France’s new interior minister has pledged to expel illegal immigrants who have “broken in” to the country amid moves aimed at toughening law and order.
Bruno Retailleau also called for a coalition of willing EU countries to compel the European Commission to tighten its immigration laws.
His pledges for a harsher response to asylum claims, violence against police, radical Islam and drug trafficking were said to reflect the growing influence of Marine Le Pen’s hard-Right National Rally (RN).
Since the results were announced of France’s July 2024 legislative elections, President Emmanuel Macron has been unable to build a majority in the National Assembly, which appears more divided than at any time in the history of what the French call “the Fifth Republic”.
The elections produced three blocs, all of which appear to hate each other: the left, coalescing around Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left La France Insoumise (“France Unbowed”), Macron’s centrist Renaissance party, and Marine Le Pen’s right-wing Rassemblement National (National Rally).
Three factors seem to favor France’s slide towards an open or latent form of even greater internal conflict.
A gendarme was killed in France on Monday evening when a driver ran him over at a routine roadside checkpoint in Provence.
The driver of the BMW was an intoxicated 39-year-old from Cape Verde who during his time in France has racked up a lengthy criminal record including ten convictions, two for drunk driving.
On Wednesday the wife of 54-year-old Éric Comyn paid tribute to him at a service attended by local dignitaries and members of the gendarmerie. She described a devoted father of two teenage children, who was soon to retire after 30 years’ service.
In the wake of the La Grande-Motte Synagogue attack and political turmoil, France Central Consistory vice president and Marseilles Consistory president Michel Cohen Tenoudji expressed concern to The Jerusalem Post about the future of French Jewry and fate of the French Republic.
After the August 24 arson terrorist attack on the Beth Yaacov synagogue in southern France, the Jewish community was shocked and outraged, said Cohen Tenoudji. The attack by the 33-year-old Algerian man, which wounded a police officer, amplified fears about rising antisemitism in the country.
For years, residents of Grand-Fort-Philippe in the north of France lived a life largely undisturbed by migrants who attempted crossings from their local beaches.
Relations were cordial even.
Many in the town would exchange polite bonjours with the men, women and children biding their time in the small seaside town located between Calais and Dunkirk until weather conditions turned in their favour.
Tweet translation: Grand-Fort-Philippe (59): around ten cars stoned; a group of angry migrants suspected of being behind the events after a failed attempt to cross the Channel
Grand-Fort-Philippe (59) : une dizaine de voitures caillassées ; un groupe de migrants en colère suspecté d’être à l’origine des faits après une tentative avortée de traversée de la Manche https://t.co/7phGjaLv2A
— monique breton (@moniquebreton10) August 12, 2024
Many had dismissed it as a costly indulgence for a nation facing economic hardship, while some condemned it as a dangerous diversion from the deepest political crisis France faces since the 1950s.
And, yet, the two-week long Summer Olympics hosted by Paris is now universally lauded as a success in organizational, artistic, and of course sporting terms. For two whole weeks the usually grumpy French, some of them in civil war mood, sheathed their daggers to have a good time together.
The old ditty that sport unites while politics divides sounded more plausible than ever.
French politics are ridiculous.
The phrase ‘without fear or favour’ has been much in the news of late. Whether the maxim is still applicable to the British constabulary is a matter of conjecture. Some, like the ex-policeman Harry Miller, have been saying for years that the police ‘have traded impartiality for the praise of special interest groups’. Miller was visited by Humberside police in January 2020 after he expressed gender-critical views in an online poem. He later won a legal challenge against the police.
Paris. June 9. 8pm. The results of the European Parliament elections were made public. in In France, the party of President Emmanuel Macron garnered 14.6% of the vote, 8 points less than in 2019; the French population had turned away from Macron. The Socialist Party came out with 13.8% of the vote and Rebellious France, a far-left party, 9.89% of the vote. The moderate right party, The Republicans, received only 7.25% of the vote and continued to slide towards insignificance. The right wing National Rally received 31.3% of the vote, 10 points more than in 2019, an extremely high result for a long-marginalized party.
When President Macron declared war on Marseilles’s ultra-violent drugs gangs in March, one crime boss phoned the public broadcaster FranceInfo from his prison cell to mock the “unprecedented” police crackdown.
“All the prisoners, we all had a good laugh in front of the TV,” he said in a conversation broadcast on national television. Using an illegal mobile phone, he said police patrols were designed to impress the media but had little impact on street dealing.
“They go for a little walk around. That takes 15 or 20 minutes, then they leave,” he said. The broadcaster verified the identity of the convict, who is serving a lengthy sentence in Marseilles’ Baumettes prison for drugs trafficking and money laundering but did not name him and disguised his voice.
If it was the far left who were responsible, it was another reminder that Islamic terrorism is not the only threat to France
Trains are again running normally in France today after engineers worked over the weekend to repair the damage caused by Friday’s coordinated attack on the network. Also working overtime are fifty specialists from the national crime unit, who have pored over the three sites where saboteurs struck.
On Sept 5-6, 1972, over the course of 20 hours during the Munich Olympic Games, 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were tortured and murdered by the terrorist group, Black September, an affiliate of the Palestine Liberation Organization. For 49 years, this darkest of episodes received no official Olympic commemoration. The victims were eventually honoured for the first time at the opening ceremonies of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
The reenactment of the famous painting, that shows Jesus’s last meal with his disciples, was the centre of a backlash with Christians expressing their anger at the organisers of the Games.
What an embarrassment for the French #Rupaul #Olympics #Olympics2024Paris
— WeGotitBack 🏴🇬🇧🇺🇸 (@NotFarLeftAtAll) July 26, 2024
Let France burn. Vichy bastards.
An Australian citizen was raped by “five African-type individuals” during her vacation in Paris, with the woman taking refuge in a restaurant after the ordeal on the night of Saturday into Sunday.
At 5:00 a.m., the 25-year-old woman, who was under the influence of alcohol, entered a kebab shop in the 18th arrondissement, located on Boulevard de Clichy. She told staff there that she had just been raped by five individuals.
More at Fdesouche
France has been plunged into turmoil. This time not by the actions of protesters, rioters or striking workers, but by the president of the French Republic himself.
In the aftermath of the European elections last month, Emmanuel Macron was facing the success of Marine Le Pen’s right-populist National Rally (RN) and the plummeting popularity of his own Ensemble coalition. As a result, he immediately dissolved the National Assembly and called snap legislative elections – despite the constitution in no way compelling him to do so. For the past two years, his party and his government have been struggling along without an absolute majority. The result at the weekend, after two rounds of voting, is a well and truly hung parliament.
France’s recent election shows a nation in turmoil. Many French citizens are afraid that “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” will give way to “Allahu akbar.”
The U.S. media report the election as a surprise victory for the left and a defeat for Marine Le Pen’s “far-right” National Rally party.
It’s a bit more complicated than that.
