France: New Anti-Terrorism Law Takes Effect

Authored by Soren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

• The new law authorizes prefects to order the closure of mosques or other places of worship for a period of up to six months if preachers are deemed to express "ideas or theories" that "incite violence, hatred or discrimination, provoke the commission of acts of terrorism or express praise for such acts."


• French police and intelligence services are surveilling around 15,000 jihadists living on French soil, Le Journal du Dimanche reported on October 9. Of these, some 4,000 are at "the top of the spectrum" and most likely to carry out an attack.


• Of the 1,900 French jihadists fighting with the Islamic State, as many as one-fifth have received as much as €500,000 ($580,000) in social welfare payments from the French state, Le Figaro revealed on October 26.

French President Emmanuel Macron has formally signed a new counter-terrorism law which gives prefects, police and security forces wide-ranging powers — without the need to seek prior approval from a judge — to search homes, place people under house arrest and close places of worship. The measure also authorizes police to perform identity checks at French borders.

The new law, adopted by the French Senate on October 18, makes permanent many of the previously exceptional measures imposed under a two-year-old state of emergency, which was introduced after the jihadist attacks in Paris in November 2015. That state of emergency was slated to expire on November 1.

During a signing ceremony at the Élysée Palace on October 30, Macron said the compromise measure strikes the right balance between security and respect for civil liberties. Hardliners counter that the new law does not go far enough, while human rights groups complain that it will leave France in a permanent state of emergency.

The new law — Law to Strengthen Internal Security and the Fight Against Terrorism (Loi renforçant la sécurité intérieure et la lutte contre le terrorisme) — consists of seven main parts:

Security Zones. The new law gives prefects, the top government official in each of France"s departments or regions, the power to designate public areas and sporting or cultural events, including music concerts, that are deemed to be at risk of terrorism, as security zones. The law authorizes police to search all persons or vehicles attempting to enter such areas or events. Anyone refusing to submit to such searches will be denied access.

 

Closing Places of Worship. The new law authorizes prefects to order the closure of mosques or other places of worship for a period of up to six months if preachers are deemed to express "ideas or theories" that "incite violence, hatred or discrimination, provoke the commission of acts of terrorism or express praise for such acts." Violations are punishable by six months in prison and a fine of €7,500 ($8,750). Opponents of the law argue that "ideas" and "theories" are subjective and therefore open to abuse.

 

House Arrest. The new law authorizes the Minister of the Interior to confine suspected Islamists, even those who are not accused of a specific crime, to the town or city of their domicile. Any individual for whom there are "serious reasons to believe that his or her conduct constitutes a particularly serious threat to public security and public order," may be placed under house arrest — without the prior approval of a judge — for a period of three months, renewable for additional periods of three months to a maximum period of one year. Individuals subject to such confinement will be required to report to their local police station once a day. Alternatively, individuals may be placed under mobile electronic surveillance. The Minister of the Interior may also prohibit individuals from being in direct or indirect contact with certain persons, named by name, who are believed to pose a threat to public security. Violations of the measures are punishable by three years in prison and a fine of €45,000 ($52,500).

 

Search and Seizure. The new law authorizes a prefect to ask a judge for a warrant to search the home of anyone suspected of posing a threat to public security. The individual being searched may be detained for up to four hours if he or she represents "a threat of particular gravity for security and public order" and has "habitual contact to persons or organizations with terrorist aims" or supports and adheres to ideas inciting to such acts. The law also authorizes police to seize any documents, objects or electronic data at the place being searched.

 

Radicalized Public Servants. A civil servant working in fields related to national security or defense can be transferred or even dismissed from the public service if he or she is found to hold beliefs that are "incompatible with the exercise of his or her duties." Soldiers can also be discharged for similar motives.

 

Electronic Surveillance and Data Collection. The new law authorizes the Minister of the Interior, the Minister of Defense and the Minister of Transport to collect the telephone and email communications of suspicious individuals "for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offenses and serious crimes." The law also allows security services to access travel information, including from travel agencies, about airline and maritime passengers. Data collection "shall exclude personal data that may reveal a person"s racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, political opinions, trade union membership, or data relating to the health or sexual life of the person concerned."

 

Border Checks. The new law authorizes police to conduct warrantless identity checks at more than 118 border areas and 373 airports, seaports and train stations, as well as the surrounding areas up to a radius of 20 kilometers. This encompasses 28.6% of French territory and 67% of the French population, according to Le Monde. Critics say this includes many mainly immigrant suburbs and could lead to harassment of ethnic minorities.

Macron insisted that the new law will allow authorities to combat terrorism "without abandoning our values and principles" and that it will enshrine "full and permanent respect for France"s constitutional order and traditions of liberty." He also pledged to review the law in two years and to make any changes deemed necessary.

Pictured: Police patrol the Champs-Élysées in Paris after a terrorist attack on April 21, 2017, in which one police officer was killed and another wounded. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the anti-immigration National Front party, criticized the law for being too weak:

"This law is a scam, it is a sub-state of emergency, we will not vote for this harmful text. It will be even less effective than the state of emergency because it is less applicable. This text does not address either the specific Islamic dimension of terrorism or the Islamist ideology that has declared war on us."

Civil rights groups, by contrast, complained about what they have described as a "normalization of emergency powers." Human Rights Watch wrote:

"The law takes elements of emergency practices — intrusive search powers, restrictions on individuals that have bordered on house arrest, closure of places of worship — that have been used abusively since November 2015, and makes them normal criminal and administrative practice. It does all this in a way that weakens the judiciary"s control over and ability to check against abuse in the way the new counterterrorism powers are used by prefects, the Interior Ministry"s appointed delegates in each region."

Amnesty International echoed these concerns:

"Rather than ushering in a period of restored freedoms and civil liberties, the legislation threatens to do the opposite by embedding a raft of repressive measures into ordinary law."

The new law has encountered little resistance from the public. A September 26 poll conducted for Le Figaro found that 57% of respondents said they were in favor of the new law; 62% of respondents said the measure will infringe on civil liberties; 85% said it would improve their security.

More than 230 people have been killed in jihadist attacks in France since January 2015, when Islamic radicals attacked the headquarters of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in central Paris.

The latest fatalities occurred on October 1, when a 29-year-old illegal immigrant from Tunisia stabbed two women to death at the central train station in Marseille. The man, identified as Ahmed A., was using seven different identities and had a long history of petty crime. He had been arrested just days before the attack for shoplifting, but those charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence. It remains unclear why he was never deported.

French police and intelligence services are surveilling around 15,000 jihadists living on French soil, Le Journal du Dimanche reported on October 9. Of these, some 4,000 are at "the top of the spectrum" and most likely to carry out an attack.

Of the 1,900 French jihadists fighting with the Islamic State, as many as one-fifth have received as much as €500,000 ($580,000) in social welfare payments from the French state, Le Figaro revealed on October 26.

Four American Tourists Attacked With Acid In Marseilles Train Station, Suspect Arrested

Four young female U.S. tourists were attacked with acid Sunday in the French city of Marseille by a woman with "deep psychological problems" who has been arrested, the Marseille prosecutor"s office said according to AP. 

The attack took place shortly after 11am at the Gare de Marseille-Saint-Charles station, where the party from the US was preparing to board a train. The 41-year-old attacker used a cleaning substance containing hydrochloric acid that she is thought to have picked up from a local DIY store.

Two of the tourists were injured in the face in the attack in the city"s main Saint Charles train station and one of them has a possible eye injury, a spokeswoman for the Marseille prosecutor"s office said.  All four of the tourists, who are in their 20s, have been hospitalized, two of them for shock. She said a 41 -year-old female suspect has been arrested.

After carrying out the assault, the woman displayed photos of her own burns, allegedly picked up in an earlier incident. ‘Two American women aged 20 were hit in the face, while the other two were sprayed in the legs, and were mainly suffering from shock,’ said a source close to the case quoted by the Daily Mail. The two with facial injuries were taken to hospital, while the others were treated at the scene. They were also aged 20 or 21. The Americans were thought to be on their way from the southern Mediterranean city to Paris.

The attacker wanted to show off photographs of her own injuries.  She was arrested at the scene and faces charges. She displayed clear signs of suffering from deep psychological problems, according to local prosecutors. According to witnesses, no slogans were shouted out during the attack, and it was not thought to be terrorist related.

Prosecutors have opened a criminal enquiry, while none of those involved have yet been named. There was no immediate information on where the U.S. tourists were from.

Corrosive substances are increasingly being used as weapons in Europe, including in Britain, where there were 450 such attacks in London alone in last year. Acid-based products are easy to purchase, and can be paid for in cash, so there is no trace of who bought them.

In previous incidents in Marseille, a driver deliberately rammed into two bus stops last month, killing a woman, but officials said it wasn"t terror-related. According to AP, in April, French police say they thwarted an imminent "terror attack" and arrested two suspected radicals in Marseille just days before the first round of France"s presidential election. Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters the two suspects "were getting ready to carry out an imminent, violent action" on French territory. In January 2016, a 15-year-old Turkish Kurd was arrested after attacking a Jewish teacher on a Marseille street. He told police he acted in the name of the Islamic State group.

France: Churches Vanish, Mosques Spring Up

Authored by Giulio Meotti via The Gatestone Institute,

• In the last 30 years, more mosques and Muslim prayer centers have been built in France than all the Catholic churches built in the last century.


• The Church of Santa Rita used to stand in the fifteenth arrondissement of Paris. A few weeks after Father Hamel was murdered by Islamic terrorists, the French police cleared the church. It is now a parking lot. Police dragged the priests out by their legs as a Mass was being celebrated.


• In France there are laws protecting old trees. But the state is free to flatten old Christian churches. The vacuums created in the French landscape are already being filled by the booming mosques. Cowardly French authorities would never treat Islam as they are now treating Christianity.

"France is not a random space... fifteen centuries of history and geography determined its personality. Inscribed in the depths of our landscape, the churches, the cathedrals and other places of pilgrimage give meaning and form to our patriotism. Let us demand our civil authorities to respect it". Two years ago, the French journalist Denis Tillinac promoted this appeal, signed by dozens of French personalities, after some French imams requested the conversion of abandoned churches into mosques.

A year later, terrorists who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State assaulted the Catholic parishioners in the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, murdering an elderly priest, Father Jacques Hamel, at the foot of the altar. An outpouring of great emotion followed the most serious attack on a Christian symbol in Europe since the Second World War.

After that attack, the French authorities prevented many Islamist plots against the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Last June, police shot a Muslim man outside the cathedral after he tried to attack them with a hammer. Another terror cell of French women, guided by Islamic State commanders in Syria, had previously been foiled before they could attack Notre Dame. France"s most famous Catholic house of worship is a prime target for the jihadists. A t the same time, France has been dismissing the religious and cultural heritage of France"s Catholic patrimony, which, in a time of religious clashes and revival, should instead be protected as treasures and sources of strength.

Last month, around the time of the first anniversary of the murder of Father Hamel, a wrecking crew demolished the famed Chapel of Saint Martin in Sablé-sur-Sarthe, built in 1880-1886 and deconsecrated in 2015. A parking lot will replace the old Christian building. Photographs and videos posted on social networks, in scenes reminiscent of ISIS" vandalism of churches in Mosul, show the cross being ripped from the church and the church destroyed. A few days earlier, in Rouen, not far from where Father Hamel had been killed, the local authorities ordered the destruction of the Saint-Nicaise Church"s presbytery, for "safety reasons".

The Chapel of Saint Martin in Sablé-sur-Sarthe, France, pictured shortly before it was demolished on July 17, 2017. (Image source: Simon de l"Ouest/Wikimedia Commons)

In 1907, the French state appropriated all church property, and now an increasing numbers of local authorities are deciding they cannot or will not renovate their churches. French mayors call this process "deconstruction".

The year of Father Hamel"s martyrdom, France was very busy demolishing churches. The Patrimoine-en-blog website, a platform providing a regular inventory of demolished churches, reports seven demolished churches in France in 2016 alone, and two in the first half of 2017. Along with these destroyed Christian buildings, 26 churches were put up for sale in 2016, and 12 churches were listed for sale in 2015. In 2017, many churches were converted to offices, apartments, "entertainment centers", gyms and art galleries.

The picture is not promising for French Catholicism:

"Over the past two years, Christian associations have sold nearly 40 churches throughout the country, at prices ranging from 100,000 to 400,000 euros. Twenty-seven other churches have been demolished. According to the Catholic Church, more than 1,000 churches are to be sold or demolished throughout France".

According to a report from the Observatory of Religious Heritage, presented at the French Senate, France could lose "5,000 to 10,000 religious buildings by 2030". Every year, 20 churches are sold and converted in France. The art historian Didier Rykner, who runs La Tribune de l"Art, said that "not since the Second World War have we seen churches reduced to rubble".

These authorities and mayors, so lenient when it comes to presenting economic reasons for destroying churches, are always generous when it comes to mosques. "Nearly 2,400 mosques today, compared to 1,500 in 2003, is the most visible sign of the rapid growth of Islam in France, a consequence of a population of immigrant origin and the process of strong re-Islamization", noted an report by the magazine Valeurs Actuelles.

When it comes to Islam, neutrality is abandoned. For example, "the municipality of Évreux voted for the provision of 5000 square-meters of land, for one symbolic euro, for the project of the Union of the Muslim Faith". The author and journalist Élisabeth Schemla detailed how French mayors have become "builders of mosques". This is how, in the last 30 years, more mosques and Muslim prayer centers have been built in France than all the Catholic churches built in the last century.

The Church of Santa Rita used to stand in the fifteenth arrondissement of Paris. A few weeks after Father Hamel was assassinated by the Islamic terrorists, the French police cleared the church. It is now a parking lot. Police dragged out the priests by their legs as a Mass was being celebrated. "When France is moved by the martyrdom of Jacques Hamel and [then Prime Minister] Manuel Valls speaks of financing mosques and training imams, we do not understand that churches are abandoned to their sad fate and demolished", Eloise Lenesley wrote at the time in Le Figaro.

In France, there are laws protecting old trees from indiscriminate cutting. But the state is free to flatten old Christian churches. The vacuums created in the French landscape are already being filled by the booming mosques.

Cowardly French authorities would never treat Islam as they are now treating Christianity. Marine Le Pen pointedly asked: "What if we built parking lots on top of Salafist mosques, instead of our churches?"

An Angry, "Irritated" Italy Loses Patience With Macron Over Migrants, Libya

One week after the latest Ifop poll showed that French president Macron"s approval rating tumbled by 10 points in his third month, with only Jacques Chirac sliding more from his May 1995 election to July of that year according to Journal du Dimanche...

... the young president"s troubles are spilling outside France"s borders, and as VoA reports, even as Merkel"s political infatuation with Macron grows by the day, Italy is quickly falling out of love with Macron as  irritation with France’s president is mounting in Rome. At the center of the rising tensions is Italy displeasure with how Europe is handling the country"s refugee crisis: tensions have crept into diplomatic relations between France and the government of Paolo Gentiloni, prompted by Macron’s response to Italian pleas for more European assistance with the mainly sub-Saharan migrants crossing the Mediterranean in record numbers and his largely uncoordinated diplomatic intervention in the past week over the Libya crisis.

On Tuesday, Macron oversaw a meeting in Paris of the leaders of two of war-torn Libya’s rival factions to discuss a political power-sharing deal to reunite the fractured north African country.

President Macron meets Italian PM Paolo at the Elysee Palace in Paris, May 21, 2017

Italy is furious that the meeting between the head of the U.N.-backed government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj  - which has failed to assert authority even in the Libyan capital Tripoli - and General Khalifa Haftar - a warlord who largely controls the east of the lawless country - was not coordinated with the Italian government. As a result, Gentiloni’s ministers took the unusual step of openly criticizing the French president this week, voicing frustrations with Macron’s efforts, which they argue distract from a coordinated U.N. and European Union effort to engineer a political deal in Libya between three rival governments and dozens of militias. 

“There are too many open formats in Libya, too many mediators, too many initiatives,” Italy’s foreign minister, Angelino Alfano, told the Italian newspaper La Stampa.

Alfano and other ministers have been dismissive of the progress the Elysee Palace claimed to have made in the search for a deal in Libya. According to the French government, al-Sarraj and Haftar have committed to a cease-fire as well as to a continued political dialogue in an effort to achieve national reconciliation. The Italians also believe that Macron has fallen into a trap set by General Haftar, who has refused to accept the legitimacy of Fayez al-Sarraj’s government. Italian officials complain that the Macron-brokered meeting helps to legitimize Haftar, whom they see as a warlord and a strongman-in-the-making.

Separately, officials in the Italian capital say Italy is far more of a "front-line" state when it comes to Libya and suffers more immediate impact than France when it comes to political developments on the other side of the Mediterranean, which is why they have been infuriate by France"s brash overtures to take the lead on political negotiations with the civil war-torn state, and have also accused Macron of brashness in waiving off Italian objections, arguing he’s being too high-handed.

It isn"t just Italy.

Accusations of Macron"s high-handedness were also echoed in France, on his approach to a range of issues, domestic and foreign, with one retired general, Vincent Desportes, accusing Macron of “juvenile authoritarianism.”

As VoA adds, Macron’s Libya diplomacy is just one irritant in increasingly tension-filled Franco-Italian relations, in which Macron has been also accused of duplicity and hypocrisy in his diplomatic conduct with Italy. In May, after meeting Gentiloni in Paris, Macron announced: “we have not listened enough to Italy’s cry for help on the migration crisis.” But Macron’s position since hasn’t changed much from Francois Hollande, his predecessor in the Elysee Palace, to the Italian government’s rising anger.

Aside from Libya, an even more pressing issue for Italy has been the ongoing pleas for burden-sharing when it comes to the country"s migrant wave, pelase which have so far fallen on deaf ears among other EU nations. Meanwhile, Italy’s refugee centers and shelters have reached their capacity of 200,000. So far this year nearly 100,000 asylum seekers have crossed the Mediterranean from Libya — a 17 percent increase over the same period last year — and with months more of good weather, another 100,000 asylum seekers are likely to land at Italian ports.

Pointing the finger explicitly at Paris, Italy’s deputy foreign minister, Mario Giro, this month complained, “it doesn’t seem like France wants to help us concretely.”

Italy has reason to be angry: French police have been blocking hundreds of migrants on the Italian side of the border at Ventimiglia from entering France; the French government is refusing to allow asylum seekers rescued in the Mediterranean from landing at French ports and, like nearly every other EU country, France hasn’t come anywhere near meeting its quota of migrants as agreed to under a 2015 EU refugee relocation scheme, even as the EU sues to force Poland, Hungary And Czech Republic to accept more refugees.

Adding insult to injury, earlier in July, Macron talked of distinguishing between war refugees and economic migrants, indicating that France won"t admit any asylum-seekers who are just escaping poverty and hunger. But that doesn’t help Italy as it tries to cope with a mounting influx of mainly economic migrants, who, under EU rule, it has little alternative but to admit, at least for processing and to save lives.

Paris has also scorned an Italian proposal for an EU military mission to monitor and interdict migrants along Libya’s southern border. Italians question why a large French military mission in Niger isn"t being used to disrupt migrant trafficking when it is right by the main route being used by smugglers and would-be asylum seekers traveling north.

Last month, the European Parliament’s most senior left-wing politician, Italian Gianni Pittella, launched a scathing attack on Macron after French police frogmarched back into Italy more than 100 migrants who’d crossed into France.

“The situation is shameful. Italy and the Italians are being abandoned, they’re being expected to deal with all these migrants on their own with no support,” he said.

And even as he loses the support of Europe"s periphery, and certainly the nation which recently surpassed Germany as the largest sovereign debtor in Europe, for now Macron"s precarious political stance is propped up - if only in the diplomatic arena - by Angela Merkel"s (so far) unquestioned admiration and support. Should Macron lose that, however, it may be time to start worrying about the next French presidential election.

Paris' Busiest Train Station Evacuated As Police Search For "Dangerous" Terror Suspects

Paris’ Gare du Nord train station, one of the city"s major transportation hubs and the busiest train station in Europe, was evacuated on Monday as armed police searched for three "dangerous" terror suspects. The station was cordoned off around 11pm local time as dozens of police officers and transport staff evacuated and surrounded the large station in northeast Paris and sealed off all roads leading in as local residents milled around.

????????????#FLASH : Évacuation en cours de la Gare du Nord à #Paris, forte activité policière sur place selon plusieurs témoins (????@rfc1149). pic.twitter.com/32AKnXSinv

— ????Le Globe (@LeGlobe_info) May 8, 2017

The busy station is the terminus of a large suburban and national rail network as well as Eurostar trains from London.

Passengers were confined to trains, according to witnesses cited by the Telegraph. Paris police spokeswoman Johanna Primevert told The Associated Press that the "verification" operation was aimed at “removing doubt” but would not say what prompted it or whether there had been any injuries or arrests.

Something is happening at #GareDuNord train station in Paris.pic.twitter.com/LexA5bfsqH

— Pamela Moore (@Pamela_Moore13) May 8, 2017

French police tweeted that there was an operation underway at the busy station, which is the terminus of a large suburban and national rail network as well as Eurostar trains from London and Thalys lines to and from Brussels and Amsterdam. A Eurostar spokeswoman said the incident did not appear to have any relation to its trains and did not appear to affect its passengers. The operation began after the last Eurostar arrivals and departures late Monday.

Gare du Nord in Paris evacuated pic.twitter.com/LcihDpEiqd

— Charlotte Mason (@masonstoney) May 8, 2017

Dave James Phillips, a 39-year-old technology consultant from Britain, said he was getting off the last train in from London when he saw officers flooding the station. “There were police immediately, and a chap with his hand on his gun,” Phillips told AP. “As we were walking down the platform, one came down and said, ‘Rapide, rapide. Out, out.’”

Phillips said police kept pouring into the station as passengers were hustled out and police buses and unmarked cars were “driving quite dramatically up the road.” Phillips said he had since left the area.

“Hopefully nothing happened,” he said.

According to the Le Parisien newspaper, police proceeded to evacuate and search a specific high speed train from Valenciennes, northern France, with 200 people on board. They were looking for three men that a "partner country" had warned French intelligence last Friday were due to arrive in France where they are suspected of seeking to carry out an imminent attack. According to unconfirmed reports two of the men were thought to be Belgian nationals and one Afghan.

Since then, there have been reported sightings of the trio in Paris, Bordeaux and Marseille, each time prompting a major police operation. This time, the French capital"s daily said, a train conductor and ticket vendor had alerted police to their possible presence.

Security has been particularly tight in the final stages of France"s presidential elections, which ended on Sunday with the election of centrist Emmanuel Macron. France remains under a state of emergency after a string of terror attacks in the last two years left more than 230 dead. The latest occurred on April 20 when an Islamist radical shot dead a policeman on the Champs-Elysées in Paris before being gunned down by other officers.

French Bonds, Euro Spike After French Candidate Bayrou Endorses Macron, Le Pen's Chief Of Staff Detained

Update: as expected Macron has expected Bayrou"s alliance offer, AFP reports. It is still unclear if Bayrou has official withdrawn from the presidential campaign.

* * *

European assets spiked from near session lows, with the Euro and French OATs jumping, dragging Bunds lower and pushing US indices to intraday highs after French politician Francois Bayrou announced he was endorsing Emmanuel Macron in the upcoming presidential election, without saying if he decides not to run.

"This alliance can bring something to the country," Bayrou told reporters, warning that the stakes were too high to have so many candidates in the race for the Elysee. Bayrou, 65, a pro-EU politician who won about 9 percent of first round votes when he ran in the 2012 presidential vote, is polling around 5-6 percent according to some surveys.

Commenting in a press conference in Paris, Bayrou said “we are in such a risky situation and to this situation we need an exceptional answer." He said that he spoke to Macron one week ago. A Macron spokesman was not available for comments.

The reason for the market"s optimistic reaction is that if Bayrou had decided to run, it was expected that he may have eroded some of Macron"s support in both the first and the runoff round, making a Le Pen presidency more likely as she would then have had to face Fillon.That said, according to the latest Elabe poll reported yesterday, Le Pen"s odds would actually increase in the first round should Bayrou drop out, rising from 27% to 28%, to wit:

With Bayrou:

And without.

In any case, the market took the news as favorable, and Bund futures promptly slid around 20 ticks in two minutes, while French 10y bonds jumped, sending yields lower by ~5bps on the session. The German-France 10y spread has also tightened around 5bps, while in the US Treasury bond futures slide from session high.

French German spreads:

And EURUSD:

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, French police detained far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen’s bodyguard and chief of staff in custody on Wednesday for questioning over alleged misuse of European Union funds to pay parliamentary assistants, Le Pen’s lawyer said according to Reuters. Le Pen denounced the latest move in a financial sleaze case that has landed her in the spotlight alongside another leading candidate, Francois Fillon, a right-winger being investigated over public funds he paid to his wife and children.

Wary that her image and lead position in polls of voting intentions could be hurt, Le Pen on Wednesday said she was convinced voters would not fall for what her lawyer Marcel Ceccaldi called a “manipulation” designed to destabilise her.

“The French can tell the difference between genuine scandals and political dirty-tricks,” Le Pen, who has previously denied any wrongdoing in the affair, told reporters.

The two held for questioning are Le Pen’s bodyguard, Thierry Legier, and her chief of staff, Catherine Griset, key figures in an investigation opened following demands by the European Parliament that Le Pen repay money she is accused of wrongly paying the two.

Wednesday’s detentions followed a police raid on Monday on Le Pen’s National Front party headquarters on the western edge of Paris, while she was abroad.

Fillon’s poll ratings fell after the scandal concerning him surfaced in late January but they have since steadied and he is more or less neck-to-neck with Macron for the other slot in the May 7 duel.

Le Pen's Chief Of Staff, Bodyguard Detained By Police

It is getting difficult to keep track of all the parallel (alleged) financial scandals involving French presidential candidates.

Several weeks after presidential candidate Francois Fillon"s campaign nearly ended over a sprawling graft scandal involving allegations he used public funds to pay the wages of his wife and children, on Wednesday, French police detained two of Marine Le Pen"s closest aides: her bodyguard and chief of staff,  for questioning over alleged misuse of European Union funds to pay parliamentary assistants, Le Pen"s lawyer said.

Le Pen slammed the latest move in what Reuters dubbed "a financial sleaze case" that has landed her in the spotlight alongside another leading candidate, Francois Fillon, a right-winger being investigated over public funds he paid to his wife and children. Wary that her image and lead position in polls of voting intentions could be hurt, Le Pen said she was convinced voters would not fall for what her lawyer Marcel Ceccaldi called a "manipulation" designed to destabilize her.

Marine Le Pen walks on the Promenade des Anglais with her bodyguard Thierry Legier

"The French can tell the difference between genuine scandals and political dirty-tricks," Le Pen, who has previously denied any wrongdoing in the affair, told reporters. The two held for questioning are Le Pen"s bodyguard, Thierry Legier, and her chief of staff, Catherine Griset, key figures in an investigation opened following demands by the European Parliament that Le Pen repay money she is accused of wrongly paying the two.

Le Pen is a clear frontrunner in the April 23 first round of the two-round presidential race; while polls have seen her losing the runoff ballot on May 7 - to either Fillon or another independent candidate, the centrist Emmanuel Macron - she has steadly eroded their advantage in recent days, leading to a selloff in French bonds and a furious buying spree in German short-term bunds, which earlier today hit a record low yield of -0.92%.

Wednesday"s detentions followed a police raid on Monday on Le Pen"s National Front party headquarters on the western edge of Paris, while she was abroad.

French Protesters Set Car On Fire During Ongoing Anti-Police Protests: Live Feed

Protesters against police violence have set a car on fire during a rally in the Paris suburb of Bobigny, which followed a police officer’s assault on a 22-year-old man last week, leading to a spike in anti-police demonstrations across Paris.

Today marks a week of violent protests in Paris suburbs after the alleged abuse of a young man by police officers. The rallies have followed the charging of a police officer who allegedly used his baton to rape a 22-year-old man. Three other officers are accused of assault. The incident is said to have happened during a stop and search operation.

The prosecutor’s office said the police had stopped a group of about a dozen people after hearing calls of drug dealing sites in the area. During the operation the officers “attempted to arrest a 22-year-old man”, and when he resisted, used tear gas and “one of them used an expandable baton”, it added. But the man, known only as Theo, suffered such serious injuries to his rectum that he needed major emergency surgery, and remains in hospital.

Cited by Euronews, Abdallah Benjana who is the former deputy mayor of Aulnay-sous-Bois, a diverse Parisian suburb, asked what was happening? “Isn’t there enough tension to spark trouble? Unemployment, insecurity, high rents… no idea of a future; you do this to a young man; all of this can only explode.” The four officers have denied the charges but locals say they’ve had enough. It is unacceptable what they (policemen) have done. And every day it is like that, whenever the police come they carry out abusive checks. It is always like that.”

French police have in the past been accused of using excessive force in poorer neighbourhoods. The death in police custody last summer of a young black man, Adama Traoré, in Beaumont-sur-Oise outside Paris, and the slow reaction of authorities sparked accusations of police violence and a state cover-up. An investigation is ongoing.

Anti-police violence is not new in France, with similar incidents taking place periodically, most rececntly in May of 2016, when protesters in Paris attacked a police car with two officers inside with iron bars and set it alight in a dramatic unleashing of new anti-police violence, as officers across France took to the streets to denounce violence they say has been repeatedly directed at them.

"Everybody hates the police!" they chanted at Paris" Place de la Republique, where several hundred police officers gathered on their lunch break to condemn "anti-cop hate." The protesters were dispersed with pepper spray.

The anti-police tensions show no signs of abating as the live feed from the latest day of anti-police protests below demonstrates.

EN DIRECT. #Bobigny La situation dégénère au rassemblement pour #Theo https://t.co/QazIsnrEeC pic.twitter.com/YXRr17GkFI

— MiSo K (@ricom76) February 11, 2017

Emeutes à #Bobigny : véhicule de RTL en feu....État d"urgence ?...la racaille est une fois de plus de sortie ! #Marine2017 #AuNomDuPeuple pic.twitter.com/1z1C0PLrZ5

— Francis Barthe (@BartheFrancis) February 11, 2017

#bobigny la voiture RTL a été prise pour cible @le_Parisien @le pic.twitter.com/BUFwgOohQi

— Yann Foreix (@yannforeix) February 11, 2017

Live Feed:

4 Cops Arrested After Video Allegedly Shows them Sexually Assault Man with Baton

(RT) — Four police officers were detained in Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburb northeast of the French capital, on charges of having sexually assaulted a 22-year-old man with a baton. The charges were later changed to “voluntary violence,” sparking controversy.

The man alleges that the police officers used force during an ID check on Thursday, with one of them thrusting his baton into his anus. The alleged assault took place not in a vehicle or at the police station, but on the street, he said, as cited by AFP.

The man suffered severe wounds, underwent emergency surgery, and was advised by doctors to stay away from work for 60 days, sources close to the investigation told French media.

The local public prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation into the incident, to be carried out by the General Inspector of the National Police (IGPN).

The alleged assault took place in the commune of Aulnay-Sous-Bois and was captured on film by surveillance cameras belonging to local police, which shows a police officer delivering a horizontal blow with his baton to the buttocks of the young man after his pants “dropped by themselves,” AFP reported, citing a source close to the investigation.

Parts of the video from a surveillance camera, showing a dark-skinned man subdued by police at a distance, have been released by Le Parisien TV. A witness in the video report shows blood at the alleged site of the man’s interaction with police.

The young man was taken to the hospital. The doctor who examined him said he had suffered “a longitudinal wound in the anal canal” and “a section of the sphincter muscle.”

Arriving at the police station, the young man complained “of bleeding in the mouth and anus,” a source close to the investigation told Le Parisien.

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The officers, who deny the charges, have seen their initial detention period extended by 24 hours.

Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux has highlighted the need to “shed light on the extremely serious charges against these officials,” Le Parisien reported.

On Sunday, the charges against the police officers were changed to “voluntary violence.” The mayor of the commune, where the incident happened, was quick to condemn the prosecutors’ decision on his Facebook page.

“Today, the prosecutor’s office announces requalification of the charges to “voluntary violence” with aggravating circumstances,” Bruno Beschizza wrote. “I do not understand this requalification. We, the Aulnaysians [those living in Aulnay-Sous-Bois], can not understand this requalification. It is perceived as a misrepresentation of the truth.”

The post has collected dozens of comments with many praising the mayor for his stance, while others urging to wait and see for the results of the investigation. Some have been doubting the mayors sincerity, accusing him of making the statement only for the sake of appeasing “the young people who would be ready for a new ‘uprising’ in the suburbs.”

There have already been reports of tensions in the commune with a population of 3,000 people, with a car being burnt and an attempt to set a bus on fire Saturday night, according to a police source cited by Le Figaro.