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French police killed an armed in individual who intended to set a synagogue in the northern city of Rouen ablaze, France's Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Friday.
"National police in Rouen neutralized early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city's synagogue," Darmanin said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.Local authorities that the man approached police armed with a knife and a crowbar. "It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock," Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol said on X. He said that there were no victims besides the attacker. What do we know about the suspected synagogue attack? The Franceinfo broadcaster reported police were called to the scene early on Friday because smoke was billowing form the synagogue. Local authorities that the man approached police armed with a knife and a crowbar, after which he was shot dead by an officer. Franceinfo cited a police source as saying that a link between the fire and the armed man had not been established. "It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock," Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol said on X. He said that there were no victims besides the attacker. Rouen prosecutors said that they had opened investigations into the fire at the synagogue, as well as a separate probe into the circumstances of the death of the man killed by police. Anti-Semitic incidents in France Yonathan Arfi, who heads the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, condemned what he called an "attempt to intimidate all Jews" in a post on X. "Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the French Republic," he said. The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has condemned the latest remarks from French President Emmanuel Macron about the option of sending troops to Ukraine, and has warned such a move could ultimately spark an all-out nuclear war.
Speaking to French broadcaster LCI on Thursday, Szijjarto was asked for his take on Macron’s renewed threat to deploy his country’s troops to back up Kiev. The diplomat strongly condemned the idea, saying that the French leader’s comments themselves have contributed to escalating the situation. “If a NATO member commits ground troops, it will be a direct NATO-Russia confrontation and it will then be World War Three,” Szijjarto told the broadcaster. Macron made fresh belligerent remarks in an interview with The Economist published Thursday, doubling down on previous statements about the prospect of deploying French troops to Ukraine. The president said his original remarks, made earlier this year, were a “strategic wake-up call for my counterparts.” He suggested that Paris could deploy troops “if the Russians were to break through the front lines” and a request for help came from Kiev. Hungary’s top diplomat also criticized Macron’s idea that France’s nuclear weapons could become a part of a “credible European defense.” “In peacetime it would be different, but in wartime such statements can be misinterpreted and have serious consequences,” Szijjarto stated, warning that, should the situation escalate into a global nuclear war, “it will be over for everyone.” Speaking to Hungarian broadcaster M1 earlier in the day, the minister also rejected NATO’s proposed €100 billion ($107 billion) five-year plan for a war chest to prop up Ukraine, floated by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, describing it as “madness.” “In the coming weeks during negotiations we will fight for Hungary’s right to stay away from this madness, from collecting these 100 billion and siphoning them out of Europe,” Szijjarto stated. Hungary has been consistently opposed to the growing involvement of both the US-led NATO and the EU in the Ukrainian conflict, refusing to support Kiev militarily, including through sending weaponry or training Ukrainian troops. The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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Iconic French actor Gerard Depardieu has been arrested in Paris over new allegations of sexual harassment brought against him by two former film set colleagues, BFMTV news outlet reported on Monday.
According to the report, the 75-year-old movie star was called to a Paris police station for questioning early on Monday and then taken into custody. In addition to previous claims, the actor faces accusations of sexual assault in two more instances – one in 2014, and the other in 2021. The first accuser, a 53-year-old film-set decorator, alleged that Depardieu touched her inappropriately during her work on the set of “The Green Shutters” by Jean Becker. After she complained to colleagues, she alleges that Depardieu repeatedly insulted her. The woman said she has been having anxiety attacks and suffering post-traumatic stress ever since. The second woman, who was an on-set assistant during the filming of “The Magician and the Siamese” by Jean-Pierre Mocky in 2014, and aged 24 at the time of the alleged assault, claimed that Depardieu repeatedly approached her with explicit sexual proposals and “sexually” touched her. Depardieu has reportedly denied all allegations against him. The actor has faced more than a dozen other accusations in recent years from women who said he either harassed, groped, or sexually assaulted them. The first complaint came from actress Charlotte Arnould, who claimed in 2018 that she had twice been raped at the actor’s mansion in Paris. Following her allegations, Depardieu was handed preliminary rape and sexual assault charges in 2020, and placed under judicial supervision, avoiding jail. Another accusation came from actress Helene Darras, but was dismissed by prosecutors in Paris in January, who said it had passed the statute of limitations. Depardieu has repeatedly denied any improper behavior. In an open letter in Le Figaro published in October last year, the actor said he has “never, ever abused a woman,” as “hurting a woman would be like kicking my own mother in the stomach.” Amid the flood of allegations against Depardieu, over 50 French actors, writers, producers, and musicians in December last year signed an open letter calling for an end to the actor’s “public lynching” and saying that public condemnation violated the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’. The signatories included actors Pierre Richard, Vincent Perez, Carole Bouquet, and singer Carla Bruni. French President Emmanuel Macron at the time also lent his support to Depardieu, stating he would not back the “manhunt” against him. The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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“We must be clear about the fact that our Europe today is mortal,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a speech this week. “She can die, and it depends only on our choices. But these choices are to be made now.”
What Macron portrays as an urgent need to resuscitate the EU comes after he himself has spent nearly seven years in power, having even been president of the Council of the European Union in 2022. He’s been credited for the nomination and confirmation of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, described by Forbes last year as the world’s most powerful woman. Or, as some might say, an unelected, omnipotent bureaucrat whose supranational authoritarianism supersedes the democratic process of member states. Or, as others might now say after Macron’s address, the Nurse Ratched at the EU’s deathbed. Macron’s interminable speech should have been one big mea culpa on behalf of the EU’s establishment class. Tell us how you screwed up. At least then we’d know that there was hope for an actual course correction rather than just more of the same. Instead, Macron argued that the EU hasn’t ever been a vassal of Washington. Saying that you’re not a vassal is exactly like having to tell people you’re not a prostitute. It’s not something that one has to go around saying if the optics aren’t already glaring. Queen Ursula is basically America’s viceroy in Europe at this point, and Macron himself can’t seem to manage to carve out any positions independent of the US that last longer than the time it takes for Uncle Sam to reach over and administer a transatlantic spanking. Macron’s speech was a fascinating blend of delusion and insecurity. He chose Paris’ Sorbonne University as the venue. The theme? “Stocktake of European action.” Sure, tell us what’s really going on as though you had a clue – and an actual strategy and vision that wasn’t subjected to the constant whims and trends of the moment or any given election cycle. Macron gave a similar speech at the Sorbonne in September 2017. Why there? Because as Macron said last time, “living collectively was the ideal of Robert de Sorbon” – the theologian who founded the university. It just so happens that circling the drain collectively is what the EU is really all about right now, thanks to the special brand of iron-fisted incompetence of those in charge. There’s a European Parliament election coming up, and the populists are surging in the polls right now. The first step to recovery is admitting that there’s a problem. Macron, however, apparently feels compelled to do the opposite of that, and talk about all of the EU’s failures as though they’re successes. Like counterterrorism, for instance. France has made such great progress on that front that the country is now back on the highest alert just days before it's slated to host the Paris Olympics, including an open air Opening Ceremony along the Seine. It barely seems to have ever been downgraded from high alert; the initially white terror warning signs have been turning yellow from years of light exposure in the windows of buildings where they’re now permanent fixtures. Macron, however, highlighted the role of a new bureaucratic entity called the ECOFIN Council. Because nothing deters terrorists more than meetings. In addressing Africa, Macron underscored the importance of another meeting: the “European Union - Africa Summit” held two years ago. The sparse content in the Africa section of Macron’s talk could be explained by minor details like French troops being drop-kicked back across the Mediterranean by African countries after French stability missions resulted in coups (which are kind of the opposite of stability). Clearly not deterred by any inconvenient discrepancies between reality and projected fantasy, Macron’s speech also celebrated addressing the migration challenge, which the EU has basically paid to outsource to countries like Türkiye, Tunisia, Mauritania and Egypt. The last I checked, none of these countries were actually in Europe. But the EU has outsourced almost everything else by this point, so they may as well. Macron talked about the EU leading the ecological and environmental transition. To what, exactly? Poverty, probably. Just ask the farmers straitjacketed by Brussels' climate change diktats, their farmland being spied on by satellites to ensure compliance, how great that is. He brought up the EU’s energy sovereignty and reindustrialization. Not so fast; Germany in particular is still busy going in the opposite direction and de-industrializing. So it might be a while before the EU’s economic engine comes out on the flip side. The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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‘Our Europe’ could Die4/26/2024 French President Emmanuel Macron has urged EU nations to make decisive changes to secure the bloc’s interests ahead of crucial parliamentary elections across the bloc. The US cannot be relied on for protection, he warned. Opinion polls are projecting that EU voters will shift towards right-wing nationalist politics in the European Parliament elections in early June. Macron called for significant policy changes as he addressed his counterparts across the continent from the Sorbonne University in Paris on Thursday. The French leader touted ‘strategic autonomy’ for Europe, particularly in terms of military production. He reiterated that member states should spend more on defense and give priority to locally-produced weapons – a suggestion that critics perceive as lobbying for French arms manufacturers. Macron said that this would reduce the continent’s dependence on Washington.
The EU “must show that it is never a vassal of the United States and that it also knows how to talk to all the other regions of the world,” the president said. He also advocated a wider revision of policies on fair trade, manufacturing standards and other areas that affect the competitiveness of European businesses. ”It cannot work if we are the only ones in the world to respect the rules of trade – as they were written up 15 years ago – if the Chinese and the Americans no longer respect them by subsidizing critical sectors,” Macron declared. He labeled Russia’s “uninhibited” behavior as a key threat to Europe. Moscow has argued that the EU has shot itself in the foot by following the US and joining what it regards as a proxy war against Russia, in one instance being waged in Ukraine. Macron’s presidency will expire in three years. His political party Renaissance lost its majority in the French parliament in 2022, while the right-wing National Rally party, which is projected to win the EU elections in France in June, has threatened to demand a dissolution of the national parliament, should the president’s centrist coalition suffer a crushing defeat in June. The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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French President Emmanuel Macron is seeking to replace European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and is currently discussing options with other EU leaders, citing sources.
Von der Leyen is now gearing up for elections in less than two months, seeking to secure another five-year term. Macron, who was one of the key figures behind elevating her into the top EU job, has been openly criticizing the President’s approach to running the EU Commission. “The commission presidency is there to defend the general interest, so it must not be over-politicized. Which, it has to be said, was not at all the case with this outgoing commission,” Macron said in Brussels last month. The French president has been in touch with other EU leaders over potential candidates to replace the incumbent to lead the commission, namely former Italian PM and European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with these discussions. Sources in Brussels, including those with von der Leyen’s office, have commented that it remains unclear whether Macron had been genuinely seeking to oust her or was merely putting pressure on in order to extract concessions from her in the future. Macron, alongside then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, were the key figures in 2019 behind fielding von der Leyen, then German Defense Minister, for the EU Commission presidential elections. Von der Leyen is still a clear favorite for the upcoming elections, given the fact that she is the main candidate for the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), which has the most seats at the European Parliament and is expected to further reinforce its positions during the polls in June. However, a candidate fielded by the EPP still requires backing from an absolute majority in parliament. The position of the incumbent EU president has been damaged by multiple high-profile scandals, with the latest erupting earlier this month when she found herself in a storm of criticism over giving fellow German MEP Markus Pieper the lucrative job of “special adviser,” with a reported salary of €17,000 a month. The appointment “has triggered questions about the transparency and impartiality of the nomination process” within the bloc, multiple senior officials, including the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, and Commissioner Thierry Breton, said jointly in a complaint to von der Leyen. The Commission, however, brushed off the allegations, stating it “has every confidence in the fact that the process took place in full compliance with procedures.” The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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Thailand expects to complete its negotiations over a free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union by the end of next year, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said yesterday during a state visit to France.
In a statement issued after a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace in Paris, the Thai leader said that the Thai-EU FTA is on track to be completed within 18 months. Negotiations between the two sides restarted in December, after a delay of nearly a decade. The EU halted negotiations in response to the May 2014 military coup that overthrew Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. The third round of talks is set to take place in June. The finalization of the FTA talks, which were initiated in 2013, would expand the fruitful economic relationship between the two nations. According to government data cited by Reuters, Thailand exported $21.8 billion worth of goods to the EU last year, including cars, computers, jewellery, and electric circuits, making the bloc its fourth-largest trading partner. Among the largest Thai exports to the EU were machinery, electronic equipment, and pharmaceutical products. Srettha was in France as part of a global tour that saw him visit Australia for last week’s ASEAN-Australia Special Summit, and will also saw him arrive in Germany yesterday. In line with his role as a sort of salesman for the Thai economy, Srettha’s agenda throughout the two-week trip has focused overwhelmingly on investment and trade. Government spokesperson Chai Wacharonke said that Srettha’s visit to Germany and France was aimed at boosting investors’ confidence in increasing trade and investment with Thailand. According to his statement, since arriving in France on March 9, Srettha has “met with executives of over 20 of France’s leading firms in the fields of automobiles, aviation, clean energy, fashion, sports, hospitality and tourism, to explore business opportunities between the two countries,” in The Nation’s paraphrase. Srettha also held talks executives of Formula 1 and said they expressed interest in Thailand as a potential site for hosting a Formula 1 motor racing event. In his statement, Srettha said that Macron had agreed to support Thailand his government’s plan to seek a visa-free agreement with the European countries in the EU’s Schengen area. He said that the request would be considered after June and hopefully be completed by the end of the year. Macron will also pay a return visit to Thailand next year. Both the FTA talks and the planned visa-free arrangement are part of Srettha’s push to revive Thailand’s economy, which has still not fully recovered from the doldrums of the COVID-19 pandemic. He plans to tackle them with various economic stimulus packages, including the planned “digital wallet” scheme. Last week, Srettha announced that the government aims to attract about 40 million international travelers this year, around the same amount that visited the country in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic. This target includes more than 8.5 million travelers from Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Like the economy as a whole, tourism arrivals are far off returning to their pre-COVID-19 numbers. In order to attract more visitors, Srettha’s government has temporarily waived visas for travelers from China, Kazakhstan, Russia, India, and Taiwan. In January, it made this arrangement permanent for visitors from China, with reciprocal visa-free travel to China for Thai nationals. Last year, around 28 million people visited Thailand. The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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With 100 days to go until the Paris 2024 Olympics begins, the flame has been lit and the torch relay across Europe is already underway.
The Olympic flame dates back to the ancient games, but the torch relay itself was only run for the first time in 1936. But it is now a fundamental part of the pomp and ceremony which make the Olympics such a unique sporting spectacle. Here’s everything you need to know about the Olympic flame and torch relay, where it actually travels, how it stays alight and Adolf Hitler’s role in it all. In ancient Greece, fire was sacred, with fires constantly burning outside the major temples, and during the ancient Olympics, a flame was permanently alight in the sanctuary of the goddess Hestia.“The Olympic flame has been a symbol of peace and friendship among nations since antiquity,” the International Olympics Committee said. And so now, every four years, the Olympic flame is lit in the archaeological site of Olympia, near the small southern Greek town of the same name. Despite their similar names, this is nowhere near Mount Olympus, which is located in the north. The ceremony itself lasts over an hour, centring on a “high priestess” praying to Apollo, the Sun god – among other things – to help light the flame. Apollo was clearly not feeling particularly helpful this year, as cloud cover meant the flame could not be lit. The flame is supposed to be ignited by the sun’s rays being captured by a parabolic mirror with combustible materials at the centre. Yet under grey skies, the organisers had to resort to their back-up option – a pre-lit flame from one of the practice ceremonies which took place over the previous days. Once lit, the flame is then transported to the ancient Olympic stadium by the actor playing high priestess Hestiada, in this instance Mary Mina. This then lights the first of the relay torches, which are champagne-coloured this year as a homage to the host nation, and the torchbearer also receives an olive branch. The torchbearer then takes the flame to the International Olympic Academy, where it lights a torch which remains by a monument in which the heart of modern Olympic founder Pierre de Coubertin is interred. At this point, the flame is then passed onto the second torchbearer, this time from the host nation. The flame will be carried more than 3000 miles en route to Paris, where it will end up on 26 July for the opening ceremony. But first it will travel round Greece for the next 10 days, through more than 550 torchbearers, before arriving in Athens on 26 April, when it will be handed over to the Paris 2024 organising committee. The flame will then spend the night at the French embassy in Athens, before boarding a three-masted ship called the Belem, where it will spend nearly two weeks en route to Marseille. It will then travel round mainland France, using 10,000 different torchbearers across 200m legs, while also travelling to French oversea territories like Reunion and French Polynesia. The trophy relay used to take place across land between Greece and the host nation, but protests during the 2008 journey led to relays only taking place the first and final countries. The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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On April 15, 2019 (5 years ago), flames sprang from the world-famous cathedral all evening. Television viewers around the world watched live as the immense spire collapsed.
Shortly afterwards, President Macron visited the church and promised: we will completely rebuild Notre-Dame in five years. There was ridicule and criticism. But the promise has been fulfilled. 1,000 oak trees had to be cut down to completely rebuild the spire alone. The stones, the wood, the glass and the lead: it was worked, supplied and tailor-made by around 1000 craftsmen from 250 companies from all over France, from sculptors to carpenters and from blacksmiths to coppersmiths. And then the large organ: the 8,000 pipes are currently being cleaned and patched up where necessary so that they can soon reverberate as usual. Five years after the devastating fire, Notre-Dame in Paris is visibly rising from its ashes. The reconstruction and renovation are almost complete. The spire has been largely rebuilt and reaches a height of 96 meters again. Scaffolding and scaffolding are being removed little by little. In eight months, on December 8, the doors will open to the public again. It is a miracle, some say: construction of the cathedral began in the year 1163 and took no less than 200 years. And now the church building has been restored to its former glory in just five years. "Of course, Notre-Dame did not burn down completely. Part of the roof, the vaults and the woodwork had to be rebuilt. The stone walls were almost entirely left standing. So it was doable within five years," says architectural historian Mathieu Lours. He is affiliated with the University of Cergy-Pontoise and is considered one of the specialists in France when it comes to the construction of churches and cathedrals. "What helped enormously is that Macron mentioned that five-year deadline. That put the renovation under time pressure and also ensured that some logistical matters could be arranged quickly, because the president wanted it that way. And not unimportant: there was enough money. " The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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French purchases of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia have increased by a massive 75% since the beginning of 2024 compared to the same period a year ago, Politico reported on Thursday, citing data provided by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).
In the first quarter of this year, imports of Russian LNG by the EU’s second-biggest economy reportedly amounted to €600 million in monetary terms – more than any other member of the bloc. France topped the table in terms of both total volumes imported in 2024, which amounted to 1.5 million tons, and the surge in purchases versus the same period last year, when imports totalled 882,209 tons. Following the beginning of the conflict with Ukraine and subsequent sanctions imposed on Moscow by Brussels, the EU sought to reduce its energy dependence on Russia. Russian gas supplies had previously made up nearly half of all the bloc’s gas imports. Gas has not been targeted by the EU’s sanctions on Moscow, which banned seaborne exports of Russian oil and significantly narrowed the scope of trade between Russia and the bloc overall. However, gas supplies from Russia to the bloc have seen a sharp drop due to the restrictions and the September 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines. The EU also unveiled a plan to end the bloc’s dependence on fossil imports from Russia by 2027 shortly after the launch of Russia’s military campaign against Ukraine. ommenting on the impressive increase in France’s gas imports from Russia despite the bloc’s official stance on the issue, an unnamed French Energy Ministry official told Politico that it “isn’t an easy topic.” “If we continue to pay for gas we do not import, there is no point,” they added, referring to long-term contracts signed by French oil and gas major TotalEnergies. Last year, TotalEnergies СEO Patrick Pouyanne said the company would purchase the chilled gas from Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project when it is launched due to contractual liabilities. The enterprise is being developed by private energy giant Novatek. The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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