Displaying items by tag: France

President Macron said he wanted refugees ‘off the streets’ by 2018, but there are still a thousand of them sleeping rough on Paris streets. Solidarithé provide them with coffee, blankets, and information. A Solidarithé volunteer said that Macron wanted to make the problem invisible, but refugees are just hiding in smaller groups throughout north Paris and Calais. The police order them to move on, and even spray them with tear gas. Refugees’ tents are slashed and sleeping bags and blankets are stolen - anything to stop people sleeping on the streets. It is winter, and health problems are getting worse. Macron has said France is a terre d’accueil (land of welcome), but refugees have no toilets or blankets. If they sleep on the pavement they have to do so standing up. Also 700 migrants are living rough in Calais. See

Muslims have been praying outside in the streets of Clichy since the closure of a place of worship in March. Now a Muslim association is taking legal action against French lawmakers after clashes with worshippers on Paris streets. The lawmakers want to stop street prayers, saying it is an unacceptable use of public space. Carrying a giant banner and singing the national anthem, the protesters tried to push past a police cordon. The president of the region said the state must face its responsibilities and help to find a solution, but not at any cost. France needs decent places of worship for everyone, but at the same time people must live in a respectful manner with each other. The growth of Islam in recent decades has prompted calls for limiting its public visibility.

In what will be seen as a kick in the teeth to Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, Emmanuel Macron insisted that the EU should set goals for the next ten years and enforce treaty changes, or risk other member states following Brexit. The French president urged ‘new ambition’, or the Brussels bloc would face the ‘dismantling of Europe’. His comments followed Mr Juncker’s state of the union speech, which included his master plan for greater integration without treaty change. Speaking in New York, Mr Macron warned of difficult months and years ahead for the bloc if it could not shake off its image of overbearing bureaucracy; he said that other countries which are not comfortable with this will leave. Juncker had called for EU integration in the face of rising populism and elections in Italy, Sweden, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, where Eurosceptic parties are gaining momentum.

French unions are famously radical and resistant to reforms. On 12 September rail workers, students and civil servants protested in cities from Paris to Toulouse against loosening labour regulations, seen as a key public test of the president’s reformist resolve. Police said there were 24,000 protesters in Paris; stone-throwing activists clashed with police, who responded with tear gas. Four thousand strikes were called around France by the country's biggest public sector trade union, the CGT. The numbers were, however, well below protests against another labour reform last year.

France has an unemployment rate of 9.5%, double that of the other big European economies, and President Macron has vowed to cut it to 7% by 2022. The country's unwieldy labour code, 3,000 pages long, is a straitjacket for business. Macron's popularity has plummeted recently as he begins his drive to overhaul the rigid labour laws, giving the details first to the unions and bosses' organisations and later to the public. He promised a ‘revolution’ to free up the energy of the workforce, making it easier for bosses to hire and fire. Protests against the plan, spearheaded by the far left, are expected on 12 September, but two of the biggest unions will not take part.

The closure of the ‘Jungle’ failed to remove migrants from Calais. Since January 17,000+ have attempted to board UK-bound trucks and trains. Migrants haven't gone, they have moved into the woods where they live like animals. There are not as many as a year ago, but there are more than the French government would wish. The French interior minister said there were ‘about 350 ‘. He is wrong. It is clear from spending four days there that the number is much closer to the estimate by volunteers, who say 1,000 are playing a constant game of cat-and-mouse with the police. A recent Human Rights Watch report said that riot police are using brutal methods to disperse new arrivals. Regular attempts are made to remove migrants to processing centres. Some go and some hide. Many who go will return later.

Holiday venues: pray for God to pour out his blessings on all the Christian summer camps for youth and adults during the next few weeks. Pray for protection from terror attacks wherever people gather this season. French politics: may God give grace to President Macron, who secured a majority in the National Assembly last month. He must seize a small window of opportunity for radical economic change, while not falling into the same trap as President Sarkozy, who faced a wave of paralyzing strikes after unveiling his first radical proposals. Pray for Macron to reverse France’s decline through wise management of the National Assembly. Migration crisis: pray for European and African ministers trying to regularise the flow of refugees from Africa to Europe, coupled with a much tougher strategy to deport illegal migrants from Italy and break up smuggling rings. See:

Emmanuel Macron will now have to set his mandate: give way to demonstrators, or forcefully implement his manifesto? Which is worse, a massive budget deficit or cuts in social spending? Should he give way to human rights lobbying for accommodation for Calais refugees, or be hard-headed (because housing them might just encourages more)? On these and a host of other questions, no-one knows his thinking. His rule is different from all that went before. His party didn't exist until he dreamed it up last year. Not since Charles de Gaulle, in 1958, has a head of state had such a powerful majority of men and women who depend on him. Half the new parliamentarians will need lessons (literally) in how to do their jobs as they tackle 10% unemployment - nearly 25% among under-25s; bloated public spending (56% of GDP, compared with 44% in Germany and 39% in the UK); and low economic growth.

If elected, Marine Le Pen will suspend all legal immigration to France. Polls suggest she is neck and neck with Emmanuel Macron, ahead of Sunday's first round of voting. However, in a world of alternative facts shared by the Russian-state-funded news operation Sputnik, François Fillon is leading in the polls. A very loud voice comes from farmers protesting about the difficulties of the agricultural industry. 600 committed suicide last year, but little has been done to address French farming’s deepest crisis since World War II. The hidden tragedy is European, and across Europe farmers have been protesting on the streets at ever-increasing intervals to highlight poor market returns for their produce. A fortnight ago members of the agriculture committee of the European Parliament held a minute's silence for those farmers who had committed suicide as a result of the ongoing crisis in agricultural markets. French farmers will be voting for Marine Le Pen. See

In France, teachers may teach about the Bible, but are strictly forbidden from proselytising or preaching. A step to keep religion out of schools was taken in 2013 when schools were ordered by law to put a charter in a prominent place to remind people of fifteen secular Republican principles. Last week a teacher in Malicornay, central France, was suspended after reading passages of the Bible to his pupils, aged between nine and eleven. Parents of pupils in the class objecting to the teacher's lessons wrote an anonymous letter of complaint to the headmaster, who then decided to suspend the teacher for his apparent disregard of France's strict secularism laws that separate religion from public sphere, in particular in education. The national education board is reviewing the case. France takes secularism - or laïcité - very seriously; however, it is unusual for a teacher to be suspended for reading a passage from the Bible.