Fierce Patriots

Conservative Political News

  • Subscribe

France

Taliban Delegation Coming to Europe for Talks with U.S., UK, EU Next Week

by Leave a Comment

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) – A Taliban delegation will travel to Norway for talks with the Norwegian government, meeting with representatives of the Norwegian authorities and several allied countries but also with civil society activists and human rights defenders from Afghanistan.

The Norwegian Foreign Ministry said Friday that it has invited representatives of the Taliban to Oslo from Jan. 23 to Jan. 25. Norwegian newspaper VG said that special representatives from the United States, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and the European Union would take part. The Norwegian Foreign Ministry declined to comment.

It would be the first time since the Taliban took over the country last August, that they have met in Europe. Earlier they traveled to Russia, Iran, Qatar and Pakistan. It was not immediately clear who will lead the Taliban delegation to the Norwegian capital.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said that “we are extremely concerned about the serious situation in Afghanistan.” She said there is “a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe for millions of people” in the country.

She stressed that the meeting was “not a legitimation or recognition of the Taliban. But we must talk to those who in practice govern the country today.”

“We cannot let the political situation lead to an even worse humanitarian catastrophe,” she said.

The Foreign Ministry said that the Taliban delegation meetings also will include Afghans with backgrounds “from various fields and include women leaders, journalists, and people who work with, among other things, human rights and humanitarian, economic, social and political issues.”

It said that earlier this week, a Norwegian delegation visited Kabul for talks on the precarious humanitarian situation in the country.

Norwegian news agency NTB said that Taliban earlier had taken part in secret talks in Norway when the current prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, was foreign minister, which was from 2005 to 2012.

The VG daily said that the single most important issue in the talks that are to take place next week is the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

The Foreign Ministry in Oslo said that Afghanistan is experiencing drought, pandemics, economic collapse and the effects of years of conflict. According to them, some 24 million people experience acute food insecurity and are unsure of how to obtain enough food. It is reported that 1 million children may die of starvation.

It added that the U.N. estimates that famine will affect more than half of the population this winter and that 97% of the population may fall below the poverty line this year.

“Norway continues to engage in dialogue with the Taliban to promote human rights, women´s participation in society, and to strengthen humanitarian and economic efforts in Afghanistan in support of the Afghan people,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

According to the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, the Scandinavian country that is home to the Nobel Peace Prize has in the past been involved in peace efforts in a number of countries, including Mozambique, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Colombia, the Philippines, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Syria, Myanmar, Somalia, Sri Lanka and South Sudan.

Sea Change: France, Ireland Set to Follow England in Easing COVID Restrictions

by Leave a Comment

The first hints of a Coronavirus policy sea change appear to be underway in Europe, as both Ireland and France look set to follow England in easing restrictions.

Both France and Ireland look set to begin easing COVID restrictions, with officials in both countries outlining plans for an escape from lockdown rules in the wake of the UK’s government announcing a bonfire of regulations for England.

Movement in both nations comes just days after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that a wide variety of measures — including the mandatory wearing of masks in a multitude of public places — would be imminently scrapped.

According to a report by the Irish Independent, Ireland is now also looking at dumping a wide variety of lockdown rules, including scrapping all measures to do with the nation’s embattled hospitality sector.

The paper reports that the nation’s National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) has also recommended the end of the nation’s internal system of vaccine certs, potentially putting to an end the banning of unjabbed individuals within Ireland from indoor dining, among other amenities, unless they can prove that they have recovered from the Chinese Coronavirus.

A negative COVID test has never been sufficient within the country as a method to bypass such restrictions.

France, meanwhile, has also published its plan to escape from lockdown, with the nation’s Prime Minister Jean Castex unveiling the timetable for scrapping restrictions on Thursday, according to Le Monde.

Starting from February 2, the country will begin rolling back some of its more draconian restrictions, such as the mandatory wearing of masks in outdoor locations.

Nightclubs are also set to reopen from February 16, according to the publication’s report.

Castex noted that the government may even consider suspending its regime of vaccine passes, should the situation surrounding the coronavirus further improve within the country.

While the sudden announcements from both the French and Irish governments may represent a sea change in European attitudes towards COVID, there remain reasons to be doubtful.

For example, France is continuing to roll out its new regime of vaccine passes, the system due to come into effect from January 24.

Under the new rules, many unvaccinated in the country will be completely unable to avail of a wide variety of amenities within the country, such as bars, restaurants, and interregional public transport.

The Irish government meanwhile has a nasty habit of u-turning on promises regarding the easing of restrictions within the country.

Ireland’s regime of vaccine passes, first implemented on June 26 2021, was initially promised to only be a temporary measure, having a set expiry date of October 9.

However, the government later extended the passes, setting a new October 22 expiration date for the measure.

This date was also missed, with the measures being extended once again, but this time with no set end date.

Other European nation-states meanwhile show absolutely zero sign of loosening measures, with Austria’s parliament voting on Thursday to make vaccination against the Chinese Coronavirus mandatory for all over-18s.

Those in the state who refuse to take the jab will soon face fines of up to €3,000.

In Italy, lockdowns are also intensifying, with the ‘green pass’ keeping the unvaccinated out of public places seeing an intensification this week.

French Minister Vacationed in Spain While Imposing ‘Infernal’ COVID Measures

by Leave a Comment

Outrage has erupted in France over the revelation that the nation’s Education Minister had announced further COVID measures for schools while on vacation in Ibiza.

French teaching unions have expressed outrage after it was revealed that the nation’s Education Minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer, had announced “infernal” new COVID restrictions for schools while off vacationing on a Spanish island.

Nearly 80,000 people took to the streets in France last week as teachers took strike action in protest of the “chaotic situation” currently facing the nation’s education system as a result of the health crisis.

The recent revelation has only poured fuel on the fire, with unions denouncing the minister for his “lightness”, while one spokesman saying it provided even further justification for unions to take strike action on Thursday according to a Le Monde report.

“Everyone has the right to take a vacation, but the symbol is terrible. A minister who claims to want to stick as close as possible to reality, we had not imagined that it meant being several thousand kilometres away!” the publication reports one union head as saying. “It’s quite incredible that no one in the government has seen the problem posed by this stay.”

“This revelation illustrates the real distance of the minister with the emergency situation for the school: leaving his services at the forefront but commenting from afar,” another union leader complained.

Another organisation head emphasised that while the minister was off on holiday, staff in schools were forced to be ready to implement the announced measures by the following day.

Teachers are not the only ones expressing their frustrations over the incident, with politicians also lashing out at Minister Blanquer.

“All this agitation and these restrictions have no health but political basis,” said French Presidential Candidate Marine Le Pen. “The casualness of Jean-Michel Blanquer, who dictates an infernal protocol to teachers and parents of students since his vacation in Ibiza, proves it.”

The presidential candidate of the green party, Yannick Jadot, called upon Blanquer to resign, denouncing the minister as a “dilettante”.

“This degree of contempt and irresponsibility is unacceptable,” The Guardian also reports Jadot as saying.

The new rules facing school children and staff were previously announced on January 2, outlining the various test requirements for children in the instance of a COVID case emerging in a classroom.

In response to the implementation of the measures, along with a variety of other issues with the government’s handling of the COVID crisis, teachers in the country partook in a day of industrial action last Thursday, with another strike day being considered for this coming Thursday.

France has also rolled out a number of stringent COVID restrictions for its adult population since the start of the year.

Over half-a-million over-18s are currently at risk of losing their vaccine cert in the country over a new measure that came into force on Saturday.

Under the new rule, which was originally agreed in December last year, those once considered vaccinated are to have their vaccine pass eventually stripped from them unless they opt to receive a booster shot for the Chinese Coronavirus.

Meanwhile, the country’s National Assembly passed a law on Sunday which will soon change France’s regime of “health passes” into a system of vaccine passes.

As a result, unvaccinated individuals who have not recently recovered from the disease will soon lose access to amenities such as bars, restaurants, and interregional public transport, with proof of a negative COVID test no longer being sufficient to bypass restrictions.

Sudanese Migrant Dies Near Calais After Trying To Jump on UK-Bound Truck

by Leave a Comment

An 18-year-old migrant from Sudan was killed on Saturday morning just outside of the city of Calais in northern France after attempting to jump onto a moving lorry in order to reach the United Kingdom illegally.

The incident took place on Sunday morning at around 8 am in the town of Marck, just east of the city of Calais and saw the teen make an attempt to break into the trailer of a moving lorry as it was leaving a petrol station.

As the Sudanese man tried to get on board the vehicle, he allegedly slipped and fell underneath the wheels of the vehicle which crushed him, causing his death, French newspaper La Voix du Nord reports.

A witness to the incident, another migrant, informed local police nearby who called in paramedics to help with the situation. A local deputy prosecutor told the newspaper that the body of the deceased Sudanese national would be examined and that investigators are currently considering the death an accident.

According to investigators, the driver of the lorry did not stop when the migrant had been run over by his vehicle and said that CCTV footage would be used to identify the driver in order to determine if he realised at the time he had struck the 18-year-old.

The incident is the fourth death of a migrant in the area since September and comes just weeks after a 16-year-old Sudanese national was wounded after falling from another lorry and later died of his injuries in a local hospital.

The two other deaths took place in September and October and saw two migrants, another who was 16-years-old, struck by lorries as they attempted to sneak onto them to reach the UK.

The incident also comes after a lorry driver died near Calais last month after getting into an altercation with a pair of migrants attempting to board his lorry. The driver, a Portuguese national, was punched several times by the two migrants and suffered a heart attack just minutes later and died.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com

Djokovic 2.0? – France to Ban Unvaxxed Foreign Athletes from Competition

by Leave a Comment

In what looks like a potential repeat of the Djokovic controversy in Australia, France has declared that unjabbed foreign athletes will not be permitted to play in the country.

France has declared that foreign athletes who are not vaccinated against the Chinese Coronavirus will not be permitted to take part in sporting competitions in the country.

The ban comes shortly after controversy over the vaccination status of tennis player Novak Djokovic resulted in him being deported from Australia.

Djokovic had been due to play at the French Open in May, but the nation’s ban has now cast doubt over the Serbian’s future participation in the tournament.

The French Government’s decision to implement the ban appears to be a U-Turn on a previous position according to AFP, with the nation’s Minister Delegate for Sports, Roxana Maracineanu, having previously said that health bubbling would be enough for unjabbed players to be allowed to participate.

However, the minister delegate has now said that this is not the case, and that foreign professionals will need to be vaccinated in order to compete.

“The vaccination pass has been adopted,” Maracineanu wrote online. “As soon as the law is enacted, it will become mandatory to enter public buildings already subject to the health pass… for all spectators, practitioners, French or foreign professionals.”

While the ban may in the future cause issues for Djokovic, it has more immediate ramifications for some unjabbed players partaking in the Six Nations international rugby competition.

Scheduled to kick-off in early February, three of the tournament’s fixtures are due to take place in Paris, involving the national teams of England, Italy, Ireland and France.

While it is unclear exactly which players the French ban will affect at this stage,  The Times had previously reported that Henry Slade, a center for England, would not be taking a COVID jab due to personal health reasons.

A statement put out on the website of Slayde’s club side clarified that the player’s refusal was personal, and solely as a result of his own previous adverse reactions to jabs, and that he had “no hidden agenda against the current, nationwide roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccination programme.”

“In no way whatsoever am I offering advice to the general public as to the pros and cons of the vaccination programme, everyone has a right to their own opinion on this matter, but given my past experiences, I wish to make the correct decision for myself,” Slade’s statement continued.

France has clamped down hard on unvaccinated individuals in recent weeks.

The country’s National Assembly passed a law on Sunday which will transform the nation’s so-called “Health Pass” into a vaccine pass.

As a result, from January 20, only those who are considered vaccinated and/or recovered from COVID will be able to avail themselves of a wide range of amenities, with proof of a negative test for the Chinese Coronavirus no longer being sufficient for entry to leisure activities, restaurants and bars.

Interregional public transport will also be off-limits for many unjabbed individuals in the country.

Meanwhile, over half a million French are set to lose access to their vaccine passes over their refusal to get boosted against COVID-19.

Since January 15th, all vaccinated over-18s in France are to have their passes disabled seven months after their last jab unless they receive a booster shot.

As a result, around 560,000 unboosted individuals now face losing access to newly restricted services in the country.