New group seeks to bar firms from buying Islamic State oil

A NEW BODY to defend persecuted Christians has gained support from 137 French MPs for a parliamentary inquiry into any French companies helping to finance the Islamic State (IS) jihadist movement by buying oil from fields it controls.

The group Nouveaux Martyrs (New Martyrs) told 150 people at a rally at the Unesco headquarters in Paris last Sunday that the National Assembly would vote on a draft to set up the inquiry in the autumn. Its leader Joseph Thouvenel, vice-president of the French Confederation of Christian Workers (CFTC) union, said IS earns between two and three million dollars a day by these sales.

IS, which has killed and expelled Christians and other minorities from areas it has seized in Iraq and Syria, could not have expanded so quickly without ample funds, including from oil sales to western companies. “This shames our country,” said Jean-Frédéric Poisson, the MP who drew up the draft resolution, in a message to the rally. Nouveaux Martyrs wanted to mobilise support for persecuted Christians “in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere”, said journalist Jean-Marc Plantade, its secretary-general.