World

French justice minister quits after disagreement with Hollande

Hollande named Jean-Jacques Urvoas, the current president of the parliamentary laws commission

Afp January 27, 2016

PHOTO: AFP

PARIS: French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira quit Wednesday, apparently in protest at government moves to push through a measure that would strip convicted French-born terrorists of their citizenship if they have a second nationality.

Taubira, a popular figure among the governing Socialists of President Francois Hollande but a target of criticism for the right-wing Republicans, tweeted: "Sometimes to resist means staying, sometimes resisting means leaving."

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Hollande named Jean-Jacques Urvoas, the current president of the parliamentary laws commission, as Taubira's successor to "carry out... the constitutional reform", according to a justice ministry statement.

The French president called for the "loss of nationality" measure to be written into the constitution in the aftermath of the November militant attacks in Paris which left 130 people dead.

It is part of a string of measures meant to boost security as hundreds of French citizens -- many holding dual nationality -- leave to fight alongside the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, and in the case of the attackers, return to wreak devastation in France.

"Removing French nationality from those who blindly kill other French in the name of an ideology of terror is a strong symbolic act against those who have excluded themselves from the national community," Prime Minister Manuel Valls said after the measure was announced.

However the proposal has been deeply divisive, and put Taubira at loggerheads with her own government.

Just a day before the reforms were presented, Taubira announced the citizenship measure would be dropped because it was discriminatory, only to be overruled at the last minute by Hollande.

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The reforms also aim to inscribe the right to declare a state of emergency into the constitution, including powers to raid homes and place people under house arrest without judicial oversight.

Parliament will start debating the reforms in early February.

Government's plans to extend a current three-month state of emergency - which expires on February 26 - have been criticised by rights activists.

COMMENTS (1)

Rex Minor | 8 years ago | Reply The French republic needs serious reform of its institutions, the most important of all being the office of the President. The President of the republic today has more power than that enjoyed once by the monarch. He lives in a palace, appoints the Prime Minister and nominates the marrionettes in the cabinet. France with its traditional catholic majority has also the largest mussalman minority in Europe. Despite the protests from the christians and mussalmans leaders in the community, its judiciary under the influence of the last two Presidents have been rejecting their appeals against the printing of religious carricatures by the Charlie Hebdo outfit. The incumbent President with the lowest acceptance rating in the population, less tan 18 percent now wants to continue governing under emergency which knowing the mentality of the French is bound to further unrests in the country, making it a problem for the European community as a whole.. Rex Minor

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