Moscow — Iran’s president committed his country to deeper ties with Russia to counter Western sanctions on Tuesday, state media reported, amid U.S. worries that Tehran is supplying Moscow missiles to hit Ukraine.

Russia’s top security official Sergei Shoigu arrived in the Iranian capital days after meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang. More than two and a half years into its conflict with Ukraine, Moscow has been seeking to develop ties with the two nations, both hostile to the United States.

“My government will seriously follow ongoing cooperation and measures to upgrade the level of relations between the two countries,” the state IRNA news agency quoted Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian as telling Shoigu, Secretary of Russia’s Security Council.

“Relations between Tehran and Moscow will develop in a permanent, continuous and lasting way. Deepening and strengthening relations and cooperation between Iran and Russia will reduce the impact of sanctions.”

The United States views Moscow’s growing relationships with Pyongyang and Tehran with concern and says both are supplying Russia with ballistic missiles for use in the conflict in Ukraine.

Iran has denied sending ballistic missiles to Russia. Moscow has said only that Iran is Russia’s partner in all possible areas.

Shoigu’s trips are taking place at a crucial moment in the war, as Kyiv presses the United States and its allies to let it use Western-supplied long-range weapons to strike targets such as airfields deep inside Russian territory.

President Vladimir Putin said last week that Western countries would be fighting Russia directly if they gave the green light, and that Moscow would respond.

The Nour news agency, affiliated to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Shoigu met his Iranian opposite number, Ali Akbar Ahmadian. There was no immediate information on the outcome of the meeting.

Russia has repeatedly said it is close to signing a major agreement with Iran to seal a strategic partnership between the two countries.

Shoigu was Russian defense minister until May, when he was appointed secretary of the Security Council that brings together President Vladimir Putin’s military and intelligence chiefs and other senior officials.

Apart from meeting North Korea’s Kim last week, he also held talks in St. Petersburg with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
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London — Meta said it’s banning Russia state media organization from its social media platforms, alleging that the outlets used deceptive tactics to amplify Moscow’s propaganda. The announcement drew a rebuke from the Kremlin on Tuesday. 

The company, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, said late Monday that it will roll out the ban over the next few days in an escalation of its efforts to counter Russia’s covert influence operations. 

“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets: Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity,” Meta said in a prepared statement. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov lashed out, saying that “such selective actions against Russian media are unacceptable,” and that “Meta with these actions are discrediting themselves.” 

“We have an extremely negative attitude towards this. And this, of course, complicates the prospects for normalizing our relations with Meta,” Peskov told reporters during his daily conference call. 

RT was formerly known as Russia Today. Rossiya Segodnya is the parent company behind state news agency RIA Novosti and news brands like Sputnik. 

“It’s cute how there’s a competition in the West — who can try to spank RT the hardest, in order to make themselves look better,” RT said in a release. 

Rossiya Segodnya did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. 

Meta’s actions comes days after the United States announced new sanctions on RT, accusing the Kremlin news outlet of being a key part of Russia’s war machine and its efforts to undermine its democratic adversaries. 

U.S. officials alleged last week that RT was working hand-in-hand with the Russian military and running fundraising campaigns to pay for sniper rifles, body armor and other equipment for soldiers fighting in Ukraine. They also said RT websites masqueraded as legitimate news sites but were used to spread disinformation and propaganda in Europe, Africa, South America and elsewhere. 

Earlier this month, the Biden administration seized Kremlin-run websites and charged two RT employees of covertly providing millions of dollars in funding to a Tennessee-based content creation company to publish English-language social media videos pushing pro-Kremlin messages. 

Moscow has rejected the allegations. 

Meta had already taken steps to limit Moscow’s online reach. Since 2020 it has been labeling posts and content from state media. Two years later, it blocked state media from running ads and putting their content lower in people’s feeds, and the company, along with other other social media sites like YouTube and TikTok, blocked RT’s channels for European users. Also in 2022 Meta also took down a sprawling Russia-based disinformation network spreading Kremlin talking points about the invasion of Ukraine. 

Meta and Facebook “already blocked RT in Europe two years ago, now they’re censoring information flow to the rest of the world,” RT said in its statement. 

Moscow has fought back, designating Meta as an extremist group in March 2022, shortly after sending troops into Ukraine, and blocking Facebook and Instagram. Both platforms — as well as Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, which is also blocked — were popular with Russians before the invasion and the subsequent crackdown on independent media and other forms of critical speech. The social media platforms are now only accessible through virtual private networks. 
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AVIGNON, France — A 71-year-old French man acknowledged in court on Tuesday that over nearly a decade, he was drugging his wife at the time and inviting dozens of men to rape her, as well as raping her himself. He pleaded with her and their three children for forgiveness.

“Today I maintain that, along with the other men here, I am a rapist,” Dominique Pelicot told the court. “They knew everything. They can’t say otherwise.”

Pelicot’s testimony is the most important moment so far in a trial that has shocked and gripped France and raised awareness about sexual violence. Many also hope his testimony will shed some light — to try to understand the unthinkable.

While he previously confessed to investigators, the court testimony will be crucial for the panel of judges to decide on the fate of some 50 other men standing trial alongside him. Many deny having raped Gisele Pelicot, saying they were manipulated by her then-husband or claiming they believed she was consenting.

Gisele Pelicot has become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France for agreeing to waive her anonymity in the case, letting the trial be public and appearing openly in front of the media. She is expected to speak in court after her ex-husband’s testimony on Tuesday.

Under French law, the proceedings inside the courtroom cannot be filmed or photographed. Dominique Pelicot is brought to the court through a special entrance inaccessible for the media, because he and some other defendants are being held in custody during the trial. Defendants who are not in custody come to the trial wearing surgical masks or hoods to avoid having their faces filmed or photographed.

After days of uncertainty due to his medical state, Dominique Pelicot appeared in court Tuesday and told judges he acknowledged all the charges against him.

His much-awaited testimony was delayed by days after he fell ill, suffering from a kidney stone and urinary infection, his lawyers said.

Seated in a wheelchair, Pelicot spoke to the court for an hour, from his early life to years of abuse against his now ex-wife. Expressing remorse, his voice trembling and at times barely audible, he sought to explain events that he said scarred his childhood and planted the seed of vice in him.

“One is not born a pervert; one becomes a pervert,” Pelicot told judges, after recounting, sometimes in tears, being raped by a male nurse in a hospital when he was 9 years old and then being forced to take part in a gang rape at age 14.

Pelicot also spoke of the trauma endured when his parents took a young girl in the family, and witnessing his father’s inappropriate behavior toward her.

“My father used to do the same thing with the little girl,” he said. “After my father’s death, my brother said that men used to come to our house.”

At 14, he said, he asked his mother if he could leave the house, but “she didn’t let me.”

“I don’t really want to talk about this, I am just ashamed of my father. In the end, I didn’t do any better,” he said.

Asked about his feelings toward his wife, Pelicot said she did not deserve what he did.

“From my youth, I remember only shocks and traumas, forgotten partly thanks to her. She did not deserve this, I acknowledge it,” he said in tears.

At that moment, Gisele Pelicot, standing across the room, facing him across a group of dozens of defendants sitting in between them, put her sunglasses back on.

Later, Dominique Pelicot said, “I was crazy about her. She replaced everything. I ruined everything.”

A security agent caught Pelicot in 2020 filming videos under women’s skirts in a supermarket, according to court documents. Police searched Pelicot’s house and electronic devices and found thousands of photos and videos of men engaging in sexual acts with Gisele Pelicot while she appears to lie unconscious on their bed.

With the recordings, police were able to track down a majority of the 72 suspects they were seeking.

Gisele Pelicot and her husband of 50 years had three children. When they retired, the couple left the Paris region to move into a house in Mazan, a small town in Provence.

When police officers called her in for questioning in late 2020, she initially told them her husband was “a great guy,” according to legal documents. They then showed her some photos. She left her husband, and they are now divorced.

He faces 20 years in prison if convicted. Besides Pelicot, 50 other men, ages 26 to 74, are standing trial.
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PARIS — When French prosecutors took aim at Telegram boss Pavel Durov, they had a trump card to wield – a tough new law with no international equivalent that criminalizes tech titans whose platforms allow illegal products or activities.

The so-called LOPMI law, enacted in January 2023, has placed France at the forefront of a group of nations taking a sterner stance on crime-ridden websites. But the law is so recent that prosecutors have yet to secure a conviction.

With the law still untested in court, France’s pioneering push to prosecute figures like Durov could backfire if its judges balk at penalizing tech bosses for alleged criminality on their platforms.

A French judge placed Durov under formal investigation last month, charging him with various crimes, including the 2023 offence: “Complicity in the administration of an online platform to allow an illicit transaction, in an organized gang,” which carries a maximum 10-year sentence and a $556,300 fine.

Being under formal investigation does not imply guilt or necessarily lead to trial, but indicates judges think there’s enough evidence to proceed with the probe. Investigations can last years before being sent to trial or dropped.

Durov, out on bail, denies Telegram was an “anarchic paradise.” Telegram has said it “abides by EU laws,” and that it’s “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.”

In a radio interview last week, Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau hailed the 2023 law as a powerful tool for battling organized crime groups who are increasingly operating online.

The law appears to be unique. Eight lawyers and academics told Reuters they were unaware of any other country with a similar statute.

“There is no crime in U.S. law directly analogous to that and none that I’m aware of in the Western world,” said Adam Hickey, a former U.S. deputy assistant attorney general who established the Justice Department’s (DOJ) national security cyber program.

Hickey, now at U.S. law firm Mayer Brown, said U.S. prosecutors could charge a tech boss as a “co-conspirator or an aider and abettor of the crimes committed by users” but only if there was evidence the “operator intends that its users engage in, and himself facilitates, criminal activities.”

He cited the 2015 conviction of Ross Ulbricht, whose Silk Road website hosted drug sales. U.S. prosecutors argued Ulbricht “deliberately operated Silk Road as an online criminal marketplace … outside the reach of law enforcement,” according to the DOJ. Ulbricht got a life sentence.

Timothy Howard, a former U.S. federal prosecutor who put Ulbricht behind bars, was “skeptical” Durov could be convicted in the United States without proof he knew about the crimes on Telegram, and actively facilitated them – especially given Telegram’s vast, mainly law-abiding user base.

“Coming from my experience of the U.S. legal system,” he said, the French law appears “an aggressive theory.”

Michel Séjean, a French professor of cyber law, said the toughened legislation in France came after authorities grew exasperated with companies like Telegram.

“It’s not a nuclear weapon,” he said. “It’s a weapon to prevent you from being impotent when faced with platforms that don’t cooperate.”

Tougher laws

The 2023 law traces its origins to a 2020 French interior ministry white paper, which called for major investment in technology to tackle growing cyber threats.

It was followed by a similar law in November 2023, which included a measure for the real-time geolocation of people suspected of serious crimes by remotely activating their devices. A proposal to turn on their devices’ cameras and mouthpieces so that investigators could watch or listen in was shot down by France’s Constitutional Council.

These new laws have given France some of the world’s toughest tools for tackling cybercrime, with the proof being the arrest of Durov on French soil, said Sadry Porlon, a French lawyer specialized in communication technology law.

Tom Holt, a cybercrime professor at Michigan State University, said LOPMI “is a potentially powerful and effective tool if used properly,” particularly in probes into child sexual abuse images, credit card trafficking and distributed denial of service attacks, which target businesses or governments.

Armed with fresh legislative powers, the ambitious J3 cybercrime unit at the Paris prosecutor’s office, which is overseeing the Durov probe, is now involved in some of France’s most high-profile cases.

In June, the J3 unit shut down Coco, an anonymized chat forum cited in over 23,000 legal proceedings since 2021 for crimes including prostitution, rape and homicide.

Coco played a central role in a current trial that has shocked France.

Dominique Pelicot, 71, is accused of recruiting dozens of men on Coco to rape his wife, whom he had knocked out with drugs. Pelicot, who is expected to testify this week, has admitted his guilt, while 50 other men are on trial for rape.

Coco’s owner, Isaac Steidel, is suspected of a similar crime as Durov: “Provision of an online platform to allow an illicit transaction by an organized gang.”

Steidel’s lawyer, Julien Zanatta, declined to comment.
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STOCKHOLM — Lower voter turnout and increasingly contested results globally are threatening the credibility of elections, an intergovernmental watchdog warned on Tuesday, as its sub-index for free and fair elections suffered its biggest decline on record in 2023.

In its report, the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) said 2023 was the eighth consecutive year with a net decline in overall democratic performance, the longest consecutive fall since records began in 1975.

The watchdog bases its Global State of Democracy indexes on more than 100 variables and is using four main categories – representation, rights, rule of law and participation – to categorize performance.

The category of democracy related to free and fair elections and parliamentary oversight, a sub-category of representation, suffered its worst year on record in 2023.

“This report is a call for action to protect democratic elections,” IDEA’s Secretary-General Kevin Casas-Zamora said in the report. “The success of democracy depends on many things, but it becomes utterly impossible if elections fail.”

The think-tank said government intimidation and electoral process irregularities, such as fraudulent voter registration and vote-counting, were increasing. It also said that threats of foreign interference, disinformation and the use of artificial intelligence in campaigns added to challenges.

It also said that global voter participation had fallen to 55.5% of eligible voters in 2023 from 65.2% in 2008. Globally, in almost 20% of elections between 2020 and 2024, one of the losing candidates or parties rejected the results.

IDEA said that the democratic performance in the U.S., which holds a presidential election this year, had recovered somewhat in the past two years, but the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in July highlighted continued risks.

“Less than half (47%) of the Americans said the 2020 election was ‘free and fair’ and the country remains deeply polarized,” IDEA said.
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geneva — Seven candidates are competing for one of the biggest and best jobs in world sports that traditionally becomes available only every 12 years.

The International Olympic Committee announced on Monday which of its members in a most exclusive and discreet club have entered the race to be its next president. The election by secret ballot is in March.

The winner will replace Thomas Bach, a German lawyer who steps down in June upon reaching the maximum 12 years in office.

The 10th IOC president could be its first female leader, or its first from Africa or Asia. Or even its first from Britain.

They will take over a financially stable organization that demands deft skills in the challenging arenas of sports and real-world politics.

Who are the candidates?

• Prince Feisal al Hussein, an IOC member since 2010, on its executive board since 2019. Founder of the Generations for Peace sports charity. His older brother is King Abdullah II of Jordan.

• Sebastian Coe, IOC member since 2020. President of World Athletics since 2015. Olympic champion in men’s 1,500 meters in 1980 and 1984. Elected lawmaker in British Parliament from 1992 to 1997. Led the 2012 London Olympics organizing committee.

• Kirsty Coventry, IOC member since 2013, on executive board for a second time since 2023. Olympic champion in women’s 200-meter backstroke in 2004 and 2008. Appointed sports minister in Zimbabwe government since 2018. Chairs IOC panel overseeing the 2032 Brisbane Olympics.

• Johan Eliasch, IOC member since August. President of International Ski and Snowboard Federation since 2021. Owner of Head sports equipment brand, CEO until 2021. Swedish-British citizen.

• David Lappartient, IOC member since 2022. President of International Cycling Union since 2017. President of France’s Olympic committee and leader of French Alps bid that will host 2030 Winter Games. Chair of IOC esports panel that steered the Esports Olympic Games to Saudi Arabia.

• Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., IOC member since 2001, vice president since 2022, and member of the executive board from 2012 to 2020. Founder of a Spain-based investment bank. Created Samaranch Foundation to promote the Olympics in China in honor of his father, who was IOC president from 1980 to 2001.

• Morinari Watanabe, IOC member since 2018. Japanese president of the International Gymnastics Federation since 2017.

When is the election and who votes?

The IOC election meeting is on March 18-21 at a resort hotel in Greece, near the site of Ancient Olympia.

Candidates and their compatriots cannot vote, leaving about 95 eligible to take part in March. Among them, members of European and Asian royal families, including the Emir of Qatar; diplomats and lawmakers, including a former president of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović; businesspeople, including Nita Ambani, whose husband is India’s richest man; leaders of sports bodies; current and former Olympic athletes.

What is the IOC president’s job?

It’s an executive role running a not-for-profit organization that employs hundreds of staff at a modern lakeside headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The IOC earns several billion dollars in revenue every four years from selling broadcasting and sponsor rights for the Summer Games and Winter Games.

Most of the money is distributed to the Olympic family: organizers of upcoming Games, including youth editions, governing bodies of Olympic sports, more than 200 national Olympic bodies, scholarships for potential Olympic athletes and special projects.

The job ideally calls for a deep knowledge of managing sports, understanding athletes’ needs and political skills.

How long can IOC presidents stay in the job?

A maximum of 12 years, with a first term of eight years and the chance for one re-election for a further four.

However, the IOC has an age limit of 70 and complex rules around membership status. It means some of the seven candidates could have to seek a special exemption while in office to complete a full eight-year mandate.

What are the challenges and big decisions ahead?

• Picking a host for the 2036 Summer Games, with India and Qatar as strong contenders.

• Renewing the United States broadcast deal that has typically underwritten Olympic finances. Bach moved quickly in 2014 to renew NBC’s deal through 2032. The next deal starts with the 2034 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

• Both decisions factor into wider questions in regard to drafting the global sports calendar. July-August has been the optimal Summer Games slot since 2004. But a 2036 Doha Olympics could not be held in those months, and where could Games be comfortably held after another decade of climate change?

• When and how can Russia be reintegrated fully into international sports with no end to its invasion of Ukraine in sight? Coe’s world track and field body currently excludes Russian athletes entirely.
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Germany began implementing checks on all its land borders Monday as the government tries to crack down on irregular migration. As Henry Ridgwell reports, many of Germany’s neighbors have criticized the plan, which they say undermines the core European Union principle of freedom of movement.
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Paris — Thousands of people protested sexual violence across France this past weekend, as two high-profile cases rock the country: one involving a woman who was allegedly drugged and raped by dozens of men for years; the other targeting a once-beloved French clergyman, who fought for the rights of the homeless.  

In French cities like Marseille and Nantes, both men and women took part in demonstrations calling for an end to sexual violence.  

They carried signs with messages like “No, to the culture of rape,” and “Gisele, we believe you” — in support of 72-year-old Gisele Pelicot.  

Pelicot’s former husband is on trial in the southern city of Avignon, accused of drugging her and recruiting dozens of men to rape her over nearly a decade.  

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Pelicot thanked the protesters and other supporters. They have given her force, she said, to fight for all those who are victims of sexual violence.  

The Avignon trial is only the latest of a raft of sexual violence accusations targeting famous French actors and other figures. 

Most recently, the spotlight has been on Abbe Pierre, once a crusader for the homeless. For years one of the most popular personalities in France, the priest died in 2007 at the age of 94. But in recent weeks, multiple allegations have surfaced that he sexually assaulted women in France and other countries over the decades. There are now efforts to strike his name from the charities he founded, as well as from parks and streets named after him.  

Speaking to reporters Friday, Pope Francis said Abbe Pierre did a lot of good, but was also a sinner — and such things must be spoken about, not hidden.  

The head of the French bishop’s association has since said that at least some French bishops had known about the cleric’s alleged abuses for decades. 
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Treasury Department imposed on Monday sanctions on two Georgian government officials and two members of the country’s pro-Russian far-right movement who it said were involved in violent crackdowns on protests.  

Large street protests erupted in Georgia over a “foreign agent” law, which the South Caucasus country’s parliament passed in May despite criticism, including from U.S. officials, that it was Kremlin-inspired and authoritarian. 

A Treasury statement said the financial sanctions on Monday targeted Georgia’s Chief of the Special Task Department Zviad Kharazishvili and his deputy, Mileri Lagazauri, who oversaw security forces who violently suppressed the spring protests. 

“The violence perpetuated by the Special Task Department included the brutal beatings of many attendees of the non-violent protests against the new foreign influence law, including Georgian citizens and opposition politicians,” the Treasury said. 

It added that Kharazishvili was personally involved in the physical and verbal abuse of protesters. 

Also targeted were Konstantine Morgoshia, founder of media company Alt-Info, and associated media personality Zurab Makharadze, Treasury said, accusing them of amplifying disinformation and spreading hate speech and threats. 

The dispute around the foreign agents law was seen as a test of whether Georgia, for three decades among the more pro-Western of the Soviet Union’s successor states, would maintain its Western orientation or move closer to Russia. 

The Georgian Dream party that controls parliament said the legislation was needed to ensure transparency in foreign funding of NGOs and protect the country’s sovereignty. 

Washington has long criticized the law and launched a review into bilateral cooperation with Georgia. 

The Biden administration has previously imposed visa bans on members of Georgian Dream, members of parliament, law enforcement and private citizens over the law and the protests. 
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Lausanne, Switzerland — World Athletics chief Sebastian Coe is the highest profile of the seven candidates to have declared on Monday their bid to succeed International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.

Coe will face stiff opposition from, among others, Kirsty Coventry, bidding to become the first woman and African to head the IOC, and cycling boss David Lappartient.

The election will be at the IOC Session in Athens, which runs from March 18-21 next year.

 

Bach, 70, is standing down after serving 12 years. The German announced at the end of the Paris Games that he would not be seeking another term. 

The other four candidates include two from Asia  another continent never to have had an IOC president — Jordan’s Prince Faisal al-Hussein and gymnastics chief Morinari Watanabe.

Juan Antonio Samaranch Junior, whose father of the same name was IOC president from 1980-2001 and transformed it into a commercial powerhouse, and a surprise entrant, ski federation president Johan Eliasch, round up the candidates.

First up for the septet is presenting their respective programs to the IOC members at the turn of the year.

“The candidates will present their programs, in camera, to the full IOC membership on the occasion of a meeting to be held in Lausanne (Switzerland) in January 2025,” read a short IOC statement unveiling the candidates.

There will be a transition period post-election — not something Bach enjoyed when he succeeded Jacques Rogge in 2013  with the new president and his team assuming control in June.
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Frankfurt-Oder, Germany — Germany on Monday expanded border controls to the frontiers with all its nine neighbors in hopes of curbing the flow of irregular migrants, a move that has sparked protests from other EU members.

Federal police in high-visibility vests braved rains at road and highway crossings for spot checks of passenger cars, buses and other vehicles, asking to see people’s identity papers and checking the trunks of some cars.

Germany lies at the heart of Europe and of the visa-free Schengen zone, which is designed to allow the free movement of people and goods, long a core idea of the European project.

Berlin announced the sweeping measure last week following a string of deadly extremist attacks that have stoked public fears and boosted support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Poland and Austria have been among countries to complain about the move, which is set to last an initial six months.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the step aimed to limit irregular migration and “put a stop to criminals and identify and stop Islamists at an early stage.”

The controls slowed traffic, but some people voiced support. Elle Rendigs, 70, who was headed from Germany to the French city of Strasbourg, said she hoped the stepped-up policing would bring “a bit more security.”

Border controls with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland were already in place before the crackdown was announced.

These have now been expanded to Germany’s borders with France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark.

Faeser said the government hoped to minimize the impact on people living and working in border regions, promising “coordination with our neighboring countries.”

On the Polish border, a small group of protesters stood near the bridge at Frankfurt on the Oder, one waving a placard that called for “Open worlds, open minds, open borders.”

The controls on the way into Frankfurt, on the German side, were “not good for the city,” local resident Waltraut, 77, told AFP.

Germany expanded the border controls after a string of suspected Islamist attacks stirred concerns over immigration.

Last month, a man on a knife rampage killed three people and wounded eight more at a festival in the western city of Solingen.

The Syrian suspect, who has alleged links to the Islamic State group, had been due to be deported but managed to evade authorities.

With national elections looming next year, the attacks put intense political pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government to toughen its stance on migrants and asylum seekers.

As well as increasing the extent of controls at its borders, Germany has presented plans to speed up deportations to European partners.

Under EU rules, asylum requests are meant to be handled by the country of arrival. The system has placed a huge strain on countries on the European periphery, where leaders have demanded more burden-sharing.

Under the new crackdown, spot controls can be carried out within 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the border, said Daniel Rosin, a spokesman for police in Kehl, across the border from Strasbourg.

Police will operate not only along the roads, but on “trams and cross-border trains” connecting the two countries, Rosin said.

Covering hundreds of extra kilometers of borderland will “definitely not be possible to do without any gaps,” German police union leader Andreas Rosskopf told broadcaster RBB.

He said it remained to be seen “how successful it actually is in curbing migration and people smuggling.”

Rene Hemmert, 69, traveling from France to Germany, said the controls remind him “of when I was younger,” before the Schengen zone was established.

“I think it’s a good thing because of all the problems we have, with immigration,” said Hemmert.

“It’s the same as in France, they should do the same.”
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