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CRIME

Police send reinforcements to Paris suburbs after deadly gang brawls

The French government sent police reinforcements on Tuesday evening to two Paris suburbs to try break a cycle of gang violence after two 14-year-olds were stabbed to death in separate brawls.

Police send reinforcements to Paris suburbs after deadly gang brawls
Illustration photo: AFP

The two killings took place within less than 24 hours in the Essonne départment south of Paris.

In the first incident on Monday, a 14-year-old girl died of stab wounds to the stomach during a fight between a dozen youths outside a school in the town of Saint-Cheron, 50km south of Paris.

Six minors aged between 13 and 16 have been arrested over her death.

One of the suspects, who was known to the police, has admitted to delivering the fatal blow with a pocket knife, according to the public prosecutor for the area, Caroline Nisand.

The second stabbing took place on Tuesday in the town of Boussy-Saint-Antoine, 45km away in the east, where a 14-year-old boy died, also “very likely after being stabbed in the stomach”, local authorities told AFP.

A 13-year-old boy was also seriously injured after being stabbed in the throat during a clash between around 30 youths from gangs in two towns on either side of Boussy-Saint-Antoine.

The suspected perpetrator of the stabbing turned himself in to police.

The deaths come after an outcry last month over a video of a 15-year-old in southern Paris suffering a vicious gang beating that left him in a coma.

The state’s representative in the Essonne department, Eric Jalon, told France Info radio on Wednesday that brawls between youth gangs in the area “had increased in number, intensity and gravity”.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who visited the Essonne on Tuesday, said the greater Paris area was particularly affected by fights between teenage gangs.

He blamed the “mimicry of social networks” where youngsters post videos of rivals being beaten up in order to humiliate their opponents.

Nationwide, however, he noted that the level of youth gang violence had subsided since 2016, when nine youngsters were killed in fights.

Police sources said the number of gangs in the Paris area was also largely unchanged in the past five years, with 46 gangs described as active in Paris and the suburbs.

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POLITICS

France seeks EU funding trial for Le Pen’s far-right party

Paris prosecutors said on Friday they were seeking to put far-right leader Marine Le Pen and 26 associates on trial over claims they used EU funds to finance party activities in France.

France seeks EU funding trial for Le Pen's far-right party

The fake jobs inquiry began in 2015 and hung over Le Pen as she sought the French presidency in 2017 and 2022, losing out both times to centrist Emmanuel Macron.

She and the others have been charged with embezzlement of public funds and collusion, accused of using parliamentary funds to pay for assistants who in fact worked for her National Rally party, formerly called the National Front.

Le Pen, who stepped down as an MEP in 2017 after her election to the French parliament, has denied the claims.

The charges carry sentences of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to double the alleged funds embezzled.

If convicted, the court could also declare Le Pen ineligible for office for up to 10 years — threatening her plan to make a fourth run for the French presidency in 2027.

Prosecutors allege that starting in 2004, National Front eurodeputies including Le Pen and her father, party co-founder Jean Marie Le Pen, took part in the fake jobs scheme.

The EU Parliament estimated in 2018 that €6.8 million had been embezzled from 2009 to 2017.

In total, prosecutors want a trial for 11 eurodeputies, 12 of their parliamentary assistants and four party collaborators, while the RN party itself faces charges of concealing the wrongdoing.

“We contest this view, to us mistaken, of the work of opposition deputies and their assistants, work that is above all political,” a RN official said on Friday.

On Thursday, Le Pen’s lawyer said she had agreed to pay back the EU Parliament funds sought in the fraud case, following an administrative procedure to recover the money.

The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) had determined she owed €339,000 for illegally paying her party chief of staff Catherine Griset and bodyguard Thierry Legier with parliamentary funds.

Le Pen had refused to reimburse the money, prompting the EU to start docking her pay in her final months as an MEP.

She paid back almost €330,000 in July but the decision “does not in any way constitute explicit or implicit recognition of the European Parliament’s claims”, lawyer Rodolphe Bosselut said.

In a separate case, OLAF also alleges that around €600,000 of expense claims by Le Pen and three other eurodeputies actually financed party operations in France.

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