EXCLUSIVE France is on the brink of full-scale civil war. I've lived here for 25 years and the locals have had enough of the violence caused by hordes of destructive youths. The state has lost control - and I fear what's coming next: JONATHAN MILLER
'You French have always been rather good at decapitation,' I said, gesturing towards a spot outside the post office, where the town guillotine had stood in an earlier era. Nobody laughed. 'They should bring the guillotine back,' said the fishmonger. 'We need it more than ever.' He wasn't joking and other customers nodded vigorously.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BreakingNews.ie
13 minutes ago
- BreakingNews.ie
French streamer dies live online after months of apparent mistreatment
French authorities are investigating the death of a man during a live video stream on the Kick platform, where he had regularly been shown enduring violence and humiliation. Prosecutors ordered an autopsy and opened an investigation into the death of the man, aged 46, in the village of Contes, north of Nice, on Monday. Advertisement France's junior minister for AI and digital technology, Clara Chappaz, said Raphael Graven, known online as Jean Pormanove, had featured regularly in videos on Kick, where he was physically assaulted or humiliated by co-streamers as viewers watched live. 'The death of Jean Pormanove and the violence he suffered are absolutely horrific,' Chappaz wrote on X. Kick Français said it would co-operate with authorities and was undertaking a review of its French content. 'Our priority is to protect creators and ensure a safer environment on Kick,' it wrote on X. 'All co-streamers who participated in this live broadcast have been banned pending the ongoing investigation.' Advertisement Kick is a live-streaming platform registered in Australia that shares revenue with its content creators. Chappaz said a judicial investigation was under way and that she had referred the matter to digital and audiovisual communication regulator Arcom and filed a report to Pharos, France's internet portal for reporting illicit internet content. She also said she had asked Kick for explanations. 'The responsibility of online platforms for dissemination of illegal content is not optional, it is the law,' she said. Yassin Sadouni, a lawyer for one of two co-streamers seen abusing Pormanove, told BFM television the victim had cardiovascular problems and that the violence in the videos was acted. 'All those scenes are just staged, they follow a script,' he said. Advertisement French media have shown excerpts of hours-long videos during which Pormanove is seen suffering blows, insults, strangulation, dousing with paint and oil and being shot at with a paintball gun. It was not clear from the excerpts whether Pormanove had subjected himself to the violence voluntarily or was forced to endure it, nor whether the action was real or staged. Drake and US streamer Adin Ross have reportedly agreed to take care of the funeral costs, as the pair have worked on charity streams together in the past. "This is horrible and disgusting. Whoever was apart [sic] of this deserves to face severe consequences. I just spoke with drake. Drake and I will be covering the funeral costs , this won't bring his life back, it's the least we can do. Prayers go out to Jean's family," Ross wrote on X.
Reuters
43 minutes ago
- Reuters
Lula, Macron discuss US tariffs, Mercosur-EU deal in phone call
SAO PAULO/PARIS, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke by phone on Wednesday with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and discussed U.S. tariffs and the Mercosur-European Union trade deal, Brazil's government said in a statement. Lula voiced his opposition to tariffs on Brazilian goods, and the two leaders committed to concluding negotiations on the long-awaited deal between the South American bloc and the EU by the end of the year, the statement said. Lula had previously said he was hopeful the two parties would be able to finalize the deal in the second half, when his country holds the rotating presidency of Mercosur, which also includes Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The trade pact was agreed in principle in December, but has faced pushback from countries such as France, which says the deal's terms would harm its agricultural sector. In a post on X, Macron said he reiterated to Lula his readiness for an "ambitious" EU-Mercosur agreement, "as long as it safeguards the interests of our French and European agriculture, and serves our respective economies." "We also spoke at length about economic issues, particularly tariffs, as well as our bilateral cooperation in the fields of defense and transport," Macron added.
The Guardian
43 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Macron decries ‘abject' Netanyahu claim of antisemitic surge in France
Emmanuel Macron has hit out at Benjamin Netanyahu for his 'abject' and 'erroneous' remarks after Israel's prime minister claimed that antisemitism had 'surged' in France after the country's decision to recognise a Palestinian state in September. In a statement released late on Tuesday, the office of the French president pushed back against Netanyahu's claim. 'The analysis suggesting that France's decision to recognise the state of Palestine in September is behind the rise in antisemitic violence in France is erroneous, abject, and will not go unanswered,' it said. 'The current period calls for seriousness and responsibility, not generalisation and manipulation.' Relations between the two leaders have been strained since July, when Macron announced that France would become the first major western power to recognise a Palestinian state at next month's UN general assembly, in hopes of bringing peace to the region. At the time, Netanyahu, who is wanted by the international criminal court over allegations of war crimes in Gaza, criticised the decision, saying that France 'rewards terror'. He added: 'A Palestinian state in these conditions would be a launch pad to annihilate Israel – not to live in peace beside it.' The move would see France join the group of UN members – at least 145 out of 193 – who now recognise or plan to recognise a Palestinian state, according to a tally by the news agency Agence France-Presse. In a letter sent to Macron earlier this week, Netanyahu accused the French president of not doing enough to confront the alarming rise of antisemitism in France. 'Your call for a Palestinian state pour fuels on this antisemitism fire,' Netanyahu wrote. A similar letter, with almost identical wording, was reportedly also sent to Australia's prime minister earlier this week. Responding to the allegations, Macron's office said that France 'protects and will always protect its Jewish citizens' and said that, since 2017, the president had systematically required the government to 'take the strongest possible action against the perpetrators of antisemitic acts'. According to the latest figures from France's interior ministry, 504 antisemitic acts were reported across the country between January and May this year, suggesting a 24% decrease from the previous year. The numbers, however, remain high, at double the number of reported incidents from the same time period in 2013. Members of France's Jewish community, one of the largest in the world, have repeatedly warned that antisemitic acts have surged since Israel launched its war in Gaza in response to the attack by Hamas on 7 October 2023. Most recently, the felling of an olive tree planted in memory of a young French Jewish man tortured to death in 2006 prompted outrage across the country, with Macron vowing to punish an act of 'antisemitic hatred'. Tensions between Israel and its traditional allies have been mounting in recent weeks following Macron's promise to recognise a Palestinian state – a move that elicited similar signals from Britain, Canada and Australia. This week, after sending Australia's prime minister a letter accusing him of fuelling antisemitism with his decision to recognise a Palestinian state, Netanyahu doubled down on his criticism of Anthony Albanese on Tuesday, saying he was a 'weak politician who had betrayed Israel'. Albanese brushed off the claims. 'I don't take these things personally,' he told reporters on Wednesday. 'I treat leaders of other countries with respect. I engage with them in a diplomatic way.' Hours after his office had sparred with Netanyahu, Macron highlighted plans to co-chair a conference on a two-state solution with Saudi Arabia in New York in September. Macron made the announcement as he criticised Israel's plans for a 'military offensive in Gaza', writing on social media that it 'can only lead to disaster for both peoples and risks plunging the entire region into a cycle of permanent war'. Global pressure has been mounting on Israel to address the situation in Gaza, where at least 62,000 people have been killed and a complete blockade on aid entering the Palestinian territory has led to widespread conditions of starvation. In July, two of Israel's most respected human rights organisations, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, said Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and said the country's western allies had a legal and moral duty to stop it. The accusation echoes earlier positions taken by global human rights organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières and Amnesty International. Israel denies is it carrying out a genocide, and says the war in Gaza is one of self-defence in response to the cross-border attacks by Hamas on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed.
