Just for kicks:
"France Seeks to Extend Emergency Powers as It Prepares for Sports Events" New York Times News Service April 21, 2016
PARIS — The move, which is expected to easily get the required parliamentary approval, comes as France prepares for the European Championship soccer tournament and the Tour de France this summer.
It's a two month extension but I'll bet it stays extended into perpetuity.
That's how these things work.
The two high-profile, well-attended events will pose a serious security challenge as the government tries to guarantee safety amid the increasing threat posed by Islamist extremists.
The attacks in November included three suicide bombers who struck outside a soccer match at the Stade de France, a stadium in the northern Paris suburb of St.-Denis that will be the site of the final game of the soccer tournament.
Up to 7 million people are expected to attend events related to the soccer tournament, either by attending any of the 51 matches that will be played in 10 stadiums or by watching the games at fan zones that can accommodate 10,000 to 100,000.
Why would you want to gather a whole bunch of people together to be a terrorist target??
Valls, speaking on the radio network France Info, said the government had to “ensure full security” at stadiums and fan zones in cities across the country for the European Championship, which will run from June 10 to July 10.
UEFA, the governing body for European soccer, is expected to hire 10,000 private agents to help with security inside and outside the stadiums. They will be deployed in addition to a sizable police presence.
Uh-oh.
The fan zones have prompted concerns about security....
Like the question I raised?
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I really get tired being given the run-around on field:
"France unveils ads to combat jihadism — an attempt at a counternarrative against an Islamic State publicity machine that churns out huge amounts of propaganda. The United States has also expanded an online campaign to counter jihadi messages, sharing stories of defectors and highlighting Muslim victims of terrorism."
That is what I'm reading, yeah.
"French head of anti-Islam party on trial" Associated Press October 20, 2015
PARIS — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen went on trial Tuesday over comments she made five years ago comparing Muslim street prayers to a foreign occupation.
At the end of the hearing, the public prosecutor asked for the case to be dismissed on the basis of freedom of expression. The court’s ruling is expected on Dec. 15.
Le Pen, whose National Front party is known for anti-immigration and anti-Islam views, has been charged with inciting racial hatred in Lyon, where she faced anti-racism and human rights groups.
‘‘I have the right, as a political leader, to evoke a crucial issue and it’s even a duty for me to do it,’’ Le Pen told reporters when she arrived at the court.
Le Pen, whose popularity is on the rise in France, could face up to a year in prison and a fine of $51,000. Political experts, however, say she could emerge from the trial even stronger among many voters.
Like that short guy with a mustache from next door like a long, long time ago.
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There are sinners and then there are saints -- but it can be hard to tell the difference sometimes and they are often interchangeable.
"French pilots flee Dominican Republic over drug conviction" Associated Press October 27, 2015
PARIS — A French pilot facing 20 years’ imprisonment over a cocaine conviction in the Dominican Republic said Tuesday that he and a fellow pilot fled across the Atlantic rather than wait for a ruling on their appeal.
‘‘We’re dealing with a judicial system . . . that condemned us to 20 years for the sole reason we were French,’’ said Pascal Jean Fauret, who escaped with fellow pilot and defendant Bruno Odos.
‘‘You know, I was imprisoned in an isolation cell for two weeks, then later in a high-security area where we were five in a cell of six square meters,” or roughly 65 square feet, Fauret said at a news conference.
He's claiming he was tortured?
Odos did not attend the news conference. Both men have denied knowing that the private plane they were hired to fly was carrying 26 suitcases of cocaine.
The pair were appealing their convictions this year for involvement in a 1,500-pound shipment of cocaine in 2013. They had been released after a year in detention but under judicial supervision — an arrangement that gave them an opportunity to flee.
They had been barred from leaving the Dominican Republic pending their appeal.
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I suppose that is the only way to get off the island; not like you can drive over water.
"French authorities have opened an investigation after a baby was found hidden in a bag belonging to a passenger on board an Air France plane. The French company says in a statement that the child, who traveled with ‘‘an adult’’ on Air France Flight 1891 from Istanbul to Paris on Monday, did not have a valid ticket. Air France says it requested ‘‘the presence of French authorities on the flight’s arrival’’ to deal with the matter. No details of the child’s identity were given."
So where will ISIS land?
"For migrants in France’s ‘Jungle’ camp, a mixed legal ruling" by Adam Nossiter New York Times February 25, 2016
CALAIS, France — The camp east of this port city is home to at least 1,000 migrants and probably many more. The French government wants it leveled, and announced plans to do so last week.
They have been spending way too much time around Zionists.
The judge gave the government permission to relocate some of the residents of the camp. But the court ordered that the camp’s “living spaces” — shops, restaurants, schools, churches and mosques — be preserved, lawyers for the migrants said.
That means the camp, known to its denizens as the Jungle, will not be dismantled immediately, and the migrants will not be expelled right away, the lawyers said.
At the same time the French interior minister, who had sought the camp’s immediate evacuation and destruction, hailed the judge’s decision as “backing the government’s action at Calais” to “shelter the Calais migrants and reclaim the encampment.”
The Calais camp has come to symbolize much of Europe’s ambiguous response to the refugee crisis.
Perched on the edge of the English Channel and full of Afghans, Sudanese, Iraqis and Syrians desperate to reach England — for what they see as its more liberal social benefits and work rules — it has been both tolerated and neglected by the French state.
The result is a mud-filled assemblage of makeshift tarpaulin tents stretching out over dozens of acres where only a handful of volunteer organizations provide the most basic of services.
For months the government has said the camp poses an intolerable security challenge for the state, citing clashes between migrants trying to get to England through the Channel Tunnel, on trains and trucks, and the hundreds of police officers who surround the site.
It's like a convoy.
Thousands of the migrants have been moved out, some to shelters scattered throughout France, and others to an encampment of metal containers adjacent to the muddy tent city. But many have remained inside the Jungle, where an oddball civic life has taken root, helped by a myriad constellation of volunteer organizations. Restaurants, schools, places of worship, clinics and even a theater have been established.
Soon you can call yourselves Palestinian. They have the longest oddballs of civic life going on this planet, some 65+ years now.
Advocates for the migrants said that while they do not sanction the Jungle’s continued existence — conditions there are miserable — they mistrust the state’s intentions.
Who doesn't?
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Related:
French police tear down longstanding Roma camp on Paris outskirts
Eight die as fire engulfs apartments at Montmartre in Paris
Calais Camp Burns (sixth photo down was in Globe).
The report has still not identified who the victim was, and at least French Monaco is finally admitting Jewish refugees.
Also see: France, Netherlands join forces
"Low turnout endangers Dutch vote on EU-Ukraine pact" Associated Press April 07, 2016
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A clear majority of people who voted Wednesday in a Dutch referendum rejected a far-reaching European Union free trade deal with Ukraine, and with all votes counted it was clear that the threshold of 30 percent voter turnout would be met and the result would be valid.
TPTB never like to see that!
The turnout was at 32.2 percent, broadcasters NOS and RTL reported after all votes were counted and reported by municipalities to national news agency ANP’s election service.
So what are they going to do, annul the election, and if so I have an idea for Americans. Don't vote!
The sentiment among those in the nation of 17 million who voted was crystal clear: According to the ANP count, 61.1 percent rejected the EU-Ukraine pact and 38.1 percent voted for it. The remaining votes were blank or spoiled.
‘‘It looks like the Dutch people said NO to the European elite and NO to the treaty with the Ukraine,’’ tweeted popular anti-Islam, anti-EU lawmaker Geert Wilders. ‘‘The beginning of the end of the EU.’’
Those three words are the very essence of freedom; if you can't say no, you have no freedom.
As expected, the vote underscored a deep-rooted skepticism about this country’s place in Europe. The non-binding Dutch vote came less than three months before British citizens decide in their own referendum whether to leave the EU altogether.
Is that why Cameron's name was leaked in the Panama papers? Because he allowed a vote?
The Netherlands is a founding member of the European Union, a trading nation that benefits from its internal market but paradoxically also a hotbed of Euro-skepticism that rejected the bloc’s proposed constitution in a 2005 referendum.
Exactly what will happen to the agreement now is unclear.
But in a first reaction, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said: ‘‘If the turnout is above 30 percent, with such a big victory for the ‘No’ camp, you can’t just go ahead and ratify the treaty.’’
However, Rutte said he would not be rushed into action, saying he wanted to discuss the result in his Cabinet, at the European Union, and in the Dutch Parliament, a process that could take ‘‘days if not weeks.’’
Meaning they will slip it through over the peoples objection late at night when no one is paying attention (during the next Gladio event maybe?).
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Related:
"An ex-U.S. Marine has been arrested on suspicion of beating, running over and threatening to rape a 70-year-old female taxi driver in the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba. The New York Times profiled 30-year-old Patrick Maxwell of Austin, Texas, in a story about ex-U.S. military members voluntarily fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria."
So what "company" is he working for?
