Free Republic

President Donald Trump will meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House later this month. A White House official says the meeting will take place on March 14. […] The White House official was not authorized to publicly confirm a visit that has not been formally announced and spoke on condition of anonymity. …

A teacher in central France has been suspended after he read passages of the Bible to his primary school pupils. Education authorities in the staunchly secular country have been accused of overreacting. The teacher was suspended from his school in Malicornay, in the department of Indre, after reading Bible passages to pupils aged between nine and eleven. Parents of pupils in the class objected to the teacher’s lessons, writing an anonymous letter to the headmaster in complaint, reported France Bleu radio. The headmaster then decided to suspend the teacher for his apparent disregard of France’s strict secularism laws that separate...

Polls show Germans generally wouldn’t vote Republican, and the vast majority don’t support US President Donald Trump. So for American immigrants in Germany who do, it can make for some difficult conversations. […] “If you go out socially and the topic turns political, you hear that Republicans don’t always feel comfortable. I tend to downplay it [being a Republican] for fear that someone won’t understand that there can be big differences in opinions [in the party],” explains Thomas Leiser, a Texan transplant in the Frankfurt area who leads the German Republicans Overseas branch. “Before the election, some people would make...

The right to be armed could be included in the Czech constitution. This controversial proposal was discussed by the Czech government this week, with the proposed EU Firearms Directive being mentioned frequently in the debate. The amendment was backed by the Social Democrats, the main coalition party. The position of other coalition members was not so favorable. ANO 2011, which is currently leading in the polls, was the strongest opponent. The government has not reached any conclusion on the matter. However, the author of the proposal — Interior Minister Milan Chovanec — perceives this as a positive sign. […] Chovanec...

The election of Donald Trump has added to the “deep trouble” that Europe is in, but the new US president might change when he learns how the world works, according to former Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski. Europe’s challenge “is not just the American election,” Sikorski told EUobserver. “It’s also the continued assertiveness of Russia that is a revisionist power that has changed borders by force; it’s the failure and defeat in Syria, and also in the eastern neighborhood; and Brexit; and the continuing reverberations of the euro crisis and the creaking of the Schengen zone,” he added. “We’re in...

Four Central European nations have hammered out proposals for the European Union that are intended to strengthen the voice of member nations and avoid divisions, Poland’s prime minister said Thursday. Beata Szydlo spoke following a meeting with her counterparts from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. […] Szydlo said that the joint declaration of the so-called Visegrad Group for a “better Europe” was agreed on Thursday and will be presented in Rome. It calls for EU institutions to take care of issues directly concerning Europeans, like security, protected borders, dignity, justice and equal treatment for each of the member states,...

The conservative government in Bavaria is preparing a radical alteration to the state’s preventive custody laws that would allow judges to set their own limits on the incarceration of “dangerous persons,” rather than stick to the 14 days that German law currently allows. The bill, which has already been approved by the Bavarian cabinet, is part of a new “anti-terror” package designed to improve surveillance of people security forces deem “Gefährder” (a term used by the intelligence agencies literally meaning “endangerer”). […] The measures include extending police powers to search and keep tabs on potential suspects. But the proposal to...

An unprecedented joint media project was launched in France on Tuesday with the aim of preventing the very modern plague of fake news stories on Facebook from influencing the French presidential election. But how effective will it be? A group of 37 French and international media outlets, supported by Google, on Tuesday launched “CrossCheck”, a joint fact-checking platform aimed at detecting fake information which could affect the French presidential election. Fears that fake news stories posted on social media sites could influence the French election grew in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s shock election win in the United States in...

A group of Danish political parties plan to push for a parliamentary deal committing all the country’s pro-European Union parties never to put the country’s EU membership to an in-out referendum. The Danish Social Liberal Party, The Alternative and the Socialist Left Party argue that the deal tying Denmark more securely to the EU will help Denmark’s economy by making international investors better able to predict the future.    The deal would also help prevent the eurosceptic Danish People's Party demanding that either the Liberal or the Social Democrat party hold a referendum as the price of its support after...

A campaign to make Barack Obama the president of France is gathering steam… but why? If you think you’ve glimpsed campaign posters for “Obama 17” across Paris then you’re not mistaken. The posters, which have been pasted to walls around Paris in recent days, are calling for a fresh face in the 2017 presidential race — that of the former president of the US. Under a picture of the former US President are the words “Oui, on peut”, the French translation of Obama’s “Yes we can” slogan. A group of friends behind the campaign have said that it started as...

A Berlin mosque attended by the young Tunisian who attacked a Christmas market in December has shut its doors and been banned, as police on Tuesday launched a major raid against the capital’s Islamist scene. Berlin authorities have banned the Fussilet mosque, which Anis Amri used to attend. Meanwhile around 460 officers searched 24 locations across the capital city in the early hours of Tuesday morning in a raid linked to the mosque. Amri had visited the mosque regularly before he drove a truck into a Christmas market on December 19th, killing 12 people, in an attack later claimed by...

Pope Francis’s “insight will be extremely important for Europe’s future,” said Maltese prime minister Joseph Muscat on Monday (27 February), while criticizing the EU’s “lack of leadership”. “Pope Francis is the ultimate world leader who has the skills and vision to say things that transcend banalities,” Muscat said in Valletta ahead of next month’s Rome summit. The Social-Democratic PM, whose country holds the current EU presidency, added that the Roman Catholic leader may “provide things other politicians miss”. […] He also said that the EU needs to “go ahead with multi-speed Europe”. “If the only way of staying united is...

Last year, China became Germany’s most important trading partner, knocking the US off the top spot. Goods with a value of €170 billion were traded between Germany and China in 2016, according to data from the Federal Statistics Office (destatis) released on Friday. France was the second most important trade partner. Total trade with the Gallic nation was valued at €167 billion, while the US was relegated to third place, with total transatlantic trade accounting for €165 billion. Nevertheless, the US remained the most important export destination for German goods, with €107 billion “Made in Germany” products making the journey....

The domestic intelligence service has announced an uptick of hundreds in a matter of months. At least one cause of the worrying trend is the ease with which young people can become radicalized online, authorities said. Germany's domestic security and intelligance agency (the BfV) said on Wednesday that the radical Islamist scene in the country had grown considerably, from only about 100 people in 2013 to some 1,600 today. Indeed, according to BfV chief Hans-Georg Maassen, the number had jumped by several hundred in a matter of months."We receive between two and four credible tips on planned terrorist activity in Germany...

A controversial move by a Rome hospital to hire two specialist abortion doctors — because the majority of Italian doctors refuse to carry out the procedure — has caused an outcry. On Thursday, the president of Rome’s order of physicians, Giuseppe Lavra, asked Lazio’s regional governor to repeal the "unjust and discriminatory" call for two pro-abortion gynecologists. The governor, Nicola Zingaretti, had planned for the two doctors to be hired at Rome’s San Camillo hospital — one of the largest in the capital — where they would be tasked specifically with carrying out abortions. Zingaretti wrote in his blog that...

Sweden’s justice and migration minister has accused anti-immigration party leaders of lying about Sweden after they wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Donald Trump was right in his comments about immigration. He spoke hours after Sweden Democrat bosses Jimmie Åkesson and Mattias Karlsson wrote in an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday that “Mr. Trump did not exaggerate Sweden’s current problems” when he falsely suggested that immigration had sparked a rising crime wave in the country. […] Sweden’s justice and migration minister Morgan Johansson told The Local on Thursday that the government would submit its...

Extortion, loan-sharking and protection rackets are all part of the Mafia’s “Business Model”, it seems that the European Union has adopted this model in its Brexit negotiations with the U.K. After Jean Claude Juncker’s (President) announcement that Britain should pay 50 Billion Pounds to leave the EU club (family), is it any wonder that the Brits are starting to see the EU federalists as a “Godfatheresque” criminal organization.

Today brought the US vice-president’s first official visit to Brussels and the first taste of the Trump Tea Party for presidents Juncker and Tusk. Mike Pence has all the charisma of a chair leg but with less capacity for love, compassion and charity. He styles himself as a devout Christian but his political career has been driven and defined by hate. He hates abortion. He hates man-made climate change. He hates gays, stem cell research and refugees. He hates reporters and refused to take any questions from the press. Even the foreign minister of Cuba, no democracy, managed to do...

Britain will have to pay a “very hefty” bill to leave the European Union and negotiating a new relationship with the bloc will take years, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker warned today (21 February). Prime Minister Theresa May hopes to trigger the Brexit negotiations by the end of March following the shock referendum in June last year. […] “The British must know — and they know it already — that it will not be at a discount or zero cost,” the former Luxembourg premier said in his hour-long speech. […] European sources said Brussels could hand Britain an exit bill...

The future of NATO and trans-Atlantic relations will be at the top of the agenda at the Munich Security Conference, which begins on Friday. British political scientist Anthony Glees says that Germany must become a “muscular democracy” and take the lead in Europe. […] “The largest weight is now on Germany’s shoulders. Chancellor Merkel must continue to convince people of the EU’s importance; she must spearhead the effort to redefine the EU. In order to do this, Germany must become a muscular democracy. It needs to shoulder far more responsibility for the physical security of Europe, especially Eastern Europe and...