Just listing some July terror attacks in Europe

Terrorism in July in France and Germany

July 24, 2016: Twelve people were injured, Ansbach, Germany: 27-year-old Syrian national set off a bomb outside a music festival
July 22, 2016: nine shot to death, Munich, Germany: by 18-year-old Iranian/German  
July 19, 2016: injured four people, two critically, train passengers with an axe in Wuerzburg, teenager reportedly shouted the Islamic phrase "Allahu akbar"
July 17, 2016: killing 84 people, Driver, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, was a career criminal, used a truck and a gun to kill people.
July 14, 2016: 2 killed, murder by an Islamic State jihadist of a police officer and police secretary at their home in Magnanville, 50 km northwest of Paris.  French police arrested three men, age 27, 29 and 44.

Gérard Depardieu leaves France over higher taxes

From the UK Telegraph:

Asterix and Obelix have deserted Gaul. Or at least the two actors who played them in three blockbuster movies have. With Gérard “Obelix” Depardieu’s much-trumpeted exile to Belgium last week, following Christian “Asterix” Clavier’s move to London in October, France has lost her best-known fictional heroes, undefeated by Julius Caesar’s legions, but vanquished by François Hollande’s punitive new 75 per cent top marginal income tax rate, recently hiked capital gains tax, and reinforced wealth tax. 

The symbolism has not been lost on the French. When France’s richest man, Bernard Arnault, the CEO and main shareholder of the luxury behemoth LVMH, applied for Belgian citizenship last August, it was easy for Socialists to paint him as an unpatriotic, despicable fat cat. “Get lost, you rich b------” blasted a headline on the front page of Libération, the Left-wing daily, effectively capturing the national mood. 

But Depardieu is a vastly different proposition from a wealthy tycoon and former asset-stripper whose children’s weddings warrant 10-page spreads in society magazines. When Jean-Marc Ayrault, France’s prime minister, contemptuously called him “a pathetic loser”, Depardieu shot back with an open letter published on Sunday. . . . .

"France's proposed tax hikes spark 'exodus' of wealthy"

So how short will France's tax revenues be From the UK Telegraph:

The latest estate agency figures have shown large numbers of France's most well-heeled families selling up and moving to neighbouring countries. Many are fleeing a proposed new higher tax rate of 75 per cent on all earnings over one million euros. (£780,000) The previous top tax bracket of 41 per cent on earnings over 72,000 euros is also set to increase to 45 per cent. Sotheby's Realty, the estate agent arm of the British auction house, said its French offices sold more than 100 properties over 1.7 million euros between April and June this year - a marked increase on the same period in 2011. Alexander Kraft, head of Sotheby's Realty, France, said: "The result of the presidential election has had a real impact on our sales. "Now a large number of wealthy French families are leaving the country as a direct result of the proposals of the new government. . . . Gilles Martin, a Swiss tax consultant, reported the same trend. "Since the socialists came to power in France, I have been deluged with inquiries from rich French people who would rather pay their tax in Switzerland," he told Switzerland's 20 Minutes newspaper. . . .

Any bets that the French will get a lot less than the amount of money they think that they are going to raise from taxes?

Tax competition means that some people will be leaving France.

David Cameron infuriated the French last month by promising Britain would "roll out the red carpet" to wealthy French citizens and companies who wanted to emigrate and pay their taxes in Britain. . . .

A 75 percent income rate and higher wealth and inheritance taxes will have consequences.

“I’m very happy in Paris. My wife and I love Paris. We came here by choice. But I’m reconsidering our situation given the changes in the pipeline,” says Roger, who declined to be identified by his real name.
More than the 75 per cent rate, it is a move to higher wealth and inheritance taxes that worries him – and what he perceives as a cultural hostility to the rich. “The anti-wealth rhetoric is just not encouraging. I’d rather be in a country where I don’t have to deal with that,” he says. . . .
“The question is how to achieve these goals? There is no example, in modern economic history, of a country that has succeeded in reducing its deficits by bringing taxes to a confiscatory level. On the contrary, it leads to a decline in activity, and an increase in the deficits.” . . .
“France is not isolated from the rest of the world and Paris needs to be competitive,” says Guillaume Poitrinal, chief executive of Unibail-Rodamco, the European shopping mall group based in Paris. “[Our] large companies provide business to small and medium-sized enterprises and are France’s best asset – they provide a large part of what’s left of economic growth today.
“I am sure that the government realises that if they are weakened vis a vis their competitors abroad, this would be a negative for employment, tax resources and economic growth.” . . . .

At least Hollande isn't a complete idiot.  Note how he is retroactively heavily taxing property owned by foreigners, that is at least if he can get away with it given the EU single market laws.  If he can get away with it, foreigners don't vote.

On Wednesday (July 4th), the French government announced it was to increase taxes on foreign-owned second homes. Tax on rental income would rise from 20 per cent to 35.5 per cent, and capital gains tax on property sales would rise from 19 per cent to 34.5 per cent. The extra in each case is being labelled a "social charge".
A Treasury source said on Wednesday night: "We will need to study the details. But we will of course challenge any proposal which breaches European single market laws and anti-discrimination rules." . . . 
The rise in tax on rental income will be retrospective, from Jan 1 this year. . . .

School shooting in France

Four dead
UPDATE: From the WSJ:

A French police official says the gun used to kill four people at a Jewish school Monday was the same gun used in attacks on three French paratroopers last week.
Police had been investigating a connection between the attacks after a gunman opened fire outside Ozar Hatorah school in the southwestern French city of Toulouse, killing a rabbi, his two sons and one other child, according to the prosecutor's office.
Prosecutor Michel Valet said a 30-year-old rabbi and his 3-year-old and 6-year-old sons were killed in the attack just before classes started at the Ozar Hatorah school.
Another child, the 8-year-old daughter of the school principal, was also killed, school officials said. Valet said a 17-year-old boy was also seriously wounded and in the operating ward of a city hospital.
"The drama occurred a bit before 8 a.m. A man arrived in front of the school on a motorcycle or scooter," Valet said, adding that the man got off his scooter outside the school and opened fire.
"He shot at everything he had in front of him, children and adults," he said. "The children were chased inside the school." . . .

This after two different public shootings in France last week:

A gunman on a motorbike opened fire on three French paratroopers at a bank machine Thursday in southern France, killing two and critically wounding one, officials said. It was the second such attack in a week targeting French soldiers. . . .
On Sunday, a 30-year-old paratrooper was fatally shot near a gymnasium in the southern city of Toulouse by an unidentified attacker. . . . .

UPDATE: This is an interesting new twist on the case. From the WSJ:

The man who gunned down four people at a school in this southern French city apparently filmed his attack, further convincing authorities that they are searching for a merciless killer who meticulously planned the shooting that has sparked horror and outrage across the country.

Investigators said Tuesday they fear the shooter, who may be connected to two recent attacks in the area that left three soldiers dead, could strike again.

Prosecutors say they have dispatched more than 200 specialized investigators, from anti-terrorist police to profilers to Internet experts, to Toulouse to help identify the shooter, who opened fire Monday at a private Jewish school, killing a father and his two young sons as well as an 8-year-old girl.

Prosecutors have said gunpowder was found on the heads of all the victims, suggesting they were shot at point-blank range. Interior Minister Claude Guéant, who is helping coordinate the hunt for the killer from Toulouse, said all the witnesses to the shootings at the school said the man "was cold and determined and showed great cruelty." . . .

A couple of notes on multiple victim public shootings in France

Here is one story:

Shootings in France reveal explosive social tensions
By Therese LeClerc
3 April 2002
. . . Over the last 10 years there have been at least 17 such incidents, often ending with the suicide of the perpetrator. In July 1992, a young worker killed seven people in the factory in Besancon from which he had been recently fired. He then killed himself. Twelve months later, a member of the gypsy community killed six of his relatives before committing suicide. In September 1995, a 16-year-old killed sixteen people, including three family members, and wounded seven others before killing himself. And last October a railway worker opened fire in the central French city of Tours, killing four people and wounding eleven others. He is currently in prison. . . .

Another story here:

French Railway Worker Goes on Shooting Rampage, Killing 4
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: October 30, 2001

PARIS, Oct. 29— A masked railroad worker went on a shooting rampage in central France today, killing four people and wounding 10, including three police officers.

The only explanation offered by the authorities for the shootings in Tours was speculation by local officials that the gunman, Jean-Pierre Roux-Durrafourt, was angry at his employer, Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer, the national railroad. He was captured by the police in an underground parking garage. . . .

Ten injured by French nursery gunman in March 2009

Others

Seven murdered in a shooting in Turin, Italy on October 15, 2002.

Seven dead, two seriously wounded in shooting in Italy on Sep 18, 2008.

An attack at a Sikh Temple in Austria that left one dead and 16 others injured.

A school shooting in Norway that left two dead in 2009.

Terror attacks in India are here.

Some attacks at airports.

French looking at taxing Google to fund french writers

I have no love lost for Google, but this sounds like using taxes to create an unequal playing field.

President Nicolas Sarkozy instructed his finance ministry to examine the merits of a tax in response to complaints from the French media that Google and other sites are generating advertising income using their news and other content. He also called for an inquiry by French competition authorities into a possible “abuse of dominant position” in the advertising business of big internet sites. . . .

However, Google has run roughshod over property rights.

Last month a Paris court ruled that Google had violated the copyright of authors and publishers by scanning French books held in US libraries without consent. The court ordered the group to stop scanning titles published by La Matinière, the company that brought the case, without prior authorisation, and instructed it to pay €300,000 in damages and interest. . . .

France's Sarkozy stays on bold course

Wow, Sarkozy may be middle of the road by US standards, but he is completely breaking the political mold in France. It looks like his party will sweep the upcoming legislative elections.

In his inauguration speech, Sarkozy pledged to introduce profound changes to France’s economy and lifestyle, saying, "Never has opposition to change been so dangerous for France." The president added that there is an urgent need to "unite the French" and "rehabilitate the values of work, effort, merit and respect." . . . .