of worship, association and education. Civil society, associations, certain cults: discontent has multiplied without ever aggregating. And the vagaries of the health crisis have relegated the debates to the background.

For its final adoption, delayed by 24 hours due to the new anti-Covid bill, the text is still eclipsed by the health pass and the explosion of contaminations linked to the Delta variant.

However, the text has been the subject of strong attacks from certain Islamist leaders and movements around the world, in particular Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey. It sparked months of tension between Paris and Ankara amid other geopolitical friction.

With AFP