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On the front page of the press, this Monday, April 3, the reactions to the expulsions from Burkina Faso of the correspondents of the French daily newspapers Le Monde and Liberation, after the suspension of the broadcast of France F24 and RFI. The presentation, today in France, of the report of the Citizens’ Convention on the end of life. A new controversy signed Marlène Schiappa. And the (not so?) critical spirit of the French.
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In the headlines, the expulsion, this weekend, from Burkina Faso, of the correspondents of the French daily newspapers Le Monde and Liberation, after the suspension of the broadcast of France France 24 and RFI.
The publication last week of a survey of Release on a video showing children and adolescents executed in a military barracks, visibly displeased the junta led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré, the current president of Burkina Faso – where journalists find themselves today “under the yoke of the ‘arbitrary’, according to Freedwho sees in these expulsions “the latest attempt” of the power to “silence the independent press”, especially foreign. The NGO Reporters Without Borders, which published a report this morning on press freedom in the Sahel, reports the “very clear” deterioration in the working conditions of journalists throughout the region, from Chad to Benin via Niger and Mali. She is alarmed to see the whole of the Sahel become a “zone of non-information”.
The growing muzzling of the Burkinabè press is reflected this morning in the silence of several titles of the national press, however quick, until now, to denounce abuses of power. A virtual silence broken by When Sera who publishes the press release of a Collective of journalists, activists and opinion leaders in which they call themselves “victims of threats in Burkina”: “Criticism or contradiction cannot become offenses or even crimes punishable by threat of death or any other force of persecution, harassment and violence”, denounces this collective.
Freedom of the press, also under attack in Algeria, where the press boss Ihsane el-Kadi was sentenced yesterday to three years in prison for “foreign financing of his business”. The newspaper Young Africa states that Ihsane el-Kadi, who heads one of the last independent press groups in Algeria, with Radio M and the website Emerging Maghrebis accused “of having received sums of money from persons and organizations in the country and abroad in order to engage in activities likely to undermine state security” – accusations which Ihsane el-Kadi defends himself. False accusations, also hammers The Wall Street Journalafter the arrest, last week, of its correspondent in Russia Evan Gershkovich, officially suspected of espionage by the Russian authorities, accused in turn by the American daily of engaging in a “diplomacy of hostages”, intended to make pressure on President Joe Biden.
Watch: Evan Gershkovich never wanted to be the story. The detained reporter’s WSJ colleagues speak up about his passion for journalism and his gift for covering Russia https://t.co/OGLtwYSZUD
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) April 3, 2023
Also on the front page this morning of the French press, the report of the Citizens’ Convention on the end of life, presented today at the Elysée Palace to President Macron. The cross indicates that this report recommends the development of palliative care, which aim to help maintain the quality of life of end-of-life patients as much as possible and is also in favor of active assistance in dying, which concerns both euthanasia and assisted suicide – subjects which are extremely debated here in France, where they are still prohibited. French society is therefore preparing to open a sensitive debate. But is she ready for it? In an interview with our colleagues from France Infopsychologist Marie de Hennezel, who wrote a best-selling book on the subject, “La Mort Intime”, describes the report “very paradoxical” of the French with death, with on one side, a “denial” and one “taboo”, and on the other, the growing desire to allow everyone to “to master” his last moments.
Death, this “taboo”, also raises Release, who wonders what Emmanuel Macron will do with this report, after the mixed experience of the Citizens’ Climate Convention. Asked by Freed on the “paradox”, which would consist, for the government in challenge the “legitimacy of the crowd” in the street on pension reform, while relying on citizens, on major issues such as those of the end of life, political scientist Loïc Blondiaux highlights the “strategic dimension” of this new Citizens’ Convention. But he explains that the government can no longer overlook either “mobilizations of the population” nor “democratic innovations” making “a place for citizens in the decision-making process”.
The government, which would have done well without this controversy surrounding the interview given by the Secretary of State for the Social and Solidarity Economy, Marlène Schiappa at the French version of the American erotic magazine Playboy. According to Courrier International, this very serious affair has not escaped the attention of the foreign press, in particular the Italian press. The magazine cites in particular Daily factwho announce that Marlène Schiappa appears on the cover of the mook “in a sexy pose and wrapped in the French flag” – a cliché to discover this Thursday, for those who are interested. More seriously, the Italian newspaper wonders about the communication strategy of the French government, this interview, but also the interview, last month, of Emmanuel Macron at Pif Gadget, a magazine for children and teenagers and that of Olivier Dussopt, au magazine gay Stubbornwhere the Minister of Labor revealed his homosexuality, in full mobilization against the pension reform.
We don’t leave each other on this. On the subject of the French and their paradoxes, always, while the mobilization against the pension reform continues, Slate reports an astonishing survey, which indicates that four out of ten French people say they do not have a critical mind. Modesty or lucidity, difficult to say. Another surprising data: contrary to what one might think, 58% of respondents say they never debate on social networks, the main exchanges of ideas always taking place between friends or during family meals: noon around the veal blanquette, there is nothing like it.
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