Mark Durie: Macron’s Vain Hope For An Enlightened Islam

“A fundamental problem with Macron’s renewal program lies in a difference between Islam and Christianity, namely that the very idea of secularity is alien to Islam. The principle of the separation of church and state rests on biblical foundations. It was noteworthy that Marine Le Pen quoted a phrase of Jesus Christ in her recent speech against Islamism, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and render to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17). Nothing like this exists in Islam: everything is Allah’s, and the core of Islam is about the exertion of power in service of Allah. As Bernard Lewis repeatedly pointed out, classical Arabic did not even have the language to make the distinction between church and state, sacred and profane, spiritual and temporal, and ecclesiastical and secular. Such terms entered Arabic via the writings of Arabic-speaking Christians.”

Islam does not do integration.

Share

Charlie Hebdo: four Pakistanis charged over Paris knife attack

Charlie Hebdo: four Pakistanis charged over Paris knife attack

French authorities have charged and detained four Pakistanis suspected of links to a meat cleaver attack by a compatriot outside the former offices of the Charlie Hebdo weekly that wounded two people, the national counter-terrorism prosecutor’s office has said.

The four male suspects, aged 17 to 21, were in contact with the attacker, a source familiar with the case said on Friday.

They are suspected of being aware of the attacker’s plot and inciting him to carry it out, according to another judicial source close to the investigation.

Share

Terrorist behind foiled 2015 French train attack receives life sentence

A terrorist whose plan to carry out a massacre on a packed high-speed international train was foiled by the heroic actions of a group of passengers has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a French court.

Ayoub El-Khazzani, 31, opened fire with an assault rifle on the Amsterdam-to-Paris Thalys train in August 2015. Having shot two passengers, Khazzani was wrestled to the ground and restrained by three US tourists, two of them off-duty servicemen, and a British traveller.

Share

Facebook closes fake accounts linked to French military and Russia

Facebook said Tuesday that it had removed two networks based in Russia and one linked to the French military, accusing them of carrying out interference campaigns in Africa.

Two networks running multiple Facebook accounts were assigned to people associated with the Russian Internet Research Agency, and the third had “links to individuals associated with French military,” the social media platform said.

All three were removed from the site for breaking its policy against foreign or government interference, Facebook said, adding that the networks targeted countries mainly in north Africa and some in the Middle East.

Share

Charlie Hebdo trial: French court convicts 14 over 2015 terror attacks

Charlie Hebdo trial: French court convicts 14 over 2015 terror attacks

A court in France has convicted 14 people in relation to the January 2015 terror attacks on the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper and a Jewish supermarket in Paris.

A total of 17 people were murdered across three days in a series of attacks that horrified the nation. All three assailants were killed in shootouts with the police, leaving only accomplices to face trial.

The defendants were found guilty on different charges, ranging from membership of a criminal network to complicity in the attacks. Terrorism-related charges were dropped for several of the defendants who were found guilty of lesser crimes.

Share

French Former Top General Says He Fears Civil War

French General Pierre de Villiers, the former chief of staff of the French armed forces, has warned that France could be heading for civil conflict, due to Islamist radicals and growing urban violence.

General de Villiers, who made headlines by quitting as armed forces chief of staff in 2017 over clashes on army budget cuts with President Emmanuel Macron, warned of a variety of factors that could see France heading to potential civil conflict.

I maintain my prediction: We will see France cede territory to the Islamists in our lifetime.

Share

Teenager who beheaded a French teacher is given a hero’s funeral in his native Chechnya, with mourners chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ as hundreds turn out to see the killer buried

The body of the killer who decapitated teacher Samuel Paty, and was lauded as a ‘lion of Islam’ at his funeral, had been returned from France on Saturday.

Share

France Is Still Under Attack

October 29. Nice, the main city on the French Riviera. A man in the Basilica of Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption decapitates a woman and murders two other people while shouting “Allahu Akbar!” [“Allah is the greatest!”]

This is the second beheading in France by an extremist Muslim in less than a month. Two weeks earlier, on October 16, a middle school teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded in the suburbs of Paris after showing his students some Mohammad cartoons during a discussion on freedom of speech.

Share

Riots in Paris as furious masked mob set cars on fire and throw Molotov cocktails during anti-violence rally

Riots in Paris as furious masked mob set cars on fire and throw Molotov cocktails at police as thousands march against law making it illegal to film police

Cars were ignited by furious gangs of rioters in Paris today as thousands marched against a new law making it illegal to film the police.

Flames and thick black smoke filled major streets in the French capital on Saturday as youths wearing black masks and balaclavas threw missiles including Molotov Cocktails at the police.

By early evening there had been 22 arrests of ‘very violent suspects’ in the area around Avenue Gambetta, said a local police spokesman, who said highly organised rioters had put numerous shop windows in.

Share

French Thalys train attacker ‘tried to kill me three times’

One of three Americans hailed as heroes for overcoming a gunman on a train travelling to Paris has told a French court his main aim was to survive.

Spencer Stone, a 28-year-old ex-serviceman, described via video from the US how he and his friends saw Ayoub El Khazzani pick up a Kalashnikov rifle and prepare to open fire.

He counted three separate attempts the gunman made to try to kill him.

Mr Stone was one of two people wounded in the August 2015 Thalys train attack.

Share

Samuel Paty: French security services were warned but failed to act over incendiary social media campaign against beheaded teacher

Samuel Paty: French security services were warned but failed to act over incendiary social media campaign against beheaded teacher

French security services failed to appreciate the gravity of the defamatory campaign on social media against the teacher Samuel Paty before his murder, an inspectors’ report has found.

Despite the school’s headteacher reporting concerns about increasingly incendiary posts targeting the history and geography teacher on Facebook and Twitter, intelligence officials underestimated the risk.

School inspectors said Paty, 47, who was killed in an Islamist attack in a Paris suburb in October, was given the full support of the school director and the national education authorities, but officials were “unable to assess the danger”.

Share

France: Police to inspect over 70 ‘separatist’ mosques

France: Police to inspect over 70 ‘separatist’ mosques

French authorities are set to inspect 76 mosques across the country, in an unprecedented action against “separatism,” French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced on Thursday.

“76 mosques are now suspected of separatism,” Darmanin tweeted. “In the coming days, checks will be carried out on these places of worship. If ever these doubts are confirmed, I will ask for their closure.”

Too little, too late.

Share

French government drops plan to curb filming of police officers

PARIS (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party on Monday dropped plans to curb the freedom to share images identifying police officers, after more than 100,000 people took part in weekend rallies for free speech and against police violence.

“We propose a new version of article 24 and a new version will be submitted,” Christophe Castaner, head of the LaRem party in parliament, told a news conference.

Share