Catholic held under house arrest for month highlights paranoia of French authorities

The sense of general panic by the French authorities after the second terrorist attack in a calendar year was carried out in Paris in November has led to an unprecedented squeezing of civil liberties across the country.

Mosques have been shut down, a three-month ban on public protests was enforced, and French lawmakers have moved to revoke the natural citizenship of those born in France convicted of a terrorist offence - a piece of legislation vehemently opposed by the Catholic authorities in France.

Archbishop Georges Pontier, head of the Bishops’ Conference in France, said that the law would "pander to fear and promote social isolation".

More than 3,000 people have been searched under emergency measures and many have either been held without charge or placed under house arrest. 

The level of paranoia reached farcical levels before the turn of the year, it has been revealed, as French police carrying out a general crackdown on suspected terrorist activity imposed a month of house arrest on a practising Catholic in the southwestern city of Toulouse.

Mickaël L., a 30-year-old practising Catholic with two small children was ordered by authorities on high security alert to stay at home from 15 November and then report twice daily to the local police station for having what was described as a "suspicion of links to terrorist and Salafist networks".

The fact that he had a large image of a crucifix and rosary beads tattooed to his upper right arm made no bones with the authorities when he appealed the restrictions. That he could produce a baptismal certificate, swore to regularly attending Mass at a local Catholic church and had even visited Lourdes recently was to no avail.

A local court rejected his appeal on 1 December and another appeal to the Council of State in Paris was not scheduled to be decided until just before Christmas.

What finally swayed the authorities was a letter from his lawyer including newspaper cuttings about his case to Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

The house arrest was lifted on 14 December without any explanation.