The High Court victory of Epping Forest District Council has made news in France. The decision to temporarily block migrants from being housed in The Bell Hotel was covered by newspapers such as Le Monde and Le Figaro.
The latter provided some context to the growing tension in England, noting that the migrants in Epping are just a few of the estimated 32,000 migrants housed in hotels ‘at the expense of the British taxpayer.’
The return to the political season could turn into a veritable powder keg in France. Since mid-July, the slogan “Bloquons tout!” (“Let’s block everything!”) has spread like wildfire on social media, calling for a total shutdown of the country on September 10. The spark: the drastic cuts announced by Prime Minister François Bayrou, which include a €43.8 billion adjustment, the freezing of social spending, the elimination of two public holidays, and other austerity measures that have lit the fuse of public discontent, primed for years.
France has reportedly stripped the residency permit of a man who lit a cigarette at a war memorial in Paris after he was caught on camera.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau on Tuesday called the actions of a 47-year-old Moroccan man “indecent and pathetic” following his arrest. Video footage of him lighting a cigarette beneath the much-visited Arc de Triomphe sparked outrage after it was circulated.
In Paris, a man lit a cigarette from the eternal flame under the Arc de Triomphe.
The Interior Ministry said the suspect was detained and confessed to the crime. pic.twitter.com/IaXq24mMEf
— (AD) Deo Non Fortuna (@UKRRUSNews) August 6, 2025
Algerian illegal immigrants commit crimes knowing that the failing system will let them go virtually unpunished.
Fabienne Buccio, the prefect of France’s Rhône department, has fired warning shots about escalating crime rates tied to Algerian nationals in her region while expressing deep frustration over Algier’s persistent refusal to accept deportees. Her assessment reveals a growing crisis where offenders operate with what she describes as a “feeling of impunity,” knowing deportation efforts will likely fail.
Speaking in an interview making waves across French media, Buccio revealed alarming statistics: foreign-born individuals account for a staggering 60% of arrests in the Rhône department, which includes Lyon, France’s third-largest city. Even more striking is the fact that at least half of these arrestees are Algerian nationals.
Geert Wilders, head of the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV), on Friday responded to French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that his country would officially recognize “Palestine”.
Here will be the new Palestinian State.
Big parts of France are already islamic anyway.
Good luck @EmmanuelMacron and France! Happy suicide!
The Netherlands will close its borders immediately. pic.twitter.com/zRUYxhUOj5
— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) July 25, 2025
France will formally recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations general assembly in September, President Macron has announced.
The announcement came with Macron due to hold emergency talks on Gaza with Sir Keir Starmer and Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, on Friday.
Consistent with its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognize the State of Palestine.
I will make this solemn announcement before the United Nations General Assembly this coming September.… pic.twitter.com/VTSVGVH41I
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) July 24, 2025
Netanyahu to Macron: Palestinian state would be launch pad to annihilate Israel
Next? One of these I suspect – Germany, Belgium, England.
Police remain skeptical: “Young offenders are shooting people with impunity, in broad daylight. A curfew is certainly not going to stop them.”
The southern French city of Nîmes, home to over 150,000 people, has decided to implement a nightly curfew for minors under the age of 16 as a desperate attempt to curb the spread of gang violence largely linked to drug trafficking in the city’s migrant-heavy neighborhoods.
The curfew runs between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., and came into effect on the night of Monday, July 21st, for an initial two-week period that can be renewed every 15 days.
According to local authorities, the radical measure is needed because of “a succession of shootings, score-settling, and gang tensions” that have been gripping the city for the past weeks.
Masked rioters clash with police after attacking motorists in French city of Limoges
Officials in Limoges on Saturday said nine officers were injured in overnight clashes with masked assailants wielding metal bars and Molotov cocktails who attacked motorists on one of the main roads into the central city. France’s interior ministry said it was deploying a riot police unit to support local law enforcement.
… Mayor Emile Roger Lombertie called the rioters an “urban guerrilla group”.
“They’re organised, structured, there’s a plan, weapons,” he said.
“This was not a spontaneous protest to complain about something. No pretext, nothing. It’s about destroying things and showing the territory belongs to you,” Lombertie added.
Tweet translation: New night of riots in #Limoges: ambushes, cars set on fire, mortar fire, Molotov cocktails.
Around a hundred thugs attacked our colleagues, ten were injured.
One of our colleagues was targeted along with his children.
How far will we fall without reacting?
Nouvelle nuit d’émeutes à #Limoges : guet-apens, voitures incendiées, tirs de mortiers, cocktails Molotov.
Une centaine de voyous ont attaqué nos collègues, dix ont été blessés.Un de nos collègues a été pris pour cible avec ses enfants.
Jusqu’où allons tomber sans réagir ?… pic.twitter.com/Y1jZllhVMc
— Officiers et Commissaires de police (@PoliceSCSI) July 19, 2025
More …
Béziers (34): a gang of around fifty individuals attacked the police called out to a rubbish bin fire. One police officer was injured and an apartment, whose residents were present, was set on fire.
New scenes of urban violence in France… this time in Compiègne (60): around thirty hooded youths attack a police station before looting a tobacconist’s
Marseille (13) – A man tramples on tombs at the cathedral, shouts “Allah Akbar” and threatens to kill a guard
All Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip will be eligible for the first time to apply for asylum in France, a court ruled on Friday.
Deciding on a case brought by a Palestinian mother seeking asylum in the wake of the Islamist Hamas October 7th terror attacks on Israel, France’s National Court of Asylum (CNDA) ruled in her favour given the “war methods” of the Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza, which the court found were “serious enough to be regarded as methods of persecution.”
Five officers are implicated after €10m of cocaine went unaccounted for during a sting on ‘Mimo’, one Europe’s biggest narco-traffickers
When the container ship OPS Hamburg docked in Marseilles on a morning in April 2023, officers from France’s elite anti-drug force were lying in wait. They were sure their cunning sting would net one of Europe’s biggest narco-traffickers.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration had told them that buried in a container of bananas arriving from Cartagena, Colombia, there was a massive shipment of cocaine. It had been ordered by Mohamed Djeha, alias Mimo, the feared boss of Marseilles’ Castellane clan.
Marseille, once a celebrated port city, is now a symbol of urban decay, state failure, and the collapse of France’s internal borders. Today known as the capital of heroin trafficking of Europe, it has transformed into the epicenter of a gang war that is drenching its working-class neighborhoods in blood. Narco is the boss; bullets are its language.
A legal loophole stops officers intervening once a vessel is afloat. The Times visits a beach where police play cat and mouse with migrants trying to reach the UK
As dawn broke over the dunes at Gravelines, northeast of Calais, officers from the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité, a special mobile French police force, were already on the beach.
Overhead, a surveillance plane circled, monitoring movement along the 3km stretch of beach and on the dune system behind it, which offers cover to smugglers and to asylum seekers trying to get past police to board boats.
The delicacy is being sold on the black market in France. Some think the ban is an attempt to ‘keep down’ the country’s Muslim immigrants
Customs agents in Marseilles were jubilant when they pried open a shipping container to find nine tonnes of contraband substance.
The illicit goods were not, however, drugs or cigarettes, but 15,300 jars of sticky hazelnut spread.
The port seizure in May was part of a campaign by the authorities to bar El Mordjene, a sweet Algerian spread that enjoyed explosive success last year thanks to a craze propelled by TikTok and Instagram.
A child aged two has been injured in a shooting at the Loon-Plage camp near Dunkirk in northern France.
A migrant has been killed and five others injured in a shooting in France. The incident happened at about 10am on Saturday (June 14). A child, aged two, is among those injured at the Loon-Plage camp near Dunkirk. Two teams of paramedics, firefighters and a helicopter have been at the scene. The victims are believed to be from Africa, according to regional daily La Voix Du Nord.
Trump is showing that borders can be secured and illegal alien migrants deported. It takes political will.
President Donald Trump needled France Tuesday saying ‘you would be speaking German right now’ had it not been for the U.S.’s involvement in World War II, as he again touted Saturday’s Army parade.
‘We’re going to celebrate our country for a change,’ Trump said, expressing frustration that the U.S. hasn’t held military-centric celebrations to mark significant milestones.
Trump then told reporters how he had recently called up France as they were celebrating the World War II victory.
TRUMP: "We won World War II. France is celebrating, we helped them a lot. We're the only country that's not celebrating. If it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking German right now. You might be speaking Japanese too. You might be speaking a combination of both." pic.twitter.com/gT53R6sOqQ
— Autism Capital (@AutismCapital) June 10, 2025
