A Center for the deradicalization of Muslim extremists set up in Central France last September is empty. The last man to be “treated” at the chateau of Pontourny, in Beaumont-en-Véron, left on February 8. Although France has listed thousands as “radicalized” in the police data banks, there were never more than six or seven at any given time and only nine people ever volunteered for the center which can house up to 30.
Category Archive: France
French conservative presidential candidate, François Fillon, said on Monday at a Paris press conference that he will not stand down despite an investigation by magistrates on suspicions of corruption.
After nearly two weeks of blistering attacks for allegedly using taxpayer money to pay his wife €830,000 for a fictitious parliamentary assistant’s job, the former Premier struck back, saying his wife was paid for real work. He did however admit that, although it is a common and legal practice for parliamentarians to hire family members, it was an error.
Despite another attempted attack at the Paris Louvre Museum and an EU summit in Malta to end illegal migration from Africa, the presidential debate in France has shifted from the questions of Islamic terrorism and immigration to ethics and corruption.
France has some 15,000 Salafist radicals and nearly 2,000 French nationals have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight Jihad, according to French authorities. The French government has shut down scores of radical mosques, Koranic schools and associations since the State-of-Emergency was decreed in November 2015. Today the debate focusses on the estimated five million Muslims in France (nobody knows how many for sure) who are accused, like the “good Germans” of Nazi days, of not stepping forward to denounce what they may see or hear.
Paris, France. If there is one thing you did not want to be in France in 1944, it was a suspected Nazi collaborator or a woman who slept with a German. In 1962, the last thing you wanted to be in Algeria was a Harki; an Algerian who fought against the independence of his country and in favor of French rule.
An estimated 1.2 million Muslims in France would prefer Islamic rule to the secular Republic. 28% of the Muslims polled believe Sharia law comes before the laws of France. This is the conclusion drawn from a poll published by the Institut Montaigne which says nearly a third of the estimated four million Muslims in France have “adopted a system of values clearly opposed to the values of the Republic.” That is a large ocean to swim in for the 15,000 potential Jihadists said to be living in the country.
A third of the Muslims in France would rather see a hard line Sharia law regime in place of the secular Republic they live in, including half of those aged 15 to 25.
The French weekly, le Journal du Dimanche, published on Sunday a first of its kind study on Muslims in France which shows that they represent a little over five percent of the population (5.6%) but ten percent of those aged under 25. This means there are some four million Muslims out of a population of 66 million people in the country. What has people anxious is the high number of “extremists” among the youth.
Last May, the head of the French Domestic Intelligence service, the DGSI, a sort of FBI, told a parliamentary commission he felt “we are on the verge of a civil war.” Patrick Calver said: “one or more new attacks and the confrontation will come.” He was referring to extreme right wing violence in reaction to terrorism.
Gas stations ran dry last week when unions blocked the refineries. Other employees threatened to shut down nuclear reactors. Public transport is expected to grind to a halt this week. Police, teachers, prison guards and more are joining the movement. All of this to protest a mild labor reform law aimed at reducing unemployment.
President Hollande insists he will not back down even though violence in the streets, despite a state-of-emergency, has the government fearing tourists will stay away this summer.
It is truly a case of ‘The Cid‘ in which there is no honorable way out for all sides meaning the worst is possible.
Paris: France is bankrupt. In terms of the Maastricht criteria, French public debt is 97% of GDP, or roughly two trillion euros. But add to this, the off-balance-sheet debt (estimated at over three trillion euros) such as pensions (19 billion euros a year deficit), unemployment insurance (over five billion/year deficit), health care system (15 billion/year deficit) and other social guaranties supposed to finance themselves and the real debt of France is an astronomical 242% of GDP. Yet, labor in France refuses to hear of reform. Students, who have never worked a day in their lives, are marching with public service employees and fighting police in the streets.
KazoDaily 