François-Noël Buffet is LR senator from Rhône.
Marc-Philippe Daubresse is LR senator from the North.
On October 16 and December 2, 2023, our country was hit by terrorist attacks, a tragic illustration of the prevalence of violent Islamist radicalization on our territory but also of our vulnerability to its developments.
This threat is no longer the sole cause of radicalized groups, supported materially and logistically by international terrorist organizations, including from combat zones.
It is characterized above all by the act of isolated individuals, putting the few resources at their disposal at the service of a deadly project, the result of solitary and rapid radicalization, mainly carried out online and on social networks. .
Whatever the scale and motivation, a terrorist attack, especially when it is committed in our capital or against a teacher, a living symbol of the Republic, touches us to the heart and calls for the strongest possible response.
We must not tremble to respond with the greatest intransigence and effectiveness to terrorist acts, which endanger the security of all and undermine the foundations of our republican pact.
We owe it to the victims.
We owe it to the French.
It is clear that our legal arsenal is no longer adapted to the most recent forms of the terrorist threat on our territory.
Built to repress threats emanating from organized groups, it is today struggling to apprehend two phenomena which today mark the terrorist actions which threaten us: on the one hand, the radicalization on national soil of minors having been educated in France and , on the other hand, the care of radicalized adults, whether or not released from detention, suffering or not from psychological disorders, almost half of whom have not given up carrying out terrorist actions.
This text does not intend to upset the balances built in the fight against terrorism over the last thirty years.
It seeks a fair balance between the need to provide public authorities with strong means of action and strict respect for public freedoms.
François-Noël Buffet and Marc-Philippe Daubresse
Today there is an emergency: our country is preparing to host, for almost two months and on several French and overseas sites, the Olympic and Paralympic Games, a global event particularly exposed to a major terrorist threat.
We have no room for error!
Ensuring the updating of the legal means required by these developments and this deadline: this is the purpose of the bill that we tabled in the Senate and which it examined at the initiative of the Les Républicains group on January 23 2024.
This text does not intend to upset the balances built in the fight against terrorism over the last thirty years.
It seeks a fair balance between the need to provide public authorities with strong means of action and strict respect for public freedoms.
Nourished by the observations and proposals of judicial and administrative actors in the fight against terrorism, it pursues the main objective of consolidating our legal structure and remedying the judicial and administrative shortcomings which have appeared in the light of the recent attacks.
To this end, the Senate text establishes judicial security measures against convicted terrorists leaving detention, including those suffering from psychiatric disorders, by imposing obligations of care on them and authorizing, exceptionally, detention security against them.
It strengthens the monitoring and means of repressing radicalized minors on national soil.
It adapts the penal arsenal to the new operating methods of terrorists, in particular by penalizing the possession and recording of images or videos of jihadist crimes and by facilitating the repression of the apology of terrorism on private networks.
Finally, it allows the administration to act urgently and according to adapted and simplified procedures to prevent any action, by creating a ban on appearing, particularly for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, in the particular sites exposed for individuals known to the intelligence services.
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Faced with the challenge of terrorism, the senatorial majority has always demonstrated responsibility.
Since 2014, the Senate Law Committee has taken the initiative for several legislative developments, which have made it possible to considerably strengthen our anti-terrorism criminal arsenal and adapt it to the evolution of the threat, while strictly respecting individual freedoms.
It is now up to the government to include this text on the agenda of the National Assembly as quickly as possible.
The safety of everyone is at stake.
Let us not harbor the regret of inaction: providing public authorities with the means adapted to repressing the new faces of the terrorist threat is a priority for the security of the French which must unite us all.