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POLITICS

Minister calls on local authorities to ban extreme-right marches in France

France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has called on préfets the length and breadth of the country to systematically ban extreme-right organisations from staging marches, after around 600 neo-nazis took to the streets in Paris on Monday.

Minister calls on local authorities to ban extreme-right marches in France
The extreme-right march in Paris. (Photo by Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP)

Darminin made his comments in the National Assembly after Paris police said they were unable to ban a demonstration by nearly 600 people who took to the streets of the capital to mark the 29th anniversary of the death of far-right activist Sébastien Deyzieu, who died in 1994.

READ ALSO Paris police under fire over neo-Nazi rally

The demonstration ended with black-clad and masked participants chanting “Europe, youth, revolution”, a slogan of the violent Groupe union défense (GUD) far-right student group that was influential in the 1990s, according to reports.

The protest had been allowed to go ahead by city authorities, and police could be seen patrolling nearby.

Demonstrations were banned on Monday around the Champs-Élysées in Paris where Macron attended a May 8th ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe. Police in eastern Lyon also outlawed demonstrations near a war memorial where Macron paid tribute to French Resistance hero Jean Moulin on the same day.

And police have also moved on protesters banging pots and pans in towns the President has visited since the controversial pension reform law was passed.

Damning the marches as “unacceptable”, Darminin said: “In view of what we have seen in the streets of the capital (…) I have instructed the police chiefs and local authorities that any ultra-right or extreme right activist, or any association or collective which will file demonstrations, will be met with prohibition orders. 

“We will let the courts judge whether … these demonstrations [can] be held.”

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HEALTH

Danish parties agree to raise abortion limit to 18 weeks

Denmark's government has struck a deal with four other parties to raise the point in a pregnancy from which a foetus can be aborted from 12 weeks to 18 weeks, in the first big change to Danish abortion law in 50 years.

Danish parties agree to raise abortion limit to 18 weeks

The government struck the deal with the Socialist Left Party, the Red Green Alliance, the Social Liberal Party and the Alternative party, last week with the formal announcement made on Monday  

“In terms of health, there is no evidence for the current week limit, nor is there anything to suggest that there will be significantly more or later abortions by moving the week limit,” Sophie Løhde, Denmark’s Minister of the Interior and Health, said in a press release announcing the deal.

The move follows the recommendations of Denmark’s Ethics Council, which in September 2023 proposed raising the term limit, pointing out that Denmark had one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Western Europe. 

READ ALSO: 

Under the deal, the seven parties, together with the Liberal Alliance and the Conservatives, have also entered into an agreement to replace the five regional abortion bodies with a new national abortion board, which will be based in Aarhus. 

From July 1st, 2025, this new board will be able to grant permission for abortions after the 18th week of pregnancy if there are special considerations to take into account. 

The parties have also agreed to grant 15-17-year-olds the right to have an abortion without parental consent or permission from the abortion board.

Marie Bjerre, Denmark’s minister for Digitalization and Equality, said in the press release that this followed logically from the age of sexual consent, which is 15 years old in Denmark. 

“Choosing whether to have an abortion is a difficult situation, and I hope that young women would get the support of their parents. But if there is disagreement, it must ultimately be the young woman’s own decision whether she wants to be a mother,” she said. 

The bill will be tabled in parliament over the coming year with the changes then coming into force on June 1st, 2025.

The right to free abortion was introduced in Denmark in 1973. 

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