Almost 1,000 Cars Torched Around France on New Year's Eve

 But government insists it 'went particularly well'

A car on fire in Paris CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES

Henry Samuel, Paris, Telegraph 

Vandals in France torched 945 parked cars over New Year's Eve in an arson rampage that has become a sinister annual "tradition" and amid a row over whether the government had sought to play down the figures.

According to the French interior ministry, the total of 945, which included cars that were either "totally destroyed" or "more lightly affected", amounted to a 17 per cent rise compared to last year.

Despite this, New Year's Eve "went off without any major incident", the interior ministry insisted in a statement, adding that there were only "a few troubles with public order",

In fact, police arrested 454 people over the night, 301 of whom were taken into custody. 

I guess the word 'few' has many definitions.

On Sunday, the ministry had chosen to release a much lower figure of 650 cars torched, as this only indicated the number of vehicles "set on fire" and not those engulfed in the ensuing flames.

So if you set one car on fire and the car next to it burns, it doesn't count; it's a freebee!

The lower figure enabled it to claim: "Once again this year, the overall  number of vehicles burned demonstrates that, however intolerable, the phenomenon is contained". By this calculation, the rise, it said, was only 48 cars.

But the the lower figure prompted the far-right Front National to denounce what it called the government's "extremely hazy security record".

"The new interior minister Bruno Le Roux…(initially) didn't communicate the number of vehicles burned and considers that the number of cars directly set on fire to be 'contained' while even this constitutes a signifiant rise of 8 per cent," the FN said in a statement.

Le Monde, the national daily newspaper, also accused the ministry of muddying the waters.

The government responded that the figures released were the "most pertinent and the most coherent". 

"There is absolutely no attempt at hiding anything," said Pierre Henry Brandet, an interior ministry spokesman.

"You have to look at the trend over several years, and what is significant is that there has been a significant drop over five years,"he said.

But, M Brandet, it doesn't help if the drop came as a result of how you count the number of cars. Is that method of counting consistent through the years? Statistics are meaningless otherwise.

Mr Brandet conceded, however, that the figure was still too high, adding: "These incidents are not tolerable and the perpetrators must be found and answer for their acts before justice."

Over New Year, a fire fighter in the eastern department of Ain was hurt while trying to extinguish one car. 

In Nice, where security has been extremely tight since the deadly Bastille Day truck attack of last year, two police officers were hurt when revellers threw "projectiles" at them. 

Bruno le Roux, the interior minister, said that no attack on security would not be tolerated. 

"I regret that once again there were too many instances of security forces being hit with objects, or faced with attacks or insults," he said.

But he thanked the tens of thousands of police and firefighters, adding that they "allowed December 31st to go off particularly well". 

With France under a state of emergency since a spate of terror attacks, some 90,000 security forces were out in its streets on New Year's Eve to police mass gatherings such on Paris' famed Champs-Elysées, where half a million revellers convened.

French domestic intelligence agents also reportedly swooped on a string of individuals ahead of festivities who they suspected might have been tempted to wreak violence.

The custom of setting vehicles alight on New Year’s Eve is said to have kicked off around Strasbourg, eastern France in the 1990s, in the the city’s deprived, high-immigrant districts.

It quickly caught on among disaffected youths in cities across the country, and is seen by some as a litmus test of general social unrest.

The most notorious spate of car burnings in recent years was seen in the 2005 riots when hundreds of vehicles were torched.

As stated above, the 'tradition' began in mainly Muslim areas. Who knows how many Muslims were involved in this year's event but it is safe to say many. Of course, the police or government will never tell us, they don't want you blaming Muslims for doing what they do.

Meanwhile, France is in a state of emergency; 90,000 police or military were on the streets; nearly a thousand cars burnt; police were attacked; several hundred people were arrested; and the government declares it a good night! Good grief!

Former French president Nicholas Sarkozy briefly abandoned issuing a breakdown of New Year's Eve car burnings in 2010-11 amid fears this was sparking copycat actions, but it has since been re-instated.

Terrorist Attacks in Europe in 2016

This is a list of terrorist attacks only. It does not include those attacks that were thwarted by police. Nor does it include the thousands of sexual or child sex attacks that have occurred in Europe this year at the hands of Muslim immigrants. That's a whole 'nuther story which I hope to compile before the end of the year.

Note: all the attacks listed below were committed by Muslims

Firefighter stand beside a truck at a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany, December 19, 2016

after the truck ploughed into the crowded Christmas market in the German capital

© Pawel Kopczynski / Reuters

Monday’s suspected terrorist attack on Berlin’s Christmas market and the assassination of Russia’s ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov, which has been condemned as an act of terrorism, add to the deadly wave of attacks that have rocked Europe this year.

RT takes a look back at the major terrorist incidents which occurred since the November 2015 Paris attacks, which left 130 victims dead, and marked 2016 as another bloody year for Europe.

Brussels bombings, March 22 – 35 killed, including three suicide bombers

Three explosions hit Brussels during the morning rush hour. Two blasts went off in the departure hall of Brussels’ Zaventem Airport while another bomb exploded at the Maalbeek Metro station. Some 300 people were injured. Belgium responded by raising the terrorist threat to the highest level.

Munich stabbing attack,  May 10 – 1 killed

One person was killed and three injured at a train station near Munich when they were attacked by a knife-wielding man, reportedly shouting “Allahu Akbar”. Officials later reported the man has mental health issues and would not stand trial as a result.

French police couple stabbed on June 13 – 3 killed, including the attacker

Two police officers, who were married to each other, were stabbed to death at their home in Magnanville, west of Paris in what French president Francois Hollande described as "unquestionably a terrorist act".

The attacker, Larossi Abballa, pledged allegiance to Islamic State and previously spent time in jail over jihadist links. He was killed by police special forces.

Nice truck terror attack, July 14 – 87 killed, 400+ injured

Eighty-six people were killed and 434 people injured when a truck plowed into a crowd in Nice during Bastille Day celebrations. The Tunisian truck driver was killed by police. It was reported he shouted “Allahu Akbar” before the attack.

President Hollande responded to this by extending the national state of emergency, which had been in place since the Paris attacks.

Ansbach bombing Germany, July 24 – suicide bomber killed, 15 injured

Fifteen people were injured, four seriously, in a suicide bombing outside a wine bar in Ansbach, Germany.

The bomber, identified as Mohammad Daleel, was a 27-year-old Syrian refugee who had pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State.

Normandy church attack, July 26 – 3 killed, including two attackers

An 84-year-old priest was killed in an attack at a church in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy. IS later claimed responsibility for the incident.

The priest was among six people taken hostage by the attackers before they were killed by police.

Hamburg stabbing attack, October 16 – 1 killed

A 16-year-old boy was fatally stabbed near the Alster lake bridge in Hamburg. His girlfriend who was thrown into a lake by the assailant swam to safety.

On October 20 IS claimed responsibility for the killing through their news site Amaq however, following an investigation, police later said any links to the extremist group were unlikely.

French Muslims Attend Mass, Pray with Catholics over Priest's 'Barbaric' Murder

This is a good sign from Muslims in France even if only a couple hundred were involved. It clearly reveals that there are Muslims who genuinely want peace and some level of sanity in their world. What percentage they represent is the question, and are they ready to clean up Islam in France?

Hervé Lionnet•July 31, 2016

Iman Sami Salem (L) and Imam Mohammed ben Mohammed (R) stand during a mass in the church Santa Maria in trastevere in Rome on July 31, 2016 (AFP Photo/Tiziana Fabi)

Rouen (France) (AFP) - Muslims attended Catholic mass in churches around France on Sunday in solidarity and sorrow following the brutal jihadist murder of a priest, the latest in a string of attacks.

More than 100 Muslims were among the 2,000 faithful who packed the 11th-century Gothic cathedral of Rouen, near the Normandy town where two jihadi teenagers slit the throat of 85-year-old Father Jacques Hamel.


Mass at Rouen Cathedral 31 July 2016

"I thank you in the name of all Christians," Rouen Archbishop Dominique Lebrun told them. "In this way you are affirming that you reject death and violence in the name of God."



A few policemen and soldiers stood guard outside but did not conduct searches, seeking to reassure a jittery population after the second jihadist attack in less than a fortnight.

In the southern city of Nice, where a jihadist carried out a rampage in a truck on July 14, claiming 84 lives, local imam Otaman Aissaoui led a delegation of Muslims to a Catholic mass.

"Being united is a response to the act of horror and barbarism," Aissaoui said.

Notre Dame church in southwestern Bordeaux also welcomed a Muslim delegation, led by the city's top imam, Tareq Oubrou.

"It's an occasion to show (Muslims) that we do not confuse Islam with Islamism, Muslim with jihadist," said Reverend Jean Rouet.

Muslims were responding to a call by the French Muslim council CFCM to show "solidarity and compassion" over the priest's murder on Tuesday.

Said a woman wearing a beige headscarf who sat in a back pew at a church in central Paris: "I'm a practising Muslim and I came to share my sorrow and tell you that we are brothers and sisters."

Giving her name only as Sadia, she added softly: "What happened is beyond comprehension."

At the Saint Leger church in the northern city of Lens, around 30 Muslims attended mass wearing T-shirts emblazoned with messages such as, "Terrorism has no religion or identity".

Except 99% of all terrorists are Muslim.

Father Hubert Renard told the congregation: "We are not alone; our Muslim brothers are here too."

Many were moved to tears during the sign of peace, a regular part of the liturgy when the faithful turn to greet each other in the pews, either shaking hands or kissing.

Muslims also attended Catholic masses in Italy, notably at Rome's Santa Maria di Trastevere church, in response to a call by the Sant'Egidio community known for its international mediation efforts. Other joint services were held in Milan, Naples and Palermo, Sicily.

The killing of Father Hamel fanned fears of religious tensions in France and renewed recriminations over perceived security lapses.

Both of the 19-year-old attackers -- Adel Kermiche and Abdel Malik Petitjean -- had been on the intelligence services' radar and had tried to go to Syria.

- Jihadist's cousin charged -

Prime Minister Manuel Valls called Sunday for a new "pact" with the Muslim community in France, Europe's largest with around five million members.

Also Sunday, dozens of prominent Muslims published a joint letter pledging: "We, French and Muslim, are ready to assume our responsibilities."

I suggested a way to help motivate them to assume their responsibilities just this morning.

Meanwhile, Petitjean's 30-year-old cousin was charged with "criminal association in connection with terrorism", the Paris public prosecutor said.

The suspect, named as Farid K., "was fully aware of his cousin's imminent violent action, even if he did not know the precise place or day," the prosecutor said in an earlier statement.

Media reports say Petitjean and Kermiche met through the encrypted messaging app Telegram.

In a separate case Sunday, 20-year-old Jean-Philippe J. was charged with trying to travel to Syria with Petitjean last month.

Today's Terror Attack in Europe - France, Again

#JeSuisPrêtre: Twitter lights up in prayer for priest murdered in Normandy

Another, in a string of terror attacks in Europe! This is the 6th attack between Germany and France 

in less than two weeks. All of them committed by Muslim men, at least half by migrants.

Welcome to the new Europe, enriched by embracing the Religion of Peace.

This picture obtained on the website of the Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray parish on July 26, 2016 shows late priest Jacques Hamel celebrating a mass on June 11, 2016 in the church of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy © HO / AFP

Social media users, including clergymen, are taking to Twitter to pray for the Catholic priest killed in a suspected terror attack in northern France Tuesday.

The hashtag #JeSuisPrêtre (I am priest) is being used to condemn the ongoing violence and pay respect to the priest who reportedly had his throat slit by two men who held five hostages in a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

Fellow clergymen have also paid respect to the 84-year-old priest,  Father Jacques Hamel, murdered in the attack.

This priest based in Paris, urged people to pray for the victims and killer and not seek vengeance.

Father Hamel’s death was confirmed by the Archbishop of Rouen, Dominique Lebrun, in a statement as he urged people to pray for the victims and “not give into violence”.

Father Hamel has been described by members of the community as a warm and peaceful man.

Claude-Albert Seguin, a 68-year-old pensioner, told The Associated Press that “everyone knew him very well. He was very loved in the community and a kind man.''

Mohammed Karabila, president of the Regional Muslim Council of Normandy, told The Local he was “distressed at the death of his friend.”

“Our religious communities always worked together,” he said. “For the past 18 months, and the beginning of the attacks in France, we had meetings in the interfaith committee, and we communicated a lot.”

Father Hamel was awarded a Golden Jubilee for serving 50 years in the priesthood in 2008. At the time of the attack, he had been filling in for another priest, Auguste Moanda-Phuati, who has been the parish priest for the past five years.

"I could not possibly imagine that such a thing would happen to us," Moanda-Phuati said.

The two assailants were shot dead by police and another hostage is reported to be in a serious condition.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls took to Twitter to brand the attack as "barbaric", saying the Catholic community and France as a whole is hurting.

President  François Hollande has confirmed the incident as a terror attack at a press conference in Seine Maritime.

"We are facing a group - Daesh [IS] - who have declared war and we have to fight this war using all means possible,” he said.

IS, themselves, have also claimed responsibility for the attack.

String of attacks

The Ansbach bombing is the fourth attack in southern Germany -- and the third in the state of Bavaria -- in recent days, which also came on the heels of the Bastille Day ISIS attack in Nice, France, that killed 84 people.

A police officer stands guard in Ansbach. 

Speaking at a press conference Monday, Hermann acknowledged it had been a "very terrible week" in Bavaria.

"Yes, this was also for me personally a very terrible week, as I think it was for most of the people in Bavaria. The attack last Monday on the train in Wurzburg, then the rampage ... in Munich Friday night, and now again an attack."

The stabbing attack in Wurzburg, which authorities said appeared motivated by ISIS propaganda, has left four people hospitalized, including one in an induced coma, medical officials said.

The Munich shooting spree was carried out by an 18-year-old German-Iranian with dual nationality, who killed nine people before killing himself in a shopping district.

Police said the gunman was a mentally troubled individual who was obsessed with mass shootings and may have planned the attack for a year. Authorities have not found a link to terror groups.

And on Sunday, hours before the Ansbach attack, a 21-year-old Syrian refugee killed a Polish woman with a machete in the city of Reutlingen.

Germans were shocked by sexual assaults of women blamed on immigrants at New Year's Eve festivities in Cologne and other cities, and three Syrian men were arrested last month on suspicions they were planning to carry out a mass casualty attack in Dusseldorf.

======================================================================================

Accomplices Spent Months Helping Nice Truck Killer Prepare Attack – French Prosecutor

People walk past flowers left in tribute at a makeshift memorial to the victims of the Bastille Day truck attack near the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, July 21, 2016 © Jean-Pierre Amet / Reuters

The man responsible for mowing down 84 people in Nice planned the attack in advance, and was aided by a tight-knit team of associates, who helped him sketch out his plan, and acquired weapons for him.

“He seems to have envisaged and developed his criminal plans several months before carrying them out,” said Paris prosecutor Francois Molins, speaking in a news briefing. “The investigation since the night of July 14 has kept moving forward and allowed us not only to confirm again the premeditated nature of [killer] Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel’s deadly act, but also to establish that he benefited from support and had accomplices in the preparation and carrying out of his criminal act.”

It seems to contradict his alleged life-style up to a couple weeks before the insanity. He certainly did not appear as a devout Muslim. Yet, here we have him doing insane jihad for the insane Mohammad. How many more non-radicalized Muslims are talking about massacring innocent civilians for the sake of their less than innocent 'prophet'?

Police have uncovered thousands of calls and messages between Lahouaiej Bouhlel, and five accomplices, after going through his social media accounts, laptop and phone records.

"Put 2,000 tons of metal in the truck, f**k the brakes, and I'll be watching," says one message sent to Lahouaiej Bouhlel in April.

Four men and one woman, aged between 22 and 40. have been arrested. Among the suspects are a Tunisian man (same nationality as the attacker), two French-Tunisians, an Albanian, and a French-Albanian woman.

The five will soon appear before a court, to be read their initial charges. Only one of the suspects has a significant crime record, and none were on a terrorist watch list.

Police findings appear to contradict initial claims that the attacker was a “lone wolf” and was “radicalized” quickly.

There are pro-jihadist messages dating back at least as far back as January 2015, in which one of the suspects writes, "I'm happy they brought the soldiers of Allah to finish the work," following the deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine.

In the past year alone, Lahouaiej Bouhlel, had more than 1,270 conversations from his mobile with one of the men.

ANALYSIS: The Le Pens Have Become Royalty in South of France

Despite party's popularity, some supporters are coy about showing their true colours to outsiders

By Don Murray, for CBC News
Don Murray was a reporter for CBC News for many years, now freelancing. Like all CBC reporters he leans somewhat to port (that's left, for you non sea-goers). This will be obvious in his writing but the article is still quite interesting and informative.


Carpentras, a small city in the south of France, is the headquarters of MP Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the granddaughter of the founder and first leader of France’s far-right National Front, and niece of the party's current leader, Marine Le Pen. The party's view are popular in the region. (Associated Press)

"You know the town?" the French woman asked. I had come in to buy food.

I said I did, having had a house in the region for years.

"So you know the situation in Carpentras?"

I talked of the economic crisis, of streets with closed and shuttered shops.

She shook her head. That wasn't the problem. She then spoke of a terrifying encounter where young men — young "Arab" men, she specified — challenged a couple of tourists in the middle of the day, announcing that the street was theirs and off-limits to outsiders. Then there were threats.

"The couple fled," she said. This was her example of the problem and why the city is in decline.

I said I know people who live in Carpentras. They hadn't mentioned any such trouble. She looked at me; I had failed the test.

Carpentras is a small city of 30,000 in the south of France, an hour's drive from Marseille and two from Nice. It's also the headquarters of Carpentras MP Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the granddaughter of the founder and first leader of France's far-right National Front. The present leader of the party is Marine Le Pen, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen's aunt.


Marion Maréchal-Le Pen signs autographs after a political rally in Carpentras on Nov. 10, 2015. (Reuters)

Carpentras, in the minds of many like the woman I spoke with, is a divided city. And fear is the wedge. Fear reinforced by economic insecurity. Unemployment among young people stands at 25%. Many are convinced outsiders — Muslims — have grabbed scarce jobs.

The divisions are more visible than 20 years ago. It is a city with a Muslim minority of up to 15% (the statistics are approximate because the French census cannot ask questions about ethnic background or religious affiliation).

Today, many more Muslim women walk the streets veiled, even young women born in France.

And at the Carpentras weekly market, which spreads through the streets and is the oldest continuing weekly market in the country, the stands where men and women of North African origin sell their vegetables are found increasingly in the streets at the edge of the old town.



Rhetorical attack

The National Front is powerful here, as it is throughout the south. In the "élections regionales" in December 2015 — votes to elect powerful regional councils in the country —  the party took 52% of the vote in the second round in Carpentras. Across the whole region, which sweeps from north of Carpentras and Avignon down to Marseille and Nice, it only lost the second round to control the council when the other parties formed a "republican front" behind the centre-right party.

It's perhaps not a coincidence that the National Front vote jumped in those elections. They took place just a month after the murderous attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.

Of course, these days in France you are never very distant time-wise from a massacre.


A man cries at a memorial for those killed in last week's deadly truck attack in Nice, France. (Reuters)

In the wake of the Nice attack, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen returned to the rhetorical attack.

"If we don't kill Islamism, it will kill us. These scenes of horror will become a daily reality."

'Nightmare for the French'

The deadly attacks and the Islamists were only the tip of the iceberg. Maréchal-Le Pen then denounced "French citizens on paper only" and Muslims in general.

"It's not possible to assimilate entire peoples with their foreign culture and religion," she said. Their presence is leading to "a nightmare for the French of aggression, insults and attacks" like the one in Nice.

The rhetoric works, in fact it works so well that a lot of it has been taken up by mainstream parties. The government talks of "war" against Islamism, and opposition leaders don't even wait for the end of the three-day period of national mourning to launch bitter attacks on the government for its lax approach to terrorism.

Even talk of reimposing border controls and far more draconian laws of search, seizure and punishment for suspected terrorists is now part of the mainstream French political vocabulary. The rhetoric of division, of suspicion and of punishment, long the calling card of the National Front, is now echoed across the political spectrum. It's a major victory for the party.



'The abuse has increased'

Insecurity cuts both ways. As the rhetoric heats up, Muslim men who've lived and worked in the region for decades tell the media they feel the effects. They have become fearful.

"We are the worst affected by the attacks," one said. "The abuse has increased."

"Worst affected?" I don't think so. But, of course, there is some polarity that develops when every mass murder in the country was done by people with Islam in their hearts, if they have hearts.

"People I know," another man named Mohammed said, "people who used to embrace me, now avoid me. They're cold."

There is, of course, a real and dangerous problem with Islamists, particularly in the south of France. Some estimates suggest up to 2,000 have left France to fight for ISIS in Syria in the past two years. And some have found their way back into France.



Greatest danger

But Patrick Calvar, the head of the DGSI, France's internal intelligence service, pointed to something else when asked about the greatest danger he feared.

In testimony to a French parliamentary commission in May, he said his nightmare is a violent backlash following more murderous terrorist attacks. The backlash, he said, might take the form of armed attacks on Muslims by ultra-right militias, some of which have informal links with the National Front.

"Then what you will have is confrontation between the far-right and the Muslims," he said. "Not with Islamists, let me be clear. With Muslims."

Now I'm not the most clever person in the world, but I saw that coming 5 years ago. Had the governments of the day addressed the issue back then, it might not have come down to this precarious position. But rather than deal with the issue, they simply called the Le Pens far right kooks, ignored the warnings and ganged-up on them to keep them out of power. But the chickens are coming home to roost.


Soldiers from the French Foreign Legion patrol on the Promenade des Anglais on the third day of national mourning to pay tribute to victims of the deadly truck attack on Bastille Day in Nice. (Reuters)

For the moment, National Front supporters, like the woman I met, are coy around outsiders about showing their colours. Many know the party's view of Muslims as second-class citizens sits badly in a country that officially stands for "liberty, equality, fraternity." They vote for it, in ever greater numbers, but they don't advertise it.

But sometimes there is no hiding their leanings. When two young men entered a leading food shop in Carpentras and said they were Le Pen aides and needed some delicacies for a family feast, the shop owner fluttered about and assured them the family would have everything it desired.

In this corner of the world, the Le Pens have become royalty.  Or, at least, hope!