Lunchtime News Monday October 19th 2020

Beheading-Increased security-French authorities are to step up security at schools and colleges in response to Friday’s barbaric decapitation of a teacher near Paris.

Samuel Pety was beheaded by an 18 year old radicalised Chechen refugee after he’d shown students a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad as part of a freedom of expression class.

French President Emmanuel Macron has ordered increased security measures at schools following a meeting of the National Defence Council.

Extra checks are to be made on suspected online radicalisation websites and programmes.

Thousands of French people took part in rallies and vigils around the country on Sunday as a mark of respect for Mr Pety who was 47.

Covid-19-France has recorded nearly 30,000 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours bringing the number of detected cases to 897,034 since the start of the pandemic.

85 people died from the virus on Sunday taking the death toll to 33,477.The positivity rate from testing stands at 13.2 percent.

9 French metropolitan areas are now subject to a curfew from 9pm until 6am affecting around 20 million people.

The entire country has been placed under a health state of emergency in a bid to bring  numbers of new cases down.

So far there is no curfew in force in the Alpes-Maritimes and the Var but there have been warnings from officials that new measures could be introduced if people don’t act more responsibly.

Extra checks-Police in Nice have been carrying out extra checks in the city to make sure that hygiene measures and social distancing are being observed.

A joint operation between municipal and national police officers has been carried out in several areas of Nice to make sure that people are wearing facemasks and that restaurants and shops are enforcing hygiene measures.

Several offences have been recorded but no fines have been issued yet as officers say their first objective is to remind people of the rules.

Repeat offenders can expect fines of 130 euros.

Accident-A motorcyclist has been seriously injured in a road accident on the D558 between Grimaud and La Garde Freinet.

A report in the Var Matin newspaper says that the motorcyclist lost control of his bike in slippery conditions.No other vehicle was involved.

The man suffered a heart attack as a result of the crash and has been airlifted to hospital.

President Gaffe ! – Donald Trump has mistakenly called President Macron “the Prime Minister of France” at a US election rally in Michagan.

The effective demotion of the French head of state came as Mr Trump turned his ire on the Paris Climate Change Accord on Sunday.

The American President said that he’d “stopped” the Accord adding that he liked “Prime Minister” Macron a lot but that “they’re not doing too good”.

He went on to say that he’d saved America trillions of dollars and that nobody else would have done it.

Mr Trump and Mr Macron have enjoyed a kind of ‘bromance’ since the two came to power but relations are said to have cooled somewhat in recent months.