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WORLD The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com Monday, December 10, 2018 7A Macron to address French nation amid protests Demonstrators stand behind a burning barricade during clashes, Saturday, Dec. 8, in Marseille, southern France. The rumble of armored police trucks and the hiss of tear gas filled central Paris on Saturday, as French riot police fought to contain thousands of yellow- vested protesters venting their anger against the government in a movement that has grown more violent by the week. BY ELAINE GANLEY Associated Press PARIS — Pressure mounted on French Presi dent Emmanuel Macron to announce concrete measures to calm protests marked by violence when he addresses the nation Monday evening, and breaks a long silence widely seen as aggravating a crisis that has shaken the government and the whole country. The president will consult in the morning with an array of national and local officials as he tries to get a handle on the ballooning and radical izing protest movement trig gered by anger at his policies, and a growing sense that they favor the rich. Macron will speak from the presidential Elysee Pal ace at 8 p.m., an Elysee offi cial said. The official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity. Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said earlier on LCI TV station he was “sure (Macron) will know how to find the path to the hearts of the French, speak to their hearts. ” But, he added, a “magic wand” won’t solve all the problems of the protesters, known as “yel low vests” for the fluorescent safety vests they often wear. Last week, Macron with drew a fuel tax hike — the issue that kicked off protests in mid-November — in an effort to appease the protest ers, but the move was seen as too little too late. For many protesters, Macron himself, widely seen as arrogant and disconnected from rank-and-file French, has become the problem. Calls for him to resign were rampant on Saturday, the fourth weekend of large- scale protests. “Macron is there for the rich, not for all the French,” 68-year-old retiree Jean- Pierre Meunuer said Satur day. Retirees are among the categories to be punished by his policies. Labor Minister Muriel Penicaud dampened any notion that the minimum wage would be raised, tell ing LCI that “there will be no boost for the Smic (minimum wage),” because “it destroys jobs.” Paris tourist sites reopened Sunday, while workers cleaned up debris from pro tests that left widespread damage in the capital and elsewhere. At least 71 were injured in Paris on Saturday. The economy minister, meanwhile, lamented the damage to the economy. “This is a catastrophe for commerce, it’s a catastrophe for our economy,” Bruno Le Maire said Sunday while visiting merchants around the Saint Lazare train sta tion, among areas hit by vandalism as the pre-Christ mas shopping season got underway. After the fourth Saturday of nationwide protests by the grassroots movement with broadening demands, offi cials said they understood the depth of the crisis. Le Maire said it was a social and democratic crisis as well as a “crisis of the nation” with “territorial fractures.” However, the president must also speak to protesters’ pocketbooks. Among myriad CLAUDE PARIS I Associated Press demands was increased buy ing power. French media reported 136,000 protesters nation wide on Saturday, similar to the previous week. How ever, the number of injured in Paris and nationwide was down. Still, TV footage broad cast around the world of the violence in Paris neighbor hoods popular with tourists has tarnished the country’s image. Several tourists questioned at the Eiffel Tower, which reopened Sunday after clos ing Saturday, said they were avoiding the Champs-Ely- sees, Paris’ main avenue that is lined with shops and cafes and normally a magnet for foreign visitors. “Yes, we’re very con cerned with security ... but we couldn’t cancel the trip,” Portuguese tourist Elizabet Monteero said. But, she added, “We don’t go to dangerous zones like the Champs-Elysees. ” Foreign Minister Jean- Yves Le Drian politely chas tised U.S. President Donald Trump for mocking France in tweets over the 2015 Paris climate accord, which the U.S. is leaving and which Macron has championed worldwide. “We don’t take part in American debates. Let us live our own national life,” Le Drian said in an interview on the LCI TV station. He said Macron had told Trump the same thing. Trump tweeted twice on the issue over the weekend, saying in one that “the Paris agreement isn’t working out so well for Paris,” referring to Macron’s predicament. MOSA'AB ELSHAMY I Associated Press Wazzizi, a sub-Saharan migrant from Guinea, sits outside the tent where he lives at at Ouled Ziane camp in Casablanca, Morocco, Thursday, Dec. 6. Hunger, lice, filth: Migrant camp shows challenges Plant a tree: Milan’s ambitious plans to be cleaner, greener LUCA BRUNO I Associated Press People walk through the Tree Library park in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Dec. 9. BY AMIRA EL MASAITI Associated Press CASABLANCA, Morocco — As Morocco prepares to host the signing of a land mark global migration agreement, hundreds of migrants are languishing in a Casablanca camp rife with hunger, misery, lice and filth. These sub-Saharan Afri cans who dream of going to Europe are a symbol of the problems world dignitaries are trying to address with the U.N.’s first migration compact, being finalized at a conference in Marrakech on Monday and Tuesday. Rising numbers of migrants live in the make shift camp that sprung up on a soccer field near a busy Casablanca bus station, where they are bedded down under tents or shacks built from plastic and wood. Scant food, a lack of heat and no sanitation are the main worries at the Oulad Ziane camp, as lice and respi ratory infections are becom ing endemic. Morocco embodies mul tiple dilemmas facing the countries meeting in Mar rakech: It’s a major source of Europe’s migrants but is also a transit country as well as a migrant host for other Africans fleeing poverty and persecution. The 34-page U.N. Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is to be formally approved in Marrakech, Morocco, on Dec. 10-11. But the United States and several European countries have said they won’t sign on. The Oulad Ziane camp houses African migrants seeking to reach Europe via the western Mediterranean route to Spain after crack downs by Italy and Malta have slowed smuggling traf fic in the eastern Mediterra nean. Many of the migrants have already tried the jour ney north to Morocco’s bor der with Spain, only to be pushed away by Moroccan police, sometimes violently. In the meantime they look for work in Casablanca, hop ing to earn enough to pay smugglers to try once again. New arrivals at the Casa blanca camp came after clashing violently with Moroccan border agents as they tried to scale the fence separating Morocco from Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta. “I am only here to recover. I come and go,” said 19-year- old Guinean Ibrahim Bah, who arrived days ago with open wounds on his wrists, arms and back. “Moroccan forces caught us and beat us. They broke one of my friend’s arms, handcuffed us and crammed us on a bus. This time they dropped us in Casablanca but usually they take us far to the south,” he said. Government officials didn’t respond to requests for comment on inhumane treat ment of migrants or the Casa blanca camp, but Morocco’s government describes the country’s migration policy as “exemplary.” That mostly refers to reforms launched in 2014, largely funded by the EU, to encourage migrants to stay in Morocco. More than 23,096 migrants have been given Moroccan residency since 2014 and the authorities are currently pro cessing about 25,000 other applications. Still, more than 6,500 Sub-Saharan migrants and refugees were arrested and pushed back on buses to southern Morocco or toward Algeria between July and September 2018, accord ing to an anti-racist group Gadem. Other migrants in the Oulad Ziane camp had just walked over 100 hours from Tiznit, a town in Morocco’s far south where they had been deported to. “The precarious journey is never over. It’s constant fear. You walk in the street, you get arrested. You go to the mosque, you are arrested. We feel like criminals,” said Jiane Jbrahima, a 22-year- old from Senegal. Jbrahima lived for five years in Tangiers before undergoing, along with thou sands of migrants, what Amnesty International describes as a “large-scale crackdown on thousands of sub-Saharan migrants, asy lum-seekers and refugees” by Morocco. Migrants arrested in the north are at times held for several days in two Tangiers police stations before buses bring them back to the south. These detentions are “wholly arbitrary and legally unsub stantiated,” as “no one was brought before a judge at any stage,” says Gadem. A Spanish activist working in Morocco, Helena Maleno, says the EU-supported Moroccan regularization pol icy would work if it brought about real change in terms of providing migrants work and access to health care. “The initiative is good on itself, but it does so little to change the hard reality of migrants, mostly because it’s not really targeted to pro vide assistance for them but rather to please the EU and keep migrants from reaching Europe,” she said. Rising numbers of migrants taking the Morocco- Spain route to Europe have turned Morocco into the main entry point for sub- Saharan African migrants, putting border pressures on the North African kingdom. The EU agreed this sum mer to give Morocco $275 million to halt flows of ille gal migrants, “pushing the country to take a more vio lent approach in stopping migrants from reaching Europe,” says Maleno. This year, Morocco stopped 68,000 illegal migra tion attempts, according to government spokesman Mus- tapha El Khelfi. Concerned by rumors of an upcoming deportation campaign, migrants in Casa blanca camp spend most of their time in their ragged tents, smoking cannabis and talking about the psycho logical scars from years of uncertainty. “I listen to the radio and the news says that it’s good for us here. I wonder if they’re oblivious to what is going on or simply they think we’re idiots,” said Mohamed Rafiou Barry, 22, from Guinea. “Even if 40 years pass, I’ll never forget being taken from one bus to another, beaten, eating from garbage. You don’t forget those things.” BY COLLEEN BARRY Associated Press MILAN — If Italy’s fash ion capital has a predomi nant color, it is gray — not only because of the blocks of neoclassical stone build ings for which the city is cel ebrated, but also due to its often-gray sky, which traps pollution. But Milan now wants to shift its color palette toward green. The city has ambitious plans to plant 3 million new trees by 2030 — a move that experts say could offer relief from the city’s muggy, sometimes tropical weather. Some ad-hoc projects have already contributed to environmental improve ments. Architect Stefano Boeri’s striking Vertical Forest residential towers, completed in 2014 near the Garibaldi train station, aims to improve not only air qual ity but the quality of life for Milan residents. Boeri created a small island of greenery in the heart of Milan, his pair of high-rises brimming from every balcony with shrubs and trees that absorb car bon dioxide and PM 10 par ticles, a pollutant with links to respiratory ailments and cancer. “I think the theme of forestation is one of the big challenges that we have today. It is one of the most effective ways we have to fight climate change, because it is like fighting the enemy on its own field,” Boeri said. “It is effective and it is also democratic, because everyone can plant trees.” The U.N. climate summit taking place now in Poland has urged cities and regions to help achieve the goals of the 2015 Paris agreement on curbing global warm ing, which include limiting the increase in the planet’s temperature to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit this century. Also, the World Eco nomic Forum’s global agenda council has put extending the tree canopy among its top urban initia tives, recognizing that small- scale changes can have a major impact on urban areas, including helping to lower city temperatures, creating more comfortable microclimates and mitigat ing air pollution. Milan officials estimate the program to boost the number of trees by 30 per cent in the broader metro politan area will absorb an additional 5 million tons of carbon dioxide a year — four-fifths of the total produced by Milan — and reduce harmful PM10 small particulates by 3,000 tons over a decade. Signifi cantly, it would also reduce temperatures in the city by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, they say. Boeri said the current green canopy of the Lom bardy region’s capital is just 7 percent of the urban area. That’s well below northern European cities like Ger many’s Frankfurt at 21.5 percent or Amsterdam at nearly 21 percent. It’s closer to Paris at nearly 9 percent, according to the World Eco nomic Forum’s Green View Index — and the French capital itself has been bat tling for years to fighting ris ing air pollution. By 2030, Milan hopes to increase that green canopy number to between 17 and 20 percent. 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