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France has said conditions are "not right" for delivery of the first of two Mistral assault navy ships to Russia. President Francois Hollande's office blamed Moscow's recent actions in Ukraine. France had until now resisted pressure to halt the delivery. Correspondents say the EU has struggled to tighten sanctions against Russia, restricting itself to travel bans and asset freezes against individuals.

The French government has announced that planned deliveries of two Mistral warships to Russia have been placed on hold. The first delivery was scheduled for October. After a meeting of the French defense committee on Wednesday, Paris announced that the deliveries would not yet take place given the current unrest in eastern Ukraine. "The President of the Republic declared that, despite the prospect of a ceasefire which still remains to be confirmed and implemented, the conditions for France to deliver the first warship are not to date in place," a statement from the office of French President Francois Hollande read.

Francois Hollande's former partner says that France's socialist president hates the poor, in her potentially explosive memoirs she penned after the collapse of their relationship earlier this year. In Merci Pour Ce Moment ('Thank You For This Moment') Valérie Trierweiler claims that, in private, the leftist leader refers to the less wealthy with scorn, calling them "the toothless". "He portrays himself as a man who does not like the rich. In reality, the president does not like the poor," Trierweiler wrote. "He, the man of the left, calls them 'the toothless', very proud of his humour." In another passage leaked...

Calais mayor Natacha Bouchart on Tuesday threatened to shut down the port unless Britain helps solve the problem of the hundreds of immigrants turning up there in a bid to sneak across the Channel. "I could take the decision to block the port... I could bring pressure to bear," Bouchart told reporters in Paris after meeting Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve. "It would be illegal," she recognised, "but today I want to make a strong gesture towards the British." The mayor took issue with British immigration policy which, she complained, "is "considered as an Eldorado" by immigrants. She also reproached London...

We have heard a lot about 'tough sanctions' on Russia following its invasion of Crimea, shoot down of an airliner full of Europeans, and the continued shadow war in Eastern Ukraine, yet apparently it's fine to sell him this 21k ton French-built amphibious assault ship. Bad move. Under a $1.7B contract between Russia and France, France would build the Russian Navy a pair of Mistral Class amphibious assault ships, after which Russia would build follow-on units under license in St. Petersburg. Russia has a least two additional ships planned. Part of the Mistral Class deal provides Russia with a quartet...

Four people have been killed and eleven others injured after an explosion destroyed a four-storey building in a suburb of Paris on Sunday morning. Rescue teams with sniffer dogs are searching through the rubble for five other people, including a child, who are still missing. ...

ALLEN MCDUFFEE, The WireAugust 31, 2014 Turkish Airlines alerted French border police to the purchase of a suspicious ticket. A 16-year-old girl suspected of of making her way to Syria to join Muslim extremists was arrested Sunday at an airport in southern France, according to officials. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a statement that border police at Nice International Airport arrested the girl on Saturday, before she departed "for jihad." Suspicion was raised when a 22-year-old Chechen man was attempting to pay cash for her one-way ticket to Turkey. Turkish Airlines alerted French border police to the purchase.(snip)

(Reuters) - The United States carried out air strikes on Saturday against Islamic State fighters near the besieged Shi'ite town of Amerli in northern Iraq and airdropped humanitarian aid to civilians trapped there, the Pentagon said. President Barack Obama authorized the new military action, broadening U.S. operations in Iraq amid an international outcry over the threat to Amerli's mostly ethnic Turkmen population. U.S. aircraft delivered over a hundred bundles of emergency supplies and more aid was dropped from British, French and Australian planes, officials said, signaling headway in Obama’s efforts to draw allies into the fight against Islamic State. Iraqi...

Under cover of darkness, 40 Filipino peacekeepers made a daring escape after being surrounded and under fire for seven hours by Syrian rebels in the Golan Heights, Philippine officials said Sunday, leaving 44 Fijian troops still in the hands of the al-Qaida-linked insurgents. "We may call it the greatest escape," Philippine military chief Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang said. The peacekeepers became trapped after Syrian rebels entered the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone between Syria and Israel this week, seizing 44 Fijian soldiers and demanding that their Filipino colleagues surrender with their weapons. The Filipinos in two U.N. encampments refused and clashed with...

Syrian rebel groups strengthened their hold over the Syrian side of the Quneitra Crossing — located on the frontier between Syrian and Israeli controlled parts of the Golan Heights – over the weekend and managed to repel attacks by Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar Assad. The rebels kidnapped dozens of Fiji soldiers, members of the UN observer force stationed in the Golan Heights and are maintaining a siege on a second UN stronghold manned by Philippine soldiers. ... Nusra Front forces took over a stronghold manned by a Fiji UN force and kidnapped the soldiers stationed there at gunpoint,...

Two teenage girls have been arrested on suspicion of conspiring to blow up a synagogue in Lyon, Newsweek reported on Friday, citing French news websites. According to JSS News and Europe 1, a source from the French security agency the Central Directorate of Homeland Intelligence revealed that two Muslim girls, aged 15 and 17, were arrested in the Tarbes and Venissieux neighborhoods a week ago, after authorities uncovered a plan to carry out a suicide bombing inside the Great Synagogue of Lyon. The two were indicted on August 22 for conspiracy to commit terrorism, reported Newsweek. An unnamed security source...

WASHINGTON — The international effort to help Iraqis fight Islamic militants is heating up, with seven additional countries agreeing to provide arms to the Kurdish peshmerga forces. Albania, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Italy and the U.K. have committed to giving weapons and equipment to the embattled Kurds, the Pentagon announced Tuesday. The announcement comes about two weeks after Hagel set up a working group to find ways to accelerate arms deliveries to the Kurds. The Defense Department said the materiel is “urgently needed” as the Kurds take on the militant group known as the Islamic State, which has taken over...

The ceasefire agreement didn’t give Hamas everything it wanted, but it gave Israel nothing at all.Israel’s insistence on demilitarizing Gaza fell by the wayside.Why? Here’s one answer. Nabil Shaath, a senior PLO official and confidante of PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas, said that Israel dropped the demand that Hamas be demilitarized, due to American pressure, in an interview with the Arabic Ma’an News Agency. As usual the war was won on the battlefield and lost at the negotiating table. Which means it will have to be repeated in a year or two with a stronger Hamas.Without demilitarizing Gaza, the entire...

A prominent Greek historian claims that it is possible for the Louvre Museum in Paris to possess artifacts from the ancient Greek tomb currently being excavated by archaeologists in Amphipolis, Greece. The fame of the ancient Greek treasures allegedly hidden in the Amphipolis tomb has recently raised concerns whether the monument will be found intact, or if it had been looted in the past. Historian, Sarantis Kargakos, speaking to Antenna TV, said that the tomb has been looted in the past and that the monument’s interior won’t be intact. “At the spot where Ancient Amphipolis is found, a village named...

According to French financial newspaper La Tribune Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, could sign a letter of intent (LOI) with the French Government for 6 FREMMs during his visit in Paris in early September. French Navy's FREMM multi-mission frigates are designed and built by DCNS. Five hulls have already been launched, with three Frigates delivered to the French Navy and one to the Royal Moroccan Navy. Contacted by Navy Recognition, no DCNS representatives were available to comment the information at the time of publishing. The information would confirm however that Saudi Arabia is currently seeking...

France does host one of the largest Muslim populations in Europe so the results are not especially surprising. Also France draws more Middle Eastern and North African Muslims than the UK does. If you asked about support for the Taliban, you might get better numbers in the UK. One in six French citizens sympathises with the Islamist militant group ISIS, also known as Islamic State, a poll released this week found.The poll of European attitudes towards the group, carried out by ICM for Russian news agency Rossiya Segodnya, revealed that 16% of French citizens have a positive opinion of ISIS....

Christine Lagarde, the chief of the International Monetary Fund, was placed under official investigation for negligence in a French corruption probe that dates back to her days as France’s finance minister. In a statement Wednesday after a fourth round of questioning before magistrates, Lagarde said she would return to her work in Washington later in the day and said the decision was “without basis.” She is the third IMF managing director in a decade to face legal troubles. …

An ICM poll on behalf of the Russian state news agency Rossiya Segodnya tested the public attitude towards the group ISIS (formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant or ISIL, and now calling itself Islamic State or IS) in 3 European countries: Great Britain, France and Germany. The news agency commissioning the poll may be Putin-friendly, but the polling firm ICM is as reputable as any. The survey asked people whether they had a favourable or unfavourable view of ISIS. In France, 16% say they have a favourable view. In the UK, 7% say they have...

France has been thrown into fresh crisis after President Francois Hollande told his prime minister to form a new government. This followed a much-criticised show of insubordination by the economy minister. Mr Hollande ordered Prime Minister Manuel Valls to form a new cabinet "consistent with the direction he has set for the country", the presidency said in a statement. It did not give any reasons, but the move came after Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg criticised the country's economic direction and ally Germany at the weekend in a move that angered Mr Valls. This morning, Mr Valls offered the resignation of...

French President Francois Hollande asked his prime minister on Monday to form a new government, looking to impose his will on the cabinet after rebel leftist ministers had called for an economic policy U-turn. The surprise move came the day after outspoken Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg had condemned what he called fiscal "austerity" and attacked euro zone powerhouse Germany's "obsession" with budgetary rigour. [...]