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Wednesday, May 30, 2018

French police clear out Paris migrants camp

May 30, 2018 13H:20 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Natalie de Vallieres and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, Paris

PARIS - Police cleared an illegal refugee camp in Paris on Wednesday, in the French government’s latest attempt to deal with a migrant influx the country has been facing for the past three years.

Migrants with their belongings stand in line as French police evacuate hundreds of migrants living in makeshift camps in Paris, France, May 30, 2018. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

At the Millenaire camp northeast of Paris, riot police flanked migrants as they boarded buses to temporary housing around the city. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said some 1,000 migrants out of the 1,600 counted on site had been evacuated.

A prefect for the greater Ile-de-France region said other dismantling operations at smaller camps in and around Paris would take place “as soon as possible.”

A migrant sits by the canal as French police evacuate hundreds of migrants living in makeshift camps in Paris, France, May 30, 2018. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

The migrants were being moved out of the camp for general welfare and security reasons, French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said in a statement.

“Police services will be fully committed to preventing such camps being built again,” Collomb said. The evacuation was the 34th to take place since June 2015, he said.

Europe has faced a migrant crisis since 2015, after years of conflict in the Middle East. More than 1 million people from Africa and the Middle East flooded into the continent.

Slideshow (23 Images)

In France, much of the migrant influx ended up in the northern port of Calais, where a giant slum was cleared by the authorities in late 2016. Most of the rest have gathered in Paris and the southeast near the Franco-Italian border.

Officials and NGOs say 2,700 illegal migrants live in the Paris area. They said the migrants being evacuated would be taken to 24 accommodation centers around Paris, where they would be allowed to file asylum requests.

France rewards Malian 'Spiderman' for rescue

An NGO worker at the camp told us at Reuters that his teams had counted around 900 migrants, many from Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea, boarding buses.

“A lot of these migrants believe they will end up being welcomed here, in France. We try to inform them on the realities they face, because if they have left their fingerprints in another country, they will be expelled,” said Yann Manzi, who works for Utopia 56, an NGO that provides legal help to refugees.

Under European law, asylum seekers must remain in the first European country they enter. They often have to register with their fingerprints when they arrive.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s government has said it wants to be both firm and fair on immigration. But it has taken a tougher stance lately, with parliament approving a bill that tightens asylum rules .

As elsewhere in Europe, immigration from Africa and the Middle East has become a major political issue in France, fuelling the rise of far-right parties such as the National Front.

Saturday, May 12, 2018

BREAKING: One person killed in Paris knife attack, attacker shot dead

May 13, 2018 00H:19 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Natalie de Vallieres and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, Paris

PARIS - A man killed a passer-by in a knife attack in the heart of Paris and injured four others before being shot dead by police, French authorities said.

“A person attacked five people in the second district of Paris. Police intervened immediately,” Pierre Gaudin, a senior official at the Paris prefecture, told reporters.

“The individual died. Another person, seriously injured (by the attacked) died from their injuries.”

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb called it an “odious” attack.

The Paris prefecture had earlier said a person had carried out a knife attack in the second arrondissement - or district - of the French capital. Paris’ opera and landmark retail stores are located in that area.

France has been on high alert as a series of attacks commissioned or inspired by Islamic State have hit the country over the past three years in which dozens of people have been killed.

(This is a breaking story. Please come back here for more details.)

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Arrests made in French, Swiss anti-terrorism raids

Latest update : 2017-11-08 07H:12 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Elodie Bagnol and Biodun Iginla, France24, Paris

Ten people suspected of using encrypted social networks to prepare a possible attack were arrested Tuesday in counterterrorism operations in France and Switzerland, according to French officials.

Among those arrested were a 23-year-old Colombian woman and 27-year-old Swiss man, both targets of a Swiss investigation into banned Islamic extremist groups.

Searches are still underway in the Paris suburbs and in southeastern France.

Counterterrorism investigators detained nine people in France and one in Switzerland in operations aimed at clarifying details of the suspected plot, according to a French judicial official. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, would not provide details about their identities.

In parallel to the Swiss investigation, French authorities opened a probe in July focused on suspicious activity by a person in Switzerland using the Telegram network, according to a French judicial official. The Swiss-based chief suspect had communicated with people in France on social networks about unspecified violent acts, the official said.

>> In Numbers: Behind France's two-year state of emergency

A French security official said the suspected plot did not appear to be fully developed but authorities acted Tuesday out of concern that the group was moving toward action.

Among French towns targeted in the operation were Aix-en-Provence in southern France and Menton on the Mediterranean coast as well as Paris suburbs, according to the security official.

The office of Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber said the arrest there followed searches of buildings in the French-speaking Vaud and Neuchatel regions of western Switzerland.

The Swiss investigation had originally targeted a 27-year-old Swiss man and was more recently extended to include the Colombian woman, neither of whom was identified by name. Lauber's office said the woman is expected to remain in custody until she appears before a court. The Swiss man was among those arrested in France.

A joint investigation team has been created in the case by authorities in the two countries.

The operation comes days after a new counterterrorism law came into effect in France to replace a state of emergency that had been in place since deadly attacks in Paris two years ago.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb appeared to downplay the arrests, telling reporters during a visit to Germany on Tuesday that, "in a relatively habitual way, we arrest a certain number of individuals who appear that they could be dangerous."

Date created : 2017-11-07

Biodun Iginla, BBC News