French President François Hollande said Friday he will meet with police officers' representatives on Monday after dozens of street protests by officers increased around the country this week, sparked buy a horrific firebomb attack earlier this month on a police patrol car, demanding more personnel and material means amid the increased pressure of anti-terrorism operations.
The evacuation and subsequent demolition of the makeshift camp estimated to shelter up to 10,000 migrants attempting to reach Britain in clandestine crossings of the English Channel will begin on October 24th, the French authorities have announced, when thousands of migrants will be bussed to refugee centres around France.
French press report, citing sources, said the unilateral carbon tax, announced by environment minister Ségolène Royal in May as a spur for other countries to do the same, was now considered too complicated to introduce and might be unconstitutional.
The veteran French conservative Alain Juppé, who is currently favourite for his party's nomination to run as presidential candidate in elections next year, has said France can no longer tolerate the situation in Calais where thousands of migrants hoping to enter the UK are stranded, and called for Le Touquet agreement to be scrapped.
At a European Council meeting in Brussels, François Hollande said negotiations over Britain's future relationship with the European Union 'will be hard' if London adopts a 'hard Brexit' approach, while European Parliament president Martin Schulz said restrictions on immigration would mean an economic cost for the UK.
The French president, hosting an international conference in Paris to debate stabilisation of the Iraqi city once it is freed from control by the Islamic State (IS) group, said 'we can't afford mistakes' in the pursuit of IS members fleeing Mosul for the group's stronghold of Raqa in Syria.
A demand by several Conservative MPs that unaccompanied minors allowed to join relatives in the UK from the Calais 'Jungle' migrant camp be screened by dental checks to ensure they are not adults was rejected as an 'inaccurate, inappropriate and unethical' method by the British government.
After Prime Minister Manuel Valls pledged this week to begin evacuation of the site of France's contested "Great West" airport near Nantes in north-west France, militant ecologists, anti-capitalism activists, and local inhabitants occupying the earmarked land are preparing for a showdown with anti-riot police.
The 54-year-old kissed the young woman on the breast after she refused he embrace her, prompting calls for his prosecution amid a series of recent damning revelations of sexual assault and harassment by both TV personalities and politicians in France.
Police officers angry at increasing attacks against them - the latest in the form of Molotov cocktails thrown into a patrol car, leaving a policewoman badly burned and her male colleague in a critical condition - have held fresh demonstrations in which they cprotested against under-staffing and inadequate equipment.
