Author: fredalanmedforth

A 21-year-old North African man has been arrested in the Lombardy town of Busto Arsizio after allegedly luring a 14-year-old girl via Instagram and violently assaulting her in an abandoned building near the city’s railway station.

The girl, of Peruvian origin, had reportedly been in contact with the man online and agreed to meet in person on Monday evening — this being their second encounter.

As reported by Corriere Della Sera, the suspect led her to a secluded, run-down farmhouse in Via Vercelli, an area known to locals as a hideout for drug addicts. Once there, police say he beat her, forced her to drink alcohol, and raped her.

Local residents heard the girl’s screams and called emergency services. A nearby local police patrol responded quickly, but the suspect reportedly resisted arrest violently — requiring reinforcements and multiple officers to subdue him. Witnesses say the girl was found in shock, curled up near a wall, visibly injured, and emotionally distressed.

“She wasn’t speaking, just sobbing,” said local resident Vincenzo Zingarelli, 54. “If I had seen him earlier, I would have tried to stop him myself.”

Authorities report that the girl has been hospitalized with serious injuries and faces a two-month recovery period. Police are now investigating whether there may be other victims who have not yet come forward.

The suspect is believed to be homeless and has been moving throughout the Lombardy region by train for some time. His immigration status and further details on when and how he entered Italy are unknown.

He has been charged with aggravated sexual assault, resisting arrest, and injuring a public official. He has been placed in pre-trial detention.

Despite the seriousness of the case, law enforcement has so far provided limited public comment, citing the sensitive nature of the investigation and the need to protect the identity of the victim.

The Busto Arsizio Public Prosecutor’s Office is leading the inquiry.

https://rmx.news/article/african-migrant-arrested-for-rape-of-young-teen-he-lured-to-abandoned-italian-farmhouse/

Santiago Abascal’s Spanish right-wing party Vox has risen by almost four points in the past month’s polling.

Both the Partido Popular (PP) and the Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) have slipped.

Data from the Centre for Sociological Research (CSI) published on April 15 showed Vox with an estimated 15.3 per cent of support in the upcoming Spanish general elections.

A month before, it was at around 11.2 per cent.

While the PSOE has been losing ground, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his party still led in voting intentions, although backing had dropped from 34.5 per cent in mid-March to 32.6 per cent in mid-April.

The PP also declined, from 29.2 per cent to 26.1 per cent.

If the Spanish general election were to be held now, Vox would one of the three main political forces in the country. Spain is set to hold the general elections in August 2027.

The contest on the left of the PSOE was also intensifying, with the gap between coalition members Sumar and Podemos at just over two points in voting estimates. Sumar was on 6.2 per cent while Podemos garnered 4 per cent.

The latest poll was conducted amid rising trade tensions between the US and the European Union, which may have contributed to the surge in support for Vox.

Abascal is closely aligned with Trumpism and the US President.

In March 2025, Abascal hosted a summit of the right-wing European Parliament group Patriots for Europe in Madrid under the slogan “Make Europe Great Again.”

He was also a speaker at the 2025 annual Conservative Political Action Conference attended by Conservative activists and officials from across the US in Washington.

https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/04/spains-vox-gains-ground-while-pseo-and-pp-slip-in-latest-poll

The Conference of Bishops in France (CEF) has recorded the largest number of catechumens to be received or baptized into the Church since records began some twenty years ago. This year, 10,384 adults will be baptized during the Easter Vigil – a 45% increase on 2024.

Noticeable emerging patterns reveal younger generations and Muslims in France are leading the way – becoming interested in and converting to Catholicism at a quickening rate.

Official statistics corroborate with anecdotal reports to reveal the authenticity of growth in the French Church. On Ash Wednesday in 2025, an “unprecedented surge” in attendance at Mass across the country was reported in Catholic and secular media, led particularly by young adults.

“We shattered attendance records,” Father Benoist de Sinety told Famille Chrétienne.

The substantial growth in the number of converts France will witness in 2025 is not an anomaly. This Easter will mark the fifth consecutive year of exponential increases, indicating a snowballing trend. Each year, the hike in the number of people seeking to be baptized or received into the Catholic Church has been larger than the one prior.

This has continued to the point that 2025’s number of adult catechumens is now almost treble the number recorded in 2021, 3,639.

Between 2016 and 2020 figures remained relatively consistent and stagnant. Over the five years preceding France’s repeated spikes in conversions, they only ranged between 4,124 and 4,505 adult converts each year.

This decade’s contrasting growth should not be understood as making up for the deficit of a short-lived dip recorded in 2021, when 3,639 adults were baptized during the height of pandemic restrictions. This was the lowest recorded figure in recent times. However, numbers recovered the following year in 2022, followed by an unprecedented and sudden 21% increase in 2023. There was then a more dramatic 32% rise from that in 2024.

Nor is the flurry of French citizens seeking membership in the Church merely replacing childhood baptisms and confirmations. In 2024, some 5,000 adolescents were additionally received or baptized. Their numbers rose to 7,400 in 2025. Simultaneously, since 2019, France’s population increased only from 67.38 to 68.6 million; this means that the converts are joining the Church at a rate far surpassing France’s population growth.

However, the most substantial changes are seen amongst adults.

Young professionals and students in the 18- to 25-year-old demographic are leading this overall trend. They now represent 42% of the overall numbers flocking into the Church.

The growing influence of young converts has steadily increased as a proportion since 2020. Before that year they were the third most common cohort of the four adult age divisions to convert

In England, which has experienced a similar though less pronounced trend among prospective Catholics, the Telegraph reported these young converts repeatedly use terms such as “coherent” and “consistent” when explaining their reasons for coming to believe the Catholic Faith and pursuing sacramental participation in the Church.

Anaë Delion, a 20-year-old catechumen in France, similarly described to the CEF her story and revealed comparable motivations.

After an unhappy childhood and an extended low period in her life – full of “drunken parties, drugs and relationships” – Anaë experienced a spell where “nothing inspired [her] anymore,” and she could not get out of bed.

After one day suddenly feeling spurred on to no longer give up, she explained:

Without understanding why, at that precise moment, I felt a force in my heart pushing me to find out what it was. I absolutely wanted to know everything. I realized later that my heart was actually seeking to know God. Two months later, on March 2, 2022, I began my very first Lenten season. Since that day, I have never let go of the Lord.

Ms. Delion is not alone. One stable pattern is more women than men joining the Church. Females account for 63% of the overall numbers of newcomers this year.

An impulse to discover a deep knowledge of the Faith is a recurrent theme. Writing for the Catholic News Agency, Heather Tomlinson attributes the growth in conversions among the young to the two factors: internet and tradition.

Accounts point to the readily available nature of information about the Faith online and increasing prevalence of apologists, evangelists, priests, and religious sisters over the airwaves. In the Anglosphere, Father Mike Schmitz, Bishop Robert Barron, Michael Knowles, Matt Fradd, and Lila Rose have social media clout; France has its own online evangelists. Dominican friar Paul-Adrien has almost 470,000 followers on YouTube, while Sister Albertine, a Chemin Neuf nun, connects to some 270,000 Instagram followers.

Ms. Tomlinson’s report that young people are attracted by tradition corresponds to evidence published by French newspaper La Croix that 40% of young French Catholics approve of Traditional Latin Mass. (This is despite the fact this lesser-known liturgy only accounts for some 1% of the Masses celebrated globally).

Similarly, the annual pilgrimage to Chartres in France, which features the traditional liturgy, has grown rapidly and experienced oversubscription in consecutive years, is dominated by young people.

The share of new converts to Catholicism from Islam is steadily rising. Former Muslims comprised 3% of neophytes in 2023, increasing to 5% in 2024. This year they will be 7% of the overall figure.

Father Vincent Breynaert, director of the national Youth and Vocations Service, explains that the vast majority of the converts have little to no background in the Faith.

“In today’s French society, 80% of young people have not received any religious education,” he said.

A report released earlier in 2025 by Aleteia and Famille Chretienne drew up a composite portrait of these new Catholics. Of the respondents to surveys: “65% say they did not grow up in a believing family, and 50% say they discovered the faith on their own.”

“Mass is a key step in their journey,” it continues, “83% already attended before entering the catechumenate, often alone (42%), 95% wish to continue practicing but 57% ask to be able to share their faith with other Christians, 38% expect spiritual support, and 27% wish to deepen their understanding of the Mass and the fundamentals of the faith.”

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/france-sees-record-number-of-adult-converts-to-the-catholic-faith-this-year/?utm_source=most_recent&utm_campaign=usa

A US paedophile who travelled to Wales to “marry” a 15-year-old schoolgirl he met and groomed online has been jailed for seven years.

Jacob Ewing, 44, of Wildcat Pound Road, Hubert, North Carolina, forced the teenager to perform “degrading” acts on herself.

They met online using a video chat site that connects users randomly, where he told the girl he was a “paedophile hunter” and a Christian.

He flew to the UK after she turned 16, bringing with him wedding rings.

The 44-year-old was arrested upon landing at Cardiff Airport last year, where he was caught with numerous paedophilic images.

At Newport Crown Court, Judge Celia Hughes jailed Ewing for seven years and eight months. He had previously pleaded guilty to the offences.

He was sentenced for 13 offences, including causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.

Ewing could be deported during his sentence but this is a matter for the Home Office to decide on, the court heard.

The girl’s parents did not know who she was speaking to and she initially told them she was chatting to someone local and of her age.

He convinced her to let him watch her fall asleep whilst they were chatting online, and told her the next morning that he had performed a sex act while she was sleeping.

Ewing also showed her a firearm and made her watch him perform sex on himself over 20 times.

Judge Hughes said: “He began to control her, being alternately kind and then unpleasant to her, including saying she shouldn’t sleep covered up at night, even when she was cold.

“At one point she saw that the defendant had her initials tattooed on his chest.”

The girl said that she began to struggle to sleep unless she was on the webcam, a fact he “used like a game”.

She said the ordeal put her under huge amounts of stress and caused her to feel suicidal.

“Jacob didn’t care about this and encouraged me to kill myself on a number of occasions,” she said in a victim impact statement.

“This confused me – I couldn’t understand why he would tell me he loved me and tell me to hurt myself.”

The police were tipped off about Ewing by the US authorities, and the girl’s parents were informed.

Judge Hughes said: “A sheath knife and a wooden cosh were found in the defendant’s luggage on arrival at the airport – I really fear to what use the defendant might have put those weapons bearing in mind he was planning to meet a teenage girl he had groomed and controlled.”

Sentencing Ewing, the judge said: “You have portrayed yourself as the victim and haven’t taken responsibility for your actions.”

She added: “It is very fortunate that you were stopped at the airport.”

Speaking after the sentencing, Detective Superintendent Philip O’Connell, of Gwent Police, said: “Ewing struck up a relationship with a 15-year-old girl online, grooming and exploiting her for over a year before travelling thousands of miles to meet her.

“Working closely with US authorities and UK Border Force, he was detained at Cardiff Airport before being arrested and interviewed by our officers.”

He said that the agencies managed to intervene before any physical harm was done to the girl, though his actions will have a “profound impact”.

“We’d like to commend the victim in this case, who’s shown strength and great fortitude throughout the investigation and hope that today’s sentence helps in processing and moving forward with her life,” he added.

https://www.gbnews.com/news/wales-news-paedophile-flew-us-wales-marry-school-girl-groomed-online

An Australian women’s rights campaigner who has been raising awareness over the participation of trans-identified male athletes in women’s football leagues is facing two criminal accusations of “misgendering.” Kirralie Smith, who opposes men in women’s sports, was handed two Apprehended Violence Orders (AVO) — a legal measure similar to a restraining order — on behalf of two trans-identified male players, and was required to defend herself in court for referring to them as men.

Smith is a spokeswoman with Binary Australia, a campaign group dedicated to advocating for single-sex sports in Australia. Smith has argued against the inclusion of male athletes in women’s sports as a result of gender identity policies. In 2024, she launched a letter-writing campaign encouraging concerned individuals to contact Football New South Wales after it was reported that a trans-identified male on a women’s football team had caused injuries to multiple female players.

The male player, Riley Dennis, lodged an AVO against Smith, and is one of five trans-identified male athletes participating on the “inclusive” Premier League women’s team, The Flying Bats Football Club. The Flying Bats, a football club for “self-identified women and non-binary people,” has drawn significant criticism, leading to increased security and prohibitions against filming at matches. During the 2024 season of the North West Sydney Football Women’s Premier Competition, The Flying Bats won all 17 games and scored 76 goals while only a total of 8 points were scored against them.

Kirralie is on the stand for cross-examination.
Barrister asked she would call Dennis she/her. She said No.
She is asked if that’s mean. Says it’s mean to expect her to lie.
Is it because she doesn’t like trans people? Say, no. It’s a fact based statement.
You think they are…

— Sall Grover (@salltweets) April 14, 2025

During court proceedings on Monday, Smith was asked if she would refer to Dennis with feminine pronouns, according to women’s rights activist Sall Grover, who attended the hearing. When Smith responded that she would not refer to Dennis as a woman, she was asked if she felt that her position was “mean,” to which Smith replied that she was making a fact-based statement in calling Dennis a man.

Dennis, for his part, claimed that he believed that Smith had “outed” him as being male. However, Dennis has been known as a trans activist for nearly a decade, as noted by Grover, and had additionally declared to The Flying Bats team that he identified as transgender.

Last year, Reduxx learned that Dennis had injured female athletes on opposing teams on more than one occasion. Before transferring to The Flying Bats FC, Dennis was previously accused of severely injuring women while participating in matches for the New South Wales Inter Lions.

On May 21, 2023, during a game between the Inter Lions and the St. George football clubs at the Majors Bay Reserve, Dennis launched his smaller female opponent towards a metal fence using an aggressive tackle as the two chased down the ball.

Reduxx was provided footage of the match, which showed the female player laying on her side, unmoving, as the transgender player casually walked away.

Reduxx has learned that trans activist Riley Dennis injured a female player while participating in a women's football game in Australia on May 21.

This is the second time Dennis is alleged to have injured women while playing in a women's league.

SCOOP: https://t.co/0dn1gs1cpk pic.twitter.com/yK4ugpJCuK

— REDUXX (@ReduxxMag) May 31, 2023

The month prior, Dennis was said to have injured another female player, who reportedly had to seek hospital attention as a result of her injury.

An anonymous source close to the situation explained to Reduxx that Dennis left the Inter Lions team following the controversy over the injured female players. The source stated that Dennis then submitted at least three applications of interest for other teams, which were not accepted. The Flying Bats, however, approved his application to join the team. The football club’s official website states it is “the biggest LGBTQIA+ women’s and non-binary football club in the world”, having been founded in 1985.

A letter-writing campaign was launched by Smith, out of concern for the safety of the female players, encouraging concerned individuals to contact Football New South Wales — which reportedly then received over 12,000 submissions.

For her role in bringing awareness to the injuries sustained by female athletes, Smith was visited by New South Wales Police and handed an Apprehended Violence Order (AVO) on March 30 that year requiring that she neither discuss nor approach Dennis. Smith also experienced the censorship of her social media accounts.

In February, Smith was required to appear in court for a separate AVO launched by a trans-identified male football player who she had never even met. Stephanie Blanch, a male who plays on the Wingham Warriors women’s team, told the court he felt “threatened” by the knowledge of women’s rights campaigner Kirralie Smith’s views about men who participate in women’s sports.

A trans-identified male in Australia has obtained an "Apprehended Violence Order" against a women's rights campaigner he has never met after she misgendered him on social media.

Stephanie Blanch plays for a women's football club in New South Wales.https://t.co/RTxxXmrQma

— REDUXX (@ReduxxMag) February 5, 2025

Blanch first applied for his AVO against Smith in March of 2023, but was rejected in January of 2024 after the Civil and Administrative Tribunal of New South Wales found that the scope of the request was out of their jurisdiction. But Blanch appealed, arguing that Smith’s “conduct” had caused him to fear for his safety.

Among his evidence was that Smith had tweeted about “a bloke on the women’s team in Wingham” in January of 2023, as well as posted a publicly-available photo of Blanch receiving an award and referred to him as a “bloke in a frock.” Blanch also complained that Smith had been spotted in the general Wingham area one month later.

In a December 2024 ruling on the AVO, the District Court emphasized the fact that Smith had declined to refer to Blanch by his chosen pronouns, writing that she “repeatedly referred to the Appellant as a male, a man, a bloke and ‘he,’ where the Appellant does not refer to herself that way.”

“The term ‘misgendering’ is a reference to the Respondent re-naming the Appellant in a way that she does not wish to be referred to, and in that sense, it was belittling and offensive. It denigrates the Appellant’s right to describe herself as she wishes, not as a stranger wishes to label her.”

Since pursuing the AVO against Smith, Blanch has taken great steps to largely scrub his online presence. Multiple results related to Blanch have been completely withheld on Google, likely in response to an order from the eSafety Commissioner. The Commissioner is an agent of the Australian government who regulates “online harms.”

The eSafety Commissioner has previously worked to censor information related to the exposure of trans-identified males participating in women’s sport in Australia.

In 2023, Reduxx was contacted by the Commissioner and advised to censor or delete an article naming Riley Dennis as having been the subject of complaint after he was alleged to have injured female players during a match.

https://reduxx.info/aus-trans-identified-male-soccer-players-take-womens-rights-campaigner-to-court-for-misgendering/

By Olivia Murray

U.S. government officials have declared that a number of European nations are now more dangerous than…El Salvador, a state that’s been historically notorious for gang activity.

We call this: Twilight Zone politics.

Seriously, in what world does El Salvador surpass Western Europe on the safety meter? That’s such a drastic turnaround, it’s like saying Haiti, or the Congo, or South Sudan, or any of the many sub-Saharan nations that are thoroughly burdened by anarchic violence and turmoil are now safer than France, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, etc.

It goes without saying though that the decline in safety isn’t due to the native population, but the imported population. From a report at Remix News today:

Nearly half of all crime suspects in Austria last year were foreigners, police stats show

A total of 335,911 suspects were investigated, with the largest groups of foreign nationals coming from Romania, Germany, and Syria. Syrian suspects alone saw the steepest increase, rising nearly 30 percent compared to the previous year.

[snip]

The data, presented by Interior Minister Gerhard Karner on Monday, revealed a total of 534,193 reported criminal cases in 2024 — up 1.2 percent from 2023. Of particular concern, the report highlights a significant surge in juvenile delinquency, which Karner described as a ‘massive’ problem.

As reported by Kurier, Criminal reports involving children aged 10 to 14 have doubled in recent years, reaching 12,049 in 2024. The proportion of non-Austrian suspects in this age group stands at 48 percent. Karner said reports involving Syrian minors had ‘practically increased tenfold,’ jumping from 150 in 2020 to around 1,000 last year.

The article also notes that the number is likely much higher because “German” criminals are actually third world foreigners with German citizenship—and the same goes for the “Austrian” numbers.

Also this, from an article published yesterday:

Hamburg police are searching for a machete-wielding migrant gang that reportedly stormed a high-rise building in the early hours of Monday, resulting in a 15-year-old boy falling to his death from the eighth floor.

As reported by Bild, the incident unfolded around 1:15 a.m. at Soltauer Ring in the Harburg district of the German port city. Armed with at least one machete, the gang of young men forced their way into an apartment on the eighth floor, according to police reports.

Inside, they launched a violent attack on those present. Moments later, the teenage victim — identified as an Iraqi national — crashed into the courtyard below from the balcony of the apartment.

Who knew that shipping in millions of angry, and unprodcutive third-worlders with third world values and beliefs would cause chaos for those living in a Christianized society?

Who knew cleaning up gang violence was as simple as electing a president who prioritizes innocent life over murderers and believes in true justice?

Hats off to President Nayib Bukele for a job well done.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/04/european_nations_now_more_dangerous_than_el_salvador.html

Hanna Schiller, a German art student charged with attempted murder and membership of the notorious far-left “Hammer Gang,” has been awarded the 27th Federal Prize for Art Students — a prestigious state-sponsored honor carrying €30,000 in prize money and additional production support.

Schiller has been in pre-trial detention since May 2024 and has been formally charged for her role in violent assaults carried out by the Antifa-affiliated gang, including in Budapest, where the gang severely beat nine people they suspected of being right-wing back in 2023.

The indictment states Schiller and others pinned one of the victims down during the attack while others beat him unconscious with a baton, which prosecutors say could have resulted in death.

Despite these charges, Schiller was nominated by the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg, where she remains a registered student. The nomination came months after her arrest and appears to have been made in full knowledge of the legal proceedings.

The prize is ultimately awarded by the Federal Ministry of Education and the German Students’ Union after assessing nominations from respective institutions.

As reported by Tichys Einblick, the prize jury praised Schiller’s work for its “precise political images” and its focus on “structural violence and power,” referencing pieces made from women’s hair as examples of her exploration of contemporary sociopolitical issues. The official announcement made no mention of the charges or her imprisonment.

Academy officials have defended the nomination, citing a commitment to the principle of presumption of innocence. “The AdBK Nuremberg treats her like any other student until the verdict is announced,” the school said in a written response to inquiries.

The academy does, however, state in its mission statement that it is “for openness, tolerance and against any kind of extremism and violence.”

Still, critics say the award signals an unacceptable tolerance for violent extremism, pointing to Schiller’s alleged crimes, which include premeditated assaults using hammers and pepper spray. The gang’s targets were reportedly individuals believed to be right-wing, whom they ambushed and beat without warning. Prosecutors say Schiller was directly involved in restraining and attacking several victims during the assaults, one of whom received over 15 blows to the head.

Other members of the gang have already been convicted. Lina Engel was sentenced to five years and three months in prison by a Dresden court back in June 2023, while three of her associates received lesser sentences. Another member was sentenced to three years in a Hungarian prison the following January.

After years on the run, Johann Guntermann, the 31-year-old suspected head of the extremist group, was arrested by German police after being apprehended near Leipzig in November last year.

In addition to the €30,000 prize money, Schiller also received a scholarship of €18,000 to fund an art exhibition scheduled to open in November at the exhibition planned from November 2025 at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn.

Commenting on the news, Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel claimed Schiller’s violent activism may have actually been a key reason for her receiving the award.

“Left-wing extremist Hanna S., allegedly part of the ‘Hammer Gang,’ receives a state-sponsored art prize worth 30,000 euros, possibly not despite, but precisely because of, her ‘activism.” No taxpayer money for violent left-wing extremism!” Weidel wrote on X.

With the trial ongoing in Munich, the Ministry of Education and the Nuremberg Academy have yet to revise their position or address the appropriateness of awarding a national prize to an individual currently facing charges for attempted murder and violent extremism.

It is unclear whether the prize and subsequent funds will be revoked pending a conviction.

https://rmx.news/article/germany-far-left-extremist-on-trial-for-attempted-murder-wins-state-sponsored-e30000-art-prize/

Belgian consumers affected by the Volkswagen “Dieselgate” emissions scandal will soon be able to start claiming compensation, marking a major step forward in a years-long legal battle.

The consumer organisation Testaankoop launched an online claims website on April 15 allowing eligible car owners to request reimbursement following a final court ruling against Volkswagen.

Testaankoop has estimated around 320,000 people in Belgium could be eligible.

The development followed the Brussels Court of First Instance’s July 2023 decision ordering Volkswagen to compensate Belgian consumers who purchased vehicles with the EA 189 diesel engine. In 2015, it was discovered that the company installed software on these engines to manipulate emissions test results, making them appear cleaner than they actually were.

Under the court ruling, consumers could receive up to 5 per cent of their vehicle’s purchase price — a potential €1,250 for a €25,000 car. Volkswagen chose not to appeal the decision, making the judgment final.

Claimants will have four months to file for compensation once the court ruling is officially published in the Belgian State Gazette — a step that has not yet occurred. The claims platform has gone live in anticipation.

To qualify, consumers must have purchased a Volkswagen, Audi, Skoda or Seat vehicle equipped with the EA 189 engine between September 1, 2014 and September 22, 2015.

Those who bought before that date would only be eligible if they had previously mandated Testaankoop to represent them. Importantly, vehicles that received a software update correcting the emissions issue have been excluded from compensation claims.

“This is a major milestone for Belgian consumers who were misled and have waited nearly a decade for justice,” said Laura Clays, spokesperson for Testaankoop. “We encourage everyone who believes they may be eligible to check the platform and submit their claim.”

The Dieselgate scandal erupted in 2015 when Volkswagen admitted to installing software designed to cheat emissions tests in 11 million diesel cars worldwide. The fallout led to lawsuits, recalls, and regulatory reforms across the globe.

In Belgium, the collective action spearheaded by Testaankoop began in 2016 and has become a landmark case in consumer protection and corporate accountability.

The European Consumer Organisation has praised the Belgian ruling as a “crucial step” toward fair treatment for all affected car buyers and called for an extension of compensation procedures where appropriate to others who purchased such vehicles across Europe.

https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/04/volkswagen-agrees-to-pay-damages-to-belgians-for-dieselgate

This morning, officers from the Berlin State Office of Criminal Investigation searched the flat of a 29-year-old man in an apartment block on Sonnenallee in the Neukölln district of Berlin on suspicion of a serious threat to the state with the assistance of special task forces on behalf of the Berlin Public Prosecutor General’s Office. The man was arrested on the basis of a previously obtained arrest warrant and will be brought before an investigating judge today for the delivery of the arrest warrant. The accused, a German national, is suspected of having decided between November 2023 and May 2024 to take part in the fighting on the side of the militant Islamist Hizb Allah following Hamas’ attack on the State of Israel from the 7th of October 2023. At the end of 2023, he is said to have travelled to Lebanon, himself adhering to radical Islamist ideology, in order to undergo training in firearms and weapons of war by Hizb Allah, which was active in the country and which he supported. The aim of the training was to be able to carry out acts of violence such as murder, manslaughter, extortionate kidnapping and hostage-taking to destroy the state of Israel. This training actually took place in the first half of 2024. The search led to the discovery of mobile phones, which are now being investigated in the course of the ongoing investigation.

Maßnahmen wegen des Verdachts der Vorbereitung einer schweren staatsgefährdenden Straftat – Berlin.de

Unthinkable in 2006 when Marine Le Pen was denied entry in Israel, Jordan Bardella, the current president of Rassemblement National (RN), has been invited by Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party to visit the hallowed Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. This gesture sharply contrasts with the expelling of French Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan of La France Insoumise (LFI) from Israel a month ago.

The official invitation to the RN president is the perfect symbol of a major shift in terms of antisemitism in French politics. Previously considered a far-right trademark, antisemitic manifestations have progressively moved to the left until becoming a campaign argument for La France Insoumise, the party that also dominates the left-wing coalition group called Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front.) 

This ‘evolution’ was clearly highlighted by the reactions to the October 7th terrorist attacks in Israel, but it began much earlier.

The rebranding of the Rassemblement National

In September 1987, Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founder of the right-wing Front National (National Front), the precursor of RN, declared during a radio interview that the gas chambers were a mere “detail of the history of the Second World War.” This statement, among many other controversial declarations, had for many years constituted a heavy burden for his daughter, Marine Le Pen, who was elected as National Front president in 2011. Since then, she has led an arduous campaign to rebrand the party and to get rid of the antisemitic element that characterized it.

Not only did she rename the party, but she also made the decision to exclude her father from it. Since then, the RN has become reputable and publicly recognised as a republican party, respectful of public institutions. 

On 12 November 2023, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella both took part in the great march against antisemitism in Paris, unlike Emmanuel Macron and the leaders of LFI. More broadly, the RN has been a consistent supporter of Israel since the October 7th terror attacks. 

Hence the recent statements by Serge Klarsfeld, the well-known Holocaust survivor and Nazi-hunter, a long-time opponent of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who said that Rassemblement National “has changed and has become reputable” and that he would vote for them “without hesitation” if having to choose between them and LFI. He further added that “when there is an anti-Jewish party and a pro-Jewish party, I will vote for the pro-Jewish party.”

Stripped of its old antisemitic undertones, the RN now considers Israel a full member of the West and an outpost of crucial importance in the West’s fight against Islamic terrorism. 

Since October 7th, the Jewish electorate has been shifting towards RN, alienated by the anti-Israeli rhetoric of LFI, a rhetoric that has fuelled a surge in antisemitism in France. Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions, stated that Jews “have no trust in La France Insoumise”, which is a “real turn in our relationship with parts of the Left.”

Antisemitism as a leftist electoral strategy

Nowadays, what we call the “vile beast” (la bête immonde) has moved resolutely left. Antisemitism has become a defining principle of LFI, along with its shameful support of, not to say militant commitment to, Hamas. In doing so, the far-left movement seeks to cultivate its communitarianism and to grow its electoral base among radical Muslim voters. 

French Muslims have indeed become the new prospective voter base of the French Left since they lost the workers’ support to RN. Having always basked in supporting minorities, no matter which, the Left needed a new electoral booty. Following its customary logic, the Left was looking for a new minority to depict as oppressed. 

For LFI, the Israeli response to the October 7th massacres represented an opportunity that had to be grasped. But the movement had always been based on anti-West feelings, so it is no wonder that they added Jew-hatred to their campaign arsenal. Instead of condemning the terror attacks, the far-left party expressed its support for Hamas. Its deputy president Danièle Obono declared that Hamas was not a terrorist organisation but rather a “resistance movement.” In the party’s view, Hamas is the victim, the terrorists are freedom fighters, and Israel is depicted as the criminal state.

This reversed reasoning led to the hiring of Rima Hassan, a French Palestinian activist, for the 2024 parliamentary elections campaign. Hassan stated nothing less than that “Israel is a monstrosity.” Unashamedly proclaiming her support for Hamas, Hassan, viewed by many as Hamas’ emissary, considers the terror group’s actions as “legitimate” and refuses to describe them as terrorists.

In addition, leader of LFI Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his ‘troops’ are tirelessly repeating antisemitic insults and statements. Hence their regular reference to a “genocide” in Gaza or Rima Hassan’s recent sharing of a post reading “From Auschwitz to Gaza, never again!” (D’Auschwitz à Gaza, plus jamais ça !) along with a personal message wishing followers a good day. Of all dates, the post was published on January 27th, International Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

The misuse of the term genocide and the references to ‘ethnic cleansing’ are telling. They show the Left’s propensity to playing with words and its pronounced taste for controversy. To brush aside the accusations of antisemitism, LFI often uses the term ‘anti-Zionism,’ trying to disguise their Jew-hatred as a geopolitical stance to make it more palatable. This strategy is odious given the fact that anti-Zionism, even if it is not criminalized under French law, is akin to antisemitism, considering that it implies that Israel should not exist.

Partly due to LFI’s incendiary rhetoric, antisemitism is no longer taboo and is gaining ground in France. Between the October 7th terrorist attacks in 2023 and October 7th, 2024 the number of recorded antisemitic incidents had increased by 192%.

In 1896, Theodor Herzl, the Hungarian-Austrian Jewish journalist and jurist, laid the foundations for the modern Zionist movement with the publishing of The Jewish State. In this manifesto, he came to the conclusion that Jews needed their own state in order to avoid persecution—the very same state that the French radical Left today regards as a “monstrosity.”

It is in this context that the chief rabbi of the Grande Synagogue in Paris has said that “it is clear that there is no future for Jews in France.” Many Jews are indeed considering doing Aliyah, that is, moving to Israel. The number one political force that could change that sentiment is Rassemblement National. As Alain Finkielkraut, a prominent French Jewish intellectual, has put it, RN is “a way to stop antisemitism.”

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/commentary/how-anti-semitism-became-a-defining-principle-of-the-french-far-left/