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President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday he was open to adding a specific mention of Corsica in the French Constitution but rejected several other demands for autonomy made by the island's nationalist leaders. Corsica's relationship with mainland France has long troubled French presidents. For 40 years, separatists waged a militant campaign, blowing up police stations and mansions owned by mainlanders and carrying out assassinations, before laying down their arms in 2014. The head of the regional govement, Gilles Simeoni, said that Macron had "missed an opportunity" to forge a new relationship with the island. During his first visit to Corsica since his election last year, Macron attempted to tread a middle ground, condemning in strong terms past acts of militancy while playing up the need for better cooperation between the island and the mainland. "I want us to open a new chapter of our history," Macron told Corsican officials. "I want everyone in the (French) Republic to be able to claim their identity, their specificity. But if this specificity is to be the Republic's enemy, then it's an error and I cannot accept it." Why do , ...ادامه مطلب

A Belgian court must acquit Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam over a shootout with police because of a legal language mix-up between Dutch and French, his defence lawyer said Thursday. Abdeslam, 28, refused to come to court in Brussels on Thursday, after accusing judges on the first day of the trial on Monday of being anti-Muslim and proclaiming he would only put his "trust in Allah". In Abdeslam's absence, lawyer Sven Mary sought the case's dismissal over a technicality in how the judges were named to investigate the gunbattle in Brussels in March 2016, in which three police offers were wounded. "It's a very Belgian story," said Mary, explaining that the top counter-terror judge should have issued the document naming the judges in Dutch, and not in French, because he serves in a Dutch-speaking court in Brussels. The "whole case" against Abdeslam and his Tunisian co-defendant, Sofiane Ayari, "must be thrown out," Mary said. Belgium's deep divisions between Dutch and French-speakers were often cited as a factor in the country's widely criticised investigations into the cell behind attacks in 2015 in Paris and 2016 in Brussels. Mary also said the case has been "pollute, ...ادامه مطلب

French judicial investigators have opened a full-scale inquiry into allegations of complicity in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, an official at the public prosecutor's office said on Monday. BNP Paribas bank, accused by non-govemental organisations of complicity over a transfer of $1.3 million to an arms dealer, said the move was expected and not a surprise. "This in no way constitutes a , ...ادامه مطلب

Trump travel ban comes into effect Read more Several Lebanese soldiers wounded in clash in northeast Read more Climate change could greatly widen US inequality: study Read more Sarin used in attack on Syria town in April, says UN watchdog Read more BNP Paribas accused of compli, ...ادامه مطلب

Monday, March 20 is Jouée Inteationale de la Francophonie (Inteational French Language Day) and a French high school in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with a 100 percent graduation success rate is a showcase for promoting the language abroad.The Lycée Pasteur is a Francophone island in the heart of primar, ...ادامه مطلب

Rwandan President Paul Kagame criticised France on Monday after French investigators reopened a investigation into the 1994 assassination of the Rwandan president, a killing that triggered the country’s genocide. “The judicial system of Rwanda is not subordinate to France or France’s interests,” Kagame told a cheering audience of judges, senior military officers and govement officials at an official judicial function. “It should be France in the dock being tried, not anybody in Rwanda and not Rwandans.” Rwanda’s former chief of army staff Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, now in exile, has accused Kagame of being linked to the shooting down of the plane carrying president Habyarimana Juvenal, the president of Burundi and a French air crew. Nyamwasa made the accusations against Kagame in a widely reported trial in 2012, two years after an attempt to murder Nyamwasa in South Africa. Kagame says the plane was shot down by Juvenal’s own supporters who disapproved of a peace deal ,rwanda,rwandan genocide,rwanda map,rwanda flag,rwanda news,rwandair,rwanda language,rwanda capital,rwanda population,rwanda movie ...ادامه مطلب