A bill designed to extricate France from the drug trafficking dilemma, introduced by right-wing senator Etienne Blanc of the Les Républicains (LR) party and left-wing senator Jérôme Durain of the Parti Socialiste (PS), received unanimous approval in the Sénat on February 4. This swift passage occurred in an atmosphere of transparency and unexpected consensus, concluding within a matter of days without any significant dissent. However, when the same bill reached the Assemblée Nationale, France’s other parliamentary chamber, on March 17, it faced a markedly different political landscape, with the left-right divide re-emerging. Nearly 665 amendments have been proposed, which will be debated over the course of a week.
See more: French MEP: U.S. Should Return the Statue of Liberty.
The recent review of the bill by the Assemblée’s law commission, conducted ten days ago, foreshadows a contentious discussion ahead. While the fundamental framework of the Sénat’s proposal remains intact—establishing a national prosecutor’s office focused on combating organized crime, enhancing measures against money laundering, standardizing the status of state witnesses for those who cooperate, and expanding this status to include serious crimes—several key provisions have been unexpectedly removed. These include the introduction of a guilty plea process, the ability to remotely activate smart devices to surveil drug traffickers covertly, and a proposal to extend the maximum duration of police custody for “mules” to 120 hours.
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