Paris (AFP)

Imbroglio over its duration, disagreements on its terms: the deputies resumed Wednesday the heated examination of the extension of the state of health emergency, which allows the government to take exceptional measures against the Covid-19 pandemic.

The text must be adopted definitively after a new examination Thursday in the Senate and a last reading at the Palais-Bourbon on Saturday, one day later than initially planned.

The deputies of the various oppositions succeeded Tuesday evening in passing an amendment setting the deadline for this state of emergency on December 14 instead of February 16, to the chagrin of the government and its majority caught off guard.

This surprise vote should however be corrected by a new deliberation at the request of the government, according to parliamentary sources.

The Senate, dominated by the right-wing opposition, had already on Friday limited the extension of the state of emergency to January 31.

Another amendment from the opposition adopted on Tuesday evening should also be revoked at the request of the government.

It provides that the confinement decreed from October 30 can only be renewed beyond November 30 after approval by Parliament.

"The government has no shortage of weapons" to restore the text in the direction and with the dates it wishes, notes a parliamentary source.

The lack of majority deputies in the face of better mobilized oppositions was cited to explain the surprise votes on Tuesday evening.

When the debates resumed on Wednesday, the boss of LR deputies, Damien Abad, spoke of a situation due to the "demobilization of the majority" at a key moment in the examination of the text.

- "Lost his nerves" -

Response from a LREM parliamentary source to AFP on Wednesday: "we always respect the half-gauge (one in two MPs at the most in session because of health measures editor's note). In terms of numbers, we were mobilized".

"It's a blow played by the oppositions, it's classic. At the end, it's still a debate on the state of health emergency," said this source, questioning the spirit of " responsibility "of the opposition.

Several leaders of the hemicycle protested against the Minister of Health Olivier Véran, accused of having invited deputies to "get out of here" during the particularly vehement debates the day before.

Mr. Véran "lost his nerves", criticized the Communist Sébastien Jumel.

"So true that no minister can invite parliamentarians to come out, it seems to me that no one (...) should indulge in the names of birds, names insulting to members of the government and a certain number of colleagues "insisted the President of the Assembly Richard Ferrand (LREM).

"It is not because we raise the tone that we raise the debate," he continued in the face of the heckling on the benches of the majority and the oppositions.

The debates which resumed Wednesday afternoon, and should end in the early evening, were animated in particular by long discussions on amendments from the opposition calling for a relaxation of the measures limiting the exercise of worship within the framework of the confinement.

Charles de Courson, of the Liberté et Territoires group, stressed that "freedom of worship is at least as important as that of going shopping."

More trivial, Julien Aubert (LR) was surprised that it was easier under confinement to "go and piss your pet" than to go to pray in a place of worship.

"We are touching here on fundamental freedoms", it was also argued on the communist benches.

The minister responsible for autonomy Brigitte Bourguignon, representing the government for this meeting, pointed out the "exemptions" opened to take into account cults, in particular the authorization of funeral ceremonies.

"The measures taken are adapted to the risks incurred" in terms of health, she added.

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