François Hollande is seeking to expand the emergency powers extended in November 2015 after the terrorist attacks in Paris. The state of emergency gave the government authority to search houses without a warrant and restrict the right to peaceful assembly, all without judicial oversight. Hollande now wants to change the French Constitution to expand the scope of these emergency powers including stripping French nationality from citizens who are found guilty of terrorist offenses. Previously, he wanted to apply this to offenders with dual nationality. But now French ministers are implying that it would also apply to French citizens who have just one passport, leaving them stateless. In addition the government wants to expand nighttime searches and loosening detention restrictions, among other things.
This is a sharp change in direction for France, which denaturalized Jews in Vichy France during World War II and opened the legal door for their deportation to German concentration camps, reflects a major political shift to the right. After World War II, France was one of only 64 nations to sign the UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness to help resolve the problem of many stateless persons in Europe at the time. Currently, there is estimated to be about 1,200 stateless people in France.
Now France is considering imposing statelessness on some of its citizens. Could other groups eventually be considered enemies of the state, and stripped of their citizenship just like the Jewish people (many of them Sabbath keepers) in World War II France?
Every principle of western constitutions will be repudiated. Many will be left without defense. While the aim at the moment is to curtail Muslim extremism, what is to prevent the tools being created to deal with such evil from be used against a more benign forces, the people of truth and the righteousness of Christ? Does that seem impossible? History repeats itself in surprising ways.
“The season of distress and anguish before us will require a faith that can endure weariness, delay, and hunger–a faith that will not faint though severely tried. The period of probation is granted to all to prepare for that time. Jacob prevailed because he was persevering and determined. His victory is an evidence of the power of importunate prayer. All who will lay hold of God’s promises, as he did, and be as earnest and persevering as he was, will succeed as he succeeded. Those who are unwilling to deny self, to agonize before God, to pray long and earnestly for His blessing, will not obtain it. Wrestling with God–how few know what it is! How few have ever had their souls drawn out after God with intensity of desire until every power is on the stretch. When waves of despair which no language can express sweep over the suppliant, how few cling with unyielding faith to the promises of God… The ‘time of trouble, such as never was,’ is soon to open upon us; and we shall need an experience which we do not now possess and which many are too indolent to obtain.” The Great Controversy, pages 621 and 622
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