Reuters.com - 20. 7. 2016
French lawmakers approved a six-month extension of emergency rule on Wednesday after last week's truck attack on holiday crowds in Nice, the third deadly assault in just 18 months for which Islamist militants have claimed responsibility. President Francois Hollande's Socialist government, accused by political opponents of doing too little to avert the attack that killed 84 and hurt hundreds, also said it would step up strikes against Islamic State in its strongholds in Iraq and Syria.
A year from elections, Hollande is under intense pressure as opponents accuse his administration of police failings over the tragedy. A Tunisian man was able to drive a 19-tonne truck along a packed sea-front promenade, mowing down people in the Bastille Day crowd, before he was shot dead by police.
In a sign of other tensions, the outer wall of a Mosque in Lyon was spray-painted in red with the words "leave or die", local prefect Michel Delpuech said. And Paris's police prefect canceled an open-air film festival as well as plans to turn the Champs Elysees boulevard into a summer pedestrian zone.
The extension of exceptional search-and-arrest powers for police was approved by 489 votes to 26 shortly before dawn in France's National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, but not without renewed calls for an inquest.
The Senate, where conservative lawmakers hold a majority, adopted the extension hours later with 310 votes in favor and 26 against after tweaking the text to make it tougher.