Tag: france

French ‘Anti-Hate’ Site Lists Mainstream Catholic Symbols Alongside Nazi Devices

A French “anti-hate” website claiming to catalogue far-right symbols has listed several mainstream Roman Catholic symbols, including crosses and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, alongside well-known Nazi devices.

The French “anti-hate” website Indextreme claims that it is looking to “observe, catalogue and publicize the graphic symbols used by the far right in France,” and places various mainstream Roman Catholic symbols alongside those of Nazism and other far-right ideologies.

The project, which was created by graphic designer Geoffrey Dorne and photojournalist Ricardo Parreira and has been promoted by the leftist French website StreetPress, lists many symbols broken up into various categories from phrases to animals, flags, gestures, numbers, and crosses.

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French Surrender Firearms in Record Numbers During Government Crackdown

French gun owners are surrendering their weapons in record numbers at police collection points across the country as a round up of unlicensed firearms winds down.

France is keen to limit the number of illegally owned firearms – as many as six million, authorities estimate – and the Macron government is offering an amnesty in an effort to limit their distribution.

Rifles, handguns, ammunition, even knives and grenades, have been handed in at 300 collection points across the country since the start of the Ministry of Interior’s campaign on Nov. 25.

Those who bring in the weapons face no penalties and their offerings will be destroyed.

By Wednesday, Reuters reports 65,000 firearms of all types had been turned in, along with 1.6 million bullets and other projectiles.

“This campaign is here to help French people surrender these objects that are rather cumbersome for most,” police commandant Florence Gavello said at the collection point in Nice.

Other authorities shared that optimism of a national disarmament, in keeping with other efforts in countries as far away as Australia to take weapons away from law abiding citizens.

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France Requires Heirloom Weapons to Be Turned In Across the Country

France has launched a weeklong campaign for collecting unregistered firearms and ammunition, mostly targeting old and heirloom pieces.

The French government announced its campaign, which ended on Dec. 2, for collecting and destroying old firearms—targeting the around 5 million such pieces that people in the country have. These firearms are mostly remnants from the two World Wars, as France was once the scene of many of the last century’s battles. Other weapons may be old hunting firearms that have not been in use for years.

People that want to keep such firearms will need to register them in the state registration system and undergo checks every year.

“We believe there are about 5 or 6 million weapons that are being kept in an irregular manner by our fellow citizens,” said Jean-Simon Merandat, head of the Interior Ministry’s Central Service for Arms and Explosives. “Eighty to ninety percent of these weapons are in their possession due to an inheritance.”

The campaign has collected at least 1.6 million munition pieces but only 65,000 firearms, the majority of which will be destroyed, and some may be preserved.

“We expect those with historic or cultural value to be spared destruction and brought to one or several museums,” Merandat added.

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Macron wants more Twitter censorship to stop people saying “crazy things” about vaccines, pandemics, and war

French President Emmanuel Macron criticized Twitter’s owner Elon Musk for relaxing content censorship policies on the platform, arguing that content on Twitter needs more regulation. Macron made the comments in an appearance on ABC News ahead of his visit to The White House.

Macron said that democracies are under “very strong pressure” from forces like social media where users can say “crazy things about a vaccine, a pandemic, the war.”

This week, Musk said he would relax content moderation policies surrounding topics like the coronavirus.

Good Morning America and ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos said, “He’s making it worse, isn’t he?”

“I think this is a big issue,” Macron responded. “I think it deserves to be largely engaged. What I push very much for, want, is exactly the opposite – more regulation.”

Macron further argued that speech in a democracy has to be “based on respect and political order.”

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‘Zombie’ Virus Reanimated After 50,000 Years In Siberian Permafrost

French researchers have reanimated over a dozen prehistoric viruses which have been trapped deep within the Siberian permafrost for nearly 50 million years, according to a pre-print study.

After obtaining seven ancient permafrost samples, scientists from the French National Centre for Scientific Research were able to document 13 never-before-seen viruses that had been lying dormant in the ice, Science Alert reports.

The same researchers found a 30,000-year-old virus in 2014 which was trapped in permafrost. Notably, it was still able to infect organisms. Now, they’ve beaten their own record with a find that’s 48,500 years old, which they named Pandoravirus yedoma, according to Science Alert.

The scientists, who called these “zombie viruses” a public health threat, pointed to global warming as an ongoing risk that could result in the release of deadly pathogens from long ago.

“Due to climate warming, irreversibly thawing permafrost is releasing organic matter frozen for up to a million years, most of which decomposes into carbon dioxide and methane, further enhancing the greenhouse effect,” the authors wrote. “Part of this organic matter also consists of revived cellular microbes (prokaryotes, unicellular eukaryotes) as well as viruses that remained dormant since prehistorical times.“

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French President Emmanuel Macron Demands for the World to Submit to ‘Single Global Order’

French President Emmanuel Macron urged for total submission to globalism during a speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Thailand on Friday.

“We are in a jungle and we have two big elephants, trying to become more and more nervous” Macron said, comparing U.S. and China to large animals who must be controlled.

“If they become very nervous and star a war, it will a big problem for the rest of the jungle. You need the cooperation of a lot of other animals, tigers, monkeys and so on,” he added, amused at his comparison.

Macron said that the multipolar world, without a major global hegemon calling the shots, must be rejected. Instead, the world must bow before what he calls a “single global order,” which is of course a euphemism for new world order.

“Are you on the US or the Chinese side? Because now, progressively, a lot of people would like to see that there are two orders in the world. This a huge mistake, even for both the US and China. We need a single global order,” he said.

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Holocaust denier arrested in Scottish fishing village two years after fleeing French authorities

A Holocaust denier who fled France after he was convicted under anti-Nazi laws has been arrested in a Scottish fishing village.

Vincent Reynouard, 53, was arrested in Anstruther, Fife, on Thursday after a two-year search.

He had been working as a private tutor while living under a false identity in the UK, according to French media reports.

Holocaust denial has been a criminal offence in France since 1990, and Reynouard has been convicted on numerous occasions.

He was given a four-month jail term in November 2020 and a further six-month sentence in January 2021.

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Missing Paris girl, 12, found dead in suitcase with numbers ‘placed’ on body

A 12-year-old girl was found stuffed in a suitcase in Paris with her throat slashed and a bizarre, chilling clue — the numbers 1 and 0 “placed” on her corpse, authorities said.

The hands and feet of the French child, who was not named, were bound with tape, and she appeared to have died from asphyxiation, according to Fox News and the Independent.  

At least four people have since been taken into custody for questioning in the case, but no arrests have been announced.

The girl’s parents notified police when their daughter didn’t come home after school in the French capital Friday, the outlet said.

The girl’s father, who is a caretaker in their building, told police he saw his daughter with a woman in her 20s on video footage from the building — with the woman later emerging on the footage carrying a suitcase.Cops later found evidence of a kidnapping in the basement of the building.

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Let Them Eat Cake: Macron Blasted for Jet-Skiing While Telling Public to Save Energy

France’s President Emmanuel Macron has come under fire for using a gas-guzzling jet ski on the French Riviera while demanding citizens curtail their energy use.

In a modern take on the infamous, if possibly apocryphal, remark of the French queen Marie Antoinette that, if the starving people were unable to buy bread, the state should “let them eat cake”, President Emmanual Macron has caused a stir among his countrymen for jet-skiing while his country faces the worst energy crisis in decades, BFMTV reported.

The French leader, fresh off a stinging defeat in the National Assembly elections, losing his legislative majority and dashing his dreams of a “Jupitarean” presidency — and indeed his hopes of becoming the undisputed top dog of Europe — fled Paris to vacation with his wife Bridgette at Fort de Brégançon, the official retreat of the President of France since 1968.

Paparazzi pictures over the past week have shown the French leader lounging in the sun and cruising the Mediterranean in a not-so-eco-friendly jet ski, less than one month after calling on the public to engage in an “effort of solidarity” by cutting their energy usage in the face of European gas shortages amid the war in Ukraine.

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French digital minister tells Big Tech platforms to scale up “fact-checking capabilities”

Telecom ministers from European countries have asked the major online platforms to ensure they have the adequate capacity to handle “misinformation” in Central and Eastern Europe, which they say are the major targets of Russian propaganda.

On March 8, officials from EU governments and representatives from the major online platforms met in France to discuss how to fight disinformation being spread by the Russian government. Initially, the agenda of the informal meeting was the Metaverse, how to bring more women to the technology sector, and environment. The agenda was changed in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In a joint statement, the ministers said: “The battles initiated by Russia in the current conflict are raging not only on the ground but also on the internet.”

France’s digital minister Cédric O said that online platforms had made some efforts to fight Russian propaganda, adding that the accounts of Russian state-controlled media outlets Sputnik and RT have been removed on the major platforms. However, O said it was important to put “pressure on the platforms to do even more.”

During the meeting, the ministers made two requests, according to a report by EURACTIV. They asked the platforms to respond to take down requests from governments more quickly. And, they asked them to increase their content moderation teams in the languages spoken in Central and Eastern Europe.

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