During Emmanuel Macron’s campaign for the French presidency, one of his promises was that the country’s state of emergency—initially declared by his predecessor Francois Hollande in response to the November 2015 Paris attacks—would not become a fixture of French political life. On Tuesday, Macron kept his promise—but in formally lifting the state of emergency, he replaced it with an anti-terrorism law that incorporates some of its toughest elements and makes them permanent.

The new law grants special powers, lifted from the state of emergency, to prefects—local representatives of the French interior ministry—to conduct widespread surveillance and counterterrorism measures, often with limited judicial oversight. These powers include the ability to shut down mosques, raid private property, conduct warrantless stop-and-frisk operations, and restrict movement of individuals deemed potential national security threats with electronic surveillance tags. When the new law takes effect on Wednesday, France will become the only country in Western Europe to establish de facto permanent state of emergency powers.

Civil rights activists and human rights groups fear the law will inevitably unleash violent and discriminatory repercussions against France’s Muslim, Arab, and African populations—a particularly problematic consequence for a country that has struggled to break from its dark colonial history. In fact, there is a direct historical connection between the state of emergency powers and French colonialism: The legislation authorizing state of emergency orders was created in April 1955 to halt the Algerian insurrection at the height of the country’s war for independence. According to Rim-Sarah Alouane of the University Toulouse-Capitole, the order empowered paratroopers in Algeria to raid homes, restaurants, and bars to arrest anyone deemed a threat to the French occupation. Since 1955, the state of emergency has been ordered six times: in 1958, 1961, 1988, 2005, and finally in 2015.

As a candidate, Macron positioned himself as a progressive on these issues, referring to France’s colonial past as a “crime against humanity.” This stood in stark contrast to opponent Marine Le Pen’s hardline nationalist views on Islam and Muslim immigration. But Macron’s rhetorical condemnations of France’s past sins are no solace to French Muslims watching his relentless push to make the state of emergency powers permanent. “It’s hypocritical for Macron to (rightfully) acknowledge France’s human rights violations during its colonial occupation of Africa, all while simultaneously implementing a bill that includes core rhetoric that was precisely used by police and military authorities to commit and justify those crimes,” Alouane told me.

Ibrahim Bechrouri, a spokesman for the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), the country’s leading Muslim civil rights organization, said the emergency powers Macron codified into law are clearly reminiscent of repressive policies used against the indigenous populations of former French colonies. The particulars have changed, but the underlying animosity is the same—now targeting immigrant communities largely from these same ex-colonies. Bechrouri added that the way in which the new stop-and-frisk operations would be facilitated recall the code de l’indigénat, or the “Code of the Indiginate,” a series of laws from 1887 to 1947 that reduced the natives of French colonies to subjects inferior to French citizens.