Musk being escorted by political histeric Ben Shapiro, visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in January 22, 2024! Is not quite enough to asuage the French prosecutors of Musks…
Elon Musk posts frenetically on X. In recent days, he’s shared his opinion on universal basic income, South African politics, a local election in Nevada and progressivism. But will he be in Paris on Monday, April 20? He has not said, but it seems unlikely.
He has been summoned by the head of France’s cybercrime unit for a voluntary interview as part of a preliminary investigation launched in January 2025 into the social platform he leads. Around 10 executives from the American company, including former CEO Linda Yaccarino, were also summoned.
The probe, which began after reports from a French MP and a senior figure at a public cybersecurity body, initially focused on two possible violations: the alleged deliberate manipulation of the algorithm to influence French public debate, and the potential unlawful use of sensitive users’ personal data for targeted advertising.
‘Deliberate’ maneuver
After the investigation was handed over to the national cyber unit at the start of the summer, it escalated in November. Prosecutors uncovered numerous antisemitic and Holocaust-denying messages generated by Grok, X’s artificial intelligence, and expanded their investigation to include the crime of contesting crimes against humanity.
Investigators also noted both a change in the tool X uses to detect child sexual abuse material and an 80% drop in reports by the platform about such content in France. Suspecting a deliberate move, prosecutors added complicity in possessing and disseminating child sexual abuse images to their investigation.
In January 2026, after the scandal over Grok generating thousands of sexualized images of women and minors, the investigation broadened to include possible offenses relating to the representation of persons, with prosecutors arguing that the platform had deliberately delayed taking measures to limit the appearance and spread of these images. Finally, due to the “recurrence of X being used in the commission of various offenses,” prosecutors expanded their investigation to include “operating an illicit platform.”
Over the course of 15 months, judges and investigators received assistance from several AI experts as well as “material provided by various public institutions,” according to the prosecutors’ office. The cybercrime unit also asked X to provide its algorithm so it could understand what might constitute a deliberate intervention to promote certain problematic content. The platform refused.
‘Pressure’ tactics
Investigators worked in a tense atmosphere. X, which always denied any wrongdoing, condemned the probe as “politically-motivated criminal investigation.” On February 3, when investigators searched the company’s French offices, X denounced what it called a “staged raid [that] reinforces our conviction that this investigation distorts French law.”
At the end of March, after prosecutors filed a report concerning Musk over possible manipulation of his company’s valuation, the billionaire even called the judges investigating his platform “mentally retarded.”
Even though relations between Musk and the White House have cooled considerably, the possibility of retaliatory sanctions by the US government against the French judges looms over the investigation. Thierry Breton, one of the architects of Europe’s digital rules during his tenure as European commissioner for the internal market, was sanctioned by the US administration at the end of December 2025, and his case is very much on everyone’s mind.
Five months earlier, a US State Department official had described investigating judge Johannah Brousse as an “activist French prosecutor,” amid Washington’s all-out attacks on European digital law. Meanwhile, one of the two original whistleblowers behind the investigation, MP Eric Bothorel, was removed from the list of participants in a parliamentary visit to the White House in February 2026.
Moreover, prosecutors said they were investigating several users who used X and Grok to spread Holocaust-denying or antisemitic content, but that X refused to provide information that would have made it possible to identify them – information that “had until now been provided in the vast majority of cases.”
Forcing a compromise
By going after Musk, prosecutors are taking a twofold gamble. In February, they presented their search of X’s premises as a “constructive approach, with the aim of ensuring, ultimately, that the X platform complies with French law” and the voluntary interviews as a way “to present (…) the compliance measures under consideration.”
The idea is to force Musk into compromise, much like the showdown with Pavel Durov, the head of Telegram. Detained for questioning, held in police custody and charged, notably for ignoring court orders, the Russian-born French national subsequently began responding to investigators’ requests. But since Musk hasn’t adopted any “compliance measures” since the investigation began, the outcome of the standoff with the American billionaire is less clear.
From a legal standpoint, prosecutors are also treading new ground. They suspect, among other things, that Musk has manipulated his social network’s algorithm and is therefore prosecuting him for “falsifying the operation” of an information system.
These three words from the French penal code have never been used since their introduction in 1988. It’s an “untapped resource” and yet a promising one, according to a February 2025 analysis by law professor Michel Séjean, which was read carefully on the 26th floor of the Palace of Justice. This application of the law is a subject of debate among legal experts, but seems to be supported by two recent rulings of Cour de Cassation, the highest appeals court in criminal cases.
If Musk fails to appear for his summons, prosecutors will have several options, including initiating a legal investigation and seeking an international arrest warrant.
Editor: Since Musk is now an American Citizen, and considering that the European Union is now political captive of the Anti-Semitism Hystetia, nurthered by Mass Murder Benjamin Netanyahu, and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen is under political attack, as that political myth nurtured by the long dead Jean Monnet, as presented by Francois Duchene has exhausted that Mythology! How can it escape the reader’s attention of Musk being escorted by political histeric Ben Shapiro visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in January 22, 2024?
Editor: Not to forget: ‘The Rotten Heart of Europe’ of Bernard Connolly as proof that the EU is a toxic political delusion!
Arno Tausch (1998) The Rotten Heart of Europe? A technical note on EMU and the rise of world-wide narco-capitalism Foreword to the reprint of a book chapter from the work: Globalization and European Integration. There were many critics of European Monetary Union in the 1990s. The quantitative world systems scholar Arno Tausch, from Innsbruck University, in an electronic book, published in 1998 by the World Systems Archive of the University of California, Riverside predicted with many others that the Eurozone will disintegrate. As the analyst Christopher M. Quigley recently reminded his audience (http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article19081.html) recent and unfolding events in Greece were foretold by the former European Union economist Bernard Connolly in his classic book “The Rotten Heart of Europe.” [Bernard Connolly: The Rotten Heart of Europe’: The Dirty War for Europe’s Money’. Faber & Faber. London.1996. ISB) 057117521X] Tausch in his politometric essay refers precisely to this title. Connolly had to quit his job at the Commission for publishing a very critical book about the ERM (Exchange Rate Mechanism), the forerunner of the Euro. Let us quote just two passages from the Connolly book.
“As we shall see, in France the long arm of the authoritarian state has pressurized dissident economists and bankers, deployed financial information programmes on international TV channels, threatened securities houses with loss of business if they questioned the official economic line, and shamelessly used state-owned and even private-sector banks, in complete contradiction with their shareholder’s interests and Community law, to support official policy. ………. The economic profession in Europe organized literally hundreds of conferences, seminars and colloquia to which only conformist speakers were invited; and the Commission’s “research” programmes financed large numbers of economic studies to provide the right results from known believers.” Connolly also said at the time: “My central thesis is that the ERM and the EMU (European Monetary Union, the mechanism with ultimately brought the Euro into technical existence) are not only inefficient but also undemocratic: a danger not only to our wealth but to our freedom and ultimately, our peace.”
Christopher M. Quigley is right in insisting that under the current Euro regime we have stable exchange rates between the Euro countries but there is no harmony between the disparate economies that make up Euroland. The Euro is not a “currency” as such but in actual fact is an exchange rate mechanism only. The Euro is allowing cheap German goods flood Europe and explains why it has 200-300 billion Euros of trade surpluses with its economic partners. “In a survey last week over 80% of Greeks said they wanted to exit the Euro but this voice is not being reported in much the same fashion that Connolly’s concerns were silenced by elite bankers and politicos. However, in 1995 when the Euro mechanism was being set up the world was less connected. Today we have international hedge funds connected through Cray computers ready to “play” the markets. As soon as traders realize the Euro is a one way bet they will opt to profitably destroy the exchange mechanism because of its exposed failings. The Emperor has been seen to have no cloths. As sure as night follows day they are going to reap their reward. They will seek to emulate George Soros when he reaped his one billion sterling paycheck on the 16th. September 1992 (“Black Friday”). It was that day the bank of England lost 3.4 billion sterling in one single 24 hour period, defending a flawed exchange link to Euroland. It is my suspicion that Germany sees this as a very real scenario and does not desire to waste its hard won foreign reserves on a “)orman Lamont” (The “Black Friday” chancellor of the British exchequer) type endgame.” [Christopher M. Quigley, http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article19081.html%5D
Quigley proposes that the “PIIGS”: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain, should form a league for the purpose of national economic restructure. This league should negotiate an exit from the Euro and allowing their currencies to “float” once more. This will immediately allow their economies to become competitive again without widespread deflation. Most importantly all Euro loans must be devalued based on a new negotiated exchange conversion, as per the Argentinean model. Bernard Connolly lost his job at the Commission; the European Court of Justice states in his final judgement (JUDGMENT OF THE COURT, 6 March 2001):
4 By letter of 18 August 1995, Mr Connolly applied to be reinstated in the Commission service at the end of his leave on personal grounds. The Commission, by decision of 27 September 1995, granted that request and reinstated him in his post with effect from 4 October 1995.
5 Whilst on leave on personal grounds, Mr Connolly published a book entitled The Rotten Heart of Europe – The Dirty War for Europe’s Money without requesting prior permission under the second paragraph of Article 17 of the Staff Regulations.
6 Early in September, and more specifically between 4 and 10 September 1995, a series of articles concerning the book was published in the European and, in particular, the British press.
7 By letter of 6 September 1995, the Director-General for Personnel and Administration, in his capacity as appointing authority … informed the applicant of his decision to initiate disciplinary proceedings against him for infringement of Articles 11, 12 and 17 of the Staff Regulations and, in accordance with Article 87 of those regulations, invited him to a preliminary hearing.
8 The first hearing was held on 12 September 1995. The applicant then submitted a written statement indicating that he would not answer any questions unless he was informed in advance of the specific breaches he was alleged to have committed.
9 By letter of 13 September, the appointing authority again invited the applicant to attend a hearing, in accordance with Article 87 of the Staff Regulations, and informed him that the allegations of misconduct followed publication of his book, serialisation of extracts from it in The Times newspaper, as well as the statements he made in an interview published by that newspaper, without having obtained prior permission.
Leaving the question of intellectual freedom aside, Tausch shows in his e-book, 1998 by quantitative means that the dire predictions voiced by Connolly, Freedman, Rothschild and so many others are true. He states sarcastically: “The above mentioned positive redistribution effect on a European scale between the )orth and the South (and later on, between the West and the East) could be endangered by the long-term effects of EMU. The proponents of EMU maintained all along, that it will be engine of political and economic unification on the continent. We fear that the long-term effect of the project will be an increasing nationalism and a cultural conflict along the old cultural frontier, the Limes, between the Latin and the Germanic Europe, between the wine and the beer culture, between the olive oil consumers and the sausage eaters. An increasing number of scholars propose an alternative course of action that stresses the political and social cohesion in Europe as the main pillars of a true European Monetary Union (Rothschild, 1997). There is the danger, that Euromonetarism will accelerate the tendency of the world system on its path towards financial speculation, narco-capitalism, and the shifting of resources away from the Atlantic region towards the Pacific. On the other hand, it is evident that Europe’s long-term ascent from the Long 16th Century onwards from the state of a former periphery of the world system to a center (Arrighi, 1995; Amin, 1975), which was based on agrarian reform and mass demand, is now threatening to be reversed by the application of monetary orthodoxy.”
Headline : How the tech lobby made secrecy part of EU law on data centers
Sub-headline” Microsoft and the tech industry lobby secured a provision from the EU to keep environmental data about the massive data centers they operate in Europe confidential, according to an investigation by the Investigate Europe consortium, in collaboration with Le Monde.
Microsoft and DigitalEurope, a Brussels-based lobbying group for the information technology industry whose members include tech giants including Amazon, Google and Meta, have obtained the introduction of a confidentiality clause in European regulations on data centers. The clause blocks public access to specific information regarding their environmental impact.
The European Union sought to regulate the sector by adopting a revision of its Energy Efficiency Directive in 2023. The reform required operators of sites whose electrical connection exceeds 500 kilowatts to submit a certain number of indicators: energy consumption, water usage, energy efficiency, and technical performance data.
The European Commission was then tasked with taking what were described as technical measures to establish “a common Union scheme for rating the sustainability of data centers located in its territory.” In a draft regulation made public in December 2023 and submitted for consultation, it initially proposed that the information provided by operators be published “in aggregated form.”
At the start of 2024, Microsoft and DigitalEurope submitted comments requesting, in identical terms, that individual data for each site be classified as confidential, citing commercial interest. When the final version of the regulation was published in March 2024, the European Commission adopted this wording almost verbatim, so the detailed, site-by-site data became secret.
Article 5, as finally adopted, states that “the Commission and Member States concerned keep confidential all information and key performance indicators for individual data centers.” In practice, only national aggregate statistics are made public.
Member states were also encouraged to reject requests from the media or the public for access to this information. In an email sent at the beginning of 2025 and not previously made public, a senior Commission figure stressed to national authorities that they were “obliged to keep confidential all information and key performance indicators for individual data centers.”
A questionable legal basis
According to several law experts, this provision could violate European transparency rules as well as the EU’s obligations under the Aarhus Convention, which guarantees public access to environmental information.
“In two decades, I cannot recall a comparable case,” said Jerzy Jendrośka, a former member of the convention’s oversight body. According to Jendrośka, “This clearly seems not to be in line with the convention.” Luc Lavrysen, honorary president of the Belgian Constitutional Court and an environmental law expert, believes it “is clearly in violation” of European transparency rules. Kristina Irion, associate professor in information law at the University of Amsterdam, offered a similar analysis, condemning a “sweeping presumption of confidentiality” in favor of private interests. In her view, the protection of trade secrets should be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
When approached for comment, the European Commission said that the principle of confidentiality had already been included in its initial proposals. A European official, who wished to remain anonymous, said they had received “many comments” during the consultation process: “We analyzed the feedback and adopted a text reflecting it, as per usual practice.”
Reached for comment, Microsoft said, “We support greater transparency around datacenters (…) while protecting confidential business information.”
DigitalEurope did not respond to our requests for comment. According to a source close to the matter, Brussels fears that publishing data center information site by site could prompt some operators to stop submitting their data, despite their legal obligations. Yet, according to the EU’s own figures, only 36% of eligible data centers – around 770 facilities – submitted their information for 2024. And only 80% of the data received was considered accurate and reliable.
Lobbying groups push for speeping up procedures
The issue is made even more sensitive by the sector’s extremely rapid growth. In Europe, €176 billion in investments are expected between 2026 and 2031, according to the European Data Centre Association (EUDCA). This expansion has fueled concerns about the electricity consumption of these facilities, their heavy use of water for cooling and their impact on local residents and ecosystems.
And that clause is far from being the only recent sign of the sector’s influence on European and French legislation concerning data centers. In December, the European Commission unveiled a bill aiming to speed up environmental impact assessments for major construction projects, including many of the biggest data center projects. This piece of legislation is part of a broader push to reduce the administrative burden on businesses.
A document obtained by a freedom of information request shows Microsoft met with an EU official in late October to discuss the topic, with the company calling for capping deadlines.
In France, the simplification law, which Parliament finally passed on April 15 after a long legislative process, also introduced this principle into French law. Certain large-scale data centers can now be designated as projects of major national interest (PINM), a favorable status created by the 2023 green industry law. This will speed up procedures such as the authorization timelines needed to open a new site, the compatibility of urban planning documents or connecting to the power grid. That demand has been pushed by the sector since 2024, as shown by lobbying disclosures published on the website of the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP) by Google France and France Data Center. The French lobby, which includes Amazon and Microsoft among its members, said it “welcomes this outcome,” which, in their words, “will help attract as much international and domestic investment to France as possible.”
In early March 2026, a working group focused on digital issues as part of the national electrification plan, co-chaired by Michael Reffay, director general of France Data Center and former adviser on digital regulation and sovereignty to the French minister for digital affairs under Amélie de Montchalin, called for making it easier to connect data centers to the electricity grid. In January, Anne Le Hénanff, the French junior minister for artificial intelligence and digital affairs, brought together, one year after the AI Action Summit in Paris, the key players in the data center sector. Over the course of a morning, 80 participants, including Google France, Microsoft and Amazon, met at the Finance Ministry to discuss topics such as environmental challenges and electrical connections, according to the list of attendees.
Richardson’s goal is to be the most trusted economist in the country. He says trust in economics, politicians and the media is under pressure and making the job of economic reform harder.
“Everybody needs a sense of purpose, and mine is to explain what the hell is going on and help the national conversation,” he says.“You journalists are searching for understanding, and it’s a privilege to be asked to help.”
Richardson’s mother was a teacher and his father was an economist at Westpac, so I ask whether he is following in the footsteps of both.
“I’ve never thought of it like that, but that would make a lot of sense,” he says.
“I’ve always really admired teachers. They often get to see the moment where they make a difference, which is when the person they’re explaining something to finally gets it. That’s a moment of pure joy.”
He says a common phrase in the Richardson household is “to be fair”, one he got from his parents and passed on to his kids, and which is foundational to his economic thinking.
“You need to actively try to see the other side of an argument.”
Richardson flips a switch and becomes Mr Richardson (the teacher mode journalists are familiar with), explaining what he thinks are the two basic goals of any economy: prosperity and fairness.
“The underlying assumption is that the two are in competition, but they work hand in hand,” he says.
“If you can get the prosperity right, it’s easier to get the fairness right. In fact, a lot of the angst and the fights around the distribution of the pie come back to our failures on prosperity.
“The most prosperous countries are the fairest countries.”
We’re a short drive from where Richardson went to school at St Augustine’s College in Brookvale, where his love of economics and numbers began.
He went on to the University of Sydney, where he won the University Medal in economics in 1982, which he gave to his high school mathematics teacher, Mrs Binstead, as thanks.
‘Trial by jury in Britain is a cornerstone of the legal tradition, evolving over 800 years from the 12th-century reforms of Henry II and the 1215 Magna Carta. Originally, jurors were witnesses tasked with reporting local crimes, later shifting to impartial arbiters of fact. Today, it remains a cornerstone for serious criminal cases.’
Harry Farley,Political correspondentandSam Francis,Political reporter
Nearly 40 Labour MPs have warned the prime minister they are not prepared to support proposals to limit jury trials in England and Wales.
In a letter to Sir Keir Starmer, MPs largely from the left of the party said restricting juries to major offences carrying three-year terms was “madness and will cause more problems than it solves”.
Former shadow attorney general Karl Turner, who organised the letter, said he will vote against Labour for the first time since Sir Keir took charge, branding the plans “simply unworkable”.
The government insisted it would go ahead with the plans, adding they were needed to stop victims “waiting years for justice” amid unprecedented delays in the court system.
Sir Keir’s spokesman said latest official figures published on Friday detailing a record 79,619 backlog in crown court cases showed that “merely tinkering at the edges is simply not enough”.
Speaking earlier to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Turner said the changes were “unjust” and the “right to be heard before a tribunal of their own people” had “existed for something like 800 years”.
“It won’t work and I’m afraid the government are going to have to realise that and change their tune,” he said.
In the letter 39 MPs suggest a number of other ways to reduce the courts backlog, including increasing sitting days, hiring more barristers as part-time judges called Recorders and asking the Crown Prosecution Service to consider bringing some cases in the backlog on a lower charge.
While not enough to overturn the government’s 148 seat majority, the letter represents a step up in Labour opposition to the government’s plans.
Those who signed the letter include senior figures such as Diane Abbott, the former shadow home secretary who is currently suspended from Labour, leading member of the Tribune group of Labour Vicky Foxcroft and Dan Carden, who leads the Blue Labour group of backbenchers.
It scraps jury trials in England and Wales for crimes that carry a likely sentence of less than three years, removing the right for defendants to ask for a jury trial where a case can be dealt with by either magistrates or a new form of judge-only Crown Court.
Volunteer community magistrates, who deal with the majority of all criminal cases, will take on more work and new “swift courts” will be set up.
Lammy told MPs the new system would get cases dealt with a fifth faster than jury trials.
He added that it was necessary as current projections have Crown Court case loads reaching 100,000 by 2028.
This means that a suspect being charged with an offence today may not reach trial until 2030. Among the impacts of this are that six out of 10 victims of rape are said to be withdrawing from prosecutions because of delays.
The reforms are based on a review by former High-Court judge Sir Brian Leveson – which suggested ending jury trial for most crimes attracting sentences of up to five years and diverting offences to a new intermediate court called the Crown Court bench division.
In July of this year, Sir Brian said “fundamental” reforms were needed to “reduce the risk of total system collapse”. His proposals also included more out-of-court settlements like cautions.
There are around 1.3 million prosecutions in England and Wales every year, and 10% of those cases go before a Crown Court. Of those, three out of 10 result in trials.
Turner said that while Sir Brian was “eminent”, as a High Court judge he had not been in a criminal Crown Court for a long time.
“Speak to the men and women at the criminal bar they were there every single day of the week and they will identify the problem is not juries,” said Turner, a former criminal barrister.
Instead closed courts and late prisoner deliveries were behind the backlog, he said.
Speaking to broadcasters on Friday, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Labour ministers were “not being imaginative enough” on how to clear the backlog, arguing that courts should sit for longer hours instead.
“Scrapping jury trials is just one extra step that takes away freedoms and liberties. Judges don’t always get it right,” she added.
Editor: The final paradraphs of Stephens propganda: don’t name it a blitz, but a whimper of chatter box with zero experience of war: but was trained buy The Jerusalem Post! The reader grows weary, yet Stephens in the final paragraph reaches for the political shopworn as his flaccid denouement!
The principle is simple: Israel will get out of Lebanon the moment Iran gets out of Lebanon. Failing that, the United States should give Israel a green light to continue degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities until it can no longer initiate wars against Israel, as the group did in 2006, 2023 and again this year. If other states, particularly France as Lebanon’s former colonial power, object to this, they can always volunteer to send their own troops to enforce the U.N. Security Council resolution that Hezbollah has been violating for nearly 20 years.
Iran could get an end to both war and blockade, full relief from international sanctions, the resumption of diplomatic and commercial relations with the United States and every other benefit that Tehran used to enjoy before the Islamic revolution of 1979. In return, all that would be asked of Iran is to behave like a normal country: no efforts to support armed militias throughout the region, or harbor Qaeda leaders, or send hit squads to kill or kidnap enemies abroad, or declare “death to Israel” and “death to America” as foundational principles of the regime while trying to build nuclear weapons.
Does any of that sound outrageous? Of course not. The outrage is that the regime’s current leaders would almost certainly dismiss the proposal out of hand because ideological militancy, rather than fidelity to the interests of the Iranian people, is what has defined them for the past 47 years.
The moment an Iranian government, including the current one, accepts these terms, we’ll know that we are dealing with a fundamentally different regime. It would be statesmanlike of Trump to propose it — and wise of him to keep turning the screws on the regime’s leaders until they accept it.
After the searches, nearly a third of the algorithmically recommended content on the teenage users’ feeds was explicit, with some appearing to depict children and animals, CCDH said.
The accounts were also able to join adult sexual communities and received unsolicited explicit messages. A feature that restricted direct messages was easily turned off by the researchers.
StephenKMackSD's Blog 