Fight against Islamism: the warning of Olivier Duhamel facing the risk of "dictatorship"

INTERVIEW

Five days after the murder of Samuel Paty, politicians of all stripes are competing for proposals to fight against Islamist radicalization.

On Europe 1 Wednesday, Marine Le Pen criticized, for example, the laxity of the government, calling for "emergency laws".

"It is good to take measures when the security requirement is strong, but we need guarantees that they cannot be taken anyhow", tempers Olivier Duhamel, constitutionalist and political scientist, guest of Mathieu Belliard.

"If we start from the principle that security must be absolute and without limit, we become a dictatorship," warns Olivier Duhamel, taking the example of the current debate on the fate of radicalized prisoners imprisoned and on the verge of being released.

"It is unthinkable that convicted people who have served their sentences are kept in prison: that would be to violate a fundamental principle. It is an open door to other measures, to torture, then why not to the guillotine to be sure they won't reoffend. "

"We must act on a case by case basis, radicalized by radicalized"

For the constitutional expert, the rule of law can rhyme with security measures, if they are taken "in accordance with the law".

"The exceptional circumstances allow the prefects to take exceptional measures. But neither should we do anything because it acts under the control of the administrative judge."

Since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic, he recalls, several prefectural orders have been suspended.

"And it's a good thing."

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Olivier Duhamel calls for action "on a case-by-case basis, mosque by mosque, radicalized by radicalized".

"There is a real danger in using the term war. We are not at war, we do not shoot at everything that moves. We are fighting against terrorist acts and against a radical ideology that is fundamentally anti-republican. The question is to know how we fight this fight. "