The Eiffel Tower is on lockdown after being evacuated , DEBKAfile, August 5, 2016, 10:48 PM (IDT)
The Eiffel Tower is on lockdown after being evacuated Friday night – as armed police and soldiers search tourists in central Paris.
Reports say the whole areas around the popular tourist attraction has been cordoned off.
Eyewitnesses described a large police presence at the scene. Others indicated the military had been deployed “all over” the place.
Paris Becomes Massive Camp for Illegal Migrants, Gatestone Institute,Soeren Kern, June 6, 2016
♦ The National Front party has accused Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo of putting the concerns of migrants ahead of those of French citizens. In a statement, the party said that the number of homeless people in Paris had increased by 84% between 2002 and 2012, but that Hidalgo has shown little interest in alleviating the problem.
♦ Although the EU-Turkey migrant deal has temporarily stemmed the flow of illegal migration to Greece through Turkey, hundreds of thousands of migrants are still making their way into Europe.
♦ According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 204,000 migrants arrived in Europe (mostly Greece and Italy) during the first five months of 2016, more than twice as many as arrived during the same period in 2015.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has announced plans to build a “humanitarian camp” next to one of the busiest train stations in the city, so that thousands of illegal migrants bound for Britain can “live with dignity.”
Hidalgo, who has often sparred with French President François Hollande for his refusal to accept more migrants, says her plan to help illegal migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East is a “duty of humanism.”
Critics counter that Hidalgo’s plan is a cynical ploy aimed at positioning herself to the left of the current president, as part of a political strategy to wrest leadership of the Socialist Party from Hollande, whose approval ratings are at record lows.
At a press conference on May 31, Hidalgo said the camp would be built in northern Paris “near the arrival points for migrants.” She was referring to Gare du Nord — one of the busiest railway stations in Europe — from where high-speed Eurostar trains travel to and arrive from London.
Thousands of illegal migrants, many from Afghanistan, Eritrea and Sudan, have gathered at a nearby public park, the Jardins d’Eole, and turned the area into a massive squatter camp where conditions are squalid. The area, which is so dangerous that the government has classified it as a no-go zone (Zone de sécurité prioritaires, ZSP), has become a magnet for human traffickers who charge migrants thousands of euros for fake travel documents, for passage to London.
Hidalgo said her new camp, which will be built within six weeks, would be modelled on Grande-Synthe, a massive migrant camp near the French port city of Dunkirk.
Grande-Synthe, which is home to more than 2,500 illegal migrants hoping to reach Britain, was opened in February 2016 after French authorities destroyed a makeshift camp in nearby Calais known as the “Jungle,” from where thousands of migrants tried to break into the Channel Tunnel in a bid to reach London.
The upkeep of Grande-Synthe will cost French taxpayers €4 million ($4.5 million) this year, in addition to a stipend of €10 euros a day for every migrant at the camp. French taxpayers presumably will also be paying for Hidalgo’s camp in Paris.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has announced plans to build a camp for thousands of illegal migrants in central Paris, which is to be modelled on Grande-Synthe (pictured above), a camp housing 2,500 illegal migrants near the French port city of Dunkirk. (Image source: AFP video screenshot)
Hidalgo, who has threatened to file a lawsuit against the American media outlet Fox News for reporting about Muslim no-go zones in Paris, seems to have no qualms about turning parts of northern Paris into ghettos for illegal migrants. “Paris will not avoid taking responsibility while the Mediterranean becomes a graveyard for refugees,” she said. “I do not want to look at myself in the mirror in 10 or 15 years and say: ‘You were mayor of Paris and you are guilty of not helping people in danger.'”
Hidalgo added that “Europe and France are not living up to their history when they fail to treat outsiders with dignity.”
Hidalgo’s project has been welcomed by some, including pro-migration charity groups, and has infuriated others, such as French Housing Minister Emmanuelle Cosse. She said there already are enough refugee shelters in Paris and that Hidalgo’s announcement would only serve to draw more illegal migrants to the city.
In an interview with Europe 1 radio, Cosse said that “migrant camps are not the solution” because they amount to the establishment of migrant ghettos where integration becomes impossible. Cosse said that more than 1,000 additional illegal migrants had arrived at the Jardins d’Eole in the week since Hidalgo’s press conference, bringing the total number of migrants there to 2,300.
A political analysis by the center-right Le Figaro postulates that Hidalgo’s plan for a migrant camp is just the latest in a series of provocations in which she is attempting to establish her left-wing credentials as part of a strategy to win leadership of the Socialist Party. The report says she believes President Hollande will lose his bid for reelection in 2017, and that his defeat will pave the way for a leadership battle between Hidalgo and French Prime Minister Manuel Valls. According to Le Figaro, Hidalgo is determined to become the Socialist Party candidate for President of France in 2022.
A report by the French public radio channel France Inter describes the rivalry between Hidalgo and Valls as “war unto death.”
Hidalgo’s quest to become the first female president of France may be derailed by the head of the anti-immigration National Front party, Marine Le Pen, who is now one of the most popular politicians in France.
According to an opinion poll published by Le Monde on June 1, 28% of those surveyed said they would vote for Le Pen in 2017, compared to 21% for former president Nicolas Sarkozy and 14% for Hollande. The poll also shows that on a scale of 1 to 10, Hollande’s approval rating is at 2.1.
The National Front party has accused Hidalgo of putting the concerns of migrants ahead of those of French citizens. In a statement, the party said that the number of homeless people in Paris had increased by 84% between 2002 and 2012, but that Hidalgo has shown little interest in alleviating the problem:
“It is absolutely scandalous that Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo uses taxpayer money to house illegal migrants. Migrants should not be housed in hotels or in modular homes within migrant camps. They should be in detention camps waiting to be taken back to their country of origin.
“Anne Hidalgo’s project is characteristic of a political class that is more concerned with migrants than citizens, a political class that has forgotten that the main role of leaders is to care above all for their own people first.”
Meanwhile, efforts by French police to tear down makeshift migrant camps have become like a game of whack-a-mole. More than 20 camps have been dismantled in Paris over the past 12 months, but each time they are rebuilt within weeks.
On May 2, police cleared a makeshift migrant camp under the Stalingrad Metro station (near Gare du Nord) after thousands of migrants brandishing metal poles and wooden planks engaged in a mass brawl on April 14. (A four-minute YouTube video of the melee can be viewed here.) The camp had previously been cleared on March 30.
Although the EU-Turkey migrant deal has temporarily stemmed the flow of illegal migration to Greece through Turkey, hundreds of thousands of migrants are still making their way into Europe.
According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 204,000 migrants arrived in Europe (mostly Greece and Italy) during the first five months of 2016, more than twice as many as arrived during the same period in 2015.
French President Hollande was top target in multiple terror atrocity in Paris, DEBKAfile, November 14, 2015
Our sources suspect that the survivors of the group are lying low and may be planning to emerge for a second round of atrocities in the coming hours or days, like after the Charlie Hebdo episode ten months ago, which was quickly succeeded by a massacre at the Jewish kosher store.
2. A second group of back-up confederates was made up of drivers, who drove the terrorists to the scenes of attack and were ready to extricate any survivors. They handed the attackers their bomb belts, automatic weapons and explosives and acting also as spotters who watched and recording the movements of French security forces. They also photographed the incident.
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The geography of the six Paris locations targeted by terrorists Friday night points to precise advance planning in support of a primary target, namely, French President Francois Hollande, while at the same time sowing bloody havoc in the French capital, frightening tourists away and shaking the French governing system to the core. The cost in lives has not been finally tallied. Estimates range from 127 to 153 with dozens of people injured.
DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism sources note that the parties who orchestrated the deadliest terrorism attack on any European capital took into account that President Hollande would be attending a friendly French-German football match at the Stade de France, presenting them with a high-quality target for assassination or capture as their hostage. Saturday, the president was the first French official to explicitly accuse ISIS of “an act of war” against France.
One of the terrorists shouted before he died, “Francois Hollande’s foreign policy is to blame!” Another was reported by a witness as shouting “This is for Syria!” while spraying gunfire in one of the targeted restaurants: The other attacks on at least six locations were a kind of vicious subplot with the dual purpose of bloody terror per se as well as a diversionary tactic to confuse French security forces and keep them running around in several directions. The president’s bodyguards were meant to be distracted by two earsplitting explosions staged by two suicide bombers outside the stadium.
The guards however quickly whisked the president out of the stadium in time to escape harm.
Whatever their primary objective, coordinating so many simultaneous terror attacks by a large team called for months of preparation, precise intelligence, a variety of weapons and a large team of dedicated killers backed by exceptional staff work and organization.
Our analysts attribute the multiple assaults to a collaborative effort between Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Together they were capable of putting up the necessary resources which included: –
1. A group of at least 20 terrorists for executing the six attacks. The French Prosecutor’s office reported Saturday that seven died in suicide bombings and the eighth was killed by security forces when they raided the concert hall, where dozens of hostages were being killed. Others may still be at large.
Our sources suspect that the survivors of the group are lying low and may be planning to emerge for a second round of atrocities in the coming hours or days, like after the Charlie Hebdo episode ten months ago, which was quickly succeeded by a massacre at the Jewish kosher store.
2. A second group of back-up confederates was made up of drivers, who drove the terrorists to the scenes of attack and were ready to extricate any survivors. They handed the attackers their bomb belts, automatic weapons and explosives and acting also as spotters who watched and recording the movements of French security forces. They also photographed the incident.
3. A command group planned the attacks, enlisted operatives, directed and coordinated them, and maintained communications among the different teams.
At least 200 operatives at various levels were completely in the picture and directly involved in at least two months of advance planning.
The night of November 14 will be remembered for the failure of France’s Director-General for Internal Security (DGSI) and Director-General for External Security (DGSE) – or their refusal – to pick up the slightest clue to the massive preparations afoot for a horrendous, wide-scale terrorist outrage against their capital city.
Reclusive Muslim communities populate whole Paris suburbs and often practice an extremist Islamic life style which does not recognize the authority of the French Republic. When French police are forced to enter those areas they take care to have an armored military escort with automatic rifles. Rife with crime, poverty and deprivation, these communities are perfect breeding grounds for terrorist networks.
The alienation of the Paris Muslim community and the experiences of young radicals in former Islamic terrorist operations in the past two years have raised a high wall against penetration by French intelligence and police services and any attempts by them to enlist informers, undercover agents or collaborators able to whisper a warning when trouble lies ahead.
The French agencies therefore work in the almost total absence of human intelligence from Arabic speakers conversant with the local dialect, and rely almost exclusively on “signal Intelligence” (SIGINT) for warnings of a deadly threat of the kind that swept Paris Friday and is unlikely to end any time soon.
Since it could not have been the work of 200 lone wolves, but only a large organization with headquarters in Syria and Iraq and impressive multinational capabilities, it is hard to understand how the far-reaching preparations for a multiple Paris terror assault were not detected by any Western signals intelligence branches, including ECHELON, the all-seeing American digital surveillance system and its small brother, Frenchelon. This is bad news for other Western capitals, which ISIS has placed under threat.
Deaths rise to 60 in multiple terrorist violence in central Paris, DEBKAfile, November 14, 2015
French police are preparing to place areas of Paris under curfew Friday night as the city comes under multiple terrorist attack with at least 60 dead, hundreds injured and around 100 hostages. French President Francois Hollande said that in view of the unprecedented assault, he has ordered French borders closed, halted air and rail traffic and mobilized the army under a state of emergency. Three locations were initially targeted but there may be twice as many. In an automatic shootout at a Paris restaurant near the Charlie Hebdo magazine left 11 dead. Then two explosions possibly by suicide bombers hit a bar near the football stadium during a French-German match. President Francois Hollande was evacuated from the stadium and has called an emergency cabinet meeting at midnight. At the Bataclan Theater, two gunmen fired 20 shots during a rock concert killing at least 15 are people and have taken 100 hostages from the audience which they are said to be killing one by one. A shooting is also reported at Les Halles shopping mall in the town center and incidents near the Louvre and the Pompidou Center.
More details are awaited from the Paris police.
President Barack Obama is being updated on the situation in Paris after US intelligence judged the attacks to be coordinated although terror was not mentioned. UK Prime Minister David Cameron has offered the French government all possible help.
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