States of emergency in France

States of emergency in France (French: état d'urgence) are dispositions to grant special powers to the executive branch in case of exceptional circumstances.

The French constitution, adopted in October 1958, was drafted taking into account the difficulties experienced by the executive in 1940 during the Battle of France and the contemporary state of affairs, namely the Algerian war.

Article 16 of the constitution[7] grants the President of France "extraordinary powers" in exceptional cases, leading to an effective "state of exception": When the institutions of the Republic, the independence of the nation, the integrity of its territory, or the fulfillment of its international commitments are under grave and immediate threat and when the proper functioning of the constitutional governmental authorities is interrupted, the President of the Republic shall take the measures demanded by these circumstances after official consultation with the Prime Minister, the presidents of the Assemblies, and the Constitutional Council [fr].

[8] In the judgment Rubin de Servens of 2 March 1962, the Council of State [fr] judged that it could not itself invoke Article 16, as that constituted an "act of government".

Article 36 of the constitution is concerned with the state of siege (État de siège (France) [fr], which can be decreed by the president in the Council of Ministers for a period of twelve days and which can only be extended with the approval of Parliament.

The state of emergency in France is framed by the Law n°55-385 of 3 April 1955 (pre-dating the constitution of the Fifth Republic) and modeled on the "état de siège".

The Minister and the prefects can, for the part of the territory concerned by the state of emergency, order places of gathering to be closed.

This law is modeled after the society of the time, to deal with a specific crisis, and its objective was to prevent a civil war or very severe unrest emanating from a part of the population.

Some parts have since become obsolete: To control the COVID-19 pandemic in France, the Parliament created a sanitary state of emergency (état d'urgence sanitaire).