French prosecutors seek murder charge for school stabbing suspect
French prosecutors on Thursday requested that a 14-year-old pupil detained for allegedly stabbing to death a teaching assistant be charged with murder, as schools across France held a minute of silence.
The secondary school pupil was arrested Tuesday after allegedly killing with a knife a school monitor -- a 31-year-old mother of a young boy -- during a bag search in the eastern town of Nogent.
The latest school attack caused widespread shock in France, with President Emmanuel Macron denouncing a rise in violence.
The pupil had wanted to attack "any" monitor after being reprimanded a few days earlier for kissing his girlfriend, prosecutors say.
On Thursday, prosecutors requested he be charged with "murder of a person carrying out a public service mission" and "intentional violence" against a police officer injured during the arrest.
The prosecutor's office also requested that the pupil be placed in pre-trial detention, Dijon prosecutor Olivier Caracotch said in a statement.
Regional prosecutor Denis Devallois told reporters on Wednesday that the teenager acknowledged "being the perpetrator" of the deadly stabbing and that he "intended to kill".
As a minor, the suspect faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison instead of life imprisonment.
A moment of silence was held at midday in schools across France in memory of the victim identified by authorities only as Melanie.
France has seen several attacks on teachers and pupils in recent years by other schoolchildren.
Macron denounced the violence during a cabinet meeting on Thursday, said the government spokeswoman.
"He spoke... of a rise, a disinhibition around violence in our country, for which solutions will clearly need to be found," Sophie Primas said, quoting the French leader.
In March, police started random searches for concealed weapons in and around schools.
- 'Going to be hard' -
Classes resumed on Thursday at the site of the tragedy, the Francoise Dolto school.
The first students arrived shortly after 8:00 am in complete silence, escorted by a member of school staff, an AFP journalist saw.
"It's going to be strange not seeing the monitor anymore," said Jade, 15.
"I told my daughters to go to the counselling room to talk," said Daniele Quentin, 52, mother of three children enrolled at the school.
"It's going to be hard for the girls, who really liked her," she said, referring to the victim.
A former hairdresser, the victim had retrained and worked at the school since September. She was a mother of a four-year-old boy and a councillor in a village near Nogent.
Her family called for a silent march to be held in Nogent on Friday.
- 'No regret' -
The suspect told investigators "there was perhaps a link with the fact he was told off by a monitor on Friday, June 6, as he was kissing his girlfriend on school grounds", Devallois said, adding she was not the one killed.
"He stated that he had, as early as the next day, Saturday, mulled over a plan to kill a monitor," the prosecutor added.
"He grabbed the largest knife in his home to, in his words, 'cause the most damage'".
The teenager did not appear to suffer from any "mental disorder", but appeared "detached" and expressed "no regret" for the killing, Devallois said.
In the wake of the attack, authorities promised measures to tackle knife crime among children.
Macron said on Tuesday he was proposing banning social media for children under 15.
Greece has spearheaded a proposal backed by France and Spain for the European Union to limit children's use of online platforms.
Macron said France would go ahead with a unilateral ban if no progress was made on an EU-wide measure.
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Economic Times
12 minutes ago
- Economic Times
Trump's trade adviser Peter Navarro reminds India of America's exorbitant privilege & diktats
Synopsis Peter Navarro's op-ed reveals the US expectation that India, to maintain its strategic partnership and trade benefits, must align its economic policies with Washington's interests. This includes purchasing American weapons without technology transfer demands and ceasing the use of dollar surpluses to buy Russian oil for re-export. Agencies Without saying anything really new, Peter Navarro has revealed something important. If India wants to keep earning dollars by selling goods and services to America, it has to recycle them as per Washington's diktats. The White House trade adviser's op-ed in the Financial Times is aimed at critics who have been shocked by the summary disdain with which President Donald Trump has alienated an ally that past administrations have spent a quarter-century cultivating. Navarro's main message: 'If India wants to be treated as a strategic partner of the US, it needs to start acting like one.' Also Read: Who is Trump's trade guru giving gyan to India? Basically, the White House expects the same level of loyalty as it got from the Germans in 1967. Back then, the Lyndon B. Johnson administration prevailed upon Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger to not exchange any of the Bundesbank's dollar holdings for gold, even though they were well within their rights to do so under the prevailing Bretton Woods arrangement. Bonn made a public pledge to not join the rebellious French who were beginning to question what Valery Giscard d'Estaing called America's exorbitant relations in the 1960s were rooted in the calculus of the Cold War. Historically, New Delhi and Washington have never been as close, yet the latter is going to decide how the most-populous nation will use its trade dollars. That means Prime Minister Narendra Modi has to buy American weapon systems without insisting on technology transfers or local production. The US has no desire to gift cutting-edge military capabilities to a country cozying up to both Russia and China, Navarro says. The second constraint is on how dollar incomes are not to be used. Recycling greenbacks from its $43 billion trade surplus with the US to buy crude oil from Russia — only to sell refined petroleum products to other countries in Asia, Europe and Africa to earn yet more dollars — was 'deeply corrosive of the world's efforts to isolate Putin's war economy,' Navarro says. It has to stop. The tone of the piece suggests that the Trump administration is making a calculated bet. However much Modi tries to flex his muscles against US hegemony, he really can't afford to put $87 billion in annual exports to America at risk of a prohibitive 50% tariff from Aug. 27. Without dollars from its single-largest export destination, how will India pay for the $109 billion it spends on everything from power equipment to kitchen appliances from China? Or buy more from it, as Beijing is bound to insist?One way to square the circle may be to give the Chinese equity stakes in local joint ventures, so that some of their $91 billion bilateral trade surplus comes back as investment. This may well happen. According to a Bloomberg News report this week, India's biggest tycoons — from Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani to JSW Group's Sajjan Jindal — have been pursuing under-the-radar deals with Chinese firms that have the most mature and cost-efficient technology in renewable sectors like electric vehicles and lithium-ion Washington sending a natural ally into the arms of its biggest rival? Not really. At best the fraught relationship between the two Asian giants will normalize. After their border clashes five years ago, New Delhi actively suppressed investment proposals from the bigger economy next door. The Modi government announced, with some pride, that between April 2020 and December 2021, China's share in total foreign direct investments into the country had fallen to only 0.43%. Although that would change now, there's little risk of India moving into China's strategic sphere, not after Beijing's liberal defense assistance to Islamabad in the recent India-Pakistan military conflict. Washington's orbit is hard to escape. To see why, it's illustrative to look back at the early days of the India-Russia oil trade after the start of the Ukraine war. Back then, there was a great deal of chest-thumping in New Delhi that Moscow will agree to sell crude for rupees. Russian importers would then pay rubles to buy tea and other stuff from India. The rupee-ruble transactions were supposed to be relayed over SPFS, the Russian alternative to the SWIFT messaging system, the 'financial data panopticon' through which Washington surveils global trade and I noted in April 2022, any such deal wasn't in India's long-term interest. Bypassing SWIFT would help Russia, whose banks faced Western sanctions. New Delhi had nothing to gain. Ultimately, the rupees-for-oil trade didn't even work out. The Russian exporters got tired of holding funds in a non-convertible currency in Indian bank accounts. So refiners went back to buying crude with dollars and dollar-linked UAE dirhams, placing India squarely in the grip of the mighty greenback even as discounted Urals crude came to account for more than a third of its imports, from barely 1% before the Ukraine war. Had the benefits of cheaper oil flowed to local motorists, the middle class would have been all for standing up to Trump. That isn't the case, and Modi has to appease voters now with a long-overdue cut in consumption Chinese have done the same Russian oil trade, and yet the US has singled out India for exemplary punishment. That isn't hard to explain. Not all sides of this relationship are equal. While advanced economies like the US 'are more exposed to China as a supplier, China is becoming less reliant on them as a market,' concludes a new study by Federal Reserve economist Florencia Airaudo, and her coauthors. Control over hard-to-replace inputs, such as rare earths, graphite, and battery materials gives Beijing leverage, they note. New Delhi has no such bargaining chips. The dollars India garners from exporting textiles, carpets, gems and jewelry, shrimp, and software code are its to spend, but not entirely freely. As Navarro reminded the critics of the sudden US-India estrangement, America's exorbitant privilege comes in many hues.
Time of India
12 minutes ago
- Time of India
Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro reminds India of America's exorbitant privilege & diktats
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of Without saying anything really new, Peter Navarro has revealed something important. If India wants to keep earning dollars by selling goods and services to America, it has to recycle them as per Washington's White House trade adviser's op-ed in the Financial Times is aimed at critics who have been shocked by the summary disdain with which President Donald Trump has alienated an ally that past administrations have spent a quarter-century cultivating. Navarro's main message: 'If India wants to be treated as a strategic partner of the US, it needs to start acting like one.'Basically, the White House expects the same level of loyalty as it got from the Germans in 1967. Back then, the Lyndon B. Johnson administration prevailed upon Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger to not exchange any of the Bundesbank's dollar holdings for gold, even though they were well within their rights to do so under the prevailing Bretton Woods arrangement. Bonn made a public pledge to not join the rebellious French who were beginning to question what Valery Giscard d'Estaing called America's exorbitant relations in the 1960s were rooted in the calculus of the Cold War. Historically, New Delhi and Washington have never been as close, yet the latter is going to decide how the most-populous nation will use its trade dollars. That means Prime Minister Narendra Modi has to buy American weapon systems without insisting on technology transfers or local production. The US has no desire to gift cutting-edge military capabilities to a country cozying up to both Russia and China, Navarro second constraint is on how dollar incomes are not to be used. Recycling greenbacks from its $43 billion trade surplus with the US to buy crude oil from Russia — only to sell refined petroleum products to other countries in Asia, Europe and Africa to earn yet more dollars — was 'deeply corrosive of the world's efforts to isolate Putin's war economy,' Navarro says. It has to tone of the piece suggests that the Trump administration is making a calculated bet. However much Modi tries to flex his muscles against US hegemony, he really can't afford to put $87 billion in annual exports to America at risk of a prohibitive 50% tariff from Aug. 27. Without dollars from its single-largest export destination, how will India pay for the $109 billion it spends on everything from power equipment to kitchen appliances from China? Or buy more from it, as Beijing is bound to insist?One way to square the circle may be to give the Chinese equity stakes in local joint ventures, so that some of their $91 billion bilateral trade surplus comes back as investment. This may well happen. According to a Bloomberg News report this week, India's biggest tycoons — from Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani to JSW Group's Sajjan Jindal — have been pursuing under-the-radar deals with Chinese firms that have the most mature and cost-efficient technology in renewable sectors like electric vehicles and lithium-ion Washington sending a natural ally into the arms of its biggest rival? Not really. At best the fraught relationship between the two Asian giants will normalize. After their border clashes five years ago, New Delhi actively suppressed investment proposals from the bigger economy next door. The Modi government announced, with some pride, that between April 2020 and December 2021, China's share in total foreign direct investments into the country had fallen to only 0.43%. Although that would change now, there's little risk of India moving into China's strategic sphere, not after Beijing's liberal defense assistance to Islamabad in the recent India-Pakistan military orbit is hard to escape. To see why, it's illustrative to look back at the early days of the India-Russia oil trade after the start of the Ukraine war. Back then, there was a great deal of chest-thumping in New Delhi that Moscow will agree to sell crude for rupees. Russian importers would then pay rubles to buy tea and other stuff from India. The rupee-ruble transactions were supposed to be relayed over SPFS, the Russian alternative to the SWIFT messaging system, the 'financial data panopticon' through which Washington surveils global trade and I noted in April 2022, any such deal wasn't in India's long-term interest. Bypassing SWIFT would help Russia, whose banks faced Western sanctions. New Delhi had nothing to gain. Ultimately, the rupees-for-oil trade didn't even work out. The Russian exporters got tired of holding funds in a non-convertible currency in Indian bank refiners went back to buying crude with dollars and dollar-linked UAE dirhams, placing India squarely in the grip of the mighty greenback even as discounted Urals crude came to account for more than a third of its imports, from barely 1% before the Ukraine war. Had the benefits of cheaper oil flowed to local motorists, the middle class would have been all for standing up to Trump. That isn't the case, and Modi has to appease voters now with a long-overdue cut in consumption Chinese have done the same Russian oil trade, and yet the US has singled out India for exemplary punishment. That isn't hard to explain. Not all sides of this relationship are equal. While advanced economies like the US 'are more exposed to China as a supplier, China is becoming less reliant on them as a market,' concludes a new study by Federal Reserve economist Florencia Airaudo, and her coauthors. Control over hard-to-replace inputs, such as rare earths, graphite, and battery materials gives Beijing leverage, they Delhi has no such bargaining chips. The dollars India garners from exporting textiles, carpets, gems and jewelry, shrimp, and software code are its to spend, but not entirely freely. As Navarro reminded the critics of the sudden US-India estrangement, America's exorbitant privilege comes in many hues.
The Hindu
an hour ago
- The Hindu
Polar bear waltz: Fake Trump-Putin AI images shroud Ukraine peace effort
From a fake image of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin dancing in the snow with a polar bear to a fabricated photo of European leaders waiting somberly outside the Oval Office, AI-enabled disinformation has clouded the diplomatic push to end the war in Ukraine. The online fakery, dubbed widely as AI slop, underscores how easily artificial intelligence tools can flood the internet with false and satirical content around major global events. These creations also highlight the challenge of policing bogus content as tech platforms offer creators monetisation incentives for viral posts. In hundreds of online posts mocking European leaders as powerless mediators snubbed by Trump, one such image purported to show French President Emmanuel Macron and other top officials waiting somberly in a White House corridor with their heads bowed. "This is utter humiliation of these corrupt scumbags. Absolutely beautiful," said one post on X from a conservative political commentator that AFP has previously fact-checked for spreading misinformation about Ukraine. Such posts, in multiple languages including Greek, German and French, gained traction as European leaders joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House Monday for talks with Trump following the US president's summit with Putin in Alaska. AFP fact-checkers identified visual inconsistencies that indicate the image including Macron was AI-generated. Some of the individuals depicted in the image also do not match those seen in official photographs from the high-stakes meeting. Macron and other European leaders represented a group of Ukraine's allies known as the "Coalition of the Willing" for White House consultations. But multiple pro-Kremlin sources sharing the AI-generated image ridiculed them as the "coalition of those in waiting." The image was also amplified by sites operated by the Pravda network, a well-resourced Moscow-based operation known to circulate pro-Russian narratives globally, the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard said in a report. The falsehood was an illustration of how "pro-Kremlin sources often seize on high-profile meetings involving European leaders to spread false claims," NewsGuard said. In other viral posts, an AI-generated clip purported to show Trump and Putin skidding down snow-covered slopes, eating ice-cream beside a snowman, and waltzing with a polar bear to country music. And in another AI video, Trump and Putin were depicted brawling on a red carpet leading from an airplane staircase, trading punches and kicks as secret service agents idle in the background. The tongue-in-cheek posts offer a window into a social media landscape increasingly filled with AI-generated memes, videos and images competing for attention with, and sometimes drowning out, authentic content. As tech platforms scale back content moderation, AI videos spread rapidly, muddying the waters around serious diplomatic efforts to end the three-year war in Ukraine. Trump on Tuesday ruled out sending American troops to back up any Ukraine peace deal but suggested air support instead, as European nations began hashing out security guarantees ahead of a potential Russia summit.
