France

PARIS (AP) — Six teenagers go on trial Monday in Paris for their alleged roles in the beheading of a teacher who showed caricatures of the prophet of Islam to his class, a killing that led authorities to reaffirm France’s cherished rights of expression and secularism.

Samuel Paty, a history and geography teacher, was killed on Oct. 16, 2020, near his school in a northwest Paris suburb by an 18-year-old of Chechen origin who had become radicalized. The attacker was in turn shot dead by police.

A newly released study shows, for the first time in French history, that the second most widely spoken language in the country is dialectal Arabic, with an estimated population of between three and four million speakers. The resulting population ratio in favour of people mainly of North African origin is fraught with consequences.

A tragedy occurred a few days ago in the small town of Crépol, in the Drôme region of southern France. During a village ball, some individuals appeared, spreading panic and terror and causing the death of Thomas, a boy of 16. Today, journalists and politicians are engaged in a veritable battle of semantics. A mere news item or a major event? Ordinary violence or savagery? A brawl or an assault? Every word used to describe this episode has far-reaching consequences. Once again, the Left shines in its denial of reality concerning both the origin of the attackers and the nature of the victims.

In Crepol in SE France “Thomas” aged 16 was stabbed to death. A group of North Africans gatecrashed a party chanting “We are here to stab white people.” In all, 17 others were stabbed & two taken to hospital.

Many on the right have claimed the attack was anti-white… pic.twitter.com/jP3v1vmp9l

— David Atherton (@DaveAtherton20) November 22, 2023

Crepol, France. pic.twitter.com/6y5plUcAHF

— RadioGenova (@RadioGenova) November 20, 2023

The stubborn reluctance to call it as it is.

… Thefts from vehicles in France have gone up by more than 30% in one year. Robberies have increased by 14% year over year. And sexual offenses have increased, in just one year, by more than 11%. These figures are staggering. And President Macron has recognized that more than half the crimes in Paris are committed by “foreigners.” Everyone knows what he means: those “foreigners” are Muslim migrants Yet Macron continues, inexplicably, to oppose stricter limits on Muslim immigration, even though he recognizes the outsize role that Muslim migrants play in crime.

The values that built la République are crumbling

It is characteristic of France’s self-absorption that what started as a national sense of outrage at the latest Islamist killing on our soil soon evolved into a bitter scuffle between present and past tough-talking Home Secretaries. Last Friday, Dominique Bernard, a 57-year-old French literature teacher at a state Lycée in Arras, was stabbed to death by a 20-year-old Chechen former pupil, Mohammed Mogouchkov, shouting “Allahu Akbar” as Bernard tried to prevent him from entering the school’s main building. Three years almost to the day, it felt like a terrible repetition of the killing and beheading of another teacher, Samuel Paty, in a west Paris suburb.

The service in Arras cathedral for 57-year-old Dominique Bernard was broadcast on a large screen in the city’s Heroes’ Square, where hundreds watched in the rain.

Bernard, married to another teacher and father of three adult children, was posthumously awarded the Legion of Honour by Macron.

The award is France’s highest civilian decoration.

French police are guarding the homes of leading MPs as fears grow of antisemitic violence triggered by Israel’s war with Hamas.

Police have said they are protecting National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet and MP Meyer Habib.

France’s interior minister said 100 antisemitic acts had been recorded since Saturday.

In a separate move, Germany’s chancellor declared “zero tolerance” for antisemitism.

He told parliament a pro-Palestinian group that had celebrated the murders of Israeli civilians on Saturday would be banned.

Last week the European Parliament hosted an event in Brussels entitled ‘Close Guantanamo’. It was hosted by two Irish left-wing MEPs, and among the invites were representatives of Cage, which has been described by the French government as an ‘Islamist’ organisation, an allegation Cage denies. Cage was briefly infamous in Britain in 2015 when its director Asim Qureshi called Islamic State butcher Mohammed Emwazi, aka ‘Jihadi John’, who made a living hacking off Westerners’ heads, a ‘beautiful young man’ and blamed security services for his radicalisation. Qureshi later said he regretted his ‘inappropriate description’ of the Isis fighter.

In 2016, there were 12,820 rapes in France; in 2020, this had risen to 22,770; by 2021, the latest year for which records are available, there were 30,780 rapes, an increase in one year of 40%. This catastrophic rise corresponds to the rise in the number of Muslim migrants.