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France Tag

A man on the French terror watch list shot and wounded a police officer in northern Paris before traveling to Orly airport where he tackled a female soldier and tried to take her rifle.  She was among the French soldiers on anti-terror patrols of the airport.  She did not release her weapon to the terrorist, and he was subsequently shot and killed by other soldiers. The dead terrorist has been identified as Ziyed Ben Belgacem, a radicalized Muslim whose apartment was among those searched following the coordinated Paris terror attacks in November 2015.

The news has lately shown steady and growing markets, pushing optimism to new heights. But is it worth it? Central banks around the world have gone into self preservation mode. While the subject is not sexy, everyone should have information on the financial market. It's another reminder how fragile the global economy remains:
These central banks are showing crisis-like behavior to protect their currencies even in the absence of obvious trouble. This exposes them to losses if their currencies fail to weaken on their own. It also raises doubts as to how long they can keep this up in an era when economic and political uncertainties appear to be a lasting feature of the world economy.

Some in France would love if former President Barack Obama ran for president. Again. But this time in France. Obama is ineligible since he's a US citizens, but that's not stopping these people. 42,000 French citizens have signed a petition to persuade him to run for president.

With five weeks to go before Dutch elections, politian Geert Wilders' Party of Freedom (PVV) is leading all the major polls with just below 20 percent of the votes. If Wilders' PVV manages to emerge as the single largest party, as polls currently suggest, the 53 year old Dutch politician could be called to build the next coalition government with him as Prime Minister. Capitalising on last year's Brexit vote and President Trump's victory in the U.S. election, Wilders is campaigning with the slogan "The Netherlands is ours again." His 11-point programme aims to "de-Islamise" the country and end the E.U.-mandated Open Borders Policy.

Self avowed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) inspired many people during his presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton. Somehow, though, I don't think he expected himself to inspire styles during Paris's fashion week.

The end is nigh for the European Union, predicts the chief architect of Brexit, Nigel Farage. Talking to an Italian TV station, the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) said, "In a few years time the European Union won’t exist.” Farage was asked about President-elect Donald Trump’s views on the E.U., Farage replied, "It doesn’t really matter," as the E.U. won't be around for long. Farage is the only European politician to have meet Trump since his election victory. The 52 year old British politician has been a lone voice calling for his country to opt-out of the Brussels Bureaucracy for most parts of the last 20 years. Once scorned and ridiculed by conservative and liberal elites alike, Farage has become a hero for various nationalist movements gaining strengthen within the E.U. member states.

The push back against the progressive left's agenda that culminated in the election of President-elect Trump had been gaining steam for a while now and not just on this side of the Atlantic. Faced with poor economic growth, an influx of refugees, a sense of losing their national identity, and a variety of country-specific reasons, the entire Western world seems on the verge of the same sort of election-revolution we just witnessed in America. Heralded as the "the liberal West's last defender," Angela Merkel has been under intense pressure based on her open door policy to refugees, and she now finds herself feeling the growing dissatisfaction of the German people even more powerfully than before Trump's victory.

Just days after dismantling the infamous migrant encampment known as the "Jungle," outside the northern French city of Calais, police are now swooping the 'Mini-Jungle' in the middle of Paris. This Mini-Jungle is now swarming with new inhabitants following last week's clearing of Calais Jungle, with population here crossing 3,000. But don’t expect Paris’s newest attraction, Mini-Jungle, to go away anytime soon.