#BREAKING
A massive explosion struck Central Paris causing several injuries
![Image](https://i.postimg.cc/qqQmHjGq/parisexplosion.jpg)
Rahul M wrote:caused by gas leak as per french authorities.
अर्ध-सन्यासी (Half Hermit) @bababanaras
Guys want to share one more progress about arms deal with France. Both governments are principally agreed and we are about to buy 114 more Rafael jets to fulfill requirements of our airforce. Few technical points are there but we r hoping the same will be solve by end of 2019.
I disagree. france does not have to offer anything substantial. any leverage that india had at the negotiating table ended when it ordered 36 planes. india is now semi stuck in a dassault ecosystem consisting of physical infra at airbases, aircraft specific pilot training , missiles,investment in personnel that will maintain the aircraft and spare parts. fact of matter is IAF does not have any choice but to order more fighters from france because no other option exists. F-21 is single engine aircraft and cannot perform the same role as raf can, SU-30 MKI has lower fly away cost but higher opex cost and lower per day sortie rate. the only other option are eurofighter and f-18 and no sane airforce will buy both raf and euro fighter/f-18 to perform the same role.Vips wrote:If true, For this big order to be confirmed France would have to offer something very substantial as a quid pro quo.
Dont know if it's true but if it is, it might very well be a response to DT trying to play negotiator.pankajs wrote:FWIW ...
https://twitter.com/bababanaras/status/ ... 4026041344अर्ध-सन्यासी (Half Hermit) @bababanaras
Guys want to share one more progress about arms deal with France. Both governments are principally agreed and we are about to buy 114 more Rafael jets to fulfill requirements of our airforce. Few technical points are there but we r hoping the same will be solve by end of 2019.
Both India & France have an incentive to be reasonable here. Both sides want India to operate more than 36 Rafale’s. I am sure they will find a way to make the numbers work & make a deal.VikramA wrote:I disagree. france does not have to offer anything substantial. any leverage that india had at the negotiating table ended when it ordered 36 planes. india is now semi stuck in a dassault ecosystem consisting of physical infra at airbases, aircraft specific pilot training , missiles,investment in personnel that will maintain the aircraft and spare parts. fact of matter is IAF does not have any choice but to order more fighters from france because no other option exists. F-21 is single engine aircraft and cannot perform the same role as raf can, SU-30 MKI has lower fly away cost but higher opex cost and lower per day sortie rate. the only other option are eurofighter and f-18 and no sane airforce will buy both raf and euro fighter/f-18 to perform the same role.Vips wrote:If true, For this big order to be confirmed France would have to offer something very substantial as a quid pro quo.
Yes India can very well stop at 72 and go for additional SU30 MKI's.The French would know that there is possible business beyond 114 warbirds wit naval order for 57 jets too.khan wrote:Both India & France have an incentive to be reasonable here. Both sides want India to operate more than 36 Rafale’s. I am sure they will find a way to make the numbers work & make a deal.VikramA wrote: I disagree. france does not have to offer anything substantial. any leverage that india had at the negotiating table ended when it ordered 36 planes. india is now semi stuck in a dassault ecosystem consisting of physical infra at airbases, aircraft specific pilot training , missiles,investment in personnel that will maintain the aircraft and spare parts. fact of matter is IAF does not have any choice but to order more fighters from france because no other option exists. F-21 is single engine aircraft and cannot perform the same role as raf can, SU-30 MKI has lower fly away cost but higher opex cost and lower per day sortie rate. the only other option are eurofighter and f-18 and no sane airforce will buy both raf and euro fighter/f-18 to perform the same role.
This is very important.Within the next 5 years Russia for sure would not be able to guarantee a veto for us as it would be totally under China's ambit. Uncle Sam's policy would be subject too who exactly is in the White House and someone like Trump cannot be trusted. Same goes for its puddle UK. The only game remaining is France and we have to go all out in cultivating a robust strategic relationship with them.(Even if it means paying insane $$ for the French stuff as we are without options).schinnas wrote:While India is bound to order more Rafales, the number of planes would depend on what else France is going to offer. A staunch veto on behalf of India at UNSC plus some.other carrots would be expected.
Seriously ? India should not be spending "insane $$" without any meanigful sharing of tech , lets just say France needs India and India has shared interests with themVips wrote:This is very important.Within the next 5 years Russia for sure would not be able to guarantee a veto for us as it would be totally under China's ambit. Uncle Sam's policy would be subject too who exactly is in the White House and someone like Trump cannot be trusted. Same goes for its puddle UK. The only game remaining is France and we have to go all out in cultivating a robust strategic relationship with them.(Even if it means paying insane $$ for the French stuff as we are without options).schinnas wrote:While India is bound to order more Rafales, the number of planes would depend on what else France is going to offer. A staunch veto on behalf of India at UNSC plus some.other carrots would be expected.
Interesting. I am not necessarily disagreeing with you here, but I am curious to know what exactly you mean.sanjaykumar wrote:In five years India won't need any veto cover in the UN or any other place.
What exactly UNSC seat gives us as a benefit other than entry to prestigious golf club ? I would rather spend that money in my country to build infrastructure and make people lives betterVips wrote:This is very important.Within the next 5 years Russia for sure would not be able to guarantee a veto for us as it would be totally under China's ambit. Uncle Sam's policy would be subject too who exactly is in the White House and someone like Trump cannot be trusted. Same goes for its puddle UK. The only game remaining is France and we have to go all out in cultivating a robust strategic relationship with them.(Even if it means paying insane $$ for the French stuff as we are without options).schinnas wrote:While India is bound to order more Rafales, the number of planes would depend on what else France is going to offer. A staunch veto on behalf of India at UNSC plus some.other carrots would be expected.
What if there is no veto. What possibly can the Security Council gang do against India other than pass hot air?Vips wrote:This is very important.Within the next 5 years Russia for sure would not be able to guarantee a veto for us as it would be totally under China's ambit. Uncle Sam's policy would be subject too who exactly is in the White House and someone like Trump cannot be trusted. Same goes for its puddle UK. The only game remaining is France and we have to go all out in cultivating a robust strategic relationship with them.(Even if it means paying insane $$ for the French stuff as we are without options).schinnas wrote:While India is bound to order more Rafales, the number of planes would depend on what else France is going to offer. A staunch veto on behalf of India at UNSC plus some.other carrots would be expected.
Why did Lilian Thuram's matter-of-fact analysis about white supremacy cause a storm of controversy in France ?
Race is a taboo subject in France, which claims to be "a colourblind country". Therefore, a large portion of white people in France are not used to having frank conversations about race and racism. When they are forced to talk about the subject, they expertly move the focus of the discussion from racism itself to the hurt they feel when a black person dares to mention the existence and pervasiveness of white supremacy in France and beyond.
They insist "they do not see colour", they say "they are against all forms of discrimination", they accuse people of colour of "playing the race card". They cannot see white supremacy is at the core of their country's social structure because they have been raised to believe "white" is the norm, not an identity. The accusations of anti-white racism directed at the likes of Thuram, therefore, are little more than a coping mechanism. People who refuse to acknowledge their privilege and the role they play in the perseverance of a system built on white supremacy instead play the victim.
There is, of course, no such thing as anti-white racism. There cannot be anti-white racism in a white-majority European country like France, because racism cannot be reduced to the sum of isolated acts. What black people experience today in France is the result of a history of domination that started with slavery and colonialism. Black people in France exist in a system that was built long ago to oppress, silence and intimidate us. We experience institutional discrimination that influences our everyday lives in various ways – from healthcare to education, housing to police brutality.
In this system, a white person can, of course, still be exposed to hate, they can be bullied or even assaulted - and such incidents should be condemned - but they can never claim to be systematically oppressed because of their race. Being white is not a social or political handicap but a privilege in France. So, the systemic and institutional racism minorities in France are subject to can never be compared with the abuse or discrimination any white person experiences as an individual.
Today, French whiteness is in crisis. It is in crisis because minorities in France are finally in a position to voice their concerns and grievances in the mainstream and they are pressuring the country to have an honest and open conversation about race.
The toxic ideas of the likes of Marechal and Zemmour about the so-called "anti-white racism" and "the war on white people" are now resonating with white people across the political spectrum, because they are afraid to face their privilage and acknowledge that their dominant position in society is the result of centuries-old injustices. They are afraid to accept that "white" is an identity just like "brown" and "black" and not the universal "self" every single "other" is defined against.
Lilian Thuram became a target not because he said anything wrong or new, but because he touched a nerve. I suspect many more anti-racism activists are going to experience similar bursts of outrage in the near future. But one day, French society is going to run out of excuses to avoid having a real discussion about race. We are going to stop talking about made-up problems like anti-white racism and instead tackle the real issues that are dividing and crippling our nation. The panic that currently follows any minor comment on race and white supremacy makes me believe that the day of reckoning is now very near.
They are only doing this for money since they know that India will keep buying more of her products. Their only interest is money. Not that I mind it but at least keep your eyes open and see where their interests lie in.Vips wrote: We need to invest more in our strategic relationship with France and make sure we have them firmly on our side in future battles that will be waged against us at the UN.
Because the Christian festival offers a clear target to Islamist terrorists, many people are simply staying away, in fear.
The UQ government’s latest advice warns that {friendly UK-Paki} terrorists are “very likely” to carry out attacks in Germany over the festive period in what is a massive blow to the markets of Berlin, Cologne and elsewhere.
If any other political formation other that a strong Modi/AS led govt comes to power, the BIF are back in the saddle with all the other foreign policy constraints vying to come back. If Modi/AS are out, the caste factor in the BJP will become uncontrollable with the usual well known fatal consequences.Roop wrote:Interesting. I am not necessarily disagreeing with you here, but I am curious to know what exactly you mean.sanjaykumar wrote:In five years India won't need any veto cover in the UN or any other place.
Yes i know but it is the TINA factor. Russians have become the lackeys of chinese and cannot be relied on or trusted. UK is the poodle of Uncle Sam and will do what he says but Uncle Sam is very tricky to handle. So France is the only game left and if we have to spend money to buy Defense hardware from them and keep them happy it is still a win-win as their equipment is top notch.hgupta wrote:They are only doing this for money since they know that India will keep buying more of her products. Their only interest is money. Not that I mind it but at least keep your eyes open and see where their interests lie in.Vips wrote: We need to invest more in our strategic relationship with France and make sure we have them firmly on our side in future battles that will be waged against us at the UN.
Though they wear high-vis, French protesters have been all but invisible in the so-called mainstream media, also provoking deafening silence from the labor and trade union movement, and even the so-called ‘left’ within it.
While a broken head or even a broken window in Hong Kong or Venezuela can and often does lead the news, more than a year of weekly upheaval, mass movements of working people met with extreme violence by the French state and its achingly liberal President Macron has been ignored by Western print and broadcast journalists with studied arrogance.
There can be no rational justification for this. Hong Kong is almost 6,000 miles (9,656km) from England, Caracas almost 5,000 (8,047km). France is 31 miles (50km) away. It’s not cheap to send and maintain news crews at the other ends of the earth. Cheap awaydays proliferate to Paris.
No news judgement could possibly justify the almost complete absence of coverage of widespread disorder amid massive crowds in our nearest European neighbor over an entire year. Indeed, such is the antipathy between the English elite and the French (and vice versa), to borrow a German word, one might have expected a sense of schadenfreude to drive British coverage, in top gear! But not a bit of it. So much for the Yellow Vests. Of course, what has now happened is that the entire organized working class of France has taken to the battlefield. Great unions – like the moderate CFDT as well as the militant CGT – with millions of members are now physically confronting the power of the French state.
The proximate cause of this new development is Macron’s pension “reforms.” Nowadays, reforms are bad things, whereas in former times they were good things – essentially making French workers work longer for less pension upon retirement.
But as with the Yellow Vests – whose original casus belli was a tax on fuel – this is about far more than pensions now. The French working class are sick and tired of austerity, sick of the corruption and excess of the peacock throne of President Macron, sick of the EU, sick of the whole political class. Precisely the formula which drove the Brexit victory on our side of La Manche.
Traditionally the French – predisposed over centuries to revolution – are far from sedate soft-shoe shufflers on protests. Conversely, the French “riot police” take no prisoners. An irresistible force meeting an immovable object.
But it is one thing the police battering students or even ordinary workers. It is another thing to see the police wading into firefighters in full gear – protective gear – as has been happening these last two weeks. No one has seen two uniformed disciplined services knock seven bells out of each other on the streets of Paris since, well, since forever. The crisis appears to be spiraling out of the control of the French state; Christmas could literally have to be canceled. Tourism has been hit hard, I personally know three couples who have canceled romantic Christmas breaks in the French capital. Air, bus, and train travel threatens to grind to a halt. One would be less surprised to wake up to the news that the National Assembly had been sacked than Louis Bourbon was to learn of the storming of the Bastille.
Given the almost existential challenge being mounted against one of the EU’s twin pillars, one can begin to understand the near universal silence in Western capitals – not least their fear of the power of example.
But why the silence on the “left”?
Partly it is a sense of shame that the French workers are putting up the kind of fight they wouldn’t even dream of contemplating. But partly it is the absence of liberalism among the massed ranks of French workers. They have cast away with disdain the identity politics which so infests what passes for the left in most Western countries.
READ MORE: Heavily-armed soldiers, violence, sky-high prices, a Santa Claus gender war & no mention of the Nativity… Merry Christmas, Europe!
This not about gay rights, about black emancipation, about gender-neutral right-on fads. This is not about asylum seekers or against racism in defense of immigrants or about Bolivia or Venezuela or against France’s dismal colonial record or current French wars in Africa. This is about the French working-class confronting the capitalist system, head-on, and with real red blood in the streets. French workers black and (overwhelmingly) white, gay and (overwhelmingly) straight, men and women, self-identifying only as workers tired of being robbed. It’s all a little too… proletarian for what has become of the “left.”
And so like Nelson before them at the Battle of Copenhagen, they raise the telescope to the blind eye and declare “I see no ships.” The left sees not the French men o’ war, but the French workers can see them. And it is not a belle vue.
BY ELAINE GANLEY, Associated Press
PARIS (AP) — Lawmakers in the French parliament's lower house on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would strengthen oversight of mosques, schools and sports clubs to safeguard France from radical Islamists and to promote respect for French values - one of President Emmanuel Macron's landmark projects.
After two weeks of intense debate, the vote in the National Assembly house was the first critical hurdle for the legislation that has been long in the making. The bill passed 347-151, with 65 abstentions.
With France bloodied by terror attacks, having hundreds of citizens who went to Syria in years past and thousands of French troops now fighting extremists in Mali, few disagree that radicalization is a danger. But critics also see the proposed law as a political ploy to lure the right wing to Macron's centrist party ahead of next year's presidential election.
The wide-ranging bill, titled “Supporting respect for the principles of the Republic,” covers most aspects of French life. It has been hotly contested by some Muslims, lawmakers and others who fear the state is intruding on essential freedoms and pointing a finger at Islam, the nation's No. 2 religion. Where have we seen this frothing-at-the-mouth display of entitlement and rampant victim-card exhibition before?
But the legislation breezed through a chamber in which Macron's party has a majority. It is not set to go to the conservative-controlled Senate until March 30, but final passage is seen as all but assured.![]()
The bill gained added urgency after a teacher was beheaded outside Paris in October and three people were killed during a knife attack at a Nice basilica the same month.
A section that makes it a crime to knowingly endanger the life of a person by providing details of their private life and location is known as the ‘’Paty law." It was named for Samuel Paty, the teacher who was killed outside his school after information about where he taught was posted online in a video. Law: "it is now illegal to provide details of a person's private life and location with the goal of endangering his or her life". Islamists: "This is discrimination against Muslims." This is as perverse as the rabid anti-CAA hatemongering.
The bill bolsters other French efforts to fight extremism, mainly security-based.
Detractors say the measures are already covered in current laws. Some voice suspicions about a hidden political agenda.
Days before Tuesday's vote, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin - the bill's main sponsor - accused far-right leader Marine Le Pen during a nationally televised debate of being “soft" on radical Islam, saying she needs to take vitamins.![]()
The remark was intended to portray the government as tougher than the far-right in tackling Islamic extremists. But Le Pen criticized the bill as too weak and offered what she called her own, tougher counter-proposal. Le Pen, who has declared her presidential candidacy for the 2022 election, lost in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
Jordan Bardella, vice president of Le Pen's National Rally party. said on BFM TV that the legislation approved Tuesday “misses its target” because it doesn’t attack radical Islamist ideology head-on. Excellent. This is how public debate should be controlled-- the mainstream ruling party shifts discourse to the right and a strong section of the opposition demands that it is not far enough to the right.
The bill mentions neither Muslims nor Islam by name. Neither does CAA-- but that too is somehow a "religious test that discriminates against Muslims".Supporters say it is aimed at snuffing out what the government describes as an encroaching fundamentalism that is subverting French values, notably the nation's foundational value of secularism and gender equality.
The measure has been dubbed the "separatism" bill, a term used by Macron to refer to radicals who would create a “counter society” in France.
Top representatives of all religions were consulted as the text was drafted. The government's leading Muslim conduit, the French Council for the Muslim Faith, gave its backing.
Ghaleb Bencheikh, head of the Foundation for Islam of France, a secular body seeking a progressive Islam, said in a recent interview that the planned law was “unjust but necessary” to fight radicalization.
Among other provisions, the bill would ban virginity certificates and crack down on polygamy and forced marriage, practices not formally attached to a religion. Critics say those and other provisions are already covered in existing laws.
It would also ensure that children attend regular school starting at age 3, a way to target home schools where ideology is taught, and provide for training all public employees in secularism. Anyone who threatens a public employee risks a prison sentence. In another reference to Paty, the slain teacher, the bill obligates the bosses of a public employee who has been threatened to take action, if the employee agrees.
The bill introduces mechanisms to guarantee that mosques and associations that run them are not under the sway of foreign interests or homegrown Salafists with a rigorous interpretation of Islam.
Associations must sign a contract of respect for French values and pay back state funds, if they cross a line. Police officers and prison employees must take an oath swearing to respect the nation’s values and the constitution. How "Islamophobic can you get?
To accommodate changes, the bill adjusts France's 1905 law guaranteeing separation of church and state.
Some Muslims said they sensed a climate of suspicion.![]()
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“There's confusion... A Muslim is a Muslim and that's all,” taxi driver Bahri Ayari said after worshipping at midday prayers at the Grand Mosque of Paris.
“We talk about radicals, about I don't know what," he said. “There is a book. There is a prophet. The prophet has taught us.”
As for convicted radicals, he said, their crimes "get put on the back of Islam. That's not what a Muslim is.”![]()
Quoting my old post from 2017.............so truersingh wrote:“The French are not Islamophobic, but radical Islam is scary.”
I am sure Macron will be tested very soon.