French state of emergency extended after chilling documentary

Secretary of State for Digital Affairs and Innovation, Axelle Lemaire, told APF these examples were “intolerable discrimination against women”.

The state television team visited Saint-Denis where 36 per cent of residents are foreign, and recorded responses with a hidden camera. As journalist Caroline Sinz remarks: “The café terraces and the streets have something in common: women seem to have been erased. In some neighborhoods, men occupy public places and women suffer.”

Footage captured the deep cultural divide between different communities: “In the café there is no mixing. We are in Sevran [Saint-Denis], we are not in Paris. In 93 [Saint-Denis] it’s a different mentality — it’s like back home”, a Muslim regular in a café tells the reporters.

Sinz was told that conservative Muslim men had taken over certain areas in France following urban riots in 2005, and women were banished from public life completely.

The France 2 journalist also visited a neighbourhood in Lyon, where only Muslim men are seen on the streets. A young, white au pair tells the reporters that she avoids attracting attention to herself by shunning even normal Western dress-codes for females. Asked why, she tells the programme: “Simply, we are afraid”.

The most difficult part of making the documentary, Sinz said, was finding women who would agree to be filmed. Sinz told state radio FranceInfo: “They are afraid, they have already spoken out in many cities, and were insulted and assaulted. So now to avoid threats, and being put under pressure, they censor themselves and keep quiet.”

On Sunday night Labour Minister Eric Woerth said the report “planted a dagger in the heart of the Republic”, and urged new Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to take action.

The growing concern about cultural antagonisms pushed France’s parliament early Wednesday to vote for extending a national state of emergency until July 15, after next year’s elections. The overnight vote in the National Assembly passed by a resounding 288 to 32.

Only the far-left and ecologists voted against the prolongation of security measures.

New Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux stressed ahead of the vote that France faced “an extremely high” risk of a terrorist attack. Since the last mass killings Le Roux noted that they had “foiled no fewer than 13 attacks, involving about 30 individuals”.

This will be the fifth extension of the state of emergency, called Vigipirate, giving the police extended powers of search and arrest. The name is an acronym of vigilance et protection des installations contre les risques d’attentats terroriste à l’explosif [vigilance and protection of installations against the risk of terrorist bombings].

The security measures, in force since attacks in Paris that killed 130 people in November 2015, are expected to be approved by the Senate on Thursday.

The extension means France will have voted for the longest uninterrupted state of emergency since the Algerian War in the 1960s.