On Wednesday, Gilad Shalit met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Gilad was accompanied by his parents Noam and Aviva Shalit who will also be guests of honor at the annual Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions dinner on Wednesday night. Gilad himself will not attend the dinner as according to his family, “his health does not permit it” Shalit was released in October after five years in Hamas captivity in exchange for 1027 Palestinian prisoners. Nicolas Sarkozy had tried to get him released and met with Noam and Aviva numerous times over the years. Gilad is a French citizen through his parents and In January Shalit sent a letter in which he thanked Sarkozy and the French people for the efforts they made along the years to speed up his release and the support they gave him and his family. Shalit added that he felt grateful and proud to learn that Sarkozy defended him as the “son of France.” Paris Guide –
Turkey has vowed to retaliate, after the French Senate approved a bill making it a crime to deny that the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman empire in 1915, was genocide. Ankara has already suspended military, political and economic ties with Paris.Both houses of the French parliament have passed the bill, which still has to be signed off by President Sarkozy in order to become law. The proposal is set to make the denial of genocide and war crimes, recognized by French law, punishable by up to a year in prison. Turkey denies the massacre, that’s considered by many to be the 20th century’s first genocide. The executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, Aram Hamparian, says the measure will force Ankara to admit to the atrocities. RT on Facebook: www.facebook.com RT on Twitter: twitter.com Paris Guide –
A court in Paris has handed a French retiree a one-month suspended sentence for attacking an Arab woman who was wearing a full-face veil. The court ordered Jeanne Ruby, a retired English teacher, to pay 40 in damages to the victim, a citizen of the United Arab Emirates who was on holiday in Paris at the time of the attack. The incident took place in the French capital in February, as France’s conservative government was in the early stages of hammering out a plan to ban the wearing of full-facial veils in public. The measure officially became law last month, but it will not be enforced for several months. Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland reports from Paris on how the case has highlighted potential problems once the veil ban is implemented next year.
