Constance of Burgundy

Constance of Burgundy (8 May 1046 – 1093) was the daughter of Duke Robert I of Burgundy and Helie de Semur-en-Brionnais. She was Queen of Castile and León by her marriage to Alfonso VI of León and Castile. She was the granddaughter of King Robert II of France, the second monarch of the French Capetian dynasty. She was the mother of Urraca of León, who succeeded her father in both Castile and León.
Life.
In 1065, Constance married her first husband, Hugh II, Count of Chalon. They were married for fourteen years until Hughes' death in 1079, they had no children.
In late 1079, Constance remarried to Alfonso VI of León and Castile. The marriage appears to have been orchestrated via the Cluniac connections at Alfonso's court. He had previously been married to Agnes of Aquitaine, whom he had either divorced or had been widowed by. The marriage of Constance and Alfonso initially faced papal opposition, apparently due to a kinship between Constance and Agnes.
Constance and Alfonso had several children but only one of these lived to adulthood:
Constance died in 1093 leaving her fourteen-year-old daughter and her husband a widower. He went on to marry three further wives after her death, but only had a son by his Muslim mistress, Zaida of Seville.
Burial.
After her death, the corpse of Constance was taken to the town of Sahagún and was buried in the Monastery of St. Facundo and Primitivo, where her husband, King Alfonso VI would be buried along with all his wives.
The grave that contained the remains of Alfonso VI was destroyed in 1810 during a fire in the Monastery. The remains of the king and several of his wives, including those of Constance, were collected and kept in the abbot's chamber until 1821. When the religious were expelled from the monastery, they were then deposited by Abbot Ramon Joys in a box that was placed on the south wall of the chapel of the Crucifix, until, in January 1835, the remains were collected and placed in another box, being brought to the archive. The purpose was to place all remaining interests in a new sanctuary that was being built then. However, when the monastery of San Benito was disentailed in 1835, the monks gave the two boxes containing the actual remains to the relative of a priest, who hid them until 1902 were found by the professor Zamora Rodrigo Fernández Núñez.
Today, the remains of Alfonso VI are buried in the Royal Monastery of San Benito in Sahagún, at the foot of the temple, in a stone chest covered with smooth, modern marble and in a tomb near equally plain, lie the remains of several of the king's wives, including those of Constance.


Progressive Dissidence

Progressive Dissidence (, DP) was a political party in Portugal.
History.
The party was established in 1905 by Minister of Justice José Maria de Alpoim as a left-wing breakaway from the Progressive Party. It won nine seats in the April 1906 parliamentary elections, but was reduced to four seats in the August 1906 elections. The 1908 elections saw the party win seven seats.
The party was dissolved in 1910.


Real Club Astur de Regatas

Real Club Astur de Regatas ("Royal Astur Yacht Club") is located in Gijón, Asturias (Spain). It is the oldest and most important yacht club in Asturias.
It was established September 10, 1911. Royal patronage was granted by king Alfonso XIII of Spain soon thereafter. The king was a frequent sailor at the club's regattas during 1912 and 1913 with his yacht "Giralda IV".
Races and fleets.
From the first 6 metre and Sonderklasse sailboats to the actual 49er dinghy raced by the Alonso brothers, the club has seen fleets come and go, but probably the most regular boat at the club has been the Snipe. The Snipe fleet 152 has been active since 1941. Optimist and Laser fleets have become increasingly active in the past years. Besides dinghy sailing, larger One-Design boats at the club include a First Class 8 fleet.
More than 80 races are organized annually by the club, being the El Gaitero Regatta and the Carlos del Castillo Memorial the most important ones.
Notable members.
It was the Spanish yacht club with the largest amount of sailors in the national olympic team during the XXX Olympiad. Those yacht racers were Federico Alonso and his brother Arturo Alonso in 49er class, Ángela Pumariega in Elliott 6m, and Fernando Rodríguez in Star class. Ángela Pumariega won the gold medal in Elliott 6m at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Federico Alonso won the 1998 world championship in Cadet. Francisco Palacio and Ángela Pumariega won the Spanish national junior championship and placed second at the 2002 junior European championship at Le Havre in the Snipe class. Ángela Pumariega and Carmen Mateo placed second at the women's national championship in Spain and seventh at the women's world championship in 2008, also in the Snipe class. Pablo Vega-Arango was a crew member of the yacht "España" (ESP 22 of the International America’s Cup Class), the Spanish entry at the Louis Vuitton Cup 1992.


John Claypole

John Claypole (21 August 1625 – 26 June 1688) was an officer in the Parliamentary army in 1645 during the English Civil War. He was created Lord Claypole by Oliver Cromwell, but this title naturally came to an end with the Restoration of 1660.
Claypole married Elizabeth, Oliver Cromwell's second daughter, before October 1646, and raised a troop of horse for Parliament to oppose Charles II in 1651. He was master of the horse to his father-in-law the Lord Protector. A Member of Parliament in 1654 and 1656, he was one of Cromwell's peers in 1657. After the restoration of the monarchy he lived quietly, but may have been briefly imprisoned as a suspect in a plot in 1678, only to be released when no evidence of his involvement was presented.
Background.
Claypole was descended of a gentle family. seated at Narborough, in the county of Northampton (now known as Northborough, Cambridgeshire), upon the borders of Lincolnshire, possessing considerable estates in both those counties.
Claypole was the son of John Claypole the Elder and his wife Mary/Marie, née Angell, and the grandson of Adam Claypole. In 1637 John Claypole, senior was summoned before the Star Chamber, and the attorney-general was ordered to commence a prosecution against him for refusing to pay ship money; it cannot therefore be wondered at, that he declared for the Parliament at the start of the English Civil War in 1643, and 1644, he was appointed one "of their assessors for the county of Northampton; but at this time he was so little known,' that his name is spelt a great variety of ways,
John Claypole snr was, probably, sheriff for his own county, as major-general William Boteler recommends him to John Thurloe, in a letter to him, dated 16 November; he was a member of Parliament in 1654 for the county of Northamptonshire; he was alive so late as 1657, when he was made a commissioner with his son, for levying the taxes upon the county of Northampton; and to distinguish them, he is called "John Claypole, esq. senior", and his son "lord Claypole".
Mark Noble speculates that the sentiments the father entertained respecting the state of the nation was probably the same as that which Oliver Cromwell possessed, when he first gained a seat the Long Parliament; and as John Claypole had suffered hardships during King Charles I's Eleven Years' Tyranny, it might occasion an intimacy that ended in an alliance between the families. John Claypole (junior) married Elizabeth, the second, and favorite, daughter of Oliver Cromwell, some time before October 1646.
Civil War and Protectorate.
John Claypole jnr first appeared in arms for parliamentary cause in the First English Civil War at the siege of Newark in the winter of 1645/46. On 11 August 1651, during the Third Civil War, he received a commission from the Council of State to raise a troop of horse in the counties of Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire to oppose the march of Charles II into England.
When his father-in-law, Oliver Cromwell, was invested with the title of Protector, he received from him the office of master of the horse; and, as such, led the horse of state at the inauguration, going bare-headed on one side of the protector's body coach, with Walter Strickland, captain of the guard to the Lord Protector, he acted in the same capacity at the second, or more magnificent investment, when he stood immediately behind the protector during that ceremony.
He was a member of First Protectorate Parliament, in 1654, for Carmarthenshire. On 15 January 1656 he was appointed a member of the committee of trade. He was elected MP for Northamptonshire and for Carmarthenshire in the Second Protectorate Parliament in 1656 and chose to sit for Northamptonshire. in parliament, he opposed the power of the major-generals. Ludlow said:
Claypole was appointed by his father-in-law one of the lords of his bed-chamber, clerk of the hanaper, and ranger of Whittlewood Forest in Northamptonshire, where he built Wakefield Lodge, a magnificent house near Potterspury. (It came into the possession the Dukes of Grafton, the first duke having had a grant of the forest in 1685, with the title of hereditary ranger.) To raise him still further above the rank of a private gentleman, Cromwell granted Claypole a baronet on 16 July 1657, and arranged to have him knighted at Whitehall the same day. Later that year Claypole was made one of the Protectors lords, and given a seat in the Protector's Upper House.
Oliver Cromwell directed Claypole to receive the Dutch ambassadors upon their return to London, in March, 1654; and he used Claypole as his to go-between when asking for advise from William Lilly the astrologer. During the short reign of his brother-in-law Richard Cromwell, Claypole retained all his places at court, and carried the sword of state when Richard opened his Parliament.
In his religious sentiments Claypole was a Presbyterian, and in that communion died; however, he was not puritanical in his demeanour. Mrs. Hutchinson terms him "a debauched ungodly cavalier", and in the "Second Narrative of the late Parliament" he is described as one "whose qualifications not answering to those honest principles formerly so pretended of putting none but godly men into places of trust, was for a long time kept out". Samuel Pepys mentions a famous running footman who had been in Claypole's service, and Clapole also asked Colonel Verney for a dog of superior fighting capacity. Claypole had a taste for mathematics, and probably for architecture, and was the intimate friend of Christopher Wren.
During the restoration.
Mark Noble suggests that Claypole had a mild and gentle disposition that rendered him unfit for any services for the Protectors, but such as were of a peaceable kind, and which they were lavish in giving to him, both as the husband of Oliver's favourite child, and as a most amiable person Oliver employed. Instead therefore, of appointing Claypole to be a major-general, where severity and rigour was necessary, Oliver gave him places of great honour and emolument, but of such a nature as that the most scrupulous might accept. As Claypole had never, during the whole time of his relations holding the helm, done any action that could even inconvenience an individual, at the restoration of the monarchy he was included in the general pardon, unlike those who had participated in acts such as the regicide of Charles I who were exempted from the general pardon and were tried for crimes committed during the Interregnum. Until her death in 1665 Claypole gave shelter to Elizabeth Cromwell, his mother-in-law and Oliver Cromwell's widow. Some years afterwards, however, when court and country were filled with rumours of plots, Claypole was fixed upon to be the head and contriver of one against the royal family, supposedly in consort with the old Oliverian party.
Mark Noble states that he was apprehended, in June, 1678, and sent to the Tower, obtaining an habeas corpus to the king's bench, he thought to procure bail but though many persons, to whom no objection could be made, offered themselves for that purpose, chief-justice Sir William Scroggs set the bail so high that Claypole's friends thought it prudent to decline it. Claypole was therefore remanded back to the Tower; but at the next term, as no evidence appeared against him, and what was, perhaps, much more fortunate to him, a counter plot began to work, he was discharged. When writing the Dictionary of National Biography article on Claypole, Charles Harding Firth concurs with Noble, but Ivan Roots in the more recent Oxford Dictionary of National Biography does not, and thinks it is a case of mistaken identity because although a man called John Claypole, whose profession is given as a printer, was held on suspension of being involved in a plot given his character, it was unlikely to be John Claypole who resided at the manor of Northborough.
History is silent what became of him after his imprisonment. Probably he returned to his estate in Northamptonshire (where he had resided when he was taken into custody).
Family.
Elizabeth and John Claypole had a daughter and two sons Henry and Oliver. Oliver died just before his mother, and Mark Noble speculates that the grief for the loss may well have hastened her death in 1658. His children with Elizabeth all predeceased him. Claypole married a second time, in June 1670, Blanche, widow of Lancelot Stavely, by whom he had one daughter, Bridget. However, Claypole fell under the influence of Anne Ottee, a laundress, and disinherited Bridget for Ottee's benefit. Bridget brought an action in chancery and recovered some portion of his property, but most of it, including the manor of Northborough, Claypole had sold off during his lifetime.
Claypole had several other relations including a brother called Henry In Thurloe's state papers, notice is taken of captain Wingfield Claypole, an officer in Ireland, and Christopher Claypole, who Mark Noble believed was also, in the army, and was sent to the Hague in 1658. John Claypole expresses his obligations to Henry Cromwell, lord-deputy (in a letter dated 16 April 1658) for his regard to his brothers and sisters, and himself, upon all occasions; he tells him, "that indeed, they cannot plead any desert, though," says he, "my sister is very good, yet not enough so to entitle her to so much of your kindness". This sister seems to be the wife of major Staples, who certainly married one of his sisters, and as he earnestly requests a place for him of the lord-deputy, it is most reasonable to suppose he was the husband of this sister in whose praise he speaks. Wingfield, and another of his brothers, had done something wrong, for he says of the former, "I wish he had not presumed upon your goodness, in to long an absence", and requests his pardon on his behalf, yet desires he may be reprehended; and also requests that his other brother may likewise be reproved, as he fears he will stand in too much need of it. Another brother was James Claypoole, 1634–1687, an admired friend of William Penn, the Quaker, who emigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1683. Other brothers included Edward (1636 – ca. 1690), a Captain of Foot, who resided in Barbados from the late 1660s/early1670s and Norton (1640–1688), who emigrated to North America in 1678 and died there in Sussex County, Delaware.
References.
Attribution:


Gabriel Cisneros

Gabriel Cisneros Laborda (14 August 1940 – 27 July 2007) was a Spanish attorney and politician who is mostly known for being one of the Fathers of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 He is also credited with collaborating in the writing the European Union's Declaration of Human Rights.
Career.
Cisneros was one of seven politicians charged with writing the Spanish Constitution of 1978,
Spain's first democratic constitution, following the death of caudillo Francisco Franco in 1975. The constitution set the foundation for the Spanish Government from the 1978 up to the present day. Cisneros is also the author of several other Spanish institutional laws.
Additional, Cisneros also helped to write laws pertaining to the Basque statute and autonomy. His work with Basque law made Cisneros a kidnapping target. Cisneros survived a 1979 kidnap attempt by the Basque separatist group, ETA. Cisneros managed to fight off and escape two ETA kidnappers, but suffered gunshot wounds to his stomach and leg.
Cisneros was a member of the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) and in 1979 was elected to the Spanish Congress of Deputies as member for Soria. He retained his seat at the 1982 election however the UCD lost 156 of their 168 seats at that election and disbanded in February 1983 after which Cisneros sat as an independent. He did not stand at the 1986 election and temporarily retired from active politics. However he resumed his political activity in 1988 when he joined the Liberal Party. In 1989 that party merged with others to form the current Partido Popular (PP), a Spanish conservative political party. At the 1989 General Election he returned to the Spanish Congress as a PP deputy for Burgos and was re-elected in that district in 1993 and 1996. At the 2000 election he was elected in Zaragoza and represented that district until his death in 2007. Cisneros held a number of key posts as an MP.
Between 1981 and 1982 he was the Secretary of State for Relations with the Cortes after the position he was carrying out, Secretary General for Relations with the Cortes was elevated to the category of Secretariat of State.
Cisneros made his last parliamentary appearance in the Cortes Generales in July 2007 for ceremonies marking the 30th anniversary of Spain's first democratic elections in 1977. King Juan Carlos honored Cisneros and other key figures of Spain's transition to democracy following Franco's death saying the reformers, "have allowed us to avoid harsh and sterile confrontations in the normal development of our political life."
Death.
Cisneros died of complications from a stroke on 27 July 2007, in Murcia. His death was announced in Parliament that same day.
Accolades.
Mariano Rajoy, leader of the opposition PP party, called Cisneros "an extraordinary politician." Spain's governing Socialist Party also paid tribute to Cisneros: "He contributed in an important way to the consolidation of our democratic system."


Edith the Fair

Edith the Fair (, "Edyth the Gentle Swan"; c. 1025 – c. 1066), also known as Edith Swanneck, was the first wife of King Harold Godwinson. "Swanneck" (or Swan-Neck) comes from the folk etymology which made her in Old English as "swann hnecca", "swan neck", which was actually most likely a corrupted form of "swann hnesce, "Gentle Swan" ". She is sometimes confused with Ealdgyth, daughter of Earl Ælfgar of Mercia, who was queen during Harold's reign.
She may be identical with Eadgifu the Fair, who was one of the wealthiest magnates in England on the eve of the Norman conquest.
Marriage.
The children of Edith and Harold II included Gunhild of Wessex, who became the mistress of Alan Rufus, and Gytha of Wessex, who was taken by her grandmother to Denmark in 1068. Gytha was addressed as "princess" and married the Grand Duke of Kiev, Vladimir II Monomakh.
In a 2015 monograph, historian Bill Flint claims that Edith Swanneshals and Harold were legitimately married. Flint overturns many previous assumptions made about Edith's relationship with Harold, including the fidelity of the couple's marital union and Christian devotion. Flint argues that Edith and Harold were almost certainly married "more danico": the Danish hand-fast marriage custom. As evidence for this, he cites a number of dowry bequests that were made at the time of Edith's union to Harold. Flint notes that the bequests made included Walsingham Manor, making Edith in all probability "the lady of the manor" during the year of 1061, which was identified by Tudor historian Richard Pynson as the year of the foundation of the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. Flint claims that the union "more danico" of Edith and Harold is legitimate from a Catholic perspective, arguing: "The changes confirming the Sacramental nature of Christian marriage had only recently been promulgated from Rome. Throughout the Danelaw and widespread among the nobility of England who now had many such Scandinavian bloodlines, the hand-fast marriage, which was customary and widely accepted throughout northern Europe, should not be referred to as an illegitimate union." (p. 9). In fact, the Anglo-Saxons had practiced hand-fast marriage long before Danish conquest.
Though Harold is said to have lawfully married Ealdgyth, the daughter of Earl Ælfgar, the widow of the Welsh ruler Gruffydd ap Llywelyn whom he had defeated in battle, that marriage in spring 1066 is seen by most modern scholars as one of political convenience. Mercia and Wales were allied against England, and the marriage gave the English claim in two very troublesome regions, and also gave Harold Godwinesson a marriage deemed "legitimate" by the clergy, unlike his longtime common law marriage with Edith the Fair.
Walsingham visionary.
Flint identifies Edith as the visionary known colloquially as "Rychold" or "Richeldis de Faverches", who authored Our Lady of Walsingham. The identification of Edith as the Walsingham visionary is rooted in his belief that the earlier date of shrine's foundation, given by Richard Pynson as 1061, is credible. Pynson's history, which is given in a narrative poem known as the "Pynson Ballad", had been previously thrown out by historians on the grounds it was unreliable as an oral narrative, but Flint defends the ballad on the grounds that Pynson was a respected historian, employed by King Henry VII, who also collaborated with John Leland. Flint contests the theories of J.C. Dickinson (1959) on the grounds that the 1131 Norfolk Roll, which Dickinson claims refers to the foundation of the shrine, actually refers to the foundation of the Priory of the Austin Friars, which preceded the foundation of the Walsingham Shrine (see p.xxii). He also notes that Edith Swanneshals was known within the court as "Rychold", meaning "fair and rich", and the appellatory title given by Pynson could therefore refer to the Anglo-Saxon Queen—a reference which is consistent with the original date given in the Pynson Ballad as 1061, for Edith Swaneshals was the Lady of the Walsingham Manor in this period (p.xxvii). Flint therefore establishes Edith Swaneshals as a Christian queen and the legitimate spouse of Harold Godwinson; as well as defending her Christian character as the probable visionary of the Shrine of Walsingham. In defending Edith's Christian character Flint cites her friendship with Wulfstan of Worcester.
Folklore.
According to folklore, Edith identified Harold's body after the Battle of Hastings. The body was horribly mutilated after the battle by the Norman army of William the Conqueror, and, despite pleas by Harold's mother, Gytha Thorkelsdóttir, for William to surrender Harold's body for burial, the Norman army refused, even though Harold's mother offered Harold's weight in gold. It was then that Edith the Fair walked through the carnage of the battle so that she might identify Harold by markings on his chest known only to her. It was because of Edith the Fair's identification of Harold's body that Harold was given a Christian burial by the monks at Waltham Abbey. This legend is recounted in the well-known poem by Heinrich Heine, "The Battlefield of Hastings" (1855), which features Edith the Fair (as Edith Swan-Neck) as the main character and claims that the "marks known only to her" were love bites.
Historical fiction.
The German poet Heinrich Heine wrote "Schlachtfeld bei Hastings" (published 1851, in "Romanzero"). In this poem, Edith and two monks (Asgod and Ailrik) search the battlefield for the body of King Harold.


Controversy surrounding Swedish jihadist foreign fighters

The Swedish military research facility has estimated that 300 individuals traveled from Sweden to serve as foreign fighters on behalf of ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra in the Syrian Civil War, as well as in the Iraqi Civil War. The terrorism expert Magnus Norell claimed in an interview with Dagens Nyheter that the actual number might be twice as high. A law was passed in 2016 criminalizing traveling to conflict zones with the purpose of serving as a foreign fighter. As of May 2020, none of the Swedish foreign fighters have been convicted under the new ban on traveling with terroristic goals ("terrorresor"). The majority of jihadist foreign fighters departed to join ISIS and Jabat al-Nusra before the new law came into effect.
Critics claim that the judicial branch of the Swedish government is misusing its discretionary authority in choosing not to prosecute foreign fighters. The claim is that laws were in place long before 2016 that could allow for all foreign fighters to be charged, arguing that inaction from prosecutors has hindered relevant cases from being tested in court, as well as new legal precedents and interpretations of old laws from being established.
Background.
Sweden has a substantial migrant community with ties to the global south. This community consists of people who have either migrated themselves or whose parents have migrated from these regions. Many belonging to these communities still speak languages native to, or popular in, their countries of origin, share its culture and maintain ties of friendship and family too their own or their parents' native countries. These facts may have enabled the connection of the conflict within Syria and Iraq to Swedes belonging to migrant communities. It also enabled Swedes with an immigrant background to travel to the areas affected by the Syrian and Iraq civil war, with relative ease given they would have possessed knowledge of the language and customs. The immigrant communities of Sweden have maintained a distinct subculture. A value survey conducted by the newspaper Dagens Nyheter found that the traditional values are far stronger within immigrant communities compared to members of the majority culture. This gap in values resulted in national headlines when the feminist organization "Varken Hora eller kuvad" presented a survey conducted amongst youths within immigrant dominated areas of Sweden - in which slightly over 10% said they sympathized with ISIS.  This low level of approval is similar to a broad dislike for ISIS within Muslim majority countries. Still Swedish state television reported that the polling results showing the 10% support for ISIS were high enough to "shock many".
The terrorism expert, Magnus Norell, stated in an interview with Dagens Nyheter that religious motivation, as well as seeing the war in Syria and Iraq within a larger whole as an ongoing conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims, motivated minority Swedes with immigrant background to join the terrorist group and that ISIS is judged by its sympathizers to be a better alternative, compared to other local political actors within the middle east who are perceived as enemies of Islam. In contrast, there would ostensibly not be a historical connection for members of the Swedish majority culture to the historical conflict between Sunni and Shia and, therefore, they would not share the impression of Islam being under attack by powerful political actors. As a result, within the native majority culture of Sweden, the prospect of joining jihadist groups is seen as a foreign concept and highly immoral.
The Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven referred to ISIS as "evil". The state radio broadcasting channel reported that sixty people were revealed to have liked an ISIS-friendly page on Facebook. This caused the legal spokesperson for the Liberals, at the time Roger Haddad, to express deep concern. The leader of the Left Party, Jonas Sjöstedt, stated that the crimes of ISIS are very serious. Despite Sweden's lack of laws on the subject, he speculated that these foreign fighters most probably could be prosecuted due to the seriousness of ISIS violations.
Legal consequences.
Despite strong reactions and the expressed will to broadly punish Jihadist foreign fighters, only two of the those who have returned to Sweden have been sentenced for any crime. The newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reported that prosecution of foreign fighters would be difficult or even impossible.[12] The Swedish public broadcasting, SVT, reported that those who had returned from serving violent Islamist groups in other countries constitute an ongoing threat to Sweden. Despite this the legal framework hinders most prosecution. The defense attorney Thomas Olsson told the Swedish public broadcaster, SVT that the current legal framework lacked almost all potency in fighting terrorism. Critics claim that the current legal framework is not insufficient in itself and that foreign fighter could be prosecuted.
The lawyers Sten De Geer and Kjell Jönsson, have stated in a joint opinion piece that foreign fighters can and should be prosecuted on the charges of aiding terrorism. Meaning that the current doctrine of only seeking to punish those who have admitted or can be proven to have committed concrete violent actions is not the only or definitive interpretation of Swedish law. They state that these foreign fighters could all be charged for assisting others in criminal activity, an action that has been penalized within the Swedish legal code since long before any of the foreign fighters departed Sweden to join Jihadist groups. They argue that all who departed from Sweden to join violent jihadist groups in Syria or Iraq could be prosecuted.
The legal expert Dick Sundevall has stated the same thesis in an opinion piece published in the legal magazine Paragraf. The organization "Demokrati och upprättelse" established itself in late 2019 as an activist group working for the prosecution of all foreign fighters who joined ISIS. The group's founders presented their legal casework to a former judge, Krister Thelin, who concurred that their claim stands on strong legal ground. The Economist has also claimed in one of its informational videos that even going to live in ISIS territory is a crime under EU law.
Accusation of Swedish negligence enabling terrorism.
The Swedish-Arabic doctor Nemam Ghafouri is known for traveling to ISIS-controlled territories in order to help smuggle out captives held as slaves, saving them at his personal risk. She has stated that foreign fighters who have chosen to serve ISIS within the conflict-zone are all guilty of assisting others in committing crimes. She states that, in her judgment, they are all guilty of participating in genocide. She further accuses the Swedish government of sharing a degree of guilt, due to its refusal to prosecute foreign fighters. The terrorist Khaled Shahadeh, who was documented as having traveled abroad to join ISIS, returned to Sweden in order to treat injuries sustained in his service to the terrorist group. After receiving medical attention in Sweden, he traveled to the conflict zone to serve as a combatant for ISIS once again. The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority also reported that almost all known Jihadist foreign fighters traveling from Sweden have committed welfare fraud, receiving government benefits on false premises during their time within the conflict zone. Peter Omtzigt, representing the Council of Europe, has stated that "a number of [member-]states do not [as a] standard prosecute people who have been members of ISIS and return to their own countries. That is wrong, but it is also dangerous. In Europe, there are no borders. So if only one country does not take actions, our whole safety is in danger." The Kurdish liberation unit is unwilling to hand over IS-members to Swedish authorities, due to them fearing that they won't be punished.


Necklace of the Stars

The Necklace of the Stars (Portuguese: Colar das Estrelas) is a diamond necklace originally made for Queen Consort Maria Pia of Savoy. It is a piece of the Portuguese Crown Jewels.
History.
The Necklace of the Stars was made in 1865 for the wife of King Luís I of Portugal, Queen Consort Maria Pia of Savoy, who had a love for jewelry and fashion. The necklace was fashioned in the workshop of the Portuguese Royal Jeweler in Lisbon, Portugal. The necklace is just a piece of a whole set of jewelry that was commissioned by Maria Pia, which includes the famed Diadem of the Stars, the counterpart of the necklace.
Details.
It is fashioned out of gold and colourless and pink diamonds.


Tomo P. Oraovac

Tomo P. Oraovac (Oraovo, Principality of Montenegro, 6 October 1853 - Belgrade, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, 3 March 1939) was a Serbian writer, poet, publicist, fighter for constitutional freedoms in Montenegro, Inspector of the Ministry of Finance and Member of Parliament.
Biography.
He was born in the village of Oraovo in Kuči, Montenegro, on 6 October 1853 (Julian Calendar).
He belonged to the first generation of Serbs who studied at the School of Theology in Cetinje (1869-1872). After completing his education, he worked as a teacher, in Danilovgrad, then in Cetinje, where he quickly became its principal. Initiated the convening of the first assembly of Montenegrin teachers, in which he advocated uniform instruction and abolition of corporal punishment in schools.
During the Great War, he performed significant duties in the supply of food to Serbian refugees from Herzegovina. In 1876, Prince Nicholas appointed him Chief Administrator for the reception of food and aid from Imperial Russia. He received high honours for his services to the Montenegrin people. He was appointed Chief Intendant at Bar, where he remained until 1881. He initiated the establishment of the Bar Reading Room, supported by the most respected citizens, and, along with other prominent and free-spirited Montenegrins, launched a movement to establish a democratic and parliamentary regime.
Because Oraovac was opposed to the absolutist regime of Prince Nikola, he was expelled from Montenegro in 1883 and was forced to move to the Kingdom of Serbia.
There he served as a clerk in the police and in the Ministry of Finance. He worked as the District Chief, Taxman, Comptroller and Inspector in the Ministry of Finance, and remained in this position until his retirement, after fifty years of civil service.
Between the two world wars he was a member of Radical Parties that was led by Stojan Protić. He was a member of the Society for the Study of the History of Montenegro as its president and lecturer.
He was involved in scholastic and literary activity and publicity. When he was young he began to write lyric and epic poetry. Some of his songs, which were produced during his time in Montenegro, became very popular.
He wrote about the Cetinje Monastery and the centuries-old independence of Montenegro in the Zeta Gazette ("Zetski glasnik"). Before his death, he prepared to print "Famous Montenegrins", which was published posthumously the following year.


Pro Lombardy Independence

Pro Lombardy Independence ("Pro Lombardia Indipendenza") is an independentist party active in Lombardy, Italy.
The party, which was launched in 2011, is led by Alfredo Gatta; the spokesman is Alessandro Ceresoli.
The first objective of the party is the independence of the present-day Lombardy region, but it hopes for a unification of the 'Historical Lombardy', which in its eyes includes Emilia (part of the Emilia-Romagna region), the provinces of Novara and Verbano-Cusio-Ossola and the commune of Tortona (all three part of the Piedmont Region), and the 'Swiss Lombardia' (the Canton of Ticino and parts of the Canton of Graubünden).
According to its former president Giovanni Roversi, 'We don't want independence to build walls nor in opposition to other peoples: for us, a Sicilian is a European brother as is a citizen from Bavaria or from Galicia. We have an inclusive speech”.
The party is a member of the European Free Alliance.


National Rally

The National Rally (, ; RN), until June 2018 known as the National Front (, ; FN), is a far-right political party in France. Since its inception, it has primarily been an anti-immigration party, advocating significant cuts to legal immigration and protection of French identity. Its other major policies include a harsher stance on illegal immigration. The National Rally has opposed the European Union (EU) and its predecessor organisations since its foundation in 1972. It also supports French economic interventionism, protectionism, as well as a zero tolerance approach towards law and order.
The party was founded on 5 October 1972 to unify a variety of French nationalist movements of the time. Its political views are nationalist and anti-globalist. Jean-Marie Le Pen founded the party and was its leader until his resignation in 2011. While the party struggled as a marginal force for its first ten years, since 1984 it has been a major force of French nationalism. It has put forward a presidential candidate at every presidential election but one since 1974. In 2002, Jean-Marie came second in the first round, but finished a distant second in the runoff to Jacques Chirac. His daughter Marine Le Pen was elected to succeed him as party leader in 2012. In April 2017, she temporarily stepped down in order to concentrate on her presidential candidacy.
While her father was nicknamed the "Devil of the Republic" by mainstream media and sparked outrage for hate speech, including Holocaust denial and Islamophobia, Marine Le Pen pursued a policy of "de-demonisation" of the party by softening its image. She endeavoured to extract it from its far-right cultural roots, and to normalise it by giving it a culture of government, and censuring controversial members like her father, who was suspended, and then expelled from the party in 2015. Following her election as the leader of the party in 2011, the popularity of the FN grew. By 2015, the FN had established itself as a major political party in France.
At the party congress on 11 March 2018, Marine Le Pen proposed renaming the party to "Rassemblement national" (National Rally), and on 1 June 2018, the renaming of the party was confirmed, following an 80.81% approval ballot of party members. Formerly strongly Eurosceptic, the new National Rally changed policies in 2019, deciding to campaign for a reform of the EU rather than leaving it and to keep the Euro as the main currency of France (together with the Pacific Franc for some collectivities). In 2021, Le Pen announced that she wanted to remain in the Schengen area, citing "an attachment to the European spirit", but to reserve free movement to nationals of an EEA country, excluding residents and visitors of another Schengen country.
Background.
The party's ideological roots can be traced to both Poujadism, a populist, small business tax protest movement founded in 1953 by Pierre Poujade and right-wing dismay over the decision by French President Charles de Gaulle to abandon his promise of holding on to the colony of French Algeria after the defeat of France in the Algerian War (many , including Le Pen, were part of an inner circle of returned servicemen known as ). During the 1965 presidential election, Le Pen unsuccessfully attempted to consolidate the right-wing vote around the right-wing presidential candidate Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, the French far-right consisted mainly of small extreme movements such as , (GUD), and the (ON).
Espousing France's Catholic and monarchist traditions, one of the primary progenitors of the party was the , founded at the end of the 19th century, and its descendants in the Restauration Nationale, a pro-monarchy group that supports the claim of the Count of Paris to the French throne.
History.
Early years.
Foundation (1972–1973).
While the ON had competed in some local elections since 1970, at its second congress in June 1972 it decided to establish a new political party to contest the 1973 legislative elections. The party was launched on 5 October 1972 under the name National Front for French Unity ("Front national pour l'unité française"), or Front National. In order to create a broad movement, the ON sought to model the new party (as it earlier had sought to model itself) on the more established Italian Social Movement (MSI), which at the time appeared to establish a broad coalition for the Italian right. The FN adopted a French version of the MSI tricolour flame as its logo. It wanted to unite the various French far-right currents, and brought together "nationals" of Le Pen's group and Roger Holeindre's Party of French Unity; "nationalists" from Pierre Bousquet's "Militant" movement or François Brigneau's and Alain Robert's Ordre Nouveau; the anti-Gaullist Georges Bidault's Justice and Liberty movement; as well as former Poujadists, Algerian War veterans, and some monarchists, among others. Le Pen was chosen to be the first president of the party, as he was untainted with the militant public image of the ON and was a relatively moderate figure on the far-right.
The National Front fared poorly in the 1973 legislative elections, receiving 0.5% of the national vote (although Le Pen won 5% in his Paris constituency). In 1973 the party created a youth movement, the "Front national de la jeunesse" (National Front of the Youth, FNJ). The rhetoric used in the campaign stressed old far-right themes and was largely uninspiring to the electorate at the time. Otherwise, its official program at this point was relatively moderate, differing little from the mainstream right. Le Pen sought the "total fusion" of the currents in the party, and warned against crude activism. The FNJ were banned from the party later that year. The move towards the mainstream cost it many leading members and much of its militant base.
In the 1974 presidential election, Le Pen failed to find a mobilising theme for his campaign. Many of its major issues, such as anti-communism, were shared by most of the mainstream right. Other FN issues included calls for increased French birth rates, immigration reduction (although this was downplayed), establishment of a professional army, abrogation of the Évian Accords, and generally the creation of a "French and European renaissance." Despite being the only nationalist candidate, he failed to gain the support of a united far-right, as the various groups either rallied behind other candidates or called for voter abstention. The campaign further lost ground when the Revolutionary Communist League published a denunciation of Le Pen's alleged involvement in torture during his time in Algeria. In his first presidential election, Le Pen gained only 0.8% of the national vote.
FN–PFN rivalry (1973–1981).
Following the 1974 election, the FN was obscured by the appearance of the Party of New Forces (PFN), founded by FN dissidents (largely from the ON). Their competition weakened both parties throughout the 1970s. Along with the growing influence of François Duprat and his "revolutionary nationalists", the FN gained several new groups of supporters in the late 1970s and early 1980s: Jean-Pierre Stirbois (1977) and his "solidarists", Bruno Gollnisch (1983), Bernard Antony (1984) and his Catholic fundamentalists, as well as Jean-Yves Le Gallou (1985) and the Nouvelle Droite. Following the death of Duprat in a bomb attack in 1978, the revolutionary nationalists left the party, while Stirbois became Le Pen's deputy as his solidarists effectively ousted the neo-fascist tendency in the party leadership. A radical group split off in 1980 and founded the French Nationalist Party, dismissing the FN as becoming too Zionist and Le Pen as the "puppet" of the Jews. The far right was marginalised altogether in the 1978 legislative elections, although the PFN was better off. For the first election for the European Parliament in 1979, the PFN had become part of an attempt to build a "Euro-Right" alliance of European far-right parties, and was in the end the only one of the two that contested the election. It fielded Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour as its primary candidate, while Le Pen called for voter abstention.
For the 1981 presidential election, both Le Pen and Pascal Gauchon of the PFN declared their intentions to run. However, an increased requirement regarding obtaining signatures of support from elected officials had been introduced for the election, which left both Le Pen and Gauchon unable to stand for the election. In France, parties have to secure support from a specific number of elected officials, from a specific number of departments, in order to be eligible to run for election. In 1976, the number of required elected officials was increased fivefold from the 1974 presidential cycle, and the number of departments threefold. The election was won by François Mitterrand of the Socialist Party (PS), which gave the political left national power for the first time in the Fifth Republic; he then dissolved the National Assembly and called a snap legislative election. The PS attained its best ever result with an absolute majority in the 1981 legislative election. This "socialist takeover" led to a radicalisation in centre-right, anti-communist, and anti-socialist voters. With only three weeks to prepare its campaign, the FN fielded only a limited number of candidates and won only 0.2% of the national vote. The PFN was even worse off, and the election marked the effective end of competition from the party.
Jean-Marie Le Pen's era.
Electoral breakthrough (1982–1988).
While the French party system had been dominated by polarisation and competition between the clear-cut ideological alternatives of two political blocs in the 1970s, the two blocs had largely moved towards the centre by the mid-1980s. This led many voters to perceive the blocs as more or less indistinguishable, particularly after the Socialists' "austerity turn" ("tournant de la rigueur") of 1983, in turn inducing them to seek out to new political alternatives. By October 1982, Le Pen supported the prospect of deals with the mainstream right, provided that the FN did not have to soften its position on key issues. In the 1983 municipal elections, the centre-right Rally for the Republic (RPR) and centrist Union for French Democracy (UDF) formed alliances with the FN in a number of towns. The most notable result came in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, where Le Pen was elected to the local council with 11% of the vote. Later by-elections kept media attention on the party, and it was for the first time allowed to pose as a viable component of the broader right. In a by-election in Dreux in October, the FN won 17% of the vote. With the choice of defeat to the political left or dealing with the FN, the local RPR and UDF agreed to form an alliance with the FN, creating national sensation, and together won the second round with 55% of the vote. The events in Dreux were a monumental factor for the rise of the FN.
Le Pen protested the media boycott against his party by sending letters to President Mitterrand in mid-1982. After some exchanges of letters, Mitterrand instructed the heads of the main television channels to give equitable coverage to the FN. In January 1984, the party made its first appearance in a monthly poll of political popularity, in which 9% of respondents held a "positive opinion" of the FN and some support for Le Pen. The next month, Le Pen was for the first time invited onto a prime-time television interview programme, which he himself later deemed "the hour that changed everything". The 1984 European elections in June came as a shock, as the FN won 11% of the vote and ten seats. Notably, the election used proportional representation and was considered to have a low level of importance by the public, which played to the party's advantage. The FN made inroads in both right-wing and left-wing constituencies, and finished second in a number of towns. While many Socialists had arguably exploited the party in order to divide the right, Mitterrand later conceded that he had underestimated Le Pen. By July, 17% of opinion poll respondents held a positive opinion of the FN.
By the early 1980s, the FN featured a mosaic of ideological tendencies and attracted figures who were previously resistant to the party. The party managed to draw supporters from the mainstream right, including some high-profile defectors from the RPR, UDF, and the National Centre of Independents and Peasants (CNIP). In the 1984 European elections, eleven of the 81 FN candidates came from these parties, and the party's list also included an Arab and a Jew (although in unwinnable positions). Former collaborators were also accepted in the party, as Le Pen urged the need for "reconciliation", arguing that forty years after the war the only important question was whether or not "they wish to serve their country". The FN won 8.7% overall support in the 1985 cantonal elections, and over 30% in some areas.
For the 1986 legislative elections the FN took advantage of a new proportional representation system that had been imposed by Mitterrand in order to moderate a foreseeable defeat for his PS. In the election, the FN won 9.8% of the vote and 35 seats in the National Assembly. Many of its seats could be filled by a new wave of respectable political operatives, "notables", who had joined the party after its 1984 success. The RPR won a majority with smaller centre-right parties, and thus avoided the need to deal with the FN. Although it was unable to exercise any real political influence, the party could project an image of political legitimacy. Several of its legislative proposals were extremely controversial and had a socially reactionary and xenophobic character, among them attempts to restore the death penalty, expel foreigners who "proportionally committed more crimes than the French", restrict naturalisation, introduce a "national preference" for employment, impose taxes on the hiring of foreigners by French companies, and privatise Agence France-Presse. The party's time in the National Assembly effectively came to an end when Jacques Chirac reinstated the two-round system of majority voting for the next election. In the regional elections held on the same day, it won 137 seats, and gained representation in 21 of the 22 French regional councils. The RPR depended on FN support to win presidencies in some regional councils, and the FN won vice-presidential posts in four regions.
Consolidation (1988–1997).
Le Pen's campaign for the upcoming presidential election unofficially began in the months following the 1986 election. To promote his statesmanship credentials, he made trips to South East Asia, the United States, and Africa. The management of the formal campaign, launched in April 1987, was entrusted to Bruno Mégret, one of the new "notables". With his entourage, Le Pen traversed France for the entire period and, helped by Mégret, employed an American-style campaign. Le Pen's presidential campaign was highly successful; no candidates came close to rival his ability to excite audiences at rallies and boost ratings at television appearances. Using a populist tone, Le Pen presented himself as the representative of the people against the "gang of four" (RPR, UDF, PS, Communist Party), while the central theme of his campaign was "national preference". In the 1988 presidential election, Le Pen won an unprecedented 14.4% of the vote, and double the votes from 1984.
The FN was hurt in the snap 1988 legislative elections by the return two-ballot majority voting, by the limited campaign period, and by the departure of many "notables". In the election the party retained its 9.8% support from the previous legislative election, but was reduced to a single seat in the National Assembly. Following some anti-Semitic comments made by Le Pen and the FN newspaper "National Hebdo" in the late 1980s, some valuable FN politicians left the party. Other quarrels soon also left the party without its remaining member of the National Assembly. In November 1988, general secretary Jean-Pierre Stirbois, who, together with his wife Marie-France, had been instrumental in the FN's early electoral successes, died in a car accident, leaving Bruno Mégret as the unrivalled "de facto" FN deputy leader. The FN only got 5% in the 1988 cantonal elections, while the RPR announced it would reject any alliance with the FN, now including at local level. In the 1989 European elections, the FN held on to its ten seats as it won 11.7% of the vote.
In the wake of FN electoral success, the immigration debate, growing concerns over Islamic fundamentalism, and the "fatwa" against Salman Rushdie by Ayatollah Khomeini, the 1989 "affaire du foulard" was the first major test of the relations between the values of the French Republic and Islam. Following the event, surveys found that French public opinion was largely negative towards Islam. In a 1989 legislative by-election in Dreux, FN candidate Marie-France Stirbois, campaigning on an anti-Islamism platform, returned a symbolic FN presence to the National Assembly. By the early 1990s, some mainstream politicians began employing anti-immigration rhetoric. In the first round of the 1993 legislative elections the FN soared to 12.7% of the overall vote, but did not win a single seat due to the nature of the electoral system (if the election had used proportional representation, it would have won 64 seats). In the 1995 presidential election, Le Pen rose slightly to 15% of the vote.
The FN won an absolute majority (and thus the mayorship) in three cities in the 1995 municipal elections: Toulon, Marignane, and Orange. (It had won a mayorship only once before, in the small town of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard in 1989.) Le Pen then declared that his party would implement its "national preference" policy, with the risk of provoking the central government and being at odds with the laws of the Republic. The FN pursued interventionist policies with regards to the new cultural complexion of their towns by directly influencing artistic events, cinema schedules, and library holdings, as well as cutting or halting subsidies for multicultural associations. The party won Vitrolles, its fourth town, in a 1997 by-election, where similar policies were pursued. Vitrolles' new mayor (who ran in place of her husband Bruno) went further in one significant measure, introducing a special 5,000-franc allowance for babies born to at least one parent of French (or EU) nationality. The measure was ruled illegal by a court, also giving her a suspended prison sentence, a fine, and a two-year ban from public office.
Turmoil and split of the MNR (1997–2002).
In the 1997 legislative elections the FN polled its best-ever result with 15.3% support in metropolitan France, confirming its position as the third most important political force in France. It also showed that the party had become established enough to compete without its leader, who decided not to run to focus on the 2002 presidential election. Although it won only one seat in the National Assembly (Toulon), thanks to a good communication director, it advanced to the second round in 132 constituencies. The FN was arguably more influential now than it had been in 1986 with its 35 seats. While Bruno Mégret and Bruno Gollnisch, in an unusual display of dissent, favoured tactical cooperation with a weakened centre-right following the left's victory, Le Pen rejected any such compromise. In the tenth FN national congress in 1997, Mégret stepped up his position in the party as its rising star and a potential leader following Le Pen. Le Pen however refused to designate Mégret as his successor-elect, and instead made his wife Jany the leader of the FN list for the upcoming European election.
Mégret and his faction left the FN in January 1999 and founded the National Republican Movement (MNR), effectively splitting the FN in half at most levels. Many of those who joined the new MNR had joined the FN in the mid-1980s, in part from the Nouvelle Droite, with a vision of building bridges to the parliamentary right. Many had also been particularly influential in intellectualising the FN's policies on immigration, identity and "national preference", and, following the split, Le Pen denounced them as "extremist" and "racist". Support for the parties was almost equal in the 1999 European election, as the FN polled its lowest national score since 1984 with just 5.7%, and the MNR won 3.3%. The effects of the split, and competition from more moderate nationalists, had left their combined support lower than the FN result in 1984.
Presidential run-off (2002).
For the 2002 presidential election, opinion polls had predicted a run-off between incumbent President Chirac and PS candidate Lionel Jospin. The shock was thus great when Le Pen unexpectedly outperformed Jospin (by 0.7%) in the first round, placing second and advancing to the runoff. This resulted in the first presidential run-off since 1969 without a leftist candidate and the first ever with a candidate of the far-right. To Le Pen's advantage, the election campaign had increasingly focused on law and order issues, helped by media attention on a number of violent incidents. Jospin had also been weakened due to the competition between an exceptional number of leftist parties. Nevertheless, Chirac did not even have to campaign in the second round, as widespread anti-Le Pen protests from the media and public opinion culminated on May Day, with an estimated 1.5 million demonstrators across France. Chirac also refused to debate with Le Pen, and the traditional televised debate was cancelled. In the end, Chirac won the presidential run-off with an unprecedented 82.2% of the vote and with 71% of his votes—according to polls—cast simply "to block Le Pen". Following the presidential election, the main centre-right parties merged to form the broad-based Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). The FN failed to hold on to Le Pen's support for the 2002 legislative elections, in which it got 11.3% of the vote. It nevertheless outpolled Mégret's MNR, which won a mere 1.1% support, even though it had fielded the same number of candidates.
Decline (2002–2011).
A new electoral system of two-round voting had been introduced for the 2004 regional elections, in part in an attempt to reduce the FN's influence in regional councils. The FN won 15.1% of the vote in metropolitan France, almost the same as in 1998, but its number of councillors was almost halved due to the new electoral system. For the 2004 European elections, too, a new system less favourable to the FN had been introduced. The party regained some of its strength from 1999, earning 9.8% of the vote and seven seats.
For the 2007 presidential election, Le Pen and Mégret agreed to join forces. Le Pen came fourth in the election with 11% of the vote, and the party won no seats in the legislative election of the same year. The party's 4.3% support was the lowest score since the 1981 election and only one candidate, Marine Le Pen in Pas de Calais, reached the runoff (where she was defeated by the Socialist incumbent). These electoral defeats partly accounted for the party's financial problems. Le Pen announced the sale of the FN headquarters in Saint-Cloud, "Le Paquebot", and of his personal armoured car. Twenty permanent employees of the FN were also dismissed in 2008. In the 2010 regional elections the FN appeared to have re-emerged on the political scene after surprisingly winning almost 12% of the overall vote and 118 seats.
Marine Le Pen's era.
Revival of the FN (2011–2012).
Jean-Marie Le Pen announced in September 2008 that he would retire as FN president in 2010. Le Pen's daughter Marine Le Pen and FN executive vice-president Bruno Gollnisch campaigned for the presidency to succeed Le Pen, with Marine's candidacy backed by her father. On 15 January 2011, it was announced that Marine Le Pen had received the two-thirds vote needed to become the new leader of the FN. She sought to transform the FN into a mainstream party by softening its xenophobic image. Opinion polls showed the party's popularity increase under Marine Le Pen, and in the 2011 cantonal elections the party won 15% of the overall vote (up from 4.5% in 2008). However, due to the French electoral system, the party only won 2 of the 2,026 seats up for election.
At the end of 2011, the National Front withdrew from the far-right Alliance of European National Movements and joined the more moderate European Alliance of Freedom. In October 2013, Bruno Gollnisch and Jean-Marie Le Pen resigned from their position in the AENM.
For the 2012 presidential election, opinion polls showed Marine Le Pen as a serious challenger, with a few polls even suggesting that she could win the first round of the election. In the event, Le Pen came third in the first round, scoring 17.9% – the best showing ever in a presidential election for the FN at that time.
In the 2012 legislative election, the National Front won two seats: Gilbert Collard and Marion Maréchal.
In two polls about presidential favourites in April and May 2013, Marine le Pen polled ahead of president François Hollande but behind Nicolas Sarkozy.
Electoral successes (2012–2017).
In the municipal elections held on 23 and 30 March 2014, lists officially supported by National Front won mayoralties in 12 cities: Beaucaire, Cogolin, Fréjus, Hayange, Hénin-Beaumont, Le Luc, Le Pontet, Mantes-la-Ville, the 7th arrondissement of Marseille, Villers-Cotterêts, Béziers and Camaret-sur-Aigues. While some of these cities were in southern France (like Fréjus) which traditionally votes more for right-wing parties than the rest of the country, others were located in northern France, where Socialist Party was strong until 2010s. Following the municipal elections, the National Front had, in cities of over 1,000 inhabitants, 1,546 and 459 councilors at two different levels of local government. The international media described the results as "historic", and "impressive", although the "International Business Times" suggested that "hopes for real political power remain a fantasy" for the National Front.
The National Front received 4,712,461 votes in the 2014 European Parliament election, finishing first with 24.86% of the vote and 24 of France's 74 seats. This was said to be "the first time the anti-immigrant, anti-EU party had won a nationwide election in its four-decade history." The party's success came as a shock in France and the EU.
Presidential and parliamentary election, rebranding (2017–present).
On 24 April 2017, a day after the first round of the presidential election, Marine Le Pen announced that she would temporarily step down as the party's leader in an attempt to unite voters. In the second round of voting, Le Pen was defeated 66.1% to 33.9% by her rival Emmanuel Macron of En Marche!
During the following parliamentary elections, the FN received 13.02% of the vote, which represented a disappointment compared to the 13.07% of the 2012 elections. The party appeared to have suffered from the demobilisation of its voters from the previous vote. However, 8 deputies were elected (6 FN and 2 affiliated), the best number for the FN in a parliamentary election using a majoritarian electoral system since its creation (proportional representation was used in the 1986 elections). Marine Le Pen was elected to the National Assembly for the first time, and Gilbert Collard was re-elected. Ludovic Pajot became the youngest member of the current French parliament at 23.
In late 2017, Florian Philippot split from FN and formed The Patriots, due to the FN weakening its position on leaving the EU and Euro.
At the conclusion of the party congress in Lille on 11 March 2018, Marine Le Pen proposed renaming the party to "Rassemblement national" (National Rally) while keeping the flame as its logo. The new name was put to a vote of party members. "Rassemblement national" had already been used as the name of a French party, the Rassemblement National Français, led by the radical right lawyer Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour. His presidential campaign in 1965 was managed by Jean-Marie Le Pen. The name had also been used by the FN previously, for . However, the name change faced opposition from an already-existing party named "Rassemblement national", whose president, Igor Kurek, described it as "Gaullist and republican right": the party had previously registered its name with the National Institute of Industrial Property in 2013. On 1 June, Le Pen announced that the name change was approved by party adherents with 80.81% in favour.
During that party congress, Steve Bannon, former advisor to Donald Trump before and after his election, gave what has been described as a "populist pep talk". Bannon advised the party members to "Let them call you racist, let them call you xenophobes, let them call you nativists. Wear it like a badge of honor. Because every day, we get stronger and they get weaker. ... History is on our side and will bring us victory." Bannon's remarks brought the members to their feet.
In January 2019, ex-Sarkozy minister Thierry Mariani and former conservative lawmaker Jean-Paul Garraud, left Les Republicains (LR), joining the National Rally.
During a 2021 debate Marine Le Pen was called "soft" on Islam by the Minister of the Interior in Macron's government, Gérald Darmanin. Marine Le Pen has also on numerous occasions called for a "national unity government" that would include people such as Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, former LR officials, and souverainistes on the left, such as former economy minister Arnaud Montebourg.
In the months before the 2021 French regional elections political commentators have noted a renewed moderation in the party to attract conservative voters, as well as a new image of the party as a force of "la Droite populaire" or the Social Right.
Political profile.
The party's ideology has been broadly described by scholars, including James Shields, Nonna Mayer, Jean-Yves Camus, Nicolas Lebourg and Michel Winock as nationalist, far-right (or Nouvelle droite) and populist. Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg, following Pierre-André Taguieff's analysis, include the party in an old French tradition of "national populism" that can be traced back to Boulangism. National populists combine the social values of the left and the political values of the right, and advocate a referendary republic that would bypass traditional political divisions and institutions. Aiming at a unity of the political (the "demos"), ethnic (the "ethnos") and social (the "working class") interpretations of the "people", they claim to defend the "average Frenchman" and "common sense", against the "betrayal of inevitably corrupt elites".
The FN has changed considerably since its foundation, as it has pursued the principles of modernisation and pragmatism, adapting to the changing political climate. At the same time, its message has increasingly influenced mainstream political parties, although the FN too has moved somewhat closer towards the centre-right.
Law and order.
In 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen campaigned on a law-and-order platform of zero tolerance, harsher sentencing, increased prison capacity, and a referendum on re-introducing the death penalty. In its 2001 programme, the party linked the breakdown of law and order to immigration, deeming immigration a "mortal threat to civil peace in France." Marine Le Pen rescinded the party's traditional support for the death penalty with her 2017 campaign launch, instead announcing support for imprisonment "in perpetuity" for the "worst crimes" in February 2017.
The party opposed the 2016 criminalisation of the use of prostitution in France, on the grounds that it would negatively affect the safety of sex workers.
Immigration.
Since its early years, the party has called for immigration to be reduced. The theme of exclusion of non-European immigrants was brought into the party in 1978 and became increasingly important in the 1980s.
Since the 1999 split, the FN has cultivated a more moderate image on immigration and Islam, no longer calling for the systematic repatriation of legal immigrants but still supporting the deportation of illegal, criminal or unemployed immigrants.
In recent years the party still opposes immigration, particularly Muslim immigration from Africa and the Middle East. Following the Arab Spring (2011) rebellions in several countries, Marine Le Pen has been campaigning on halting the migration of Tunisian and Libyan immigrants to Europe.
In November 2015, "Front National" stated as its goal to have a net legal immigration rate (immigrants minus emigrants) of 10,000 in France per year. Since 2017, that yearly net immigration rate was around 182,000 if one takes into account only people born abroad from non-French parents, but was around 44,000 if one includes also the departures and returns of French expatriates.
Islamism and Islamisation.
Representatives of "Front" "National" have repeatedly connected immigration to Islamic terrorism. In 2011, Marine Le Pen warned that wearing full face veils are "the tip of the iceberg" of Islamisation of French culture. In December 2018, Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit found links between National Rally and a group calling for the expulsion of all Muslims from Europe.
Economy.
At the end of the 1970s, Le Pen refurbished his party's appeal by breaking away from the anti-capitalist heritage of Poujadism. He instead made an unambiguous commitment to popular capitalism, and started espousing an extremely market liberal and anti-statist programme. Issues included lower taxes, reducing state intervention, reducing the size of the public sector, privatisation, and scaling back government bureaucracy. Some scholars have even considered that the FN's 1978 program may be regarded as "Reaganite before Reagan".
The party's economic policy shifted from the 1980s to the 1990s from neoliberalism to protectionism. This occurred within the framework of a changed international environment, from a battle between the Free World and Communism, to one between nationalism and globalisation. During the 1980s, Jean-Marie Le Pen complained about the rising number of "social parasites", and called for deregulation, tax cuts, and the phasing-out of the welfare state. As the party gained growing support from the economically vulnerable, it converted towards politics of social welfare and economic protectionism. This was part of its shift away from its former claim of being the "social, popular and national right" to its claim of being "neither right nor left – French!" Increasingly, the party's program became an amalgam of free market and welfarist policies, which some political commentators have claimed are left-wing economic policies.
Under her leadership, Marine Le Pen has been more clear in her support for protectionism, while she has criticised globalism and capitalism for certain industries. She has been characterised as a proponent of letting the government take care of health, education, transportation, banking and energy.
Feminism.
In the 2002 legislative elections, the first under the new gender parity provision in the French Constitution, Le Pen's National Front was among the few parties to come close to meeting the law, with 49% female candidates; Jospin's Socialists had 36%, and Chirac's UMP had 19.6%. Women voters in France were traditionally more attracted to mainstream conservative parties than the radical right until the 2000s. Marine Le Pen has successfully introduced a neo-populist shift in the defense of women, gays, and Jews against a "phallocratic, homophobic, and anti-Semitic Islam". The proportion of women in the party has risen to 39% by 2017.
Foreign policy.
From the 1980s to the 1990s, the party's policy shifted from favouring the European Union to turning against it. In 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen campaigned on pulling France out of the EU and re-introducing the franc as the country's national currency. In the early 2000s the party denounced the Schengen, Maastricht, and Amsterdam treaties as foundations for "a supranational entity spelling the end of France." In 2004, the party criticised the EU as "the last stage on the road to world government", likening it to a "puppet of the New World Order." It also proposed breaking all institutional ties back to the Treaty of Rome, while it returned to supporting a common European currency to rival the United States dollar. Further, it rejected the possible accession of Turkey to the EU. The FN was also one of several parties that backed France's 2005 rejection of the Treaty for a European Constitution. In other issues, Le Pen opposed the invasions of Iraq, led by the United States, both in the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 Iraq War. He visited Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in 1990, and subsequently considered him a friend.
Marine Le Pen advocated France leaving the euro (along with Spain, Greece and Portugal) - although that policy has been dropped in 2019. She also wants to reintroduce customs borders and has campaigned against allowing dual citizenship. During both the 2010–2011 Ivorian crisis and the 2011 Libyan civil war, she opposed the French military involvements. She has recast the party's support for Israel, after affirming Israel's right to secure itself from terrorism, and criticising the leadership of Iran.
Russia and Ukraine.
Marine Le Pen described Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "defender of the Christian heritage of European civilisation." The National Front considers that Ukraine has been subjugated by the United States, through the Ukrainian crisis. The National Front denounces anti-Russian feelings in Eastern Europe and the submission of Western Europe to "Washington's" interests in the region. Marine Le Pen is very critical against the threats of sanctions directed by the international community against Russia: "European countries should seek a solution through diplomacy rather than making threats that could lead to an escalation." She argues that the United States is leading a new Cold War against Russia. She sees no other solution for peace in Ukraine than to organise a kind of federation that would allow each region to have a large degree of autonomy. She thinks Ukraine should be sovereign and free as any other nation.
Luke Harding wrote in "The Guardian" that the National Front's MEPs were a "pro-Russian bloc." In 2014, the "Nouvel Observateur" said that the Russian government considered the National Front "capable of seizing power in France and changing the course of European history in Moscow's favour." According to the French media, party leaders had frequent contact with Russian ambassador Alexander Orlov and Marine Le Pen made multiple trips to Moscow. In May 2015, one of her advisers, Emmanuel Leroy, attended an event in Donetsk marking the "independence" of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic.
European Union.
Since their entry into the European Parliament in 1979, the National Rally has promoted a message of being pro-Europe, but anti-EU. However, in 2019 the proposal that France leave the Eurozone and the EU was removed from the party's manifesto, which has since called for "reform from within" the union.
NATO.
The party's stance on NATO has varied throughout the years, under Jean-Marie Le Pen's leadership the party advocated for a complete withdrawal from the organization, while under Marine Le Pen's leadership the party has softened its stance to instead advocate leaving NATO's integrated military command structure, which France joined in 2009.
Electoral reform.
The National Rally has advocated for full proportional representation in France, claiming that the current two-round system disenfranchises voters. In early 2021, Marine Le Pen, alongside with centrist politician François Bayrou and green politician Julien Bayou, cosigned a letter asking President Emmanuel Macron to implement proportional representation for future elections.
Controversies.
View on Nazi history and relations with Jewish groups.
There has been a difference between Marine Le Pen's and her father's views concerning the Holocaust and Jews. In 2005, Jean-Marie Le Pen wrote in the far-right weekly magazine "Rivarol" that the German occupation of France "was not particularly inhumane, even if there were a few blunders, inevitable in a country of 640,000 square kilometres (250,000 sq. mi.)" and in 1987 referred to the Nazi gas chambers as "a point of detail of the history of the Second World War". He has repeated the latter claim several times. In 2004, Bruno Gollnisch said, "I do not question the existence of concentration camps but historians could discuss the number of deaths. As to the existence of gas chambers, it is up to historians to determine" ("de se déterminer"). Jean-Marie Le Pen was fined for these remarks, but Gollnisch was found not guilty by the Court of Cassation. The current leader of the party, Marine Le Pen, distanced herself for a time from the party machine in protest at her father's comments. In response to her father's remarks Marine Le Pen referred to the Holocaust as the "abomination of abominations".
During the 2012 presidential election, Marine Le Pen sought the support of Jewish people in France. Interviewed by the Israeli daily newspaper "Haaretz" about the fact that some of her European senior colleagues had formed alliances with, and visited, some Israeli settlers and groups, Marine Le Pen said: "The shared concern about radical Islam explains the relationship ... but it is possible that behind it is also the need of the visitors from Europe to change their image in their countries ... As far as their partners in Israel are concerned, I myself don't understand the idea of continuing to develop the settlements. I consider it a political mistake and would like to make it clear in this context that we must have the right to criticise the policy of the State of Israel – just as we are allowed to criticise any sovereign country – without it being considered anti-Semitism. After all, the National Front has always been Zionistic and always defended Israel's right to exist". She has opposed the emigration of French Jews to Israel in response to radical Islam, explaining: "The Jews of France are Frenchmen, they're at home here, and they must stay here and not emigrate. The country is obligated to provide solutions against the development of radical Islam in problematic areas".
Czecho-Russian bank loan.
In November 2014, Marine Le Pen confirmed that the party had received a €9 million loan from the First Czech Russian Bank (FCRB) in Moscow to the National Front. Senior FN officials from the party's political bureau informed Mediapart that this was the first instalment of a €40 million loan, although Marine Le Pen has disputed this. "The Independent" said the loans "take Moscow's attempt to influence the internal politics of the EU to a new level." Reinhard Bütikofer stated, "It's remarkable that a political party from the motherland of freedom can be funded by Putin's sphere—the largest European enemy of freedom." Marine Le Pen argued that it was not a donation from the Russian government but a loan from a private Russian bank because no other bank would give her a loan. This loan is meant to prepare future electoral campaigns and to be repaid progressively. Marine Le Pen has publicly disclosed all the rejection letters that French banks have sent to her concerning her loan requests. Since November 2014, she insists that if a French bank agrees to give her a loan, she would break her contract with the FCBR, but she has not received any other counter-propositions. Le Pen accused the banks of collusion with the current government. In April 2015, a Russian hacker group published texts and emails between Timur Prokopenko, a member of Putin's administration, and Konstantin Rykov, a former Duma deputy with ties to France, discussing Russian financial support to the National Front in exchange for its support of Russia's annexation of Crimea.
Links with the far-right.
An undercover investigation by Al Jazeera uncovered links between high-ranking National Rally figures and Generation Identity, a far-right group. In secretly taped conversations, National Rally leaders endorsed goals of Generation Identity and discussed plans to "remigrate" immigrants, effectively sending them back to their countries of origin, if National Rally came to power. Christelle Lechevalier, a National Rally Member of the European Parliament (MEP), said many National Rally leaders held similar views as the GI, but sought to hide them from voters.
International relations.
The FN has been part of several groups in the European Parliament. The first group it helped co-establish was the European Right after the 1984 election, which also consisted of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), its early inspiration, and the Greek National Political Union. Following the 1989 election, it teamed up with the German Republicans and the Belgian Vlaams Blok in a new European Right group, while the MSI left due to the Germans' arrival. As the MSI evolved into the National Alliance, it chose to distance itself from the FN. From 1999 to 2001, the FN was a member of the Technical Group of Independents. In 2007, it was part of the short-lived Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty group. Between the mentioned groups, the party sat among the non-affiliated Non-Inscrits. It is part of the Identity and Democracy group, which also includes the Freedom Party of Austria, Italian Northern League, Vlaams Belang, the Alternative for Germany, the Czech Freedom and Direct Democracy, the Dutch Freedom Party, the Conservative People's Party of Estonia, the Finns Party, and the Danish People's Party.
It was formerly known as the Europe of Nations and Freedom group, during which time it also included the Polish Congress of the New Right, a former member of the UK Independence Party and a former member of Romania's Conservative Party. They have also been part of the Identity and Democracy Party (formerly the Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom) since 2014, which additionally includes Slovakia's We Are Family and the Bulgarian Volya Movement.
During Jean-Marie Le Pen's presidency, the party has also been active in establishing extra-parliamentary confederations. During the FN's 1997 national congress, the FN established the loose Euronat group, which consisted of a variety of European right-wing parties. Having failed to cooperate in the European Parliament, Le Pen sought in the mid-1990s to initiate contacts with other far-right parties, including from non-EU countries. The FN drew most support in Central and Eastern Europe, and Le Pen visited the Turkish Welfare Party. The significant Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) refused to join the efforts, as Jörg Haider sought to distance himself from Le Pen, and later attempted to build a separate group. In 2009, the FN joined the Alliance of European National Movements; it left the alliance since. Along with some other European parties, the FN in 2010 visited Japan's "Issuikai" ("right-wing") movement and the Yasukuni Shrine.
At a conference in 2011, the two new leaders of the FN and the FPÖ, Marine Le Pen and Heinz-Christian Strache, announced deeper cooperation between their parties. Pursuing her de-demonisation policy, in October 2011, Marine Le Pen, as new president of the National Front, joined the European Alliance for Freedom (EAF). The EAF is a pan-European sovereigntist platform founded late 2010 that is recognised by the European Parliament. The EAF has individual members linked to the Austrian Freedom Party of Heinz-Christian Strache, the UK Independence Party, and other movements such as the Sweden Democrats, Vlaams Belang (Belgian Flanders), Germany (Bürger in Wut), and Slovakia (Slovak National Party).
During her visit to the United States, Marine Le Pen met two Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives associated with the Tea Party movement, Joe Walsh, who is known for his strong stance against Islam, which Domenic Powell argues, rises to Islamophobia and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul, whom Le Pen complimented for his stance on the gold standard. In February 2017, two more conservative Republican Congressmen, Steve King and Dana Rohrabacher, also met with Le Pen in Paris. The party also has ties to Steve Bannon, who served as White House Chief Strategist under President Donald Trump.
In 2017, Marine Le Pen met with and was interviewed for the British radio station LBC by former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, who had previously been critical of the FN. Apart from the party's membership in the Identity and Democracy parliamentary group and the Identity and Democracy Party, the RN also has contacts with Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy, Krasimir Karakachanov's IMRO – Bulgarian National Movement, and Santiago Abascal's Vox in Spain.
In 2019, RN MEPs participated in the first international delegation to visit India's Jammu and Kashmir following the decision by Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party government to revoke the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. The delegation was not sanctioned by the European Parliament, and consisted mostly of right-wing populist politicians including MEPs from Vox, Alternative for Germany, the Northern League, Vlaams Belang, the British Brexit Party, and Poland's Law and Justice party.
Leadership.
The current executive bureau features: Marine Le Pen (president), Steeve Briois (vice-president), Jordan Bardella (vice-president), Wallerand de Saint-Just (treasurer), Sébastien Chenu (spokesperson), Jean-François Jalkh (president of the litigation commission), Louis Aliot, Nicolas Bay, Bruno Bilde and David Rachline.
Vice Presidents.
The party had five vice presidents between July 2012 and March 2018 (against three previously).
In March 2018, the position of vice-president replaced that of General Secretary. It became a duo in June 2019:
General Secretaries.
The position of General Secretary was held between 1972 and 2018:
Elected representatives.
As of September 2020, National Rally has 6 MPs; Bruno Bilde, Sébastien Chenu, Myriane Houplain, Marine Le Pen, Nicolas Meizonnet, Catherine Pujol. They sit in the National Assembly as non-inscrits.
Election results.
The National Front was a marginal party in 1973, the first election it participated in, but the party made its breakthrough in the 1984 European Parliament election, where it won 11% of the vote and ten MEPs. Following this election, the party's support mostly ranged from around 10 to 15%, although it saw a drop to around 5% in some late 2000s elections. Since 2010, the party's support seems to have increased towards its former heights. The party managed to advance to the final round of the 2002 French presidential election, although it failed to attract much more support after the initial first round vote. In the late 2000s the party suffered decline in elections. Under Marine Le Pen's presidency the party has increased its vote share significantly. The National Front came first in a national election for the first time during the 2014 European elections, when it gained 24% of the vote. During the 2017 presidential election the party advanced to the second round of the election for the second time, and doubled the percentage it received in the 2002 presidential election, earning 34%. In the 2019 European elections the rebranded Nationaly Rally retained its spot as first party.


Prager Presse

The Prager Presse (Prague press) was a German newspaper published in the Czechoslovak Republic from March 1921 to 1939.
History.
The newspaper Prager Presse was founded by Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk with the aim of integrating the German-speaking minority, which at that time had a share of 22.5% of the population. Arne Laurin was editor from 1921 to 1938. His colleague in the feuilleton was (1887, Prague 1940, London) from 1921 to 1939.


Berengaria of Barcelona

Berengaria of Barcelona (1116 – January 15, 1149), called in Spanish Berenguela de Barcelona and also known as Berengaria of Provence, was Queen consort of Castile, León and Galicia. She was the daughter of Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, and Douce I, Countess of Provence.
On November 10/17, 1128 in Saldaña, Berengaria married Alfonso VII, King of Castile, León and Galicia.
Their children were:
According to a description, "She was a very beautiful and extremely graceful young girl who loved chastity and truth and all God-fearing people."
She died in Palencia, and was buried at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.
In fiction.
A parody version of queen Berengaria and king Alfonso is presented in the tragicomedy "La venganza de Don Mendo" by Pedro Muñoz Seca.
In its film version, Lina Canalejas played Berengaria.


Eva Herman

Eva Herman (born Eva Feldker 9 November 1958 in Emden, Lower Saxony) is a German author and former television presenter. She worked as a news presenter on the nationwide "Tagesschau" news programme from 1989 to 2006 and also presented various other television programmes for the Norddeutscher Rundfunk until 2007. In 2003, an opinion poll by TNS Emnid declared Herman to be "Germany's favourite presenter".
Starting in 2006, Herman authored multiple books that were critical of feminism and advocated for traditional female gender roles. Her books were met with widespread criticism and media scrutiny. In 2007, Herman was dismissed from her position as a news anchor at German national broadcaster ARD, after positively reviewing the family policies and gender roles of Nazi Germany.
Controversies.
In 2006 and 2007 Herman published two controversially received books regarding to her beliefs on gender roles and family policy.
Herman strongly believes in traditional gender roles. Her article "Die Emanzipation - ein Irrtum?" (Emancipation - a fallacy?) describes her opinions on why birth rates continuously drop in Germany: Herman believes the Feminist movement forces women out of their natural place in the traditional family. Her understanding of female emancipation is that it calls for women to become like men. She refers to working as a 'masculine' attribute, and warns that although women can pursue talents outside the home in moderation, working outside of the home for too long puts women at risk of becoming 'masculine beings', and thus less interested in starting families.
In 2007, during an event intended to promote her second book "Das Prinzip Arche Noah. Warum wir die Familie retten müssen.", Herman criticized the German student movement of 1968. She alleged that the movement specifically devalued traditionally female gender roles and spoke favorably about the image of motherhood, family values and community solidarity in Nazi Germany. On September 8th 2007, Herman was dismissed from her position at public TV broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk with immediate effect, after defending her statements to its program director Volker Herres.
In August 2015, Herman published a conspiracy theory that claimed the European migrant crisis was orchestrated by "powerful people in the finance sector" to eradicate the white, Christian population of Europe and claimed that the September 11 attacks were a hoax.
On April 20 2016, Herman was found guilty of evading €40,000 of income taxes in 2010. She was ordered to pay a reduced fine of €5,400, as she had already paid back her liabilities.
Publications.
Fiction
Non-fiction


Beata Kitsikis

Beata Kitsikis (; July 14, 1907, Heraklion, Cretan State - February 7, 1986, Athens), was a Greek feminist and a Communist fighter in the Greek Civil War at the end of the Second World War. She was born Merope Petychakis (). Her husband was Nicolas Kitsikis and her son was Dimitri Kitsikis. She also had two daughters, both University professors, Beata Maria Kitsikis Panagopoulos, an American citizen, and , a Swiss citizen.
Life.
Her father, Emmanuel Petychakis (1842-1915) originated from a famous Cretan family from the cities of Heraklion and Rethymno. He was born in Heraklion and settled in Cairo as a businessman. He married in Egypt Corinna, daughter of a Greek-Italian count from Trieste, conte d'Antonio (David Antoniadis). Emmanuel died in Heraklion in 1915 and his widow, Corinna, 19 years younger than him, lived in Heraklion with the most famous lawyer of the city, Aristidis Stergiadis, 1861-1949, of the same age as her, who was sent to Smyrna by the Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos as the high commissioner of the Greek Occupation of Smyrna, in 1919-1922.
In 1921, Nicolas Kitsikis,(1887-1978) the civil engineer and professor at the Polytechnic University of Athens, was building the new harbor of Heraklion and there he met with the then 14-year-old Beata who he took back to Athens and married her in 1923. Their son Dimitri was born in 1935.
Beata never adapted to the high society of Athens in which Nicolas belonged and revolted against what she considered a useless oligarchy. During the war of Greece against the Italian invasion of Albania, in 1940-1941, she volunteered as a nurse in the military hospitals in Athens, crowded with the injured soldiers brought back from the Albanian front. During the German Occupation of Greece (1941-1944) she joined the Resistance Movement National Liberation Front (Greece) EAM (Εθνικό Απελευθερωτικό Μέτωπο) as well as the Communist Party of Greece, the KKE. By the time Athens was liberated she had joined the communist militia OPLA (Organization for the Protection of the People's Struggle).
Beata's trial.
On April 9, 1948, in the middle of the Civil War, a military tribunal in Athens undertook to judge accusations against Beata for espionage in favor of the outlawed Greek Communist Party, while her husband was still the President of the Greek-Soviet Association. Her courageous stand during the lawsuit impressed public opinion who started calling her the Greek Pasionaria. Her son Dimitri was sent to a boarding school in Paris, by Octave Merlier, the head of the French Institute in Athens, because his mother had been condemned to death as a communist fighter.
She was tortured but she never agreed to sign the usual declaration of repentance condemning communism. On May 1, 1948, Christos Ladas, the Minister of Justice who had signed her death penalty, was assassinated by a member of the OPLA militia and the newspapers accused Beata of having ordered the minister's murder from inside her prison. Nevertheless, because of the influence her husband Nicolas Kitsikis still enjoyed in the upper circles of Greek society her execution did not take place and she was released from prison at the end of 1951, after the civil war was over.
Her son Dimitri married his British wife Anne Hubbard, the daughter of a chief justice, in Scotland in 1955,
Beata brings People's China to Greece.
In 1955, Nicolas Kitsikis had talks with representatives of Beijing in Stockholm. The Chinese asked him to put up a Greek-Chinese Association in Athens at a time when only Taiwan was recognized by the Greek Government as representing China. Nicolas Kitsikis answered he would ask his wife Beata to do the job. At that time China was totally unknown to the Greek people. Beata immediately organized what was considered the greatest success of Chinese presence in the whole of Europe at the time. Since then, she travelled regularly to China where she became closely acquainted with Chinese leaders Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping.
At the outburst of the Greek Colonels Coup of April 21, 1967, she flew to Switzerland with a false Swiss passport and then to Paris. After the fall of the junta in 1974, she came back to Greece. Her husband died in 1978, and she died on 7 February 1986, after a long-life struggle with tuberculosis contracted in 1940, when serving as a nurse in military hospitals. She was honored by the Communist Party of Greece.
See also.
China-Greece relations