The French Parliament on Wednesday approved a law that gives the police and judicial authorities new powers to detain terrorism suspects, put people under house arrest and use deadly force to stop attacks. The Senate, France’s upper house of Parliament, approved the bill by a show of hands. The National Assembly, the lower house, had already approved it. The measure is the latest in a series of legislative changes that the government of President François Hollande has pushed through to give the authorities greater policing powers after the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris last year, sometimes prompting debates over civil liberties. Here is a summary of new powers introduced by the law, and other recent changes and proposals designed to increase the authorities’ antiterrorism powers. The law approved on Wednesday gives the police the ability to hold someone without access to a lawyer for up to four hours to check his or her identification if they suspect that person of connections to terrorism. Even before the law was approved, the police could detain terrorism suspects for up to 144 hours without charges. The new law also gives police officers more leeway to use deadly force against someone they believe is committing a deadly attack, and authorizes them to buy weapons in sting operations to combat weapons trafficking. The law also allows the government to put someone returning from a “terrorist theater of operation,” like Syria or Iraq, under house arrest for up to a month. The bill has distressed some judges and human rights groups. They say the government is trying to institutionalize exceptional measures that were made possible when a state of emergency was declared after last year’s attacks — and later extended by Parliament. Under the law approved on Wednesday, the police and prosecutors now have access to electronic eavesdropping technology that had been available only to intelligence agencies, which were granted enhanced capabilities after the attacks in January 2015 at the Paris offices of a satirical newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, and a kosher supermarket. Prosecutors were also granted new powers, similar to those of investigative judges, including the ability to tap phones, use hidden cameras and analyze electronic communications The new law gives prisons greater authority to search inmates, and it allows them to put microphones and cameras in prison cells with the authorization of a prosecutor. In addition, the new law makes it illegal to regularly consult websites that promote terrorism, except for legitimate academic or journalistic activities. Offenders would risk up to two years in prison and a fine of up to 30,000 euros, or about $33,500. Critics worry that these limits and new surveillance powers go well beyond fighting terrorism. No government proposal since the terrorist attacks in November had raised as much alarm among civil libertarians as one that would have stripped French citizenship from people with dual citizenship who have been convicted of terrorism-related crimes. On March 30, President Hollande announced he was withdrawing that proposal. Polls had suggested that there was wide public support, but opponents said the proposal unfairly targeted French people with immigrant backgrounds. The measure highlighted a growing split in Mr. Hollande’s Socialist Party among those who favored a tough law-and-order approach in the wake of the attacks in November that killed 130 people, and those worried that the government would be impinging on civil liberties. The French Parliament voted last week to extend the current state of emergency for another two months, until the end of July. This is the third time the government has extended the state of emergency declared by the president after the attacks in and around Paris. The state of emergency enables the French authorities to conduct police raids without warrants (although the latest two-month extension has left that provision out) and put suspects under house arrest without prior judicial authorization. The authorities can also ban public demonstrations, shut down websites and disband groups deemed a threat to public order by the government. The government had been pushing to make the power to declare a state of emergency part of the French Constitution, which would have made it more difficult for successive governments to change how that power is wielded, but the proposal was dropped in March with the citizenship proposal. The state of emergency received broad approval in France in the months after the attacks, with polls showing that more than two-thirds of the public supported it. Human rights groups have protested, and some Muslims believe that they are being unfairly singled out by the expanded police measures.
Paris approved legislation on 25 May that will give authorities increased policing powers. Among the new measures are greater powers to detain terrorism suspects, place individuals under house arrest, employ surveillance techniques, and use deadly force to stop terrorist acts. This represents the last in a number of legislative changes that the government has pushed through since the November 2015 terrorist attacks on France. However, the legislation has not been without controversy. Some members of the judiciary and rights groups have argued that the government is looking to institutionalise the exception measures that came into effect with the state of emergency that followed the attacks on the capital.