The speaker of France’s lower house yesterday received an envelope containing ammunition powder and a threatening letter exhorting him to delay an imminent vote on a gay marriage bill, aides said.
The threat comes as France’s parliament prepares to submit its final, decisive vote on the bill, which also allows adoption by gay couples, today amid huge tensions in the country between opponents and supporters.
The letter asks Claude Bartolone, the Socialist speaker of the National Assembly, to “delay the final vote” on the legislation that would allow same-sex marriage, which has triggered mass protests over recent months.
Photo: AFP
“Our methods are more radical and direct than the protests, you wanted war, you have it,” reads the end of the one-page, anonymous letter — just one of recent threats on pro-bill politicians.
Earlier this month, Senator Esther Benbassa said her car was trashed and that she had received threatening telephone calls, emails and letters.
Erwann Binet, a Socialist MP who supports the bill, has been forced to cancel planned debates for security reasons after being heckled by far-right militants, who have taken a front seat in the current furor over the bill.
Tens of thousands of opponents of the gay marriage bill marched in Paris on Sunday. Clutching French flags, dressed in pink and blue, the colors of the movement, carrying children or pushing buggies, protesters shouted slogans against French President Francois Hollande as they made their way through the city.
“We’ve been to all the protests,” said a 32-year-old mother who only gave her first name Camille.
“We’re here for children’s rights. We don’t want the state to be complicit in a child being deprived of a father or a mother,” she said.
The leader of the far-right “Nationalist Youths” group, Alexandre Gabriac, was among the marchers.
“We have about 50 nationalists in the protest,” said Gabriac, who last week was detained after clashes with security forces.
Police sources said officers had detained three protesters carrying tear gas canisters.
Paris police estimated the march attracted 45,000 people, while organizers said 270,000 turned out and the march passed off peacefully.
Polls regularly show that while a slim majority backs same-sex marriage, a similarly narrow majority opposes adoption by gay couples.
The bill is largely supported by the ruling Socialists, their allies in the Green Party and the Communists, and opposed by the main opposition UMP and other right-wing and center-right parties.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
RSS