Tag Archives: France

Outrage as France become first country in world to ban pro-Palestine demos

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France’s Socialist government provoked outrage today by becoming the first in the world to ban protests against Israeli action in Palestine.

In what is viewed as an outrageous attack on democracy, Socialist Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said mass demonstrations planned for the weekend should be halted.

Mr Cazeneuve said there was a ‘threat to public order’, while opponents said he was ‘criminalising’ popular support of the Palestinian people.

Thousands were set to march against the ongoing slaughter in Gaza, calling for an immediate end to hostilities in which civilians including many children have been killed.

But Mr Cazeneuve fears there might be a repeat of the fights between ‘ultra’ Jewish vigilantes and pro-Palestinians which happened after a demonstration last Sunday.

There were false claims made last week that synagogues in Paris had been targeted by pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

In fact videos showed armed vigilantes from a group called the Jewish Defence League (LDJ) baiting demonstrators into fights.

There were no arrests among the LDJ, despite them fighting and smashing up property in full view of the police.

Six pro-Palestine protestors were arrested for a variety of public order offences, but none had been anywhere near Paris synagogues, which remained undamaged.

2 dead in French train derailment, mayor says

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Ֆրանսիա,ալպեր

 

At least two people were killed and seven others were injured in a train derailment in southeastern France on Saturday morning, a local mayor said.

The train, which carried 35 passengers, was traveling on a route between Saint-Benoit and Annot in a mountainous area of the department of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Annot Mayor Jean Ballester said.

The derailment took place when the train hit a rock that had fallen on the railway, Ballester said in an interview with CNN affiliate BFMTV.

An emergency plan was launched by regional authorities. Dozens of firefighters and a rescue helicopter were dispatched to the scene, Ballester said.

 

Անկախ

 

Prostitution: France Wants to Punish Clients

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մարնավաճառ

 

France’s government is pushing one of Europe’s toughest laws against prostitution and sex trafficking, and other countries are watching closely. Advocates hope that a draft French law going to parliament Wednesday will help change long-held attitudes toward the world’s oldest profession — by punishing the customer and protecting the prostitute.

The bill, however, is facing resistance in a country with a libertine reputation and a Mediterranean macho streak, and has prompted petitions defending those who buy sex. Signatories include screen icon Catherine Deneuve —who played a prostitute in the cult film “Belle de Jour” — and crooner Charles Aznavour.

Prostitution is currently legal in France, but brothels, pimping and soliciting in public are illegal.

The proposed law would introduce a 1,500-euro ($2,000) fine —rising to 3,000-euro at the second offense— for the clients of prostitutes. They could also be forced to attend classes aimed at highlighting the harms of prostitution.

The proposed law —written by a group of lawmakers from both right and left and backed by the Socialist government— follows the example of Sweden, which passed similar legislation in 1999.

A report commissioned by the Swedish government showed that the number of people involved in street prostitution in Sweden’s three largest cities dropped from around 730 in 1999 to 300-430 a year in the 10 years after that. At the same time, street prostitution in neighboring Norway and Denmark increased.

Supporters of the French draft law argue that it could reduce sex trafficking and empower prostitutes.

And earlier this month, a petition emerged, signed by 60 celebrities, including Deneuve and Aznavour, saying: “Without supporting or promoting prostitution, we reject the penalization of those who prostitute themselves and those who buy their services, and we ask for a real debate without ideological prejudice.”

 

Weather girl who promised to strip naked if France qualified for World Cup keeps to her word… at a distance… in a field

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Եղանակի տեսություն , հաղորդավարուհի

 

When millions of viewers turned on the TV in France, they were expecting to a see a weathergirl stick to her word and give a forecast naked.

Doria Tillier, 27, had boldly vowed to strip off if the France national football team managed to qualify for the World Cup finals.

With Les Bleus 2-0 down after the first leg of their play-off qualifier against Ukraine, she was confident they would lose in Paris on Tuesday.

But they didn’t – and ended up winning 3-0 on the night, 3-2 on aggregate.

And she did… although not in the way viewers may have expected.

Instead of taking her clothes off on-screen, she made a series of jokes and allowed a long-distance back shot of her running across a field.

 

 

Weather presenter Doria Tillier 2

Doria said she would be ‘a poil’ – French for naked – but in fact presented the weather from Poil, which is a village near Paris.

‘It was a pathetic stunt – not funny at all,’ said disappointed Canal+ viewer Remy Jacob. ‘Everyone was hoping Doria would be a good sport, but it was all nonsense.’

Protest at Paris Schools Over Immigrant Expulsions

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Ֆրանսիա, Փարիզ,բողոքի ակցիաներ,ներգաղթյալներ

 

Hundreds of teenagers are erecting barricades outside their schools and marching through Paris to protest police expulsions of immigrant families.

Anger erupted this week over the treatment of a 15-year-old Kosovar girl, detained in front of classmates on a field trip. The government says her family had been denied asylum and was no longer allowed to stay in France.

Such expulsions occur regularly around France as the government tries to limit illegal immigration. The students, saying the expulsions are unfair to children, hope to pressure the Socialist-led government into allowing a recently expelled Armenian boy and the Kosovar girl to return to France.

At one high school in Paris, students piled green garbage cans in front of the entrance and hung a banner saying “Education in Danger.”

 

$270 million worth of cocaine found on Air France flight

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france-cocaineThere was something odd about the 30 suitcases that showed up on a flight from Venezuela. The colorful bags weren’t registered to any of the passengers on the plane.

When French officials opened them up, they discovered why — 1.3 tons of pure cocaine were stuffed inside the anonymous bags.

The catch was made on September 11, but French authorities didn’t publicize the find until Saturday.

On Sunday, Venezuela’s Public Ministry said that authorities had detained three members of the National Guard in connection with the incident.

It wasn’t immediately clear exactly what they are accused of doing.

The suitcases came from Caracas aboard an Air France flight to Paris, but did not match any of the passengers on board, CNN affiliate BFMTV reported.

“Several” people have been taken in custody, French Interior Minister Manuel Valls told reporters Saturday.

Venezuelan authorities are also investigating.

 

An oeuf is enough: French farmers smash 100,000 eggs a day in protest at EU directive to protect hens

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French egg producers throw crates of eggs5Furious French farmers are smashing hundreds of thousands of fresh eggs in a protest at cripplingly low prices they blame on the European Union.

In bizarre scenes in the northwest region of Brittany, piles of mangled shell, yolk and albumen are being dumped on main roads next door to supermarkets.

‘The mess is terrible and soon it will start to smell very badly indeed,’ said one shopworker. ‘It’s a strange protest, but one which will create a huge amount of publicity.’

Poultry farmers say they have been forced to start destroying their stock because of overproduction in the EU.
They insist that they are barely making any profit at all because of a strict EU directive which came into force in January aimed at protecting the well-being of hens.

Many of the protestors have been wearing masks as they take the thousands of ‘We will continue to destroy 100,000 eggs a day until Sunday,’ a spokesman for the protest group told AFP, France’s national news agency.

He threatened that radical action would increase in intensity ‘with inevitable collateral damage’ if the group’s demands were not met.

One hundred thousand eggs a day equates to five per cent of he number of eggs being produced each day by the farmers involved in the dispute.

They want France’s entire egg production to be reduced by five per cent to help raise prices, and called on President Francois Hollande’s government to help with the smashing.

 

France’s Top Cop Assures Tourists Paris Is Safe

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Paris-Eiffeli-tornVisitors to Paris take note: Interior Minister Manuel Valls assures you that the City of Light is dealing with the pickpockets and petty criminals that have recently targeted tourists.

France’s top cop toured some major sites Friday, from the Louvre Museum to the Eiffel Tower, to check on his tourist-friendly plan and put out the word that “Paris is a safe city.”

The French capital has been getting a bad rep recently because of a rise in the number of small-scale crimes on tourists. The Louvre Museum even closed for a day in April when employees angered by pickpockets walked off the job.

In response, Valls has added 200 police to survey major tourist sites and put out a stay-safe guide in six languages.

 

Rock-solid love: Australian woman marries a bridge in France – and even gets the mayor’s blessing

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Australian woman marries a bridge in Southern FranceAn Australian woman has taken her desire for the ‘strong and silent’-type to a new extreme when she married a bridge.

Jodi Rose married Le Pont du Diable Bridge in Céret, southern France after falling head over heels for the ‘sensual’ 14th century stone structure.

Ms Rose, or Mrs Le Pont du Diable, has spent the past decade travelling the world recording the vibrations in bridge cables with contact microphones and using them to create experimental music.

After visiting dozens of bridges all over the world for her Singing Bridges musical project, she decided this was ‘The One’.

Although her new husband may struggle to express his feelings, newlywed Jodi said ‘his being is very present, and I feel at peace in his strong embrace.’

‘He makes me feel connected to the earth and draws me to rest from my endless nomadic wanderings. He is fixed, stable, rooted to the ground, while I am nomadic, transient, ever on the road.

The wedding between Jodi and Le Pont du Diable, which translates to The Devil’s Bridge, took place in front of 14 guests and was blessed by the mayor of neighbouring town Saint-Jean-de-Fos.

The pair made their vows at the groom’s entrance. Rose wore a custom bridal gown and veil, and commissioned rings for both her and the bridge.

Their union is not legally recognised in France, but Rose claims their marriage is as strong as any other.

Ms Rose, who says she is completely devoted to her new husband, have yet to explain how she determined the sex of the bridge.

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Three-day strike by French air traffic controllers disrupts flights across Europe

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cancelled flights, France1A three-day strike by French air traffic controllers will cause sweeping cancellations and major delays for holidaymakers across the whole of Europe starting from today.

All airlines using French airports have been asked to cancel 50 per cent of their services, but flights that cross over French airspace will also be affected, causing further disruption across the continent.

The strike action began at 6am local time and air traffic controllers will not return to work until 6am on Friday.

France’s civil aviation authority confirmed that one in every two flights to Paris, Lyon, Toulouse and Bordeaux is cancelled.

Airlines are contacting passengers affected by cancellations and offering them the chance to rebook or receive a refund.

The French strike is being held to protest plans by the EU to create a single European airspace instead of allowing each member state to control its own skies.