Free Republic

Manuel Valls, the former French prime minister, said Tuesday he wants to turn his back on the Socialists and run under President-elect Emmanuel Macron’s new political movement. It’s not clear, however, if he will be able to do so. All 577 seats in France’s lower chamber are up for grabs in the country’s two-part June 11 and June 18 parliamentary election. Macron’s 577 candidates are expected to be announced Thursday and Macron himself will be sworn in on Sunday. Valls told RTL radio that France’s Socialist party “is dead and behind us” and said he wants to join Macron’s Republic...

After a violent petrol bomb attack on four officers near Paris, France’s prime minister insisted there were no no-go zones in the country, but police unions themselves told The Local the reality is very different. Valls was paying a visit to the suburb of Paris where four police officers were injured on Saturday after coming under fire from a hail of Molotov cocktails. The incident, which left one officer in a critical condition, occurred near the notorious housing estate of La Grande Borne in Viry-Châtillon, to the south of Paris. […] “Of course there are no-go zones in France where...

France’s premier Manuel Valls was booed by crowds that had gathered for a minute of silence in the city of Nice to honor the memory of the 84 killed in the deadly attack on Bastille Day. “Resignation!” “Murderers” was shouted by the crowds before and after the ceremony.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Monday he understands French Jews' fear amid heightened religious tension in the country after last year's terrorists attacks in Paris by Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists. Valls' comments came in a speech at the annual dinner of the French Jewish council CRIF. He was quoted by The Associated Press. In his remarks, the French Prime Minister expressed his "solidarity" toward French Jews and strongly condemned anti-Semitism whether it comes from the "far-left" or the "far-right". "Yes, Jews of France are afraid to wear the kippa , to go to the synagogue, to do shopping...

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Monday slammed the attacks in Denmark by Islamist terrorist Omar Abdel Hamid Hussein on Saturday, in which two people were murdered, as being an act of "Islamo-fascism." Responding to the attacks in Copenhagen and the attacks on Paris last month, Valls said "to combat Islamo-fascism, for that is what it should be called, our strength must come from unity," reports AFP. Valls also responded to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's call for European Jews to come home to Israel in the face of widespread anti-Semitism and violence on the continent, noting Netanyahu is "in the...

The prime minister of France, Manuel Valls, has emerged over the past tumultuous week as one of the West’s most vocal foes of Islamism, though he’s actually been talking about the threat it poses for a long while. During the course of an interview conducted before the Charlie Hebdo attacks, he told me—he went out of his way to tell me, in fact—that he refuses to use the term “Islamophobia” to describe the phenomenon of anti-Muslim prejudice, because, he says, the accusation of Islamophobia is often used as a weapon by Islamism's apologists to silence their critics. Most of my...

After radical jihadists murdered their way through Paris in a three-day rampage that left 17 dead, France has declared its own war on terror. Appearing on Saturday in Evry, a town just south of Paris, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the country is at war against radical Islam. “We are at war — not a war against a religion, not a war against a civilization, but to defend our values, which are universal,” he proclaimed. “It is a war against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam, against everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity, freedom, solidarity,” Valls continued. “We...