Tag: france

71-Year-Old Romanian Yoga Guru Charged with Leading International Sex Cult Ring

A 71-year-old Romanian yoga guru and 14 others were handed preliminary charges by a Paris magistrate on a raft of counts linked to an international ring that for years allegedly subjected followers seeking enlightenment to sexual exploitation.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said that six of the 15 people interrogated were ordered held on Friday, while nine others were freed but under judicial surveillance.

Gregorian Bivolaru was among two of the six handed a string of preliminary charges that included human trafficking in an organized band, kidnapping, sequestration or arbitrary detention of numerous people along with rape and “abusing the weakness of a group” via psychological or physical subjection. None of the 15 was named but a judicial source said that Bivolaru was among the two facing the longest list of charges.

A trimmed-down version of the preliminary charges were handed to the other suspects. An investigation will now determine whether the preliminary charges lead to a formal indictment and a trial.

The arrest this past week of Bivolaru and 40 others in the Paris region ended a six-year manhunt in several countries. The police unit that combats sect-related crimes freed 26 people described by authorities as sect victims who had been housed in deplorable conditions.

Accounts from alleged victims detailed in the French media portray Bivolaru as a guru who coerced women into sexual relationships under the guise of spiritual elevation in a career spanning decades and continents.

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The mystery of missing ‘French Madeleine McCann’: Estelle Mouzin disappeared aged nine on her way to school amid fears she was snatched by ‘Ogre of Ardennes’ killer… but her body has never been found

Over a span of more than 15 years, a series of killings of women and young girls haunted parts of France and Belgium, but perhaps none more than the murder of nine-year-old Estelle Mouzin – France’s Madeline McCann.

Between 1987 and 2003, at least 11 people disappeared across the region, with several of the cases seeming – at least at first – to be unconnected.

The first woman disappeared in Auxerre, in December 1987. The second vanished 90 miles away in Vitry-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris, in 1988. 

Another woman went missing in Auxerre that same year, but then more vanished further north in Châlons-en-Champagne (1988) and Charleville-Mézières (1989. Then one in Saint-Servais in Belgium, then another in Rezé, over in the West of France.

After a flurry of eight disappearances from 1987 to 1990, there was a ten-year pause, but they restarted in 2000, in Charleville-Mézières again, then another in Sedan in 2001, and one more in Guermantes in 2003.

Of the places where the women went missing, only two appeared on the list more than once: Auxerre (three women) and Charleville-Mézières (two). When plotted on a map, the locations are spread across a vast area of 21,500 square miles.

It is easy to see, therefore, why authorities struggled to connect them to the culprit: dreaded serial killer Michel Fourniret, known as ‘the Beast of Ardennes’.

Finally arrested in 2003 in Belgium, Fourniret was convicted to life in prison in 2008 for the murder and rape or attempted rape of seven teenagers and young women, after he admitted to killing several women and girls.

Fourniret would go on to be convicted again after confessing to more killings, and he confessed to three more he was never convicted of – including 20-year-old British tutor Joanna Parrish, who was killed in Auxerre in 1990.

But of all of Fourniret’s horrific killings, one stood out in particular: That of nine-year-old Estelle, who went missing in 2003. The whereabouts of her body remain a mystery to this day, and is a secret that Fourniret took to his grave.

The youngest of Fourniret’s victims, Estelle’s disappearance has been likened to that of Madeleine McCann‘s, the three-year-old British girl who went missing in 2007.

As with McCann, who vanished in Portugal, Estelle disappeared without a trace, leaving investigators stumped while capturing the attention of the public and media.

The girl had been returning from school on January 9, 2003 in the commune of Guermantes, some 15 miles east from the centre of Paris.

The nine-year-old was last seen that winter’s day in front of a bakery, en route to the house belonging to her mother, Suzanne Mouzin.

Suzanne, who was in the middle of a divorce from Estelle’s father Eric, raised the alarm with the local police station at around 7pm that evening.

Little did she know, in going to the police she had lit the touch paper on an investigation that would span seventeen years, spark huge media coverage in France, and yet would never truly discover what had happened to her little girl.

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4000-YEAR-OLD MARKINGS ON STONE HAILED AS ‘EUROPE’S OLDEST MAP’ MAY LEAD RESEARCHERS TO A REMARKABLE DISCOVERY

An ancient stone covered in markings believed to represent the oldest map in Europe is revealing new secrets, according to findings that archaeologists believe could lead them to new ancient discoveries.

First discovered in 1900, the Saint-Bélec slab is a 4,000-year-old carved stone fragment found in an ancient burial mound in the Leuhan parish near France’s Finistère Department. Although a portion of the slab’s upper part is missing, most of the relic managed to survive since its creation sometime between 2150 and 1600 BCE.

Believed to be Europe’s oldest map, and possibly one of the oldest maps of any territory that hails from such an early period, the curious stone, at slightly under four meters in length and just over two meters wide, appears to chart a region of ancient western Brittany.

Now, archaeologists believe that following clues the enigmatic stone and its markings may offer could serve as a veritable “treasure map,” which may lead them to the locations of as-yet undiscovered archaeological sites.

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Ban on protests supporting Palestinians is disproportionate attack on the right to protest in France

Following the request from the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin asking the prefects in France to ban all pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Jean-Claude Samouiller, President of Amnesty International France said:

“The ban on all demonstrations in support of the Palestinians in France constitutes a serious and disproportionate attack on the right to demonstrate.

Faced with the atrocities committed by Hamas in southern Israel, and also the blockade and very heavy bombings in the Gaza Strip, it is important that civil society actors can mobilize peacefully and publicly, in particular those calling on those engaged in the conflict to respect the rights of civilian populations. This is why there cannot be a systematic ban on the right to peacefully demonstrate support for the rights of the Palestinian populations.

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PAP SMEAR: French gynecologist called ‘transphobic’ for saying ‘I take care of real women’

A gynecologist in France has been accused of “transphobia” after refusing to see a male-to-female trans person. After going viral because of the incident, the doctor has defended his decision to the media, stating “a cavity is not a vagina.”

The 26-year-old was the first trans person Dr. Victor Acharian would have seen in his 30 years of gynecology practice. He was immediately uncomfortable with the request to examine the person and told his secretary he would not see her, stating “I only treat women.”

The patient’s boyfriend left a negative Google review after the incident, to which the doctor responded strongly:

“SIR. I am a gynecologist, and I take care of real women. I have no skills to take care of men, even if they have shaved their beards and come to tell my secretary that they have become women,” Acharian wrote.

The transgender person immediately went to the French press and reported feeling in “shock” and a “black hole.” After the online exchange went viral, with accounts such as Cerfia and SOS homophobie sharing screenshots on X, the doctor took action by speaking to the media.

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France Demands Apple Take iPhone 12 Off Market Immediately as it Emits Too Much Radiation

French regulators ordered Apple to stop selling the iPhone 12, saying it emits electromagnetic radiation levels that are above European Union standards for exposure. The company disputed the findings and said the device complies with regulations.

The French government agency that manages wireless communications frequencies issued the order after the iPhone 12 recently failed one of two types of tests for electromagnetic waves capable of being absorbed by the body.

It’s unclear why the phone, which was released in late 2020, didn’t pass the agency’s latest round of tests and why it was only that particular model.

France’s digital minister said the iPhone 12’s radiation levels are still much lower than levels that scientific studies consider could harm users, and the agency itself acknowledges that its tests don’t reflect typical phone use.

The National Frequency Agency on Tuesday called on Apple to “implement all available means to rapidly fix this malfunction” for phones already in use and said it would monitor device updates. If they don’t work, “Apple will have to recall” phones that have already been sold, it said.

The agency recently tested 141 cellphones and found that when the iPhone 12 is held in a hand or carried in a pocket, its level of electromagnetic energy absorption is 5.74 watts per kilogram, higher than the EU standard of 4 watts per kilogram.

The phone passed a separate test of radiation levels for devices kept in a jacket or in a bag, the agency said.

Radiation limits are set “well below the level at which harm will occur,” and therefore a small increase above the threshold “is unlikely to be of any health consequence,” said Malcolm Sperrin, director of medical physics at the U.K.’s Royal Berkshire hospital group.

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France to spend millions on wine disposal

The French government and the EU will shell out a total of €200 million ($216 million) to destroy wine surpluses in a country renowned for its centuries-old winemaking traditions, Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau has said. Officials in Paris cited sluggish demand which resulted in overproduction and falling prices.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Fesneau explained that the money is “aimed at stopping prices collapsing and so that wine-makers can find sources of revenue again.” The official also suggested that the entire industry should “think about consumer changes… and adapt.”

According to AFP, the alcohol from the condemned wine could be sold to companies that produce hand sanitizers, cleaning products, and perfume.

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Hip bone found in cave in France may represent a previously unknown lineage of Homo sapiens

A bone found in a cave by an international team of anthropologists in France may represent a previously unknown lineage of Homo sapiens. The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The Grotte du Renne is a cave in France; it has been the focus of archaeological research for several decades. Such research has shown that there are layers of historical relevance in the cave, with deeper layers representing the time period when the cave was occupied by Neanderthals and higher layers representing the time period when anatomically modern humans (AMHs) occupied the cave.

In between those layers is another that represents the time period when the two hominids may have co-existed. Stone tools found in the layer have been ascribed to an early Châtelperronian techno-cultural complex, though scholars have not been able to agree on whether they were made by Neanderthals, AMH or both. In this new effort, the research team took a new look at a bone that was excavated from the cave decades ago—a hip bone called an ilium.

The researchers found that the bone was from a newborn baby. They also believed that it was not Neanderthal. By comparing it with other Neanderthal bones and against 32 modern baby bones, they found that it did not conform to either species. Its shape was different from Neanderthal and slightly different from AMH. They noted that the odd shape fell outside the bounds of what would be considered normal variation in humans. That, they concluded, suggests the bone represents a previously unknown lineage of Homo sapiens with a morphology that is slightly different from AMH.

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Special Delivery: Severed Finger “From Living Human” Sent by Mail to French President Emmanuel Macron’s Home

France is burning under President Emmanuel Macron.

On Monday, in a disturbing turn, a severed human finger was sent to the official presidential home. The package did not contain any correspondence, only the finger, which investigators determined came from “a living victim” who, according to police sources, has been identified.

The Evening Standard reports:

The macabre parcel containing the amputated digit arrived at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Monday.

“The finger was initially put in a fridge where the police put their snacks,” said a source at the official presidential home. “This was to make sure it was preserved and could be analysed as quickly as possible.”

Tests later identified the finger as belonging to a “living human being,” who was contacted and “given full medical support,” said the source.

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Police will be allowed to spy on suspects by remotely activating their phones’ camera, microphone and GPS under new French laws dubbed a ‘snoopers’ charter’

French police should be able to spy on suspects by remotely activating the camera, microphone and GPS of their phones and other devices, lawmakers agreed late Wednesday.

Part of a wider justice reform bill, the spying provision has been attacked by the left and rights defenders as an authoritarian snoopers’ charter, though Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti insists it would affect only ‘dozens of cases a year’.

Covering laptops, cars and other connected objects as well as phones, the measure would allow geolocation of suspects in crimes punishable by at least five years’ jail.

Devices could also be remotely activated to record sound and images of people suspected of terror offenses, as well as delinquency and organised crime.

The provisions ‘raise serious concerns over infringements of fundamental liberties,’ digital rights group La Quadrature du Net wrote in a May statement.

It cited the ‘right to security, right to a private life and to private correspondence’ and ‘the right to come and go freely’, calling the proposal part of a ‘slide into heavy-handed security’.

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