Free Republic

The French president Emmanuel Macron has announced a curfew during which everyone must be at home between 9pm and 6am for the Paris region, as well as the cities of Rouen, Lille, St Etienne, Lyon, Grenoble, Montpellier, Marseille and Toulouse. The curfew will begin on Saturday and will last for four weeks, he said.

On this date in 1431, Joan of Arc (also Jeanne d’Arc, even though d’Arc wasn’t really her name at all) was burned at the stake for heresy in the marketplace of Rouen, France. Very much has been written and said about this strange figure, the Maid of Orleans — not quite so much larger than life as she seems otherworldly to it: in her mystical exaltation, in her unthinkable elevation from the illiterate peasantry to military command (and bizarrely effective intervention in the intractable Hundred Years’ War). Apotheosis to the ranks of France’s national heroes is the least of it;...

A fire swept through a bar in the northern French city of Rouen overnight, killing 13 people and injuring six, after a birthday cake with candles and sparklers fell to the floor and set the carpet ablaze, police said. The fire broke out in the basement of the popular Cuba Libre bar and quickly engulfed the room where some 20 people were celebrating, filling it with thick black smoke and poisonous fumes, a Rouen police officer told Reuters. "A large number of those who died were killed by the fire, others were overcome by the toxic fumes," the officer said.

At least 13 people have been killed and others have been injured after an explosion and fire ripped through the Le Cuba Libre bar in the French city of Rouen, reports say. Only few details were immediately available

... "we have a very odd situation in #Rouen where Cath. Priest was murdered. Media saying fire but looks suspect."

Exactly a week after two terrorists killed Father Jacques Hamel while he said mass in his own church, nearly 2,000 mourners paid their respects to the Catholic priest, described by his sister as “my brother. Everyone’s brother.” The emotionally powerful ceremony at Rouen cathedral, attended by the French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, and religious leaders including Muslim representatives, took place amid high security. Hundreds of people who could not get into the cathedral watched the ceremony from under umbrellas on a big screen. Priests lead the procession as Father Hamel’s coffin is carried to the cathedral. Photograph: Jacky Naegelen/Reuters Dominique...

In a gesture of solidarity following the gruesome killing of a French priest, Muslims on Sunday attended Catholic Mass in churches and cathedrals across France and beyond. Reporters on the scene said that between 100 and 200 Muslims gathered at the towering Gothic cathedral in Rouen, only a few kilometers (miles) from Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, where the 85-year-old Rev. Jacques Hamel was killed by two teenage attackers on Tuesday. “We’re very touched,” Archbishop Dominique Lebrun told broadcaster BFMTV. “It’s an important gesture of fraternity. They’ve told us, and I think they’re sincere, that it’s not Islam which killed Jacques Hamel.” …

Police have shot two men who took a priest and several others hostage at knifepoint at a church in north-western France. The men cut the priest's throat before being "neutralised," police said. Le Figaro newspaper reported that the priest died after his throat was cut. The men’s motives are still unknown. Elite police units rushed to the church in the Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du Rouvray after the men seized a number of people including a priest and two nuns. It remains unclear whether the hostage takers were killed in the police action. A police source told AFP that one of...

Two men claiming allegiance to the Islamic State group killed a priest and seriously injured another person in a church on Tuesday in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, a suburb of Rouen in Normandy. Our Observer, who describes his town of 30,000 residents as a quiet one where different communities coexist in peace, was taken aback by the attack. “The priest often lent a room in the church for other religious communities to use” Kalminthe Gomis, 39, is an entrepreneur who runs a Facebook page on which residents of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray discuss local events. He currently lives in Rouen, but spends a lot of his...

ONE of the two knifeman who murdered a priest during morning mass at a church in Normandy was a convicted terrorist who was known to the French authorities and should have been monitored with an electronic tag.

PARIS –  Two attackers reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar" before slitting the throat of an 84-year-old priest and critically injuring at least one other person during a Tuesday morning terror attack on a church near the Normandy city of Rouen, officials said.The terrorists, who French President Francois Hollande said had pledged their allegiance to ISIS, were later shot and killed by police."[ISIS] has declared war on us," Hollande said Tuesday. "We must fight this war by all means, while respecting the rule of law -- what makes us a democracy." The priest, identified by Sky News as Jacques Hamel, was dead...

An elderly priest has been killed in a hostage situation in a church south of Rouen, Normandy, northern France this morning by alleged Islamist attackers. His killers, who are understood to have been shot dead by French police. UPDATE 1320 — Islamic State claims responsibility, French President François Hollande confirms terrorist attack Media sources associated with the Islamic State have claimed the Rouen terror attack as their own, remarking that two of their own “soldiers” were responsible. Shortly beforehand the French President François Hollande told press that it was an act of terrorism and that both attackers had proclaimed their...

Elderly priest, 86, is 'beheaded' by two ISIS knifemen shouting 'Allahu Akbar' after they took nuns and worshippers hostage at French church: Police shoot both attackers dead then search for bombs Priest had throat cut while another hostage is fighting for life after knifemen burst into Normandy church at 9am Reports that one of the attackers shouted 'Allahu Akbar' as they launched attack at Gambetta Church near Rouen Vatican has condemned the 'barbaric' killing of the 86-year-old priest and an anti-terror investigation is underway ISIS claim responsibility for the atrocity while Francois Hollande says France is 'at war' with the...

SNIPPET: "A French couple arrested in connection with a series of anarchist attacks on the country's rail network have been linked by the FBI to a bomb attack in New York." ARTICLE SNIPPET: "French anti-terrorist police are holding 10 alleged members of a violent anarchist movement suspected of sabotaging power cables on high speed TGV train lines. But it now transpires that the alleged culprits were netted thanks to information from the FBI, which allegedly linked two of them to the home-made bomb attack on an army recruitment centre in New York's Times Square in March. Julien Coupat, 34, the...

French unrest spreads outside Paris Staff and agencies Friday November 4, 2005 A firefighter stands by at a warehouse fire in the early hours of this morning. Photograph: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty A disabled person was badly burned in an attack on a city bus and more than four hundred cars were torched during an eighth night of rioting in Paris suburbs. Government officials cited a falling number of direct clashes with police to claim that the situation was becoming calmer, but the violence also spread out of the capital's immediate vicinity. Reports of unrest surfaced in Rouen in Normandy, Dijon...