WikiLeaks has published yet another set of leaked internal documents from within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) adding even more material to the mountain of evidence that we’ve been lied to about an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria last year which resulted in airstrikes upon that nation from the US, UK and France.

This new WikiLeaks drop includes an email from the OPCW Chief of Cabinet Sebastien Braha (who is reportedly so detested by organisation inspectors that they code named him “Voldemort”) throwing a fit over the Ian Henderson Engineering Assessment which found that the Douma incident was likely a staged event. Braha is seen ordering OPCW staff to “remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever” from the organisation’s secure registry.

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

As that rail and subway strike continued to paralyze travel in Paris and across France into the third week, President Emmanuel Macron made a Christmas appeal to his dissatisfied countrymen:

“Strike action is justifiable and protected by the constitution, but I think there are moments in a nation’s life when it is good to observe a truce out of respect for families and family life.”

Macron’s appeal has gone largely unheeded.

“The public be damned!” seems to be the attitude of many of the workers who are tying up transit to protest Macron’s plan to reform a pension system that consumes 14% of GDP.

Macron wants to raise to 64 the age of eligibility for full retirement benefits. Not terribly high. And to set an example, he is surrendering his lifetime pension that is to begin when he becomes an ex-president.

France's trade unions on Wednesday defended a series of illegal power cuts to 150,000 homes, thousands of companies and the Bank of France in an effort to force the Macron government to quash its wide-ranging pension reform, according to Reuters.

Trade unions cut power to 50,000 homes in Bordeaux and 40,000 in Lyon.

Train services across France also remained disrupted as half a million protested.

President Emmanuel Macron is trying to reform pension system to make it equal.

Thousands of French homes, companies and even the Bank of France have been left without power as strikers march through the streets demanding President Emmanuel Macron drops his hated pension reforms.

Trade unions deliberately severed the electricity supply to 150,000 homes across Bordeaux, Lyon, Nantes and Cherbourg yesterday, and threatened to repeat the action unless the government backs down.

Clinics, fire stations, and railway stations were also left with the lights off, said the government, as the capital Paris remained wracked by protests and without public transport.

French cops launched tear gas cannisters and charged protesters as tens of thousands of workers took to Paris streets to rally against the government's plan to raise the retirement age to 64.

Clashes broke out near the Nation square in eastern Paris during a demonstration, organised by trade unions, to demand that President Emmanuel Macron abandon his reforms.

Witnesses said police charged a group of protesters who ignored an ultimatum to disperse and were throwing Molotov cocktails.

The centrist government has expressed “solidarity” with the millions affected by the transport gridlock, but has so far refused to back down on its “historic reform”. France’s former military chief has urged President Emmanuel Macron to “restore order,” as disgruntled workers take to the streets on Tuesday on the 13th day of a transport strike against planned pension changes that has threatened to ruin Christmas for scores of French people. General Pierre de Villiers told RTL radio on Monday: “We must restore [public] order – we cannot continue like this.”

A RECORD number of police officers have been injured or killed on duty during 2019, a year which has seen massive civil unrest on the streets of President Emmanuel Macron’s France.

The French authorities, police and state media have faced angry and often violent Yellow Vest demonstrations every week.

On 3 December in Paris, the French parliament adopted a resolution approving the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

But the vote was far from unanimous, and the discomfort was such that the MP proposing the resolution, Sylvain Maillard, had to confirm in his official address that it “excludes the examples of the IHRA” - a statement that should considerably reduce the scope of this vote.

The unease felt by MPs revealed the violent clash between two logics: that of Israeli propaganda and its supporters in France, advanced under the mask of fighting “modern forms of antisemitism”, and that of the anti-racist and universalist tradition deeply anchored and active in France.

On 17 November, France’s most prominent protest movement marked one year since the beginning of rallies that have since spread across the country, with demonstrations leading to clashes with police and numerous arrests.

Yellow Vests protesters have gathered this Saturday in Paris to hold another demonstration, nearly a month after the movement celebrated its one-year anniversary.

France's parliament voted late on Tuesday to adopt a definition of anti-semitism that includes anti-Zionism, prompting anger from activists who believe it will restrict legitimate criticisms of Israel.

French lawmakers adopted the controversial bill, which was tabled by Paris MP Sylvain Maillard from Emmanuel Macron's La Republique en Marche centrist party, with 154 votes against 72.

The resolution adopts the definition issued by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which states that some criticism of Israel could be anti-semitic.

France’s National Assembly on Tuesday passed a resolution conflating support for Palestinian equality with hatred of Jews – an initiative supported by the country’s Israel lobby.

But most lawmakers did not take part in the vote.

nder the new pensions regulations proposed by the Macron government, a single set of rules will be applied to all new pensioners, thus removing the current 42 pension regimes.

Most of France's trains are expected to stand idle, schools closed and the tourists have been warned not to visit the Eiffel Tower as French unions are holding mass rallies to protest the government's pension reform.

The authorities of Paris have deployed some 6,000 police in the city as the biggest rally is taking place in the French capital.

France is bracing for major transportation disruptions throughout the country starting Thursday, as trade unions launch a strike in response to changes President Emmanuel Macron wants to make to the country’s retirement system, while port blockades have resulted in widespread fuel shortages across the country. Much of the Paris Metro will be shut down, as will many national and international train lines, including certain Eurostar services. Flights will also be canceled, as air traffic controllers say they will join the protests through Saturday.

Hundreds of filling stations around western France have run out of gasoline and diesel as blockades of oil refineries enter their second week according to industry group UFIP. According to The Local, construction workers have been blockading refineries in Brittany since last week and a blockade at La Rochelle has resumed.

SOURCE: MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
The Israeli government is aiming to increase the volume of Israel’s defence exports, reported Globes, which has revealed the main points of the plan for the first time.

The project, being overseen by the Defence Ministry’s International Defence Cooperation Directorate (SIBAT) led by Brigadier General (Res.) Yair Kulas, will begin to be rolled out in early 2020.

According to Globes, the plan is based on “focused seminars for senior commanders in foreign armies”, Israeli military “assistance for promoting sales of Israeli weapons”, and “subsidising small and medium-sized defence companies seeking to sell arms around the world”.

Speaking this week, Kulas said that SIBAT favours a major expansion of agreements between countries, resulting in significant deals for the large defence companies, especially Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Rafael Advanced Defence Systems.

French police have deployed tear gas and water cannon in the capital, Paris, in a bid to drive back protesters marking the first anniversary of anti-government "yellow vest" demonstrations.

Demonstrators on Saturday, some clad in black and hiding their faces, vandalised an HSBC bank branch at the Place d'Italie.

Tensions are high in the reconstruction project for France’s Notre Dame cathedral after an Army general appointed by President Emmanuel Macron has told an architect fighting for the original spire design to “shut his mouth.”

It’s not a fight you expect to see very often, but the reconstruction of the fire-gutted Notre Dame cathedral has led to a showdown between the chief architect and General Jean-Louis Georgelin, appointed by French President Emmanuel Macron to pilot the restoration project.

Chief architect Philippe Villeneuve has been faced with an ambitious five-year deadline to restore the famed cathedral’s interior, roof, and the iconic spire completely destroyed in the April blaze.

To celebrate the protest movement’s very first anniversary, Yellow Vest organizers have called on the French public to gather next Saturday on the Champs-Elysees in Paris.

The Facebook event, called ‘Act 53 Yellow Vests birthday on the Champs-Elysees’, so far has about 5,000 registered participants and 6,500 who’ve declared themselves interested, BFMTV reports.

Historically, the word Islamophobia -- coined in the 1910s by a French colonial administrator -- was rarely used until the 1990s. After Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, particularly after Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa against Salman Rushdie following the publication of The Satanic Verses, the term became used as a political weapon. The objective appears to have been to make Islam untouchable by placing any criticism of it as equivalent to racism or anti-Semitism.

The word "Islamophobia" deliberately intends to transform the critique of a religion -- a fundamental right in Western societies -- into a crime.

Pascal Bruckner, a French philosopher, suggested the role played by the concept. According to him:

On Halloween night, mobs set fires to two schools in the French city of Béziers, causing significant damage. The perpetrators also attacked police and responding firefighters.

The night’s incidents started at around 9:30 pm on Thursday when several fires were reported in a derelict building near Vallerey Square and other fires at an abandoned garage in the Devèze district of Béziers, broadcaster BFMTV reports.

Once police arrived on the scene, a group of people attacked them with firecrackers and rocks. But with the protection of the police, firefighters were able to get the first fires under control.

An hour later, at around 10:30 pm, a fire was reported at the Maurice Et Katia Krafft middle school. When police and firefighters arrived on the scene, they were again attacked by a group of up to 30 people armed with rocks, fireworks, and other projectiles. Police say the attackers had covered their faces to avoid identification.

Is this how French President Emmanuel Macron is choosing to celebrate 70 years of Communist rule?

In a plan that sounds eerily similar to China's 'social credit score' system, Macron and the French Interior Ministry are pushing ahead plans to launch a national facial-recognition program, arguing that it "will make the state more efficient."

According to Bloomberg, the ID program, known as "Alicem", is set to be rolled out in November, after the launch was moved forward from an end-of-year timeline.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to set prisoners from Europe who joined Daesh* in Syria and Iraq free at the EU’s borders if they refuse to take back the captives. According to the American commander-in-chief, after the US defeated the so-called caliphate, Washington has “thousands of prisoners of war, ISIS fighters" who are European nationals, but these countries are refusing to cooperate. He singled out France and Germany when speaking on the matter.

"We're asking the countries from which they came, from Europe, we're asking them to take back these prisoners of war. And they can try them, do what they want. So far, they've refused. And at some point, I'm going to have to say, 'I'm sorry, but you either take them back or we're going to let them go at your border'", he said.

SOURCE: REUTERS
PARIS (Reuters) - France and Germany have agreed to block Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency, the French finance ministry said on Friday.

In a joint statement, the two governments affirmed that “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations”.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday that Facebook’s new cryptocurrency should not be allowed to operate in Europe while concerns persist about sovereignty and persistent financial risks.

Authored by M.K. Bhadrakumar via IndianPunchline.com,

The meeting of the foreign and defense ministers of Russia and France in the 2+2 format in Moscow on September 9 signified not only a warming up of relations between the two countries but a reset in Russia’s ties with the West.

The last time a Franco-Russian event in the 2+2 format took place was in October 2012 in Paris. A year later, the conflict erupted in Ukraine and the European Union imposed sanctions against Russia. The trajectory since then appears to be reversing its course.

The first signs appeared during the G7 summit in Biarritz on 24-26 August where the schism between the West and Russia significantly narrowed. The US President Donald Trump announced that he intended to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to next year’s G7 at Miami.

Authored by M.K. Bhadrakumar via IndianPunchline.com,

The meeting of the foreign and defense ministers of Russia and France in the 2+2 format in Moscow on September 9 signified not only a warming up of relations between the two countries but a reset in Russia’s ties with the West.

The last time a Franco-Russian event in the 2+2 format took place was in October 2012 in Paris. A year later, the conflict erupted in Ukraine and the European Union imposed sanctions against Russia. The trajectory since then appears to be reversing its course.

The first signs appeared during the G7 summit in Biarritz on 24-26 August where the schism between the West and Russia significantly narrowed. The US President Donald Trump announced that he intended to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to next year’s G7 at Miami.

Where to start? For nearly 40 weeks hundreds of thousands of French people have been on the streets in anti-government demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron’s rule.

Some have lost eyes and hands in the police response. The public has begun to view the smell of tear gas as a normal part of a weekend in Paris. France is 29 miles from the coast of England. Siri just told me that “Hong Kong is about 5,992 miles from London as the crow flies.”

So complete has been the British media blackout on the Yellow Vests that many believe, wrongly, that there is some British government order banning on any mention of “les événements en France.” The truth is that there is no need for one.

The investigation into accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has branched out overseas — as authorities are now examining his properties in France and the Caribbean.

French authorities said they have initiated an investigation into the billionaire, who was found dead in his New York City jail cell last weekend. U.S. officials suspect he hanged himself during a period of time he wasn’t monitored.

Epstein owned an apartment in Paris and U.S. authorities have connected him to several French nationals. He was arrested last month after returning from France.

Numerous demonstrators are taking to the streets in order to oppose government policies in the French capital and protest against income inequality.

Last week, protesters also took part in a March of Silence against police brutality in Nantes, which resulted in numerous clashes and arrests of demonstrators.

The Yellow Vests movement started holding rallies in France in November 2018 over the government's plan to increase fuel taxes. While the French authorities have abandoned the idea, protesters continue to hold demonstrations across the country every weekend.

Mr Castaner made the controversial comments as he visited the office of Romain Grau, an MP loyal to French President Emmanuel Macron, after it was set alight by balaclava-clad rioters on the sidelines of a yellow vest rally last weekend. While the attack on Mr Grau’s office has widely been branded “an act of vandalism,” Mr Castaner reclassified the incident into an “attentat” – the French word used to describe a terrorist attack. Mr Grau, a member of Mr Macron’s centrist La République en Marche (LREM) party, was in his office in the southern city of Perpignan when a mob of yellow vests stormed into the room, smashing windows and hurling a burning projectile inside. The MP managed to put out the flames and escape.

After their national football team had been crowned as the champion of the African Cup of Nations, hundreds of rowdy, anti-French Algerian fans made their way to the city center of Paris to celebrate their team’s success.

Although the final match took place in Egypt between Senegal and Algeria, it prompted unruly celebrations by Algerians in the streets of Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Strasbourg, and Toulouse. France was not represented in the competition.

But celebrations started to look more like riots when the anti-French Algerian migrants began tearing down a historic statue of French General Charles de Gaulle while cheering gleefully. At one point, one of the Algerians tries to drop-kick the statue before it’s finally torn down to the cheers of onlookers.

Earlier, both German and British officials said they did not support the US's "maximum pressure" strategy against Tehran, instead welcoming an operation proposed by London for a European-led security effort to "protect" commercial vessels operating in the Persian Gulf and near the Strait of Hormuz.

The United States has officially requested Germany, France and the UK to join its military mission in the Gulf to 'combat Iranian aggression,' the US Embassy in Berlin has indicated.

"We have formally asked Germany to help with securing the Strait of Hormuz and fighting Iranian aggression, along with France and the UK," a spokeswoman from the Embassy told the German Press Agency on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, a parade was held at the Champs Elysees to mark the national day, known as July 14 in France and Bastille Day abroad.

French police have used tear gas to disperse protesters who occupied the Champs Elysees hours after French President Emmanuel Macron together with European leaders took part in a military parade.

Prior to the police reaction, the protesters started destroying the barriers installed on the streets, trying to build barricades and chanting yellow vest movement slogans.

It was a warm afternoon in March. David Breidenstein says he looked on as some of the more radical yellow vest protesters set fire to Le Fouquet's, not just a restaurant but a symbol of wealth and power in France.

As the flames spread licking at the famous red awning, Breidenstein quickly turned on his feet hoping to distance himself from the blaze, fearful of getting caught up in the violence he says he wasn't fueling.

A few seconds later he stopped, lit a cigarette, and as he looked back towards the riot police he felt the full force of a golf-ball-size rubber bullet strike his left eye.

"It felt like a lump of concrete. I fell to the ground and thought 'I've lost my eye, it's gone.'"

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday he had approved the creation of a space command within the French air force to improve the country's defence capabilities.

The declaration -- made on the eve of France's Bastille Day national celebrations that feature a military parade down Paris's Champs-Elysees -- mirrors an initiative in the US championed by President Donald Trump.

"To assure the development and the reinforcement of our capacities in space, a high command for space will be created in September," Macron told military brass gathered for a traditional pre-Bastille Day reception.

He called the renewed military focus on space a "true national security issue".

Yesterday afternoon, 700 undocumented African workers occupied Paris’s historic Panthéon building, chanting “Black vests” and demanding recognition of their right to reside in France. The protest, whose name referred to “yellow vest” protests against social inequality over the past six months, was met with a violent police crackdown.

Police forcibly evacuated the Panthéon, then kettled and charged at demonstrators behind the building, arresting at least 37.