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The new champion of the French Catholic Right?

by catholicherald.co.uk -- Chartres sonne, Chartres t’appelle! Gloire, honneur au Christ-Roi!” Under a radiant sky a stream of singing pilgrims stretches across the French countryside. It is Pentecost weekend and roughly 12,000 people are walking from Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris to Chartres, the cathedral town about 50 miles south of the capital. The pilgrimage, which has taken place for the past 36 years, is organised by the traditionalist group Notre-Dame de Chrétienté (Our Lady of Christendom). This year the pilgrims are joined by Vatican liturgy chief Cardinal Robert Sarah. But there is another star in the crowd: Marion Maréchal, niece of Front National leader Marine Le Pen. She is tackling the pilgrimage with a group of friends. At first, she keeps a low profile: she is just another pilgrim among pilgrims. But her anonymity does not last long. Other participants soon ask if they can be photographed with her. “Thank you for being here,” says one pilgrim after another.

Maréchal officially retired from politics last year after her aunt was heavily defeated by Emmanuel Macron in the presidential election. But this precocious figure, who became an MP in 2012 at the age of 22, already seems to be planning her return to front-line politics. Last autumn she helped to found L’Incorrect, a conservative magazine run by some of her followers and serving as a vehicle for her ideas. And last month she launched a private school in Lyon, the Institut de Sciences Sociales, Economiques et Politiques (Issep). Raheem Kassam, the former editor-in-chief of Breitbart London and chief adviser to Ukip leader Nigel Farage, is part of the teaching team. Then, in a highly symbolic move, she recently dropped “Le Pen” from her name. She had inherited it from her mother, Yann, one of the three daughters of Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the Front National. Commentators suggested that she was distancing herself from the Le Pen political brand with a view to running in the 2022 presidential election. But she insisted it was simply “a way to demonstrate my transition to civilian life”. She told the Boulevard Voltaire website: “I have never and will never feel ashamed of my name.”

Her presence on the Chartres pilgrimage was significant. Maréchal is clearly counting on the Catholic Right to help her in her comeback. But her relationship with the Church is complex. She is at once both sincere and politically motivated. Maréchal is one of the few French public figure with a “dual” Christian background. Though she was baptised Catholic, her adoptive father, Samuel Maréchal, is Protestant. Her grandfather, Michel Maréchal, is the pastor of a Pentecostal church in Nantes and a former missionary in Africa. She once described him as “a saint”. (Her biological father Roger Auque, a former journalist and diplomat, died in 2014.) As a teenager, Maréchal attended the Pentecostal Sunday school during her holidays in Nantes. Some say she retains an Evangelical-style spirituality, focused more on her personal relationship with God than on reception of the sacraments. Later she attended the Institution Saint-Pie X, a school in the wealthy Parisian suburb of Saint-Cloud run by the Dominican Sisters of the Holy Spirit, who are attached to the Tridentine Rite. It was there that she received her First Holy Communion and Confirmation.

These days Maréchal’s religious practice fluctuates. Her marriage, to businessman Matthieu Decosse, lasted just two years, ending in divorce in 2016. But she is not afraid to describe herself as a Catholic or to defend the Church’s moral values. In 2013, she attended all the protests against same-sex marriage. In 2016, she opposed a law censoring pro-life websites. “I am myself an accident,” she said during the debate in the National Assembly. A close friend of hers says she was telling the truth: “She came from a broken family. She knows how important these topics are.” Maréchal is positioning herself effectively as the champion of the Catholic Right. Now 28, she attracts many young people, who recognise something of themselves in her. She also appeals to older, disoriented conservatives. She is occupying the vacancy left by the fall of François Fillon, the right-wing poster boy at the last presidential election, and the defeat of Marine Le Pen. She is the only one who can plausibly offer a synthesis between the Front National and the mainstream centre-Right.

The French bishops are, however, embarrassed by her. Although she is close to the Church on life issues and the family, she firmly rejects its stance on immigrants. Her pro-business views are also at odds with those of Pope Francis. Yet some Church leaders have decided to enter into dialogue with her. Bishop Dominique Rey of Fréjus-Toulon (a Front National stronghold in the south of France) invited her to a diocesan summer school in 2015. But others are praying that French Catholics will ultimately refuse to follow this new Joan of Arc. Pierre Jova is a journalist at the Catholic weekly Pèlerin This article first appeared in the June 8 2018 issue of the Catholic Herald. To read the magazine in full, from anywhere in the world, go here

Lebanon's Berri says Iran, Hezbollah to stay in Syria until it is 'free'

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said Iranian and Hezbollah forces will not withdraw from Syria until the country is “liberated” and its “territorial integrity is restored”, Russia’s RIA news agency reported on Wednesday. Iran-backed forces such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, a close political ally of Berri, have been key allies alongside Russia in supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s war effort. RIA interviewed Berri in Beirut. Both the United States and Israel have demanded that Iran should entirely withdraw from Syria, and Israel has also demanded that Hezbollah should pull out. Assad has recovered swathes of Syria from rebels seeking to oust him, but large parts of the country remain out of his hands. Differences between his allies Iran and Russia have grown more apparent of late as Israel presses Moscow to make sure Tehran and its allies do not entrench their military sway in the country. Israel has carried out repeated air strikes in Syria against targets connected to Iran and Hezbollah, which it wants to keep away from its border. Lebanon is a recipient of U.S. military aid and follows a policy of disassociation from foreign conflicts. Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

LEBANESE PREMIER TO ATTEND OPENING CEREMONY

by SPUTNIK news -- Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri plans to attend the opening of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. "The prime minister will visit Moscow next Wednesday and will be present at the opening of the FIFA World Cup," Russia's press service said, adding that Hariri could also hold a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The tournament's opening ceremony will be held at Moscow's 81,000-seater Luzhniki Stadium on 14 June. It will be followed by the first match, between hosts Russia and Saudi Arabia. Lebanon have been taking part in World Cup qualifiers since 1994 but have yet to appear in the finals.

Lebanon's mountains are being wiped from the map – but does anyone care?

by Robert Fisk Tarshish, central Lebanon independent.co.uk --- -- Rarely are journalists lost for words. But how do you describe the destruction of entire mountains, the slashing down of tens of thousands of pine trees, the very shape of the landscape changed by more than 3,000 quarries which have ripped apart the geography of Lebanon and made a new map of its blessed and ancient land – the Massacre of the Mountains? Is that good enough for a story which should shock the world if it occurred in Europe or America? I call it the Castration of Lebanon. Its fruits are dirt and crumbled rock and contaminated lakes. The tops of entire mountainsides – millions of tons of sand and rock – have been ripped away by diggers, excavators and bulldozers to provide concrete for Beirut’s canyons of grotesque high-rise apartments: for its villas and gated city suburbs and the Lebanese Mediterranean coastal hotels. Greed, corruption, poverty and a shameful, selfish, confessional government are to blame. Even now, as Lebanon’s sectarian parties fight for seats in a new cabinet, their nation is being physically torn apart. All they need to do is pass a law – just one piece of legislation – to stop this anarchy.

“Your Lebanon is a political knot, a national dilemma, a place of conflict and deception,” the nation’s most famous poet, Khalil Gibran, wrote in despair of his country almost a hundred years ago. “My Lebanon is a place of beauty and dreams of enchanting valleys and splendid mountains….Your Lebanon is empty and fleeting, whereas my Lebanon will endure forever.” Not any more. Come with me to Mayrouba, high on a mountain above Bikfaya, where Elias Saadeh stands on a plateau of mud and broken rock and roads – government highways – which end suddenly in sheer 500-foot chasms of stone, carved and hacked at by giant cranes and stone cutters whose claws have grooved out the inside of these mountains. Ridges, valleys and watercourses have disappeared. “There is not a building in the ‘new’ Beirut,” Saadeh says cynically, “which does not have part of Mayrouba in its walls and foundations. They call our land here ‘gold sand’ – the best you can buy to build apartment blocks, and it’s the most expensive. But this is crazy. “More than 120,000 of our pine trees have been cut down. We had thirty water ‘ein’ (wells) – but today we only have two left and they are both polluted.”

The two of us stare out towards mountains we’ve known and looked at for decades – but the mountains are not there. For this is now a lunar landscape whose creeping fog and damp winds prove that image reflects reality. We are looking at a lost land. Why? “Because the people who did this are not educated,” Elias says. “Because they only see the dollar. These people make $5,000 a day. They made people rich, but they remained uneducated. They have never learned how to love land. “They don’t give a shit about the nation, about wild life or the environment – nothing! Now we are going towards desertification.” Saadeh sounds like a modern-day Gibran. The poet’s body lies scarcely a hundred miles to the north, sealed into a cave, his tomb weighted down with chains in case his worshippers try to take his bones. “Splendid mountains” indeed.

Lebanese FM Lashes Out at UNHCR For 'Intimidating' Syrian Refugees Return

by .dailymail.co.uk -- "Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Gebran Bassil issued instructions... to stop the requests for residency presented to the ministry and (those already submitted) for the UNHCR in Lebanon until further notice," a statement said. "Bassil asked for the study of other progressive measures... in the case that the UNHCR is determined to pursue the same policy," it said. We sent a mission that verified that the UNHCR is intimidating the displaced who wish to return voluntarily," he tweeted. A UNHCR spokesman responded by denying that the agency's staff were discouraging refugees from considering a return. "We do not discourage or oppose returns taking place based on an individual decision," William Spindler told reporters. "But in our view, conditions in Syria are not yet conducive for an assisted return, although the situation is changing and we are following closely," he said. UNHCR spokeswoman Lisa Abou Khaled said the agency had not received any official notification of a suspension of residency permits for its foreign staff. Lebanon has seen its water, electricity and waste removal infrastructure strained by the influx of Syrian refugees.

by albawaba.com -- Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil said on Thursday he will take action against the United Nations' refugee agency UNHCR, accusing it of "intimidating" Syrian refugees who want to return. Bassil said the Lebanese government would escalate "procedures" against the humanitarian agency starting from Friday, according to a speech on his Twitter page, without detailing the measures. "Our procedures against UNHCR begin tomorrow, and they will escalate to the maximum extent that sovereign Lebanon can achieve toward an organization which acts against (Lebanon's) policy of preventing naturalization and returning the displaced to their homeland," said Bassil, who is caretake minister while Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri is yet to form a government since 6 May elections. As Syrian regime forces and allies retake more territory, Lebanon's president and other politicians have called for refugees to go back to "secure areas" before a deal is reached to end the war. The UNHCR has repeatedly warned the situation inside Syria is too insecure for returns, yet Lebanon insists refugees are voluntarily returning. Last week, the head of Lebanon's general security agency, Major General Abbas Ibrahim, said Lebanon was working with Damascus for the return of thousands of refugees who want to go back to Syria.

On Thursday the mayor of a Lebanese border town hosting tens of thousands of refugees said around 3,000 are expected to go back to Syria in the coming week. Bassil said a mission has found the UNHCR is "intimidating" displaced people who want to go home. "Today we sent a mission which verified that UNHCR is intimidating the displaced people who wish to return voluntarily," Bassil said. "Our affection for (the displaced Syrians) says that the time has come for returns since conditions are safe," he said, adding that only the international community is stopping this happening. "We announce our determination to break the international desire to prevent the return of the displaced," he said. Lebanon, a country of four million, hosts around 1 million registered Syrian refugees according to the United Nations, who have fled the war since 2011. The government puts the number at 1.5 million and says their presence has strained public services and suppressed economic growth. This article has been adapted from its original source.

Israel’s Navy Trains to Defend Mediterranean Gas Rigs from Hezbollah Attack

by sputniknews.com - The Israeli Navy has successfully completed a military drill that simulated two possible ways Hezbollah might attack gas exploration and extraction systems in Israel’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The Israeli Navy's first scenario included a drone simulating a cruise missile fired by the enemy at a gas rig. According to the Jerusalem Post, the airborne target was successfully discovered and destroyed by the Barak-8 air defense system fired from an unnamed Sa'ar 4.5-class missile boat. The ship has reportedly been upgraded with new detection, observation and electronic warfare systems, including a new radar which is said to greatly improve the ship's detection and tracking capabilities.

The IDF said this was the first time the upgraded ship has been used in its new configuration, Israel Defense reports. According to Hamodia, such ships are stationed near platforms in the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields, off Israel's Mediterranean coast. The second simulation involved a seaborne enemy ship violating Israel's EEZ. The target was destroyed by a pair of cruise missiles launched by the Sa'ar 5-class corvettes INS Lahav and INS Yachid. The Jerusalem Post quotes an unnamed senior naval officer saying that the Lebanese Hezbollah political and paramilitary organization might want to attack the gas rigs using precision ballistic missiles received from Iran. Hamodia also names Syria as a possible attacker. "We believe that Hezbollah has the ability to strike any spot in our waters," the officer said in an interview February.

Earlier that month, Hezbollah did actually threaten to attack Israel's gas operations with missiles. Both Lebanon and Israel claim a part of each other's EEZ because of the region's rich gas reserves. "Whoever harms gas and oil sites in Lebanese economic waters — their own sites will be harmed, and they know Lebanon is fully capable of doing so," one of Lebanese flyers disseminated in February says. According to the Post, around 60 percent of Israel's electricity comes from gas extracted in the EEZ, which was expanded outward from 40 miles to 200 miles from the coast in 2014, and this figure is about to increase to 75 percent soon.

Ex-Security Chief Attacks UN Investigation Into 2005 Slaying of Rafik Hariri

by the dailystar.com.lb -- Ex-General Security chief Jamil al-Sayyed launched a scathing attack on the U.N. body tasked with investigating the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri Tuesday, saying the investigation should have been left to the Lebanese authorities. “Had the investigation been left in our hands I’m sure we would have reached a solution,” Sayyed, currently a Hezbollah- affiliated member of parliament, said while giving evidence to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in Leidschendam, the Netherlands. Sayyed, who was detained in 2005 for four years by Lebanese authorities due to suspected involvement in the case, asked, “The real question is why the investigation was sidetracked for four years, and in whose interest was it?”

President of the Trial Chamber Judge David Re criticized Sayyed’s treatment at the hands of the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission at the beginning of the day’s session, saying he wished to put on the record “how badly you were treated in custody ... It is far below accepted international standards.” According to Re, Sayyed’s detention “breaches every international human rights standard.” Re’s fellow trial chamber judge Janet Nosworthy pressed Sayyed on certain actions taken by Lebanese authorities in the immediate aftermath of Hariri’s assassination that might be deemed suspicious, such as the quick removal of the vehicles destroyed in the bombing that killed the former prime minister. Sayyed conceded there were a lot of mistakes but maintained there had been no foul play by the Lebanese authorities. “I don’t see that any of the institutions were intentionally trying to eradicate evidence,” he said.

Sayyed resigned from his position due to political pressure shortly after the assassination. “The crime was bigger than all the institutions in place,” Sayyed said, claiming the crime scene investigators “didn’t have the right experience,” to which he attributed any mistakes made. Sayyed went so far as to accuse investigators from the IIIC of having demanded he fabricate evidence to make it seem as though the Syrian government had perpetrated the assassination. “I refused to be a false witness against Bashar Assad so [the commission] produced false witnesses against me,” Sayyed said. A number of testimonies provided to the IIIC in the early days of its investigation were subsequently revealed to be false. Sayyed said his treatment at the hands of the IIIC had changed his perceptions of international investigators. “I had the impression that the West had their own criteria, standards and ethics,” he said. “I have seen monsters ... When they act in our countries they become worse.” He said he had told one IIIC investigator, “When I look into your glassy eyes I realize that Hitler isn’t dead, he’s still living in you.”