European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 926

On August 08 2017 08:57 Nyxisto wrote:
If anybody wants an update on German politics, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung has published a more recent version of their political compass, with some interesting strategy positions for the respective parties.

https://www.fes.de/de/index.php?id=3075

French police are searching for a driver who ploughed into soldiers patrolling an upmarket Paris suburb on Wednesday morning.

The car sped off after hitting six members of Opération Sentinelle, which is part of France’s ongoing state of emergency introduced after the November 2015 terrorist attacks.

Six military personnel were hurt, two of them seriously. The two seriously injured soldiers were taken to the Percy military hospital at Clamart, near the French capital. None of the injuries were thought to be life-threatening.

The attacked occurred at about 8am during the changeover of soldiers from the 35th Infantry Regiment stationed at Place de Verdun, not far from the town hall in Levallois-Perret.

The weekly council of ministers was taking place at the Elysée as the first reports emerged.

Patrick Balkany, the mayor of Levallois-Perret, told BFMTV that a BMW parked nearby appeared to have been waiting for the soldiers to leave their barracks. The vehicle, described as dark coloured, was driven the wrong way down a one-way street before it hit the troops and sped off.

Balkany described the attack as a “deliberate aggression”.

“It’s without doubt a deliberate act … This vehicle was waiting for them,” he said. “The BMW accelerated very quickly the moment they came out. This happened in the middle of the town. It happened very quickly.

“Levallois is a calm place … this is an odious aggression against our military that nobody expected.”

Witnesses suggested the driver was the only person in the vehicle, which was allegedly parked in a cul-de-sac near Place de Verdun prior to the incident. Security services have been sent to the area, which has been sealed off.

Roger Karoutchi, a local senator, said: “We have to be careful, but it wasn’t a classic road accident. As for the motives, we will have to wait until the person or people concerned are arrested.”

There are 10,000 soldiers patrolling France as part of Opération Sentinelle, and 4,700 police and gendarmes.

Although French authorities remained cautious as to the motives of the driver, the incident appears to be the latest assault on France’s security forces.

In April, a police officer was killed in a shooting on the Champs-Elysées. In June, an Islamic State supporter drove a car loaded with gas bottles into a military vehicle on the same road. The attacker died when the car caught fire. No soldiers were injured.

With the continent sweltering under a heatwave nicknamed Lucifer, tempers have been boiling over, too, as a wave of anti-tourism protests take place in some of Europe’s most popular destinations. Yet, as “tourism-phobia” becomes a feature of the summer, the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has defended the sector, calling on local authorities to do more to manage growth in a sustainable manner.

The focal point for much of this has been Spain, which had a record 75.6 million tourists last year, including 17.8 million from the UK. In Barcelona, where tensions have been rising for years over the unchecked surge in visitors and impact of sites such as Airbnb on the local housing market, Arran, the youth wing of the radical CUP (Popular Unity Candidacy), have been filmed slashing the tyres of rental bicycles and a tour bus. An Arran spokesperson told the BBC: “Today’s model of tourism expels people from their neighbourhoods and harms the environment.” Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy described the group as “extremists”.

There have also been protests in Mallorca and San Sebastián, where an anti-tourism march is planned for 17 August, to coincide with Semana Grande – a major festival of Basque culture.

Other demonstrations have taken place across southern Europe. Last month in Venice – which sees more than 20 million visitors a year and has just 55,000 residents – 2,000 locals marched through the city, voicing anger at rising rents and the impact of huge cruise ships and the pollution they cause to the city’s delicate environment.

Speaking to the Guardian, UNWTO secretary general Taleb Rifai said the rise in anti-tourist sentiment is “a very serious situation that needs to be addressed in a serious way”. If managed correctly, he added, tourism can be the “best ally” to conservation, preservation and the community.

“It should not be given up for the sake of mismanagement,” he said. “Ensuring that tourism is an enriching experience for visitors and hosts alike demands strong, sustainable tourism policies, practices and the engagement of national as well as local governments and administrations, private sector companies, local communities and tourists themselves.”

UNWTO recommends a number of proven methods for managing crowds in destinations, such as encouraging tourists to visit beyond the central sights, diversifying tourist activities, reducing seasonality and, importantly, addressing the needs of the local community. The focus should not be, it says, on simply stopping tourists arriving.

Earlier this year, Barcelona started cracking down on unlicensed Airbnb rentals, doubling the numbers of inspectors checking properties. Of around 16,000 holiday rentals in the city, 7,000 are believed to be unlicensed.

In Venice, the mayor’s office has also been attempting to tackle the problem. In June it said it would introduce a ban on new tourist accommodation in the city centre, and “people counters” have been installed at popular sites to monitor overcrowding.

Italy has also been cracking down on anti-social behaviour in other tourist hotspots. In Rome, this means a ban on people eating or paddling in the city’s fountains and drinking on the street at night. Similar measures have been put into place in Milan – which introduced a summer ban on everything from food trucks to selfie sticks in the Darsena neighbourhood.

In Dubrovnik, another city where cruise ships unload thousands of visitors at a time, the mayor has introduced cameras to monitor the number of visitors in its Unesco-listed old town, so that the flow of people entering can be slowed – or even stopped – once a certain number is reached. Meanwhile, the mayor ofpopular Croatian party island Hvar has pledged to put an end to debauchery by mostly British tourists by slapping them with huge fines.