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Long-Lost Dog Tag Returned to NY WWII Vet Who Dropped it in French Barley Field

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Photo Credit: APIrving Mann has been in business long enough to be skeptical of out-of-the-blue offers that seem too good to be true.

So the founder of Mann’s Jewelers in Rochester was cautious but intrigued when an email arrived at his store from a woman wondering if he could possibly be the Irving Mann whose military tag she said she’d found a day earlier in her barley field in France.

After all, the World War II veteran didn’t recall losing a dog tag after landing in Normandy with the 90th Infantry division on D-Day and fighting across Nazi-occupied France.

“It had to be false,” thought Mann, who’d recently celebrated his 88th birthday.

“You hear of so many scams going on, that somebody’s going to fake it, do some research and say, `I would be willing to return your dog tag. However, it will cost you X number of dollars.”‘

Read more from this story HERE.

Massive Protests Against Homosexual Marriage in Paris

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Photo Credit: independent.co.ukEarlier about 400,000 people, including many children, had defied warnings of possible far-right violence and marched in peaceful protest against France’s newly enacted law permitting same-sex marriage. Twenty members of a xenophobic far-right group, “Génération Identitaire”, clambered on to the roof terrace of the headquarters of the Socialist party during the afternoon and unfurled a banner calling for the resignation of President François Hollande. They were rapidly dislodged and arrested by police.

Even before the violence broke out, the government said that there had been 96 arrests, mostly for possession of weapons.

The “marriage-for-all” law, allowing gay couples to marry in town halls and adopt children, passed its final legal and constitutional hurdles earlier this month.

The first officially recognised same-sex marriage in France will take place between two men in Montpellier on Wednesday.

The passage of the law, and warnings of possible violence, had been expected to dampen the ardour of protesters for what was billed as the “last demonstration” in a series of half a dozen large rallies that began in December. Police put the turn-out at 150,000. The organisers claimed 1,000,000. Other organisers estimated over 400,000, which seemed closest to the mark.

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French Police Search for Man Who Stabbed Soldier

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Photo Credit: APFrench anti-terrorism investigators were searching Sunday for a man who stabbed a soldier in the throat in the commercial district of La Defense outside Paris.

The 23-year-old soldier, Cedric Cordier, was in uniform patrolling the busy underground corridors where shops and crowded public transport lines converge beneath the famous Arch of La Defense.

Saturday’s stabbing came days after a British soldier was hacked to death on a London street in broad daylight in a suspected terrorist attack that has raised fears of potential copycat strikes. However, there was no immediate confirmation of any link between the two attacks.

Read more from this story HERE.

Socialist French Government Takes Steps to Ban Rightwing Party

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Photo Credit: agaw.dilimThe French government is taking steps to ban an extreme far-right movement believed to be planning violence at demonstration against gay marriage in Paris on Sunday.

The Interior Minister, Manuel Valls, said today that he was “studying” ways of banning Printemps Français [French spring], a group linked to a xenophobic writer who committed suicide at the altar of Notre Dame cathedral on Tuesday.

The nebulous movement, which loosely links a number of ultra-nationalist and Nazi-sympathising groups, is accused of making recent threats to public figures – including Frigide Barjot, the more moderate leader of anti-gay marriage protests.

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Historian Kills Himself in Paris’ Notre Dame to Make Statement Against Homosexual Marriage and Islam

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Photo Credit: CNNA right-wing historian and author killed himself inside the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris Tuesday in front of horrified tourists, police said.

About 1,500 people at the cathedral were evacuated, CNN affiliate BFM reported. The site is one of the world’s most prominent churches and a huge tourist attraction in the French capital.

BFM identified the man as Dominique Venner, 78.

Le Monde newspaper quoted a rector at the cathedral, who said the man placed a letter on the altar and then shot himself.

On his blog, Venner has lashed out against same-sex marriage and what he called a future Islamist takeover of France.

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Taxes on Some Wealthy French Top 100 Percent of Income

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Photo Credit: Images_of_MoneyMore than 8,000 French households’ tax bills topped 100 percent of their income last year, the business newspaper Les Echos reported on Saturday, citing Finance Ministry data.

The newspaper said that the exceptionally high level of taxation was due to a one-off levy last year on 2011 incomes for households with assets of more than 1.3 million euros ($1.67 million).

President Francois Hollande’s Socialist government imposed the tax surcharge last year, shortly after taking office, to offset the impact of a rebate scheme created by its conservative predecessor to cap an individual’s overall taxation at 50 percent of income.

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France’s Hollande Seeks Formation of Single European Government

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Photo Credit: APFrench President Francois Hollande called on Thursday for an economic government in the eurozone that would have its own budget, the right to issue debt, a harmonized tax system, and a full-time president.

Speaking at a news conference marking his first year in office, a day after economic data showed France had slipped back into recession, the Socialist leader said he sought to create a full political European Union (EU) within two years.

His proposals seemed likely to encounter stiff resistance from Germany, Europe’s leading power, which opposes mutualizing debt among European states and is reluctant to give the eurozone its own secretariat or create new divisions in the EU, of which 10 countries are not in the 17-nation single currency.

It also comes as Britain’s government faces growing domestic pressure to hold a referendum on leaving the bloc.

“My initiative has four points that I am putting to our partners. The first is to create an economic government with the eurozone countries which would meet every month with a real president appointed for a long period and who would be devoted to this task,” Hollande said.

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France Riots After Socialist Government Legalizes Homosexual Marriage

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Photo Credit: Irish Examiner Clashes have broken out between protesters and riot police near France’s National Assembly building, hours after the country legalized gay marriage.

Some protesters opposed to the measure clearing same-sex marriage hurled petrol bombs, and riot police responded with tear gas at the Invalides memorial and museum complex, near the National Assembly in Paris.

Hours earlier, French politicians concluded a wrenching national debate that exposed deep conservatism in the nation’s heartland and tapped into intense discontent with the Socialist government…

Following the vote, members of the gay and lesbian community flocked to a square in central Paris, just behind City Hall, to celebrate.

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Hundreds of Thousands Due in Paris to Protest Homosexual Marriage

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Several hundred thousand people are expected to march through Paris on Sunday against the planned legalization of same-sex marriage in the first mass protest against the unpopular President Francois Hollande.

Strongly backed by the Catholic hierarchy, lay activists have mobilized a hybrid coalition of church-going families, political conservatives, Muslims, evangelicals and even homosexuals opposed to gay marriage for the show of force.

So many are expected to converge on Paris from around France that police had organizers split it into three separate columns starting from different points around the city and meeting in the Champ de Mars park at the Eiffel Tower.

Frigide Barjot, an eccentric comedian leading the so-called “Demo for All,” insists the protest is pro-marriage rather than anti-gay and has banned all but its approved banners saying a child needs a father and a mother to develop properly.

“We’re all born of a man and a woman, but the law will say the opposite tomorrow,” she said last week. “It will say a child is born of a man and a man.”

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Protestors Rally Against Homosexual ‘Marriage’ in France

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Thousands of Catholics and other opponents of French government plans to legalise gay marriage and same-sex adoption marched in Paris on Sunday, a day after more than 100,000 turned out across France for the cause.

Among the banners being held by demonstrators was a large one reading: “France needs children, not homosexuals.”

The protesters included several young people wearing cassocks, a Christian clerical garment. Others waved the French flag and banners depicting the Christian cross and other emblems.

“Our objective is to wage a real battle to protect the family and child,” Civitas official Alain Escada said.

He claimed gay marriage was “a Pandora’s box” that would let others demand extended marriage rights, including polygamists and incestuous people.

Read full story HERE.