Olympics host Paris under scrutiny after Champions League 'fiasco'

PARIS, France - French authorities faced questions Sunday over police tactics at the Paris Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid that descended into scenes of chaos before kick-off, with critics asking if the capital was ready to host the Olympics in two years' time.

Liverpool called for an investigation into the treatment of their supporters ahead of the game at Paris' Stade de France on Saturday which the club said left thousands of ticket holders struggling to enter the stadium.

But European football's governing body UEFA blamed a problem with fake tickets, while the French government criticized the behavior of the English fans. 

The chaos outside France's national stadium prompted the kick-off to be delayed by over half an hour before the match was eventually won 1-0 by the Spanish side.

The scenes -- which saw some fans manage to vault into the stadium while evading security and police use tear gas -- were not what the French capital wanted two years before it hosts the 2024 Olympics and one year before the same venue hosts the rugby World Cup final.

The French interior ministry said 105 people had been detained, of whom 39 were placed under arrest and remanded in custody meaning they could face charges.

UEFA blamed "fake tickets which did not work in the turnstiles" for the 35-minute delay to the final.

But Liverpool said they were "hugely disappointed" that their supporters had been subjected to an "unacceptable" breakdown of the security perimeter.

"We have officially requested a formal investigation into the causes of these unacceptable issues," the club said.

Merseyside Police, which had officers deployed in Paris, said "the vast majority of fans behaved in an exemplary manner".

The UK government's Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis told Sky News that the English fans were "treated with a very aggressive approach."

But French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin pointed the finger at Liverpool fans, saying "thousands of British 'supporters' either without tickets or with fake ones forced their way through and sometimes behaved violently towards the stewards".

French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera said that "attempts at intrusion and fraud by thousands of English supporters complicated the work of the stadium staff and the police."

Yet political foes of the government and President Emmanuel Macron said that the scenes pointed to wider problems in France and shamed the country.

"The image this gives is lamentable and it is also worrying because we see that we are not prepared for events like the Olympic Games," far-left French politician Jean-Luc Melenchon told BFM-TV.

He denounced "a complete failure of the police strategy... the people were treated as they usually are during any kind of demonstration. We can't continue like this."

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen told RTL that the world had seen on Saturday that "France is no longer able to organize major events without things degenerating."

French newspaper Le Monde commented: "The party that was supposed to precede the final... was spoilt and turned into real chaos."

"From party to fiasco," said France's leading sports daily L'Equipe.

Merseyside's leading regional newspaper the Liverpool Echo argued that poor organization and not the Liverpool fans were to blame.

"UEFA's shameless attempts to control (the) Liverpool narrative show they'll never learn after Champions League disgrace," it said.

Aurore Berge, a deputy for Macron's ruling party, said Paris had "barely three months" to get ready for the final which it was awarded after Saint Petersburg was stripped of the event due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Police fired tear gas after several dozen people attempted to climb over barriers, according to an AFP reporter on the scene, with security staff having to round up about 20 fans who succeeded in clearing the fence and getting into the ground.

Thousands of mainly Liverpool supporters were still massed outside the stadium with half an hour to go to kick-off.

UEFA said they were "sympathetic" to the fans affected and would review the situation together with local police and authorities,.

For Ronan Evain, executive director of the Football Supporters Europe network, the events "raises the question of France's ability to organize events of this size". 

"We continue to see the same organizational strategy that have already failed in the past. There is a very strong need to modernize the approach to securing these events," he told AFP.

In contrast to the scenes outside the stadium, Paris police noted that proceedings at two vast fans zones hosting thousands of supporters from both sides had taken place in a good atmosphere and without major incident.

Some 40,000 Liverpool supporters without a match ticket had packed into their zone in eastern Paris to enjoy the atmosphere. Despite the disappointment of defeat they left the area without any issue.

The Paris fire brigade -- which looks after all kinds of emergency situations -- said the night had largely been calm although it had treated some supporters for the effects of tear gas as well as excess alcohol consumption.

Agence France-Presse

Terraces of France’s cafes, restaurants, to open next month

PARIS (AP) — President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that the outdoor terraces of France’s cafes and restaurants will be allowed to reopen on May 19 along with museums, cinemas, theaters and concert halls under certain conditions.

In an interview with regional newspapers, Macron outlined a four-step plan to reopen the country and revive its economy. The French government is slowly starting to lift partial lockdowns, despite still high numbers of coronavirus cases and hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

Reopening nurseries and primary schools this week was a priority, the president said.

“We have taken on the responsibility of the priority on education and the strategy of living with the virus, including with high numbers of infections, higher than those of our neighbors,” Macron said.

Students will go back to secondary and high schools next week, and a domestic travel ban will end, he confirmed. A 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew will remain in place.

Restaurants and cafes will be able to serve customers outdoors at tables seating a maximum of six people starting May 19, when the nightly curfew will be pushed back to 9 p.m. Non-essential shops also reopen, as well as cultural sites and sport facilities, which will have occupancy limits of 800 people indoors and 1,000 outdoors.

French authorities are anticipating the COVID-19 outlook in the country to be better next month, when a greater proportion of the population will be vaccinated.

The government’s plan provides for permitting foreign tourists back into France on June 9 as long as they hold a “sanitary pass” with proof of a COVID-19 vaccine or a negative PCR test.

On that same day, cafes and restaurants will be allowed to resume regular service until an 11 p.m. curfew. Events of up to 5,000 people will be allowed.

The final stage of the plan will see the end of the nighttime curfew and the lifting of most restrictions on June 30, although nightclubs will remain closed.

France is reporting about 29,000 new confirmed cases each day, down from about 40,000 earlier this month. Over 5,800 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized in French intensive care units, a slight decrease from previous days. France has reported almost 104,000 virus-related deaths in the pandemic. COVID-19 deaths.

Associated Press

Confirmed virus cases hit 10 million as Poland, France vote

ROME (AP) — Worldwide confirmed coronavirus infections hit the 10 million mark Sunday as voters in Poland and France went to the polls for virus-delayed elections.

New clusters of cases at a Swiss nightclub and in the central English city of Leicester showed that the virus was still circulating widely in Europe, though not with the rapidly growing infection rate seen in parts of the U.S., Latin America and India.

Wearing mandatory masks, social distancing in lines and carrying their own pens to sign voting registers, French voters cast ballots in a second round of municipal elections. Poles also wore masks and used hand sanitizer, and some in virus-hit areas were told to mail in their ballots to avoid further contagion.

“I didn’t go and vote the first time around because I am elderly and I got scared,” said Fanny Barouh as she voted in a Paris school.

While concern in the U.S. has focused on big states like Texas, Arizona and Florida reporting thousands of new cases a day, rural states are also seeing infection surges, including in Kansas, where livestock outnumber people.

The U.S. handling of the outbreak has drawn concern from abroad. The European Union seems almost certain to bar Americans from traveling to the bloc in the short term as it draws up new travel rules to be announced shortly.


The infection surges prompted Vice President Mike Pence to call off campaign events in Florida and Arizona, although he will still travel to those states and to Texas this week to meet with their Republican governors. Those three governors have come under criticism for aggressively reopening their economies after virus lockdowns despite increasing infections in their states.

After confirmed daily infections in the U.S. hit an all-time high of 40,000 on Friday, Texas and Florida reversed course and closed down bars in their states again. Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey reversed himself and allowed cities and counties to require face masks in public even though he hasn’t been seen wearing one.

“This is not a sprint, this is a marathon,” said Dr. Lisa Goldberg, director of the emergency department of Tucson Medical Center in Arizona. “In fact, it’s an ultra-marathon.”

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar stressed that “the window is closing” for the U.S. to take action to effectively curb the coronavirus.

Azar pointed to a recent spike in infections, particularly in the South. He says people have “to act responsibly” by social distancing and wearing face masks, especially “in these hot zones.”

Speaking on NBC and CNN, Azar argued that the U.S. is in a better position than two months ago in fighting the virus because it is conducting more testing and has therapeutics available to treat COVID-19.

But he acknowledged that hospitalizations and deaths could increase in the next few weeks.

Globally, confirmed COVID-19 cases passed the 10 million mark and confirmed deaths neared half a million, according to a tally by the Johns Hopkins University, with the U.S., Brazil, Russia and India having the most cases. The U.S. also has the highest virus death toll in the world at over 125,000.

Experts say all those figures significantly undercount the true toll of the pandemic, due to limited testing and missed mild cases. U.S. government experts last week estimated the U.S. alone could have had 20 million cases.

Workplace infection worries increased after Tyson Foods announced that 371 employees at its chicken processing plant in the southwestern corner of Missouri have tested positive for COVID-19.

In the state of Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee put a hold on plans to move counties to the fourth phase of his reopening plan as cases continue to increase. But in Hawaii, the city of Honolulu announced that campgrounds will reopen for the first time in three months with limited permits to ensure social distancing.

Britain’s government, meanwhile, is considering whether a local lockdown is needed for the central English city of Leicester amid reports about a spike in COVID-19 among its Asian community. It would be Britain’s first local lockdown.

“We have seen flare-ups across the country in recent weeks,” Home Secretary Priti Patel told the BBC on Sunday.

Polish voters were casting ballots, in person and by mail, for a presidential election that was supposed to have taken place in May but was chaotically postponed amid the pandemic. President Andrzej Duda, a 48-year-old conservative backed by the nationalist ruling Law and Justice party, is running against 10 other candidates as he seeks a second five-year term.

Iwona Goge, 79, was encouraged to see so many people voting in Warsaw.

“It’s bad. Poland is terribly divided and people are getting discouraged,” she said.

French voters were choosing mayors and municipal councilors in Paris and 5,000 towns and cities in a second round of municipal elections held under strict hygiene rules. Key battlegrounds include Paris, where the next mayor will preside over the 2024 Summer Olympics. The spread of the virus in France has slowed significantly but is still expected to hurt Sunday’s turnout.

Italy was honoring its dead later Sunday with an evening Requiem concert in hard-hit Bergamo province. The ceremony in the onetime epicenter of the European outbreak came a day after Italy registered the lowest daily tally of COVID-19 deaths in nearly four months: eight.

European leaders were taking no chances in tamping down new clusters. German authorities renewed a lockdown in a western region of about 500,000 people after about 1,300 slaughterhouse workers tested positive. Swiss authorities ordered 300 people into quarantine after a “superspreader” outbreak of coronavirus at a Zurich nightclub.

In Asia, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his country must focus on bolstering the economy as it exits lockdowns, even as the number of coronavirus cases still keep on climbing. On Sunday, India reported additional 19,906 confirmed cases, taking its total to nearly 529,000 with 16,095 deaths. The pandemic has exposed wide inequalities in India, with public hospitals being overwhelmed by virus cases while the rich get expert treatment in private hospitals.

China reported 17 new cases, all but three of them from domestic transmission in Beijing. But authorities say a campaign to conduct tests on employees at hair and beauty salons across the city has found no positive cases so far.

___

Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

Europe steps up reopening, unveils plans for summer travel

Europe moved ahead with its emergence from coronavirus lockdown on Wednesday and laid out plans for summer tourism, but the pandemic gathered pace elsewhere.

Britain followed France, Italy and Spain in easing its lockdown but only in England, where people were given more freedom to leave their homes and return to their jobs if they cannot work remotely.

Austria said its borders with Germany would reopen from mid-June and Berlin said it aimed to end virus checks at its land borders in about a month.

Desperate to save millions of tourism jobs, the European Union set out plans for a phased restart of travel this summer, with EU border controls eventually lifted and measures to minimise the risks of infection, like wearing face masks on shared transport.

"Today's guidance can be the chance of a better season for the many Europeans whose livelihood depends on tourism and, of course, for those who would like to travel this summer," EU Commission executive vice president Margrethe Vestager told reporters.

- Second wave fears -

But with the global death toll from the coronavirus exceeding 292,000, the picture was grim in other parts of the world.

Russia, now the country with the second-highest number of virus cases, recorded more than 10,000 new infections after authorities this week eased restrictions to allow some people back to work.

Brazil registered its highest virus death toll in a single day, with 881 new fatalities bringing the total to 12,400, and the country was emerging as a new global hotspot despite President Jair Bolsonaro dismissing the pandemic as a "little flu".

Fears were growing of a second wave of infections in China, with the northeastern city of Jilin put in partial lockdown and Wuhan, where the virus was first reported last year, planning to test its entire population after clusters of new cases.

- 'Risk of uncontrollable outbreak' -

And the United States, which has confirmed more than 1.36 million cases, saw a sharp rise in fatalities, with 1,894 new deaths reported on Tuesday after daily tolls fell below 1,000.

The country's top infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci issued a stark warning about the dangers of resuming normal life too soon, saying a run of 14 days with falling cases was a vital first step.

"If a community or a state or region doesn't go by those guidelines and reopens... the consequences could be really serious," he said Tuesday.


"There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control."

Fauci said the true number killed by the epidemic in the US is likely greater than the official toll of over 82,000 -- the world's highest.

Facing a re-election campaign later this year, President Donald Trump is pressing for rapid steps to get the US economy moving again, despite warnings from health officials.

Washington has increasingly blamed China for the global outbreak and on Wednesday authorities warned healthcare and scientific researchers that Chinese-backed hackers were attempting to steal research and intellectual property related to treatments and vaccines for the coronavirus.

"China's efforts to target these sectors pose a significant threat to our nation's response to COVID-19," a statement from the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said.

- Moves to reboot economies -

Countries around the world are grappling with how to reopen businesses after the pandemic forced half of the planet into some form of lockdown and ground the global economy to a near-halt.


Dire economic data from March and April have pointed to the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s after millions of people were thrown out of work.

Figures from Britain on Wednesday showed its economy shrinking by two percent in January-March, its fastest slump since 2008 and with a far worse contraction to come.

The Bank of England last week warned that the economic paralysis could lead to Britain's worst recession in centuries, with output forecast to crash 14 percent this year.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said shutdowns in the United States would do "lasting damage" but "the economy should substantially recover once the virus is under control".

He said crisis measures, including spending beyond the nearly $3 trillion already approved in the United States, would be crucial to ensuring a strong recovery.

Health experts have warned of the potentially devastating consequences as the virus spreads through the developing world, where healthcare systems are under-funded and isolation regimes are often not possible.

- 'Tough old lady' -

In northern Nigeria, surging death tolls have sparked fears that the virus is spreading, with a team of government investigators saying hundreds of deaths were suspected to be linked to the pandemic.

Making the problem worse, hospitals have shut their doors to the sick out of fears over the virus -- meaning treatment for a raft of ailments has stopped.

Civil servant Binta Mohammed said she had to watch her husband die from "diabetic complications" after he was turned away for treatment.

"The four private hospitals we took him to refused to admit him for fear he had the virus," she said.

But there were stories of hope amid the gloom, including two centenarians who survived the virus.

In Spain, 113-year-old Maria Branyas fought off the illness during weeks of isolation at a retirement home where several other residents died from the disease.

And in Russia, 100-year-old Pelageya Poyarkova was discharged from a Moscow hospital after having recovered.

Russian television showed Poyarkova wearing a face mask and clutching a bouquet of red roses as she exited in a wheelchair, surrounded by doctors and journalists.

"She turned out to be a tough old lady," the hospital's acting director Vsevolod Belousov said.

burs-mm/jv

Agence France-Presse

UK winner pockets 190 million euro jackpot

PARIS, France — Someone in Britain became 190 million euros ($208 million) richer on Tuesday when they won the maximum EuroMillions jackpot, the lottery company announced.

It is only the fourth time that the maximum prize has been won since EuroMillions — available in nine European countries including France — fixed its winnings cap in 2012, the French branch FDJ said Tuesday evening.

The lucky player now has to come forward and claim their money.


They will also have to decide whether to go public with their new multi-millionnaire status or remain anonymous.

It took a record-breaking run of 18 rollovers, when nobody wins the top prize, to push the booty up to its maximum amount, and it then went another four draws before finally being won.

Tuesday's massive prize still pales in comparison to the $1.537 billion Mega Millions US lottery jackpot won last year by a lucky punter in South Carolina.

That person chose to remain anonymous.

Apart from France, EuroMillions tickets can be bought in in Austria, Belgium, Britain, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.

source: philstar.com

WATCH: Young chef wins France's Burger Cup

PARIS, France — More than 300 participants took part in the fourth edition of France's Burger Cup with the trophy going to the youngest contestant, 20-year-old Anthony Verset.

"You can make burgers with truffles, foie gras and all the most expensive products, but if the ingredients are not cooked properly, you will never have a good burger, so even with inexpensive ingredients, as long as you know how to work them and you know the burger codes, well, you can make an ingredient that will beat the truffles and all the most expensive products," he said.

source: philstar.com

Vive la France! And a lot of other nations, too

MOSCOW — Antoine Griezmann's father emigrated from Germany, and the France forward's mother is of Portuguese decent.

Paul Pogba's parents arrived from Guinea.

Kylian Mbappe's dad is from Cameroon, his mom Algerian.

Immigrants, sons of immigrants and grandsons of immigrants bonded together with scions of families that have been French for generations, all for the rouge, blanc et bleu. And for only the second time, France is the World Cup champion.


About two-thirds of Les Bleus' roster included players with immigrant backgrounds, a mini-United Nations of soccer talent.

"That is the France that we love," Griezmann said through a translator after Sunday's 4-2 victory over Croatia ended the most exciting World Cup final in decades. "It's beautiful to see it."

Griezmann's free kick was headed in by Mario Manduzkic for the opening own-goal in the 18th minute, and then he converted a penalty kick for a 2-1 lead in the 38th after video review spotted a handball by Ivan Perisic.

Mbappe's speed led to the third goal in the 59th . He added a goal of his own in the 65th , at 19 becoming the second-youngest scorer in a World Cup final behind 17-year-old Pele in 1958.

Vive la diversite!

A day after Bastille Day, the party was on.

"The diversity of the squad is in the image of this beautiful country that is France," midfielder Blaise Matuidi, whose parents are from Angola and Congo, said through a translator ahead of the match.
France won on a humid night in Russia, with thunderclaps during play and a downpour during the trophy presentation. Quite different from that indelible summer evening at Stade de France in 1998, when fans in the arena and throughout Paris sang "La Marseillaise" until dawn and young teenagers drove cars while their intoxicated parents sat in passenger seats.

People called that team "Black, Blanc, Beur," noting how white, black and North African players came together.

Zinedine Zidane, a son of Algerians, headed in a pair of first-half corner kicks against heavily favored Brazil. Patrick Vieira, born in Senegal, fed Normand-born Emmanuel Petit for the third in the 3-0 win.

This year's team was perhaps even more diverse.

Defender Samuel Umtiti was born in Cameroon and backup goalkeeper Steve Mandanda in Zaire. Others descended from Algeria, Mali, Mauritania, Mococco and Senegal, plus Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

"There may be players who come from different origins, but we do have the same state of mind," Griezmann said. "We all play for the same jersey, the cockerel. For our country, we give everything we have. As soon as you wear the jersey, we do everything for each other."

He scored the go-ahead goal after the first video review-created penalty kick in a World Cup final. During a delay of about four minutes that might have unnerved less-composed players. Griezmann told himself to pretend it was a league match.

"Carry on and do the same thing as I normally do," he remembered thinking.

At 27, he in his prime but in the penumbra of Spanish soccer at Atletico Madrid, toiling in a league that Barcelona and Real Madrid dominate. He led the 2016 European Championship with six goals and tied for second with four at the World Cup, three on penalty kicks, earning the Bronze Ball as third-best player behind Croatia midfielder Luka Modric and Belgium forward Eden Hazard.

Griezmann kissed the trophy, knowing his generation will be revered in the same way Zidane, Petit, Thierry Henry, Lilian Thuram and Fabien Barthez remain renowned from Calais to Cannes.

"From tonight on, I'm sorry for them, but they are going to be different," coach Didier Deschamps said. "Those 23 players will be linked forever, forever. Whatever happens — they might follow different paths, but they will be marked forever and they will be together thanks to this event."

Griezmann, man of the match in a World Cup final, will be on posters throughout the republic, asked for endorsements, a mainstay of commercials. He will asked for autographs for the rest of his life.

"I'm going to be in the history of French football with my team," Griezmann said. "We don't quite realize it yet. Our children will very proud to have our names."

source: philstar.com

Last remaining multiple World Cup champions eliminated

KAZAN, Russia  — Only five countries have won the World Cup more than once. None of them have a chance to win another this year.

Five-time champion Brazil and two-time champion Uruguay were both eliminated Friday, losing in the quarterfinals. Argentina, another two-time winner, lost in the round of 16 while four-time champion Germany couldn’t make it out of the group stage.

Italy, which also has won four titles, didn’t even qualify, losing to Sweden in the playoffs.

This is the first time there will be a semifinals without at least one of Argentina, Brazil, Germany or Italy.

That only leaves France and England as former champions still with a chance to win another title in Russia.

BRAZIL

Brazil was one of the biggest favorites heading into the tournament in Russia, but it struggled early in the group stage and finally lost to Belgium 2-1 on Friday in Kazan.

After a lackluster start in qualifying, Brazil replaced 1994 World Cup-winning captain Dunga with Tite as coach. Tite oversaw an immediate improvement in results that led to Brazil’s qualification.

Although Brazil finished first in Group E, it failed to impress in attack. There were glimpses of pace and skill from Neymar and Philippe Coutinho, but the team was not as free-flowing going forward as many had hoped.

At least the defense was solid, conceding only one goal through the round of 16.

Brazil has now been eliminated by European opposition in the knockout stages at each of the four World Cups since it last won in 2002.
URUGUAY

Uruguay was the World Cup’s first winner back in 1930 and the country added a second title 20 years later when it defeated Brazil in the final match in Rio de Janeiro.

Although the Uruguayans haven’t made a final since, they have become a presence again in the final stages.

In 2010, Uruguay made the semifinals, losing to the Netherlands 3-2. The team came close again this year, but lost to France 2-0 on Friday in Nizhny Novgorod.

Uruguay came second in South American qualifying behind Brazil. Its strong all-around performances in Russia, particularly in the 2-1 victory over Portugal in the round of 16, raised hopes that the team could at least match its performance from 2010.

However, during the loss to France in the quarterfinals, Uruguay was forced to play without injured striker Edinson Cavani. And a bad mistake from goalkeeper Fernando Muslera gifted Antoine Griezmann a goal.

ARGENTINA

Argentina, the World Cup champion in 1978 and 1986, has arguably the best player of his generation in Lionel Messi. But few gave the team much of a chance of making a second straight final.

Qualifying for the tournament in Russia proved to be an ordeal, requiring a final day hat trick from Messi.

With coach Jorge Sampaoli struggling to build a team around Messi, Argentina labored during the group stage in Russia, notably in its opening 1-1 draw against Iceland.

A 3-0 loss to Croatia raised the prospect that it wouldn’t even make it out of the group, but the team scraped through with a late winner against Nigeria.

The reward, though, was tough — France in the round of 16. Kylian Mbappe exploited the lack of speed in Argentina’s defense and lead France to a 4-3 victory.

GERMANY

Germany won its fourth World Cup in Brazil four years ago. A chance for a fifth was expected in Russia, not least because the team hadn’t done much wrong in between.

Germany’s failure to make the second stage for the first time since 1938 is one of the World Cup’s great surprises. After all, Germany has made it to the semifinals in each major tournament it has contested since 2006.

Losing its opening group match against Mexico was seen as a blip. Normal service would surely resume, it was thought. However, the team struggled in its second match against Sweden, requiring a curling goal from Toni Kroos with virtually the last kick of the match to win 2-1.

In its final match against South Korea, the Germans lost 2-0.

ITALY

At least the others qualified for this year’s World Cup.

Italy, however, didn’t even make it to Russia after losing to Sweden in the playoffs. It’s the first time Italy has missed out on a World Cup in 60 years.

Italy’s national team has been in decline since winning its fourth World Cup title in 2006. At the World Cups of 2010 and 2014, the Italians failed to get out of their group.

source: philstar.com

Banker, economic adviser and now youngest French president

PARIS — Emmanuel Macron has been a star student, a champion of France's tech startup movement, an investment banker and economy minister.

But the man who will become France's youngest president has never held elected office. After a campaign based on promises to revive the country through pro-business and pro-European policies, the 39-year-old centrist independent defeated far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen and her protectionist, anti-immigration party.

In his victory speech, Macron vowed to "rebuild the relationship between Europe and the peoples that make it." He pledged to open a new page for France based on hope and "restored confidence."

It won't be his first experience in the challenge of reforming France.

He quit his job as a banker at Rothschild to become Socialist President Francois Hollande's economic adviser, working for two years by Hollande's side at the presidential palace.

Then as economy minister in Hollande's government from 2014 to 2016, he promoted a package of measures, notably allowing more stores to open on Sundays and evenings and opening up regulated sectors of the economy.


Opponents on the left accused him of destroying workers' protections. Tens of thousands of people poured into the streets for months of protests, and the government had to force the law through parliament under special powers.

Last year, Macron launched his own political movement, En Marche, or In Motion, and quit the Socialist government. He promised to shake up the political landscape by appointing a government that includes new figures from business and civil society.

His next challenge will be to get a parliamentary majority in an election next month to make major changes — with no mainstream party to support him.

The strong advocate of a free market and entrepreneurial spirit has called for France to focus on getting benefits from globalization rather than the protectionist policies advocated by the far right.

In his political rallies, he encouraged supporters to wave both the French tricolor and the European Union flags.

Le Pen, who has tapped into working-class anger at the loss of jobs and once-secure futures, called him the face of "the world of finance," the candidate of "the caviar left."

"I'm not under control of the banks. If that was the case, I would have kept working for them," Macron answered.

Macron had an unexpected test of his political skills following the first round of the vote during what became known as "the battle of Whirlpool," when Le Pen upstaged him at a Whirlpool factory in Amiens that is threatened with closure.

Le Pen's surprise appearance put him on the defensive and prompted him to meet with angry Whirlpool workers later the same day. He was whistled and booed when he first arrived. But he stood his ground, patiently debating workers in often heated exchanges about how to stop French jobs from moving abroad.

In a country shaken by recent terror attacks, he pledged to boost the police and military as well as the intelligence services and to put pressure on internet giants to better monitor extremism online.

To improve Europe's security, he wants the EU to deploy some 5,000 European border guards to the external borders of the bloc's passport-free travel zone.

Macron did not campaign alone: His wife was never far away. Brigitte Macron, 24 years his senior, is his closest adviser, supporting him and helping prepare his speeches.

Macron and his wife have publicly described how their unusual romance started — when he was a student at the high school where she was teaching in Amiens in northern France. A married mother of three at the time, she was supervising the drama club. Macron, a literature lover, was a member.

Macron moved to Paris for his last year of high school.

"We called each other all the time. We spent hours on the phone, hours and hours," Brigitte Macron recalled in a televised documentary. "Little by little, he overcame all my resistances in an unbelievable way, with patience."

She eventually moved to the French capital to join him and divorced. They married in 2007. Emmanuel Macron says he wants to formalize the job of first lady, adding "she has her word to say in this."

Following his victory speech in the courtyard of the Louvre, his wife appeared on stage by his side, with tears in her eyes.

___

AP video journalist David Keyton contributed to the story.

source: philstar.com

Bettors putting money on underdog Le Pen

PARIS — The Latest on France's presidential runoff on Sunday between centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen (all times local):

4:50 p.m.

The British-based betting firm Ladbrokes says far-right candidate Marine Le Pen is attracting 90 percent of the bets on the eve of the French presidential election, as people gamble that France is in line for an upset.

The betting firm said yesterday despite the polls favoring her centrist rival, Emmanuel Macron, gamblers are putting money on the idea that France may be in line for a political shock similar to Britain's decision to leave the European Union or Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election.

Le Pen's odds are 6-1. Macron is at 1-10 odds.

Nicola McGeady of Ladbrokes says with "so many political upsets in recent times, we are not surprised to see punters ignoring the polls. Le Pen is attracting the weight of money."


___

3:50 p.m.

France's election campaign commission says "a significant amount of data" has been leaked on social networks following a hacking attack on centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron's campaign some 36 hours before voting starts in Sunday's runoff.

The commission says yesterday the data leaked apparently came from Macron's "information systems and mail accounts from some of his campaign managers." The watchdog says the leaked data has been "fraudulently" obtained and that fake news has probably been mingled in with it.

It urged French media and citizens "not to relay" the contents of the leaked documents "in order not to alter the sincerity of the vote."

French electoral laws impose a blackout yesterday and most of Sunday on any campaigning and media coverage seen as swaying the election.

Macron is seen as the favorite going into Sunday's runoff against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.

___

11 a.m.

Voting in the French presidential runoff has begun in France's overseas territories amid a nationwide blackout on campaigning and media coverage that could sway voters' views. It moves to the mainland on Sunday.

The first French territory involved in the early voting was Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, an archipelago located near the Canadian island of Newfoundland, where polling stations opened yesterday morning.

Early voting in other far-flung French overseas territories and French embassies abroad was expected later in the day.

In the presidential runoff, voters are choosing between centrist Emmanuel Macron's business-friendly, pro-European vision and far-right Marine Le Pen's protectionist, closed-borders view that resonates with workers left behind by globalization.

___

10 a.m.

France's election campaign watchdog is investigating a hacking attack and document leak targeting presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron that his political movement calls a last-ditch bid to disrupt Sunday's tense runoff vote.

Fears of hacking and campaign interference have simmered throughout France's high-stakes, closely watched campaign — and boiled over Friday night as Macron's team said it had been the victim of a "massive and coordinated" hack.

His political movement said the unidentified hackers accessed staffers' personal and professional emails and leaked campaign finance material and contracts — as well as fake decoy documents — online.

The perpetrators remain unknown. It's unclear whether the document dump would dent Macron's large poll lead over far-right rival Marine Le Pen going into the vote.

___

6 a.m.

The French presidential campaign has been unusually bitter, with voters hurling eggs and flour, protesters clashing with police and candidates insulting each other on national television — a reflection of the widespread public disaffection with politics.

Marine Le Pen, 48, has brought her far-right National Front party, once a pariah for its racism and anti-Semitism, closer than ever to the French presidency, seizing on working-class voters' growing frustration with globalization and immigration. Even if she loses in Sunday's runoff, she is likely to be a powerful opposition figure in France's parliamentary election in June.

On Sunday she faces 39-year-old centrist Emmanuel Macron, who also helped upend France's traditional political structure with his wild-card campaign.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Friday, Le Pen said, win or lose, "we changed everything."

Many voters, however, don't like either Le Pen or Macron. They fear her party's racist past while worrying that his platform would demolish worker job protections.

source: philstar.com

Le Pen and Macron clash in no holds-barred debate in France

PARIS — The only face-to-face televised debate between France's presidential candidates turned into an uncivil, no-holds-barred head-on clash of styles, politics and personalities Wednesday.

Emmanuel Macron called his far-right opponent Marine Le Pen a "parasite" who would lead the country into civil war. She painted the former banker as a lackey of big business who is soft on Islamic extremism.

Neither landed a knockout blow in the 2½-hour prime-time slugfest — but not for lack of trying. The tone was ill-tempered from the get-go, with no common ground or love lost between the two candidates and their polar opposite plans and visions for France. Both sought to destabilize each other and neither really succeeded.

For the large cohort of voters who remain undecided, the debate at least had the merit of making abundantly clear the stark choice facing them at the ballot box Sunday.

Neither candidate announced major shifts in their policy platforms. They instead spent much of their carefully monitored allotments of time attacking each other — often personally.

Le Pen's choicest barb came as she argued that Macron, if elected, would be in the pocket of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "Either way France will be led by a woman; either me or Madame Merkel," she said derisively.


Macron gave as good as he got and, at times, got the upper hand with his pithy slights. In the closing minutes, he used a sharp-tongued monologue to target one of Le Pen's biggest vulnerabilities: her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the extreme-right former presidential candidate repeatedly convicted for hate speech and who founded her party, the National Front.

Throughout, Macron portrayed Marine Le Pen as an empty shell, shaky on details and facts, seeking to profit politically by stirring up hatred and the anger of French voters — a dominant theme of the campaign — without feasible proposals. He called her "the high priestess of fear."

"Your project consists of telling the French people, 'This person is horrible.' It's to cast dirt. It's to lead a campaign of lies and falsifications. Your project lives off fear and lies. That's what sustains you. That's what sustained your father for decades. That's what nourished the extreme right and that is what created you," Macron said. "You are its parasite."

"What class!" Le Pen retorted.

One of the most heated exchanges was on terrorism — a top concern for Le Pen's voters and many French in the wake of repeated attacks since 2015. Saying that Islamic extremists must be "eradicated," Le Pen said Macron wouldn't be up to the task.

"You won't do that," she charged.

Saying France's fight against terror would be his priority if elected, Macron countered that Le Pen's anti-terror plans would play into extremists' hands and divide France.

"The trap they're setting for us, the one that you're proposing, is civil war. What the terrorists expect is division among ourselves. What the terrorists expect is heinous speech," Macron said.

Sitting opposite one another at a round table, the debate quickly became a shouting match. She had piles of notes in colored folders, and referred to them occasionally. His side of the table was sparser, with just a few sheets of paper. He at times rested his chin on his hands as she spoke, fixing her in his gaze and smiling wryly at her barbs.

They clashed over France's finances, its future and their respective proposals for tackling its ills. He scoffed at her monetary plans, saying reintroducing a franc for purchases within France but allowing big firms to continue using the shared euro currency that Le Pen wants to abandon made no sense.

She dismissed his economic proposals with sweeping critiques and bristled at his suggestions that she didn't understand how finance and business work.

"You're trying to play with me like a professor with a pupil," she said.

They also clashed over foreign policy. Macron said he wants to work with U.S. President Donald Trump on intelligence-sharing, at the United Nations and on climate change. He spoke less favorably of Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying on many subjects "we don't have the same values and priorities."

"We have no reason to be in a cold war with Russia," Le Pen said.

He said that her election would harm France's image abroad, charging: "The world won't look favorably on us."

While Macron was borderline patronizing at times, she sought — but failed — to make it seem like he has trouble controlling his temper, which stayed fairly even throughout.

"You're interrupting me about every 10 seconds. I sense you're a bit exasperated," she said.

The debate offered risk and reward for both. A major trip-up or meltdown beamed direct into the homes of millions of electors could have dented their presidential ambitions in the closing stages of the intense campaign that has already steered France into uncharted territory. The first round of voting on April 23 eliminated mainstream parties from the left and right and propelled the 39-year-old Macron, who has no major party backing, and the 48-year-old Le Pen into the winner-takes-all runoff on Sunday.

Trailing in polls, Le Pen needed but failed to land a knockout blow in the debate to erode the seemingly comfortable lead of Macron, the front-runner who topped round one, nearly three points ahead of Le Pen.

For Macron, the priority was to prevent Le Pen from making up ground in the race's final days. Mission accomplished.

___

Associated Press writers Elaine Ganley and Sylvie Corbet contributed to this report.

source: philstar.com

Up to 80, including children, killed as truck plows into crowd in French resort city of Nice

NICE, France --Up to 80 people were killed when a truck plowed into a crowd watching a Bastille Day fireworks display in the southern French resort of Nice late Thursday.

French President Francois Hollande, in a televised address, said "several children" were among the dead as he extended the state of emergency in the country for three months, stressing the "terrorist nature" of the attack was "undeniable."

The latest death toll, which had steadily risen since the original estimate of 60, was given by French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve who also said 18 of the estimated hundred injured were in a "critical condition."

Nice prosecutor Jean-Michel Pretre said the truck drove two kilometers through a large crowd that was watching the fireworks.

The driver had also opened fire on the crowd, local government chief Christian Estrosi told BFM TV, and weapons and grenades were found inside the truck after he was killed.

If confirmed as an act of terror, the incident will be the third major attack on French soil in 18 months -- with several smaller-scale jihadist killings also having taken place.

Identity papers belonging to a 31-year-old French-Tunisian were found inside the truck, a police source said.

"The identification of the truck driver is still underway," said the source. The identity papers indicate the man is a resident of Nice.

The French government denied there was a hostage-taking incident after the attack.

"There is no hostage-taking," interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told AFP, denying dozens of rumors following the incident. "An individual drove a truck into the crowd. He was killed by police."

"Investigations are currently under way to establish if the individual acted alone or if he had accomplices who might have fled," Brandet said.

Anti-terrorism investigators have taken over the probe, prosecutors said.

Sub-prefect Sebastien Humbert described the incident as a clear criminal attack, although the driver was not yet identified. Residents of the Mediterranean city close to the Italian border were advised to stay indoors. There was no sign of any other attack.

"Dear Nicois," local mayor Christian Estrosi tweeted, "The driver of a truck appears to have killed dozens of people. Stay at home for the time being. More news to follow."

The incident comes as France remains badly shaken by November 2015 attacks which killed 130 people at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris and nightspots across the city.

An AFP reporter described seeing a white truck driving at high speed onto the famed Promenade des Anglais as people were leaving.

"We saw people hit and bits of debris flying around," he said.

Terrified pedestrians screamed as they fled the area. "It was absolute chaos," he added.

Regional newspaper Nice Matin quoted its reporter at the scene saying there were many injured people and blood on the street. It published a photograph of a damaged, long-distance delivery truck, which it said was riddled with bullets and images of emergency services treating the injured.

Damien Allemand, the paper's correspondent, was quoted as saying: "People are running. It's panic. He rode up onto the Prom and piled into the crowd ... There are people covered in blood. There must be many injured."

Social media carried images of people lying apparently lifeless in pools of blood.

US President Barack Obama condemned "what appears to be a horrific terrorist attack", although no group had claimed responsibility for the incident.

US government agencies have received constant reports of Islamic State threats to attack France and those threats are regarded as current, a US security official said. However, two US officials said they had no information at this point about whether militants were involved in the Nice incident.

CNN said it has spoken to a witness, identified as an American pilot, who saw the truck ramming the crowd. The witness said the driver mowed people down, accelerating as he hit them. The witness said there was only one person in the truck.

Local mayor Estrosi has warned in the past of the risk of Islamist attacks in the region, following Islamic State bloodshed in Paris and Brussels over the past 18 months.

French President Francois Hollande, who was in the south of France at the time, had hours earlier said a state of emergency put in place after the Paris attacks in November would not be extended when it was due to expire on July 26.

"We can't extend the state of emergency indefinitely, it would make no sense. That would mean we're no longer a republic with the rule of law applied in all circumstances," Hollande told journalists in a traditional Bastille Day interview.

source: interaksyon.com

Paris vies to overtake London as finance hub post-Brexit

PARIS - British Prime Minister David Cameron once gleefully offered to "roll out the red carpet" for French executives wanting to escape staggering wealth taxes.

Now, with London's red carpet fraying after the Brexit vote to leave the European Union, Paris is stepping in to welcome bankers, investors and businesses who may want to escape the uncertainty hanging over the City's role as a global finance hub.

"In this new environment which is taking shape, we want France to be attractive," Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Wednesday.

As competition grows among Europe's capitals to benefit from the financial fallout of Brexit, Valls unveiled a series of measures to boost the allure of Paris.

Notably, he confirmed plans to cut France's corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 33 percent, a move previously announced by President Francois Hollande.

Britain's vote to leave the European Union "created shockwaves, for all European citizens but also, in a very concrete manner, many businesses settled in the United Kingdom," Valls said.

Valls said he wanted to improve the tax and legal framework to "welcome even more companies (and) make Paris the capital of smart finance."

The prime minister announced a tweak to a system allowing foreign employees to benefit from tax reductions, making it applicable for eight years instead of five.

Beyond these fiscal measures, the government also plans to put in place a "single entry point" to facilitate administrative matters for foreign companies seeking to set up shop in France -- where red tape can be a nightmare to navigate.

This service will help companies with questions about real estate, residency permits, schools and other issues.

Valls said France would open "as many international sections as needed in schools" to allow children of foreign employees to be taught in their mother tongue.

The Brexit vote has several European capitals clamoring to take London's spot as a major finance center, such as Frankfurt, Luxembourg and Dublin.

France is traditionally perceived as "anti-business", with its inflexible and hard-to-understand labor code.

According to the World Bank's 2016 "Ease of Doing Business" report, France ranks 27th out of 189 countries, while Britain comes in sixth.

'Supertax'

The Socialist government came into power in 2012 promising as 75 percent "supertax" on top earners -- which sent the rich fleeing -- and became another symbol of France's opposition to big business.

However the measure was slowly watered down and quietly dropped in 2015, as it failed to do much to boost a stagnating economy.

Hollande has since steered his government on a wildly different path to stimulate the economy, with a series of economic and labour reforms that have enraged the left flank of his party, which now accuses him of being too pro-business.

As an indication of how difficult the reforms have been, Valls had to force both sets of reforms through parliament without a vote using a special constitutional measure.

source: interaksyon.com

Rare Ming dynasty Buddhas sold at French auction for over 6 million euros

BORDEAUX, France - A set of three Buddha sculptures from the 15th-century Ming dynasty went under the hammer in France on Saturday for more than 6.2 million euros, over 10 times the estimated sale price, the auction house said, in a flourishing market for Chinese art.

An Asian collector snapped up the three gilded bronze pieces, which had initially been expected to fetch between 400,000 and 600,000 euros.

The three seated Buddhas were offered for sale along with other pieces from a private collection originating in China and Tibet between 1910 and 1925, the auction house in Bordeaux, southwestern France, said.

"These works of great rarity aroused much interest from... international collectors including many Chinese," it said.

"They were acquired for a sum of 6,292,000 euros ($6.9 million) by an Asian collector who was present at the auction," it added.

In June 2015, an 18th-century Chinese scroll attributed to the painter Gu Quan sold for 5.5 million euros at Christie's in Paris.

In April 2013, a 17th-century painting on Chinese silk was sold by Briscadieu for 3.3 million euros.

source: interaksyon.com

'Facebook DISABLED my account,' says woman named ISIS

MANILA - There's a woman from San Francisco who recently reported that the social media network Facebook disabled – but later reinstated – her account because of her name: Isis.

The name happens to be the same as the popular moniker of ISIS – The Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), that is currently hogging the news headlines in the wake of its waves of terror attacks in Paris.

In the Tech News section of the British-published Express (http://www.express.co.uk), Aaron Brown wrote on Wednesday (November 18): "Isis Anchalee claims her profile was removed by Facebook because of her name."

Brown observed that the news comes days after Facebook rolled out the ability to overlay the French flag on users' profile pictures, to show solidarity with France.

 

ISIS is also known as The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), described by various sources as a Wahhabi/Salafi jihadist extremist militant group, self-proclaimed to be a caliphate and Islamic state, led by and mainly composed of Sunni Arabs from Iraq and Syria.

"Isis Anchalee – an engineer based in San Francisco, California – claims Facebook disabled her account because she shares her name with a popular abbreviation for Islamic State," Brown added in his report.

Read it here.

In the wake of the terror implications, Brown noted that Facebook had been "hard at work trying to eradicate the presence of Islamic State, dubbed ISIS, on the hugely popular US social network.

"Unfortunately the San Francisco engineer appears to have been mixed up in its efforts."

Anchalee was reportedly asked to prove her identity three times to Facebook.

"As a result, Facebook has since reinstated Isis Anchalee's profile on the hugely successful social network."

source: interaksyon.com

Anonymous hacking network declares war on IS

PARIS, France — The Anonymous hacking network declared war on the Islamic State in a Youtube video Monday, sparking a combative response from the jihadist group’s affiliates, a security expert said.

The “hacktivist” collective vowed vengeance for attacks in Paris on Friday, claimed by IS, that left 129 dead and hundreds injured, some of them critically.

“Anonymous everywhere in the world is going to hunt you down,” a hooded figure in black, wearing the group’s signature Guy Fawkes mask said in French.

It was not possible to verify its authenticity, but the statement and video had the hallmarks of the network, known for mounting cyberattacks against government and corporate websites.

“Our country, France, was hit in Paris on November 13 around 2200 (2100 GMT) by multiple terrorist attacks claimed by you, the Islamic State,” the figure said in a gravelly, computer-altered voice.

“We are going to launch the biggest operation every mounted against you — get ready for a multitude of cyberattacks. War has been declared.”

Counterproductive

The video, posted the day after the attacks, had more than 1.3 million views by Monday afternoon.

In an apparent riposte, a message posted on the Twitter address of the messaging service Telegram calls on Islamic State affiliates to secure their Internet communications.

“The #Anonymous hackers threatened… that they will carry out a major hack operation on the Islamic state (idiots),” the message said.

“So U should follow the instructions below to avoid being hacked,” it continued, advising followers to avoid opening unknown links and to frequently change computers and phones.

Charlie Winter, a researcher in transnational jihadism at UK-based think tank Quilliam, affirmed the message’s authenticity in a tweet.

“@GroupAnon, IS didn’t like your declaration of war,” he wrote, referring to one of Anonymous’ Twitter addresses.

“Here’s what they’re saying on @telegram. Use it against them.”

French cybersecurity expert Olivier Laurelli warned the Anonymous action against the jihadist organisation could interfere with police efforts to identify and track its members.

“It’s counterproductive,” he told AFP. Actions that force Islamic State operatives “to close accounts just renders police investigators blind and dead for certain things.”

It is helpful, for example, to know that certain accounts are based in France, Syria or Iraq, he said.

Being able to identify connections and communications between individuals is also critical. But if Anonymous forces accounts to shut down, investigators are left with dead ends.

Besdies, the impact is only temporary, he added. “An account closed here, is just another one opened over there,” he said.

The nearly three-minute Anonymous clip opens with thundering orchestral music, displaying the Anonymous logo of a suited figure with a question mark for a head.

The speaker, seated like a news presenter, is flanked by the logo on one side and black-and-white news footage of the aftermath of the attacks, on the other.

France led a minute’s silence observed around the world on Monday in memory of the victims of the worst-ever terror attacks on French soil.

President Francois Hollande and his cabinet, all dressed in black, bowed their heads at the Sorbonne University in Paris, surrounded by scores of students.

The attacks — at six locations in and near Paris — came less than 11 months after jihadists struck satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket, killing 17.

source: interaksyon.com

France police raid homes, vow it's 'just the beginning'

PARIS - Police raided homes of suspected Islamist militants across France overnight following the Paris attacks, and a source close to the investigation said a Belgian national in Syria was suspected of orchestrating Friday's mayhem.

Prosecutors said one of the killers had been stopped and fingerprinted in Greece last month, fuelling speculation the Islamic State had taken advantage of the recent influx of refugees fleeing the Middle East to slip militants into Europe.

The Paris carnage, which killed 129 people, has led to calls for the European Union to close its borders to asylum seekers.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned France could be hit by new violence but said the Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for the attacks in retaliation for French airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, would never win.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told journalists on Monday police arrested 23 people and seized arms including rocket launchers in 168 raids overnight. Another 104 people were put under house arrest, he said.

"Let this be clear to everyone, this is just the beginning, these actions are going to continue," Cazeneuve said.

French warplanes pounded Islamic State positions in its Syrian stronghold Raqqa late Sunday -- its biggest such strike since it started assaults as part of a US-led mission launched in 2014.

The investigation into the coordinated Paris attacks, the worst atrocity in France since World War Two, led swiftly to Belgium after police discovered that two of the cars used by the militants had been rented in the Brussels region.

By Sunday, Belgian officials said they had arrested seven people in Brussels, while another man -- one of three brothers believed to have been involved in the plot -- was being hunted.

A source close to the investigation said Belgian national Abdelhamid Abaaoud, currently in Syria, was suspected of having ordered the Paris operation. "He appears to be the brains behind several planned attacks in Europe," the source told Reuters.

French prosecutors say they have identified five of the seven suicide attackers who died on Friday. Four were French, while the fifth man was fingerprinted in Greece in October and was possibly Syrian.

Valls said that since this summer, French intelligence services had prevented five attacks.

"We know that more attacks are being prepared, not just against France but also against other European countries," Valls told RTL radio. "We are going to live with this terrorist threat for a long time."

Syrian connection

The death toll was revised back down to 129 following a counting error. Dozens of people remain in intensive care.

France has declared three days of national mourning and President Francois Hollande will make a rare address to the joint upper and lower houses of parliament later in the day at the Palace of Versailles, just outside Paris.

Schools in Paris re-opened on Monday, and many museums were due to open their doors in the afternoon after a 48-hour shutdown, but some popular tourist sites, including Disneyland, remained closed.

Police have named just two French attackers -- Ismael Omar Mostefai, 29, from Chartres, southwest of Paris, and Samy Amimour, 28, from the Paris suburb of Drancy. Media named the two other French assailants as Bilal Hadfi and Ibrahim Abdeslam.

The man stopped in Greece in October was carrying a Syrian passport in the name of Ahmad Al Mohammad. Police said they were still checking to see if the document was authentic, but said the dead man's fingerprints matched those on record in Greece.

Greek officials said the passport holder had crossed from Turkey to the Greek islands last month and then registered for asylum in Serbia before heading north, following a route taken by hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers this year.

The news revived a furious row within the European Union on how to handle the flood of refugees. Top Polish and Slovak officials poured cold water on an EU plan to relocate asylum seekers across the bloc, saying the violence underlined their concerns about taking in Muslim refugees.

Britain announced on Monday it would boost its intelligence agency staff by 15 percent and more than double spending on aviation security to defend against Islamist militants plotting attacks from Syria.

A source in British Prime Minister David Cameron's office said police had foiled one attack against the country last month.

Valls said the French authorities would use every means at their disposal to counter the Islamist threat, adding that mosques harboring extremists would be shuttered and foreigners expelled if they "held unacceptable views against the republic". (Additional reporting by Matthias Blamont, John Irish, Leigh Thomas, Ingrid Melander, Michael Nienaber, Marine Pennetier, Robert-Jan Bartunek and Claire Watson)

source: interaksyon.com

Scenes of horror as a Paris night becomes a bloodbath

PARIS — The assailants' weapons were those of war: automatic rifles and suicide belts of explosives. The killing was indiscriminate, spread across a swath of the city, in at least six different sites. An ordinary Friday night in Paris transformed into a bloodbath. The word Parisians used over and over as they tried to make sense of the horror was "carnage."

At the packed Bataclan concert hall in eastern Paris, the attackers opened fire on a crowd waiting to hear American rock band Eagles of Death Metal perform. One witness told France Info radio he heard them yell "Allahu Akbar" — God is great in Arabic — as they started their killing spree and took hostages. The city's police chief, Michel Cadot, said the assailants also wore explosive belts, which they detonated.

About a mile (1.5 kilometers) from there, attackers sprayed gunfire at the Belle Equipe bar, busy as ever on a Friday night with patrons unwinding from their week. One witness, also speaking to French radio, said the dead and wounded dropped "like flies" and that "there was blood everywhere. You feel very alone in moments like that."

The preliminary death toll there appeared to be 18 dead, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said. White sheets were laid over bodies.

To the north, loud explosions reverberated around the national stadium, packed with some 80,000 fans watching France beat Germany in a soccer exhibition match. One of the loud detonations in the chill air so startled French player Patrice Evra that he paused in mid-run, seemingly lost, and kicked away the ball.

A police union official, Gregory Goupil, said the two explosions were suicide attacks and a bombing that killed at least three people — near two of the entrances to the stadium and a McDonalds. The stadium was the first site targeted.


From there, the wave of killings quickly spread.

There were 14 dead on one street, five on another, Molins said. The spread of the killings added to the confusion and made a coherent picture slow to form. But the shock was instantaneous, as was the understanding that this was terror and killing on a scale unseen in Paris since World War II.

"The terrorists, the assassins, sprayed the outsides of several cafes with machine guns and went inside," Cadot, the police chief, said. "So there were victims in terrible and atrocious states in numerous places."

Pierre-Henri Lombard was dining in a restaurant in the trendy neighborhood when he heard sounds like the fireworks for France's Bastille Day national holiday.

Then the panic began.

"Waiters went outside and said it was a shooting. We saw dozens of people rundown the street, a couple were bleeding," he said.

As police, soldiers and the emergency services sprang into action, sirens wailing, helicopters whirring overhead, medical personnel started reporting for work of their own accord to help treat the injured. Five subway lines were shut down entirely, and Paris police told people to stay at home and avoid going out unless absolutely necessary.

At the Bataclan, police launched an assault to free hostages. Haggard-looking survivors were bused away.

At the stadium, fans streamed onto the pitch after the match, preferring the relative safety of inside of the stadium to the chaos outside. Police forensic officers dressed in white scoured the blast sites for evidence.

French President Francois Hollande was quickly evacuated from the stadium and soon after declared a state of emergency.

___

Greg Keller, Samuel Petrequin and Sylvie Corbet contributed to this report.

source: philstar.com

18-year old linked to Charlie Hebdo attack hands himself in to police

PARIS -- An 18-year old man sought by police over Wednesday's shooting attack at satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo handed himself voluntarily to police in northeastern France, an official at the Paris prosecutor's office said.

Police are hunting three French nationals, including brothers Said Kouachi, born in 1980; Cherif Kouachi, born in 1982; and Hamyd Mourad born in 1996, after suspected Islamist gunmen killed 12 people.

The official, who declined to identify the man, said he had turned himself in at a police station in Charleville-Mézières, in northeastern France at around 2300 GMT.

BFM TV, citing unidentified sources, said the man had decided to go to the police after seeing his name in social media. It said other arrests had taken place in circles linked to the two brothers.

source: interaksyon.com

Malaysia says French satellite detects debris in plane search area

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia said Sunday it had received new satellite data from France indicating floating objects in the search area for a missing Malaysian jet in the southern Indian Ocean.

The Transport Ministry said the information had been passed on to Australian authorities who are coordinating the search for the plane, now focused on a remote stretch of ocean 2,500 kilometres (1,562 miles) southwest of Perth.

The ministry said the latest data came in the form of images but France's foreign ministry later clarified this, saying it came in the form of "satellite-generated radar echoes".

A radar echo is an electronic signal that contains information about the location and distance of the object which bounces the signal back.

According to the French statement, the debris was floating around 2,300 kilometres from Perth.

It said France would increase its satellite capacity to continue the search in the zone.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard.

Malaysia, which later revealed the plane turned back over the Malaysian peninsula after losing contact, has enlisted 25 other countries to help hunt for the plane.

Efforts in recent days have focused on the coast off Australia after previous satellite images of large objects there were released, and a plane spotted a wooden cargo pallet, along with some belts or straps.

source: interaksyon.com