Tag: france

Paris Olympics anti-terror system mistakes AC units for drones

An advanced French anti-drone system set to be deployed at this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris has numerous flaws and is often unable to distinguish explosive-laden drones from air conditioners, The Times reported Monday, citing sources.

The French capital will host the Olympic Games between July 26 and August 11. To protect against terrorist threats, the local authorities intend to use the so-called Parade system, the deployment of which is estimated to cost €350 million ($376 million) over 11 years. The system, which consists of a radar, radio frequency direction finder, and jamming system is touted as being capable of diverting UAVs or forcing them to land.

However, according to the Times, despite the Games being just weeks away, during recent tests, the Parade system was reportedly found to be capable of detecting only one in three drones, and only within a range of 800 meters. The framework also “confused the propellers of air conditioning units with drones,” the paper’s source claimed.

Earlier media reports had suggested that the rollout of the Parade system was not going according to plan. While the delivery of six systems was initially scheduled for 2023, it was delayed for several months. A Senate committee subsequently launched a probe into the matter, but announced in March that it would not be releasing its findings.

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Hungarian Foreign Minister Warns Macron Risks Sparking World War III

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has warned that French President Emmanuel Macron’s threat to send NATO troops to Ukraine risks sparking World War III.

In an interview with The Economist last week, Macron said the question of sending western troops to Ukraine would “legitimately” arise if Russia broke through the Ukrainian front lines and Kyiv made such a request.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reacted by describing Macron’s statements as “very dangerous.”

Now Hungarian diplomat Peter Szijjarto warns that the French leader’s comments represent a stunning escalation.

“If a NATO member commits ground troops, it will be a direct NATO-Russia confrontation and it will then be World War Three,” said Szijjarto.

He also drew attention to the fact that such a conflict would likely escalate into nuclear confrontation.

“Let’s be clear: if there is a nuclear war, everything and everyone will be lost. If there is a nuclear war, everyone will die and everything will be destroyed, which no one with any common sense can wish for,” said Szijjarto.

Meanwhile, senior Italian government officials have joined the growing number of prominent voices condemning Macron over his comments.

“Sending Italian soldiers to fight outside the EU borders? Follow the obsessions of some dangerous and desperate European leader like Macron? No thanks, never in the name of the League,” remarked Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini.

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France Sends Troops to Ukraine Frontlines

France has officially deployed 100 soldiers of the Foreign Legion to the frontlines in Ukraine, where they will offer support to the Ukrainian 54th Independent Mechanized Brigade.

Although the initial deployment is just 100 artillery and surveillance experts, around 1,500 French soldiers from the Legion are scheduled to be deployed in Ukraine.

President Macron has been repeatedly rebuffed in his calls for NATO countries to send troops to Ukraine. He has stated publicly that “nothing should be excluded” as a potential response by Ukraine’s NATO allies.

The official US position is still that it opposes sending troops to Ukraine, other than in an advisory role.

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The Remains of a Circular Iron Age Village Revealed in France

A major archaeological discovery has just been made at Cap d’Erquy, in the Côtes d’Armor. The remains of a circular Iron Age village have been unearthed using revolutionary satellite imaging technology.

Developed by INRAE (National Institute for e-realistic Archaeological Research) and called “LiDAR”, this technology uses lasers to scan the ground and create volume reconstructions of unrivaled precision. This process makes it possible to detect buried structures invisible to the naked eye and without resorting to invasive excavations.

A Forgotten Gallic Village

The village discovered at Cap d’Erquy is made up of around twenty circular huts arranged around a central square. Archaeologists estimate that this village was occupied between the 8th and 5th centuries BC by a Gallic community.

“This is an exceptional discovery which allows us to better understand the daily life of the Gauls at the time of the First Iron Age,” explains Jean-Yves Peskebrel, archaeologist at INRAE. These technologies open up a new imagination, it’s very moving.”

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‘Ex-CIA psychic claims he had already told police where Émile Soleil’s body would be found before the tragic child’s remains were discovered’

A former CIA psychic has claimed he had already told police where the body of missing French toddler Émile Soleil would be found before the horror discovery on Saturday.

Major Ed Dames, 74, said he had used a technique called ‘remote viewing’ to locate the two-year-old in the idyllic Alpine hamlet of Le Vernet after his sudden disappearance from his grandparents’ home last July.

The method, used by US and Soviet agents during the Cold War, ostensibly sees psychics access ‘remote geographic targets otherwise inaccessible’, ‘looking into the distance and the future’ merely by thinking.

Maj Dames showed The Sun emails he had sent to police last December claiming Émile was ‘located at, or in proximity to’ a field next to the site where ramblers found the bones and skull on March 31.

‘It took me two days,’ he told the newspaper. ‘I jumped on it immediately. I knew this is a serious case and the sense of urgency is high.’

Maj Dames worked as an operations and training officer at the joint CIA and Army Psychic Intelligence Unit, a now-defunct project that inspired the book and 2009 black comedy ‘The Men Who Stare at Goats’.

The bones and skull of young Émile were found by walkers on Saturday ‘on a path between the Church and Chapel’ of the quiet Alpine village of Le Vernet, according to mayor François Balique.

The site, barely a kilometre from where Émile disappeared while staying with his grandfather in July, had already been scoured by gendarmes with a ‘tooth comb’, the mayor told Le Figaro.

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Inside the £160-a-ticket UFO conference where thousands of alien hunters flocked to French city to ‘train humanity for the arrival of extraterrestrials’ – as councillor slams ‘eccentrics’ peddling ‘conspiracy theories’

Thousands of UFO fanatics flocked to a small city in central France in the hopes of finally meeting extra-terrestrial life. 

The event, organised by fringe group Alliances Célestes, reportedly drew around 2,200 people who each paid between €150 to €190 (£128 to £162) to attend the three day conference held in Zenith Limoges Metropole building in Limoges, a small city with a population of around 130,000. 

Organisers said they wanted to prepare people for the arrival of aliens or ‘new-style encounters.’

The event’s website reads: ‘The mission of this citizen delegation is to accompany humanity in this process, in order to properly inform and reduce the fear and stress that this type of encounter can generate.’

Though media was banned from the event, video of the conference was leaked to BFMTV, and showed thousands of people attentively listening to someone speaking on a set on the stage. 

The stage was decorated with white furniture, including several seats and what appeared to be a high table on the right. 

The background of the set was made up of ‘futuristic’ windows that portrayed stars rushing past the ‘alien room’ they were in. 

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Explosive Secret French Military Report Makes Shocking Admissions: “Ukraine Can’t Win!”

It’s come to light that according to sources from the French Marianne paper, Macron’s entire recent mental manqué resulted from a secret series of ‘assessments’ by the French military that not only provided an absolutely disastrous picture of the actual realities on the ground in Ukraine, but in no uncertain terms even concluded quite frankly that: “Ukraine cannot win this war militarily.”

“Ukraine cannot win this war militarily,” concludes the first report, written in the fall of 2023, following Kiev’s disastrous ground offensive. It praises the Russian forces as the new “tactical and technical” standard of how to run defensive operations and debunks the media myth of “meat assaults.”

Here’s a summary of the report from DDGeopolitics to get a quick gist:

While Macron might be preparing something disastrous, the French Armed Forces are trying to sound the alarm through the French media.

In the French publication Marianne, (https://www.marianne.net/monde/europe/guerre-en-ukraine-endurance-russe-echec-de-la-contre-offensive-ce-que-cache-le-virage-de-macron) which is very close to the French political class, French officers speaking on condition of anonymity spoke about their impressions of the war in Ukraine, the AFU and the Russian Armed Forces.

In summary, the officers speaking to the publication rated the Russian Army very highly. The Russian Army, contrary to Western media, trains its new recruits properly, organizes rotation of personnel and units in the frontline, and always mixes veterans with new recruits so the new soldiers can learn more quickly.

By contrast the Ukrainians blew their best and last chance for victory in the Summer 2023 offensive. The French Armed Forces also estimate Ukraine needs 30,000 – 35,000 new conscripts or recruits every month to keep their force levels steady but currently the Ukrainians are only inducting half that number.

The article assesses that there is no conceivable path currently to a Ukrainian military victory.

So it would appear quite plausible that Macron did in fact lose his lunch over the report from trusted military sources, which resulted in his Defcon 1 meltdown and Tourettes-like expectorations on troop deployment. Now he’s even announced plans to allegedly ‘address the public’ on the Ukraine issue tomorrow, per Le Monde paper.

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French Defense Chief Won’t Rule Out Ukraine Deployment

France’s defense minister said Paris is still exploring its options for a military presence in Ukraine, but stressed that troops would not have a direct combat role. The comments came after French opposition leaders warned that President Emmanuel Macron is planning to step up the country’s involvement in the war.

Speaking to local broadcaster BFMTV on Friday, Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu explained that while Macron did not intend to become a “co-belligerent” in the conflict, France could still deploy forces to perform other tasks in Ukraine.

“Between the transfer of arms and co-belligerence – in other words direct war with Russia – have we done everything within that space? Are there paths that we can explore? And notably paths involving a military presence?” he said, suggesting French soldiers could assist with mine-clearance or training troops on Ukrainian soil.

“The more Ukraine needs to conscript, to raise up its army, the greater the need will be to ramp up training,” the minister continued, also noting that three French military contractors would soon begin producing weapons inside the country.

Lecornu’s remarks followed a meeting between President Macron and French party leaders one day prior, after which multiple opposition figures sounded alarms about the risk of direct military intervention in Ukraine.

According to Fabien Roussel, national secretary of the French Communist Party, during the meeting Macron outlined a scenario “which could initiate an intervention,” and proposed a troop deployment should Russian forces advance “towards Odessa or towards Kiev.” He did not say whether that would involve combat operations.

Speaking after the same meeting, National Rally leader Jordan Bardella warned that Macron had “no limits and no red lines,” while La France Insoumise coordinator Manuel Bompard said he “arrived worried” and “left more worried.”

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Macron Doubles Down on Remarks About NATO Sending Troops to Ukraine

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday stood behind his comments about NATO not ruling out sending troops to Ukraine despite the uproar it caused and the warning it drew from Russia.

“These are sufficiently serious issues; every one of the words that I say on this issue is weighed, thought through, and measured,” Macron told reporters.

Following a meeting of European leaders on the Ukrainian proxy war on Monday, Macron said, “There’s no consensus today to send in an official, endorsed manner troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out.”

His comments appeared to confirm a warning from Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico, an opponent of NATO support for Ukraine, who said earlier that some NATO members were considering sending troops to Ukraine on a “bilateral basis.”

Macron’s comments caused many NATO members to refute the idea that they’re considering sending combat troops to Ukraine, although it’s an open secret that there are a small number of NATO special operations forces already in the country.

One NATO country that backed up Macron is Lithuania, the Baltic nation that borders Kaliningrad and has an active duty military that only consists of only about 15,000 troops.

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Dutch Are Lone Supporters Of Macron’s ‘EU Boots On The Ground In Ukraine’ Plan

French President Emmanuel Macron’s words at the start of the week which opened the door to European ‘boots on the ground in Ukraine’ elicited shock, dismay and caution even from within the Western allies. NATO itself scrambled to assure the world that it has no plans to deploy troops inside Ukraine, with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg rejecting the idea in remarks, given it would certainly mean automatic WW3.

According to CNN, “Macron had told reporters at a news conference that while he and the other 21 European leaders present did not agree on deploying military personnel, the prospect was discussed openly.” Even typically hawkish countries Poland and the UK distanced themselves from such a possibility. 

However one tiny NATO country did step up to back Macron’s words. The Netherlands has said it won’t rule out sending Western troops to Ukraine. Dutch Chief of Defense, General Onno Eichelsheim, told an Amsterdam-based news outlet that while it’s a possibility it is “not yet opportune” to do so.”I think you should keep all options open to see how you can best support Ukraine,” Eichelsheim said.

According to more from the Dutch interview: 

Ukraine has not asked the Netherlands to send troops and there is no point in discussing it at the moment, Eichelsheim added. If Western militaries were to go to Ukraine, it would have to be in a coalition, the Dutch military chef said. “This could either happen via NATO or via an alliance of 10-15 countries.”

“It would be very odd if one or two countries did it,” he added.

Indeed, President Putin’s ominous response to Macron’s words seized precisely on the question of NATO Article 5…

“If Ukraine joins NATO, you won’t even have time to blink your eye when you execute Article 5,” Putin said, which suggests that possibly a nuclear response could be on the table.

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