World News

France Re-Thinks Anti-Extremism Prevention Programs

Muslims in France protest against a French law that forbids the wearing of religious symbols (including the hijab) in the primary and secondary schools

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PARIS – France’s attempts to counter the radicalization of its young people are in turmoil, with a group home intended to turn them away from Islamic extremism empty, the head of a highly publicized nonprofit convicted of misuse of public funds, and plans to segregate prison inmates suspected of harboring jihadi ideas abandoned.

The results are both disappointing and unsurprising, according to a French senator who co-wrote a recent report highly critical of an effort she says was devised in haste and has been a waste of money.

“We spread money around because we didn’t have time and we had to communicate something, we had to show something,” said Sen. Esther Benbassa, whose report last month concluded that the country’s de-radicalization efforts so far were largely ineffective. “The time that this takes to work is long, very long.”

The backtracking takes on added significance as recent attacks, including last week’s rampage in London and the previous week’s assault on soldiers at Paris’ Orly airport, were carried out by ex-convicts who may have been radicalized behind bars.

France is not the only country reconsidering how it responds to radicalization. Britain’s contentious Prevent program, which seeks to identify residents at risk of being radicalized, has come under criticism by rights groups and an expert for the United Nations who said it stifles free speech.

France’s experiments with preventing radicalization were conceived during a literal state of emergency following the extremist attacks on the staff of Charlie Hebdo magazine and a kosher supermarket in January 2015 and the Paris bombings and shootings that left 130 dead 10 months later. The ad hoc attempts focused on the prison system, a key incubator for many would-be jihadis, and programs that tried to target those already on the path to extremism.

They did not go as hoped.

Sonia Imloul, the former head of a de-radicalization program that had support of the French Interior Ministry, was convicted of misuse of funds this month after trial testimony showed she had government funds for the organization deposited directly into her account.

Imloul received a four-month suspended prison sentence, although her lawyer says the 60,000 euros ($65,000) she received from the government was a drop in the bucket for what the program needed. The program operated out of an apartment and used university students instead of trained professionals to counsel families of young people who had left for Syria, according to the trial testimony.

Meanwhile, in February, the last occupant of a residential program in the Loire Valley wine country that was meant to rehabilitate extremists was convicted of advocating terrorism.

Residents of the area, who were promised before the group home opened in September that none of the occupants posed a danger, were infuriated to learn that one young man was linked to the same jihadi network as one of the suicide bombers who attacked the Bataclan concert hall in Paris on Nov. 13, 2015.

With a capacity of 25, the manor house never had more than nine voluntary participants at any given time since it launched in September. It’s now empty and the government is focusing its resources on prevention, hoping that will prove more effective – or at least not counter-productive.

In the northern city of Lens, 600 local high school students recently were bused to the Colisee theater to watch a live performance of “Djihad,” a play about three young Muslims who come to regret their decision to go to Syria but who also feel rejected by Europe.

The play, which uses comedy to reach an audience often impervious to preaching adults, opened days before the January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Cacher grocery store. It has been running continuously ever since. Its current home theater is in Paris, across the street from La Bonne Biere bar, which was attacked in November 2015.

Playwright Ismail Saidi is a native of the Molenbeek neighborhood in Brussels that was home to many of the attackers who struck Paris that night, including the ringleader of the Islamic State cell and the only attacker known to have survived, now awaiting trial in France.

“There is not one single solution, because each of these people is a particular case. Each one has his own path that led him to this place,” Florian Chauvet, one of the lead actors in “Djihad,” said. “It’s a question of what French society is failing to provide to these young people that they say ‘My life has no meaning here, so I’m going to try to find meaning in my death.'”

The hope is that the story will raise doubts in the minds of anyone considering the same course, but the essential problem is measuring success, said Muriel Domenach, who leads the new effort to reboot France’s anti-radicalization initiative.

France has seen more of its citizens join extremist groups in Syria and Iraq than anywhere else in Europe. The main way to measure if the country is making progress in its fight to change that is the rapid decline in young people leaving, said Domenach, who was the consul general for France in Istanbul when French departures were at their height.

For now, though, she attributes the drop as much to the Islamic State group’s war zone losses as anything else.

“The best counter-narrative is military victory, to start with. With military victory, Daesh would lose a lot of its dark allure,” she said, referring to the group by its Arabic acronym.

France continues to monitor 2,400 people it considers at risk for radicalization and 1,000 families. Domenach is prioritizing community youth centers and respected local figures instead of a counter-narrative from the state to reach young people long before they turn against their country. Once they do, she said, it is all but too late.

“I’m not a strong believer in de-radicalization. I’m not a strong believer in deprogramming someone,” she said. “I don’t think that such a thing as creating a new man or a new woman ever worked. I don’t think you make someone come back to the way they were.”

By LORI HINNANT – The Associated Press

World News

Marine Le Pen’s National Rally Wins the First Round in France 2024 Election

Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN) party scored historic gains in France

Exit polls in France showed that Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally (RN) party made huge gains to win the first round of election on Sunday. However, the final outcome will depend on how people trade votes in the days before next week’s run-off.

Exit polls from Ipsos, Ifop, OpinionWay, and Elabe showed that the RN got about 34% of the vote. This was a big loss for President Emmanuel Macron, who called the early election after his party lost badly in the European Parliament elections earlier this month.

The National Rally (RN) easily won more votes than its opponents on the left and center, including Macron’s Together group, whose bloc was predicted to get 20.5% to 23% of the vote. Exit polls showed that the New Popular Front (NFP), a hastily put together left-wing alliance, would get about 29% of the vote.

The results of the exit polls matched what people said in polls before the election, which made Le Pen’s fans very happy. But they didn’t say for sure if the anti-immigrant, anti-EU National Rally (RN) will be able to “cohabit” with the pro-EU Macron in a government after the runoff election next Sunday.

Voters in France Angry at Macron

Many French people have looked down on the National Rally (RN) for a long time, but now it is closer to power than it has ever been. A party known for racism and antisemitism has tried to clean up its image, and it has worked. Voters are angry at Macron, the high cost of living, and rising concerns about immigration.

Fans of Marine Le Pen waved French flags and sang the Marseillaise in the northern French district of Henin-Beaumont. The crowd cheered as Le Pen said, “The French have shown they are ready to turn the page on a power that is disrespectful and destructive.”

The National Rally’s chances of taking power next week will rest on what political deals its opponents make in the next few days. Right-wing and left-wing parties used to work together to keep the National Rally (RN) out of power, but the “republican front,” which refers to this group, is less stable than ever.

If no candidate gets 50% of the vote in the first round, the top two candidates and anyone else with 12.5% of the registered voters immediately move on to the second round. The district goes to the person who gets the most votes in the runoff.

France is likely to have a record number of three-way runoffs because so many people voted on Sunday. Experts say that these are much better for the National Rally (RN) than two-way games. Almost right away on Sunday night, the horse trade began.

Macron asked people to support candidates who are “clearly republican and democratic.” Based on what he has said recently, this would rule out candidates from the National Rally (RN) and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party. Leaders on the far left and the center left both asked their third-placed candidates to drop out.

Minority government

Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of France Unbowed, said, “Our rule is simple and clear: not a single more vote for the National Rally.” But the center-right Republicans party, which split before the vote when some of its members joined the RN, didn’t say anything.

The president of the RN party, Jordan Bardella, who is 28 years old, said he was ready to be prime minister if his party gets a majority of seats. He has said he won’t try to make a minority government, and neither Macron nor the communist NFP will work with him.

“I will be a “cohabitation” Prime Minister, respectful of the constitution and of the office of President of the Republic, but uncompromising about the policies we will implement,” he said.

A few thousand anti-RN protesters met in Paris’s Republique square on Sunday night for a rally of the leftist alliance. The mood was gloomy.

Niya Khaldi, a 33-year-old teacher, said that the RN’s good results made her feel “disgust, sadness, and fear.”

“This is not how I normally act,” she said. “I think I came to reassure myself, to not feel alone.”

Election Runoff

The result on Sunday didn’t have much of an effect on the market. In early Asia-Pacific trade, the euro gained about 0.23%. Fiona Cincotta, a senior markets expert at City Index in London, said she was glad the outcome “didn’t come as a surprise.”

“Le Pen had a slightly smaller margin than some of the polls had pointed to, which may have helped the euro a little bit higher on the open,” she noted. “Now everyone is waiting for July 7 to see if the second round supports a clear majority or not. So it does feel like we’re on the edge of something.”

Some pollsters thought the RN would win the most seats in the National Assembly, but Elabe was the only one who thought the party would win all 289 seats in the run-off. Seat projections made after the first round of voting are often very wrong, and this race is no exception.

On Sunday night, Reuters reported there were no final results for the whole country yet, but they were due in the next few hours. In France, exit polls have usually been very accurate.

Voter turnout was high compared to previous parliamentary elections. This shows how passionate people are about politics after Macron made the shocking and politically risky decision to call a vote in parliament.

Mathieu Gallard, research head at Ipsos France, said that at 1500 GMT, nearly 60% of voters had turned out, up from 39.42% two years earlier. This was the highest comparable turnout since the 1986 legislative vote. It wasn’t clear when the official number of people who voted would be changed.

World News

Pakistan Seeks US Support for Counter-Terrorism Operation Azm-e-Istehkam

(CTN News) – Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Masood Khan, has urged Washington to provide Pakistan with sophisticated small arms and communication equipment to ensure the success of Operation Azm-e-Istehkam, a newly approved counter-terrorism initiative in the country.

The federal government recently approved the reinvigorated national counter-terrorism drive, which comprises three components: doctrinal, societal, and operational.

Ambassador Khan noted that work on the first two phases has already begun, with the third phase set to be implemented soon.

Addressing US policymakers, scholars, and corporate leaders at the Wilson Center in Washington, Khan emphasized the importance of strong security links, enhanced intelligence cooperation, and the resumption of sales of advanced military platforms between Pakistan and the US.

He argued that this is crucial for regional security and countering the rising tide of terrorism, which also threatens the interests of the US and its allies.

“Pakistan has launched Azm-i-Istehkam […] to oppose and dismantle terrorist networks. For that, we need sophisticated small arms and communication equipment,” said Ambassador Khan.

Pakistan–United States relations

The ambassador observed that the prospects of Pakistan-United States relations were bright, stating that the two countries “share values, our security and economic interests are interwoven, and it is the aspiration of our two peoples that strengthens our ties.”

He invited US investors and businesses to explore Pakistan’s potential in terms of demographic dividend, technological advancements, and market opportunities.

Khan also suggested that the US should consider Pakistan as a partner in its diplomatic efforts in Kabul and collaborate on counterterrorism and the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan.

He stressed that the bilateral relationship should be based on ground realities and not be hindered by a few issues.

“We should not base our engagement on the incongruity of expectations.

Our ties should be anchored in ground realities, even as we aim for stronger security and economic partnerships. Secondly, one or two issues should not hold the entire relationship hostage,” said the ambassador.

World News

China Urges Taiwanese to Visit Mainland ‘Without Worry’ Despite Execution Threat

China Urges Taiwanese to Visit Mainland Without Worry Despite Threats

China has reassured Taiwanese citizens that they can visit the mainland “without the slightest worry”, despite Taiwan raising its travel alert to the second-highest level in response to Beijing’s new judicial guidelines targeting supporters of Taiwanese independence.

Last week, China published guidelines that could impose the death penalty for “particularly serious” cases involving “diehard” advocates of Taiwanese independence.

In response, Taiwan’s government urged the public to avoid “unnecessary travel” to mainland China and Hong Kong, and raised its travel warning to the “orange” level.

However, Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for a Chinese body overseeing Taiwan affairs, stated that the new directives are “aimed solely at the very small number of supporters of ‘Taiwan independence’, who are engaged in malicious acts and utterances”.

She emphasized that “the vast majority of Taiwan compatriots involved in cross-strait exchanges and cooperation do not need to have the slightest worry when they come to or leave mainland China”.

“They can arrive in high spirits and leave fully satisfied with their stay,” Zhu added.

What’s Behind The China-Taiwan Tensions?

The tensions stem from the longstanding dispute over Taiwan’s status. Mainland China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has refused to rule out using force to bring the democratic island under its control, while Taiwan sees itself as a sovereign state.

Beijing has not conducted top-level communications with Taipei since 2016, when the Democratic Progressive Party’s Tsai Ing-wen became Taiwan’s leader. China has since branded her successor, President Lai Ching-te, a “dangerous separatist”.

“The DPP authorities have fabricated excuses to deceive the people on the island and incite confrontation and opposition,” Zhu said in her statement.
Despite the political tensions, many Taiwanese continue to travel to mainland China for work, study, or business.