PARIS — (CNN) French President Emmanuel Macron has said he will lift the country’s state of emergency, imposed in November 2015, later this year.
Speaking at the Palace of Versailles, Macron told newly-elected members of the Assembly and Senate that France that he wanted to “re-establish the freedoms of the French people.”
“These freedoms are the precondition of the existence of a strong democracy,” he said.
France has been in a state of emergency since the Paris terror attack which killed 130 people in November 2015. Macron said it would be lifted in t but did not specify a date.
Earlier in his speech, Macron proposed cutting the size of the country’s parliament by a third.
Macron’s La Republique En Marche Party achieved a huge majority by winning 308 of the 577 seats in the Assembly at last month’s legislative election.
He said the changes would have “positive effects on the general quality of parliamentary work.”
The Senate has 348 members.
“I want… us to avoid half-measures and cosmetic arrangements,” he said. “These reforms will be submitted to a vote in parliament but if necessary I will have recourse to a vote by our fellow citizens in a referendum.”
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