Tag Archives: hollande

World Leaders voice support for US strike against Assad

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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad bears “sole responsibility” for the US strike on a regime airbase, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande said in a joint statement on Friday.

“After the chemical weapons massacre of April 4 on Khan Sheikhun in northwestern Syria, a military installation of the Syrian regime was destroyed by a US air strike last night,” the statement, issued after a morning phone call, said.

“President Assad bears sole responsibility for this development.”

They added that “France and Germany, together with their partners and within the framework of the United Nations, will continue their efforts to hold President Assad responsible for his criminal deeds”.

Berlin and Paris “jointly call on the international community to join forces for a political transition in Syria in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254 and the Geneva Communique,” they said, referring to a statement issued on June 30 2012 by the UN-backed Action Group for Syria.

Merkel and Hollande were each informed “one to two hours before the strikes,” a source close to the French president’s office said.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel earlier said the strike was “understandable” after the UN Security Council was “unable to clearly and unequivocally respond to the barbaric use of chemical weapons against innocent people in Syria”.

His French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault, with Gabriel on a trip to Mali, said he hoped the strikes would show Syria’s allies Russia and Iran that they should withdraw their support for Assad.

“The Russians and the Iranians must now understand that they cannot prop up Bashar al-Assad’s regime… it cannot go on, it makes no sense,” Ayrault told France Info radio.

 

Source: The Guardian

French parliament dismisses impeachment call against President Hollande

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President Francois Hollande will not face an impeachment process over comments he made to two journalists that revealed French secret services had conducted four targeted killings on his orders, a parliamentary committee ruled on Wednesday.

 

Earlier this month a conservative lawmaker, Pierre Lellouche, triggered a process to activate article 68 of France’s constitution – that allows the National Assembly to impeach the president – on the grounds the Socialist leader had breached security protocols.

 

A cross-party steering committee voted 13 to eight in favour of halting the impeachment call in its tracks, the leader of the National Assembly, Clause Bartolone, said in a short statement.

 

There was no immediate reaction from the presidential Elysee palace.

 

Few of Hollande’s allies had expected the process to gain any traction. Even so, the comments, published in a book entitled ‘A president Should Not Say that’ unleashed a political storm within Hollande’s ruling party six months ahead of a presidential election.

 

Hollande, who is deeply unpopular among voters and has not yet declared whether he will run for a second term, still faces a separate judicial investigation into whether classified documents left lying on his desk in front of reporters constituted a breach of national security.

Hollande warns Britain must pay the price for Brexit

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French President Francois Hollande has sent one of the strongest warnings yet that Britain will have to pay a heavy price for leaving the European Union, adding to deep concern in financial markets.

He called for “firmness” by the EU powers in Brexit negotiations to avoid the risk that other countries might seek to follow Britain’s lead and leave the bloc.

The comments added to jitters on financial markets, where the pound Friday morning suffered its biggest drop since Britain voted in a June referendum to leave the EU.

“There must be a threat, there must be a risk, there must be a price, otherwise we will be in negotiations that will not end well and, inevitably, will have economic and human consequences,” he said in a speech Thursday evening.

“Britain has decided on a Brexit, I believe even a hard Brexit. Well, we must go all the way with Britain’s will to leave the European Union.

“We have to have this firmness” otherwise “the principles of the European Union will be questioned” and “other countries or other parties will be minded to leave the European Union in order to have the supposed benefits and no downsides or rules.”

Hollande made the speech to mark the 20th anniversary of the creation of the Institut Jacques Delors, a think tank founded by the former president of the European Commission.

He said Delors “had also faced crises provoked by the United Kingdom”, noting that the late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s obtained a rebate on its EU contributions worth billions of pounds every year.

Thatcher “wanted to remain in Europe, but receive a cheque in return,” he said.

“Today, Britain wants to leave, but does not want to pay anything. That is not possible”.

British Prime Minister Theresa May announced on Sunday that her government will trigger Brexit negotiations by the end of March, putting the country on course to leave the European Union by early 2019.

European powers keen to dampen rising euroscepticism in their own backyards have taken a hard line with Britain, warning that informal negotiations cannot start before the two-year notification process is triggered.

May’s government and party is divided over whether to go for a “hard” or “soft” withdrawal from the EU.

“Hard” Brexit would mean quickly severing all links with EU institutions and pulling out of the single market, relying instead on World Trade Organization rules to trade overseas.

Hollande Condemns ‘Cowardly’ Terror Attack On French Police

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French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday called the killing of a policeman and his partner by a man claiming allegiance to Islamic State (IS) a “terrorist act” and warned France still faced a serious threat.

The attack is the first deadly strike in France since the coordinated attacks on Paris by an Islamic State cell in November in which 130 people were killed.

Hollande said the 42-year-old policeman and his partner, who were attacked at their home northwest of Paris overnight, were “murdered in cowardly fashion.”

“It’s unquestionably a terrorist act,” Hollande said, stressing that France, which is currently hosting the Euro 2016 football championships was still “facing a very significant terrorist threat.”

Sources close to the investigation identified the suspect, who was killed in a police raid, as Larossi Abballa and said he was convicted in 2013 over his role in a jihadist group with links to Pakistan.

The sources later confirmed that the 25-year-old assailant was also part of a more recent investigation into a network recruiting jihadists for the fight in Syria.

During failed negotiations with police that ended with elite RAID officers storming the house, the attacker claimed he was also acting on behalf of IS.

He repeatedly stabbed the policeman and then killed his partner, who was found with knife wounds to her neck.

The couple’s three-year-old son was found after the police operation, “in shock but unharmed,” a prosecutor added.

Credit: Guardian

French President Francois Hollande Says Missing EgyptAir Flight MS804 Crashed Into The Sea

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At a press conference in Paris, French President Francois Hollande says that all the information gathered so far indicates that flight MS804 crashed – but, he says, no hypothesis as to the cause has been ruled out

“The information we have gathered – ministers, members of government and, of course, the Egyptian authorities – confirm, sadly, that it has crashed. It is lost.”

French President Francois Hollande says flight MS804 crashed into the sea. The flight from Paris to Cairo went missing over the Mediterranean.

An EgyptAir plane headed to Cairo from Paris with 69 people on board disappeared from radar at dawn Thursday, the airline said.

Flight MS804 operating an Airbus A320 took off from Charles de Gaulle airport at 11:09 p.m. with 56 passengers including three children and 10 crew members, the carrier said in a statement.

Passengers included 30 Egyptians, 15 French and 10 other nationalities, including one Briton

It lost contact with radar at 02:30 Cairo time (01:30 BST). It was 16km (10 miles) inside Egyptian airspace when it went missing, the airline says

Terrorism Is Our Common Enemy – Hollande, Putin

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Russian President, Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised efforts by his French counterpart, Francois Hollande to set up a coalition to fight the Islamic State terrorist militia.

“You’re putting a great deal of attention and effort into the creation of a broad anti-terrorist coalition.

“What’s more, we think this coalition is absolutely necessary and that’s where our positions coincide”, Putin said in a meeting with Hollande.

The meeting became imperative owing to Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, Oct. 31 downing of the Russian A321 passenger jet in Egypt, both attacks claimed by the Islmaic State.

“All of this prompt us to pool efforts in the struggle with this common evil, as we are mourning together with you over the losses France has suffered’’, he added.

For his part, Hollande thanked all Russians for their reaction to the Paris terrorist attacks.

“I have come here so that we could find a solution and move together on this path, effectively fighting the common enemy and searching for political solutions to settle the situation in Syria”, Hollande said.

Hollande travelled to Moscow for a meeting and working dinner with Putin as part of a week long campaign by Hollande to push for a more aggressive approach to fighting the Islamic State.

Prior to Hollande’s arrival, Putin made calls on Thursday for a unified, powerful force to combat terrorists in Syria, indicating a willingness to work jointly with France.

 

(dpa/NAN)

Buhari Meets Hollande On Defence, Security

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President Muhammadu Buhari leaves Abuja for Paris today on a three-day official visit to France at the invitation of President Francois Hollande.

Buhari would be accompanied on the visit by the National Security Adviser, Major-Gen. Babagana Monguno (rtd.), Permanent Secretaries, Federal Ministries of Defence, Finance, Agriculture, Foreign Affairs, Industry, Trade and Investment as well as the Chief Executives of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, NIPC, and the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, NEPC.

A statement issued yesterday by Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina said Buhari’s talks in Paris with Hollande and other senior French Government officials would focus on strengthening and consolidating on ongoing bilateral cooperation between both countries in the areas of defence, security, trade and investments.

Apart from his scheduled meeting with Hollande at the Elysee Palace, Buhari and his team would also confer with the French Minister of Defence, Mr. Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister of Finance and Public Accounts, Mr. Michel Sapin, Minister of Economy and Industry, Mr. Emmanuel Macron and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, Mr. Laurent Fabius.

Read More: nationalmirroronline

French President Presents Award Of Highest Honour To Men Who Thwarted Train Attack

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French President, Francois Hollande, presented on Monday the country’s highest decoration to four men credited with thwarting an attack on a Paris-bound train, saying that they had prevented “a massacre.”

American friends Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler and a British man, Chris Norman, were received at the Elysee Palace and decorated with the Legion of Honour.

Hollande hailed the four’s “incredible act of humanity,” in jumping into action Friday evening when they saw a Kalashnikov-toting man on a high-speed train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris.

The man, who also had nine magazines and an automatic pistol, was tackled initially by Stone and held until the train reached the next station and he was turned over to police.
He is in custody.

The three Americans, childhood friends on holiday in Europe in their early twenties, wore polo shirts and khakis at the ceremony.
Stone and Skarlatos, who reached the gunman first, are both members of the U.S. military who were in civilian clothes during the attack.