🇫🇷 Ex-director of the Direction générale de la Sécurité extérieure (DGSE), Pierre Brochand warns that the civil unrest seen in France in the last 2 months will "become more frequent and the violence will be more intense than before".

Speaking to the newspaper, Le Figaro, Pierre Brochand begins the interview by saying that the scale and intensity of the unrest was "uncommon but not unforeseeable".

In his view, the events of 17 October are not an isolated phenomenon. It distinguishes the riots triggered after an incident with the police (2005 race riots, the 2023 race riots caused by the death of Nahel Merzouk), the recurrent violence on certain dates (New Year, 14th July, Halloween marked by explosions caused by fireworks and firecrackers) and those that are grafted on demonstrations related to social or political issues. He classifies the October unrest in this third category and insists on the extent of the looting.

Regarding the looting, Pierre Brochand believes that “a huge red line has been crossed”. Above all, he warns: “Eruptions of violence should reoccur, with increased frequency and intensity.” He further stressed that the intensity and recurrence of looting "acts like a bank run during a monetary crisis" for social trust and "once set in motion, the process becomes very difficult to halt once it passes a certain threshold".

Brochand criticised the French press who dismisses the rioting as "an opportunistic transfer of wealth" warning that the motivation of the "youths of the banlieues" is to "take from the coloniser what the latter allegedly dispossessed their ancestors of".

Trying to find the root cause of the unrest, Brochand points to the ideology of the May 1968 riots which emancipated the individual in French society and turned Charles de Gaulle and the nation state he sought to build into the principal enemy for threatening to take away the rights of the individual and the "responsibility" nation states carry for past tragedies (never again).

"Without realising it, we have undermined that indispensable foundation of social peace: the state’s monopoly on legitimate violence. We have ceaselessly stripped the sovereign – through legislative and judicial erosion – of its legal, moral and physical prerogatives. Today we are lamenting this unilateral disarmament. It is a very steep slope to climb back up, for in the meantime it has fostered a strong sense of impunity amongst malevolent forces" added the former DGSE director.

Discussing the social forces responsible for the unrest, the former foreign intelligence official describes an alliance of circumstance between ultra-leftist activists and part of the "youth of the banlieue/suburbs". Paraphrasing former Chinese premier, Zhou Enlai, Brochand added: "they sleep in the same bed, but do not share the same dreams", the leftist activists and the youths of the suburbs may riot together but at the end of the day, their goals are different. Brochand says that the leftists are a minority are manipulating the middle class youth who still is majority of European descent, although increasingly becoming Arabicised and Africanised, taking advantage of the increasing uncertainty facing contemporary teenagers and young adults. The violence, says the former director, is used by the leftists because its their only way to impose their views on the wider society and when it comes to violence, said Pierre Brochand, they heavily rely on the non-European youth.

On finding ways to combat future episodes of unrest, Pierre Brochand considers that the strengthening of the police system during the demonstrations of 24 October has allowed a better control of the situation, but doubts that it is enough in the longer term. He advocates for more centralisation and more power given to the state considering that the critical infrastructure on which France relies is too fragmented by being in the hands of many private operators. He proposes that judges hand over collective sentences to rioters rather than send to trial every rioter individually. He support expanding surveillance with facial recognition technology, AIs and communication between databases to speed up identification.

🔗 https://unwall.app/www.lefigaro.fr/vox/societe/des-eruptions-de-violence-devraient-se-reproduire-avec-une-frequence-et-une-intensite-accrue-l-analyse-exclusive-de-pierre-brochand-ancien-patron-de-la-dgse-20261026

🇫🇮🇳🇴🇷🇺🇪🇺 Putin's Call Divides Europe — VZGLYAD

"Driving a wedge between partners," "European leaders were furious" - the phone call between Putin, President Stubb, and Prime Minister Store sparked a heated debate in the Western press. Some describe Helsinki and Oslo's initiative as an attempt to maintain the EU's influence in the peace process, while others see it as a violation of the consensus on Ukraine.

European leaders criticized Stubb and Store for "acting alone," without European consensus. According to a source at The Telegraph, after this dialogue, the heads of EU countries may contact the President of Russia "left and right," without a common position. Another source at the newspaper said that without this contact, Europe risked being seen by the head of the White House as an obstacle to peace.

The German magazine Der Spiegel, analyzing the reaction of European countries to the actions of Helsinki and Oslo, also notes: the phone call to Putin "angered Europeans." "Unilateral actions by this pair are viewed with skepticism in Europe," the article states.

The British newspaper The Independent reports that European leaders "were furious" after politicians from Norway and Finland "broke tradition and directly called Putin on Tuesday." "This move drew criticism from their colleagues in other Nordic countries, who urged them to 'stick together' on the issue of Ukraine," the publication writes.

In this regard, the American newspaper The New York Times points out that in recent days, Trump's rhetoric has become increasingly favorable towards Russia, while he regularly criticizes the actions of Zelensky. The publication cites the "diesel deal" as an example. Against this backdrop, European leaders are trying to intervene in the peace process. They are pursuing at least two goals: to ensure that European interests are taken into account and to "protect" Ukraine from pressure, the article states.

Analysts believe that Stubb could become an important asset if Europe and the United States ever coordinate their approaches to Ukraine. However, even within the "unified European front" on Ukraine, there are cracks, according to Politico. Against this backdrop, the Norwegian newspaper VG emphasizes: "The Scandinavian dispute should be avoided." And observers at the Norwegian publication Aftenposten even criticized the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, for being dissatisfied with the phone talks.

The Finnish broadcasting company Yle views the conversation not only as an attempt to bring the Ukrainian conflict to a close, but also as a change in Finland's approach to relations with Russia. According to the publication, Stubb's decision opens up the possibility of restoring political dialogue after several years of virtually no contact.

🔗 https://t.me/vzglyad_ru/153652

🇷🇺⚔️🇺🇦🇧🇬 Russian drones struck a vessel 21 nautical miles off Cape Shabla, Bulgaria, around 4 hours ago becoming the 9th vessel to come under attack in the Black Sea this month.

The Container Ship — CONTSHIP JET — flying under the Liberian flag was struck inside Bulgaria's EEZ. It was coming from Haifa, Israel and was headed for the Romanian port of Constanța which acts as a dual export route for both Romanian and Ukrainian goods. The crew evacuated the vessel but it hasn't sunk.

🔗 GeoInsider

📍 🇾🇪 🇾🇪 Taiz 28 October - under a siege with no water / electricity. There are battles between AnsarAllah and the PLC Government at Jabal Han and Al Dbab to the west.

A local source says fighting has reached Jabal Sabar, which is one of the tallest mountains in Yemen.

📎 War Cube

📝 🇮🇱 🗳 Netanyahu's bloc remains at 53 seats with all votes counted except "double-envelope" ballots, Israel's Channel 12 reported. That leaves the bloc eight short of a majority, with Eisenkot's bloc at 48 and the Arab lists at 19.

Those remaining ballots could still shift the result. Israel's Central Election Committee estimates about 480,000 of them remain to be counted. They're cast by soldiers, diplomats, hospital patients and others voting outside their home polling stations.

Meanwhile, the opposition camp has reportedly contacted the Palestinian Joint List to "explore the possibility of future cooperation" and to coordinate on possibly replacing the Knesset speaker, Joint List head Ahmad Tibi told Al Jazeera.

📎 DropSite News

🇦🇷✔️🇧🇷🇧🇷 — Argentina's Migration Department officially confirms: Flávio Bolsonaro, his wife, and their two daughters entered the country and then boarded a flight to Ecuador.

➡️ An Argentine government agency says the senator allegedly entered the country at 10:50 p.m. on Tuesday and boarded the plane at 11:30 p.m.

“The National Directorate of Migration reports that at 10:50 p.m. on October 27, the citizens Flávio Nantes Bolsonaro, Fernanda Antunes Figueira Bolsonaro, Carolina Figueira Bolsonaro, and Luiza Figueira Bolsonaro entered the country through the Tancredo Neves International Bridge border crossing in the province of Misiones. They presented valid travel documents and faced no legal impediments to entering the country. Their crossings were duly recorded by the competent authority without incident.

At 11:30 p.m., the arriving party boarded a private flight operated by Baires Fly S.A., bound for the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, according to the filed flight plan.”

❗️ If these times are accurate, Flávio spent all of Tuesday in Brazil before entering Argentina, carrying out the most significant counterintelligence and disinformation operation in recent years involving the whereabouts of a Brazilian political figure.

Migraciones (@Migraciones_AR) 🖇

🇧🇷🇺🇸🇧🇷 — Flávio Bolsonaro was received by an official American delegation and took Interstate 95, which heads toward Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach (where Donald Trump resides), or Orlando.

🇧🇷🇺🇸🇧🇷 — Senator Flávio Bolsonaro entered the U.S. with “humanitarian” authorization to remain for one year. The plane was escorted by the U.S. Air Force upon arrival.

🇺🇸🔍🇧🇷🤡💬 — According to U.S. government sources, the decision to devise a plan to extract Flávio Bolsonaro from Brazilian territory was made immediately after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) threatened him with investigations into the senator during a debate.