France - The African Mirror

Oct

2020

France tightens security after Nice attack, protests flare in parts of Muslim world

TANGI SALAUN and CAROLINE PAILLIEZ FRANCE has stepped up security nationwide to guard against Islamist attacks after the fatal stabbings at a church in Nice, while protests flared in parts of the Middle East, Asia and Africa over French caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad. President Emmanuel Macron deployed thousands of soldiers to protect sites including places of worship and schools, and the nation was at its highest level of security alert after the second deadly knife attack in its cities in two weeks. Police were holding a 21-year-old Tunisian migrant, identified by a French police source and Tunisian officials as…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

France on alert as official warns of more militant attacks after Nice church killings

WORLD

FRANCE's interior minister said on Thursday more militant attacks on its soil were likely and the country was engaged in a war against Islamist ideology following the second deadly knife attack in its cities in two weeks. Minister Gerald Damarnin was speaking a day after an assailant shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a church in Nice. The man was shot by police and is now in critical condition in a hospital. "We are in a war against an enemy that is both inside and outside," Damarnin told RTL radio. "We…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

Three dead as woman beheaded in attack in French church

WORLD

TANGI SALAUN and ERIC GAILLARD A knife-wielding attacker shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) has beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a church in the French city of Nice. A defiant President Emmanuel Macron, declaring that France had been subject to an Islamist terrorist attack, said he would deploy thousands more soldiers to protect important French sites, such as places of worship and schools. Speaking from the scene, he said France had been attacked "over our values, for our taste for freedom, for the ability on our soil to have freedom of belief". "And I say it…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

Russia and France seek end to fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh

WORLD

NALIA BAGIROVA andNVARD HOVHANNISYAN RUSSIA and France stepped up calls for a ceasefire between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces on Thursday as the death toll rose in the heaviest clashes around the Nagorno-Karabakh region since the 1990s. The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron had discussed steps that the Organization for Security and Co-operation's (OSCE) Minsk group, which mediates in the conflict, could take to end the fighting. Russia has also offered to host the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan for talks on the flare-up of their decades-old conflict in the volatile South Caucasus region.…

Aug

2020

By The African Mirror

Sudanese boy found dead in French city of Sangatte – minister

NEWS

A 16-year-old Sudanese boy has been found dead on a beach in the city of Sangatte in northern France, French Citizenship Minister Marlene Schiappa said has announced. Schiappa said on Twitter that the young boy had disappeared at sea last night. Local police were not immediately available to give further details on the circumstances of his death. "This unbearable tragedy mobilizes us still more with (Interior Minister) Gerald Darmanin against smugglers," Schiappa said. British interior minister Priti Patel also said on Twitter: "This horrendous incident serves as a brutal reminder of the abhorrent criminal gangs and people smugglers who exploit…