EUROPE
Video – JN1: EU to discuss having Hezbollah on terror list.
FRANCE
Interview – Translated from French – Le Figaro: There has always been violence between extremist groups. ‘The assault of a left-wing activist is not to be compared with the AKI for all, says Jean-Yves Camus, an expert on far right.’
Video – France 24: Parisians see far-right surge behind youth’s murder.‘
IBTimes: Female Skinhead in Neo Nazi Gang Accused of Killing anti-Fascist Clement Meric. ‘Four people have been arrested in connection to an alleged politically motivated attack that has left a 19-year-old leftist dead in Paris, French authorities said.
Interior minister Manuel Valls said four individuals, including the one who probably struck the blow that killed Clement Meric, are being questioned by police.
The four – three men and a woman – are aged between 21 and 37 and have been identified thanks to photos and eyewitnesses’ testimonies, police sources told AFP.
Meric, a member of an anti-fascist group, was beaten to death following a dispute between left-wingers and skinheads at a clothes sale in Paris central 9th district Wednesday evening, authorities said.’
Reuters: Protests held in France after left-wing student beaten to death. ‘Left-wingers protested in Paris on Thursday one day after a group of far-right militants beat a leftist student to death in a busy central Paris district.
Clement Meric, 19, a student at the prestigious Sciences Po university, was beaten up near St. Lazare station and taken to hospital with head injuries. He was declared dead on Thursday.
Several hundred people gathered near the site of the beating where they chanted left-wing slogans and friends made speeches paying tribute to Meric.
Another demonstration took place in the heart of the Latin Quarter, the capital’s traditional student neighborhood. Separate protests were held at Meric’s university and in some other French cities.’
The Telegraph: France has too many immigrants, says Francois Fillon. ‘Fillon said he was proposing “like in Canada” an annual parliamentary vote on the number of immigrants to be allowed in, the professions that would be given favourable consideration and “the regions of the world for which we want to fix quotas”.
The current 200,000 arrivals per year “is too much in a country suffering unemployment and an economic crisis, which must reduce its public expenditure and which has problems of national cohesion,” the former prime minister said.’
GERMANY
Deutsche Welle: Neo-Nazi murder trial defendant apologizes to victims’ families. ‘A defendant in a high-profile neo-Nazi trial in Germany has become the first to express regret for his actions. He is one of five on trial in connection with the killings of 10 people, mainly of foreign origin.
In his court appearance on Thursday, the defendant, identified in the German media as Holger G., read out a half-hour long statement, which he began by apologizing to the families of the victims.
“First of all, I would like to express my sympathy to the relatives of the victims,” he said. “I am terribly sorry that I did this. I would like to apologize.”‘
Translated from German – Der Spiegel: Brigitte Böhnhardt in neo-Nazi Committee. ‘The mother of Uwe Böhnhardt has testified before the Thuringian NSU committee. The teacher talked about her relationship with the deceased son – and surprised with detailed descriptions to the disappearance of the alleged right-wing terrorists.’
ITALY
Gazzetta del Sud: Northern League bigwig blames Kyenge for incoming migrants. ‘The second-in-command of the Northern League on Thursday said Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge’s push to decriminalize undocumented immigration to Italy has sparked a wave of incoming migrants.
“If we have a minister who says that clandestine immigration is no longer a crime and who is open to (their receiving) citizenship, while all of Europe is going in the other direction, obviously anyone who escapes is going to head for Italy,” said Matteo Salvini. Kyenge, Italy’s first black cabinet minister, and her efforts to reform Italy’s immigration laws have run into strong opposition, namely from the Northern League whose founder, Umberto Bossi, helped draft the current law passed in 2002 during ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s administration making illegal immigration a criminal offence.’
SPAIN
Translated from Spanish – El Pais: Sortu rule “radically” ETA arms again. ‘Sortu President, Hasier Arraiz has ruled today that dramatically ETA can return to arms “although from certain police and media sectors are getting leaks about possibilities like that.” “Radically, no. There is no such possibility, “he insisted, despite the” involution “of the Spanish Government during the 19 months that have passed since the terrorist announced the cessation of its armed activity.’
