Thalès has been equipping Israeli combat drones since 2018 ---- Between
2018 and 2023, the French arms group sold €2 million worth of electronic
components and communications systems intended to equip Israeli drones,
Disclose reveals, with supporting commercial documents. The equipment
manufactured by Thales is likely to be used in bombing raids against
Palestinian civilians. According to its communications, Thales is a
model company. A multinational arms manufacturer committed to raising
"year after year [its] level of integrity, responsibility, and ethical
business practices," as its latest activity report proclaims. This
concern also explains its presence among the signatories of the United
Nations Global Compact, which notably commits "not to be complicit in
human rights violations." Thales, of which the French government is the
majority shareholder, appears to be flouting this rule. This is what
Disclose's investigation reveals, based on twelve invoices issued
between 2018 and 2023 and intended for two heavyweights in the Israeli
arms industry: Israel Aerospace Industries and Elbit Systems. According
to these commercial documents, Thales sold them €2 million worth of
pilot assistance systems for armed drones. And not just any drones,
since these are the Heron TP and Hermes surveillance and attack drones.
Two models accused of being used against the Palestinian population for
nearly fifteen years.
Contacted by Disclose, the company confirmed the sale of components to
"Israeli entities." While playing down the impact of these "airborne
communications systems," it writes, because they are "non-lethal!" These
transponders and other "altimeter" and anti-collision radars nonetheless
remain essential to the operation of devices that can indeed be used to
kill. "A radio or radar altimeter are vital tools for a military drone
to determine its position in the sky. Their excellent accuracy is very
useful for knowing where the drone is looking," recalls Chris Lincoln
Johnson, a former British army officer who has become a consultant on
drone use.
Source: Excerpt from an article by disclose.ngo
Ten years after the death of Rémi Fraisse, the European Court of Human
Rights condemns France
Ten years after the death of environmental activist Rémi Fraisse, the
European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned France on Thursday,
February 27, for a violation of the "right to life" enshrined in law.
Let us recall that on the night of October 25-26, 2014, this 21-year-old
student was fatally injured by the explosion of an OF-F1 offensive
grenade during clashes between opponents of the construction of the
Sivens dam and the mobile gendarmes responsible for protecting the
construction zone.
The ECHR ruling points to "gaps in the legal and administrative
framework then applicable" to the gendarmerie operation and "failures in
the management." However, it notes that the French authorities
(apparently!) took the necessary measures to remedy the situation and
that an "effective investigation" took place, although it did not lead
to a trial...
Rémi Fraisse's parents, sister, and grandmother, who have been working
for more than ten years to obtain justice, have been awarded financial
compensation of €50,700. "This conviction definitively establishes that
Rémi, who was only 21 years old, was killed by France due to orders to
maintain order and the manifestly disproportionate use of force," wrote
Jean-Pierre Fraisse, Rémi's father, in a press release following this
decision. His text points in particular to the responsibility of
"members of the government at the time" in his son's death, whom
"history has proven right" since the construction site was subsequently
interrupted by the courts. He adds, citing the example of Sainte Soline,
that law enforcement officers make "completely insane" use of grenades
during social and environmental protests. "The OF-F1 is no longer used,
but there are still grenades that maim and can even kill you. In fact,
nothing has changed under the sun!"
The gendarme who threw the "bell" grenade at night over a fence was
never tried or even charged. Placed under the status of assisted
witness, he obtained a dismissal of the case in 2018, confirmed by the
Court of Appeal in 2020. The Court of Cassation dismissed the Fraisse
family's appeal in 2021, definitively ending the legal proceedings in
France. As for the ECHR's decision, it is mixed, especially since it
does not condemn France for using explosive munitions in law enforcement
operations! The OF-F1 grenade has already been replaced twice. The
authorities promise each time that they are less dangerous. However, the
GM2L grenades (used with a launcher) and ASSD grenades (hand-thrown)
currently in service pose a similar danger.
Source: Médiapart.fr
Algorithmic video surveillance... until at least 2027!
The VSA experiment was scheduled to end in March 2025, but is expected
to be extended. Indeed, the joint committee responsible for examining
the proposed law on transport security approved the extension of the
experiment until March 2027. As a reminder, VSA relies on real-time
analysis of video feeds captured by surveillance cameras. Algorithms
then detect specific events defined by law: crowd movements, intrusions
into restricted areas, and outbreaks of fire. The goal is to help
operators respond more quickly to incidents. The initial results --
revealed by Le Monde last January -- are far from positive. Some use
cases, such as the detection of abandoned luggage in train stations,
have proven unreliable. Indeed, the software sometimes tends to confuse
street furniture (or even homeless people!) with suspicious objects.
Other features, such as identifying fires or detecting weapons, have
been little used due to a lack of technical maturity. Despite these more
than mixed results, the government has never hidden its desire to extend
the system. But La Quadrature du Net continues its legal battle. It will
do everything it can to have an appeal filed with the Constitutional
Court. To be continued!
Sources: mac4ever.com and la quadrature.net
Prison: 81,599 inmates in France on February 1st!
As of February 1st, French prisons held 81,599 inmates for only 62,363
operational places.
The overall prison density was 130.8% as of February 1st. This density,
greater than or equal to 200% in eighteen prisons or areas, forces more
than 4,490 inmates to sleep on mattresses on the floor. Prison density
reaches 158.9% in remand centers, where prisoners awaiting trial,
therefore presumed innocent, and those sentenced to short terms are
incarcerated.
The threshold of 80,000 inmates was crossed for the first time on
November 1, 2024.
Among those incarcerated as of February 1, 21,631 are remand prisoners,
in detention awaiting their final judgment. A total of 98,780 people
were in custody. Among them, there are 17,181 non-detainees subject to
electronic monitoring or work release. Source: lemonde.fr
The Council of State has validated the dissolution of the Collectif
Palestine Vaincra!
This is the epilogue of three years of proceedings. On February 24,
2022, then-Prime Minister Jean Castex announced -- during the CRIF
dinner, and after echoing Trump's words by calling Jerusalem the
"eternal capital of the Jewish people" -- the dissolution of the
Collectif Palestine Vaincra, a Toulouse-based organization supporting
the Palestinian cause. At the time, Macron's supporter Aurore Bergé even
added fuel to the fire, outright raising the possibility of
"dismantling" Amnesty International, one of the leading NGOs working for
freedoms worldwide, whose work documenting Israeli apartheid is
essential. In 2022, Gérald Darmanin was Minister of the Interior, tasked
with developing the arguments for dissolving this collective: "under the
guise of defending the Palestinian cause," he wrote, Palestine Vaincra
cultivates "the feeling of oppression of Muslim peoples (...) with the
aim of spreading the idea of Islamophobia internationally." A "feeling"
of oppression? Today, everyone has seen that the colonization, bombings,
and genocidal policies applied against the Palestinian people are
anything but a simple feeling. The Interior Ministry also criticized the
group for calling for "discrimination and hatred toward Israel and
Israelis" through boycott campaigns. Boycott is the ultimate pacifist
weapon, used against apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s. But we live
in such an authoritarian era that even refusing to buy products from a
country responsible for crimes against humanity is criminalized. In
April 2022, the dissolution of Palestine Vaincra was suspended. The
Council of State then cited a "serious attack on freedom of expression"
and denounced the "political position" of the Ministry of the Interior,
which conflated anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. It was a slim victory,
since the appeal on the merits had to be awaited. At the same time, a
petition had gathered thousands of signatures, and numerous
demonstrations and actions had denounced this procedure. On January 27,
2025, the decisive hearing was held at the Council of State. The
rapporteur first acknowledged that Palestine Vaincra was indeed
expressing itself within the framework of freedom of expression... BUT
that "hateful" comments had not been moderated on social media. In other
words, the collective is considered responsible for comments it did not
write, but which it apparently delayed deleting!
This repression is permitted by the "separatism" law.
Source: contre-attaque.net
New European Union Border Control System
The crossing between Melilla and Morocco is one of the busiest transit
points between Africa and Europe. Every day, thousands of travelers
cross this border, whether tourists, cross-border workers, or traders.
With the implementation of a new system called EES, controls will become
stricter:
Mandatory registration of biometric data for all non-Europeans. Every
non-European traveler will be required to register their biometric data,
including fingerprints and a facial photo. This information will be
stored in a secure database for three years, saving regular travelers
from having to repeat the process each time they pass through.
The manual stamp will be eliminated, replaced by this biometric
verification.
Automatic monitoring of stays to detect overstays.
Spanish authorities believe this system will help better manage
migration flows and prevent illegal entry into European territory.
The experiment in Melilla will serve as a full-scale test before the EES
is rolled out to all the European Union's external borders. Ultimately,
this system will apply to the 700 million non-European travelers who
enter and exit the Schengen Area each year. Source: observalgerie.com
The police officer clearly intended to kill Nahel
The Nanterre prosecutor's office is requesting that the police officer
who killed Nahel Merzouk be tried for intentional homicide before the
Hauts-de-Seine Assize Court. The final decision will rest with the
investigating judge.
The victim, Nahel Merzouk, was only 17 years old. Her death, on June 27,
2023, sparked several days of unrest in working-class neighborhoods,
which was severely repressed. The shooting, which followed a refusal to
comply and a chase through the streets of Nanterre, was filmed. The
motorcycle police officer charged with murder, Florian M., spent four
and a half months in pretrial detention before being released under
judicial supervision. A fundraising campaign in his favor, set up by a
leading figure in the French far right, raised €1.6 million.
The Anti-Drug Trafficking Bill
To this day, the legislative battle is not over. What is significant
about this period is the fact that the challenge only came from the
National Assembly's Law Committee after the Senate unanimously passed it
(including the Greens, Socialists, and the remnants of the French
Communist Party!), thanks to an association called "La Quadrature du
Net," which conducted a legal analysis of this bill in order to
communicate it to the deputies. These "left-wing opposition deputies"
are incapable of seeing that this hunt for drug traffickers will apply
to many other situations, as has been the case with all anti-terrorism
laws; it should be noted that these laws have always been sponsored by
the Socialists.
For the time being, Article 8 ter of the bill, which provided for an
obligation for encrypted messaging service providers to provide the
police and intelligence services with access to the content of
communications, has been rejected. This measure effectively involves
installing a "backdoor" to compromise the operation of these services.
Other highly dangerous measures were removed by members of the Law
Commission. This is the case for Articles 15 ter and 15 quater, which
allowed the judicial police to compromise the security of connected
devices to remotely activate microphones and cameras. A nearly identical
provision was invalidated by the Constitutional Council in 2023, which
appears to have dampened the spirits of a majority of MPs.
Similarly, the "safe file" provided for in Article 16 has been removed.
This measure creates an unprecedented infringement on the rights of the
defense by preventing those prosecuted from accessing the reports
detailing the surveillance measures concerning them, and thus from
challenging them. Through this separate reporting mechanism, the police
could therefore use highly intrusive tools (such as spyware, for
example) in complete secrecy without ever having to account to the
accused. To be continued!
Source: laquadrature.net
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4425
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
2018 and 2023, the French arms group sold €2 million worth of electronic
components and communications systems intended to equip Israeli drones,
Disclose reveals, with supporting commercial documents. The equipment
manufactured by Thales is likely to be used in bombing raids against
Palestinian civilians. According to its communications, Thales is a
model company. A multinational arms manufacturer committed to raising
"year after year [its] level of integrity, responsibility, and ethical
business practices," as its latest activity report proclaims. This
concern also explains its presence among the signatories of the United
Nations Global Compact, which notably commits "not to be complicit in
human rights violations." Thales, of which the French government is the
majority shareholder, appears to be flouting this rule. This is what
Disclose's investigation reveals, based on twelve invoices issued
between 2018 and 2023 and intended for two heavyweights in the Israeli
arms industry: Israel Aerospace Industries and Elbit Systems. According
to these commercial documents, Thales sold them €2 million worth of
pilot assistance systems for armed drones. And not just any drones,
since these are the Heron TP and Hermes surveillance and attack drones.
Two models accused of being used against the Palestinian population for
nearly fifteen years.
Contacted by Disclose, the company confirmed the sale of components to
"Israeli entities." While playing down the impact of these "airborne
communications systems," it writes, because they are "non-lethal!" These
transponders and other "altimeter" and anti-collision radars nonetheless
remain essential to the operation of devices that can indeed be used to
kill. "A radio or radar altimeter are vital tools for a military drone
to determine its position in the sky. Their excellent accuracy is very
useful for knowing where the drone is looking," recalls Chris Lincoln
Johnson, a former British army officer who has become a consultant on
drone use.
Source: Excerpt from an article by disclose.ngo
Ten years after the death of Rémi Fraisse, the European Court of Human
Rights condemns France
Ten years after the death of environmental activist Rémi Fraisse, the
European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned France on Thursday,
February 27, for a violation of the "right to life" enshrined in law.
Let us recall that on the night of October 25-26, 2014, this 21-year-old
student was fatally injured by the explosion of an OF-F1 offensive
grenade during clashes between opponents of the construction of the
Sivens dam and the mobile gendarmes responsible for protecting the
construction zone.
The ECHR ruling points to "gaps in the legal and administrative
framework then applicable" to the gendarmerie operation and "failures in
the management." However, it notes that the French authorities
(apparently!) took the necessary measures to remedy the situation and
that an "effective investigation" took place, although it did not lead
to a trial...
Rémi Fraisse's parents, sister, and grandmother, who have been working
for more than ten years to obtain justice, have been awarded financial
compensation of €50,700. "This conviction definitively establishes that
Rémi, who was only 21 years old, was killed by France due to orders to
maintain order and the manifestly disproportionate use of force," wrote
Jean-Pierre Fraisse, Rémi's father, in a press release following this
decision. His text points in particular to the responsibility of
"members of the government at the time" in his son's death, whom
"history has proven right" since the construction site was subsequently
interrupted by the courts. He adds, citing the example of Sainte Soline,
that law enforcement officers make "completely insane" use of grenades
during social and environmental protests. "The OF-F1 is no longer used,
but there are still grenades that maim and can even kill you. In fact,
nothing has changed under the sun!"
The gendarme who threw the "bell" grenade at night over a fence was
never tried or even charged. Placed under the status of assisted
witness, he obtained a dismissal of the case in 2018, confirmed by the
Court of Appeal in 2020. The Court of Cassation dismissed the Fraisse
family's appeal in 2021, definitively ending the legal proceedings in
France. As for the ECHR's decision, it is mixed, especially since it
does not condemn France for using explosive munitions in law enforcement
operations! The OF-F1 grenade has already been replaced twice. The
authorities promise each time that they are less dangerous. However, the
GM2L grenades (used with a launcher) and ASSD grenades (hand-thrown)
currently in service pose a similar danger.
Source: Médiapart.fr
Algorithmic video surveillance... until at least 2027!
The VSA experiment was scheduled to end in March 2025, but is expected
to be extended. Indeed, the joint committee responsible for examining
the proposed law on transport security approved the extension of the
experiment until March 2027. As a reminder, VSA relies on real-time
analysis of video feeds captured by surveillance cameras. Algorithms
then detect specific events defined by law: crowd movements, intrusions
into restricted areas, and outbreaks of fire. The goal is to help
operators respond more quickly to incidents. The initial results --
revealed by Le Monde last January -- are far from positive. Some use
cases, such as the detection of abandoned luggage in train stations,
have proven unreliable. Indeed, the software sometimes tends to confuse
street furniture (or even homeless people!) with suspicious objects.
Other features, such as identifying fires or detecting weapons, have
been little used due to a lack of technical maturity. Despite these more
than mixed results, the government has never hidden its desire to extend
the system. But La Quadrature du Net continues its legal battle. It will
do everything it can to have an appeal filed with the Constitutional
Court. To be continued!
Sources: mac4ever.com and la quadrature.net
Prison: 81,599 inmates in France on February 1st!
As of February 1st, French prisons held 81,599 inmates for only 62,363
operational places.
The overall prison density was 130.8% as of February 1st. This density,
greater than or equal to 200% in eighteen prisons or areas, forces more
than 4,490 inmates to sleep on mattresses on the floor. Prison density
reaches 158.9% in remand centers, where prisoners awaiting trial,
therefore presumed innocent, and those sentenced to short terms are
incarcerated.
The threshold of 80,000 inmates was crossed for the first time on
November 1, 2024.
Among those incarcerated as of February 1, 21,631 are remand prisoners,
in detention awaiting their final judgment. A total of 98,780 people
were in custody. Among them, there are 17,181 non-detainees subject to
electronic monitoring or work release. Source: lemonde.fr
The Council of State has validated the dissolution of the Collectif
Palestine Vaincra!
This is the epilogue of three years of proceedings. On February 24,
2022, then-Prime Minister Jean Castex announced -- during the CRIF
dinner, and after echoing Trump's words by calling Jerusalem the
"eternal capital of the Jewish people" -- the dissolution of the
Collectif Palestine Vaincra, a Toulouse-based organization supporting
the Palestinian cause. At the time, Macron's supporter Aurore Bergé even
added fuel to the fire, outright raising the possibility of
"dismantling" Amnesty International, one of the leading NGOs working for
freedoms worldwide, whose work documenting Israeli apartheid is
essential. In 2022, Gérald Darmanin was Minister of the Interior, tasked
with developing the arguments for dissolving this collective: "under the
guise of defending the Palestinian cause," he wrote, Palestine Vaincra
cultivates "the feeling of oppression of Muslim peoples (...) with the
aim of spreading the idea of Islamophobia internationally." A "feeling"
of oppression? Today, everyone has seen that the colonization, bombings,
and genocidal policies applied against the Palestinian people are
anything but a simple feeling. The Interior Ministry also criticized the
group for calling for "discrimination and hatred toward Israel and
Israelis" through boycott campaigns. Boycott is the ultimate pacifist
weapon, used against apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s. But we live
in such an authoritarian era that even refusing to buy products from a
country responsible for crimes against humanity is criminalized. In
April 2022, the dissolution of Palestine Vaincra was suspended. The
Council of State then cited a "serious attack on freedom of expression"
and denounced the "political position" of the Ministry of the Interior,
which conflated anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. It was a slim victory,
since the appeal on the merits had to be awaited. At the same time, a
petition had gathered thousands of signatures, and numerous
demonstrations and actions had denounced this procedure. On January 27,
2025, the decisive hearing was held at the Council of State. The
rapporteur first acknowledged that Palestine Vaincra was indeed
expressing itself within the framework of freedom of expression... BUT
that "hateful" comments had not been moderated on social media. In other
words, the collective is considered responsible for comments it did not
write, but which it apparently delayed deleting!
This repression is permitted by the "separatism" law.
Source: contre-attaque.net
New European Union Border Control System
The crossing between Melilla and Morocco is one of the busiest transit
points between Africa and Europe. Every day, thousands of travelers
cross this border, whether tourists, cross-border workers, or traders.
With the implementation of a new system called EES, controls will become
stricter:
Mandatory registration of biometric data for all non-Europeans. Every
non-European traveler will be required to register their biometric data,
including fingerprints and a facial photo. This information will be
stored in a secure database for three years, saving regular travelers
from having to repeat the process each time they pass through.
The manual stamp will be eliminated, replaced by this biometric
verification.
Automatic monitoring of stays to detect overstays.
Spanish authorities believe this system will help better manage
migration flows and prevent illegal entry into European territory.
The experiment in Melilla will serve as a full-scale test before the EES
is rolled out to all the European Union's external borders. Ultimately,
this system will apply to the 700 million non-European travelers who
enter and exit the Schengen Area each year. Source: observalgerie.com
The police officer clearly intended to kill Nahel
The Nanterre prosecutor's office is requesting that the police officer
who killed Nahel Merzouk be tried for intentional homicide before the
Hauts-de-Seine Assize Court. The final decision will rest with the
investigating judge.
The victim, Nahel Merzouk, was only 17 years old. Her death, on June 27,
2023, sparked several days of unrest in working-class neighborhoods,
which was severely repressed. The shooting, which followed a refusal to
comply and a chase through the streets of Nanterre, was filmed. The
motorcycle police officer charged with murder, Florian M., spent four
and a half months in pretrial detention before being released under
judicial supervision. A fundraising campaign in his favor, set up by a
leading figure in the French far right, raised €1.6 million.
The Anti-Drug Trafficking Bill
To this day, the legislative battle is not over. What is significant
about this period is the fact that the challenge only came from the
National Assembly's Law Committee after the Senate unanimously passed it
(including the Greens, Socialists, and the remnants of the French
Communist Party!), thanks to an association called "La Quadrature du
Net," which conducted a legal analysis of this bill in order to
communicate it to the deputies. These "left-wing opposition deputies"
are incapable of seeing that this hunt for drug traffickers will apply
to many other situations, as has been the case with all anti-terrorism
laws; it should be noted that these laws have always been sponsored by
the Socialists.
For the time being, Article 8 ter of the bill, which provided for an
obligation for encrypted messaging service providers to provide the
police and intelligence services with access to the content of
communications, has been rejected. This measure effectively involves
installing a "backdoor" to compromise the operation of these services.
Other highly dangerous measures were removed by members of the Law
Commission. This is the case for Articles 15 ter and 15 quater, which
allowed the judicial police to compromise the security of connected
devices to remotely activate microphones and cameras. A nearly identical
provision was invalidated by the Constitutional Council in 2023, which
appears to have dampened the spirits of a majority of MPs.
Similarly, the "safe file" provided for in Article 16 has been removed.
This measure creates an unprecedented infringement on the rights of the
defense by preventing those prosecuted from accessing the reports
detailing the surveillance measures concerning them, and thus from
challenging them. Through this separate reporting mechanism, the police
could therefore use highly intrusive tools (such as spyware, for
example) in complete secrecy without ever having to account to the
accused. To be continued!
Source: laquadrature.net
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4425
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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