The only non-French glory that rested until now in the Pantheon of illustrious people of France was the singer Josephine Baker. In 2021, he entered this temple dedicated to honoring the great characters who have marked the history of the country.. Missak Manouchian, an Armenian communist who led a resistance network against the German occupation, and his wife, Mélinée, also rest since this Wednesday.. The names of the 22 members of the group will also appear, among them the Spaniard Celestino Alfonso, executed by the Nazis in 1944.

This solemn ceremony, which is usually a time to honor memory, is celebrated surrounded by controversy due to the presence of the far-right leader Marine Le Pen.. She announced on Monday that she would attend the event, despite the reluctance shown by the president, Emmanuel Macron, and members of the committee that had promoted the entry of the resisters into the monument.

In an interview with L'Humanité published on Sunday, Macron had invited “extreme right-wing forces” not to be present “given the nature of Manouchian's struggle”, who precisely lost his life in the battle against the rise of extreme right-wing extremists. right. Macron insisted that the “spirit of decency and the relationship with history” should “lead to making a decision,” referring to Le Pen's National Rally party.

Le Pen's presence at certain ceremonies or events is uncomfortable, due to her party's past.. The clearest example was when, in November, he decided to participate in the march against anti-Semitism that was held in Paris, after the Hamas attacks on October 7.. Her father, founder of the National Front (as the group was called before she changed its name), had been convicted precisely of anti-Semitism.

Le Pen's presence bothered the extreme left above all, but then Macron did not comment on the matter. Yes, it has done so now, which, according to Le Pen herself, “represents a political instrumentalization of a moment of national unity and a political and moral failure.”

“Don't come, Mrs. Le Pen”

Members of the support committee for the entry of the resisters into the Pantheon of Great Glories also criticized Le Pen's presence at the ceremony, considering it “a lack of respect,” the grandson of one of those shot said on the radio. RTL. “For the memory of the 23 shot that day, I ask you: do not come, Mrs. Le Pen.”

With her presence in this tribute to the Armenian communist and his comrades, Marine Le Pen rounds off the process of de-diabolization of her figure and that of her party, distancing herself from her father's heritage and normalizing her political ideology. In fact, Le Pen is gaining more and more popularity in France and her party is leading the polls ahead of the European elections in June.

After surviving the Armenian genocide, Manouchian joined the French Communist Party and tried to apply for French nationality, although it was never given to him.. Today it enters the place for the great glories of the country, where Voltaire or Victor Hugo are. It is “the second time that a figure who is not French but who nevertheless chose France to fight to defend its universalist and republican values, running a great risk, has entered the pantheon,” the Elysée noted.

Manouchian's network was dismantled by the Nazis, with the complicity of the French police, and he and the rest of the combatants were shot on February 21, 1944 at Mont Valérien, which has become a symbol of the resistance.. As of today, all of them, the Elysée has clarified, “join the resistance fighters” who already rest there, such as Jean Moulin, who entered the Pantheon in 1964, and other figures such as Pierre Brossolette, Jean Zay, Germaine Tillion and Geneviève Anthonioz de Gaulle (did it in 2015). The other 22 members of the network access in a symbolic way, since their names will be recorded in the Pantheon, and already recognized as “dead for France.”

From Kinmen, if the day is clear, you can clearly see the imposing skyscrapers of the Chinese city of Xiamen, which is just three kilometers away.. Many of the 127,000 residents of this small archipelago in the South China Sea long for their neighbor's progress and fear their misfortune at finding themselves on the front lines of a possible future war.. Kinmen is under the control of Taiwan. And since the self-governed island is 187 kilometers away, there is always a permanent detachment of 3,000 Taiwanese soldiers on the archipelago.

It was a fairly calm start to the year for clashes between Beijing and Taipei.. Even in January there were Taiwanese elections with the victory of the candidate who did not want Xi Jinping's regime. For China, Lai ching-te, the new Taiwanese leader, is an “independence troublemaker”. But unlike other times, there was no Chinese tantrum in the form of military maneuvers around Taiwan.

There was a strange calm until the Asian superpower and the island with a young democracy have resumed the old game of cat and mouse, this time with Kinmen as the epicenter of tensions.

Last week, off the coast of the archipelago, two Chinese fishermen drowned while being chased by the Taiwanese coast guard.. Chinese speedboat carrying four people capsizes while fleeing. “The evil incident seriously damaged the feelings of compatriots on both sides of the Strait,” said Zhu Fenglian, spokesman for Beijing's Taiwan affairs office.

From Taipei they regretted the “unfortunate incident” and assured that the boat had “illegally entered Taiwanese waters”. Those days, during the Chinese New Year holidays, the Taiwanese authorities had already reported that many Chinese fishing boats were entering their waters to catch fish.

On Sunday, the Chinese coast guard increased regular patrols around Kinmen. A day later, one of these patrols boarded a Taiwanese tourist boat. Six agents inspected the ship and asked the crew for documentation. The ship had diverted into Chinese waters to avoid a sandbar. A common maneuver that normally does not provoke any reaction from the neighbor.

On Tuesday, it was the turn of Taiwanese patrols, who chased away with several boats a Chinese coast guard ship that had entered waters near Kinmen, where Taiwanese soldiers stationed there shot down a surveillance drone for the first time last year. Chinese.

“Fishermen from both sides have traditionally operated in the waters of Xiamen-Kinmen. There is no territory under Taiwan's control in the legal sense.. The mainland's regular police patrols in the related waters are legitimate,” read a statement from the Chinese authorities.. Taiwan, although it functions de facto as an independent country, has barely a dozen countries that recognize its sovereignty.

Taiwan control

Kinmen has been controlled by Taiwan since the Kuomintang nationalists, who lost the civil war against Mao Zedong's army in 1949, took refuge on the main island and took over outposts on other outlying islands.. A decade later, during the Cold War, routine bombing raids against Kinmen were launched from the mainland.. There were around 470,000 projectiles in 44 days, leaving more than 600 dead.

Old bunkers still stand in the archipelago. They are a tourist attraction, but some residents think they can still be useful in case Beijing makes good on its threat to invade Taiwan, which it considers a separatist province.. But the strong Taiwanese identity they feel in Taipei does not have as much roots in Kinmen, where they have seen the enormous development of Xiamen very closely in recent years.

Precisely, it is this attraction of economic progress that Beijing is using to attract residents of the peripheral islands to the province of Fujian, where Xiamen and other large cities are located that offer Taiwanese facilities to obtain residence permits, good job opportunities and even housing subsidies.

Of all the criticisms of Tucker Carlson's recent interview with President Vladimir Putin, I stick with the one that has not been made: the deference of the European warlords to the American press. Carlson was the first journalist to interview the Russian president since the invasion of Ukraine. And an American was also the one who managed to interview Adolf Hitler when he had already invaded part of the European continent.. The difference between the two is that John Cudahy's feat of accessing the German dictator was enough to earn everyone's respect and Carlson has been beaten for the supposed lack of aggressiveness of his questions to the Russian, to be asked, according to the former Secretary of State , Hillary Clinton's “Necessary Idiot”. How times have changed.

It was on May 23, 1941, a month before Nazi Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union, when Cudahy, a former military man and diplomat, sat down for Life magazine with Hitler at his Berghof headquarters.. Axis victory seemed a real possibility at the time and Cudahy asked Hitler if he planned to send troops to the United States, just as Carlson did with Putin in the case of Poland.. The führer laughed because “the idea of an invasion of the Western Hemisphere was as fantastic as an invasion of the Moon” and certainly man had not set foot on the Moon at that time.

According to Hitler, the German army did not undertake military expeditions to show off or demonstrate that nothing was impossible for German weapons.. If the Crete venture seemed difficult, he said, an attack over some 2,500 miles of open water, as would be the case by the United States, was simply unthinkable.. He noted that he had never heard anyone in Germany say that the Mississippi was a German border, in the same spirit in which the Prime Minister of Australia referred to the Rhine as his own, hence, he added sarcastically, that he decided to send some prisoners Australians to that famous German river, so that they could become familiar with the border environment.

Cudahy pointed out the countries occupied by German military forces and asked the Führer if he could indicate, in general terms, his disposition towards such nations, given the belief among many Americans that German domination of Europe meant the suppression of languages, native national customs and institutions.

His response was that Germany had not started this war, but that war was declared against Germany by France and England.. It was strange, he said, to hear the British talk about world domination when they had millions of Indians, Egyptians and Arabs oppressed in their colonies.. Cudahy inquired about his plans for Belgium, where he had served as ambassador, and Hitler responded that his formula for the future of Europe was “peace, prosperity and happiness.”. Germany, he said, was not interested in slaves or the enslavement of any people.. “We will mend relations with our neighbors so that everyone enjoys peace and prosperity,” he summarized.

At the conclusion of the conversation, Hitler claimed to have attempted to answer all questions clearly and frankly, but expressed skepticism about the benefit of the interview in the United States.. If it was in terms of deterrence, it was of no use.. The United States entered the war six months later.

Prince William has issued a rare statement expressing his “concern about the human cost” of Israel's offensive in Gaza and calling for an end to the war.. “Sometimes, it is only in the face of the scale of so much human suffering that the importance of permanent peace becomes necessary,” warns the Prince of Wales, who has been impersonating King Charles at official events for two weeks since he was diagnosed with cancer.

William's punctual intervention, in contrast to the political neutrality that Queen Elizabeth II exhibited for decades, has surprised everyone and everyone, as it occurred in the middle of the countdown to the vote on an amendment calling for a “ceasefire” in Gaza on Wednesday in Parliament.

“I am deeply concerned by the terrible human cost of the conflict in the Middle East since the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7,” can be read in the statement signed by the heir to the British Crown.. “Too many people have died since then” (the princes of Wales condemned the attack at the time).

“Like so many others, I want to see the end of the conflict as soon as possible,” he continues.. “There is a desperate need for increased humanitarian aid to Gaza. “It is absolutely critical that help arrives and that the hostages are freed.”

'Even in the darkest hour, we must not succumb to despair,' warns Prince of Wales. “I remain hopeful that a brighter future can be found and I refuse to give up on that.”

The statement from Kensington Palace comes two days after the leader of the Labor opposition and aspiring prime minister, Keir Starmer, publicly reversed his position on the conflict and called for “an immediate, humanitarian ceasefire.”

Dozens of Labor MPs had previously expressed their intention to back an amendment from the Scottish National Party (SNP) that will be voted on Wednesday calling for “an immediate ceasefire”. Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has expressed his “deep concern” about Israel's military offensive in Rafah, but has to date been against a ceasefire.

For two days, Julian Assange fights his last battle before the British courts to stop his extradition to the United States, where he could be sentenced to 175 years in prison for 17 crimes of espionage, conspiracy and computer fraud for his work as founder of WikiLeaks, for the dissemination of classified information from the State Department and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A high court must decide, possibly this week, whether Assange has the capacity to appeal the extradition order issued in June 2022 by the then Home Secretary Priti Patel.

Assange's lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, has stressed the “political motivation” of the case and has warned that the WikiLeaks founder faces “a flagrant denial of justice” if he is extradited to the United States.. “In reality, my client is being prosecuted for a common journalistic practice: the publication of classified information that is truthful and of public interest,” Fitzgerald stressed, with special mention of documents and images from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan..

Stella Morris, Assange's lawyer and wife, arrived at the court minutes before the start of the hearing at 10:30 in the morning (11:30 in Spain) accompanied by the current director of WikiLeaks, Kristinn Hrafnsson.. “Please continue to show your support for Julian until we achieve his freedom,” he said before dozens of protesters who shouted: “There is only one decision: no to extradition.”

Assange himself will appear by videoconference in view from Belmarsh prison, where he has been awaiting a final decision on his case since he was detained at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in April 2019, after seven years of confinement to avoid extradition.

“The court's decision will essentially decide whether Julian lives or dies,” said Morris, who warned that extradition would be equivalent to the death penalty, given the fragile health of the 52-year-old Australian activist and the severe conditions of isolation in North American prisons.

If Assange were to lose the ability to appeal, his lawyers' last resort would be an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, which intervened to stop the deportation of immigrants to Rwanda.. Stella Morris warned, however, that they would only have 24 hours to appeal and little guarantee of success.

“This is our last chance before the British courts,” Morris warned.. “Every day he spends in prison puts Julian's life at risk.”

Dozens of supporters gathered at the high court on London's Strand on Tuesday demanding the release of the WikiLeaks founder.. Amnesty International has championed his case and warned that “the safety of editors and investigative journalists around the world hangs in the balance” if Julian Assange is finally extradited and tried in the United States.