Free Republic

Members of the "yellow vests" protest movement have vandalised almost 60% of France's entire speed camera network, the interior minister has said. Christophe Castaner said the wilful damage was a threat to road safety and put lives in danger. The protest movement began over fuel tax increases, and saw motorists block roads and motorway toll booths. Some protesters feel speed cameras are solely a revenue-generating measure which takes money from the poor.

The New York Times is quick to the typeset to explain how Brussels is desperately offended because President Trump and Secretary Pompeo have lowered the importance of the EU. Officials from the European Union are apoplectic that U.S. officials have downgraded their status amid the official registry of diplomatic protocols. (snip) -- BRUSSELS — The Trump administration downgraded the diplomatic status of the European Union’s delegation to the United States last year without making a formal announcement or informing the bloc about the change, a European official said on Tuesday.

President Trump making his case for a barrier on the nation's southern border in a speech Tuesday night, describing a crisis with illegal immigration that includes the deaths of thousands of Americans..... The co-leader of the anti-mass immigration Alternative for Germany party, Alice Weidel, says that the brutal attack on AfD parliament member Frank Magnitz was an attempted assassination. Weidel added that: "the hatred against the AfD and the media coverage against this democratically elected party is bearing fruit" At least three masked men beat Magnitz unconscious using a piece of wood Monday in the city of Bremen. He was...

Monday’s attack on Bremen’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) leader Frank Magnitz is not the first time the far-right populist party has been targeted in the northern German city. In the past, windows have been smashed and a car vandalized. Yet the brutal beating of Magnitz does mark a new level of violence in Bremen. The 66-year-old Magnitz, who remains hospitalized, was reportedly set upon by masked assailants, who struck the parliamentarian in the head with an object. When Magnitz went to the ground, the attackers apparently continued beating him. Passersby ultimately came to his aid. Bremen’s police and state security...

Personal weapons ownership is on the rise in Europe in response to mass sexual assaults and radical Islamic terror attacks, according to the Wall Street Journal. While the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey found that a rise in personal firearms ownership on the continent represents only 10 per cent of the 32 percent global rise in the decade to 2017, the WSJ remarks that “Europe’s shift has been rapid”. The Times of London notes that Finland, Austria, Norway, Germany, and France are now in the top 25 nations in the world for civilian gun ownership, with France having 12.7 million weapons...

Following sustained anti-government protests the French government has announced plans to strictly control what it calls ‘unsanctioned’ protests. Wearing masks on demonstrations will also be prohibited. Speaking on French TV channel TF1, Prime Minister Philippe said the government would support a “new law punishing those who do not respect the requirement to declare [protests], those who take part in unauthorised demonstrations and those who arrive at demonstrations wearing face masks”. Protest leaders have begun to be arrested. A truck driver, Eric Drouet, was arrested last week for organising an ‘unsanctioned’ protest. Some politicians want to go further. Laurent Wauquiez, leader...

The leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party made a video statement on the sickening attack on Frank Magnitz, state chairman of the AfD. Magnitz was almost beaten to death by three masked thugs in the northern German city of Bremen. Police said they are treating the incident as a “politically motivated act.” AfD leader Alice Weidel said “she is completely shocked by this abhorrent act” and partly blames the media for it. According to her the media’s smear campaign against her democratically elected party “finally beared fruit”. Weidel says “this cowardly attack is to be completely condemned” and...

January 7, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – 2018 was the year that saw the Irish Referendum on abortion passed with cheering crowds on the streets of Dublin and elsewhere.   As the Feast of the Holy Family drew to a close on December 30, armed police at the request of the local clergy forcibly dragged an Irish pro-lifer from a Catholic cathedral. Seemingly, his crime was wanting to pray through the night in that cathedral as an act of reparation for the liberal abortion law about to be enacted in Ireland. The cathedral in question was St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh. That...

GALWAY, Ireland, January 7, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The euphoria of the “Yes” campaign on winning the Irish abortion referendum last May is turning decidedly sour. Not only are those who campaigned for a ‘yes’ vote complaining that the measures that have been rapidly introduced by a compliant government to kill the unborn are not enough, the same people who campaigned for freedom from the then existing restrictions on abortion now wish to restrict the rights of those morally opposed to abortion. The strategy by which the pro-abortion side wish to silence debate on abortion is through censorship zones, similar to...

BREAKING>>>> German Conservative AfD Politician BEATEN NEAR DEATH in Bremen –Political Assassination– 3 Days after AfD Headquarters Bombed! .. (Full title). ... German #AfD-politician Frank Magnitz (member of the German parliament) was badly injured in the German town #Bremen in #Germany, probably by three persons of the Antifa. Evidently a man (passer by) saved his life today at night. ... German police have declared this a political assassination attempt. ... Violent attacks on the conservative AfD Party in Germany are escalating. On Friday the AfD headquarters were bombed in Saxony. Three buildings were damaged in the blast ... Attacks are...

Spain now leads in number of migrant crossings than any other European country. Whilst at the same time, crossings into Italy have fallen 80 per cent, Reuters reports. The European border agency, Frontex, reported that 150,000 migrants entered EU countries illegally in 2018. Spain’s portion of those was double previous years’ having 57,000 using the now most active wroute through Morocco. Iraq and Syrian illegal migrants to Cyprus and Greece were up to 56,000. On the other hand, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has kept his campaign promise of reducing illegal immigration to Italy. They’ve seen an 80 per...

The substantial request for military support included air raids, logistics and transportation so Turkish forces could finish off the remaining fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in Syria, senior US officials were quoted as saying by the WSJ on Friday. "The Turkish requests are so extensive that, if fully met, the American military might be deepening its involvement in Syria instead of reducing it," the newspaper reported. The unidentified American officials told the Journal there was little chance Washington would agree to Ankara's requests in full. US President Donald Trump announced...

People in Germany believe their fellow citizens are happier to pay taxes for public spending than people in many other countries, a United Nations-backed study has found. The news comes as lawmakers call on the German government to increase public investment or cut taxes amid a budget surplus. […] Strong economic growth and low unemployment helped Germany record a €48.1 billion budget surplus in the first six months of 2018. That favorable position has split political opinion on what the government should do with the extra cash. Lawmakers from the Greens and the Left Party want more investment, while center-right...

PARIS: Saudi Arabia has threatened military action against Qatar if it goes ahead and acquires Russia's top of the range S-400 air defence missile system, Le Monde daily reported. Citing information it had obtained, Le Monde said Friday that Riyadh had written to French President Emmanuel Macron asking him to intervene to prevent the deal going ahead and to help preserve regional stability. There was no immediate official reaction from the president's office or the French foreign ministry to the report. Saudi Arabia, backed by other regional powers including Bahrain and the Unite Arab Emirates, broke off relations with Qatar...

The Champs-Elysees will be the main site of protest in Paris from 10am to 5pm Saturday (4am to 11am Eastern time US) with some Yellow Vests set to march to the Palace de la Bourse in the middle of the day. There is a march in the afternoon from Paris City Hall to the area of the National Assembly where a response will be read to President Emmanuel Macron's speech denouncing "hate" coming from the Yellow Vests and promising order "without compromise" on New Year's Eve. BFM-TV reported at mid-day Friday that 10-thousand had expressed interest on Facebook in the...

Singer Selena Gomez learned firsthand about some of the horrifying atrocities of sexual trafficking during her A21 internship, Christian author Ann Voskamp revealed. Gomez, who opened up about her volunteer work with the global anti–human trafficking nonprofit in an interview with Elle back in September, was taking notes when abolitionist Christine Caine shared of a grizzly discovery in Istanbul, Turkey. Caine, who leads A21, explained how 30 bloated bodies of young girls were discovered in a shipping container in Istanbul, with another 28 “gasping for one breath of air that isn’t thick with the stench of rotting evil.” She pointed...

There is now less than three months until the Brexit deadline in Great Britain. (The lights go out on March 29th absent some drastic change of course.) The deal that Theresa May cut with the EU Parliament has pleased pretty much nobody and shows no signs of being able to be approved in the House of Commons. An effort by the Prime Minister’s own party to remove her from office failed, largely because nobody else really wanted the job. So we’re heading for a No Deal Brexit, right?Perhaps not. Lara Marlowe, a correspondent for the Irish Times in Paris and...

The United States and Israel officially quit the U.N.’s educational, scientific and cultural agency at the stroke of midnight, the culmination of a process triggered more than a year ago amid concerns that the organization fosters anti-Israel bias. The withdrawal is mainly procedural yet serves a new blow to UNESCO, co-founded by the U.S. after World War II to foster peace. The Trump administration filed its notice to withdraw in October 2017 and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed suit. The Paris-based organization has been denounced by its critics as a crucible for anti-Israel bias: blasted for criticizing Israel’s occupation...

French President Emmanuel Macron used his New Year’s televised address to lash out at the populist Yellow Vest protestors who have taken to the streets through November and December to oppose his globalist policies, accusing them of anti-Semitism and other defects.

A TRADE deal with the US “doesn’t look like it will be possible” under Theresa May’s Brexit agreement, its ambassador has declared. In a fresh blow for No10, President Trump’s representative in London, Woody Johnson, called on the PM to think hard about whether to choose the America or the EU as Britain’s biggest trading partner after our EU exit. Mr Johnson also risked a diplomatic row by saying the UK “is in need of leadership”.