Parliament put an end to the controversial anti-separatism bill on Friday, adopted definitively via a final vote in the Assembly and sharply criticized by both left and 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).

Left and right opposed to text, for different reasons

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.

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 "distrust of associations", when the right sums it up to "an addition of measures" without "ambition" to "roll back the Islamists ”.

RN abstention

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, are in favor. Isabelle Florennes (MoDem) however expressed "some caveats", deploring the final absence of measures on neutrality within polling stations or in universities.

The RN abstained, as did the elected representatives of the Libertés and Territories group and also two “walkers” 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 mechanisms resulting from the state of emergency experienced since 2017 via the law "internal security and fight against terrorism ”(Silt).

"Safe runaway" 

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.

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  • Separatists

  • Law

  • National Assembly

  • Islamism