Free Republic

Radical leftist Melanchon shocked he is persona non grata alongside LePen and BDS green party at important dinner of the CRIF.

Front National leader Marine Le Pen has extended her lead in polling for the French Presidential elections, and is now comfortably placed to win the first round of voting. The BVA-Salesforce poll published Thursday gave Le Pen on 27 per cent of the vote in the first round of the election, due to take place on 23 April, up 2.5 percentage points from the last time the poll was conducted in early February. A second poll by Harris International showed similar results placing Le Pen on 25 percent, four points clear of Francois Fillon (Les Republicains) and five ahead of...

Louis XVI, king of France, arrived in the wrong historical place at the wrong time and soon found himself overwhelmed by events beyond his control. Ascending the throne in 1774, Louis inherited a realm driven nearly bankrupt through the opulence of his predecessors Louis XIV and XV. After donning the crown, things only got worse. The economy spiraled downward (unemployment in Paris in 1788 is estimated at 50%), crops failed, the price of bread and other food soared. [...] In 1788, Louis was forced to reinstate France's National Assembly (the Estates-General) which quickly curtailed the king's powers. In July of...

French police have been filmed fleeing from armed mobs as riots continue in Paris for the second week and the unrest has now spread to the city centre. Hundreds of violent thugs took to the streets on Wednesday night near the Barbes Metro station, close to the major transport hub Gare du Nord. Windows were smashed, shops looted, fires lit, main roads blocked, and police cars targeted during the disturbance. According to Le Figaro, the destruction is getting worse. At the beginning of the week, on the nights of the 12th and 13th, 32 vehicles were burnt out. On the...

The leader of the anti-immigration French National Front party Marine Le Pen kicked off her presidential campaign on Saturday by echoing many of the same vows that brought Trump to power in the US, hoping promises to shield voters from globalization, promote protectionism, leave the Eurozone, slap taxes on imports and on the job contracts of foreigners, lower the retirement age, increasing welfare benefits and boost defense spending push her above her competitors at a time of sweeping political turmoil in France. According to opinion polls - which have recently shown their utter irrelevance in the age of Brexit...

My daughter is a senior in high school. She wants to major in Computer Science and minor in French She has mostly looked at small (<5,000 students) liberal arts schools. Can anyone recommend some conservative schools? ACT = 26 3.26 regular GPA 3.64 weighted GPA She is also interested in playing the cello in the orchestra.

French judicial authorities have arrested and charged a sixth suspect in a foiled militant plot to attack sites in the Paris region, a judicial source said on Saturday. France has been under a state of emergency since a wave The 31-year old suspect has been placed in preventive detention and accused of cooperation with "criminal terrorists" and of having supplied weapons to his accomplices, the source said. Five other men suspected of being part of the plot are in custody after simultaneous police swoops last month in the southern port city of Marseille and in Strasbourg in northeast France. Investigators...

Treasure hunters have apparently found the 500-year-old remains of a naval expedition led by a colonizer who could have changed Florida's history, making it French-speaking at least for a while. The big question is if the shipwreck is that of "La Trinite," the 32-gun flagship of a fleet led by Jean Ribault, a French navigator who tried to establish a Protestant colony in the southeast US under orders from King Charles IX. They probably are, say authorities in Florida, the French government and independent archeologists. And if they in fact are, this is an unparalleled find, said John de Bry,...

French Town Told Park's Virgin Mary Statue Must Go The Virgin Mary, Jesus and Joseph are widely represented in European public art. A French town has been told it must take down its statue of the Virgin Mary to comply with a national ban on religious symbols in public spaces, the town's mayor said on Saturday. A court has given the town of Publier, in eastern France, three months to remove the work. If it fails to do so, it will be fined €100 (£80; $105) a day. Mayor Gaston Lacroix said he will try to relocate the marble statue...

PARIS — President François Hollande stunned France on Thursday when he announced that he would not run for a second term in next year’s presidential election. In a televised address from the Élysée Palace, Mr. Hollande said that he was “aware of the risks” of a candidacy that would not “rally” enough people to it. “I have thus decided not to be a candidate in the presidential elections,” Mr. Hollande said. Mr. Hollande, a Socialist, ended weeks of speculation about his intentions to participate in a re-election bid that few observers thought he could win. He has had some of...

France said it had foiled a militant plot and arrested seven people in the southern port city of Marseille and the eastern city of Strasbourg. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the seven people of French, Moroccan and Afghan origin, aged 29 to 37, had been detained on Sunday. Two were arrested in Marseille. Most of the others, he said on Monday, were arrested in Strasbourg - a city where one of oldest and largest Christmas markets is set to open this week. “An attack has been foiled ... The scale of the terrorist threat is enormous and it is not...

Sarkozy Defeated In Primary For French Right's Presidential Candidate Former prime ministers François Fillon and Alain Juppé face second vote on 27 November, after Nicolas Sarkozy suffers humiliating rejection Angelique Chrisafis in Paris 20 November 2016 Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s political career has been effectively ended, after he was dealt a humiliating defeat on Sunday by his former prime minister François Fillon in the first round of the race to choose the rightwing Republican party’s candidate for the presidency next spring. Fillon, a socially conservative, free-market reformer who admires Margaret Thatcher and voted against same-sex marriage, came close to...

Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Front Party, vowed that if she is elected the country’s president she would ban all public displays of religious symbols and clothing, including kippot. Le Pen made the statement during an interview on Sunday with France’s BFM-TV. She is expected to seek the country’s presidency in 2017. She heads the third-largest party in France. Le Pen is seeking to broaden an existing law, called the headscarf ban, that does not allow conspicuous displays of religious symbols in public schools to include all public areas. She called the ban a struggle against...

Plastic crockery and cutlery is to be banned in France unless it is made from biologically sourced materials. The law comes into force in 2020. It is part of a French environmental initiative called the Energy Transition for Green Growth, part of a package aimed at tackling climate change. But, the Independent reported, the move faces a challenge from Pack2Go Europe, a Brussels-based organisation representing European packaging manufacturers. "We are urging the European Commission to do the right thing and to take legal action against France for infringing European law," said Eamonn Bates, secretary general of Pack2go Europe. He said...

French truckers, farmers, shopkeepers and police are united in a major protest. The port of Calais has been blockaded amid calls for local residents to form a human chain, seeking a definite date for the demolition of the notorious ‘Jungle’ migrant camp.

French set to be the world's most commonly spoken language by 2050 because of soaring population growth in sub-Saharan Africa -Study says 750 million people will speak French as first language by 2050 -It is spoken in sub-Saharan Africa, one of the fastest growing-populations in the world They've been defensive for decades in preserving the purity of the language of love from the threat of globalisation. But now it seems all will have paid off for the French, whose language is set to become the world's most spoken language by 2050, thanks to growing francophone populations in sub-Saharan Africa. While...

French President François Hollande was never expected to become the most popular head of state in the nation's recent history. But the extent to which his countrymen dislike him has surprised even his political opponents. Nearly 90 percent of the French disapprove of their president, a poll has revealed. Only 12 percent of those surveyed by polling institute TNS Sofres said they thought Hollande was doing a good job. It is the worst score of any French president since such surveys were first conducted more than three decades ago.

There's nothing like a fresh baguette, hot out of the oven. And one company has made it as easy and quick to get as a Snickers bar. Le Bread Xpress has opened vending machines in San Francsico that produce hot and fresh baguettes in seconds. The machines are operating at the new Myriad market in the Castro. The baguettes rise at a bakery in Burlingame and are slighty baked. The baking process finishes in the vending machine. Operators say the machine is a hit in France. "In a mall next to transportation, people come back from work, get their fresh...

This is the moment hundreds of lovestruck Irish football fans gathered around a blonde French girl and serenaded her. A hilarious video showed the swaying crowds singing Can’t Take My Eyes Off You and Hey Baby to the laughing young woman in Bordeaux. They appeared in high spirits despite losing three-nil to Belgium on Saturday - and one admirer even stole a kiss from the woman at the end.

Witnesses are reporting gunfire and explosions in the Paris suburb commune of Magnanville. French special police have surrounded a house where a man is holding hostages. The attacker stabbed the home owner, a police officer who was reportedly his neighbor.