François Hollande – praag.org

US sinks France as military competitor

France has lost it’s sovereignty, as Hollande has made a decision that will be the nail in his own political coffin.

Unfortunately Hollande’s coffin will also be the demise of many working class French citizens, who will lose their livelihood from the imminent dismantling of France’s military industry.

Instead of building their own weapons, France can now buy US made weapons. The US military industrial complex has also removed a competitor in the weapons space.

I guess Ukraine is much more important to French President Hollande than French jobs and industry.

“The President of the Republic believes that the current situation in the east of Ukraine still does not allow the transfer of the first Russian Mistral-type ships to Russia,” a statement from the Elysée Palace said.

In this regard, Francois Hollande felt it necessary to postpone the new order to study the request for permission to supply Russia with the first Mistral vessel, the communique informed.

CNBC reports:

France suspended the planned delivery of a warship to Russia on Tuesday, after months of growing speculation about what would be the biggest arms sale ever by a NATO country to the Kremlin.

The French president’s office announced the suspension “until further notice” after growing pressure from allies to suspend the sale because of tensions between Russia and Ukraine. The first of the two ships, the Vladivostok, is docked at the French port city of Saint Nazaire, where about 400 Russian sailors have spent months training aboard the vessel.

The second ship, named the Sevastopol, after a port in the Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula, was slated for delivery next year and recently arrived at the Saint Nazaire docks for finishing touches.

Tuesday’s statement, like a previous suspension of the delivery, stopped short of cancelling the deal, suggesting the French government is reluctant give up on a contract worth more than 1 billion euros and thousands of jobs at a time of an economic slump in France.

The Vladivostok can carry 700 troops, 16 helicopter gunships, and up to 50 armored vehicles.

Analysts have said the warships would give Russia an enhanced ability to move large numbers of troops and equipment, but were not game-changers for Moscow’s military.

Russia’s deputy defense minister told RIA Novosti news agency Tuesday that Moscow was not planning to take any immediate action against France for delaying the deal.

“We are satisfied, it is the French who are not satisfied, and we are going to patiently wait,” said Yury Brosiov. “Everything is spelled out in the contract, and we are going to act in accord to the contract like all civilized people.”

There is no way to sugar coat this… Hollande has fully exposed himself as a very weak puppy dog to American policy.

The repercussions to France for this poorly taken decision will be far reaching and devastating.

Working class people will lose jobs and an entire military and shipbuilding industry will be ruined for decades to come.

No country will do business with a France that does not honor its contractual obligations.

Source: Red Pill Times

Marine Le Pen’s party takes Senate seats

The National Front won its first ever seats in France’s upper house of parliament on Sunday, as President Francois Hollande’s Socialist party lost its Senate majority.

The left still controls the lower house, which is the dominant legislative body in France, but Sunday’s ballot underlined the unpopularity of the president and the continued rise of the anti-immigration, anti-euro National Front.

The party, led by Marine Le Pen, took two seats in the august Senate, following on from its surprise victory in European parliamentary elections in May and its strong showing in municipal elections in March.

“These results are beyond what we hoped for,” said Le Pen. “Each day that passes, our ideas are increasingly being adopted by the French people… We have great potential.”

Half of the Senate’s 348 seats were up for grabs on Sunday, with only some 158,000 people, the vast majority local councillors, able to vote.

Early results showed that the main opposition party, the UMP, and the center-right UDI party took at least 20 seats from the left, which had a Senate majority of just six heading into the election. Final results were due later on Sunday.

“There is a complete rejection of Socialist policies,” UMP senator Roger Karoutchi told BFM TV.

Hollande’s popularity fell to a record low this month, with only 13 percent of those surveyed saying they were satisfied with the performance of president, who has struggled to revive the stagnant economy.

The National Front hopes to score an upset in the 2017 presidential election.

“There is only one door left for us to push and it is that of the Elysee,” said newly-elected National Front senator Stephane Ravier, referring to the French presidency.

Source: Reuters

‘Marine Le Pen is at the gates of power’

French premier Manuel Valls warned on Sunday that the National Front party is at the “gates of power.”

“In France, the extreme right of Marine Le Pen is at the gates of power,” Valls said. “And I, as a man of the left, will never be able to resign myself to that because it will be the weakest who will be the first to suffer. And it will also be a terrible, perhaps fatal, blow to Europe.”

France’s National Front, known for its anti-immigrant and anti-EU rhetoric, achieved unprecedented results in the latest EU polls, claiming nearly 25 percent of the votes and winning the election.

“Our people demand one type of politics: they want politics by the French, for the French, with the French. They don’t want to be led anymore from outside, to submit to laws.”

Speaking to French media, the head of France’s right-wing National Front likened the recent reshuffle of Prime Minister Manuel Valls’ cabinet to an “illusionist performance,” calling it a “circus.”

Le Pen suggested that French President Francois Hollande should dissolve the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament. She added that it was “more than necessary” and “the only responsible decision” Hollande would make since he became head of state five years ago.

“Francois Hollande tries to save time, but the damage is too deep,” Le Pen argued.

In August, Hollande asked Valls to form a new government following tensions within his cabinet over the country’s economic policy.

The decision came after strong criticism of the country’s economic direction – which the outgoing economy minister, Arnaud Montebourg, voiced as he called for a “major shift.”

Source: RT

Le Pen would win in French presidential election: poll

Marine Le Pen, leader of the conservative Front National, would win the first round of a presidential election in France, according to a poll released Sunday, The Telegraph reports.

If an election were held next Sunday, Le Pen, who made major gains in recent local elections, would score a landslide victory against Francois Hollande, whose approval rating hit a record low of 13 percent in August.The survey found that she would take 30 percent of the vote as Holland would take only 16 percent. Le Pen would also led several other center right politicians, including former Premiers Alain Juppé and Francois Fillon. She would even defeat ex-president Nikolas Sarkozy, with 28 percent of the vote to his 25 percent, according to the poll. However the projections found that Le Pen would win a second round only if her rival was Hollande.

Commentators say Le Pen is taking electoral advantage of France’s weak and feuding mainstream parties. The ruling Socialist Party is in total disarray and the center right opposition Union for a Popular Movement has no leader.

In a recent interview with Le Monde, Le Pen called for parliament to be dissolved and said she would be willing to become prime minister, “cohabitating” with president Hollande. – Ria Novosti

Hollande hates ‘the toothless’

Francois Hollande’s former partner says that France’s socialist president hates the poor, in her potentially explosive memoirs she penned after the collapse of their relationship earlier this year.

In Merci Pour Ce Moment (‘Thank You For This Moment’) Valérie Trierweiler claims that, in private, the leftist leader refers to the less wealthy with scorn, calling them “the toothless”, les sans-dents.

“He portrays himself as a man who does not like the rich. In reality, the president does not like the poor,” Trierweiler wrote. “He, the man of the left, calls them ‘the toothless’, very proud of his humour.”

In another passage leaked to French media ahead of the book’ s publication, which is scheduled for tomorrow, the France’s former first lady wrote that he expressed dislike for her working-class parents.

‘Toothless’ poor

“They’re not very nice,” he told her during a Christmas dinner with her family in her native town of Angers, western France.

The revelation comes at a delicate political moment for Hollande, who has been openly accused by the most radical members of his party of betraying socialist campaign pledges that got him elected to pursue a pro-business agenda instead.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls
Hollande’s unpopularity forced French PM Manuel Valls to form a new government.(Benoit Tessier/Reuters)
Last week prime minister Manuel Valls resigned and was re-appointed and formed a new cabinet to silence dissenting ministers.

Economy ministry Arnaud Montebourg, who had urged Hollande to end austerity policies he described as unjust, was replaced Emmanuel Macron, a former banker.

Continuing recession

Left-wing education minister Benoit Hamon and culture minister Aurelie Filippetti, who supported Montebourg, also lost their jobs.

Hollande’s nine-year relationship with Trierweiler ended earlier this year, after Closer magazine published photos alleging the president was having an affair with actress Julie Gayet.

France is struggling to get out of the economic crisis and has recorded no economic growth this year.

Since the election in 2012, Hollande’s approval ratings have collapsed to below 20%, making him one of the most unpopular presidents in French history.

Source: ibitimes.co.uk

France backtracks furiously on Mistral

The delivery of first Mistral-class helicopter carrier, built for Russia under the 2011 contract, has not been put off yet, as the statement made earlier on Wednesday reflected personal position of President Francois Hollande, a French diplomatic source said Wednesday.

“From the legal standpoint, nothing has changed; the delivery is due November 1. It is a matter of president’s political stance. The head of state said that in the current circumstances, as of today – and if these circumstances do not change – he would not approve delivery of the Mistral,” the source said.

Hollande’s position remains the same, according to the diplomatic source. Russia has to undertake the steps essential to reach a political solution to the crisis in eastern Ukraine to receive the Mistral warships on time.

“The final decision will be made in October following a number of procedures,” the diplomatic source added.

Earlier on Wednesday, the office of President Francois Hollande released a statement, saying that the head of the country concluded that the conditions, under which France could authorize the delivery of the first helicopter carrier are not in place.

Russia and France signed a $1.6 billion deal for two Mistral-class ships in June 2011. The first of these, the Vladivostok, was expected in Russia at the end of this year, with the second, the Sevastopol, due to be completed in 2015.

The completion of the deal was at risk after Western countries imposed sanctions against Russia over its alleged role in the escalation of the crisis in Ukraine.

The Mistral vessels are expected to be deployed by Russia’s Pacific Fleet. They are both capable of carrying 16 helicopters, four landing craft, 70 armored vehicles and 450 soldiers.

Source: RIA Novosti

French government resigns

France’s government of Prime Minister Manuel Valls has resigned; after senior ministers slammed President Francois Hollande’s plans for taxation and spending cuts, and called for alternative ways to Germany-led austerity to exit the crisis.

The statement published Monday said the new office would be formed on Tuesday and would be in the “direction he (the president) has defined for our country.”

Economic Minister Arnaud Montebourg said it was time to resist Germany’s “obsession” with austerity and work out some alternative ways to promote household consumption. He said that measures that had been introduced since the 2008 financial crisis were not doing anything to help the country’s economy grow.

“You have to raise your voice. Germany is trapped in an austerity policy that it imposed across Europe,” the Socialist minister said in the interview.

“France is the eurozone’s second-biggest economy, the world’s fifth-greatest power, and it does not intend to align itself, ladies and gentlemen, with the excessive obsessions of Germany’s conservatives,” the Economic Minister added.

The announcement comes after the country’s Education Minister Benoît Hamon criticized Hollande’s economic policy, calling to shift the focus form the deficit-reduction measures.

“The priority must be exiting crisis and the dogmatic reduction of deficits should come second,” Mr. Montebourg said in an interview with Le Monde published ahead of the annual Fête de la Rose meeting of Socialist Party activists at Frangy-en-Bresse in eastern France.

Finance Minister Michel Sapin said this month that if the economy did not pick up, France would miss its deficit-reduction target for this year. However, he stressed that there was no need to panic and that the government would continue cutting the deficit “at an appropriate pace”.

The Ministers reminded that the economic weakness was causing political extremism and could turn into recession.

Hollande is facing a lot of domestic pressure, due to his failure to get the economy moving in the right direction.

An Ifop poll on Sunday showed he was the most unpopular president in France in more than 50 years. Meanwhile, Valls, who was appointed to the position of Prime Minister in March, had an approval rating of just 36 percent.

Source: RT

Le Pen a growing threat to mainstream politicians

The growing threat to France’s mainstream political leaders posed by Marine Le Pen, head of France’s National Front, has been underscored by an opinion poll putting her in the lead for the first time in the race for the next presidential election.

The charismatic Ms Le Pen has overtaken former centre-right president Nicolas Sarkozy in voting intentions if the first round of the election were held today, with socialist incumbent François Hollande trailing in third, according to the Ifop poll.

Ms Le Pen scored 26 per cent in the poll, up from 24 per cent in the last sounding taken in April, while Mr Sarkozy, widely expected to announce a political comeback in September, slipped six points to 25 per cent following court accusations of corruption levelled against him in early July.

The FN has been on the rise since Ms Le Pen took over leadership of the party from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2011. She came third behind Mr Hollande and Mr Sarkozy in the 2012 presidential election with 18 per cent of the vote and the party has since grown as Mr Hollande’s popularity has slumped in the face of recession and rising unemployment.

In May’s European parliamentary elections, the FN won a nationwide vote for the first time, easily defeating both Mr Sarkozy’s UMP party and the socialists with a score of 25 per cent.

The latest poll, for the magazine Marianne, appeared to confirm the damage caused to Mr Sarkozy and the UMP by financial scandals and internal leadership wrangling that have sapped its ability to present a coherent opposition to Mr Hollande’s government, despite the president’s record-low personal approval ratings.

Mr Sarkozy was questioned under arrest and then placed under formal investigation on July 2 on suspicion of corruption, influence peddling and a breach of professional secrecy linked to a separate probe into his election campaign financing in 2007.

The UMP is also under investigation over allegations of covering up millions of euros in spending above legal limits in Mr Sarkozy’s 2012 campaign.

The Ifop poll underlined growing fears on both the mainstream left and right that Ms Le Pen is set to repeat the feat of her father in 2002 when he reached the second round of the presidential election by coming second, knocking out the then socialist candidate Lionel Jospin.

Most analysts continue to believe she would then be defeated in the run-off by whichever candidate she faced, as mainstream voters rallied to defeat her. The Ifop poll did not test second round voting intentions, but earlier polls have shown a narrower margin of defeat than the 82-18 per cent loss suffered by her father against Jacques Chirac in 2002, especially if her opponent were Mr Hollande.

Concerns that Mr Hollande is already heading for defeat have prompted speculation that the Socialist party might opt for another candidate. But the Ifop poll showed neither of the two likeliest alternatives, Manuel Valls, the reformist prime minister, nor Arnaud Montebourg, the leftwing economy minister, doing any better.

Source: FT

BNP Paribas fine: are $10 billion too much?

Forget the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings and the elaborate preparations to celebrate later this week the liberation of France by its allies. Forget “Lafayette, nous sommes ici”, which General John Pershing is supposed to have said when the American Expeditionary Force showed up for what remained of the first world war, saluting the Frenchman who fought at George Washington’s side. Relations between France and America are bad and getting worse.

For that thank the whopping fine that American authorities are thought to be about to levy on BNP Paribas’s American arm for allegedly processing transactions with countries on America’s black list, such as Sudan and Iran. The precise amount of the fines, and the conditions attached to them, is still a matter of conjecture and probably negotiation. But whether or not the total fine tops $10 billion, as the Wall Street Journal reported possible last week, it will greatly exceed the €1.1 billion ($1.5 billion) that the bank said in February it had set aside to manage the sanctions-busting fall-out. Worse, it threatens to drive a coach and horses through its balance-sheet, just as the European Central Bank is about to assess eurozone banks’ robustness in an effort to flush out the bad news and boost bank lending to the “real” economy. BNP Paribas is France’s largest and Europe’s second-largest bank.

Unsurprisingly, the va et vient of top French financial figures crossing the Atlantic has been frenetic in recent weeks. Now the matter has become overtly political. Laurent Fabius, France’s foreign minister, did not hide his irritation when he said on France 2 television today that the fine was “unreasonable”. On Thursday evening the D-Day festivities will provide an opportunity for men with whom bucks are supposed to stop to speak about the matter face to face. Presidents Barack Obama and François Hollande are to have dinner together on Thursday, though other acrimonious subjects—France’s determination to carry on with defence sales to Russia, America’s still-remembered reluctance to intervene in Syria—will not be lacking.

Many in France, and probably elsewhere in Europe, are beginning to think that America lets its own banks off rather lightly (though JPMorgan Chase might disagree) and cracks down on foreign ones instead to appease voters’ visceral dislike of finance. American rules often differ from European ones (they do on sanctions), criminalising behaviour that would be legal in a bank’s home country. The Front National, for one, has publicly backed BNP Paribas, urging the government to “defend and protect the interests of millions of French depositors”. Such views are not confined to the far-right.

Calmer heads, Mr Fabius among them, agree that banks doing business in America should abide by American laws. But punishment for infringing them cannot be capricious: it should be roughly proportionate to the harm caused, plus an extra slug for deterrence.

The most handed over by any of the clutch of non-US banks already fined for sanctions-busting was HSBC’s $1.9 billion in 2012. BNP is looking at paying a fine several times that amount, as well as pleading guilty to a felony (as Crédit Suisse had to do when it paid a $2.6 billion fine in May for helping Americans escape US taxes) and losing, presumably temporarily, the ability to clear dollar transactions for its customers, which means losing the customers. Against all that the heads that will have to roll in New York and the official gumshoe sitting watchfully at the heart of the bank’s operations there are mere bagatelles. – The Economist

Senior journalist calls Libération shooting ‘good news’

Nicolas Demorand, Liberation Editor-in-Chief, looks rather relaxed — Nicolas Demorand, Liberation Editor-in-Chief

A gunman opened fire in the lobby of a French newspaper office in Paris on Monday, gravely wounding a photographer’s assistant before fleeing.

“Blood in the hall of this newspaper may be some good news,” Annette Lévy-Willard, a senior staff writer at Libération told the New York Times. “This outrage could break France’s racist and anti-Semitic fever.”

Police and representatives of the ultra-left Liberation say a 27-year-old photographer’s assistant is in serious condition after being shot in the chest and arm.

The culture minister of the increasingly unpopular leftwing Socialist government called the newspaper founded by Jean-Paul Sartre, a “pillar of our democracy.”

The paper supports François Hollande who has become the most unpopular French president on record. Only 26% of French people have a positive opinion of the Socialist president, a BVA poll showed. It was the worst score for a French leader since BVA began polling 32 years ago.

The poll shows Hollande’s near-unanimous unpopularity among right-wing voters: 97% have a bad opinion of the Socialist leader, a level never reached by any president among supporters of other parties, even Sarkozy who deeply antagonised many left-wing voters.

Some 84% French people believed government policy was not efficient and 74% felt it was not fair. Meanwhile, in the run up to crucial local and European elections next spring, the far-right Front National is rising in popularity and now has the same level of approval ratings as the Socialist party.

Libération has been struggling with financial difficulties and layoffs in recent years as many readers shun the paper as a result of it’s support for the unpopular French president.

Benny Lévy (aka Pierre Victor) was a philosopher, political activist and author as well as a political figure of May 1968 in France, and the personal secretary of Jean-Paul Sartre from 1974 to 1980. Along with him, he helped founding the French newspaper Libération in 1972.

Benny Lévy is known for his unusual itinerary from Maoism to Judaism, or “from Mao to Moses”.

Editorially, the paper is supportive of gay marriage, a recent controversy in France. Earlier this month, the newspaper ran a long interview with Christiane Taubira, France’s black minister of justice, who had promoted the government’s new law permitting same-sex marriage.

“It is a very serious attack on a media outlet, on Liberation,” minister Aurelie Filipetti said. President Hollande, on an official visit to Israel, sent a strong message home about the attack: “It’s always freedom of information that is threatened.”

Nicolas Demorand, Liberation Editor-in-Chief, also gay, expressed his concern over what he says is an increase in the number of attacks in Paris.

“There is a high level of violence that compromises the work of many newsrooms and can have tragic consequences as the ones that occurred this morning,” Demorand said.

“We need to launch an alert a collective alarm in the face of the new stage in the rise of violence in Paris,” Demorand urged.

Soon afterward, shots were fired at the headquarters of a major French bank west of Paris, and a gunman briefly took a man hostage nearby.

The Paris police headquarters said that it is not clear whether the three incidents are linked, but that authorities are increasing security in all three places as well as media offices around Paris.

As police hunt for the attacker or attackers, a helicopter was seen flying over the neighbourhood that includes the French president’s office and the nearby Champs-Elysees avenue.

French presidential chef bids farewell with raspberry millefeuille

Bernard Vaussion in the presidential kitchen

by Sylvie Corbet

France’s presidential chef is retiring after four decades of culinary service, having fed five French presidents and peppered the steaks tartare of some of the world’s most powerful leaders.

Bernard Vaussion, 60, was filled with emotion while cooking his last lunch for the President Francois Hollande on Thursday at the Elysee Palace. The farewell meal included raspberry millefeuille, a rich pastry. Hollande has a well-known sweet tooth and has been mocked for his portly figure.

“It’s easy to work with Francois Hollande. There are not many things that he doesn’t like. He’s somebody who loves eating,” said Vaussion.

He said that over the years the most important skill for the job -besides cooking – was the ability to adapt to the tastes of each French leader.

Francois Mitterrand loved seafood. Jacques Chirac preferred snails and sauerkraut. More recently, Nicolas Sarkozy caused a stink by rejecting French gastronomy and asked Vaussion to serve him a healthier menu based on fish, vegetables and salad. Sarkozy also drinks no wine – a revelation that initially caused controversy and offended Gallic pride.

France is one country where food and drink get political.

Sarkozy also said “non” to cheese and only allowed it on the menu during visits to Paris from a well-known cheese fan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Vaussion noted that Hollande, Sarkozy’s successor, was his polar opposite in food as well as in politics.

Hollande is a hearty eater who enjoys gastronomy as an art of living. Cheese is, of course, back on the table, which may be one reason Hollande has visibly gained weight since his May 2012 election.

But the leadership is not the only cause of change.

France’s economic crisis has taken its toll on the Palace menu, as the kitchen tries to cut expenses.

“Some luxury foods have disappeared from the menu, such as truffles and lobster,” said Vaussion.

But the Elysee kitchen remains a place of note.

Underground and the size of two tennis courts, the famed kitchen is home to hundreds of copper pots that hark back to the time of 19th-century King Louis Philippe, France’s last monarch. They’re still in use.

As Vaussion retires, he will take with him insider information about the tastes of the famous. An example? Queen Elizabeth II loves foie gras. – AP

US spying causes new anger in France, Mexico

by Marianne Barriaux and Michael Mainville BARRIAUX, Michael MAINVILLE

The United States has become embroiled in a new row over its controversial spying programme as allies France and Mexico condemned revelations Washington tapped millions of phonecalls and hacked into leaders’ emails.

French President Francois Hollande on Monday expressed his “deep disapproval” of reports of US spying in a phone call with President Barack Obama.

France’s Le Monde newspaper reported that the US National Security Agency had secretly monitored 70.3 million phone communications in France over 30 days from December 10, 2012, to January 8 this year.

The allegations, the latest from leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, also marred a visit to Paris by US Secretary of State John Kerry, where he discussed moves to try to end the war in Syria.

At the same time, German weekly Der Spiegel reported the NSA had also hacked into former Mexican president Felipe Calderon’s email account.

Calderon, on Twitter, described the revelations as an “affront to the institutions of the country, given that it took place when I was president”.

Hollande told Obama that the alleged practices were “unacceptable between friends and allies because they infringe on the privacy of French citizens”, the French leader’s office said in a statement.

The allegations come on top of previous revelations by Snowden — who has sought safety in Russia as US authorities pursue him for leaking classified information — that the United States had a vast, secret programme called PRISM to monitor Internet users.

French prosecutors are already investigating the programme, and French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said he was “deeply shocked” by the new revelations.

“It’s incredible that an allied country like the United States at this point goes as far as spying on private communications that have no strategic justification, no justification on the basis of national defence,” he told journalists.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, on a visit to Luxembourg, said US ambassador Charles Rivkin was summoned to his ministry early Monday.

“These kinds of practices between partners that harm privacy are totally unacceptable,” he told reporters, adding France needed assurances that the United States was no longer monitoring its communications.

His comments were relayed to the US ambassador during the meeting, a ministry spokesman said — the second time in less than four months that America’s top representative in France has been hauled in over revelations about US snooping.

Kerry refused to comment on the specific accusations, but noted that Washington was reviewing its intelligence gathering operations following protests from allied governments.

He also sought to defend the US position.

“Protecting the security of our citizens in today’s world is a very complicated, very challenging task… because there are lots of people out there seeking to do harm to other people,” Kerry said at a press conference after meeting Arab League officials.

“Lots of countries are engaged in the activity of trying to protect their citizens in the world,” he said. “Our goal is always to try to find the right balance between protecting the privacy and security of our citizens.”

According to Le Monde, the spy agency automatically picked up communications from certain phone numbers in France and recorded certain text messages under a programme code-named “US-985D”.

The French daily said the documents gave grounds to believe that the NSA targeted not only people suspected of being involved in terrorism but also high-profile individuals in business and politics.

Hollande’s office said the French president and Obama had agreed “to work together to determine the facts and the exact scope of surveillance activities” revealed by Le Monde.

Der Spiegel also revealed that US agents had hacked into the Mexican presidency’s network, gaining access to Calderon’s account.

According to the report, the NSA said this contained “diplomatic, economic and leadership communications which continue to provide insight into Mexico’s political system and internal stability”.

The agency reportedly said the president’s office was now “a lucrative source”.

Mexican authorities said they would be seeking answers from US officials “as soon as possible”.

“This practice is unacceptable, illegitimate and contrary to Mexican law and international law,” the foreign ministry said.

Glenn Greenwald, an American journalist now living in Brazil who has broken many of the recent stories about secret US surveillance programmes, says Washington has spied on all Latin American countries.

Speaking to a press association in Miami, Greenwald said he would report about each case in the region and warned that more spying within the United States would also be revealed.

He also said the disclosures published by Le Monde Monday had been in the hands of the French daily for some time.

This is not the first time there have been reports that France and Mexico have been targeted in relation to NSA spying allegations since information leaked by Snowden first emerged in June.

Mexico’s current President Enrique Pena Nieto has already complained to Obama over reports US spies have gone through his emails.

And Der Spiegel reported last month that in 2010 the NSA monitored the internal computer network of France’s diplomats and that of the foreign ministry.

But France itself has also been accused of spying. Le Monde reported in recent months that intelligence services intercepted all communications in the country, stocking telephone and computer data for years –accusations denied by the government. – AFP

Deported Roma girl, family attacked in Kosovo

Unidentified assailants on Sunday attacked a Roma schoolgirl, whose deportation from France sparked controversy, along with her family in Kosovo where they have been living since their eviction, police said.

“The Dibrani (family) were walking in Mitrovica with their children when they were attacked by unknown” people, a police officer, who requested to remain anonymous, told AFP.

The mother of 15-year-old Leonarda, Xhemaili, was “beaten and is in hospital while the children, who are traumatised, are at a police station”, the officer said.

Meanwhile, another police officer told reporters that four people were detained over the incident which, according to first findings, may have been caused by some previous private affairs.

“The incident occurred between two families, the Dibranis and the Bislimis,” police captain Ahmet Gjosha said.

“It turned out that Mr Bislimi was Xhemaili Dibrani’s husband 25 years ago and we assume that this fact sparked the incident.”

The Beslimi family was repatriated from Switzerland four months ago, he said.

Police said they were taking the incident very seriously and a probe was launched.

Shortly after the incident a police officer had told AFP that “it shows that the Dibranis are not safe here”.

Leonarda’s father Resat Dibrani, 47, was at the hospital by his wife’s side.

On Saturday, French President Francois Hollande offered Leonarda the chance to go back to France, but without her family.

Hollande’s offer was immediately rejected by the girl while her father said that the family, deported on October 9, would not be divided and would return to France by any means.

Her parents and five brothers and sisters had lived in France for four years while their asylum bid was processed. It was eventually rejected in the summer.

Leonarda Dibrani’s eviction caused an outcry in France because she was detained during a school trip before being deported with her family, and students took to the streets demanding she return and Interior Minister Manuel Valls resign.

In an interview with AFP Thursday, Resat Dibrani said he was born in Kosovo and that his wife and five of his six children, including Leonarda, were born in Italy.

He said he had lied about his family’s Kosovo origins to have a better chance of obtaining asylum.

Earlier on Sunday, the father told AFP that his “children are afraid to go out”.

“I cannot adapt myself, I left 35 years ago. I do not recognise the town any more,” he said stressing that he had only 200 euros ($275) left to feed his family.

The father, who wants to return to France, said: “The problem is to get into (EU member) Croatia and afterwards the way is open.”

“I would have to get 20,000 euros” for people who would take us into Croatia, he added.

The results of a formal probe published in France on Saturday found that the deportation was lawful but that police could have used better judgement in the way they handled it.

They also found that Leonarda and her sister were taken in by French social services after having accused their father of violence — a claim they later retracted.

Last year, 36,822 immigrants, many of them Roma, were deported from France, a nearly 12 percent rise from 2011. – AFP

Hollande is like that ‘retard from the bush’

The visit of the white, neo-colonialist and very unpopular French president to South Africa is marked by vitriol against the already suffering white monority.

On Tuesday, Francois Hollande will visit a plant owned by French pharmaceutical company Sanofi, which manufactures its anti-retroviral and anti-TB drugs in South Africa, obviously hoping to boost his country sagging economy with South African state funds.

He will then head to Soweto, the Johannesburg township which was a hotbed of resistance against white minority rule, where he will visit Mandela’s former home.

Aides said this was a way of paying homage to the 95-year-old statesman, who is too ill to receive official visitors.

On the economic front, aides to Hollande said some agreements on energy and transport were in the final stages of negotiation but were not sure to be signed during the visit.

French companies are notably awaiting a decision on whether South Africa will go ahead with plans to build more nuclear power stations. Critics say that the visit was really to discuss kickbacks to government employees.

French-speaking Congolese immigrants in Johannesburg said Hollande is as bad as Julius Malema who is a “retard from the bush” working for ruthless colonial interests in trying to chase away local whites and destroying economic prospects for all.

France has a history of betraying minorities, their own, in former colonies.