Prosecutors have opened a preliminary investigation after videos filmed during a 'Yellow Vest' anti-government protest in the French capital on January 18th showed a man with a bloodied head being held down on his back by a helmeted officer, who then strikes him hard in the face.
French media reports citing official sources said five people, including an imam, have been detained in connection with the murders of four staff at Paris police headquarters on October 3rd during a stabbing rampage by an IT worker at the site, Mickaël Harpon, which is being investigated by anti-terrorism police.
Calling on France to mobilise against 'underground Islamism', President Emmanuel Macron led a ceremony on Tuesday in homage to four staff who were stabbed to death at Paris police headquarters last Thursday by one of their colleagues in an attack which investigators believe was motivated by his allegiance with Islamist extremists.
The decision to treat it as possible terrorist attack is said to have been taken following interviews with attacker's wife and several close associates.
Yanis Varoufakis, the outspoken former Greek finance minister and co-founder of the leftwing DiEM25 (Democracy in Europe Movement), has complained he was 'manhandled' by a police officer at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport, who he said used 'physical violence' during a passport check.
Paris prosecution services have opened an investigation into reported jibes aimed at police by anti-government ‘yellow vest’ protestors in Paris on Saturday in which they allegedly shouted ‘kill yourselves’ in a reference to a police union revelation last week that 28 officers have committed suicide since January 1st.
Israeli police interrupted an event at an official French cultural centre in Jerusalem on Thursday, claiming it intended to host an event organized with a women’s association 'sponsored or financed by the Palestinian Authority' and 'without authorization'.
A lawyer for Jérôme Rodrigues, a high-profile militant with the 'yellow vest' protest movement who was struck in the right eye when police fired weapons at demonstrators during disturbances in central Paris on Saturday, said his client has been left permanently disabled by a police rubber bullet, in the latest case of dozens of life-changing injuries recorded among demonstrators in recent weeks.
French interior minister Christophe Castaner has announced that French police on crowd control operations are to use body cameras to record the circumstances of their use of weapons, notably rubber bullets, following an increasing toll of serious injuries caused by the bullets and stun grenades during the ongoing 'yellow vest' street protests over falling living standards for low- and middle-income earners.
A document obtained by Mediapart reveals that the national director of France’s CRS riot police ordered the deployment of Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifles during nationwide demonstrations on January 12th by the ‘yellow vest’ movement. The militarisation of policing tactics during the recurrent demonstrations, in protest over falling living standards for low- and middle-income earners, includes an almost systematic use of rubber bullets and stun grenades that have caused numerous serious injuries. Karl Laske reports on the arsenal employed and the dramatic consequences of the escalating violence.
Two police officers from the Paris 'anti-gang' squad went on trial on Monday accused of raping a Canadian tourist at their headquarters in the French capital in 2014, after they met her in a nearby Irish pub.
