French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb hs stated that a major terror attack could return the country to a state of emergency despite new broad-reaching terror laws enacted to replace it.
The new French terror laws passed by President Emmanuel Macron were meant to replace the state of emergency enacted after the Bataclan massacre in 2015 but according to the Interior Minister, they might not be enough.
Interior Minister Collomb said that while the new law protects the French, it may not be able to cope following a mass casualty attack, L’Express reports.
The new law allows authorities to keep certain emergency measures permanently, like the ability to carry out searches at properties belonging to terror suspects.
The Interior Minister also noted that twenty individuals were now placed under a form of house arrest in which they have to report to a local police station every day and are under constant surveillance. During the state of emergency 41 individuals were placed under a similar type of arrest.
Under the new provisions, authorities will also be allowed to shut down religious places of worship if they find out they are being used to spread radical Islamist propaganda. Identity checks will also be posted at airports, railway stations and near the French border, although searches of bags and other items will still require a court order.
Earlier this week Collomb said that under the state of emergency authorities had foiled 32 potential radical Islamist attacks. One of the most notable was during the French election campaign when jihadists targetted anti-mass migration candidate Marine Le Pen along with polling stations and local bars in Marseilles.
Despite soiling several major plots, there were a number of terrorist attacks during the state of emergency including the most recent at the Saint-Charles railway station in Marseilles.
While none of the attacks has been as deadly, or as cruel and gruesome, as the Bataclan massacre in which 130 people were killed, many fear that further attacks could occur due to a massive rise in extremism since the attack. A report from earlier this year claimed a 60 per cent rise in the number of people on the Terrorist Prevention and Radicalisation Reporting File (FSPRT) since the November 2015 attack.