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France faces a new wave of asylum seekers from Afghanistan, with many coming from conservative areas and some openly supporting groups like the Taliban. Over the last five years, the number of Afghans arriving in France has increased fivefold from just over 2,100 asylum seekers at the height of the migrant crisis in 2015 to nearly 10,000 reaching in the country last year. According to a report from Le Figaro, Afghan migrants made up 90 per cent of the 3,500 residents of a makeshift migrant camp in the north of Paris that authorities dismantled just weeks ago. “While waiting for...

A GANG of 15 laughing migrants pelted a British lorry driver with rocks and bricks in a terrifying attempt to storm inside and cross the Channel. Andy Couper, 57, suffered cuts and bruises when they smashed his window and "all tried to jump into the cab" as he queued at the border in Calais, France. Meanwhile video footage of separate attack on Brit trucker Greg West this week showed a gang lobbing oranges and loo roll at his cab and banging on the doors. Hauliers warned that drivers are increasingly being threatened and physically attacked by migrants. It's believed that...

On August 31, 2019, a 34-year-old Afghan, armed with a knife, killed a student and injured several passers-by when exiting Laurent Bonnevay metro station in Villeurbanne, in the Rhône. The author had been subdued by several witnesses then indicted for "murder and attempted murder" . ... On this date, the psychiatrist Natalie Giloux had noted "schizophrenic disorders" with "hallucinatory syndrome". In particular, she felt that his mental disorders had been accentuated by heavy cannabis use. In June, his colleague Jean Canterino had diagnosed schizophrenia with delirium of persecution, with a religious theme, having caused "the abolition of discernment" of the...

The facts took place on rue des Douves, Tuesday evening, around 8 p.m. A man was seriously injured in the thigh. A suspect was arrested a few minutes later in the station area. According to the first elements, it could be a gratuitous assault. Tuesday evening, around 8 p.m., a man was attacked with a knife, rue des Douves, in the Capucins district, in central Bordeaux. The victim was returning home after a day's work and was reportedly approached by three strangers, a man and two women. The man allegedly quarreled with him and stabbed him in the thigh, before...

REIMS, France — The Church in France is under pressure, according to the president of the French Catholic bishops’ conference. But for Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, that is no cause for despair. “The Church in France is being jostled in many ways; it is reacting, which proves that it is alive,” he told CNA in an email interview. The archbishop of Reims, in northeastern France’s Grand Est region, has had a busy past few months. In October, he was among the bishops offering comfort to Catholics after an attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar” stabbed three people to death at the Basilica...

On 26 November 2020, a Pakistani imam from a small town north of Paris was sentenced to 18 months in jail and is to be expelled from France for being a terror apologist. The imam, Luqman Haider, was found guilty of praising recent jihadist attacks that happened in the country and celebrating the attackers in videos posted on TikTok. He is the first radical preacher condemned for his use of TikTok in France. Haider was a 33-year-old Pakistani national who arrived illegally in the Paris area back in 2015, seeking asylum and fleeing poverty from his country, as his lawyer...

Hundreds of immigrants in France working on the coronavirus frontline have had their service to the country recognised with fast-track citizenship. The interior ministry invited residents helping with efforts against Covid-19 to apply for accelerated naturalisation. More than 700 have already been granted citizenship or are in the final stages of receiving it. "Health professionals, cleaning ladies, childcare workers, checkout staff: They all proved their commitment to the nation, and it is now the turn of the republic to take a step towards them," the office of Marlene Schiappa, junior minister for citizenship, said on Tuesday. Normally a successful applicant...

Police arrested four people, two of them illegal immigrants, in the Paris no-go suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis on suspicion of assaulting a Jewish family which was celebrating Hanukkah. The incident took place in the commune of Aubervilliers, Seine-Saint-Denis, on Thursday at around 8:40 pm when the Jewish family was in their vehicle listening to Hebrew music and “messages of peace”. According to a report by broadcaster France Bleu, a group of people yelling antisemitic slurs approached the family, proceeding to shake the car and throw glass bottles at the vehicle. Two fo the four suspects are said to be illegal adult...

People in France who refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine will be banned from using public transport and engaging in other activities under a newly introduced law.The law, which is set to be submitted to parliament, mandates that citizens have proof of a negative COVID test or “preventative treatment, including the administration of a vaccine” in order to “access transport or to some locations, as well as certain activities.”The law has sparked “angry protests from opposition politicians,” according to AFP.France’s vaccination program, which is set to get underway on Sunday, will not be mandatory, but a whopping 55% of citizens...

Lorry drivers stranded in Kent are being slapped with parking tickets as the M20 closes overnight with nearly 1,000 trucks parked along it. France's decision to close its border with Britain led to a day of chaos on Kent's roads, as lorry drivers were filmed blasting their horns at the Port of Dover in frustration - and another crashed into a car as it made a desperate bid to get into a lorry park. There is no end in sight either, with France not expected to announce a decision until tomorrow, despite ongoing talks with Britain. At 8pm tonight Highways...

Leading French-Jewish groups, the Israeli Embassy in France, and numerous local politicians on Sunday condemned a storm of antisemitic attacks on social media against April Benayoum, a top contestant in the Miss France contest. Benayoum, who revealed during the competition that she has an Israeli father, was competing as Miss Provence and came in first runner-up in the contest on Saturday night. Her Israeli connection, however, prompted a vicious outbreak of antisemitism, with tweets calling for her exclusion because of her Jewish heritage and others such as “Hitler forgot to exterminate you, Miss Provence.” The Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives...

@M_Veselinovic Massive, miles-long lorry queues on the approach to Dover seem to be a combo of Brexit stockpiling, xmas rush and Covid-19 backlog. But if it’s like this now, when there’s still free trade with EU, what’s it going to be like from Jan 1 if extra checks + paperwork is needed? Video...

A French law professor has been placed under police protection after referring to religions, including Islam, as “sexually transmitted” during a lecture to around 600 students in October. The 50-year-old associate professor, who works at Aix-Marseille University (AMU), is alleged to have said both Islam and Judaism are, after a fashion, sexually transmitted. She said: “One of the biggest problems we have with Islam, and it is not the only one, unfortunately, is that Islam does not recognise freedom of conscience. It’s still absolutely terrifying.” The French Human Rights League has filed an official criminal complaint for the use of...

A young man, formerly in a deradicalisation programme, was arrested after attacking police officers while armed with two knives in the department of Vaucluse, allegedly yelling “Allahu akbar”. The attacker, 20-year-old Youssouf H., had entered a garden in the commune of Bollène on Wednesday shortly after 9 a.m. and tried to break down the door of a home with a planter. A local alerted police and when two officers arrived, the man, armed with two knives, yelled, “Death to the cops! Allahu Akbar!” and attacked the pair, according to France Bleu. While both police were protected by their bulletproof vests,...

The Bordeaux correctional court ( Gironde ) sentenced, Monday, December 7, a 35-year-old man, a Sudanese refugee. He had yelled "Allahu Akbar" and "Daesh" in the direction of a gendarme, reports Sud Ouest . The facts took place Thursday, December 3, in Blanquefort . Visibly intoxicated, the defendant was on a tram platform when he attacked users and controllers, before insulting the gendarmes called on the spot. He says he has no memoryHe then rushed on one of the soldiers before threatening to "cut off everyone's heads . " The thirty-something was finally arrested and taken into custody. Still very...

French authorities have charged and detained four Pakistanis suspected of links to a meat cleaver attack by a compatriot outside the former offices of the Charlie Hebdo weekly that wounded two people, the national counter-terrorism prosecutor's office said Friday. The four male suspects, aged 17 to 21, were in contact with the attacker, said a source familiar with the case. They are suspected of being aware of the attacker's plot and inciting him to carry it out, according to another judicial source close to the investigation. Three of them were charged on Friday with taking part in a terrorist conspiracy...

A terrorist whose plan to carry out a massacre on a packed high-speed international train was foiled by the heroic actions of a group of passengers has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a French court. Ayoub El-Khazzani, 31, opened fire with an assault rifle on the Amsterdam-to-Paris Thalys train in August 2015. Having shot two passengers, Khazzani was wrestled to the ground and restrained by three US tourists, two of them off-duty servicemen, and a British traveller. Khazzani was convicted of attempted murder in connection with terrorism, possession of weapons in connection with terrorism and participation in a terrorist...

French President Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for the coronavirus and will self-isolate for the next week, the presidential Elysee Palace announced Thursday. “The President of the Republic has been diagnosed positive for COVID-19 today,” his office said in a statement. “This diagnosis was made following a PCR test performed at the onset of the first symptoms.” Macron “will continue to work and take care of his activities at a distance,” the statement added.

PARIS — A panel of French judges on Wednesday found all 14 defendants guilty of involvement in the 2015 attacks on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket on the outskirts of Paris. The long-awaited verdict followed a three-month trial that captivated the French public even in the midst of a deadly pandemic. France, far more than any other Western nation, has been a constant target of Islamist terrorists in recent years: More than 260 people have been killed in a relentless series of attacks since 2012. But given the particular emotional significance of the Charlie Hebdo attack,...

France’s public service ministry has fined the Paris city authorities for employing too many women in senior positions in 2018. The appointments breach a law passed to maintain a gender balance. The city hall has been fined €90,000 ($109,408) for appointing 11 women and 5 men — representing just over 30% — to top posts in 2018. […] According to the 2013 rule, one sex cannot account for more than 60% of nominations to senior positions. It was aimed at getting women better access to top jobs in the civil service. Currently, about 47% of all civil servants in senior...