Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

DIPLOMACY

France closes Syria embassy after crackdown

France is to close its Damascus embassy on Tuesday, the foreign ministry said, after President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the move to protest the Syrian regime's bloody crackdown on demonstrators.

Published: 6 March 2012 15:04 CET

France is to close its Damascus embassy on Tuesday, the foreign ministry said, after President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the move to protest the Syrian regime’s bloody crackdown on demonstrators.

“The closure of the French embassy is planned for today,” French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told journalists.

“Ambassador Eric Chevallier leaves today or tomorrow morning,” he said, adding that discussions were underway to decide which country would represent French interests in Syria.

There are around 2,000 French nationals in Syria, mostly with dual nationality.

Sarkozy announced on Friday that France would close its embassy in Damascus because of the “scandal” of the repression by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime of his protesting population.

France last closed its Syrian embassy in 1956 when Arab states broke diplomatic relations with France and Britain over the Suez Crisis. The French embassy reopened six years later.

Valero declined to comment on the status of the Syrian embassy in Paris, where, contacted by AFP, an unnamed spokesman said it was continuing to operate normally and “there is no plan to close”.

The year-long uprising in Syria has killed at least 7,500 people, according to the United Nations.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Calls for special police tactics to be available across Sweden

SPT, (Särskild polistaktik), is a tactic where the police work with communication rather than physical measures to reduce the risk of conflicts during events like demonstrations.

Tactics include knowledge about how social movements function and how crowds act, as well as understanding how individuals and groups act in a given situation. Police may attempt to engage in collaboration and trust building, which they are specially trained to do.

Katharina von Sydow, chairwoman of the Police Association West Region, told Swedish Radio P4 West that the concept should exist throughout the country.

“We have nothing to defend ourselves within 10 to 15 metres. We need tools to stop this type of violent riot without doing too much damage,” she said.

SPT is used in the West region, the South region and in Stockholm, which doesn’t cover all the places where the Easter weekend riots took place.

In the wake of the riots, police unions and the police’s chief safety representative had a meeting with the National Police Chief, Anders Tornberg, and demanded an evaluation of the police’s work. Katharina von Sydow now hopes that the tactics will be introduced everywhere.

“This concept must exist throughout the country”, she said.

During the Easter weekend around 200 people were involved in riots after a planned demonstration by anti-Muslim Danish politician Rasmus Paludan and his party Stram Kurs (Hard Line), that included the burning of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

Police revealed on Friday that at least 104 officers were injured in counter-demonstrations that they say were hijacked by criminal gangs intent on targeting the police.

Forty people were arrested and police are continuing to investigate the violent riots for which they admitted they were unprepared.

Paludan’s application for another demonstration this weekend was rejected by police.

In Norway on Saturday, police used tear gas against several people during a Koran-burning demonstration after hundreds of counter-demonstrators clashed with police in the town of Sandefjord.

READ MORE:

Url copied to clipboard!