Latest news with #LeFigaro
El Chorouk
4 hours ago
- Politics
- El Chorouk
Algerian Foreign Ministry Official Responds to the French Interior Minister
An official source at the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was inquired about the recent statement by French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau to Le Figaro newspaper, in which he announced his intention to instruct French prefectures 'not to recognise passports issued by Algerian consulates to Algerian citizens to obtain residence permits.' The source was keen to recall, first, that granting these passports is a right for Algerian citizens and that issuing them is a duty incumbent upon the sovereign Algerian state. Therefore, recognising these passports is a duty imposed upon the French state. The same source considered the French minister's statement to be arbitrary, discriminatory, and an abuse of power, as it explicitly contravenes French law itself. As far as its author is concerned, this statement has a clear political dimension, is also legally unfounded, and is not based on any rule in French law itself. In the same context, the official explained that the passports in question are issued at the request of the French prefectures themselves, as they are indispensable reference documents in applications for residence permits. On this basis, the failure to recognise these passports, as stated by the French Interior Minister, constitutes a violation of individual rights and a further breach of France's bilateral and international obligations.
Daily News Egypt
11 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily News Egypt
Alarming Advance of Jihadist Groups in Sahel Raises Regional Security Concerns
The Sahel region is witnessing a sharp deterioration in security as jihadist groups expand their influence, overpowering state forces and plunging entire areas into chaos, French newspaper Le Figaro has warned in a recent report. According to the analysis by journalist Jean-Marc Gonin, national armies in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are increasingly losing control over vast territories, while civilian populations continue to bear the brunt of violence in a conflict they are neither responsible for nor equipped to escape. Three years after France ended its counterterrorism Operation Barkhane under mounting pressure from military juntas that seized power in the region, jihadist insurgencies led by al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) have surged. These militant groups are not only challenging the armed forces of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger but are also conducting cross-border raids into neighbouring states such as Benin, posing a growing threat to West African stability. Coordinated Raids and Military Setbacks In the past three months, JNIM launched a wave of attacks in western Mali, including a major offensive near the borders with Senegal and Mauritania. The simultaneous raids targeted seven towns, including the strategic urban centres of Kayes and Nioro, underscoring the group's growing operational capabilities. JNIM's leader, Tuareg commander Iyad Ag Ghaly, is reportedly pursuing control of critical urban hubs and key transportation corridors essential for Mali's access to imported supplies from coastal nations. Although Malian authorities later claimed to have recaptured Kayes, the group succeeded in seizing significant military equipment in the process. Witnesses in the area reported the use of armoured vehicles and, in recent months, the possible deployment of drones by militants—raising alarm over the group's evolving arsenal. Bakary Sambe, regional director of the Timbuktu Institute, described the July 1 attacks as 'well-planned strikes' aimed at disrupting military communication lines and logistics. 'This isolation of Bamako weakens the state's response and gives militants the freedom to launch rapid attacks and withdraw with minimal resistance,' he said. Sahel States Struggle to Push Back Since the withdrawal of French troops in 2022 and the United Nations peacekeeping force in 2023, JNIM has filled the security vacuum, growing in both presence and influence. Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso have since formed the Sahel States Alliance (AES) to confront the threat, but despite some localised military gains, the coalition continues to suffer heavy losses. The July 1 attacks underscored the challenges faced by national forces. While some incursions were repelled, several operations resulted in significant casualties among government troops. Observers say the reliance on Russian military support—particularly through the controversial Wagner Group—has further complicated the situation. Wagner operatives, accused of human rights abuses, have exacerbated existing grievances, fueling local anger and inadvertently aiding jihadist recruitment. Deepening Social Divisions The ongoing violence has heightened tensions between herder and farming communities, particularly among the Fulani people, who are spread across the Sahel. Jihadist groups, especially JNIM, have exploited these fault lines to gain loyalty, offering a form of economic stability and protection in exchange for allegiance. Le Figaro noted that jihadists have, over the past three years, strategically positioned themselves as defenders of the Fulani, in contrast to national governments and allied militias accused of targeting the group. One of the mo…
Le Figaro
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Le Figaro
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France 24
14-07-2025
- Politics
- France 24
Right-wing groups in Spain 'hunt down' migrants
"To be free, we must be feared," Macron said on Sunday as he announced that France will increase its defence spending, Le Telegramme reports. The French president added that since the World Wars, "freedom has never been so threatened". While some on the left of the political spectrum denounce the "arms race", the announced effort is approved by seven out of 10 French people, according to a poll by French right-wing paper Le Figaro. "Amid crises, the French endorse their army," reads the headline. The topic of the Bastille Day parade goes hand in hand with the defence talk. The French daily Aujourd'hui en France details the look of the parade: 7,000 men and women, nearly 70 military planes, 35 helicopters and more than 200 horses in the French capital. French conservative paper La Croix focuses on the parade's controversial opening act: " Indonesia in the spotlight, not human rights", reads the title. Indonesia is a big importer of French arms and is this year's guest of honour. But La Croix says that France is turning a blind eye to the massive crimes Indonesia is blamed for. In Spain, several people have been injured after anti-migrant unrest in Torre Pacheco, a town in the southeast of the country, erupted on Friday, The Guardian reports. Tensions started rising last week when a 68-year-old man was reportedly beaten up by three people of North African origin. Spanish daily El País reports that right-wing groups have been trying to "hunt down" migrants. El País spoke to a migrant in Torre Pacheco who was provoked. He says that those who participate in the unrest aren't people from the town, but young people coming from the region, organised and led by right-wing groups on social media. Spanish daily El Mundo writes that 70 percent of Spaniards support deportations of illegal migrants, proposed by Spain's far-right party Vox. The paper says that citizens see migration as a source of inconvenience, rather than a potential opportunity. An editorial in El País says that Vox is "manipulating immigration". According to the paper, the party uses radicalised and xenophobic discourse and even conspiracy theories to justify mass deportations. Immigration is also a big topic in the United States. The Washington Post reports that ICE plans to deport migrants to countries where they aren't even citizens. The "dramatic shift in policy" could mean that thousands of people are sent to countries where they have no family at all and where they don't even speak the language. In some cases, they will be given as little as six hours' notice. The Los Angeles Times looked at data around the ongoing detentions. The daily says that even though Donald Trump has vowed to deport "the worst of the worst", the data shows that the majority of people currently detained by ICE have no criminal convictions, and very few of those who do have committed high-level crimes. The paper says this is "a stark contrast to the chilling nightmare Trump describes". Finally, we bring you a fascinating prison escape story from the eastern French city of Lyon. Left-wing paper Le Monde reports that on Friday, a 20-year-old prisoner managed to escape by hiding in the laundry bag of his fellow inmate, who was being released. He was in prison for criminal conspiracy and organised murder, but the prison administration only figured out that he was missing a whole day later.
Spectator
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Is Britain ready for France's most controversial novel?
This Saturday is the centenary of the birth of one of France's most controversial writers. Jean Raspail, who died in 2020, wrote many books during his long and varied life, but only one, The Camp of the Saints, is remembered. Even his admirers and sympathisers admit that the book isn't a classic in the literary sense. In an article to mark the publication of a recent biography of Raspail, Le Figaro said the novel was guilty of a 'certain kitschness, clumsiness, awkwardness and a nihilism that seems forced'. More than that, it has been accused of being overtly racist. Yet what made The Camp of the Saints such a sensation when it was published – and increasingly today among the online right – was its narrative. Raspail explained the idea for it came to him in 1972 as he looked out at the Mediterranean from the Côte d'Azur. 'The immigration problem didn't exist yet,' he said. 'The question suddenly arose: 'What if they came?'' In The Camp of the Saints, a million migrants from India land in the south of France in an armada of small boats. The left welcomes them with open arms and cries of: 'We're all from the Ganges now!' The French government requests that the rest of Europe accepts some of the arrivals, which it does. Seeing the generosity of Europe, more migrants from other Third World countries decide to head to the Old Continent for a new life. Europe collapses. The Camp of the Saints was savaged by much of the American press when it was published across the Atlantic in 1975, and not just because of its language. 'Preposterous' was the reaction of the New York Times, which mocked Raspail's 'fancy that sometime in the near future the Third World, protesting the unequal division of the world's goods and western indifference to its misery, strikes back'. In 2019, the NYT returned to the attack in an article entitled 'A Racist Book's Malign and Lingering Influence'. According to the paper, 'what Raspail described as a 'parable' came to be seen as a canonical text in white nationalist circles'. It namechecked Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump as two politicians influenced by the book. Given its reputation, The Camp of the Saints is possibly the closest thing we have to an actual 'banned book' in the English-speaking world. It has never been published in Britain, and while it was reissued by a small American publisher in 1995, secondhand paperbacks cost upwards of £200 on Amazon. But that is about to change. The novel is soon to be released in English again, this time by an independent American publisher called Vauban Books, run by Ethan Rundell. Rundell is a Francophile who studied in Paris in the 1990s (as well as Berkeley and Trinity College, Cambridge) and worked for many years in France as a translator. He founded Vauban Books in 2023 with Louis Betty, a professor of French at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Their mission is to translate into English books in French that are victims of 'ideological curation and gatekeeping… some voices are amplified, often for no other reason than they flatter the prevailing doxa on this side of the Atlantic; other voices, some of them quite prominent, are neglected or even actively suppressed when what they have to say runs counter to it'. Among the authors published so far by Vauban are Renaud Camus, the originator of the 'Great Replacement Theory' – which holds that ethnic French and white European populations are being replaced by non-white people. Camus was recently barred from entering Britain because the government said his 'presence in the UK is not considered to be conducive to the public good'. Rundell tells me it was a 'great honour' to be the translator of Camus. 'To publish Camus is to discover just how far we have gone in the direction of a post-literary society,' he says. 'His words are on all lips. Everyone has an opinion about him. And yet shockingly few people still seem capable of marshalling the basic curiosity – or perhaps I should say intellectual self-regard – needed to consult the source before rendering judgment on it.' He believes the same applies to Raspail, which is why Vauban is reissuing his best-known work in September. 'It has become an object of reflexive condemnation, even though many of those condemning it have never read a word that Raspail wrote,' says Rundell. 'On purely liberal grounds – informed debate, the free circulation of ideas, the need to make important primary texts available to the public at large – the case for publishing it is self-evident.' Even some supporters of the book take issue with many of the expressions it uses, but Rundell is braced for the criticism: 'I expect some people will be very angry that we are bringing it out, not least because it gives the lie to the imaginary, parallel world the progressive intelligentsia has constructed for itself and still seeks to impose upon the rest of us.' Bien-pensants hate the book, adds Rundell, because it 'relentlessly mocks that same intelligentsia, which in many ways has hardly changed since the book was first published in 1973'. Vauban Books hopes to have The Camp of the Saints ready for pre-order in Britain and Europe by the end of this month, although Rundell says he fears the distributor might 'refuse to carry the title'. With that in mind he intends to contact Toby Young's Free Speech Union. 'There may well be a battle ahead,' says Rundell. The Camp of the Saints isn't a great book, but it is an important one. Its concern about mass immigration can often shift into revelling in racist tropes. In that sense, it speaks to our current debates, where the line between demographic worries and outright nativism is frequently blurred. But as Rod Dreher in the American Conservative has written: 'You don't have to endorse Raspail's radical racialist vision to recognise that there is diagnostic value in his novel.'
