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TOULON, France --- France has decided to arm its surveillance drones in West Africa as part of counter-terrorism operations against Islamist militants, Defense Minister Florence Parly said on Tuesday. French President Emmanuel Macron has made fighting Islamist militants his primary foreign policy objective and the move to armed drones fits into a more aggressive policy at a time when it looks increasingly unlikely Paris will be able to withdraw from the region in the medium to long-term. France has six Reapers France currently has five unarmed Reaper reconnaissance drones positioned in Niger's capital Niamey to support its 4,000-strong Barkhane counter-terrorism...

France’s government has unveiled a law to ban all production and exploration of oil and natural gas by 2040 on the country’s mainland and overseas territories. The move is largely symbolic, however, as France’s oil and gas production represents just 1 percent of national consumption — the rest is imported. Current drilling permits will not be renewed, according to the bill formally presented in a Cabinet meeting Wednesday. France currently has 63 oil and gas drilling projects on its territory. The ban, which the government claims is a world first, is part of a larger plan to wean the country’s...

French Minister Warns of the Dangers of Salafism — In 1928The following letter was written in 1928 by the French Colonial Minister, Léon Perrier, to the Governor General of French West Africa. Mr. Perrier could see clearly then what Western officials are unable to see, or refuse to see, or are in active collaboration with in the year 2017. Mr. Perrier was warning against the dangers of Salafism, which at that time was confined to North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Now it has penetrated almost the whole of Western Europe, and there is no obvious way to get...

Despite the string of terror attacks in Paris since 2015, Parisians feel secure, according to the latest in-depth survey by the Paris region’s Urban Planning Institute. The results of the enquiry, which attempts to gauge how safe residents of the French capital feel going about their daily lives, are published every two years. Conducted by market research company Kantar TNS, the survey, introduced in 1998, asks 10,500 people living in the Paris area, aged 15 and up, a series of “rigorous” questions to see how far people living there feel secure. And the results were perhaps a bit surprising. According...

Parisians protest 'genocide' of rats as city battles rodent infestation By David Chazan, paris 3 SEPTEMBER 2017 • 6:11PM Thousands of Parisians have signed a petition denouncing efforts to control a rat infestation as a rodent “genocide.” The French capital is facing its worst rat crisis in decades, and rapid proliferation of the animals has forced several parks to close temporarily amid fears that children could be bitten or infected by disease. Paris authorities are spending £14 million this year on “deratisation”. But some residents have spoken out in defence of the creatures. Influenced perhaps by the loveable rat Remy...

France’s foreign minister warned Friday that North Korea could have the capacity to deliver a nuclear strike on the United States and even Europe “within months”. Jean-Yves Le Drian called the situation following a string of missile tests by Pyongyang “extremely serious” and urged the reclusive state to turn to dialogue to ease spiralling tensions. “We see a North Korea whose objective is to have missiles capable of transporting a nuclear weapon tomorrow,” Le Drian told RTL radio. “In a few months, that will be a reality. At that moment, when it has the capability to hit the US, even...

PARIS, France (NBC News) — Disneyland Paris has apologized to a 3-year-old British boy who was told he couldn’t dress up as a princess because he’s a boy. Noah McLean-Glass is a huge fan of Elsa from the hit film “Frozen.” His mother says he loves to wear his “Elsa dress” – even to bed. When his family planned a trip to Disneyland Paris, they thought it would be fun for him to take part in the “princess for a day” event. But his mother was shocked when she was told boys could not take part – that the event was...

France and Germany plan to issue a new proposal to tax internet giants so that they pay a “fair contribution” in every country where they earn money, French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday. “We will unveil a new plan along with our German partners at the next finance ministers’ meeting in Tallinn in mid-September” for taxing technology giants including Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, Le Maire said in a Facebook Live chat. “We propose taking the revenues of these large companies as a reference point, and use this to determine a tax level so that these companies...

The strange and fascinating world of the British spy known as ‘Chris Whatsit’ was unravelling yesterday. Christopher Steele was once MI6’s top spy on Russian affairs and lived in the shadows until being unmasked as the alleged author of the ‘dirty dossier’ on Donald Trump. He was dubbed ‘Chris Whatsit’ by his late wife on their first date because she could not remember his name – but he revelled in being a man of mystery. Now the 52-year-old is hoping to return to anonymity after fleeing his £1.5million home in Surrey, telling his neighbour to look after his three cats....

French authorities warn farmers of Jewish thieves ahead of Yom Kippur Municipal veterinary service says Jews and Muslims may try to steal chickens and sheep to use in ‘unauthorized sacrifices’ for holidays Veterinarians in a municipality near Paris warned farmers of an elevated risk of theft of sheep and fowl ahead of the Muslim and Jewish holidays of Eid al-Adha and Yom Kippur, respectively. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories FREE SIGN UP! The warning, which provoked angry reactions on the part of communal leaders who felt it was discriminatory, came...

The French government has doubled its fines for those found guilty of racial or discriminatory defamation in “non-public” statements. The increased fine specifically addresses fines issued for “non-public” statements — such as those made on a private Facebook group or to a small group of people — containing abuse aimed at a person or group based on their origin, ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation or gender identification. Businesses whose directors or employees are found to have made discriminatory statements will now face potential fines of up to €7,500 for a one-off incident. And for repeat offenses, that rises to a...

The EU risks breaking up unless it overhauls a controversial rule allowing firms to send temporary workers from low-wage countries to richer nations without paying their local social charges, French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday. “Some political or business circles seek to use the EU’s funds while at the same time developing a system of social and fiscal dumping,” he said in Bucharest during a whistle-stop visit to eastern and central Europe. “This will lead to the dismantling of the European Union” if there is no reform agreement at a Brussels summit in October, he added after holding talks with...

Former French president François Hollande said on Wednesday he has not turned his back on politics, after criticizing his successor and former protégé in the Élysée Palace, Emmanuel Macron. “Even when I decided… not to stand (for re-election), I had said I would not retire from political life,” the Socialist Hollande, 63, told TV5 Monde television. The former president on Tuesday said the 39-year-old Macron should not “demand needless sacrifices from the French”. Macron, elected in May, has come under fire for budget and public spending cuts. …

The Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN or Tentera Laut DiRaja Malaysia; TLDM) launched and named today its first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Gowind frigate. The ceremony took place at Boustead Heavy Industries Corporation Berhad (BHIC) Lumut shipyard (Western Malaysia) on August 24th. The first of class vessel is now known as KD Maharaja Lela. Dato Maharaja Lela (died on 20 January 1877) was a Malay nationalist from Perak. Dato' Maharajalela is generally celebrated as a folk hero by Malay nationalists, and seen as a symbol of the Malay resistance against British colonialism. In late 2016, the RMN ran a poll on...

Investigators discovered this month that at least four U.N. peacekeepers in the Central African Republic allegedly paid girls as little as 50 cents in exchange for sex. The most recent allegations involve at least four peacekeepers who are accused of paying girls as young as 13 for sex at a camp for the internally displaced next to the international airport in Bangui, the capital. The site, known as M’poko camp, is home to 20,000 people, mostly Christians. It is a vast agglomeration of white tents surrounding old, decaying airplanes, just yards from the airport runway. The United Nations was also...

Police don’t know if it’s an accident or deliberate. But seriously, what are the odds that someone would accidentally crash into two separate bus stops in two different places on the same morning? And so it is likely deliberate, and that means that it is quite possibly more vehicular jihad. Last June, the Islamic State published a poster depicting an SUV driving over a heap of skulls and bearing the legend “Run Over Them Without Mercy.”

A dairy farmer, Jean-Pierre Le Guelvout, once kept 66 cows at a thriving estate in southern Brittany. But falling milk prices, accumulating debts, depression and worries about his heath in middle age became too much to bear. Just 46, Mr. Le Guelvout shot himself in the heart in a grove behind his house one cold December day last year. “It was a place that he loved, near the fields that he loved,” explained his sister Marie, who said she was “very close” to him but did not see his suicide coming. The death of Ms. Le Guelvout’s brother was part...

French President Emmanuel Macron backed anti-racism activists in the United States on Thursday in a message that avoided criticizing US President Donald Trump over his reaction to violence in Charlottesville. “On the side of those who combat racism and xenophobia. Our common fight, yesterday and today. #Charlottesville,” he wrote on Twitter. …

THE last thing you want to see when you look out the window of your plane is an air force fighter jet on your tail. But that’s exactly what terrified passengers on board a flight from Spain to Britain spotted overnight, sparking panic on board the budget airline. Jet2 flight 1204, a Boeing 737-800, was part-way through its journey from the tourist hotspot of Malaga to Birmingham when it passed through French air space. That’s when two Mirage 2000 fighter jets suddenly appeared and shadowed the aircraft for more than 15 minutes, AirLive reported. Passengers on board the Jet2 flight...

Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old former investment banker who was catapulted to the French presidency in May, faces widespread disillusionment as he prepares to mark his first 100 days in office. The man shown walking on water on the cover of The Economist magazine after his startling rise has seen his approval ratings nosedive, with only 36 percent of respondents giving him the thumbs up in one recent poll. The French are “falling out of love” with Macron, the right-leaning daily Le Figaro headlined on Sunday. No French president has seen such a steep drop in popularity so early in his...