PARIS - The French government has enough money to be able to pay its civil servants during the coronavirus crisis, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Friday.
“The state will have enough money to pay its civil servants, there is no reason to have concerns about that. France has a solid government,” Le Maire said on LCI television.
ANKARA - Turkey issued a decree on Sunday dismissing more than 18,000 civil servants, half of which were from the police force, ahead of this month’s expected lifting of a two-year-old state of emergency imposed after an attempted coup in July 2016.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan greets members of parliament from his ruling AK Party (AKP) as he arrives at the Turkish parliament in Ankara, Turkey, July 7, 2018. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
The decree follows President Tayyip Erdogan’s victory in last month’s presidential election and comes before he swears his oath on Monday, inaugurating a powerful executive presidency.
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The decree dismissed 199 academics from universities across the country, as well as more than 5,000 personnel from the armed forces.
Turkish authorities had already dismissed around 160,000 civil servants since the failed military intervention, the U.N. human rights office said in March.
Among those detained, more than 50,000 have been formally charged and kept in jail during their trials.
Turkey’s Western allies have criticized the crackdown. Critics of President Tayyip Erdogan accuse him of using the failed putsch as a pretext to quash dissent. Turkey says the measures are necessary to combat threats to national security.
ISTANBUL - Turkey dismissed hundreds civil servants and boosted President Tayyip Erdogan’s powers over the national intelligence agency MIT in two decrees published on Friday under emergency rule imposed after an attempted coup last year.
Turkey has sacked or suspended more than 150,000 officials in purges since the failed putsch, while sending to jail pending trial some 50,000 people including soldiers, police, civil servants.
Under the latest decrees, published in the Official Gazette, more than 900 civil servants from various ministries, public institutions and the military were dismissed.
According to one of the decrees, the president’s permission will be required for the head of the national intelligence agency MIT to be investigated or to act as a witness. The legal changes will also open the way for investigations into lawmakers for alleged crimes committed before or after they are elected.
Turkish authorities have expelled more than 3,900 people from the civil service, military and gendarmerie, the government said in its Official Gazette on Saturday, in what appears to be the latest large-scale purge related to last year’s failed coup.
The expelled included prison guards, clerks, academics, and employees of the religious affairs ministry, all of whom were suspected of links to “terrorist organisations and structures presenting a threat to national security” the government said.
It is the second large-scale purge since the narrow victory of an April 16 referendum giving President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping powers. On Wednesday more than 9,000 police personnel were suspended and another 1,000 detained for alleged links to the network of the U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for the failed coup.
Some 1,127 employees of the justice ministry, including prison guards and clerks, 484 academics, and 201 employees from the religious affairs directorate, the government said on Saturday.
Some 120,000 people have already been suspended from jobs ranging from the civil service to the private sector, and more than 40,000 arrested, following last year’s failed coup.
Mass detentions immediately after the attempted coup were supported by many Turks, who agreed with Erdogan when he blamed Gulen for orchestrating the putsch which killed 240 people, mostly civilians. But criticism mounted as the arrests widened.
Relatives of those detained or sacked since July say they have nothing to do with the armed attempt to overthrow the government, and are victims of a purge designed to solidify Erdogan’s control.
