Two a penny

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REUTERS – French prosecutor on Monday recommended a Paris court should dissolve the Church of Scientology’s French branch when it rules on charges of fraud against the organisation.

Registered as a religion in the United States, with celebrity members such as actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta, Scientology enjoys no such legal protection in France, where it has faced repeated accusations of being a money-making cult. .

The Church’s Paris headquarters and bookshop are defendants in a fraud trial that began on May 25.

A ruling is expected within months.

The Church of Scientology denies the fraud charges and says the case against it violates freedom of religion.

If the court follows the prosecutor’s recommendation, Scientology could appeal and the verdict would be suspended.

French state prosecutors had previously resisted the idea of an outright dissolution of Scientology in the country.

justice – religion – Scientology
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The trial centres on complaints made in the late 1990s by two former members who spent huge sums on Scientology courses and purification sessions

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AFP – France will not follow the World Health Organisation’s lead and raise its swine flu alert from a level five to six, the health minister said Thursday.

With 73 registered cases of type A flu, France can remain at a level 5A, said Roselyne Bachelot, who was taking part in a forum on bioethics in the western city of Rennes.

WHO director-general Margaret Chan said in Geneva that the UN body had decided to raise the pandemic alert level from five to six.

What is a phase six pandemic ?

&raquo Click here to read the WHO&#039s explanation on its six-phase pandemic rating system, and the subsequent health recommendations

Bachelot was reacting to a decision by the WHO on Thursday to declare a swine flu pandemic after the infection spread to 74 countries, triggering the first global flu epidemic in four decades.

French health and interior minister officials are to meet on Friday to discuss the swine flu outbreak, which has not claimed any lives in France.

Bachelot said the WHO decision does not imply that every country is going to move to level six and that governments were free to decide which means were appropriate to tackle the outbreak.

INFLUENZA A (H1N1) – Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin
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Fewer than 150 people have died from the A(H1N1) virus and WHO officials have cautioned that raising the alert level did not mean that they were expecting the death toll to rise dramatically

.Aboriginal director Warwick Thornton’s Samson And Delilah has been awarded the Camera d’Or first-film prize at Cannes.
Thornton’s debut feature takes an unflinching look at the problems facing Australia’s remote Indigenous communities: violence, substance abuse and poverty.
The film follows the slow, shy courtship between a boy who spends his time sniffing petrol and a girl forced to care for her ailing grandmother.
Thornton and the film’s producer Cath Shelper attended the ceremony where the award was presented.
The jury described it as the best love film they had seen for many years.
“But then eventually someone told us that Isabella Adjani was presenting the Camera d’Or, so when we saw her come out we thought, ‘This is the moment.
“It was quite nerve-wracking because it was all in French, and we were sitting there and didn’t really understand anything that was going on,” Shelper said.’
“And we heard Samson And Delilah and Warwick’s name and [thought], ‘Oh my God, we’ve won!’”
“Thank you for believing in our first born baby,” Thornton said as he accepted the award. Viva Cannes, viva le cinema.
“I don’t don’t know what to say.
“To make this film and to win this award just makes you stronger as a storyteller and gives you the strength to keep making these sorts of stories.”
Thornton says winning the award will inspire him to make more films.”
– Palm d’or –
Meanwhile, Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon – a chilling study of malice in a German village on the eve of World War I – was named best picture. Maybe not Samson And Delilah, but to keep making stories and to keep believing in storytelling, in a sense.
The Austrian director’s austere black-and-white work overcame stiff competition from films by heavyweight auteurs like Quentin Tarantino and Jane Campion to win the coveted Palme d’Or.
The Austrian director’s austere black-and-white work overcame stiff competition from films by heavyweight auteurs like Quentin Tarantino and Jane Campion to win the coveted Palme d’Or.
Cult South Korean director Park Chan-Wook’s Thirst and Fish Tank by Britain’s Andrea Arnold jointly took the jury prize.
In other awards, French director Jacques Audiard – who had been a frontrunner for the Palme – took the Grand Prix for his bleak prison drama A Prophet. .
Austrian television star Christoph Waltz clinched the best actor award for his role as a multilingual Nazi nicknamed “The Jew Hunter” in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.
– ABC/AFP

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Brillante Mendoza of the Philippines picked up the best director prize for Kinatay

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AFP – French Prime Minister Francois Fillon arrived in Nigeria on Friday on a the last leg of a west African trip that will take him to the country’s oil-rich but restive southern region. .

He is scheduled to sign pacts on legal cooperation and helping sub-Saharan Africa’s most populous nation improve security in the Niger Delta.

Accompanied by Total chief executive Christophe de Margerie, the prime minister will visit an oil platform run by the French giant, which gets 10 percent of its oil production from the region.

He will make an address to the 16-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), based in Abuja, before flying off to the restive oil-rich delta on Saturday.

MEND has been behind a series of kidnappings of staff and attacks on oil installations in the past three years.

The most active armed group in the Delta is the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) which claims to be fighting for a greater share of Nigeria’s oil wealth for local people.

Unrest in the region has reduced Nigeria’s daily output to 1.6 million barrels in January 2006.76 million barrels compared with 2.

Africa – France – François Fillon – Nigeria – piracy

.British writer Hanif Kureishi complained on Wednesday (local time) that the Cannes Film Festival never had a black or Asian jury president, overexamining the fact that a Hong Kong filmmaker led it in 2006.
“I’m not aware we’ve had a black or Asian president of the jury yet,” said Kureishi, one of the nine jury members who will this year pick the winner of the Palme d’Or prize at the end of the festival. .
“Four women count for a lot,” she replied with a smile.
Kureishi made the remark after this year’s president, French actress Isabelle Huppert, was asked by reporters for her thoughts on why she was only the fourth woman to lead the panel in the festival’s 62-year history.
Kureishi made his name in 1985 with the script of Stephen Frear’s film My Beautiful Laundrette and went on to write The Buddha Of Suburbia.
Only one woman has ever won the Palme – New Zealander Jane Campion – and this year only two of the 20 directors competing are women, Campion and Briton Andrea Arnold.
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AFP – More than a quarter of workers in the French private sector say they have been victims of discrimination as a result of their race, age or political views, according to a survey released Wednesday.

The CSA poll carried out in March found that 28 percent of private sector workers had suffered prejudice at their job compared with 22 percent in the public sector.

Ethnic origin was cited as the number one reason for discrimination by those polled in the private sector, followed closely by age and political or union activism.

The survey was conducted for the International Labour Organisation and the French anti-racism agency , which released its annual report to President Nicolas Sarkozy.

In its report, the state authority tasked with battling discrimination, known as the Halde, said it had received 7,788 complaints last year and that half of those dealt with discrimination in the workplace. .

Monitoring of discrimination and racism in France took on greater urgency after rioting exploded in late 2005 in suburbs with immigrant populations.

That was an increase of 25 percent from the previous year, but Halde president Louis Schweitzer attributed the rise to the agency’s stronger profile since its creation in 2005.

French companies should detail in their annual reports any anti-racism measures they have taken, the Halde said.

Among the report’s recommendations, the government was urged to make negotiations on cases of discrimination mandatory for businesses.

Legal action was taken in 68 cases to remedy the situation including by a woman who won 200,000 euros in damages after she was fired for being pregnant.

Of the complaints received in 2008, 29 percent dealt with ethnic origin, 21 percent for physical disabilities and 7 percent for age.

discrimination – France – racism

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REUTERS – The Cannes film festival opens on Wednesday with 3D
animation comedy Up, but with studios cutting back due
to the recession the feel good factor at the famously
extravagant cinema showcase may quickly fade.

&raquo France 24/ RFI special Cannes coverage

Vanity Fair’s exclusive party has been cancelled, luxury
yachts moored at the picturesque harbour remain unchartered and
movie executives are sounding a note of caution on the eve of
the world’s biggest film festival.

Like every business now, we really have to be very
careful, said Michael Barker, co-president of Sony Pictures
Classics.

The opening ceremony, underlining 3D’s growing importance,
kicks off 12 days of screenings, interviews, red carpets and
late-night revelry in the palm-lined resort, which attracts many
of the most glamorous and powerful figures in the business. Everyone has concerns, he added, before noting that
deals would still be made.

The competition also includes by Pedro Almodovar’s Broken
Embraces starring Penelope Cruz, Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric
featuring former French soccer star Eric Cantona and Lars von
Trier’s horror Antichrist.

Brad Pitt is expected in Cannes with Quentin Tarantino’s
World War Two drama Inglourious Basterds, one of 20 films
showing in the main competition and vying for the coveted Palme
d’Or for best picture when Cannes winds up on May 24.

Jane Campion, who won the Palme d’Or with The Piano in
1993, brings Bright Star based on the romance between 19th
century poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne.

Out of competition, Terry Gilliam has arguably the biggest
movie in Cannes.

Ledger’s final role

Other highlights include Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock about
the rock festival and Lou Ye’s Spring Fever, made in defiance
of a five-year ban from film making imposed by China for his
previous movie Summer Palace, also in Cannes.

Hundreds more movies are shown outside the main competition,
many of them on the market which runs throughout the festival
and reinforces Cannes’ importance in the world of cinema. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is the
late Australian actor Heath Ledger’s final screen role, which
had to be completed by Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law.

On the plus side, Hollywood studios are enjoying a bumper
box office in 2009 despite the global recession and the dollar’s
relative strength will boost purchasing power.

The deal making will go on, as will the parties, but market
players expect the mood to be more subdued than recent years.

But the prospect of a protracted credit crunch, added to
slowing DVD sales and depressed advertising will cast a shadow
over Cannes, both its business and pleasure.

But the prospect of a protracted credit crunch, added to
slowing DVD sales and depressed advertising will cast a shadow
over Cannes, both its business and pleasure.

Cannes Film Festival – celebrity – cinema – entertainment – financial crisis
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Critics say that may be a good thing, with the media at a
pared-down Cannes more likely to concentrate on the promising
movie line-up than on what the stars get up to

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AFP – French police have recaptured a cult leader jailed for child abuse after he escaped last week from a prison on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion in a helicopter.

Dozens of police clad in bullet-proof vests raided a building Wednesday in the Moufia neighbourhood of Saint-Denis, less than two kilometres (about one mile) from the prison where Juliano Verbard and two of his jailed followers escaped on a tourist helicopter hijacked by accomplices on April 27.

Five of Verbard’s accomplices, including three who hijacked the helicopter, were captured in the raid, which was broadcast live on television. .

His escape triggered a manhunt involving more than 1,800 police.

Verbard, the leader of a cult called the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, was serving a 15-year term for raping and sexually assaulting children.

crime – France – paedophilia – Reunion
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Despite similar escapes in France, the prison had not installed barriers to prevent helicopters from approaching the buildings and yard

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A Hungarian court has decided that Irina Belenkaya, the Russian mother of Elise Andr&eacute, be extradited to France, where she faces charges of kidnapping her child and trying to bring her to Russia. Elise has been at the heart of a multinational custody battle.

Belenkaya was stopped by Hungarian police in April as she tried to cross the Hungarian border into Ukraine with her three-year-old daughter Elise. She faces charges of kidnapping and complicity in assault in France.

After being held by police in the town of Nyiregyhaza in eastern Hungary, Belenkaya was later moved to Budapest.

Elise has been at the centre of a bitter custody battle between her estranged parents.

In the meantime, Elise was reunited with her French father Jean-Michel Andre and the two returned to France on Tuesday. The toddler was abducted by two men and a woman in the southern French city of Arles on March 20.

In Russia, where a court has awarded custody to the mother and where the father is accused of kidnapping the little girl in 2008, the government earlier challenged the decision to send her back to France.

Her father, who was badly beaten during the kidnapping, later told that the woman — dressed in black and wearing a wig — was certainly his estranged wife, from whom he split in 2007.

Members of the Civic Chamber of Russia, an advisory civil panel close to the Kremlin, called for the toddler to be brought back to Russia and accused France of always backing French citizens in similar cases in the past.

The Russian embassy in Budapest declined to comment on Wednesday’s court decision.

Who says that the child must live in France if she has French citizenship, Anatoly Kucherena, an attorney, told reporters in Moscow.

We will not let the girl live peacefully with her father in France while her mother is in prison, said Sergei Markov, a member of the civic chamber. We will insist that Lisa is repatriated to Russia. .

If I can get guarantees of her well-being there and her return to France at an agreed date, I would be happy to let her go to Russia.

I would like Elise to have a mother and a fathert so that she can spend some time in France and some time in Russia, he said.

children – France – kidnapping – parenting – Russia

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AFP – French authorities were hunting Monday for a means to ban a stand-up comic turned anti-Zionist militant from fielding lists of candidates in European elections next month.

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s chief of staff Claude Gueant accused comedian Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala of leading an overtly anti-Semitic campaign and said: If they are not banned, I’m sure the French will reject these lists.

The 42-year-old comedian, who was born in the suburbs of Paris to a French father and a Cameroonian mother, is a well-known figure in France and is going on trial on Tuesday on charges of inciting hatred against Jews.

Dieudonne and his ally Alain Soral, a former member of Jean Marie Le Pen’s far-right National Front, say they will present candidates in at least five of France’s electoral regions for June’s European Parliamentary vote..

In September 2007, he was fined after he accused Jews of memorial pornography and attacked the Zionist lobby which cultivates the idea of their unique suffering . and has declared war on the black world..

Earlier this year, Le Pen was in the audience when Dieudonne deliberately courted controversy by inviting on stage during his act Robert Faurisson, a 79-year-old academic who has been convicted of Holocaust denial. .

Gueant, one of President Sarkozy’s most powerful aides, sounded the alarm this week, denouncing Dieudonne, first on Radio J, a Jewish community broadcaster, and then again Monday on the mass market RTL.

The participation of Dieudonne’s lists in the European poll would increase community tensions in France, which is home to Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish minorities and has seen outbreaks of anti-Semitic violence. The public authorities are trying to see where these plans stand under the law.

Dieudonne is anti-Semitic all the time, it’s absolutely odious, he declared.

Can you present yourself for election with an overtly anti-Semitic manifesto? It’s an absolutely scandalous idea which should be morally condemned by all right thinking people, he said. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to ban them.

It’s scandalous.

Dieudonne’s ally Soral hit back, in terms which reflect his supporters’ obsession with alleged shadowy networks of Jewish influence.

The dispute over Dieudonne’s lists raises temperatures just ahead of the visit to Paris of Israel’s new foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, which pro-Palestinian groups will mark with street protests. What he said and where he said it — on a radio station for one community — shows that the highest levels of the state take their orders from the Zionist lobby in France, Soral told AFP.

While France’s main right and left-wing parliamentary parties oppose Dieudonne’s electoral initiative, not everyone agrees with Gueant that banning his lists from the vote would be the right response.

Lieberman, whose hawkish views have made him a bugbear for many of those in Europe who oppose Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians, will be in Paris on Tuesday and police are braced for trouble.

But he worried the controversy was only generating publicity for the group.

Socialist euro-MP Vincent Peillon, who faces a possible challenge from an anti-Zionist list in his own electoral region, said he agreed that a legal challenge should be considered if the law had been broken.

He doesn’t deserve this much attention, he’s marginal in French society.

He doesn’t deserve this much attention, he’s marginal in French society.

anti-Semitism – elections – France – French culture – French politics