police in crowd
The fact that France has turned into a police state shouldn't be that surprising to most people. After the terror attack in Paris, their government declared a state of emergency, which may last another three months. As a result, travel has been restricted, there is a heightened police and military presence on the streets, and thousands of raids have been conducted throughout the country in recent weeks.

It doesn't take a genius to recognize that as a police state. It's practically a textbook definition. However, there's more to this state of emergency than heightened security. What France is seeing right now is outright tyranny. The Paris attack was the perfect excuse for their government to transform their society into an open air prison, and there's no telling what their country will look like when the dust settles.

To put this in perspective for American readers, the events from 11/13 were basically France's version of 9/11. They've crossed the Rubicon. There is now a clear demarcation in their history. Just as we are living in the post 9/11 world with all that entails, France is living in the post 11/13 world. Most of their citizens don't know it yet, but many of rights they have lost during this state of emergency are not going to come back in the foreseeable future.

If you don't think that their government has any intentions beyond this state of emergency, take a look at what they've requested from the EU.
Following the horrific November 13 Paris terrorist attacks, which killed 130 people, the French government declared a state of emergency for 12 days, which was then extended for three months, dating from November 26. What is deeply disturbing is that France has written to the secretary general of the Council of Europe, making an official request to suspend their obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights because the country's "state of emergency" is "likely to necessitate exemption from some of the rights guaranteed ... due to public danger that threatens the life of a nation."
If that's not creepy, I don't know what is. It sounds like they're suggesting that the powers they've achieved from the state of emergency aren't enough. They want their control over the population to be absolute, and it looks like they're achieving it.

The French government has wasted no time at all to exercise their powers with the recent climate conference in Paris. Before the conference started, 24 environmental activist were placed under house arrest for no apparent reason, and without warrant. The government claims they have been violent in the past, but have provided no evidence. By all other accounts, they are pacifists who have never been charged with any violent crime.

The government has also outlawed all public demonstrations, though that hasn't stopped them from occurring. The police response to these environmental demonstrations have been typical of a tyrannical state.
Amid clouds of tear gas, youths in hoodies and bandanas threw rocks, bottles and mud at riot police, who charged and encircled demonstrators, sealing off streets leading into and out of the square.

By Sunday evening, almost 200 arrests had been made, prompting complaints that the authorities are cracking down not on terrorists and criminals, but on protesters and political dissent.

"We're losing more and more of our rights," says Margot Landaur, 51. "The young people here were pacifists. But what I saw today outraged me. I saw a girl about 20 years old, beaten by police for nothing. They hit her with their batons and injured her wrist. We helped take care of her, but she was in a state of shock. I think we're heading in the direction of a kind of dictatorship."
According to the media, masked anarchists and troublemakers infiltrated the protest and provoked the police. Those who were there say otherwise.
While I was there, I saw no provocation from protesters, masked or not. Later that afternoon, I spoke with nongovernmental organizations at COP21, who had been there and seen the scuffle. They were unequivocal that the provocation hadn't come from the climate protesters. One said that when the police threw the first tear-gas canister, it missed protesters; the wind blew the gas onto police on the other side of the square. Then, he went on, the gassed police retaliated with their own round of tear-gas canisters.
And while we're on the subject of the media, it turns out that the alternative media is being stifled in France.

Make no mistake, France has just entered a very dark period. There aren't just cops and soldiers on the streets. The very idea of free thought and dissent is being quashed. The nation of Liberté, égalité, fraternité is comatose, and there's no telling when it will wake up.