On April 15, French President Emmanuel Macron signed a controversial new retirement bill into law after months of anticipation. The French people have responded poorly to the path to taken for law’s implementation, coming amid some of the largest protests France has ever seen.
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Workers across a wide variety of fields joined protests against French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 years old, according to Al Jazeera.
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In the latest escalation of diplomatic tensions between France and Algeria, the French military announced on October 3 that Algeria had closed its airspace to French military aircraft, reports CNN. Algeria accuses French President Emmanuel Macron of unnecessarily intervening in internal affairs and pushing false narratives about the Algerian government. The restriction comes as a blow to the French military, which regularly uses Algerian airspace to conduct military operations in the Sahel region of Sub-Saharan Africa.
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A wave of riots and protests across France in late 2020 saw thousands of citizens take to the streets decrying a proposed security bill that would prohibit the filming of police officers if done for “malicious purposes”, states POLITICO. A second provision of the proposed bill allows for the use of drones to film citizens’ public activities and for police officers’ body cameras to be live-streamed by authorities. This has caused much concern within France, with citizens and lawmakers alike calling the law an invasion of privacy and personal liberties. Protests and riots have allowed the issue to gain traction across France as more citizens hit the streets to voice their opinions.
Read moreOn Saturday, November 28, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Paris, Lille, Strasbourg, and Rennes to marched peacefully in response to growing concerns regarding Article 24 of a controversial proposed security law. The bill aims to restrict people from filming and publishing discernible images of on-duty French police officers with the intent of damaging their “physical or psychological integrity,” The Guardian reports.
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France held municipal elections this year, where citizens voted for the mayors of their towns and cities. COVID-19 greatly impacted the voting process, causing delays, confusion, and more in an election that was anything but traditional.
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Muslim leaders around the world have decried France’s response to multiple terrorist attacks last month. In the aftermath of the brutal beheading of schoolteacher Samuel Paty for showing offensive drawings of the Prophet Muhammad on October 16 and the Nice attacks on October 29, the French government unleashed a strict crackdown on many Muslim organizations within the country.
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French officials unleashed a strict crackdown on many Muslim organizations on October 16 following the brutal murder of school teacher Samuel Paty for showing offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
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A total of nine people in France were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the brutal beheading of a teacher on Friday, October 16. The victim was 47-year-old Samuel Paty, a geography and history teacher at a school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a suburb of Paris. According to the Washington Post, the assailant was shot dead by French police and later identified as Abdoulakh A., an 18-year-old Moscow-born immigrant of Chechen descent.
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Countries like Spain, France, and Italy were especially hard hit by the pandemic. However, through efforts to reduce the number of cases, these countries are starting to ease their coronavirus lockdowns.
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