| Europe |
| Paris conference targets 'Islamization' of Europe |
| 2010-12-19 |
| [Dawn] About 150 people have been protesting outside the site of a conference in Gay Paree against the "Islamization" of Europe. Protesters are waving banners reading "United Against Islamophobia" and "Fascists get out of our neighborhoods." Socialist Gay Paree Mayor Bertrand Delanoe had asked police to ban the conference, but police allowed it to go forward under surveillance. Saturday's conference of about 300 participants included speakers from beyond La Belle France. It was organized by several French groups that frequently complain about Islam's growing influence over traditional French values. La Belle France has Western Europe's largest Mohammedan population. |
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| Europe |
| Cheese eating surrender monkeys ban sausage/wine party over Muslim concerns |
| 2010-06-16 |
| A giant "sausage and wine" party planned later this week in a Paris neighbourhood with many Muslim residents risks sparking disturbances and will therefore be banned, police in the French capital announced on Tuesday. The event, announced on the social networking site Facebook late last month, had drawn growing criticism from politicians and civic groups in recent days as its page containing barely disguised anti-Muslim slogans attracted over 7,000 members. The event, called an "apero geant" (giant cocktail party), was due on Friday, a date seen as highly provocative because that will be the day of the weekly Muslim prayer and the World Cup soccer match between England and majority Muslim Algeria. It is also the 70th anniversary of General Charles de Gaulle's famous 1940 "Appeal of June 18" from London calling on the French to resist the German occupation of their country. "This open-air event creates serious risks of disturbances to public order," the police said in a statement, noting the symbolism of the time and place chosen for the flash mob-style party. It also said counter-demonstrations were planned. The main organiser, Sylvie Francois, wrote that she wanted the event to be "a joyous protest" against the closing down of roads in the Goutte d'Or neighbourhood every Friday by Muslims praying in the street outside the overcrowded mosque there. MAYOR CRITICAL The Facebook page also appeared to signal the party's thrust with appeals to "native Parisians" and complaints about "the resolute foes of our local wines and pork products." In a statement before the ban was announced, Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said the party was "clearly inspired by extreme right-wing movements" and seemed to be "designed to degenerate, possibly into violence." Fadela Amara, secretary of state for urban policy and a practicing Muslim, denounced the planned event as a bid by the extreme right to spread hatred. "I'm all for people getting together, having a drink and a good time, but when it's organised like that ... it's very dangerous," she told RTL radio. After the ban was announced, supporters of the event wrote on the Facebook page that they would still gather on Friday in Goutte d'Or, a poor mixed-ethnic area of northeastern Paris. "It's official -- Muslims can pray in the street but we don't have the right to eat pork there. France is now ruled by sharia," one supporter named Antoine wrote. The "apero geant" plan, a takeoff on flash mob drinking parties that have become popular in France, recalls earlier events such as winter soup kitchens serving only dishes containing pork so neither Muslims nor Jews would eat them. The Paris event page also carried announcements of similar "sausage and wine" parties in Lyon, Toulouse, Brussels and London, where the event is called a "bacon and beer" party. |
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| Europe | |
| Socialists win majority of votes in French municipal elections | |
| 2008-03-10 | |
Up to 44.5 million eligible voters are casting their votes for more than 287,000 candidates running for the elections. About 36,000 city mayors and 500,000 municipal councilors will be elected. The poll stations closed at 20:00 local time in the large cities and at 18: 00 in the smaller ones. The second and final round of the elections is due on March 16, where candidates who scored more than 10 percent in the first round will be continuing their fight, whereas candidates win outright with more than 50 percent today. These elections are considered the first "significant electoral test" for Sarkozy since taking office in May 2007. The Socialist party called for "punishing" Sarkozy through the elections as they are fighting to win the cities had lost to the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) in the 2001 elections. According to polls, the Socialists and the left-wing party are expected to gain an "easy" win in Paris and other prominent cities, such as Paris, Lyon, Lille, Toulouse and Strasbourg. In the 2001 municipal elections, Socialist Bertrand Delanoe won Paris while this year Francoise de Panafieu will represent the UMP party as the right tries to regain the capital but polls indicate that Delanoe is favored to win an easy re-election. According to reports, two-thirds of Sarkozy's 22-member cabinet are competing for municipal seats, in addition to his son Jean Sarkozy, 21, who is running for a seat in the posh Neuilly-sur-Seine suburb in Paris, where his fathers political career began as mayor for 19 years. The UMP ruling party currently controls 55 percent of the 230 French cities. | |
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| Europe |
| Security alert as Islamists theaten Paris mayor |
| 2008-01-11 |
| Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe has been given extra security protection after an Islamist website used by Al-Qaeda members listed him as a target, police said on Wednesday. A police source said Delanoe's protection had been "slightly reinforced", although he said the "threats are not specific and do not come from a site linked directly to Al-Qaeda." The Socialist mayor, who is strongly tipped for reelection in March, said he was informed on Saturday of the threat, picked up by a US agency that monitors Al-Qaeda messages on the Internet. It lists Paris and its mayor as targets for attacks, with the aim of provoking the downfall of President Nicolas Sarkozy. |
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| Europe |
| Court rules pork soup kitchen not racist |
| 2007-01-02 |
| A FRENCH court ruled on Tuesday that an organisation with far-right links can continue offering pork soup to the homeless, rejecting police complaints that the food distribution was racist. Police banned the soup kitchen last month, arguing that the handouts discriminated against Jews and Muslims who do not eat pork on religious grounds. The administrative court said the distribution was "clearly discriminatory", but could not be stopped because the organisers offered to feed anyone who asked for help. The mayor of Paris condemned the ruling and urged the police to appeal the ruling. "Faced by this initiative which stinks of xenophobia, I want once again to express city hall's desire to fight all forms of discrimination, racism and anti-Semitism," mayor Bertrand Delanoe said in a statement. The food handouts are organised by a nationalist group called Solidarity of the French (SDF). It says its "pig soup", which uses pork fat for stock, is country fare much loved by French traditionalists. "No-one has ever been able to prove that anyone has been refused soup or clothes on the grounds of their religion or race," SDF lawyer Frederic Pichon said on France Info radio after Tuesday's court decision. |
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| Paris mayor condemns Teheran Holocaust cartoon show | |
| 2006-08-18 | |
| PARIS - Pariss mayor on Thursday condemned a Teheran exhibition of cartoons on the Holocaust, saying the display mocked the Nazi killing of 6 million Jews. Bertrand Delanoe said he was appalled by the display of more than 200 entries from Irans International Holocaust Cartoons Contest, which organisers say aims to challenge Western taboos about discussing the mass killings of European Jews. Delanoe condemned the exhibition in a letter to Irans ambassador, saying the event intended to mock the tragedy of the Shoah and to trivialise a new anti-Semitic bid under the false pretext of art and freedom of speech. At a time when violence and war should lead everyone towards a willingness for dialogue, appeasement and tolerance, such a step serves, on the contrary, motivations dominated by hatred, the Socialist mayor said. Delanoe called on Iran to let the paths of reason and respect of others prevail.
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| Brits 'cheated for Games' | |
| 2005-07-12 | |
 THE Mayor of Paris last night accused London of using âcorruptionâ to win the 2012 Olympics. Bitter Bertrand Delanoe claimed that Tony Blair and bid leader Lord Coe had âcrossed the lineâ in campaigning. And he vowed to fight to prove that the French capital has the âmoral rightâ to stage the games. In a shameless display of sour grapes, Delanoe said: âThey have not respected the rules established by the International Olympic Committee.
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| Chirac 'food bills' case cut | |
| 2004-11-17 | |
| FRENCH President Jacques Chirac has no legal case to answer for notching up high dining expenses while he was mayor of Paris, a court said today. Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe, a member of the opposition Socialist Party, filed a civil complaint last year over the food bills amassed by Mr Chirac and his wife Bernadette between 1987 and 1995. But a Paris appeals court dismissed the case, saying the statute of limitations had lapsed. Mr Chirac, who was reelected as president in 2002 for a five year term, has declined to comment on the allegations. He remains immune from questioning or possible prosecution as long as he is head of state, but his wife enjoys no such immunity. The city of Paris can still take the case to France's highest appeals court. The city's lawyer said he would assess today's court decision before making a statement. Mr Delanoe filed the complaint after an audit he ordered found Mr Chirac and his wife spent â¬2.2 million ($2.85 million) on wine and food for private entertaining between 1987 and 1995, more than half of it in cash. According to the report, food bills amounted to â¬600 ($1000) a day on average. Money was also spent on items such as subscriptions to private television channels, kitchen utensils, the purchase of a television and camping equipment. The authors of the audit, made public by a Green city councillor, concluded cash payments may have led to misappropriation of funds. They pointed to some bills which appeared to have been paid several times, and others which appeared to be for fictitious items. Mr Chirac was also at the centre of a probe into large suspect cash payments he made for private trips abroad in the 1990s. He denied any impropriety.
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| Paris judge holds Chiracs to account for £1.4m grocery bill |
| 2003-06-13 |
| So Jacques appears to be just another hack on the public tit? And here we all thought he was some kind of antiwar hero of the oppressed... A Paris investigating magistrate has overruled the recommendation of a senior public prosecutor and set up a formal inquiry into the £1.4m grocery bill claimed by Jacques Chirac and his wife during eight of the 18 years that the president spent as mayor of the French capital. Judge Philippe Courroye said yesterday that the alleged crimes of fraud and misuse of public funds were not subject to a 10-year statute of limitations, as the chief Paris prosecutor, Yves Bot, had argued, because they may have been committed "by a person in a position of public authority". Hey, it appears he's a thief, too. While Mr Chirac cannot be prosecuted (or questioned) as long as he remains in office, the decision could affect his wife, Bernadette, who may have to explain how the couple could consume up to £100 of fruit and veg and £37 of tea and coffee a day, mostly paid for in cash and justified with receipts which, in many cases, appear to have been doctored. Ve likes ze froot, ze tea and ze caffee vairy much. Good luck, Bernadette. I vill vait for you. Ontil then...au revouir. The inquiry follows a complaint filed last year by the current Socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, after a damning report by town hall accountants that threw a new light on the Chiracs' spending habits while occupying the mayoral apartments. Because most of the files from the early years of the Chirac tenure were shredded before municipal elections in 2000, the report covers only the years 1987-1995. But the evidence looks strong: during those eight years alone, the Chiracs claimed for, and were reimbursed, £1.45m for their personal food bills. Shredded records? Well, fancy that? Maybe they ate them. Some £950,000 of the bills, which are entirely separate from the mayor's annual £1m entertainment budget, were paid in cash apparently taken from the proceeds of the town hall's staff bar. The money was reimbursed in exchange for receipts that "in many instances give rise to suspicions of substantial fraud", the report says. The town hall's staff bar? How many politicians would be in jail if we had something like that over here? One £1,500 bill for foie gras and truffles had plainly been tampered with. "The initial sum appears to have been £500, with the figure 1 added at a later date," the auditors said. Another bill, for £375 in 1994, was reimbursed "four times that year, and then once the following year, on the basis of carbon copies of different colours and a modified date". Yes, but they were the generic store brand truffles and foie gras. It's so simplisme! The corners of many receipts had been cut off to remove the date, the report adds, while receipts for purchases worth £4,000 from the luxury Paris delicatessen Fauchon "appear purely and simply to be fakes". The president, whose name has been mentioned in half a dozen other scandals ranging from illegal party funding schemes to jobs-for-the-boys scams, has so far declined to comment on the allegations beyond saying that he is confident the police "will do their job properly". If they do, you and the missus'll be sharing a cell. No deliveries from Fauchon in there I'll bet. |
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| Europe |
| Paris mayor stabbed... |
| 2002-10-06 |
| The mayor of Paris was stabbed in the abdomen Sunday while he was attending an overnight concert at City Hall, but his injury was not life-threatening. Bertrand Delanoe was rushed by ambulance to a Paris hospital, where he was treated and held for observation. France Info radio said a 39-year-old man with a criminal record was detained. The motive for the attack was not immediately known. Nor were there any details, like whether he was wearing a turban... The attack was the second in less than three months against a prominent French politician. On July 14, a man allegedly tried to shoot President Jacques Chirac as he was reviewing troops at the annual Bastille Day military parade in Paris. Maybe they should pass a law making it illegal to try to kill politicians... Oh. There already are laws? Sounds like they need more, huh? That'll stop it, fershurr. "The mayor's injury is minor. He is now under observation," a spokesman said. France Info said his injury required stitches. "Bertie! You've been stabbed!" "Only a scratch, Cladette. Go on with the ball. I'll get a few stitches and I'll be back in no time." FOLLOWUP: Yep. There's a turban involved... The man suspected of stabbing Paris' openly gay mayor early Sunday told interrogators he did it because he disliked politicians and homosexuals, judicial officials said. The unidentified suspect, who was taken into custody immediately, confessed to the stabbing. Officials said the 39-year-old attacker told them that he was a devout Muslim and acted out of opposition to politicians and gays. Investigators believe the suspect isn't linked to any Islamic fundamentalist parties. Oh. Well, then it's okay, isn't it? |
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| International |
| Another synagogue attack... |
| 2002-04-10 |
In case you missed it, Damien Penny has the scooby on "Last night's regularly scheduled French anti-Jewish hate crime.""I haven't seen any official reaction from the French government, but I expect a call for French Jews to remain calm, and absolutely nothing to be asked of the Muslim community."Hand me a towel, Abdul. The mullah's about to preach... |
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