France
Refugee crisis: France to welcome 24,000 refugees and begin Syria air strikes against IS
French President Francois Hollande has ordered preparations to begin for air strikes on Islamic State (IS) group positions in Syria, but ruled out sending troops on the ground. Paris had previously refused to join coalition strikes in Syria, and only participates in missions against IS militants in Iraq after Baghdad requested international assistance. More than…
France won’t open arms to refugees like Germany
While refugees were applauded upon arrival at Munich rail station at the weekend it was business as usual on the French–Italian border. Although Germany has basically scrapped EU rules and opened its doors to refugees travelling through Europe, France continues to send them back to Italy. The French president vowed on Monday to take thousands…
Je Suis Charlie film-makers: ‘We have to put focus back on the dead’
The attack on Charlie Hebdo in January of this year left 12 dead and 11 more injured, a massacre carried out by Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, brothers who were linked to Al-Qaida in Yemen. A movement gathered, bringing four million French people to the streets in the days following the attack. Donations of at least…
Media fear of Islam ‘ obsessional’: France’s Houellebec
The fear-tinged portrayal of Islam in literature and the media has become “obsessional,” controversial French writer Michel Houellebecq said in an interview published on Sunday by British newspaper The Guardian. Houellebecq’s latest work, Submission – a fiercely-debated novel which imagines a France in 2022 where Islamic law is enforced and French women are ordered to…
Anti-Islam rhetoric mars French refugee response
The arrival of the first group of an eventual total of 24,000 refugees in France has been tainted by the ongoing refusal of some mayors to accept Muslims, with one town claiming they “cut off boss’s heads”. Muslim leaders have blasted their “dangerous” words. Further inflammatory statements about refugees by some mayors in France continued…