Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

Liberté, égalité, fraternité! It’s the national motto of France and in the only important language it means libero, egaleco, frateco. For you English readers it mean liberty, equality, fraternity. For a country that uses emergency powers to suppress free speech it’s an ironic motto to have:

At least 24 activists who advocate for climate change have been placed under house arrest ahead of the highly anticipated United Nations talks in Paris. France used emergency laws that were implemented after the Paris shootings to arrest the green campaigners, the French government confirmed on Saturday. Earlier, the Guardian had reported the news, noting that the warrants delivered to the activists cited state of emergency laws that were imposed after 130 people were killed in terrorist attacks earlier this month.

You have to hand it to France, it sure knows how to milk a crisis for everything it’s worth. The terrorist attacks occurred 17 days ago and the French government is still has a state of emergency in place and is using its fancy emergency powers to lock people in their homes under the threat of imprisonment (or death).

I wonder how long the French government will keep these emergency powers in place and who else they’ll suppress with them. Maybe it can make the powers permanent and use them to silence everybody who disagrees with it.

One thing is certain, freedom is entirely dead in France. The nation is just another giant police state.