Search
Recent comments
- I am the storm....
52 min 5 sec ago - biden is a crook....
57 min 55 sec ago - disinfo française......
2 hours 26 min ago - colonial warming.....
2 hours 34 min ago - deserter or double asgent?....
6 hours 24 min ago - bibi's interest.....
9 hours 28 min ago - war and money....
10 hours 52 min ago - lost trust....
12 hours 25 min ago - case dropped....
12 hours 44 min ago - profligate carbon....
13 hours 1 min ago
Democracy Links
Member's Off-site Blogs
le rubbish everywhere......
Emmanuel Macron has defended the last-minute postponement of King Charles’s state visit to France next week, saying it would not have been “serious or good sense” for it to go ahead as it clashed with another national day of mass strikes and social unrest.
The king had been scheduled to arrive in France on Sunday on his first state visit as monarch. He was due to visit Paris and Bordeaux before heading to Germany on Wednesday.
Asked if the cancellation was humiliating for France, the French president replied: “What would have been detestable for the British people, as well as for ourselves would have been to maintain it with (possible) incidents in the process.”
READ MORE:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/24/king-charles-visit-to-france-postponed-amid-protests
MEANWHILE:
French authorities on Tuesday searched offices of several large banks, including Societe Generale, BNP Paribas and HSBC on the suspicion of money laundering and fiscal fraud, a spokesperson of the PNF financial prosecution office told Reuters.
Societe General confirmed the searches. The other concerned banks could not immediately be reached for comment.
The spokesperson confirmed earlier reports by paper Le Monde which said the probe was linked to dividend stripping and also hit Exane and Natixis.
The PNF said that five investigations were ongoing linked to so-called "cum-cum" practices, through which wealthy clients sought to evade taxes on dividends through complex legal structures.
"The ongoing operations, which have required several months of preparation, are being carried out by 16 investigating judges and over 150 investigation agents", the PNF said in a statement issued around midday on Tuesday.
(REUTERS)
READ MORE:
MAKE A DEAL PLEASE:
NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)
THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.
CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954
A MEMORANDUM OF NON AGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.
EASY.
THE WEST KNOWS IT.
- By Gus Leonisky at 29 Mar 2023 - 5:18am
- Gus Leonisky's blog
- Login or register to post comments
extra police......
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has ordered 13,000 police officers into the streets of France’s major cities as protests against the government’s controversial pension reforms continue. Darmanin said that he is expecting “radical activists” from abroad to instigate violence at the demonstrations.
Darmanin announced the deployment on Monday night, adding that 5,000 of the mobilized officers would be stationed in Paris ahead of marches on Tuesday.
“Our services anticipate that there will be significant disruption to public order,” he said, warning that“more than 1,000 radical activists, some arriving from abroad, may join the protests in Paris, Nantes or Rennes.”
Darmanin said that these “radical activists” are mostly left-wingers and anarchists who are known to police. “Their goals are to destabilize our republican institutions and bring blood and fire down on France,” he claimed.
France has been hit with constant protests and riots since President Emmanuel Macron bypassed parliament earlier this month to pass a bill raising the retirement age for most workers from 62 to 64. More than a million demonstrators took to the streets last Thursday, and hundreds were arrested in Paris after clashing with police and lighting fires on the streets of the French capital.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the demonstrations in Paris remained mostly peaceful. However, masked rioters in Nantes set cars on fire and hurled rocks at police, who responded with tear gas. Protesters in Paris and Marseille blocked railway lines, while a group of demonstrators set off a smoke bomb in Biarritz Airport, triggering alarms and leading to an evacuation.
The Council of Europe has condemned the government for using excessive force against protesters, while France’s National Consultative Commission on Human Rights issued a report last week accusing police of arresting hundreds of demonstrators without cause.
Macron is insistent on keeping his reforms in place. “I have no regrets pushing for this necessary reform,” he said in a televised interview last week, adding that he accepts “unpopularity” as a result. Macron has long argued that France’s pension system will go bankrupt unless the retirement age is raised, while his opponents have called on the president to make up for the shortfall by increasing taxes on the wealthy instead.
READ MORE:
https://www.rt.com/news/573748-police-deployed-protest-paris/
READ FROM TOP.
MACRON EST UN CONNARD..... IT AIN'T GOING TO FINISH WELLLLLLL......
"RADICALS FROM ABROAD"? GERMANY? UK? AMERICA? ITALY? Russia?.......
FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....
germany instead....
Charles, who succeeded his mother Queen Elizabeth as the British monarch in September, had been due to travel first to France, but cancelled that part of the tour due to violent social unrest over President Emmanuel Macron's new pension law.
During his three-day visit to Germany's capital Berlin, the eastern state of Brandenburg and the northern port city of Hamburg, Charles will address issues facing both countries such as sustainability and the Ukraine crisis, as well as commemorate the past, according to Buckingham Palace.
On Wednesday morning, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will greet Charles and his wife Queen Consort Camilla with military honors at Berlin's most famous landmark, the Brandenburg Gate, a symbol of the country's division during the Cold War and subsequent reunification.
Steinmeier, said it was an important "European gesture" that Charles had chosen France and Germany for his first state visit, even before his coronation in May.
"To him and obviously all Britons, I want to say that we in Germany, in Europe, wish for close and friendly relations with the United Kingdom even after Brexit," he said in a video message ahead of the trip.
The royal couple will then be guests of honor at a state banquet at the presidential palace, Schloss Bellevue.
On Thursday in Berlin, Charles will address the German lower house of parliament, the Bundestag - which he last addressed in 2020 as Prince of Wales - and meet some of the 1 millionUkrainians that have taken refuge from war in Germany.
Later in the day, he will meet representatives from a joint German-British military unit for a demonstration of their bridge-building amphibious vehicles in Brandenburg.
READ MORE:
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230328-king-charles-heads-to-germany-on-first-overseas-state-visit-as-monarch