France signed an agreement with a Palestinian terror group in the 1980s establishing that authorities would not arrest the organization's members as long as it refrained from committing attacks on French soil, a former top spy revealed this week.

This information, which the French government has denied, was recently revealed by former French spy chief Yves Bonnet and was first published in the newspaper Le Parisien.

Bonnet discussed the verbal agreement between Paris and the Abu Nidal organization struck during a secret meeting between French intelligence and the group. The agreement followed an attack by the organization at a deli in Paris's Jewish quarter. Six people were killed in that attack, in which the attackers threw grenades and shot at diners with machine guns.

Bonnet said that he had guaranteed safety for members of the group as long as they did not launch attacks on French soil, and that he was unconcerned with attacks by the group in Italy, according to Le Parisien. The newspaper also quoted Bonnet as saying that the Elysee officially knew nothing about the deal, but that then President Francois Mitterand's chief of staff was informed about it.

In France, the agreement paid off in the form of quiet for a few years, while the group continued to commit attacks in Italy, Austria, and Greece. The group eventually split up over internal disagreements. During its years of activity, hundreds of people were wounded or killed in dozens of countries in its attacks. Among the attacks were plane hijackings and shootings in a synagogue and in embassies. Its members attempts to assassin Israel's ambassador in London in 1982.

Bonnet's admission has led to calls for a thorough investigation of the matter, and into the possibility of similar agreements with other groups. </s> Families of the victims of a 1982 terrorist attack in Paris are demanding a parliamentary inquiry after reports that the former chief of French intelligence made a secret pact with the perpetrators.

They have called on President Emmanuel Macron to declassify the top-secret file of the attack, which killed six and injured 22 others.

At lunchtime on 9 August 1982 a masked and armed commando entered Jo Goldenberg’s restaurant in the rue des Rosiers, in Paris’s Jewish quarter. The terrorists threw a grenade into the room then began shooting at diners and staff with machine guns. They threw a second grenade as they left. The attack lasted three minutes and the terrorists vanished into the district’s labyrinth of streets.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chez Jo Goldenberg in Paris two days after gunmen shot at customers with sub-machine guns, killing six and injuring 22. Photograph: Joel Robine/AFP

Investigators linked the attack to Fatah: the Revolutionary Council, established by Sabri Khalil al-Banna, known as Abu Nidal, whose dissident Palestinian group had split from Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organisation. The Abu Nidal Organisation, as it was also known, was considered one of the most ruthless of the Palestinian militant groups. It was thought to be responsible for attacks in 20 countries which killed more than 300 people, including in Rome and Vienna airports in 1985.

On Friday, Le Parisien newspaper reported that the former head of France’s intelligence service Yves Bonnet had admitted negotiating a “secret deal” with the terrorist group. Now 83, Bonnet is said to have told investigators that he agreed the group’s members could continue travelling to France if they carried out no more attacks on French soil.

“We made a kind of verbal deal in which I said I don’t want any more attacks on French soil and in return I’ll let you come to France and I guarantee nothing will happen to you,” Bonnet reportedly said in an interview with investigating magistrates in January.

“And it worked. There were no further attacks between the end of 1983 and the end of 1985 … afterwards, they carried out attacks in Italy, for example, but that did not concern me as long as there was nothing on French soil.”

'Mastermind' of 1982 Jewish cafe attack in Paris arrested in Jordan Read more

Bonnet claimed the then French president François Mitterrand’s chief of staff was informed of the deal, but that “officially … the Élysée knew nothing”. Investigators, also kept in the dark over the deal, have asked to interview other members of the intelligence services who have refused to speak until now, claiming it was a matter of national security.

Yohann Taïeb, the president of the support committee representing victims’ families, said that, if confirmed, Bonnet’s admission was “shameful”. He called on Macron to “declassify documents and take decisions about eventual legal proceedings”.

Avi Bitton, a lawyer for the families, told Le Parisien: “We need a parliamentary inquiry not just on the rue des Rosiers attack but to establish if such secret pacts were sealed with other terrorist organisations.”

Lawyers representing the families have also demanded the extradition of four suspects currently in Jordan and Norway. </s> As Jews in France and around the world on Friday marked the 37th anniversary of a deadly terrorist attack on a kosher restaurant in Paris, one of the country’s news outlets revealed that the former chief of French intelligence entered into a secret pact with the Palestinian group behind the massacre.

Six people were murdered and 22 wounded on Aug. 9, 1982, when terrorists from the radical Abu Nidal Organization armed with machine guns opened fire on diners at “Chez Jo Goldenberg” on the rue des Rosiers during the restaurant’s busy lunchtime service. After exploding a grenade as they made their escape, the terrorists quickly disappeared into the streets of the Marais, the old Jewish quarter of Paris where the restaurant was located.

On Friday, the newspaper Le Parisien reported that the former head of French intelligence, Yves Bonnet, had admitted to making a secret pact with the terrorists, guaranteeing Abu Nidal operatives free movement within France in exchange for a promise of no further attacks on French soil.

According to Le Parisien, Bonnet made his confession in January this year to the magistrate in charge of investigating the Jo Goldenberg attack, for which no person has yet been convicted.

“We made a kind of verbal deal in which I said, ‘I don’t want any more attacks on French soil and in return I’ll let you come to France and I guarantee nothing will happen to you,’” the paper quoted Bonnet as having said.

The pact was allegedly reached during a clandestine meeting shortly after the attack between Bonnet and representatives of the Abu Nidal group — not the terrorists who executed the massacre, he claimed, but individuals he described as their “stooges.”

According to Bonnet, the pact “worked,” insofar as there were no attacks on French soil “from late ’83, ’84 and until the end of 1985,” he said. Among the concessions made during that time by the DST, the French intelligence service, was the permission for two Abu Nidal terrorists to visit one of their comrades in a French prison.

Le Parisien added that it had partially confirmed Bonnet’s claim of a pact with Abu Nidal with two former DST officials, Jean-François Clair and Louis Caprioli. The paper said it had been told by Clair that he did “not deny that there were contacts with Abu Nidal, to do so would be lying.”

Also in the loop, the paper said, was Gilles Menage, the chief of staff to the then President of France, François Mitterrand — although the official position was that the Élysée Palace “did not know anything” about the contacts with Abu Nidal, a renegade Palestinian faction that was armed and funded by Iraq at the time of the rue des Rosiers attack. Abu Nidal’s long list of atrocities also included the Sept. 1986 shooting at the Neve Shalom synagogue in Istanbul, Turkey, that killed 22 worshippers, and the December 1985 simultaneous attacks on US and Israeli airport counters in Rome and Vienna, which killed 18 people and injured 111.

Yohann Taïeb, the president of the support committee representing victims’ families, said that, if confirmed, Bonnet’s admission was “shameful”. He called on French President Emmanuel Macron to “declassify documents and take decisions about eventual legal proceedings”.

Avi Bitton, a lawyer for the families, told Le Parisien: “We need a parliamentary inquiry not just on the rue des Rosiers attack but to establish if such secret pacts were sealed with other terrorist organizations.”

Friday’s revelations about the possible collusion between Abu Nidal and French intelligence came on top of another significant, if frustrating, development in the rue des Rosiers investigation earlier this year. In May, Jordan’s highest court rejected a French appeal for the extradition of one of the suspected terrorists, 57-year-old Nizar Tawfiq Mussa Hamada.

Hamada was not formally identified until 2014, when two anonymous informants associated with Abu Nidal’s group supplied the French authorities with critical information about the terrorists’ identities. In 2015, France’s top magistrate tasked with combating terrorism, Marc Trévidic, issued arrest warrants for several suspects, including Hamada and fellow Jordanian citizen Souhair Mouhamed Hassan Khalid al-Abassi — aka Amjad Atta — reputedly the mastermind behind the attack. </s> JTA — France agreed not to target Palestinian terrorists who killed French Jews in Paris in 1982 if they refrained from carrying out further attacks on French soil, a former top spy revealed.

Yves Bonnet, who headed the now-defunct DST service in the 1980s, said this in January to a judge investigating the 1982 attack in which six people were murdered and 22 injured at a kosher restaurant on Rosiers Street in Paris, Le Parisien reported Thursday.

Friday marked the 37th anniversary of the attack, then the deadliest anti-Semitic attack on French soil since World War II, in which the terrorists threw grenades into the packed restaurant.

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The suspects in the attack on the Jo Goldbenberg deli are wanted for questioning as per a 2015 French arrest warrant. One of the suspects lives in Jordan, another near Ramallah in the West Bank and a third in Norway, according to the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities.

None of the relevant governments have agreed to extradite the suspects, whom French investigators believe belonged to the Abu Nidal terrorist group affiliated with Fatah.

“We entered a sort of verbal deal which tells them: I want no more attacks on French soil, but I will allow you to come to France and guarantee nothing will happen to you,” Bonnet said

French authorities allowed two of the alleged perpetrators to visit their brothers in arms in French prisons after the 1982 attack.

“It worked, there were no further attacks from the end of 1983, throughout 1984 and until 1985,” Bonnet said.

Times of Israel Staff contributed to this report </s> Thirty-seven years after Palestinian terrorists killed six people at a deli in Paris's Jewish quarter, the families of the victims are demanding a parliamentary inquiry – on the back of media reports that a former French spy admitted to making a secret deal with the perpetrators.

A further 22 people were wounded on 9 August, 1982, when two gunmen stormed the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in the middle of the day, opening fire and throwing grenades at customers.

The men are believed to have belonged to a radical group led by Palestinian militant Abu Nidal, which was active in the 1970s and 1980s.

According to reports this week in the daily Le Parisien, former head of French intelligence Yves Bonnet told a judge in January he had assured Abu Nidal that members of his group would not be arrested if they refrained from committing further attacks on French soil.

It is understood that the then French President Francois Mitterand's chief of staff was informed of the deal but that “officially … the Élysée knew nothing”.
• Golden days are gone, but Paris's Jewish quarter still has rich story to tell

The victims' families are now calling on President Emmanuel Macron to declassify files of the attack.

Avi Bitton, a lawyer for several of the families, told France Info radio: “We will ask the investigating judge to make requests to lift the lid on this file, so that he can investigate this possible secret agreement between the French state and this terrorist organisation.

"The French have the right to know that their government has made a secret agreement with a terrorist group."

A total of six people are believed to have been involved in planning and carrying out the attack on the restaurant, which was located on the Rue des Rosiers, in Paris's central Marais neighborhood, before it closed in 2006.

In 2016, Jordan rejected an extradition request from France for two suspects accused of carrying out the attack linked to the dissident Palestinian group The Abu Nidal Organisation.

Abu Nidal, whose real name was Sabri Banna, is understood to have committed suicide in Iraq in 2002.

His organisation was considered one of the most ruthless of the Palestinian militant groups, responsible for attacks in 20 countries which killed more than 300 people, including in Rome and Vienna during the 1980s. </s> PARIS (AP) - The Latest on the southern France attack (all times local):

French authorities say the girlfriend of an Islamic extremist who attacked a supermarket in southern France last week is a radicalized convert to Islam and that she shouted "Allahu akbar," or "God is Great," when she was arrested.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Monday night the 18-year-old woman "shows all signs of radicalization."

She was taken into custody hours after the gunman killed four people on Friday before being fatally shot by police who stormed the supermarket in Trebes.

Molins said during a news conference that the woman told investigators that she denied "having been informed and associated with the deadly project of her boyfriend."

But Molins said the woman posted online a Quran verse "indicating that infidels were promised to hell" just a few hours before the attacks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed solidarity with France after the death of a police officer in an Islamic extremist attack last week.

Speaking during the visit to Jerusalem of French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, Netanyahu said: "We grieve with you over the loss of innocent French lives and of a true hero, the officer Arnaud Beltrame, a hero of humanity, not only a hero of France, and we understand this very well."

Beltrame died after exchanging places with a hostage during the attack Friday in southern France. Four people were killed, including the officer, at a supermarket and in a carjacking. The gunman was killed when police stormed the supermarket.

Le Drian thanked Netanyahu, saying that Beltrame "paid his life, his fight against terrorism. We have this fight in common; the basis of everything is security."

The pope has condemned the attacks in southern France, while lauding the "heroic act" of the French policeman who died after taking the place of a supermarket employee held hostage by an Islamic extremist.

Pope Francis has sent a telegram offering condolences for the loss of life in the attacks, and sympathy to the injured and their families and all those affected. He added: "I particularly welcome the generous and heroic act of Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame, who gave his life to protect people."

The pope said that "I condemn such acts of indiscriminate violence which cause so much suffering, and fervently ask God for the gift of peace."

The rampage Friday claimed four victims, including Beltrame, two others in the supermarket and a carjacking victim. The Morocco-born attacker was killed by police when they stormed the supermarket, with Beltrame's help.

A French judicial official says the partner of the Islamist extremist who carried out an attack last week in southern France was, like him, known to police as radicalized.

The 18-year-old woman was still being detained Monday by police for questioning in the case, as well as a 17-year-old friend of gunman Radouane Lakdim, the official said. He was speaking anonymously to discuss the ongoing investigation.

Lakdim was known to police for drug-dealing, and since 2014 had been on the so-called "Fiche S" list, a government register of individuals suspected of being radicalized but who have yet to perform acts of terrorism.

Four people were killed in a carjacking and the supermarket attack Friday near the city of Carcassonne.

Lakdim was killed by police who stormed the supermarket. </s> ISIS claimed responsibility for an attack on police officers on the Champs-Élysées in Paris Thursday evening that left one officer dead and two others wounded.

The terrorist group released a message through its news agency Amaq saying that the attacker was "one of the fighters for the Islamic State."

The assailant was killed but has not been publicly identified, a police spokesperson said.

French President François Hollande said that one bystander was injured during a shootout between police and the attacker and that the leads so far indicated the attack was of a "terrorist nature."

French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henri Brandet said during a press briefing that a man exited his car and started a shooting at a police car with an automatic weapon around 9 p.m. The attacker continued shooting at police as he attempted to flee the scene and was killed by police in an exchange of gunfire, Brandet said.

A terrorism investigation into the attack had been opened, the Paris prosecutor's office said.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said that Parisians would not not give in to the threat of terrorism.

"Faced with this ordeal, I know that the determination of Parisians to defend their way of life and their values is complete," Hidalgo wrote on Twitter hours after the attack.

Face à cette épreuve, je sais que la détermination des Parisiens à défendre leur mode de vie et leurs valeurs est totale. #ChampsElysees — Anne Hidalgo (@Anne_Hidalgo) April 20, 2017

Paris police posted tweets earlier in the evening telling people the area around the Avenue des Champs-Élysées was on lockdown and that a police operation was underway.

The U.S. State Department's bureau of consular affairs warned its Twitter followers to avoid the area "after a shooting."

The Champs-Élysées is an iconic boulevard popular with tourists and Parisians alike that has theaters, shops, restaurants and, at one end, the Arc de Triomphe.

President Donald Trump shared "our condolences" with the people of France during a news conference with the Italian prime minister, who was at the White House Thursday.

"It's a very terrible thing that's going on in the world today," Trump said, adding that he thought it was "another terrorist attack," though that had not been confirmed at the time.

"What can you say? It just never ends. We have to be strong, we have to be vigilant," he said.

VP Pence offers condolences after shooting of Paris police officers. "The people of France are on our hearts today." https://t.co/gZoZQbCi8n pic.twitter.com/sMXzrTK1is — ABC News (@ABC) April 21, 2017

And while in Indonesia Friday morning, Vice President Mike Pence said of the attack, "It’s just the latest reminder that terrorism can strike anywhere at any time -– something the people of Indonesia and the United States know all too well. As President Trump said yesterday, in the face of this great evil, and I quote, 'we have to be strong. And we have to be vigilant.'"

Pence added, "Today, the people of Paris have our condolences and our prayers. The people of France are in our hearts. And the people of Indonesia can be confident in the wake of this latest attack, we will not relent in our effort to end terrorism and the threat it present to both of our people, and I pledge to your our continued cooperation against terrorism in the uncertain days in which we live."

The incident comes as France heads into a presidential election to be held on Sunday. Several of the major candidates cancelled their scheduled campaign stops for Friday, French daily Le Figaro reported. </s> An investigation has been opened in France after a vegan activist posted on social media that they had "zero compassion" for the butcher who was killed in the recent terrorist attack in the southwestern part of the country.

"Well, what, it shocks you that an assassin is killed by a terrorist? Not me, I have zero compassion for him," the person wrote in a message discovered by French authorities on Monday. The activist added that the butcher's death was "justice," before quickly deleting the post, according to a judicial source cited by 20 Minutes. She was later taken into custody, according to Le Parisien.

The comment was in reference to last week's terrorist attack on a Super U market in Trèbes, France, which was claimed by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). The attack saw two civilians - including butcher Christian Medves - killed. Others were wounded and hostages were taken.

A policeman at the scene, who offered to take the place of the hostages, also died as a result of the attack after succumbing to his injuries.

That officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame, has been hailed a hero by the French government. However, one French politician took to Twitter to celebrate his death.

“Whenever a policeman is shot…I think of my friend Remi Fraisse,” former French parliamentary candidate Stephane Poussier wrote, referring to a Green activist killed by a police stun grenade during a 2014 protest. "And this time it was a colonel, great! Additionally, it means one less Macron voter,” he continued. Poussier received a one-year suspended sentence on Tuesday, after being charged with justifying terrorism.

A national ceremony was held for Medves at the Hotel des Invalides in Paris on Wednesday. French President Emmanuel Macron awarded the deceased officer France's highest accolade, the Legion d'Honneur, saying that the 44-year-old symbolized the "French spirit of resistance."

If you like this story, share it with a friend! </s> Image copyright JANEK SKARZYNSKI Image caption Poland had been testing the Caracal helicopter with a view to replacing its Soviet-era equipment

The head of Airbus has criticised Poland for cancelling a planned $3.5bn military helicopter contract.

The Polish government abandoned plans to buy 50 French-designed Caracal helicopters last week.

It spurred a diplomatic row, with French President Francois Hollande calling off a visit to Warsaw and threatening to review other defence cooperation.

Now Airbus chief executive Tom Enders has attacked the decision.

He said the company had been "misled for months" and would be seeking compensation.

The European aerospace giant won a tender to supply the Polish armed forces with helicopters in April 2015.

The two sides began to negotiate the detail of a so-called offset contract, under which Poland would buy 50 helicopters, and in return, Airbus would set up manufacturing facilities in Poland.

Soured relations

Such deals, in which a contractor provides incentives to a country buying its products, are relatively common in the aerospace and defence industries.

However, relations have soured since the election of a right-wing government under Beata Szydlo in October last year.

Last week, Poland called off talks, claiming that the proposed contract was not in the country's economic and security interests.

The reaction from France, where Airbus Helicopters has its headquarters, and where the Caracal has been designed and developed, was swift. President Hollande had been due to visit Warsaw for talks this week, but his visit has been cancelled.

Satisfactory offer

A separate visit by the French defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, was also called off.

Poland blamed Airbus for the breakdown in negotiations, suggesting it failed to offer adequate incentives in exchange for the contract.

Defence minister Antoni Macierewicz told reporters at the time: "Airbus Helicopters did not make a satisfactory offer in the last phase of talks. They didn't respond to the Polish position and this is why negotiations on the contract stopped."

However, in an open letter to the Polish prime minister published on Tuesday, Airbus rejected that claim.

The company insists that its investment offer "would have generated more value in Poland than the revenues that would have been generated for Airbus Helicopters through the helicopter supply contract".

'Slammed the door'

It says it offered to build a full assembly line in the city of Lodz, mirroring the capabilities of its existing plant at Marignane, in southern France. The facility would have been 90% owned by the Polish government. There would also have been a parts factory.

Airbus believes the project would have led to the creation of 3,800 jobs.

According to Mr Enders, Airbus "wanted to invest in Poland big time", but the Polish government had "slammed the door on us".

"We have an impression that we have been misled for months by the current Polish government," he said.

"We spent a huge amount of efforts and money in recent years trusting that we were in a fair and professionally-conducted competition. We will of course seek remedies."
Le Parisien claims French ex-head of security Yves Bonnet [fr] brokered a secret deal with Fatah in the 1980s offering immunity in exchange for no further terror attacks in France.