France on Fire

Plus: Western leaders struggle to figure out how to make Russia pay for its invasion of Ukraine.

By , , , and
260

Happy Friday! Subway announced this week it will begin serving “freshly sliced meats” in its U.S. restaurants as part of “one of the most complex changes the brand has ever made.” 

What … what was in the sandwiches before?

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said yesterday that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary leader who led a short-lived mutiny against Vladimir Putin last month, had returned to Russia—though neither the Kremlin nor Prigozhin himself have confirmed his location. According to Lukashenko, Prigozhin is “free” in his home country weeks after he was reportedly exiled to Belarus as part of a deal securing immunity for himself and his fighters.
  • A U.S. Air Force spokesman said Thursday that Russian jets harassed several American drones in Syrian airspace Wednesday. According to a video released Wednesday night, the Russian aircraft dropped flares in front of the drones, which the U.S. military said were carrying out a mission against targets associated with the Islamic State. Several similar incidents have been reported by the U.S. military—both earlier this week and in recent months.
  • The Israeli military shelled a village in southern Lebanon Thursday after two rockets were reportedly fired toward Israel from the area, with one landing in Lebanese territory and the other near disputed land. The attack comes just after the Israeli military’s two-day raid on a West Bank village that killed at least 12 Palestinians whom the Israeli military said were militants.
  • Sweden jailed a Kurdish man Thursday for several terrorism-related crimes, signaling the country’s attempts to appease Turkey’s demands that Stockholm crack down on Kurdish separatists. Turkey has been holding up Sweden’s bid to join NATO for months; the two countries’ heads of state will meet next week ahead of a NATO summit at which leaders are expected to discuss Sweden’s potential entry into the alliance.
  • A spokesman for the Arizona secretary of state’s office said Wednesday that it recently received a subpoena from special counsel Jack Smith in his investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Rusty Bowers, the former speaker of Arizona’s state house, also said Wednesday he had been interviewed by the FBI in connection with the probe. The revelations come just days after the Washington Post reported that former President Donald Trump attempted to pressure the state’s governor to overturn election results in late 2020.
  • Walt Nauta, a personal aide to Trump, pleaded not guilty Thursday to federal charges related to the mishandling of classified documents at the former president’s Florida estate. Security footage released yesterday showed Nauta, who is accused of conspiring with Trump to illegally retain documents and lying to investigators, moving boxes both before and after the government demanded Trump return the documents.
  • The Department of Labor reported Thursday that initial jobless claims—a proxy for layoffs—increased by 12,000 week-over-week to a seasonally-adjusted 248,000 claims last week, and job openings fell from 10.3 million to a two-year low of 9.82 million month-over-month in May, suggesting a softening labor market.

France Rocked by Riots (Again)

Protesters clash with riot police at the Porte d'Aix in Marseille, southern France. (Photo by CHRISTOPHE SIMON / AFP) (Photo by CHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP via Getty Images)
Protesters clash with riot police at the Porte d'Aix in Marseille, southern France. (Photo by CHRISTOPHE SIMON / AFP) (Photo by CHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP via Getty Images)

A Holocaust memorial defaced. Dozens of public schools set ablaze. A mayor’s wife and children chased from their home. It’s been yet another difficult week in France as the country reels from the fatal police shooting of Nahel Merzouk on June 27. A French-born 17-year-old boy of North African descent, Merzouk was shot and killed by police during a traffic stop in the working-class Parisian suburb of Nanterre. Young people took to the streets in droves shortly thereafter, clashing with police and looting businesses. The violence has finally begun to abate in recent days, but the episode is just the latest flare-up in a year marked by social unrest in France over the country’s trickiest social cleavages, prompting extreme reactions from France’s fractious political elite.

Initial reports of the fatal police shooting suggested Merzouk had attempted to ram into police officers during a traffic stop, causing the officer to fire. That narrative was quickly challenged, however, when a video of the encounter emerged later in the day showing one cop reaching into the stopped vehicle and another with his gun drawn. When Merzouk tried to drive away, the cop pulled the trigger. 

This content is available exclusively to Dispatch members
Try a membership for full access to every newsletter and all of The Dispatch. Support quality, fact-based journalism.
Start Your Free Trial
Already a paid member? Sign In
260
By , , , and
Comments (260)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Avatar photo
    Sad Trombone

    I know this is a late entry, but I had a thought that might be of interest to those thinking how do we get Russia to pay for Putin's misadventure in Ukraine -- Maybe we could require Russia to sell back to China the large chunk of territory they stole back in the 1880's at fair market value, and use those proceeds?

    Collapse
  2. Mathias

    Two points to note:

    In the Quick Hits, the item on Israel shelling Lebanon mentions that one of the rockets fired from Lebanon landed "near disputed land". The source on that is Reuters, and I'm assuming that the language was taken from Reuters as well. First, note that it does not say the rocket fell inside disputed land, but "near" it. In other words, it fell within Israel's recognized borders. What is the point of phrasing that by saying it was "near disputed land", unless to lessen the impact (no pun intended) of the rocket attack and delegitimize a military response to it?
    Second, 'disputed land' is not equivalent to 'no man's land'. Much or all of Israel's territory is disputed by some entity or another. 'Disputed land' is land that someone has settled on, and someone else has laid claim to. That means that the "disputed land" in this instance was inhabited, settled with homes and agricultural fields. Is it the contention of Reuters that rockets which are fired at people's homes need not be answered by the state, so long as those homes are in or near lands which are under some contention?
    None of that is your doing, assuming that you simply took the text directly from Reuters. But it is wise to always keep an eye out for bias and propaganda.

    The second point (much shorter, I promise you) is something of a humorous one. Regarding the riots in France, you cited a source that said, "So-called ‘banlieues riots’ have existed in France since the end of the 1970s..." They may not have borne the name ‘banlieues riots’, but those neighborhoods have been known for riots and uprisings in France since the 1300s. No doubt the French would prefer not to bring up those old times or be associated with them, but them's the facts. The French have been 'revolting' since before the English language developed enough to make a joke out of it.

    Collapse
  3. Scianti7

    Isn't France usually dealing with unrest? Maybe someone could say the same for the U.S. based on what international news reports.

    Once, on New Years Eve for 2004, some friends & I got off the subway at the Arc d Triumph & found ourselves in a riot. Tear gas was everywhere, & a large crowd shouting. I didn't realize what was happening til I saw a brick fly past me & land at the feet of a line of police in riot gear. We immediately returned to the subway. Nevertheless, I guess that kind of unrest was relatively common at the time, none of the French we relayed it to seemed surprised or concerned.

    Collapse
  4. Avatar photo
    Julie from Texas

    Yes, I was surprised! Not that it happened in Paris, but that it spread to other cities. I lived in Cahors, France for a couple of months last summer, and the violence has not reached there. But it has come to Toulouse, the city we flew into and drove through a couple of times. I pray that the police put down the violence and then the government deals with needed reforms. (Just like I've prayed here in the United States on other occasions.)

    Collapse
  5. Avatar photo
    Kevin.Atkinson

    In case nobody else said it, Subway has never sliced their meets in the stores before, it was still fresh, just not fresh sliced.

    Collapse
  6. Gry.Solingen

    *jibes with

    Collapse
  7. Avatar photo
    Bill Nelson

    The French have a problem with assimilation. Some years ago there was a move within the Jewish community to emigrate because they could never really be French. This is not an uncommon belief in Europe but it is more pronounced in France.

    Collapse
  8. Avatar photo
    Rickbealer

    Not surprised anymore at what occurs in France. Seems it’s been a country in growing unrest for decades.

    Collapse
  9. Avatar photo
    Richard Maxton

    It's a good thing it's Friday. . .things in TMD comments land are getting SPICY.

    I think this place needs some pepto. . .

    Collapse
  10. Frank Lee

    These destructive riots would not be occurring had France not allowed in so many refugees from Africa.

    Multiculturalism is a defective ism. France would have been better off spending to help Algeria and other African nations it had previously colonized and exploited for economic reasons, than to accept so many of those people into its national arms.

    Collapse
    1. Scianti7

      Seems the problem is that they didn't really accept them. Though isn't that a trope about the French?

      Collapse
      1. Frank Lee

        LOL. "Accept them" What the hell does that mean? So unless the people of the existing culture do what exactly to "accept" the immigrants from another country?

        Do you have immigrants living in your home?

        Collapse
        1. Scianti7

          Not currently. But I was an exchange student, & I lived in the hime of an immigrant family later in the U.S.

          I mean accepting immigrants into society. So historically, in the 18th century, the English didn't really accept anyone that wasn't English as an equal. So whether you were Scottish or an Amercan colonist you weren't English, so not the same level of British. It caused a lot of resentment, it's why a lot of the elites turned against Britain & led the Revolutionary war. The U.S. has a checkered history, we have accepted the children of immigrants fairly well (until recently). We have fits & starts with first generation immigrants.

          Collapse
          1. Frank Lee

            If you are an immigrant and you want to clutch the culture of your home country while taking advantage of the benefits of the country you immigrated to, then you deserve some lack of acceptance. It is not only human nature, assimilation to the existing culture is necessary for cultural adhesion which is necessary for sustainability of the country. Multiculturalism isn't a real thing. Humans might get there one day thousands of years from now, but tribalism is evolutionary.

            The point I was making that you sort of deflected from is that if you invite an immigrant family, one that demands to have the culture of its home country supported, it would disrupt the life of your family, cause conflict and resentment. Immigrants that assimilate to their new home culture are accepted. It isn't a race or ethnicity issue as there are many people of varied races and ethnicity that integrate just fine into the French system... but they speak French and adopt French customs.

            Collapse
Load More