In a terrifying episode, a Belgian woman was reportedly dumped after being sexually assaulted for days in the Islamabad district of Pakistan. The woman was found in Islamabad’s G-6 district with her wrists and legs tied with rope after being raped for days and abandoned by a few unidentified persons. A resident observed the woman abandoned and notified the police, who responded to the scene and rescued her.
The incident occured on 14th August, the day when Pakistan celebrates its ‘independence’.
Silvie Stina (28) was taken to the hospital for a medical evaluation after she complained that she had been sexually assaulted for more than five days by some unidentified people. The police have opened a case, launched an investigation, and arrested one of the accused for sexually attacking a foreign woman.
بیلجیم سے آئی خاتون کو ریپ کرنے کے بعد نامعلوم افراد پھینک کر فرار
سلوا نامی خاتون کو مقامی شہریوں نے گلی نمبر 33، جی سکس ون تھری میں صدر روڈ پر ہاتھ پاؤں بندھے حالت میں دیکھا۔ اور پولیس کو اطلاع دی۔ pic.twitter.com/gUKbeIvoRY
The police have begun an investigation into the case and arrested one of the accused identified as Tamizuddin. He is currently in the police custody. The police will be questioning him as the inquiry into the crime proceeds. The victim meanwhile has confirmed that Tamizuddin was involved in the crime.
Tamizuddin was arrested by Aabpara Police at his home and transferred to the hospital for a further medical examination. He was taken to the same hospital as the victim for medical assessment.
However, Tamizuddin dismissed the woman’s claims and alleged that she was mentally ill. Immediately after refuting the claims, he identified the woman and stated that she did not have identification and had been to Pakistan without valid documentation. The police have launched a search operation at Tamizuddin’s apartment to locate the victim’s documents. Further investigations in the case are underway.
Paris. June 9. 8pm. The results of the European Parliament elections were made public. in In France, the party of President Emmanuel Macron garnered 14.6% of the vote, 8 points less than in 2019; the French population had turned away from Macron. The Socialist Party came out with 13.8% of the vote and Rebellious France, a far-left party, 9.89% of the vote. The moderate right party, The Republicans, received only 7.25% of the vote and continued to slide towards insignificance. The right wing National Rally received 31.3% of the vote, 10 points more than in 2019, an extremely high result for a long-marginalized party.
Macron’s policies were clearly rejected by the French electorate. A recent poll showed that only 31% of French people said they were satisfied with his management of the country. He could have decided to wait. He was re-elected in 2022 and can remain president until 2027. His party did not have an absolute majority in the National Assembly (France’s parliament) but was the leading party, which could also remain in place until 2027.
Macron could not ignore that the result obtained by the Rebellious France party was worrying: Rebellious France is not only a far-left party, it is also a party tinged with anti-Semitism and counts supporters of Islamism and terrorist groups such as Hamas in its ranks. Macron also did not ignore that the National Rally’s growing support has come from all those who rejected his management of the country and were apparently extremely worried about what France is becoming.
Macron could see, according to polls, that if legislative elections were organized immediately, his Together party would lose; Rebellious France would gain even more political weight, and the National Rally could win an absolute majority.
He was also aware that the Olympic Games were about take place in Paris, and that since 2017, when he came to power, demonstrations and riots in France have been frequent; any decision on his part could create massive disorder at an extremely bad time.
He nevertheless decided to dissolve the National Assembly and hold legislative elections on very short notice.
He did not warn anyone. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, whom he appointed just six months earlier, learned of the decision while speaking on television. He was not shy about showing his anger. Other members of the government learned of the decision at the same time as Attal.
On June 30, the first round of elections led to the expected results. Together (Macron’s party) received a slightly larger share of votes than in the European Parliament elections, but a far smaller than in France’s 2022 parliamentary elections, and was heading towards a scathing defeat. Rebellious France managed quickly to form a left-wing coalition (the New Popular Front), which it dominated and on which it imposed an extremely radical program. It promised large tax increases, disarming the police and immediate regularization of all illegal immigrants in the country.
The left-wing coalition has clearly been gaining ground. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of Rebellious France, to emphasize that he accepts anti-Semitism and supports Hamas and Islamism, gave a speech on June 30 about his party’s results in the first round, while standing on stage next to an Islamist pro-Hamas activist, newly-elected Member of European Parliament Rima Hassan. Hassan wore a keffiyeh and displayed on her clothes a small Palestinian flag.
The National Rally won an even better result than it had in the European elections: a third of voters gave it their support. The National Rally was well ahead in all electoral districts in the country, except in big cities. It clearly looked able to win a majority in the second round.
Macron then decided to wage total war against the National Rally. He described it in extreme terms and used vocabulary as radical as that used by the leaders of Rebellious France. He could see that the National Rally has a conservative program that is perfectly respectful of institutions, but nevertheless falsely described it as a party belonging to a “fascist” extreme right and a “threat to democracy“. He warned that if the National Rally came to power, the survival of the French republic would be at stake, and added that all parties, including Rebellious France, must unite against the National Rally to defeat it.
An unprecedented situation in France took shape: all the candidates from other parties were asked to withdraw from the election and support the candidate of another party better placed to defeat the National Rally candidate, even if the better-placed candidate belonged to a party that they totally rejected. Some candidates from Together asked people to vote for Rebellious France candidates, and some Rebellious France candidates asked people to vote for Together candidates. The Republicans also participated in the mayhem. Former President François Hollande, running for a seat in the National Assembly, supported Rebellious France.
The French mainstream media contributed to the operation and fueled fear of “fascism”. They accepted the propaganda. Rappers, who are widely listened to in Islamic no-go zones, released a song that calls for the murder of Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally, the rape of party leader Marine Le Pen, and the elimination of “Zionist Jews”. The song was described by some journalists as a courageous “song of resistance” and was broadcast over the radio. One of the lines from the song goes: “From the Jordan to the Seine, Palestine will be free” – a call not just for the destruction of Israel, but for the submission of France to Sharia law and Islam.
On the evening of the second, run-off, round, which was held July 7, it became clear that scaring the public had worked. The National Rally won only 142 seats out of 577.
Macron’s party, Together, lost a third of its seats and sank from 245 to 166 seats.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s anger is apparently still intact. The other members of the government are also less than euphoric. They knew that Attal could resign soon (he resigned on July 16 and remains in caretaker role), and that it will be the end of the government of which they are part. Any support that Macron still had on June 9 has almost completely evaporated. Macron is alone, discredited.
The “left”, with 184 seats, became the largest group in the National Assembly; Rebellious France, its most powerful component. The party’s leaders present themselves as the spearhead of the “anti-fascist struggle”; claim that they must govern the country, and that to remove them would be to make “concessions to fascism”. They do not bother to hide their anti-Semitism and their support for Hamas and Islam. One of them, Raphael Arnault, a leader of the Antifa movement in France, is on the list established by the French police of people dangerous for the security of the country. This is the first time that a leader of a movement that is officially dangerous for the security of the country has become a member of the National Assembly.
France has become almost ungovernable. No political party has a majority. No party can form a government coalition without having to renounce the most essential part of its program.
The power acquired by Rebellious France means that a government which does not have its approval cannot claim to govern. In addition, no new parliamentary elections can be organized for a year.
National Rally leaders emphasize that their party received the largest number of votes and that Macron’s maneuverings stole the election from them.
Polls have shown for months that a majority of French people would like a firm fight against crime, a stop to illegal immigration, and an end to the Islamization of the country. All these points were on the program of the National Rally.
By having strengthened Rebellious France, Macron created a situation where there will undoubtedly be less fight against crime, more illegal immigration, an increase of Islamization.
Economic data shows that France is currently in a recession. The country’s debt is growing. The debt has increased by 30% in seven years. Year after year, the government budget is in a deficit that is increasing. By the endo of 2024, France’s budget deficit will be 5.1%.
Every year, on average, 500,000 new immigrants, mainly from the Muslim world, settle in France. Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants reside in the country. Few are expelled. Islamic no-go zones are growing.
On the evening of July 7, Rebellious France organized a large rally in Paris’s Place de la République. Palestinian flags were everywhere; French flags almost nowhere. Speakers presented hateful slogans against the National Rally, Israel, Jewish journalists, and the police. Demonstrators burned cars and trash cans, and destroyed stores.
Many French Jews are aghast. Before the elections, Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld and the former president Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions, Dr. Richard Prasquier, said that, faced with the rise of Islamic left-wing anti-Semitism, they had decided to vote for the National Rally. In fact, the National Rally throughout this period was the only party to explicitly denounce Islamic left-wing anti-Semitism.
Commenting on the results of the election, the Rabbi Moshe Sebbag, of the Grand Synagogue of Paris, said, “there is no future for Jews in France”. He recommended that Jews who could, should leave France.
The Olympic Games, which ended on August, featured in the opening ceremony a decapitated Queen Marie Antoinette, carrying her severed head in her arms, and a blasphemous reenactment of the Last Supper by drag queens, with a nearly-naked man, painted blue, served on a platter. The author Éric Zemmour responded on X
“The great architects of this spectacle (Macron, Boucheron, Hidalgo, etc.) have taken the beauty of Paris, the most beautiful setting in the world, hostage. But these people are not us. They don’t represent us. They are foreign to what we are. Enemies of what we were. They want to impose on us a vision of Man that is not ours.”
At the end of the ceremony, Macron, to loud boos from the crowd, declared the Paris Olympic Games open.
The columnist Ivan Rioufol, in a book published seven years ago, analyzing the first decisions taken by Macron at the start of his presidency, noted that Macron had acted impulsively; had sought to destroy the political parties that had governed France for decades; seemed to have no defined guideline, and seemed to despise the French population. Rioufol added: “His reign will end in a nightmare”.
A 61-year-old English man has been jailed for 18 months in relation to an anti-migration protest-turned-riot in London in which he was filmed shouting, “Who the f*** is Allah?”
Despite not being accused of engaging in any actual violent actions himself, David Spring, of Longfellow Road in Sutton, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for comments he made during a Downing Street anti-mass migration protest that descended into a riot in the wake of the Southport mass stabbing that left three young girls dead.
Spring, a 61-year-old former train driver, pleaded guilty to “violent disorder” after the court was shown footage of him making “threatening gestures” towards police and chanting, “Who the f*** is Allah?”
The local Sutton & Croydon Guardian newspaper reports that upon his arrest on August 8th, Spring told officers: “I didn’t go up to London to riot. I went to complain about people put up in hotels.”
Defending Spring, Piers Kiss-Wilson told the court that his client wished to express that he was embarrassed by his behaviour and that he was sorry to his ill wife and his family, “who don’t deserve this.”
Even though Spring did not commit any violent acts, Judge Benedict Kelleher said that an 18 month sentence was justified as his chants “could and it seems did encourage others to engage in disorder.” Kelleher also argued that prison time for Spring was appropriate as it would serve to deter others from engaging in similar acts.
The decision has sparked widespread debate in the UK, with many on social media claiming that Spring’s sentence demonstrated that there are backdoor “blasphemy laws” against Islam in Britain.
Former Brexit Party MEP Martin Daubney described the decision to jail Spring as “jackboot justice,” lamenting: “We’ve gone from #TwoTierJustice to de facto blasphemy laws in less than a week!”
“18 months prison for an offensive chant? Except if it’s ‘Nazi scum, off our streets!’ to war veterans or “From the river to sea” to Jews,” Daubney noted.
Spring’s imprisonment for a speech crime comes as Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces calls of hypocrisy over his government’s hardline approach to the riots, with over 1,000 arrests, some of whom were not even involved in actual rioting but were nonetheless arrested over posts on social media.
This week, resurfaced comments from Starmer’s time as the Director of Public Prosecutions in 2013 showed that he had previously argued against launching too many criminal investigations over social media posts, warning that it would have a “chilling effect” on freedom of speech.
The jailing of Spring also came as another man was sentenced to prison over the anti-mass migration riots, despite the court finding that he did not actually engage in violence.
Army veteran Gary Harkness, 51, was sentenced this week to a year in prison by the Plymouth Crown Court for being present and “making a nuisance of himself” during disorder in Plymouth’s city centre, the Daily Mailreports.
Harkness, who suffers from PTSD from his time in the Army, was reportedly drunk during the riot, however, Judge Robert Linford admitted: “You are the person that provides me with the most difficulty because it cannot be levelled that you hit anyone, neither have you thrown anything, neither is it said that you spat at anybody.”
The veteran told the court that he was “not a racist” and claimed to have no political affiliation. Yet, the judge ultimately determined that “anybody party to this disorder has to receive a custodial sentence.”
By now, we’re all aware of the Bud Light saga of 2023 in which the mega brand was dethroned from its positions as the number one American beer due to its support for woke agendas.
Fewer people are aware that other American brands have come under fire for similar reasons, including John Deere, Tractor Supply, and Harley Davidson. And fewer still are aware of the man who is largely responsible for the latest round of pushback against woke capitalism. That man is Robby Starbuck, and he has been working relentlessly to expose these companies’ slide to the left. He’s a filmmaker and conservative activist whose mother and grandparents brought him to the U.S. as a child when they fled communist Cuba. The former Trump supporter began operating as a corporate watchdog after he discovered the woke policies of Tractor Supply, a company he used to buy feed from for the cattle on his farm near Nashville, and found that his reports on social media triggered a reaction from the company: they actually canned their DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives and carbon emission goals.
Since then, Starbuck hasn’t looked back. He realized that the techniques used against Tractor Supply could be replicated against other brands—specifically brands whose customer base is largely rural and conservative and who will feel betrayed by company policies that surrender to the zeitgeist of demonic and destructive woke idiocy. John Deere came in his crosshairs next when he unearthed several of their corrupt policies, including gender and sexual orientation “training,” race-based identity groups at corporate headquarters, funding for a pride event for children as young as three, welcoming groups that identify based on their sexual perversions (LGBTQ+ groups), and moving jobs to Mexico while firing U.S. employees.
John Deere has since backtracked a bit on some of these initiatives, stating that it will “no longer participate in or support external social or cultural awareness, parades, festivals or events.” However, the company said that a diverse workforce allows them to meet customer needs and they “will continue to track and advance the diversity” of their organization, despite denying the existence of diversity quotas.
The latest brand under Starbuck’s microscope is Harley Davidson. Starbuck claimed on The Dennis Prager Show that the company’s CEO, Jochen Zeitz, is a woke activist and that the company promoted the Critical Race Theory (CRT) book “White Fragility” to its employees and joined the LGBTQ+ chamber of commerce in Wisconsin. In the video, Starbuck points out that this political/social activism is also just plain bad business on the part of Harley Davidson. “They’re out of alignment with their customer base… They have fiduciary duty to stockholders to actually do things that are in the best interest of the company’s bottom line. That is not the case with the way that they’ve adopted wokeness because it’s clearly out of alignment with their customer base.” The situation at the major motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, right now supports Starbuck’s assertion: the Harley Davidson tent there is reportedly a “ghost town” as bikers boycott the company that no longer supports their values.
Already, Harley Davidson may be considering backpedaling on their wokeness, as indicated by their announcement that they are evaluating “policies, strategies and activities to ensure they’re relevant to our business.” Is this a preparation for a change in DEI policies? It’s too early to say, but if they follow the pattern of Tractor Supply and John Deere, some kind of shift may be coming.
Starbuck has also released a documentary detailing the left’s intentional sexualization, exploitation, and indoctrination of children called “The War on Children.”
Starbuck, journalist Christopher Rufo, and other investigators seem to be part of a growing movement pushing back against the woke-ification of our business, education, and government sectors. David Primo, professor of political science at the University of Rochester, New York, as quoted by USA Today, comments that “Starbuck and other activists are tapping into the sentiment that DEI and ESG initiatives, however well-meaning, have gone too far.”
There’s a whisper in the wind. There’s an echo in the hills. There’s a stirring in the waters—not yet enough, perhaps, to be called a turning of the tide, but something like a halting that might precede a turning. I am no prophet, and predictions are a risky business. But I sense that the postmodern, neo-Marxist “long march through the institutions” may be coming, at last, to an end.
This “long march” was a slogan developed around 1967 by socialist activist Rudi Dutschke and it echoed Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci’s concept of the “war of position.” Dutschke elaborated the theory in a correspondence with philosopher Hervert Marcuse, one of the fathers of the modern left. The slogan expresses Dutschke’s strategy for revolutionizing society along Marxist lines, and according to journalist Christopher Rufo, this strategy is the key to the modern left’s power. He explains that in the 1960’s and 70’s, leftwing radicals pivoted away from Leninist-style violent agitation and revolution because it wasn’t working in Western democracies. Instead, they took the war to the intellectual front by infiltrating the elite institutions that shape our society’s culture and beliefs. Rather than taking over industrial production, they would take over cultural and knowledge production to spread revolutionary ideology and transform society.
But this “long march”—which up till now has been remarkably successful—may at last be coming to a halt. Consider: Republicans have attacked DEI programs in higher education through legislation; parents are pushing back against critical race theory in schools; there have been repeated woke box-office bombs in the entertainment industry; and we’ve witnessed the successful boycotting of brands obsessed with identity politics.
These are all signs of hope. Any ideology as absurd, irrational, and evil as wokeness will eventually run its course. Natural laws demand it. But the question is, which will it destroy first: itself, or Western culture?
The unemployment rate among Syrian immigrants in Austria is by far the highest – almost 35 per cent for men and 45 per cent for women. This is according to the latest integration report. According to the 2024 Integration Report, Syrian (36.7 per cent) and Iraqi (23.5 per cent) nationals had the highest unemployment rates. There was again a clear difference by gender among Afghan nationals. While the unemployment rate for Afghan men was 17.2 per cent in 2023, it was more than twice as high for Afghan women at 37 per cent. Syrian women had the highest unemployment rate in 2023 at 45 per cent. The fact that their rate was significantly higher than that of Afghan women (37 per cent) can probably be explained by the fact that Syrian women registered as jobseekers much more frequently. The unemployment rate for Afghan and Syrian men is similar – 17.2 per cent compared to 34.6 per cent.
These differences are probably due to the fact that Syrian nationals often have higher qualifications than Afghan nationals, which is why the latter are looking for work for longer. However, according to the integration report, what has been observed more and more frequently in recent years is that immigrant Syrian nationals have neither sufficient previous education nor work experience. However, this also means that they have a growing need for literacy.
By way of comparison, the unemployment rate among Ukrainian nationals in 2023 was 14.1 per cent, similar to that of Turkish (14.4 per cent) or Bulgarian (13.8 per cent) nationals.
NCF Senior Fellow Rafe Heydel-Mankoo discusses the problem with integrating large numbers of migrants from culturally different lands, as well as the story of a Norfolk village where the flying of a Union Flag from the village hall is causing controversy.
Compact Editor-in-Chief Jürgen Elsässer Photo: @JurgenElsasser on X, 14 August 2024
A federal administrative court in Germany has temporarily lifted a ban on the anti-establishment right-wing Compact magazine.
The interior ministry, led by Social Democrat Nancy Faeser, bannedCompact last month for “inciting hatred” and “aggressively propagating the toppling of the political order.” The ministry did not present any evidence that the publication had violated criminal laws. Critics of the government, including the anti-globalist opposition party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), accused the left-liberal government of a clearly politicised move to silence undesirable opinions.
Editor-in-chief Jürgen Elsässer called the ban a blow against press freedom.
However, the court in the eastern city of Leipzig said on Wednesday, August 14th, that it was not currently possible to determine whether Compact met the grounds for prohibition. The court said it had found evidence of the publication “violating human dignity” but said upholding a free press took precedence in its decision to overturn the ban.
Following the court’s verdict, Jürgen Elsässer said the ruling was the “biggest triumph in the history of news.” He voiced his confidence that the magazine would win its overall appeal as well. In a video posted on the social media platform X he said:
David defeats Goliath. Compact defeats Faeser. Democracy defeats dictatorship, and the people defeat the regime. Today the Federal Administrative Court put the Compact ban on ice. We can now continue to work in peace for at least two to three years.
AfD co-leader Alice Weidel said that, in light of the court ruling, Nancy Faeser should either resign or be dismissed from her ministerial role “for her brazen attack on press freedom,” and for trying to “undermine a fundamental right.”
Das Bundesverwaltungsgericht hat das Verbot des „#Compact“-Magazins durch die Bundesinnenministerin im Eilverfahren vorläufig aufgehoben. Dazu erklärt die Fraktionsvorsitzende der #AfD im Deutschen Bundestag Alice Weidel:
Compact is an anti-establishment, anti-immigration publication which was founded in 2010. It had a circulation of 40,000 at the time of the ban; it has an active X account that counts 48,000 followers, and a YouTube channel with 341,000 subscribers.
In order to temporarily circumvent the ban, the content of the unpublished August edition of Compact was repackaged and published earlier this month under the title Näncy, in reference to the interior minister.
On Tuesday the 13th of August, the X account of French athlete Muhammad Abdallah Kounta was reactivated. Although most of his posts were deleted, one internet user wanted to set the record straight. The French-language X account SwordOfSalomon shared screenshots of pro-Hamas and anti-white tweets posted by the 29-year-old runner between 2020 and today. Among the posts that the athlete deleted is a tweet from 2021: ‘O believers! Do not take the Jews and Christians as your allies, for they are allies of some among others. And whoever of you takes them as friends will become one of them. Indeed, Allah does not guide the unjust people. In the same year, he announced that he wanted to ‘kill the little white man’.
🚨🎽 SIGNALEMENT: Muhammad Abdallah Kounta (@misryyy), athlète de l’Équipe de France 🇫🇷 @FFAthletisme aux #JOParis2024, a fait l’apologie des terroristes du Hamas dès le 7/10, a incité à la haine d’Israel, a banalisé la Shoah et a cité une sourate du Coran considérant les Juifs… pic.twitter.com/ESUebdSS6D
Although he took part in the 4x400m relay (men and mixed) at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris in the blue, white and red colours, he does not appear to be a patriot. In September 2023, he wrote: ‘I’m too happy far away from SubFrance’.
In addition to these messages, the athlete had also re-shared numerous pro-Hamas posts, especially after the terror group’s attack on Israel. One user wrote: ‘May Allah create the worst and most terrible hell for the $!on!stes (Zionists) and their supporters (…) May they suffer forever’. This message was shared by Muhammad Abdallah Kounta. The athlete had also posted an illustration showing Israeli athletes carrying their flag and holding weapons. The picture was captioned: ‘Ban child murderers from the Olympics’.
These revelations were particularly shocking. Patrick Karam, the vice-president of the Île-de-France region responsible for sport, condemned on his X account ‘unacceptable statements’ that ‘deserve the most severe penalties’. He also stated that the French Athletics Federation (FFA) would ‘make a report to the public prosecutor for criminal prosecution’. When asked by Le Figaro, the FFA confirmed that it had ‘called in the relevant authorities to clarify all the facts’.
For his part, the accused apologised on his X account. He wrote: ‘I AM FRENCH, MUSLIMANIC AND PROUD’ and accused internet users of having ‘taken some of his comments out of context’. ‘I sincerely apologise if anyone felt offended. I am against genocide and any form of racism or injustice and I don’t think I need to prove how much I love my country,’ he added.
Turkish authorities have declined to permit a religious service at the former Orthodox Christian site of Sumela Monastery on August 15, the day set for the Dormition of the Virgin. Instead, they have announced that the service may take place a week later, on August 23.
The Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarchate stated, “Following a decision by the Turkish authorities, this year permission was granted to perform a Divine Liturgy in the Church of the Monastery of Panagia Sumela on Friday, August 23,” but did not provide an explanation for the cancellation of the August 15 ceremony.
Dating back to the 4th century, Sumela Monastery is a stunning monastic complex perched on a cliff above the Black Sea in eastern Turkey. It lost its official religious status long ago and is currently managed as a museum under the Turkish Culture Ministry.
Every year, the monastery attracts thousands of tourists and Orthodox Christian pilgrims.
In 2010, Turkish authorities allowed the first Orthodox liturgy since the expulsion of ethnic Greeks in 1923, a result of a population exchange between Greece and Turkey. The monastery was closed for restoration in 2015 and reopened to visitors in 2019.
Services marking the Dormition of the Virgin were held in 2020, 2021, and 2022. Although Turkish authorities initially denied permission last year, the liturgy ultimately took place.
France faces a “very high” terror risk ahead of the feast of the Assumption on August 15th and authorities should pay particular attention to “services, gatherings, processions and pilgrimages,” the country’s outgoing interior minister has said.
In a message sent via social media app Telegram to all regional prefects, Gérald Darmanin warned of “the very high level of the terrorist threat that continues to weigh on our country.” This has only intensified thanks to “France’s international exposure,” since it will shortly host the Paralympic Games “against a backdrop of high international tension, particularly in the Middle East.”
Darmanin, who remains in position pending the formation of a new government, added that “extreme vigilance must be maintained, particularly with regard to demonstrations and places of a religious nature.”
Celebrated on 15th August, the Assumption of the Virgin Mary is a public holiday in France. It is also one of the most significant feasts in the calendar of the Catholic Church.
Celebrations take place across the country, including a national pilgrimage to Lourdes, where several thousand people gather every 15th August.
Darmanin said that police should be in constant contact with those responsible for religious sites during the feast.
“These contacts (…) should enable the organisers to be given appropriate advice on vigilance and preventive security,” including “visual checks of incoming traffic” to detect suspicious individuals—and suspicious vehicles parked in front of churches.
He also suggested that prefects could deploy forces under Operation Sentinelle. This is the ongoing military operation to protect “sensitive” locations following the January 2015 Île-de-France terror attacks.
At sites of worship on Thursday, “increased vigilance” will have to be adopted “through a visible static presence at the times of arrival and departure of worshippers,” Darmanin said.
