Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is currently in hiding / photo via a previous sermon
Israeli officials have reported that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead after the US and Israel’s strikes on Iranian targets.
This comes after reports suggested that the Ayatollah fled Tehran and was moved to a secure location during the strikes.
Per the BBC, Netanyahu said earlier there were “growing signs” that Khamenei is “gone.”
Fox News Chief Foreign Correspondent Trey Yingst reported on Netanyahu’s comments earlier with updates on the ongoing campaign in Iran. “The Israelis say they are still striking targets inside Iran,” Yingst reported.
Israeli officials are now reporting that Khamenei was killed, and that his body was found.
🚨🚨🚨Israeli ambassador to Washington Yechiel Leiter told U.S. officials that Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei has been killed in the Israeli strike on his compound, a source with knowledge said
The United States and Israel launched the most ambitious attack on Iran in decades on Saturday, and Israel said Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been killed in the operation.
Khamenei’s body has been found, a senior Israeli official told Reuters. Iran called the strikes unprovoked and illegal and responded with missiles fired at Israel and at least seven other countries, including Gulf states that host U.S. bases.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in an Israeli strike Saturday as part of a massive joint military operation between the U.S. and Israel, Israel’s ambassador to Washington told U.S. officials.
An Israeli official confirmed to Axios that Khamenei is dead, according to Israeli intelligence.
Why it matters: The 86-year-old Khamenei led Iran for 35 years, making him one of the world’s longest-serving authoritarian rulers. His death is a massive blow to the regime and could accelerate its collapse, which U.S. and Israeli officials have stated as their explicit goal.
On Thursday this week, the European Commission announced its support for the “My Voice, My Choice” European Citizens’ Initiative, while confirming that it will not allocate additional EU financial resources to facilitate cross-border abortion.
The Commission’s decision not to attach new funding mechanisms to this initiative is a welcome acknowledgement of the limits of EU competence. It signals an awareness that abortion policy remains outside the Union’s legislative authority and within the remit of member states. That restraint matters. Nevertheless, the support the Commission expressed for this pro-abortion initiative reveals biased political activism. Any efforts to promote abortion at the EU level violate its constitutional boundaries.
Attempts to advance an EU-wide abortion regime fall squarely outside the Union’s legislative competence. The EU may act only within the limits of powers conferred by the member states, and abortion liberalization is certainly not among them. The principle of subsidiarity—the idea that decisions should be taken as closely as possible to citizens, particularly in areas of profound moral and constitutional significance—is not a technicality but core to the European Project.
Laws protecting unborn life are deeply connected to a nation’s sense of moral order and right to democratic self-government. Every country has the right, and the duty, to uphold protections for the unborn. Without respect for this foundational human rights principle, the European project crumbles.
The initiative urges the EU to support access to abortion across member states, including by using existing EU instruments and funding mechanisms to facilitate cross-border access where national laws provide protections for unborn life.
To be clear, this ’Citizens’ Initiative’ in no way creates new EU competences. It merely required the Commission to consider the proposal and respond. Last December, the European Parliament adopted a non-binding resolution expressing support for the initiative. But, of course, political resolutions do not amend binding treaty law. What the Parliament should have done is firmly reject the proposal at that time.
Now, while the Commission insists, including during its press conference and with repeated reference to the EU treaties, that it is not overstepping its mandate, its political support for EU-level measures to advance the objectives of “My Voice, My Choice” tells a different story. Framing abortion access as an EU-level “right,” as the initiative does, encroaches on member states’ national sovereignty in practice. Even if health law remains formally within national authority, the Commission’s proposal to make use of instruments such as the European Social Fund Plus+ to support abortion-related measures would still entail the deployment of EU funds in this area.
Such funding mechanisms would clearly undermine national laws in areas where the EU has no authority. EU powers simply cannot be expanded through institutional activism.
The inconsistency becomes clear when viewed alongside the 2014 “One of Us” European Citizens’ Initiative, which gathered nearly 1.9 million signatures. This was one of the most supported initiatives in EU history and called on the Commission to ensure that EU funds would not be used to finance activities involving the destruction of human embryos. Despite this historic popular backing, the Commission declined to propose legislation.
The contrast is striking. When millions of Europeans mobilized to defend unborn life, their request was dismissed. Now, an initiative seeking to expand abortion access receives political endorsement. Such divergence invites the legitimate question of whether the Commission is engaging in principled legal assessment or cherry-picking initiatives that align with a preferred ideological direction.
Every human life has inherent dignity and must receive legal protection, before and after birth. The right to life, as clearly enshrined in both EU and international law, must logically apply to the unborn without exception. The EU was founded on the solemn promise to uphold human dignity and the right to life as its non-negotiable core. It is undisputed that abortion itself is not an EU competence. Yet this very limitation does not create a vacuum of responsibility. The binding Charter of Fundamental Rights opens with the crystal-clear declaration that “human dignity is inviolable” and that “everyone has the right to life.” These are not aspirational slogans, but rather the constitutional DNA of the entire European project. To claim that the EU may remain neutral while unborn Europeans are legally terminated by the hundreds of thousands every year is not neutrality; it is a profound betrayal of the Union’s founding purpose.
Thus, it is not only that the EU must reject any and all efforts to mainstream abortion access across its members but, in fact, that it has a core responsibility to do the opposite and protect unborn life in every state. Beyond lacking competence to impose a uniform abortion regime, the EU possesses a definite positive obligation to protect life wherever its existing powers touch the issue.
Far from supporting the evils of activist abortion initiatives, Brussels can and must enact targeted measures to defend the right to life, starting with ring-fencing EU funds from abortion providers, guaranteeing conscientious objection, and supporting maternity and pregnancy services that uphold the dignity of every person. Anything less destroys the very essence of the European project.
The Commission’s endorsement of this new abortion agenda may be framed as symbolic, but symbolism shapes policy. Member states may now feel emboldened to rely on existing EU instruments, like the European Social Fund, to finance abortion-related measures.
The European project cannot endure if its foundational principles, most notably the protection of human dignity and all human rights, are treated as optional.
“In France, there is a problem of leniency toward violence by far-left activists, both among some in the judiciary and in the media, which often portray such activists in a positive light. This sense of impunity encourages the escalation of violence and, in our view, also contributed to Quentin’s tragic death.”
“Since the days of Lenin and Stalin, far-left ideology has featured the dehumanization of opponents as a means of justifying violence. If an opponent is considered a ‘Nazi,’ then – in this logic – you can do anything to him; you can kill him, because Hitler should have been killed earlier. This is what we experience all the time.”
“In France, there is also a phenomenon that we call the ‘extreme center.’ It is the one that shares responsibility for demonizing both our activists and the people who protect us. This narrative ends up justifying violence against us, which led to the gang murder of Quentin by the Antifa Jeune Garde militia during our protest in front of Sciences Po, the political science school, on February 12 in Lyon.”
“France is presented as a country of human rights, freedom of opinion, and debate. In reality, however, when you hold right-wing views and condemn immigration-related violence, you become a target of attacks from the far left. In practice, freedom of speech in France is seriously restricted. There are groups – both far-left and Islamist – that seek to intimidate and sometimes even physically eliminate their opponents.”
(Ordo Iuris) — Editor’s note: The followinginterview was conducted on February 19 by Olivier Bault, director of communications at the Ordo Iuris Institute.
Olivier Bault (Ordo Iuris Institute):You are the leader of the Némésis Collective. This collective is a “right-wing” feminist organization. Is this the correct definition?
Alice Cordier (Némésis): Yes, that’s true, although many media outlets claimed that we are far-right. This stems from the fact that we condemn violence against women, but above all, we condemn the overrepresentation of foreigners among perpetrators of sexual assaults and sexual harassment in public spaces.
This overrepresentation is also evident in cases of domestic violence. In France, as soon as you bring up the topic of the consequences of migration, you are immediately branded an enemy to be defeated, a fascist, and a racist. That’s exactly what happened to our association.
Our methods are simple: we organize small protest actions such as banner drops. We display banners and posters, sometimes in response to events, sometimes at feminist demonstrations or during our own marches. We also have a strong presence in traditional and social media in France.
OI: Were you present at the event in Lyon on February 12 that ended with the killing, at the hands of an Antifa group, of a young Catholic activist whom the media also described as a nationalist?
AC: No, I wasn’t there. I supported this initiative; I knew it would take place, but I wasn’t there in person.
OI: Could you briefly describe the protest your collective staged at Sciences Po to oppose the visit of Rima Hassan, an MEP from the far-left party La France Insoumise (LFI)?
AC: In France, there are institutes of political studies known as Sciences Po, including one in Lyon, which last Thursday hosted Rima Hassan, a person deeply involved in Palestinian issues.
During the war between Israel and Palestine, she spoke in a very aggressive manner, primarily using verbal abuse directed at our association, but also at anyone who opposed her views.
Our main criticism of Sciences Po is that the university regularly invites individuals representing the far left, whereas people with right-wing views do not, in practice, have the opportunity to speak there. Right-wing conferences are automatically canceled due to the risk of disrupting public order, whereas such events are not canceled for people with left-wing views. We want both the right and the left to be able to debate freely at this type of college.
However, there is also a second aspect concerning Rima Hassan. She promotes views known in France as ‘Islamo-leftist’ that do not support gender equality between women and men. We also believe that she is associated with violent individuals and maintains close ties with terrorist groups, which makes her dangerous.
To express opposition to her arrival, we organized a small demonstration in front of the entrance to Sciences Po. Our female activists stood on the sidewalk, off campus, holding a banner that read: “Islamo-leftists out of our universities.”
Seven Némésis activists, around 20 years old, took part in the action. About 50 meters away, a dozen or so of our colleagues and friends were standing; they had come to support them, in the event of any violence. They stayed off to the side so the girls could carry out the operation without interference, but were to intervene in case of danger. However, they could not react in time.
Our female activists were attacked – one of them was choked, and two others were knocked to the ground and beaten. Doctors determined that, due to the injuries sustained, they were unable to work for eight, five, and two days, respectively. The men were unable to help them because they themselves were attacked by about 30 Antifa activists linked to the far-left movement La Jeune Garde (Young Guard).
The assailants had a significant numerical advantage and were also equipped with gloves with hard reinforcements around the fingers – typically used for motorcycling, but when used to deliver blows, they can cause very painful injuries.
OI: Since your organization asked a group of young men to accompany you during the action, does that mean it wasn’t the first time your female activists were attacked during peaceful protests?
AC: Exactly – this isn’t the first time we’ve encountered aggression, even though our actions are always peaceful. We oppose violence and do not use it ourselves. We are a movement of women activists who act decisively, but always within the law. However, the fact is that our female activists had already been brutally attacked many times, so this time we decided to have a dozen or so men present to ensure their safety. I want to emphasize that their role was not to fight Antifa activists, but solely to protect the girls.
OI: You yourself have repeatedly been a victim of violence, or at least of threats – including death threats from an LFI lawmaker – haven’t you?
AC: Indeed, this is not an isolated case. The far-left militant groups we are talking about are linked to a far-left party that today has numerous representatives in the National Assembly. One of them is Raphaël Arnault, elected two years ago, a former co-founder of the same militant group, namely Jeune Garde.
It was the members of this organization who attacked one of the young men who had come to keep us safe. He was knocked to the ground and brutally beaten, especially in the head. The blows resulted in a skull fracture and internal hemorrhage. He died at the hospital from the injuries he sustained. In practice, as soon as the lynching ended, his fate was sealed – the doctors concluded that the injuries were irreversible and fatal.
Thus, the people responsible for the death of 23-year-old Quentin Deranque belonged to the Jeune Garde organization, co-founded by Raphaël Arnauld, whom the La France Insoumise party allowed to run for office in recognition of his “anti-fascist” activism. So there are clear links between this far-left, aggressive organization and the La France Insoumise party.
Moreover, the group to this day has not distanced itself from Jeune Garde, and Arnault himself still holds his position – even though his parliamentary assistant was present during the lynching and, according to testimony, took part in it. [Two parliamentary assistants of MP Raphaël Arnaud were in fact arrested after this interview took place and charged with participation in the murder of Quentin by the prosecutor.]
OI: I’ve seen the footage, and there’s little doubt about the intentions of Quentin’s killers. In France, therefore, the far left is active; it attacks people in superior numbers for their views and also commits violence against women, endangering their health and even their lives. Among other things, I saw footage in which Anaïs, your spokeswoman – whom I had the opportunity to meet at the CPAC conference in Budapest – was being brutally dragged by the hair and thrown headfirst onto concrete steps.
AC: The Némésis organization has existed for six years, and throughout that time, we have been victims of psychological, verbal, and physical violence at the hands of far-left activists. I co-founded this association in October 2019, and by June 2020 I had already been attacked. I was 22 then. The female assailants were waiting for me at the station exit in the city where I was scheduled to give a lecture. There were about ten of them. I was hit in the face, and only the intervention of nearby restaurant owners prevented further escalation of violence.
A similar situation happened to our spokeswoman Anaïs – she was grabbed by the hair and brutally pulled backward by a woman. In fact, those perpetrating violence against us are not exclusively men. This incident took place in September of last year, the day before the assassination of Charlie Kirk in the United States.
We have also repeatedly participated in demonstrations against violence toward women, especially on March 8. As a feminist organization, we believe we have a place there. Unfortunately, almost every time, it resulted in aggression against us by masked individuals whose identities were never identified. Sometimes I would say to the assailants, seeing they were women: “Do you realize that you are attacking women during a demonstration against violence against women?” They replied that they were not hitting women, but “fascists.”
Since the days of Lenin and Stalin, far-left ideology has featured the dehumanization of opponents as a means of justifying violence. If an opponent is considered a “Nazi,” then – in this logic – you can do anything to him; you can kill him, because Hitler should have been killed earlier. This is what we experience all the time.
There is also a second problem – the functioning of the justice system. A few months ago, we were attacked along with journalists from the weekly magazine Valeurs Actuelles. We recorded the moment when they were being beaten. The police caught the main perpetrator red-handed. The officers testified in court that they saw him attacking journalists, and our footage was also available to the court. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to only a suspended one-month prison term and a two-year ban on participating in demonstrations. Moreover, since he filed an appeal, the ban was not yet legally binding, and a few weeks later, we saw him again at a far-left demonstration.
In France, there is a problem of leniency toward violence by far-left activists, both among some in the judiciary and in the media, which often portray such activists in a positive light. This sense of impunity encourages the escalation of violence and, in our view, also contributed to Quentin’s tragic death.
OI: In this situation, do you feel protected by the French state? Did you request police protection for your female activists or for yourself, given that you yourself have received death threats?
AC: There are many right-wing groups and identitarian activists who request protection but do not receive it. Even in situations where someone faces numerous threats on social media, that may still not be enough to secure real protection. Violence by Antifa activists is still being downplayed.
Just yesterday, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of LFI, held a press conference during which he verbally attacked us in a very direct way. He mentioned our group Némésis and stated that we are aggressive and dangerous and should be fought against. After what happened to the young man in Lyon, who was there to ensure our safety, Mélenchon continues to incite left-wing activists to attack us. Yesterday evening we requested police protection, but so far we have not received any response from the Ministry of the Interior.
Our female activists are being attacked in their neighborhoods by Antifa activists. Graffiti appears on their houses, which reads: “A female fascist lives here.” Mailboxes are being destroyed and marked with slogans: “A fascist from Némésis lives here.” There are young girls attending schools whose names are publicly labeled as “fascists.” It has intensified particularly in Rennes.
The faces of our female activists were recognized and photographed by members of Antifa. Their images were then printed along with information about their workplace and posted at bus stops in Rennes. So we are dealing with real violence and a genuine threat, yet no action is being taken to ensure our protection.
OI: You are fighting not only the left, but also the so-called Islamo-left. The slogan on your website reads: “We are the Cologne generation.” The Némésis Collective was formed after the New Year’s Eve events in Cologne in 2015, when hundreds of women fell victim to sexual assaults perpetrated by migrants. Are you also being attacked by Islamists and radical Muslims, or only by the far left?
AC: Indeed, the problem is not limited to the far left. We are being stigmatized for our fight against Islamism, which poses a real challenge in France. We criticize certain Salafi-oriented schools and mosques. We oppose the wearing of the Muslim headscarf and the veiling of girls. Yes, we are also being heavily attacked by part of the Muslim community, which is becoming ever younger and more radical. Young Muslims of my generation differ significantly from my grandparents’ generation – they are more inclined to strictly adhere to Sharia law. Research indicates that a significant proportion of young Muslims in France believe that Sharia is above the law of the Republic.
The worst thing is that France is presented as a country of human rights, freedom of opinion, and debate. In reality, however, when you hold right-wing views and condemn immigration-related violence, you become a target of attacks from the far left. And when, as a woman, you oppose the influence of Islamism, you also face threats from Islamists. In practice, freedom of speech in France is seriously restricted. There are groups – both far-left and Islamist – that seek to intimidate and sometimes even physically eliminate their opponents.
OI: It’s not only Islamists and the far left who want to demonize you. In the mainstream media, including belonging to the “moderate” left or the center-right, and even in statements by some politicians who are neither far-left nor Islamists, you are regularly labeled “far-right” because you defend women’s rights against Sharia law, which is gradually being imposed in Muslim neighborhoods, as well as against attacks from the far left, and also because you simply defend your right to equality between men and women and your right to personal safety as French women.
AC: I agree – in France, there is also a phenomenon that we call the “extreme center.” It is the one that shares responsibility for demonizing both our activists and the people who protect us. This narrative ends up justifying violence against us, which led to the gang murder of Quentin by the Antifa Jeune Garde militia during our protest in front of Sciences Po, the political science school, on February 12 in Lyon.
The problem is also that many people don’t want to acknowledge reality. These are the same people who, just ten years ago, claimed there was no problem with immigration, that everything was fine, that we should open the borders. Today, these people from the extreme center are trying to present themselves as the foremost defenders of security.
And if we find ourselves in such a situation today, it’s precisely their fault. It is not the fault of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. The center is responsible for it. These people are also responsible because, by demonizing right-wing and far-right parties, they are the ones who brought left-wing activists into the National Assembly. We forget about it too often.
In constituencies where voters could choose between an RN deputy and a far-left deputy from LFI, the extreme center – what we increasingly call France’s current presidential camp – called on voters to support the far left. They were the ones who sent people like Raphaël Arnault, co-founder of Jeune Garde, to the National Assembly. It was they who sent those “antifascists” there, and it was they who placed their trust in them and gave them impunity, which is why today those “antifascists” have completely dominated the public sphere.
OI: I think we should talk about Antifa, which is the proper name of a certain movement, rather than about “antifascists,” because these people do not fight fascists. Personally, I don’t know any fascists in France. I imagine there may be a few of them, but there definitely aren’t too many.
AC: That’s right – the term “fascist” is used today as a tool to demonize the opponent and to justify violence against them, and for them, fascism actually begins with Emmanuel Macron.
OI: You are risking your health and lives to carry out your activities because, as women in France, in connection with the mass immigration that has been taking place for decades, you feel threatened in your rights as well as in your safety in your everyday life. Is being a woman in Emmanuel Macron’s France really dangerous and difficult?
AC: Yes, and that’s exactly why we’re taking that risk. The level of uncertainty and aggression in the public sphere is very high. Security in France is clearly deteriorating. Today, tourists receive maps of Paris’s dangerous neighborhoods so they know which neighborhoods they can go to and which to avoid. Women’s daily lives have become unbearable. There are entire neighborhoods that women do not go to, and where they cannot go unless they cover themselves in the Islamic manner, because otherwise they are at risk of harassment.
Some women choose not to leave home to avoid assault. Fewer and fewer women go out in the evening. Some women carry a change of clothes with them so they can go home in sweats. Women carry small tear-gas spray canisters, even though possession of them in public places is prohibited in France. But nowadays, almost all women have them, because if you are attacked, that’s all you have left. The number of self-defense kits currently being sold online is enormous. We also have pocket-sized alarms.
It’s terrifying to see all the kinds of small weapons that women are forced to carry with them just to be able to defend themselves. Self-defense and martial arts clubs are experiencing a real boom in the number of women signing up. It’s a disaster, because it means that women currently don’t feel safe in their everyday lives. And that’s exactly why we’re not going to stop. We cannot stop our fight. We may do things differently, but our association has no intention of stopping, because this is simply about the future of our children.
OI: From what we’ve heard in the media, Quentin, the young man murdered by Antifa militants, became involved with the Identitarian movement following his conversion to the Catholic faith. Are there many Catholics or Christians in your collective as well, and does your faith have anything to do with your courage and your commitment despite the risk? Does faith matter to you personally?
AC: Yes, for me, faith plays a huge role in my life, in my community work, because it is what allows me to believe, to carry on, to stand on my own two feet, because when you do good on Earth, good is promised to you elsewhere.
Faith has enabled me to learn to serve others and to lead a meaningful life in the service of a cause greater than myself. It is faith that helps me hold on despite the hardships, because what you have been told and what I have told you about the violence against us is only one-tenth of what we experience every day.
We experience violence on many levels – physical, media, and administrative. Even everyday things, like finding an apartment, are often made more difficult for us. But because I believe in God, I will never stop doing what I do. I believe in God, but I also believe in the future of my children, in the future of France, and, above all, in the future of Europe.
I take this opportunity to appeal to Poles: take care of yourselves, take care of your country; do not let left-wing politicians convince you that the borders must be opened, that so many people must be let in. Preserve your identity and that strong sense of belonging, thanks to which your nation is still safe today – unlike ours.
Last November, the German government extended the exemption of electric trucks from tolls — a multibillion-euro, indirect subsidy for a nearly nonexistent market segment and an additional burden on German taxpayers. In the transport sector, the same pattern repeats itself as with private cars: politics is trying to impose ideology over market forces.
The climate-driven transformation of Germany’s economy unfolds in countless incremental steps, through administrative acts and executive directives, largely under the public radar. Last November, the Bundestag passed the so-called Fourth Act to Amend Toll Regulations, which extends the toll exemption for zero-emission trucks for another six years.
The EU Parliament grants the national legislator this extension under the Eurovignette Directive — with the stated aim, in political jargon, of scaling up toward an emissions-free transport sector. In reality, the share of electric trucks in Germany’s transport fleet remains under 0.4 percent, roughly 3,000 vehicles out of some 850,000 registered trucks.
The political calculation is clear: competitive conditions for conventionally powered trucks will gradually worsen, while incentives to switch to a growing E-truck fleet will increase. This strategy falls under the concept of emissions-free restructuring of the transport sector, initially ignoring technical limitations, range issues, and charging challenges.
The toll exemption for battery-electric trucks also implies fiscal losses — gaps that taxpayers ultimately have to cover in other ways. Toll revenues generated roughly €7 billion last year — costs fully passed on to consumers. A simple example illustrates the scale: a 40-ton E-truck saves €30,000 to €45,000 annually due to the toll exemption, based on a rate of €0.35 per kilometer and an assumed annual mileage of 100,000 km.
In relative terms, this sharply raises the purchase cost of conventional trucks, incentivizing a gradual switch to electric models. Indirectly, these figures give an idea of what electrifying Germany’s 850,000-truck transport fleet could cost. Astronomical, grotesque — and just as with the heating law, it seems likely that reality will quietly force this economic madness to disappear into the vault of ideological grandiosity.
The transformation strategy is further reinforced through additional subsidies. To date, the federal government has offered bonuses of up to €160,000 per E-truck, or 80 percent of the extra cost compared to diesel trucks. Whether these incentives will continue given tight budgets remains uncertain. Meanwhile, E-truck operators enjoy electricity tax reductions, while operators of conventional vehicles are additionally burdened with CO2 certificate costs.
Everything is being done to force a structural shift toward zero-emission fleets. Taxpayers are harnessed to the ideological cart, and the entire existing subsidy framework is leveraged. Here, we see a blueprint of political control in the spirit of the Green Deal: adjustments to subsidy programs follow the system’s logic — more funds, more incentives, more regulation — regardless of the economic collateral damage already caused.
Germany’s conventional transport sector is increasingly squeezed by Brussels’ climate regulation. Starting this year, large diesel trucks face an extra €720 per year under CO2 levies. The so-called AFIR regulation provides the government with another tool to fund zero-emission fleets by 2040. Electric vehicles continue to receive subsidies, while diesel operators face potential penalties.
Next year, the next financial hammer will hit. The EU carbon trading system enters a new phase, now including transportation and industrial fuels, while E-alternatives benefit from special discounts. With virtually no fiscal constraints, Brussels and Berlin will pour billions into charging infrastructure in the coming years, including via the LIFE-IP program.
Berlin and Brussels are unleashing a firework of incentives to scale a nearly nonexistent E-truck market. The consequences — increased burdens on taxpayers and the near-elimination of productive private-sector segments from international competition — play no meaningful role in the political calculus of green central planning.
The German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) last year estimated the cost of Germany’s green transformation by 2049 — assuming the economy does not collapse before then — at €4.8–5.4 trillion, 1.3 to 1.5 times annual GDP, just for the energy transition, grid expansion, and imports. €2–2.3 trillion for energy imports, €1.2 trillion for grid costs, and €1.1–1.5 trillion for new generation capacity.
Last week, Chancellor Friedrich Merz confirmed that there is essentially no turning back. In a podcast with WELT journalists Robin Alexander and Dagmar Rosenfeld, he praised the success of the CO2 trading scheme — a redistribution mechanism that channels productive capital from functioning German industrial sectors into political control.
How long the erosion of Germany’s economic productivity can continue without severe social consequences is uncertain. Yet the fact that the public sector creates 150,000–200,000 new jobs annually suggests politics is trying to cover the economic distortions with more taxpayer money.
The DIHK study “New Paths for the Energy Transition (Plan B)” concluded that the current transformation path is unsustainable for both companies and households. Its implicit call for a technology-neutral approach did not propose abolishing CO2 trading or other fundamentally flawed regulations.
Criticism of Germany’s green transformation, regardless of origin, largely operates within the existing subsidy framework. We face a system that has become a state within a state, rewarding rent-seekers and effectively eliminating the principles of technology-neutral competition in free markets.
Environmental protection and prosperity, however, can only be reconciled through market coordination. There is no more democratic mechanism than allocating scarce resources according to the choices of free, sovereign consumers.
The violent death of Quentin Deranque at the hands of far-left militants has brought into sharp focus the links between the antifa organisation La Jeune Garde (Young Guard), the far-left party La France Insoumise (LFI), and other left-wing parties.
Quentin Deranque, a 23-year-old French conservative activist, died on February 15 from injuries sustained in an assault by a group of men outside a conference given by an MEP from La France Insoumise, Rima Hassan, at the Institut d’Études Politiques in Lyon.
Two of the seven men suspected of involvement in the fatal assault are salaried parliamentary assistants to Raphaël Arnault, an LFI deputy and co-founder of the far-left group La Jeune Garde.
The first, Jacques-Élie Favrot, is an active member of the collective and had previously been subject to a fiche S, France’s state security watch listing, in connection with his antifascist activities. His employer, Arnault, had himself previously been listed.
The second suspect, Robin Chalendard, is another member of La Jeune Garde. He is also known to domestic intelligence services for his involvement in the far-left milieu and is currently subject to a fiche S.
In total, four of the suspects are reportedly flagged by intelligence services and are under active surveillance.
La Jeune Garde was founded in Lyon in 2018 by Raphaël Arnault, who has since been elected to parliament under the banner of La France Insoumise in the 2024 French legislative election. The antifa group was formally dissolved by the Interior Ministry in June 2025 following multiple incidents of violence.
Between 2019 and 2025, the Young Guard claimed responsibility for over 50 assaults through their Telegram channel, Antifa Squads, where highly violent videos were regularly shared.
Arnault himself was convicted in 2024 and given a four-month suspended prison sentence for voluntary violence committed as part of a group, in connection with events dating back to 2021.
Arnault’s statements have also been a source of controversy. On October 7, 2023, the day of the Hamas massacre, La Jeune Garde issued a statement celebrating that “the Palestinian resistance launched an unprecedented offensive against the colonial State of Israel”.
One member of the group, Hamma Alhousseini, known as Luc Bawa, had previously expressed support on Instagram for the Boko Haram terrorist organisation and appeared to endorse the decapitation of French schoolteacher Samuel Paty, writing: “Keeps insulting and badmouthing the same religion and there’s the result [sic]”. In August 2020, he was also conclusively convicted of assault in Lyon.
Concerns over the radical Left have reached the highest levels of the French military. In a note published in July, the Directorate of Defence Intelligence and Security (DRSD) warned of an “intensification of protest actions” by far-left groups, highlighting incidents of sabotage and arson targeting French defence companies.
Similar alarm exists within French law enforcement. A report from the National Gendarmerie Directorate (DGGN) noted that the growing use of violent tactics by the far-left, particularly its environmentalist branch, is especially troubling when such movements benefit from strong political support.
“The real cause for concern is not the existence of violent fringe groups – such movements have long existed across the political spectrum – but that they now receive open support from an institutional party represented in the National Assembly”, Guillaume Bigot a French MP for the National Rally (RN) told Brussels Signal.
For Guillaume Bigot, La France Insoumise’s tolerance for violence is rooted in its ideological inheritance from Trotskyism.
He contends that political opponents deemed “illegitimate” by the Left are routinely branded as Nazis. “This is what I call ‘hatefully correct,’” Bigot says. “The implication is clear: If LFI fails to achieve its aims through the ballot box, and if its ‘Nazified’ opponents come to power democratically, then the existing order may be considered legitimately overthrowable.”
In a video published on her YouTube channel in February 2020, reflecting on the death of Quentin Derangue, Mathilde Panot, president of the LFI parliamentary group, declared: “We will never accept, in our country, that fascism comes to power legally through the ballot box, which is what Marine Le Pen wants to do.”
Despite the political scandal following the arrest of Arnault’s parliamentary assistants, LFI has shown no inclination to distance itself from its deputy. When asked in an interview on BFMTV on February 22 whether Arnault could be suspended or excluded from the parliamentary group, Panot was unequivocal: “Certainly not. I am proud to have Raphaël Arnault in my group.”
The day before Quentin Deranque’s death, LFI issued a statement supporting La Jeune Garde’s appeal to the Conseil d’État (Council of State) against its dissolution: “We say it proudly: La Jeune Garde is essential.”
In April 2025, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, LFI’s leader, publicly described the group at a rally in Auxerre as “an allied organisation, linked to the Insoumis movement,” adding: “Tomorrow, 1 May, I call on all my Insoumis comrades to group themselves behind the banner of La Jeune Garde. I speak of them with passion, for they are my young comrades.”
The open ties between La Jeune Garde and LFI have been documented by French media Le Canard Enchaîné and Le Nouvel Observateur (July 2024), which noted that “in recent months, La Jeune Garde, now established in several cities across France, had placed itself at the service of LFI, overseeing meetings by their leaders in universities, where the situation in the Gaza Strip had been widely discussed.”
But the political controversy surrounding Quentin Deranque’s death has extended well beyond the National Assembly and LFI, implicating the city of Lyon itself, governed since 2020 by Green mayor Grégory Doucet. The first spark came a week after Deranque’s death, when Doucet refused to display his portrait on the façade of the Hôtel de Ville, a gesture requested in a public opinion piece by Jean-Michel Aulas, mayoral candidate. “Mr. Aulas’s request is nothing short of indecent,” Doucet told BFMTV on February 19.
The controversy deepened with revelations that the city of Lyon had worked with the Young Guard. A city spokesperson told Brussels Signal that contacts with La Jeune Garde had indeed taken place “to obtain information about recurring far-right violence in the Vieux Lyon district.” However, the spokesperson insisted that these exchanges were limited to “informal and non-contractual” consultations and ended in 2022.
Following Quentin Deranque’s death, Marine Tondelier, leader of the Greens, came under criticism after it was recalled that she had co-signed a May 2025 tribune in the communist newspaper L’Humanité opposing the dissolution of La Jeune Garde.
However, the controversy has engulfed the entire left-wing political spectrum. During the 2024 legislative elections, the coalition Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), which included LFI, the Greens, the Socialist Party, and the French Communist Party, displayed La Jeune Garde’s name among its listed supporters on its website and on some of its official mobilisation kits.
Following the death of Quentin Deranque, former Socialist president and current MP François Hollande also came under criticism for having been elected as part of the NFP, since it had publicly disclosed its support from La Jeune Garde.
Kobili Traoré, who was ruled not criminally responsible for the 2017 killing of Sarah Halimi, has been taken into police custody on suspicion of armed robbery and kidnapping after being granted leave from a psychiatric hospital.
As reported by Le Journal du Dimanche, the 36-year-old was among four suspects arrested on Wednesday in connection with a violent home invasion that took place on Jan. 27 in Paris’ 16th arrondissement.
A man in his forties was reportedly attacked in his apartment by intruders who sprayed him with tear gas before beating and kicking him. He was then dragged through the property as the assailants searched the premises.
The victim was tied to a chair, gagged, and burned with a cigarette, investigators said. Watches, jewelry, and other valuables were stolen, with the estimated loss put at nearly €100,000. The other suspects detained in the case were described as already known to the authorities.
Traoré had been hospitalized in a psychiatric ward in Val-de-Marne following a court ruling that he could not be held criminally responsible for the killing of Halimi. On the night of April 4, 2017, he broke into the apartment of the 65-year-old Jewish woman in Paris’ 11th arrondissement, beat her, and threw her from her balcony while shouting “Allahu Akbar” and calling her “sheitan,” meaning devil in Arabic.
In 2019, judges concluded that his criminal responsibility had been abolished at the time of the attack due to an acute psychotic episode linked to heavy cannabis consumption. In April 2021, the Court of Cassation upheld that decision, confirming that he could not be tried because his judgment had been deemed legally abolished during the events.
The ruling sparked widespread controversy in France and prompted legislative changes clarifying criminal responsibility in cases involving voluntary intoxication.
Kobili Traoré avait assassiné sa voisine Sarah Halimi. Ce meurtrier antisémite avait été déclaré pénalement irresponsable pour avoir fumé du cannabis avant son crime. Il serait en garde à vue pour vol à main armée et aurait séquestré un homme.
Following news of his latest arrest, senior figures on the nationalist right renewed criticism of the justice system. National Rally grandee Marine Le Pen wrote on X, “Kobili Traoré murdered his neighbor Sarah Halimi. This antisemitic killer was declared criminally irresponsible for having smoked cannabis before his crime. He is reportedly in police custody for armed robbery and allegedly kidnapping a man. This impunity is unbearable, shameful, and revolting.”
Marion Maréchal also reacted, stating: “Kobili Traoré, the antisemitic murderer of Sarah Halimi, had been deemed criminally irresponsible in a highly questionable manner. Result: He regained his freedom and has just been arrested again for theft and kidnapping.
“The French no longer want a justice system that fails to protect and no longer deters. This issue enjoys broad consensus in society. We are waiting for action.”
U.S. President Donald Trump told the Iranian armed forces to lay down their arms or face “certain death” and its people to rise up and “seize control of your destiny” as “major” strikes against Tehran commenced.
Joint American-Israeli strikes against Iran took place over night, with U.S. President Donald Trump addressing both the nation and the people of Iran. Announcing the strikes to eliminate “imminent threats from the Iranian regime” which “directly endangers the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world”, Trump said: “A short time ago, the United States Military began major combat operations in Iran”.
Iranian retaliatory strikes have been launched against Israel.
The strikes are intended to destroy Iran’s stockpiles of missiles and to ‘obliterate’ Iran’s missile production industry, the President said. Most importantly, Trump said, was preventing Iranian nuclear-tipped long-range missiles from ever threatening the American mainland or America’s allies in Europe.
President Trump said:
Iran is the world’s no.1 state sponsor of terror and has recently killed tens of thousands of its own people [… which is] developing long range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could seen reach the American homeland.
… for these reasons the United States military has undertaken a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests. We’re going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It’s going to be totally, again, obliterated.
President Donald J. Trump on the United States military combat operations in Iran: pic.twitter.com/LimJmpLkgZ
While noting “every possible step” to minimise threat to U.S. military personnel had been taken, President Trump warned the combat operations afoot were of sufficient scale that there may be casualties. He said:
I do not make this statement lightly, the Iranian regime seeks to kill. The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties. That often happens in war.
But we’re not doing this for now, we’re doing it for the future and it is a noble mission. We pray for every service member as they selflessly risk their lives to ensure Americans and our children will never be threatened by a nuclear-armed Iran. We ask God to protect all of our heroes in harm’s way and we trust that with his help the men and woman of the armed forces will prevail.
The U.S. President called on the armed forces, paramilitary, and police of Iran to lay down their weapons. If they did so they would receive “complete immunity” and be treated fairly, he said, but else would face “certain death”. To the Iranian people, he called on them to take this opportunity to rise up against the government, stating “the hour of your freedom is at hand” and that a second opportunity to take control was likely not coming. He said:
Stay sheltered, don’t leave your home, it’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will, probably be your only chance for generations… now is the time to seize control of your destiny
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed his people early Saturday morning stating the joint strikes with the U.S. were to remove the “existential threat”. Netanyahu said: “For 47 years, the Ayatollah regime has called out ‘Death to Israel’ and ‘Death to America.’ It has shed our blood, murdered many Americans, and massacred its own people… This murderous terror regime must not be allowed to arm itself with nuclear weapons that would enable it to threaten all of humanity”, reports The Times of Israel.
Air raid sirens sounded across Israel as Iran launched retaliatory ballistic strikes, it was stated. The Israeli Defence Force said in a series of statements of what it said were multiple Iranian “barrages”: “A short while ago, the IDF identified missiles launched from Iran toward Israel… At this time, the IAF is operating to intercept and strike threats where necessary to remove the threat.”
Additionally, the BBC reports blasts were heard in Bahrain’s Manama, the home port of the U.S. Fifth Fleet.
The large bronze statue of British hero and wartime Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square has again been defaced, this time by ‘pro-Palestine’ attackers.
Palestine Action Supporters Vandalise the Churchill statue in London 🏴 last night….this is not on! 😡 pic.twitter.com/bdbzIDY6iD
Winston Churchill’s statue outside Britain’s Houses of Parliament, the national legislature his personality dominated for 40 years as a member, government minister, and two-time Prime Minister has been vandalised overnight. The statue and plinth was painted with messages in red, including “Zionist war criminal”, “free Palestine”, “stop the genocide”, “globalise the Intifada”, and “never again is now”.
Screenshot youtube
Screenshot youtube
A fourth side was tagged in Dutch, with messages including “Groeten uit Den Haag” [‘Greetings from the Hague’], and “Káp Nâh” [‘cut it out’ rendered phonetically for the distinctive “lower-class Hague accent”].
Metropolitan Police say they have made an arrest. Their statement related:
Overnight, the Winston Churchill statue in Parliament Square was graffitied with red paint.
Officers were on scene within two minutes of being alerted shortly after 4am.
A 38-yr-old man is in custody having been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated criminal damage.
The BBC now reports Dutch pro-Palestine activist group ‘Free the Filton 24’ has claimed responsibility for the vandalism. The group’s name refers to a group of prisoners taken by the British government after a Palestine direct action group raided a defence factory belonging to Elbit Systems UK in Filton, Bristol.
There is no indication yet of whether the arrested male is British or a Dutch migrant.
After the vandalism was discovered, Westminster Council employees wrapped the statue in black plastic. Later, a crew of heritage cleaning professionals started to remove the paint.
Last year, London’s Metropolitan Police stated that in the wake of the Australia Bondi Beach and England Synagogue antisemitic attacks, use of the phrase “globalise the Intifada” in public protests would trigger arrest because “Violent acts have taken place, the context has changed – words have meaning and consequence. We will act decisively and make arrests.”
No one knows who they were or what they were doing: Just Stop Oil vandalizing Stonehenge in 2024. Just Stop Oil via Wikimedia Commons
The recent brutal killing of the nationalist student Quentin Deranque in Lyon by suspected far-left ‘anti-fascists’ has provoked serious questions in France regarding the inconsistencies between reactions to left-wing and right-wing extremism. Also, various journalistic outlets in the United Kingdom have pored over the tragic tale, some with the tacit perspective that this sort of thing doesn’t happen in Blighty. While such lethal left-leaning violence rarely occurs in Britain, we do, of course, have various groups on the hard left, and, just as in France, the responses to the very notions of ‘left’ and ‘right’ are extremely different.
The overlooked reality is that far-right extremism is treated as one of the primary domestic threats (viewed on a par with Islamism), while far-left extremism is consistently minimised, excused or rebranded as activism. The result is a political and media culture that sees right-wing violence as ideological terrorism but often treats left-wing violence as understandable, even romantic, protest. The issue is not whether far-right extremism exists—it clearly does—but whether left-wing extremism is judged by the same yardstick. Many of us would argue that the answer is no.
One striking example is the case of the anarchist bomb plotter Jacob Graham. Convicted in February 2024, he stockpiled bomb-making chemicals and produced a manual describing attacks on members of parliament and government buildings. Graham stated that he wanted to “kill dozens of people.” If a neo-Nazi had written the same plans, the story would likely have dominated the public debate about extremism for months. Instead, the case passed with almost non-existent political discussion. This is a textbook example of ideology influencing how terrorism is perceived. Indeed, a group of teenagers creating nasty memes in their bedrooms seems to be enough to warrant proscription as a far-right terrorist group in the modern ‘Yookay.’
Few movements illustrate the double standard more clearly than Palestine Action, which “works to secure Palestinian rights” by carrying out various illegal actions. The group openly advocates direct action against arms manufacturers. Supporters call it civil resistance. Critics call it organised, extremist sabotage. Members have broken into military facilities, occupied factories, and caused millions of pounds’ worth of damage. In one notorious incident, a Palestine Action activist broke a female police officer’s spine with a sledgehammer, yet walked free from court.
If a nationalist group had repeatedly attacked businesses linked to immigration or multiculturalism, it would certainly be labelled as extremist. Yet Palestine Action is still widely described as an activist operation rather than an extremist movement. In July 2025, the group was proscribed as a terrorist organisation, but there remains a widespread, ongoing campaign to reverse the government’s decision. This would never happen with a right-wing group.
Environmental radicalism has also crossed into extremism. The Earth Liberation Front was founded in Britain and promoted economic sabotage, arson attacks, and the destruction of private property. Security agencies have described such tactics as eco-terrorism. Yet environmental extremism is often framed sympathetically as youthful idealism or moral urgency, rather than an extremist ideology. Extremist environmental activism is one of the few ideological movements where criminality is routinely moralised rather than condemned. We only have to look at the reactions to the antics of Just Stop Oil’s elderly, privileged militants to see that.
Far-left terrorism is not new in Britain. The anarchist group the Angry Brigade carried out around 25 bombings in the 1970s, targeting politicians, banks, and institutions. These were clear ideological attacks intended to destabilise the state. Yet the Angry Brigade is rarely cited in modern discussions about domestic extremism, and if it is at all, it is sentimentalised. Right-wing extremists from the same period are remembered as threats; left-wing extremists are just starry-eyed radicals.
This imbalance is not accidental. Universities lean politically left; much of the media is skewed towards the progressive; activist organisations influence policy; cultural institutions sympathise with left-wing causes. This creates a system where right-wing extremism equals a philosophical threat, whereas left-wing extremism equals social protest. The difference is often one of language rather than behaviour. Criminal damage is ‘direct action.’ Intimidation is ‘civil resistance.’ Political violence is ‘anti-fascism.’
One of the clearest signs of imbalance is how extremism is defined. Right-wing extremism is usually defined in ideological terms: nationalism, racism, or anti-immigration beliefs combined with radicalisation. Left-wing extremism is often defined only once violence becomes extreme. This means right-wing ideology alone is labelled as extremist, while left-wing ideology must become violent first. This inflates the perceived scale of one threat while shrouding the other.
Britain does have a far-right extremism problem, but she also has an unambiguous far-left extremism problem. However, only one is treated as a national emergency. From this perspective, the issue is not one of exaggeration alone; it is also one of selective outrage. Until violence and intimidation are judged, across our continent, by the same standards regardless of ideology, the European approach to extremism will remain biased rather than neutral.
Several political groups in the Bremen City Parliament reacted with horror to a post featuring Vice-President Sahhanim Görgü-Philipp (Green Party). In an Instagram photo, which has since been deleted, captioned ‘Done for today!’, she was seen smiling next to SPD MP Katharina Kähler, holding two suitcases from the City Parliament’s Holocaust exhibition. ‘In my view, she is no longer acceptable as vice-president,’ Jan Timke, leader of the Alliance Germany parliamentary group, told JUNGE FREIHEIT on Friday. The politician described the picture as ‘tasteless.’ As patron of the exhibition, Görgu-Philipp should have shown ‘more sensitivity,’ he said. ‘Anyone who treats exhibits on the Holocaust in this way does not have the intellectual maturity to hold office.’
NI. Frau Vizepräsident des Landtags Sahhanim Görgü-Philipp (Grüne) und der Soze Katharina Kähler haben „fertig für heute !“. pic.twitter.com/O2u8i1o8QT
The FDP also complained that the photo was ‘unbeatable in its irreverence’. Party leader Thore Schäck emphasised that ‘mocking Holocaust victims’ in this way was ‘absolutely’ unacceptable. ‘A public apology is the least that can be expected,’ he told the Weser-Kurier newspaper. CDU parliamentary group leader Frank Imhoff expressed similar sentiments. ‘We expect the Vice-President of the Bremen City Parliament, who opened this exhibition herself, to be particularly aware of the dignity of her office and to treat the culture of remembrance with respect and sensitivity,’ he told the newspaper. Görgu-Philipp herself spoke of an ‘unforgivable mistake’ that she could no longer undo. ‘The whole thing is very upsetting to me, I am so sorry,’ she said. Her SPD colleague Kähler, who had published the photo on her channel, also expressed ‘sincere’ regret. At the same time, she spoke of a ‘momentary lapse’ that she had not thought through sufficiently. Bürgerschaft President Antje Grotheer (SPD) announced that both politicians had already apologised to her. At the same time, she called the image ‘completely inappropriate’. The exhibition ‘Showing the Unimaginable – Comics Against Forgetting’ opened over two weeks ago. It deals with the artistic representation of the Holocaust through comics and displays original exhibits from the Nazi era, including the suitcases carried by Görgu-Philipp.
