Lois scélérates - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The lois scélérates — a pejorative

Pejorative

Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...

name — are a set of French

History of France

The history of France goes back to the arrival of the earliest human being in what is now France. Members of the genus Homo entered the area hundreds of thousands years ago, while the first modern Homo sapiens, the Cro-Magnons, arrived around 40,000 years ago...

law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

s restricting the 1881 freedom of the press

Freedom of the press

Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various electronic media and published materials...

laws passed under the Third Republic

French Third Republic

The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...

(1870-1940), after several bombings and assassination

Assassination

To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...

attempts carried out by anarchist

Anarchism in France

Thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who grew up during the Restoration was the first self-described anarchist. French anarchists fought in the Spanish Civil War as volunteers in the International Brigades. French anarchism reached its height in the late 19th century...

proponents of "propaganda of the deed

Propaganda of the deed

Propaganda of the deed is a concept that refers to specific political actions meant to be exemplary to others...

".

The first law was passed on December 11, 1893, two days after Auguste Vaillant

Auguste Vaillant

Auguste Vaillant was a French anarchist, most famous for his bomb attack on the French Chamber of Deputies on 9 December 1893. The government's reaction to this attack was the passing of the infamous repressive Lois scélérates.He threw the home-made device from the public gallery and was...

's bombing of the National Assembly

French National Assembly

The French National Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of France under the Fifth Republic. The upper house is the Senate ....

on December 9, 1893 (one person injured). It condemned advocacy

Advocacy

Advocacy is a political process by an individual or a large group which normally aims to influence public-policy and resource allocation decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions; it may be motivated from moral, ethical or faith principles or simply to protect an...

of any crime as a crime, which permitted the state to repress most of the anarchist press.

The second law was passed on December 18, 1893, and condemned any person directly or indirectly involved in a propaganda of the deed act, even if no killing was effectively carried out.

The last law was passed on July 28, 1894, and condemned any person or newspaper using anarchist propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

(and, by extension, socialist libertarians who were current or former members of the International Workingmen's Association

International Workingmen's Association

The International Workingmen's Association , sometimes called the First International, was an international organization which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist political groups and trade union organizations that were based on the working class...

(IWA)):

Thus, free speech and encouraging propaganda of the deed or antimilitarism

Antimilitarism

Antimilitarism is a doctrine commonly found in the anarchist and, more globally, in the socialist movement, which may both be characterized as internationalist movements. It relies heavily on a critical theory of nationalism and imperialism, and was an explicit goal of the First and Second...

were severely restricted. Some people were condemned to prison for rejoicing at the 1894 assassination of French president Sadi Carnot

Marie François Sadi Carnot

Marie François Sadi Carnot was a French statesman and the fourth president of the Third French Republic. He served as the President of France from 1887 until his assassination in 1894.-Early life:...

by the Italian anarchist Sante Geronimo Caserio.

The term has since entered popular language to designate any harsh or unjust laws, in particular anti-terrorism legislation

Anti-terrorism legislation

Anti-terrorism legislation designs various types of laws passed in the aim of fighting terrorism. They usually, if not always, follow specific bombings or assassinations...

which often broadly represses whole social movement

Social movement

Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change....

See also