The Assembly will have the final say, but the Senate has insisted on making its voice heard. Dominated by the right-wing opposition, it rejected this Thursday morning the bill organizing the exit from the state of health emergency on July 11, with possible restrictions until the fall.
Came into force on March 24 in the face of the Covid-19 epidemic, the state of health emergency, which allows certain public freedoms to be restricted, had been extended in May until July 10. The government intends to put an end to it, with the exception of Guyana and Mayotte where it will be extended “until October 30 inclusive”, because the virus is still actively circulating there, and even very actively in Guyana where the peak of the epidemic is planned “mid-July-end of July”.
For the rest of the country, the text allows for the same period restrictions on the movement of people, the reception of the public in certain establishments or gatherings.
Restrictions on liberties, deemed too strict by the Senate, prevented an agreement with the deputies last week. Following the failure of the joint joint committee, on June 25, the senators members of the law committee regretted the differences with the Assembly and voted on Thursday a preliminary question rejecting the text.
“Our fellow citizens need the truth”
The president of the commission of the laws of the upper house, Philippe Bas (LR), repeated this Thursday having the impression that the government “wants to keep the means of the state of emergency without saying it”. And to plead: “Our fellow citizens need more truth, responsibility than to risk a form of infantilization”.
“We disagree with the text you are proposing.” @BasPhilippe denounces the lack of clarity of the Government which would like both the end of the state of health emergency and the state of health emergency! pic.twitter.com/3tUCXMX8MZ
– Senate Republicans (@lesRep_Senat) July 2, 2020
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The senators denounced an “unjustified hybrid situation” until the fall (PS), a “trivialization of the exception” (RDSE with a radical majority) and again “a certain obstinacy of the government” (CRCE with a communist majority). The Senate had sought at first reading to be “constructive”, by reducing the scope of possible restrictions. However, MEPs then reintroduced the possibility of prohibiting the circulation or ordering the temporary closure of establishments in certain parts of the territory in which an active circulation of the virus is observed. “This text entrusts to the Prime Minister all the measures which the state of emergency induces”, also denounces the socialist senator Jean-Pierre Sueur. The bill also makes it possible to impose tests for people traveling by plane between overseas territories and France. The rapporteur Marie Guévenoux (LREM) pleaded on Tuesday for a new reading in the National Assembly that one should not be “destitute”, and be able to react quickly in a “targeted” manner in the face of “clusters”.Vote in the evening at the Assembly
