France prides itself on its republican ideals, embodied in the motto "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," but its image as a land of openness, tolerance and solidarity is clearly suffering.
In the latest controversy, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has said he would make public the results of an investigation into charges that police officers tortured suspects after a spate of terrorist bombings in Paris in 1995.
The charges were first made in a new book written by three journalists from the weekly Le Point, who interviewed five former police officers from the Criminal Investigation Department
The officers said that anti-terrorist police committed acts of torture, including electroshock and severe beatings, while interrogating suspects in the series of bombings by Algerian militants that left eight people dead in Paris and injured 200.
More than 30 police officers have so far been questioned in the investigation, but none have apparently so far corroborated the allegations, officials say.
The results of the investigation, Sarkozy promised, "will be published in detail. If there were errors, punishment will be imposed. If not, I will defend the honor of the police and go to court."
The torture allegations came just as the French daily Le Parisien made public the shocking results of a Council of Europe report on French detention practices and prison conditions.
The report uses terms such as "unacceptable," "shameful" and "shocking" to describe conditions in France's prisons, which it says are so overcrowded that it deprives inmates "of their basic rights."
The report, which was published yesterday, was based on a 16-day visit to France made last September by the Council's human rights commissioner, Alvaro Gil-Robles.
In perhaps his most withering criticism, Gil-Robles said that a detention center for asylum seekers and illegal immigrants located in the basement of the Palace of Justice in Paris represented "a flagrant violation of human rights."
"With the possible exception of Moldova, I have never seen a worse center than this," Gil-Robles said, and urged the French government to close it "immediately."
In addition, the report also slams France for its inadequate protection of "vulnerable [minority] groups" and its failures in the fight against discrimination.
Although French leaders are aware of the problem, Gil-Robles wrote, "there is often a gap between word and practice."
Sarkozy, who is an announced candidate for next year's presidential elections, said on Monday that "a huge investment is necessary to truly transform daily existence in our prisons."
The revelations come at a critical time for France and its government, which is trying to respond to the wave of riots that swept through the country's suburban ghettoes for three weeks late last year.
The violence, in which many thousands of vehicles and dozens of buildings were set on fire, revealed the glaring social divisions and inequalities in a country that has long prided itself as being the home of human rights.
The most recent criticism may finally force the French to regard themselves in a clearer and more realistic light.
China has not been a top-tier issue for much of the second Trump administration. Instead, Trump has focused considerable energy on Ukraine, Israel, Iran, and defending America’s borders. At home, Trump has been busy passing an overhaul to America’s tax system, deporting unlawful immigrants, and targeting his political enemies. More recently, he has been consumed by the fallout of a political scandal involving his past relationship with a disgraced sex offender. When the administration has focused on China, there has not been a consistent throughline in its approach or its public statements. This lack of overarching narrative likely reflects a combination
US President Donald Trump’s alleged request that Taiwanese President William Lai (賴清德) not stop in New York while traveling to three of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, after his administration also rescheduled a visit to Washington by the minister of national defense, sets an unwise precedent and risks locking the US into a trajectory of either direct conflict with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or capitulation to it over Taiwan. Taiwanese authorities have said that no plans to request a stopover in the US had been submitted to Washington, but Trump shared a direct call with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平)
Heavy rains over the past week have overwhelmed southern and central Taiwan, with flooding, landslides, road closures, damage to property and the evacuations of thousands of people. Schools and offices were closed in some areas due to the deluge throughout the week. The heavy downpours brought by the southwest monsoon are a second blow to a region still recovering from last month’s Typhoon Danas. Strong winds and significant rain from the storm inflicted more than NT$2.6 billion (US$86.6 million) in agricultural losses, and damaged more than 23,000 roofs and a record high of nearly 2,500 utility poles, causing power outages. As
It is difficult to think of an issue that has monopolized political commentary as intensely as the recall movement and the autopsy of the July 26 failures. These commentaries have come from diverse sources within Taiwan and abroad, from local Taiwanese members of the public and academics, foreign academics resident in Taiwan, and overseas Taiwanese working in US universities. There is a lack of consensus that Taiwan’s democracy is either dying in ashes or has become a phoenix rising from the ashes, nurtured into existence by civic groups and rational voters. There are narratives of extreme polarization and an alarming