Free Republic

President Macron used his new year’s message to denounce the yellow-vest movement as a “hate-filled crowd” at odds with democratic French values. In a televised address to the nation Mr Macron accused the movement, which has caused havoc over the past month, of being liars, violent, antisemitic, homophobic and racist. He said that the movement’s self-proclaimed leaders were “the spokespeople of a hate-filled crowd attacking elected representatives, the forces of law and order, journalists, Jews, foreigners, homosexuals. That is simply the negation of France. I have recently seen things that are unthinkable and heard the unacceptable.” Mr Macron said that...

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...

Yellow vest protesters marched on the headquarters of leading French broadcasters Saturday, as small groups turned out Saturday in Paris and around France despite waning momentum for their movement. Hundreds of demonstrators, some chanting “Journalists — Collaborationists!” traced a path around Paris visiting the central offices of television networks BFM and state-run France Televisions and announced plans to march to other broadcasters. Some members of the broad-based yellow vest movement accuse leading media of favoring President Emmanuel Macron’s government and big business and minimizing the protests — even though they’ve been the leading news story in France since they kicked...

The National Maternity Hospital will begin accepting referrals for abortion services from Monday, 7 January. In a new section on its website, titled “Unplanned Pregnancy Support Services”, the hospital said it would take women from its catchment area of South Dublin, Wicklow and Kildare. Referrals will only be accepted from GPs or community-based services such as the Irish Family Planning Association and the Well Woman Clinic. Regulated abortion services have been legal in Ireland since President Michael D. Higgins signed the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill into law on 20 December. Hospitals and GPs have been working with...

British interior minister Sajid Javid has said the fast-growing number of would-be immigrants crossing the English Channel from France in dinghies is a “major incident.” Nearly 70 people have been intercepted in the past three days as they try to reach England by crossing one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. […] The Member of Parliament for Dover on England’s southeast coast, Charlie Elphicke, has called for more government funding to deal with the arrivals and the Home Office said Javid has asked border officials to look at options for bringing in extra patrol ships. …

At least nine homeless people have died across Germany due to low temperatures since October, the German body that tracks homelessness (BAGW) said on Monday. “We know of nine people who died at night for no fault of their own,” Werena Rosenke, the association’s managing director told the newspaper Rheinische Post. “In some cases, forensic medical examinations are still ongoing, but we assume that the victims had no dwelling and froze to death due to low temperatures.” Four of the deaths were reported in the port city of Hamburg, two in Düsseldorf and one each in Cologne, Essen and the...

Lawmakers from Germany’s grand coalition government said on Wednesday that they were considering introducing a “mosque tax” for German Muslims, similar to the church taxes that German Christians pay. Thorsten Frei, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) told Die Welt daily that a mosque tax was “an important step” that would allow “Islam in Germany to emancipate itself from foreign states.” In Germany, church taxes are collected from practicing Catholics and Protestants in order to fund church activities. They are collected by the state and then transferred to religious authorities. In the absence of a similar tax,...

There is no prospect of electronic voting being reintroduced into Ireland in the short to medium term, the Government has confirmed. The Minister of State in charge of local government, John Paul Phelan, has said that far from representing progress, electronic voting can potentially undermine people’s confidence in the democratic process. “There is no prospect in the short to medium term of the chicken coops being taken out of retirement and used,” he said. Mr. Phelan was referring to the eventual fate of the voting machines that were purchased when then minister for the environment, Martin Cullen of Fianna Fáil,...

Struggling to fill its ranks, Germany’s military is drawing up plans to recruit nationals from other European countries as part of a drive to beef up the armed forces. Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen wants to recruit Poles, Italians and Romanians, magazine Der Spiegel said, citing a ministry document. The German military, or Bundeswehr, has stepped up its recruitment efforts as part of a broader reset following Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Last year, Germany said it would increase the size of its armed forces to 198,000 active soldiers by 2024 from 179,000. Pressure on Berlin...

In September, Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief executive and Alphabet chairman, said that in the next 10 to 15 years, the internet would most likely be split in two — one internet led by China and one internet led by the United States. Mr. Schmidt, speaking at a private event hosted by a venture capital firm, did not seem to seriously entertain the possibility that the internet would remain global. He’s correct to rule out that possibility — if anything, the flaw in Mr. Schmidt’s thinking is that he too quickly dismisses the European internet that is coalescing around...

The Taoiseach has criticized social media companies such as Facebook, that do not think they are “accountable” for what is posted on their platforms. Asked about threats made against groups of people after a social media video of the recent Roscommon eviction, Mr. (Leo) Varadkar said online platforms are not held to the same standard as newspaper publishers. “As I am concerned, social media posts like that are incitement of hatred and incitement of violence, and if you were a publisher of a newspaper or a broadcaster, you wouldn’t be allowed to promote that kind of stuff and you would...

Gardaí were involved in a tense standoff with protesters outside the Irish headquarters of KBC bank in Dublin on Saturday afternoon, hours after a number of branches were attacked in the capital. The Belgian-owned bank is at the center of a controversial eviction of a farming family in Co. Roscommon last week. Approximately 25 gardaí stood at the entrance to the KBC office on Sandwith Street in Dublin city center and were confronted by several hundred yellow-vested protesters who had marched through the city earlier. On Friday night, a branch of KBC was attacked in Dundrum, while another branch was...

US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell on Friday demanded an independent investigation into a German journalist who was caught making up key details in a series of reports for Der Spiegel news magazine. He said the revelations “are troubling to the US Embassy, particularly because several of these fake stories focused on US policies and certain segments of the American people.” He said he wrote to the editors of the respected news weekly calling for an “independent and transparent investigation.” He said it was clear the US had been the victim of institutional bias at the magazine, saying the outlet...

A jewelry store at Paris Orly airport apologized for describing the Ben Gurion Airport in Israel as being located in “Occupied Palestine Territories”, JTA reported on Friday. In October, a receipt given to an Israeli couple who purchased an item at the Royal Quartz/Galeries Lafayette store said Ben Gurion was in occupied “Palestine.” The airport is located in the city of Lod, southeast of Tel Aviv. Arthur Lemoine, the director-general of the Galeries Lafayette watch division, said on Friday that steps will be taken to address the mistake. …

The European Union announced on Thursday it would commit a further €20 million ($23 million) to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in 2019, i24news reports. This will bring the EU’s contribution to €153 million, which is in line with how much the US contributed to the UN agency for “Palestinian refugees” in 2017. The United States, the largest single contributor to UNRWA, announced in August that it would end its $350 million a year funding for the agency, describing the organization as an “irredeemably flawed operation”. That announcement followed a previous US announcement in January that it...

President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins has signed the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill into law, making abortion services legal in Ireland. The new legislation passed through all stages of the Oireachtas this month, completing its passage in the Seanad. The Act allows for terminations of pregnancy up to 12 weeks. It also provides for terminations where there is a risk to the life or a serious risk to the health of the pregnant woman. Women who have been given a diagnosis of fatal fetal abnormalities will now be able to legally avail of early termination of pregnancy...

CATHOLIC schools will have to teach children about gay, lesbian and transgender relationships – even though it is against their ethos – under plans for the overhaul of sex education. A draft report from the Oireachtas Education Committee, which has been seen by the Irish Independent ,is calling for radical changes in how sex education is taught to children in both primary and secondary schools. Under the new plans, school children would be educated about gay, lesbian and transgender relationships “without distinction as to their heterosexual counterparts”. It also recommends changing legislation to ensure that schools must teach the new...

Reports of robberies and sexual offenses have increased significantly in the past 12 months, according to figures released by the Central Statistics Office. There’s been an increase in the number of reported crimes across most groups for the year from October 2017 to September 2018. The greatest increases were in robberies, which were up by 22.7%, and sexual offenses, which increased by 11.7%. The number of recorded incidents of damage to property and the environment fell by 7.4% in the period. There has been a sustained drop in incidents of burglary since 2014. Thefts have dropped in four of the...

The German news magazine Der Spiegel has been plunged into chaos after revealing that one of its top reporters had falsified stories over several years. The media world was stunned by the revelations that the award-winning journalist Claas Relotius had, according to the weekly, “made up stories and invented protagonists” in at least 14 out of 60 articles that appeared in its print and online editions, warning that other outlets could also be affected. Relotius, 33, resigned after admitting to the scam. He had written for the magazine for seven years and won numerous awards for his investigative journalism, including...

Eight European Union member states on Tuesday warned that US President Donald Trump’s so-called “Deal of the Century” would fail unless it is based on the internationally agreed parameters for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict. The statement by France, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany and Italy followed a UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East in which US Ambassador Nikki Haley discussed the peace plan being prepared by the Trump administration. “We, the European Union members of the Council, would like to reiterate once more and emphasize the EU’s strong continued commitment to...