French Prime Minister Michel Barnier faces a no-confidence vote on Wednesday prompted by budget disputes that could spell the end of his administration and plunge the country into uncharted waters. If the motion succeeds, it will be the first time a French government has been brought down this way in more than 60 years. Follow our liveblog to see how today’s events unfold.
Rampant drug-fuelled violence in France is turning the country into what has been dubbed a ‘Mexicanized narco-state’ by a leading politician.
Narco wars are being fought across the country and have seen teenagers and children shot, stabbed and burned alive, gang kingpins broken out of custody, and cocaine washed up on beaches.
France’s new conservative interior minister recently declared war on the operating gangs after a 15-year-old boy was caught in the crossfires and killed in a massive brawl and gunfight in Poitiers, on November 1.
h/t kiki9
Minister says ‘choice is between general mobilisation or Mexicanisation of the country’ after gunfight leaves teenager fighting for life
France has reached a “tipping point” on drug-related violence, the country’s hardline interior minister warned on Friday, after hundreds of people took part in a massive shoot-out.
The gunfight, which left a teenager fighting for his life and four others seriously wounded, erupted overnight in the western city of Poitiers.
Police intervened at around 10.45pm after shots were fired outside a restaurant in the Couronneries district of the city and found the first casualty on the ground.
From Fdesouche – Poitiers (86): five injured in a shooting. Hundreds of people involved, a 15-year-old boy hit in the head. It is believed to be an inter-ethnic brawl between West Indians and North Africans against a backdrop of drug trafficking.
▶️Alors que #LFI veut désarmer les #FDO et le #narcotrafic qui gangrène la France n’est pas le sujet.
▶️La réalité de millions de français est tout autre. #Colombes #Poitiers #Rennes #SoutienFDO pic.twitter.com/b1zThyPm2o— Officiers et Commissaires de police (@PoliceSCSI) November 1, 2024
In France alone, currently, more than 410 new mosques are being built.
It is difficult not to give in to pessimism, as the great Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal, author of “2084”, does when he says this week: “Islam is preparing to conquer France”.
The environmentalist municipality of the city of Strasbourg, which houses one of the two wings of the European Parliament, the European Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe, has decided to turn off the cathedral’s lights at 11 pm “to save energy and money”.
The news of the rape and murder of 19-year-old Philippine on the outskirts of Paris, involving a Moroccan illegal immigrant who had already been convicted by the courts and was facing deportation, exacerbates the anger of French citizens who see the repeated and culpable failings of the justice system leading to bloody, yet avoidable, tragedies.
The chain of events that led to the death of Philippine, a 19-year-old Catholic student, highlights a dramatic chain of responsibility that has already been observed in similar cases.
The Fdesouche website recalls the main stages in the life of Taha O., the 22-year-old Moroccan arrested in Switzerland on suspicion of Philippine’s murder.
At a time when the new French government is trying to find its way on security and immigration issues, a new tragedy has shaken French public opinion: the murder of Philippine, a 19-year-old Catholic student who was savagely killed and buried in the Bois de Boulogne, just outside Paris. The suspect is a Moroccan illegal immigrant with an OQTF (obligation to leave French territory), who had already been convicted of rape.
The violent crime, which occurred late on Friday, September 20th, is accompanied by a sense of déjà vu.
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.
