French PM announces crackdown on teen violence
after fatal assault on schoolboy
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on Thursday announced measures to crack down on teenage violence in and around schools, as the government seeks to reclaim ground on security from the far-right two months ahead of European elections.
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French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal gives an address in the town of Viry-Chatillon, where a 15-year-old was beaten to death earlier this month in an incident that has shocked the nation. © Bertrand Guay, AFP
By: NEWS WIRES
France has in recent weeks been shaken by a series of attacks on schoolchildren by their peers, in particularly the fatal beating earlier this month of Shemseddine, 15, outside Paris.
The issue has come to a head with the far-right National Rally (RN) accusing Attal of not doing enough on security as the anti-immigration party soars ahead of the government coalition in polls for the June 9 election.
Speaking in Viry-Chatillon, the town where Shemseddine was killed, Attal condemned the "addiction of some of our adolescents to violence", calling for "a real surge of authority... to curb violence".
"There are twice as many adolescents involved in assault cases, four times more in drug trafficking, and seven times more in armed robberies than in the general population," he said, also noting increased "Islamist" influences.
Measures will include expanding compulsory school attendance to all the days of the week from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm for children of college age.
"In the day the place to be is at school, to work and to learn," said Attal, who was also marking 100 days in office since being appointed in January by President Emmanuel Macron to turn round the government's fortunes.
Teaching respect
Parents needed to take more responsibility, said Attal, warning that particularly disruptive children would have sanctions marked on their final grades.
Promoting an old-fashioned back-to-basics approach to school authority, he said "You break something -- you repair it. You make a mess – you clear it up. And if you disobey – we teach you respect."
Attal also floated the possibility of children in exceptional cases being denied the right to special treatment on account of their minority in legal cases.
Thus 16-year-olds could be forced to immediately appear in court after violations "like adults", he said. In France, the age of majority is 18, in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Macron and Attal face an uphill struggle to reverse the tide ahead of the European elections. Current polls point to the risk of a major debacle that would overshadow the rest of the president's second mandate up to 2027.
A poll this week by Ifop-Fiducial showed the RN on 32.5 percent with the government coalition way behind on 18 percent.
(AFP)
It's unfortunate that it took an abysmal showing in the polls for the government to act to protect children and teachers in France. That's how shallow European governments really are.
Kaylee Gain is walking, ‘greatly improved’ less than 2 months after having head slammed into ground near school
Kaylee Gain is “greatly improved” and walking again less than two months after suffering horrific brain injuries from having her head repeatedly slammed into the ground during a fight near her school, her family has revealed.
“We have been truly amazed by the progress she has made in such a short time,” Kaylee’s parents, Clint and Jaime Gain, wrote in a GoFundMe update on Tuesday.
“Physically she is doing well, walking with little to no assistance but must wear a helmet for her safety as she is still missing her bone flap,” the proud parents wrote of the 16-year-old’s health status.
Kaylee Gain is walking again two months after her assault. Facebook
“We have been truly amazed by the progress she has made in such a short time,” Kaylee’s parents, Clint and Jaime Gain, wrote in a GoFundMe update.
The bone flap will be repaired with “another surgery” in the future, Kaylee’s parents explained.
“Cognitively Kaylee has greatly improved since first waking up from her coma however there is still a lot of work she will need to do in order to get fully back to herself prior to the incident,” they added.
Kaylee has been in the hospital since March 8, when she and another girl got into a caught-on-camera brawl near their St. Louis high school.
Violent arrests seen in Iran as 'morality patrols'
resume in nationwide crackdown
A year and a half after the start of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests, police in Iran have resumed “morality patrols” to crack down on women violating the Islamic Republic’s strict hijab rules. Patrols consisting of uniformed male officers and female officers in black chadors have been seen in the capital Tehran and other cities, along with the notorious white vans used to transport arrested women to police stations. The FRANCE 24 Observers spoke to one woman arrested in Tehran shortly after the crackdown was announced on April 11.
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Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has made pointed remarks about hijab in two recent speeches. On April 3, he said: “Hijab is a Sharia-based obligation that must not be abrogated [...] Hijab is also a legal obligation, and everyone must respect the law.” A week later, on April 10, he repeated in another speech: “We do not want to impose religion on anyone, but we will fight non-conformism”.
These speeches were apparently the cue for Ahmad-Reza Radan, the Islamic Republic's national police chief. A former military officer known for years for his brutal imposition of hijab rules, Radan announced in a press release on April 11 that police would crack down on women without a hijab. “Women must wear a hijab as it should be worn, otherwise the police will confront them according to the hijab law,” he said, adding that the crackdown would begin April 13. His office issued a statement on April 14 saying that hijab patrols had started nationwide.
Starting April 15, amateur images and firsthand accounts began emerging from Tehran and other cities showing violent arrests of women by male and female police officers, including the use of tasers. Women also spoke of sexual harassment during the arrests.
On April 15, journalist Dina Ghalibaf tweeted that she had been arrested that day by a morality patrol at the Sadeghiyeh metro station in Tehran, and that the officers had tasered her and sexually harassed her before taking her into detention. She was released but rearrested at her home on April 16 after reporting the incident on X. (Women arrested during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests frequently cited sexual abuse by the officers arresting them.)
A photograph widely shared on social networks (above) shows police in Tehran on April 16 apparently preparing for a “morality patrol”. The photograph, along with amateur videos of the same incident also posted online, shows a dozen male police officers in uniform, some wearing yellow fluorescent vests, next to a row of a dozen motorcycles. Four female officers are visible wearing black chadors, next to a white van.
A video also posted on April 16 shows a woman on the street outside the Shirazi metro station in Tehran being forced into a white van by male officers in yellow vests and female officers in chadors.
The tactics – male officers in uniform, female officers in chadors, and white vans – are identical to those used by Iran’s so-called “morality police”, known as “Gasht-e-Ershad” in Persian, before Mahsa Amini’s death in their custody in September 2022. While the patrols disappeared from the streets during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests that followed, they now appear to have resumed.
The only difference appears to be in the markings on the white vans. Before the protests, the vehicles had “Gasht-e-Ershad” (“Guidance patrol”) written on their windows. The white vans being used by police since April 15 have no markings indicating they are being used to enforce hijab rules.
Police in Kish, a tourist island in the south of Iran, on April 17 published a video showing a convoy of police vehicles participating in the nationwide crackdown and the arrest of several women. Police in the cities of Kermanshah and Tabriz announced similar crackdowns.
'I was half naked and they did not stop touching me'
The FRANCE 24 Observers spoke to “Varesh,” a recent victim of a violent arrest by a police morality patrol in Tehran. A student in her twenties, she requested anonymity to protect herself from further prosecution.
At the moment I am talking to you, my whole body aches. I’m covered in bruises. Six big police officers arrested me in the most brutal way imaginable. I resisted and they tore off my top so that I was half-naked. The touch of their hands on my skin was more disgusting than the pain from their fists and feet. In the end, I told them that I would come peacefully. I said: ‘Why are you touching me? Don’t touch my body, you disgust me.' But they did not care.
People nearby tried to stop them from putting me in the van but there were many policemen. One of them kicked an old woman who had grabbed my hand so that they could not arrest me.
They took me to the police station. I called my mother. She came and managed to convince the commander to release me.
Yesterday I could not go outside, the pain is still too much. I have decided not to go outside on foot anymore – only in a car. They are a bunch of savages and they don’t care if they kill us.
We also spoke to “Agrin” [Not her real name]. She is a 22-year-old Iranian student who took part in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests. She has had the experience of being arrested by the morality police before 2022 but not in the latest crackdown.
'I have not changed the way I dress, and I’m not going to'
I haven’t looked at the news in the last few days, so I didn’t know the morality police were on the streets again. I was sitting in the car and said to myself: “Wow, they’re everywhere!”
I have not changed the way I dress and I’m not going to. And I haven’t seen any difference in the way women dress on the street either, despite the patrols everywhere.
I have already been arrested by the morality police. They don’t scare me and frankly I don’t care if they arrest me. If they arrest me, I’ll call my family to come and try to get me out. I have their support and even if the police detain me for a while, I don’t care. I’ve learned to live with the knowledge that I might be arrested. I have faced my fears and try my best to defend my convictions.
Every time I see or hear about someone being arrested by the morality police, I feel nothing but rage. I become more and more certain that I must leave this country as soon as possible.
'I still feel the solidarity among people especially men toward women with no hijab'
Since the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests, I can dress – not exactly the way I want to but I can at least make some choices. I can go out on the street without a headscarf and usually just wear a shirt and trousers. In the car, it's a bit risky because regime supporters can report us to the police based on our licence plates.
Sometimes it’s difficult to go to cafés or restaurants because they are forced by the police to ask us to wear a headscarf. However, most of them ignore this pressure and let us do what we want, and then pay the price of being closed by the police for a while.
A year and a half after the protests began, I still see evidence of solidarity among Iranians, especially men, toward women who choose to go out with no hijab. There’s much less harassment in the street than before the “Woman, Life, Freedom.”
Fortunately, our university is fine with how we dress. And since I work in the private sector, they don’t care how I dress either.
According to the law of the Islamic Republic, which is based on Islamic Sharia, women without an Islamic hijab risk one to ten days in prison. The regime’s police also impose fines and impound cars in which women are seen without a hijab.
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