A huge fire, apparently started deliberately, tore through the Grande-Synthe migrant camp near the northern French city of Dunkirk late Monday, reducing it to “a heap of ashes”, the regional chief said. Firefighters said at least 10 people had been injured in the blaze at the camp, which was home to some 1,500 people, mostly …
Read the full post →“Huge fire destroys French migrant camp, injures at least 10 people”
Marine Le Pen, France’s far-right presidential candidate, is denying France’s culpability in a roundup of Jews in Paris during World War II. In an interview Sunday on French television channel La Chaîne Info, Le Pen disputed France’s role in rounding up more than 13,000 Jews at the Vel d’Hiv cycling track in 1942 ― a …
Read the full post →“Marine Le Pen denies France’s role in major Holocaust raid”
France’s interior ministry said it has expelled a Swiss Islamic preacher with extremist views to his home country. The ministry said Hani Ramadan was arrested Saturday in Colmar, in eastern France, as he was taking part in a conference, and police escorted him to the Swiss border. It said Ramadan is “known in the past …
Read the full post →“France expels Swiss Islamic preacher Hani Ramadan”
France’s Interior Minister has announced that authorities have taken action to close down a mosque on the south coast suspected of promoting a ‘radical form’ of Islam. The mosque, in the southern French department of Hérault, was ordered closed after a raid uncovered leaflets promoting hate. The Sète mosque, located on Rue de la Révolution, …
Read the full post →“France forces closure of radical mosque for ‘promoting hate'”
A Palestine solidarity rally that Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo had urged police to ban went ahead on Saturday, but under tight restrictions. A journalist was attacked during the rally by pro-Israel counter demonstrators as police watched and did nothing. Police placed a “ring of steel” around the normally bustling Place du Châtelet in central Paris, …
Read the full post →“Paris police clamp down on Palestine rally”
French Open tournament organizers have revoked the credential for 21-year-old French tennis player Maxime Hamou after his on-camera harassment — or “inappropriate behavior,” as French Open organizers described it — of Eurosport reporter Maly Thomas. On Monday afternoon, Thomas approached Hamou for a live Eurosport interview after his first-round loss to Agentine Pablo Cuevas. Hamou was in a good …
In the south-eastern French town of Orange, famous for its Roman theatre, a Muslim woman said she was the subject of discrimination by electoral officials during the second round of the French presidential vote on Sunday. The woman said she was forced to remove her headscarf as officials said she did not match her photo …
Eight people have been injured, including a seven-year-old girl, after gunmen opened fire outside a mosque in southeast France. The shooting, which was not being treated as terrorism, took place in Avignon, Provence, at about 10.30pm on Sunday night. Worshippers were leaving the Arrahma mosque when at least two “hooded men” pulled up in a …
Read the full post →“Gunmen open fire outside Avignon mosque in France, eight injured”
French police arrested a man who attempted to drive a car into a group of people in front of a mosque in Créteil, a suburb of Paris. Witnesses saw the man try and fail to drive over roadside barriers to reach the area directly in front of the mosque on Thursday evening. He did not …
Read the full post →“Man tries to drive car into crowd outside of French mosque, police say”
A human rights group on Wednesday slammed French police in the northern port of Calais for “routinely” using pepper spray on both underage and adult migrants. The report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) also accused the French authorities of turning “a blind eye to the widespread reports of the abuse”. Calais was the main transit …
Read the full post →“French police face claims of abusing migrants”
