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France Tag

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on September 13, 2016 3 Comments
France, home to one of the Europe’s largest Muslim population, is facing an uphill battle against Islamic terrorism. According to France's Prime Minister Manuel Valls, security forces have been foiling terror plots “every day” and warned of more terrorist attacks in the near future. French officials estimates that around 15,000 radical Islamists reside in the country -- and going by the current EU-wide trends -- these numbers were only expected to go up. “We have nearly 700 French jihadists and residents, who are currently fighting in Iraq and Syria,” Valls told French media, adding that this number included “275 women and dozens of children.”

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 15, 2016 5 Comments
French police and prosecutors have opened an investigation into new threats French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo over images of naked Muslims they published. The threats come over a year two gunmen slaughtered eleven people at Charlie Hebdo over "offensive" images of Mohammad. They also killed a security guard outside of the building.

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 01, 2016 19 Comments
Italian and French Muslims attended Catholic Mass to show solidarity after two ISIS terrorists executed Father Jacques Hamel in his church in northern France. https://twitter.com/Arab_News/status/759740423904591872

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 29, 2016 11 Comments
Adel Kermiche, one of the terrorists that slit the throat of Father Jacques Hamel in a small town in northern France, recorded his plans to attack a church on the Telegram app:
"You take a knife, you go to a church, you make a carnage," he said. "You slice two or three heads and it's good. It's over."
Another thing. A "spiritual guide" further radicalized Kermiche in prison in 2015.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on July 28, 2016 12 Comments
A Paris-based publishing house has revised its decision to publish a French version of the German bestseller “Der Islamische Faschismus” (The Islamic Fascism). Written by German-Egyptian author Hamed Abdel-Samad, the book was due to hit the French bookstores in September. Piranha Edition reportedly changed its mind after this month's ISIS-inspired terror attack in Nice that killed 84 people and injured more than 300. If the objective of Islamist violence in Europe had been to force the continent into submission, it is well on its way to achieving them. Piranha Edition justified the decision of not going ahead with the publication by citing the threat of Radical Islam as well its desire of not wanting to strengthen the right-wing French groups critical of Islam. Interestingly, the head office of the Piranha Edition is just within a few minutes of walk from Bataclan, the theatre where 89 people were murdered by Islamic terrorists in November 2016.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on July 27, 2016 19 Comments
Few liberals are as iconic as the pugnacious progressive pundit Piers Morgan. The British journalist and television personality, once host of CNN's Piers Morgan Live, is currently working as the US Editor-at-Large for Mail Online. In that capacity, he has published an op-ed in response to the beheading of Father Jacques Hamel at the hands of Islamic terrorists that occurred during a Mass in a Normandy church.

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 26, 2016 52 Comments
French President Francois Hollande said the men who murdered 84-year-old Jacques Hamel pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL). They also took four people hostage. Hollande said:
"[ISIS] has declared war on us," French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday. "We must fight this war by all means, while respecting the rule of law -- what makes us a democracy."
Authorities identified one terrorist as Adel Kermiche. His parents "flagged his radical behavior to authorities." We will continue to update this post as more information becomes available.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 21, 2016 9 Comments
Immediately after the terrorist attack by Mohamed Bouhlel in Nice, France, we were told he was a lone wolf, a guy "recently radicalized," suffering from depression, with no connection to Islamists or ISIS, a guy who just went crazy and drove his truck through a crowd. It was all BS, meant to deflect from the Islamic motivation and ties to terror networks. The cracks began to show when it was learned Bouhlel was texting with others shortly before the attack and several possible accomplices were arrested several days ago, *Shocked* – Nice truck terrorist maybe wasn’t a “lone wolf” after all. Now we can put all the "lone wolf" stuff to rest, as well as the "recently radicalized" excuses. France 24  reports, Nice truck killer had support, accomplices for carefully planned attack:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 18, 2016 12 Comments
Remember when the media told us the Nice, France, truck terrorist was just a lone wolf, a psycho with no allegiance to or motivation by either Islam or ISIS? Just a wild and crazy guy who happened to load up a truck with weapons and drive it through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day, killing several dozen people? Well, it's not turning out that way. The media's "lone wolf" appears to be part of a wolf pack. https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/status/754706681754447872 Even CNN can't hide the "radicalized" part of Mohamed Bouhlel, though it still presents him as being a depressed loser:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 16, 2016 6 Comments
The use of a truck as a terror weapon in Nice has shocked so many people not only because of the death toll, but also because the terrorist turned an ordinary device into a weapon. That was not the first time in France that a vehicle has been used in such a way. But in Israel the use of cars as weapons became commonplace since October 2015, when the current wave of Palestinian terror started. While usually referred to as the Knife or Stabbing Intifada, in fact shootings and car rammings have been used with great frequency. The car ramming terror was most intense in the last three months of 2015, with high density locations like bus stops a target. This video, in which a bus stop was rammed and the terrorist got out with a meat cleaver and attacked one of the injured people before being shot, received a lot of attention, including at Legal Insurrection:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on July 16, 2016 5 Comments
Among the 84 people killed in the Nice terror attack were an American father and son from Austin, Texas. USA Today reports:
The two American fatalities from Thursday's terror attack in Nice, France, were a father and son from this Hill Country enclave who bonded through baseball and were on a family trip through Spain and France. Sean Copeland, 51, was vacationing with his wife, Kim, 39, and their son, Brodie, 11, along with two of Copeland’s children from a previous marriage: Maegan, 29, and Austin, 22.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on July 16, 2016 22 Comments
We've been covering the Nice, France terrorist attack here at LI, including updates as more information becomes available.  Today, ISIS has claimed responsibility for the terror attack that killed 84 people, including two Americans, and wounded hundreds more. The New York Times reports:
The Islamic State claimed on Saturday that the man who attacked the seaside city of Nice, France, was one of the group’s “soldiers.” France’s defense minister promptly blamed the terrorist network for inspiring the assault, while its top law enforcement official said the attacker, who was not previously known to intelligence agencies, may have “radicalized himself very quickly.”

. . . .  The Islamic State had kept silent on the Nice attack until Saturday morning, when it declared, in a bulletin issued in Arabic and in English on its Amaq News Agency channel:

“Executor of the deadly operation in Nice, France, was a soldier of the Islamic State. He executed the operation in response to calls to target citizens of coalition nations, which fight the Islamic State.”

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 14, 2016 44 Comments
Breaking news reports indicate a large truck ploughed through pedestrians celebrating Bastille Day in the southern beach town, Nice. American media reports as many as ten dead, but foreign outlets have reported as many as 73. Latest updates at bottom of the post; refresh for most recent coverage. What we know:

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on June 28, 2016 17 Comments
With EU leadership in Brussels still coming to terms with Britain leaving the union, following the last week's stunning performance by the Brexit campaign in the referendum, popular movements across Europe have renewed their calls to leave the European Union. Nowhere is the opposition to the EU politically better organised than in France. In a poll conducted by University of Edinburgh in March this year, more than half of the French respondents were in favour of a Frexit -- France leaving the EU. Brexit comes as a shot in the arm for Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's right-wing Front National, as she prepares for the presidential election coming up next year. Le Pen's anti-immigration and Eurosceptic party has shown impressive run in the country's regional elections. Now Le Pen wants to make France’s EU membership a central theme of her presidential campaign, as EU establishes itself as the driving force behind the mass immigration and open border policy, with Brussels actively blocking and penalising EU member state from enforcing even basic border controls. In the aftermath of last November’s Paris attacks, a growing number of people in French want to see an end to the open border policy.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on June 07, 2016 3 Comments
Despite massive security measures, dubbed by the French news agency AFP as a “State of Emergency”, the authorities in France remain fearful of a new wave of Islamist terror during the European soccer tournament Euro 2016 -- due to start this week. Over a million soccer fans from all across Europe are expected to visit France during the month long sporting event. France’s President Francois Hollande admitted the likelihood of fresh terrorist attacks during Euro 2016, saying that the Islamist threat “will unfortunately be there for a long time,” even as he refused to be “intimidated” by it. The European soccer championship is being held just six months after a group of suicide bombers tried to enter a stadium in Paris packed with thousands of fans during a soccer match between Germany and France. Despite the foiled attempt, terrorists, owing allegiance Islamic Caliphate (ISIS), killed around 130 people in Paris, arguably one of the most deadly Islamist attacks Europe had ever witnessed.
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