European correspondent - French news this week

 

France ・ Police brutality

No charges filed over death of black French man in custody

Seven years after the death of Adama Traoré, a young black Frenchman who died in custody in the summer of 2016, the court concluded that the three officers responsible for his arrest had not committed illegitimate violence. While the circumstances of his death are still disputed, his family have denounced efforts to protect the police officers and made the case a symbol of police brutality. Assa Traoré, the victim's sister and now an icon of the French Black Lives Matter movement, organised a rally on Tuesday to protest what she describes as "a shame for France and the French justice system."

Melissa Chemam The Adama Traoré affaire is a highly mediatised case that became the symbol of the police brutality debate in France. Despite the lack of clarity around his death, it remains today a rallying cry for those protesting police brutality in France, especially as the country grapples with the aftermath of unrest in late June and early July following the police killing of a French teenager of North African descent at a traffic stop in a Paris suburb.

Sources: RFI and Le Monde

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'The Old Oak'

 

From late September onwards 'The Old Oak' from Ken Loach is out in the UK and in France. 

The Old Oak pub becomes contested territory after the arrival of Syrian refugees, placed in the village without any notice...

Presentation:

THE OLD OAK is a special place.  

Not only is it the last pub standing, but it’s also the only remaining public space where people can meet in a once thriving mining community that has now fallen on hard times after 30 years of decline.  

TJ Ballantyne (Dave Turner) the landlord hangs on to The Old Oak by his fingertips, and his predicament is endangered even more when the pub becomes contested territory after the arrival of Syrian refugees who are placed in the village without any notice. In an unlikely friendship TJ meets a curious young Syrian Yara [Ebla Mari] with her camera.   

Can they find a way for the two communities to understand each other?  

So unfolds a deeply moving drama about their fragilities and hopes. 

THE OLD OAK is directed by BAFTA winner Ken Loach, written by BAFTA winner Paul Laverty and produced by BAFTA winner Rebecca O’Brien for Sixteen Films, all of whom continue their long-time collaboration following acclaimed films including Sorry We Missed You and I, Daniel Blake.

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Ken Loach's films have been with us for many generations now, but in a year like 2023 very few other filmmakers have had to energy to remain so engaged with the collective and with the world around them.

Loach and his films are to be treasured.

I wrote about his latest films, and particularly loved 'The Angels' Share' and 'I, Daniel Blake'.

I also wrote about how his legacy influenced some of the new generation of British filmmakers, in 2016, for a French magazine.

Meeting him in person for a discussion about Palestine, at Bristol's Arnolfini art centre, was a highlight of a particularly difficult period for me.

Thank you, Mr Ken Loach, and I so look forward to see your new film!

On the first and groundbreaking Africa Climate Summit

 

Covering for RFI English, sadly not from Nairobi, my city in Africa (where I live for 18 months)

Luis Tato / AFP

4 September 2023 

High hopes for lucrative green deals at Africa's first climate summit

Africa's first climate summit opens in the Kenyan capital this Monday as the continent looks to limit the devastating impact of global warming by spearheading efforts for green growth and shoring up finance for developing countries on the frontline of climate change.  

Despite accounting for about 3 percent of global carbon emissions, African countries are increasingly exposed to the impact of extreme weather linked to climate change, highlighted by the Horn of Africa's worst drought in decades.

More than 20 African heads of state and government and 20,000 delegates from around the world, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, are joining the summit, which runs until 6 September in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

"This summit will in priority look at climate financing," Crisis Group expert Nazanine Moshiri told RFI.

As the group's senior analyst on climate, environment and conflict, she expects heads of state to make a strong statement on investment in green growth.

Moshiri also hopes that the countries in the deepest crises, like Sudan, Somalia and the coup-hit Niger and Gabon, won't be forgotten.

• Why winning the climate fight in Africa is a win for the world

Large investments

Deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars are expected to be struck during the summit, organisers say. This includes progress on nature-based investments, clean energy production and climate adaptation efforts.

"We are anticipating deals from $1 million all the way to hundreds of millions of dollars," summit chief Joseph Ng'ang'a told Reuters.

Several nature-based deals involving African countries, which help resolve the dilemma of who foots the bill to combat climate change impacts, have already been announced in recent months.

In June Portugal said it would swap $153 million worth of Cape Verde's debt for nature investments, while Gabon completed a deal this month to buy back $500 million of its international debt and issue an eco-friendly bond of equal size.

• Global climate change driving drought in Horn of Africa

​​Droughts, floods and other disasters 

African countries have been severely affected by changing weather patterns and increasingly suffer from droughts, floods and storms.

Most regions are affected, especially the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.

"Human-caused climate change has made agricultural drought in the Horn of Africa about 100 times more likely," a report by the World Weather Attribution found in April.

Dry seasons are becoming longer in parts of the Sahel, and rainfall more intense and erratic, meaning droughts and floods are set to intensify, according to a report by the US International Rescue Committee.

Niger has been hit hard by climate change, losing 100,000 hectares of arable land each year to desert.

A comprehensive analysis examining the wealth of nations and their dependence on fossil fuels also concluded poorer countries would be most hurt by a rapid move away from oil and gas, even risking political instability.

• African leaders demand funds to adapt to climate change

Thinking ahead of COP28

African governments are also gearing up for December's Cop28 climate summit in Dubai, when they will be pushing for the realisation of financing commitments made in previous climate summits by richer nations.

Last year's Cop27 in Egypt agreed to create a loss and damage fund for developing countries, but it has not yet materialised.

Ali Mohamed, Kenya's special envoy for climate change, said the recognition of the Congo forest basin as a key carbon sink was a main objectives heading into Cop28.

"We are holding this summit not to continue repeating the same messages. We are holding this summit for Africa to present solutions to the challenges," he said.

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                                                                                                                     5 September 2023 

UAE pledge a record $4.5 billion in clean energy investments in Africa at Nairobi's Climate Summit

 

Already described as "Africa's moment", the Climate Summit has already brought a record pledge from the Emirates and a strong statement from the UN chief, Antonio Guterres.

 

 The United Arab Emirates (UAE) pledged $4.5 billion in clean energy investments in Africa on Tuesday at the landmark Africa Climate Summit, which opened on Monday in Kenya's capital Nairobi.

The pledge is most significant so far, coming from the UAE which will also host the COP28 summit in Dubai in November-December.

The investment would "jumpstart a pipeline of bankable clean energy projects in this very important continent", Sultan Al Jaber, head of the UAE's national oil company ADNOC, of government-owned renewable energy company Masdar, and president of the COP28 climate summit.

Jaber also said a consortium including Masdar would help develop 15 gigawatts of clean power by 2030.

He called for a "surgical intervention of the global financial architecture that was built for a different era", urging institutions to lower debt burdens.

International 'responsibilities'

The three-day Nairobi summit has attracted heads of state, government and industry, including leaders from Mozambique and Tanzania, as well as United Nations head Antonio Guterres, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen and US climate envoy John Kerry.

This Tuesday morning, the UN Secretary-General urged the international community to help make Africa "a renewable energy superpower".

"Renewable energy could be the African miracle. But we must make it happen," Guterres told the summit, asking leaders of the Group of 20 major economies in particular, who are meeting in India on the weekend, to "assume your responsibilities" in the fight against climate change.

Before the summit opened, Crisis Group senior analyst on climate, environment and conflict, Nazanine Moshiri, told RFI English that experts also hoped that the disasters linked to climate crisis wouldn't be forgotten, especially the need for conflict resolution in region like the Horn of Africa and the Sahel, profoundly impacted by the changes.

A coalition of civil society groups has been urging Kenya's President William Ruto to steer global climate priorities away from what they perceive as a Western-led agenda that champions carbon markets and other financial tools to redress the climate crisis.

Green investments and shift in perception 

The summit is aimed at showcasing the continent's potential as a green powerhouse and focused on drawing investment to projects to fight global warming. 

Ruto has sought to use this Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi to shift the narrative on the region, presenting the clean energy transition as a unique opportunity for Africa.

He believes it can attract the financing to realise its potential.

• High hopes for lucrative green deals at Africa's first climate summit

Ruto said trillions of dollars in "green investment opportunities" would be needed as the climate crisis accelerates.

His goal is also to bring together African leaders to define a shared vision for green development on the diverse continent of 1.4 billion and set the tone for a flurry of international diplomacy leading up to the COP28 meeting.

  

Gabon: The role of France

 

Coup highlights France's enduring friendship with longtime rulers of Gabon 

Part of France's empire in Central Africa until 1960, Gabon has remained one of its key allies on the continent. As soldiers attempt to overthrow President Ali Bongo Ondimba, who took over from his father, RFI looks back at France's role as the first and most faithful ally of the Bongo family.

France officially occupied Gabon in 1885, ten years after French-Italian explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza led a first mission to the region and founded the town of Franceville – one of Gabon's largest cities to this day.

In 1910 Gabon was declared part of French Equatorial Africa, and would remain under French rule for the next 50 years.

Like most of France's sub-Saharan colonies, it gained independence in 1960.

But Gabon and France remained close. Thousands of French citizens remained in the country after independence, the French oil company Elf exploited a large part of its crude production, and others mined its iron, manganese and timber for exports.

Gabonese uranium also supplied France's nuclear weapons and power plants.

And the friendship was closely protected by the family that ruled over Gabon for 55 years: the Bongos.

A dynasty begins

Omar Bongo Ondimba, the man who ruled Gabon from 1967 until his death in 2009, famously said: "Gabon without France is like a car with no driver. France without Gabon is like a car with no fuel."

Bongo was promoted to key positions in the 1960s as a young official under Gabon's first president, Léon Mba, before being elected vice-president in his own right in 1966.

In 1964, when renegade soldiers arrested Bongo in Libreville and kidnapped Mba, French paratroopers rescued the abducted president and his deputy, restoring them to power.

When Mba died in November 1967, Bongo succeeded him to become the second president of Gabon.

As head of state he travelled regularly to France, where he owned dozens of properties, and enjoyed the backing – more or less openly – of successive French governments.

Bongo's international relations were dominated by his relationship with France, Gabon falling within the ambit of what experts began calling "Françafrique".

"Gabon is an extreme case, verging on caricature, of neocolonialism," wrote French journalist Pierre Péan in 1983.

Special relationship

Omar Bongo carefully cultivated close relations with French politicians.

The Gabonese president was accused of bankrolling election campaigns for friendly candidates in France. Most notably, former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing publicly claimed that Bongo helped fund the 1981 presidential campaign of his rival, Jacques Chirac.

Chirac denied the allegation.

Meanwhile France's footprint in Gabon was clear to see.

In 1988, the New York Times reported that through its aid, France subsidised "a third of Gabon's budget, extending low-interest trade loans, paying the salaries of 170 French advisers and 350 French teachers and paying scholarships for most of the roughly 800 Gabonese who study in France every year".

According to French satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné, "$2.6 million of this aid also went for the interior decoration of a DC-8 jet belonging to President Bongo".

For years, France even turned a blind eye to the Bongo family's acquisition of luxury homes in Paris and on the Côte d'Azur.

France always maintained a permanent military base in Gabon, and in 1990, when pro-democracy protests threatened to oust Bongo from power, it helped keep him in place.

In 1993, with Bongo threatened again, the French government brokered a peace accord between Bongo's leadership and an angry opposition.

Second Bongo era

When Omar Bongo died in June 2009, his son Ali took over as head of the Gabonese Democratic Party.

He ran as the party's candidate for president in a snap election in August that year.

The French president at the time, Nicolas Sarkozy – who had made Gabon one of the first countries he visited when he became president two years earlier – openly backed Ali Bongo's campaign.

Rumours flew that the elder Bongo had stashed secret documents at the presidential palace that could discredit France, which according to Florence Bernault, professor of African history at political science university Sciences Po, was thought to be a factor in Sarkozy's support.

But relations weren't always so cosy under the second President Bongo.

In 2010 the French judiciary opened a so-called "ill-gotten gains" enquiry into the origin of the fortune Omar Bongo used to buy expensive assets in France.

Spanning 15 years, the probe resulted in the seizure of several properties and embezzlement charges against several of Bongo's children – though not Ali Bongo, who as a sitting president benefitted from immunity.

Wind of change?

In 2015, France also opened an investigation into Ali Bongo's chief of staff on suspicion of accepting a bribe from a French company to help secure a contract.

Since his election in 2017, President Emmanuel Macron has promised to put an end to "Françafrique" and to be a more neutral partner.

And Bongo did decide to diversify Gabon's partners.

In 2022, as Bongo requested, Gabon even joined the Commonwealth, alongside with Togo, becoming the latest nations with no historic ties to Britain to enter the English-speaking club headed by Queen Elizabeth II.  

But during his latest visit to Libreville in March 2023, Macron appeared as close to Bongo as his predecessors ever were. 

France condemned his toppling, and still has around 400 troops in the country.

Balimaya Project, soon in Paris

 

Cathartic rhythms for West African band born in 'black London' • RFI English

African-infused London-based jazz 13-piece band Balimaya Project sounds like a tour-de-force of sound fusion and energy. The band are coming to in Paris, before a headline show in London in October. 

I caught up with the band at the Womad festival in late July.

Article on rfi's website.

23 septembre : Marche contre les violences policières et le racisme systémique

 

APPEL À LA MARCHE UNITAIRE DU 23 SEPTEMBRE "POUR LA FIN DU RACISME SYSTÉMIQUE, DES VIOLENCES POLICIÈRES, POUR LA JUSTICE SOCIALE ET LES LIBERTÉS PUBLIQUES"

Le meurtre de Nahel, tué par un policier à bout portant le 27 juin 2023 à Nanterre, a mis de nouveau la lumière sur ce qui doit cesser : le racisme systémique, les violences policières, et les inégalités sociales que creuse la politique de Macron. Une politique néolibérale imposée par des méthodes autoritaires, des lois sécuritaires et une doctrine du maintien de l’ordre décriée jusque dans les plus grandes instances internationales. Une politique régressive qui fait le lit de l’extrême-droite et piétine toujours plus nos libertés publiques, notre modèle social, notre avenir face à l’effondrement écologique.

En première ligne des victimes de ces choix politiques, les habitant·es, et notamment les jeunes des quartiers populaires et des territoires ultramarins, qui subissent de plein fouet l’aggravation de toutes les inégalités sociales dans un contexte économique d’inflation, de hausse des loyers, des prix de l’énergie et de politiques d'urbanisme brutales. Les réformes de la Macronie accentuent la pauvreté en durcissant notamment l’accès aux prestations sociales. La scandaleuse réforme de l’assurance chômage en est un exemple significatif alors que la précarité au travail augmente.

Les révoltes dans les quartiers populaires ne peuvent s’analyser que dans ce contexte global. Les habitant·es de ces quartiers, et notamment les mères isolées, pallient bien souvent seul·es les carences de services publics dont la destruction s’accélère de jour en jour.

A côté de cela, de nombreuses violences sont perpétrées contre les populations : délocalisation et destruction de l’emploi, évasion et fraude fiscale, mode de vie des ultras riches écocidaire, supers profits des multinationales, modes de production hypers polluants responsables de la crise climatique. Et pour cela, l’Etat laisse faire ! De plus, les populations racisées et/ ou issues des classes sociales défavorisées, des quartiers populaires, des zones rurales et périurbaines appauvries, des territoires ultramarins sont victimes de violences institutionnelles et systémiques, notamment policières.

La politique répressive de l'Etat est encore renforcée par le dernier remaniement ministériel, qui a élargi les compétences du ministère de l’Intérieur à la ville, l'Outre-mer et la citoyenneté. La répression s’étend avec toujours plus d’intensité et de violences policières, d’interdictions de manifester, contre le mouvement social et écologiste, comme lors de la lutte contre la réforme des retraites rejetée par l'immense majorité des travailleur-ses et leurs syndicats et à Sainte-Soline. La liberté associative, directement et indirectement, est de plus en plus mise en cause.

Cette situation est d’autant plus inquiétante que l’institution policière paraît hors de contrôle du pouvoir politique. Des déclarations factieuses de certains syndicats de policiers suite au meurtre de Nahel aux déclarations du Directeur général de la police nationale et à celle du Préfet de police de Paris ainsi que le ministre de l’intérieur, c’est l’institution policière qui aujourd’hui remet en cause l’État de droit, plutôt que de mettre fin à l’impunité des auteurs de violences policières.

Nos organisations syndicales, associations, collectifs, comités de quartiers populaires, de victimes de violences policières et partis politiques se mobilisent ensemble dans la durée pour la convergence des justices antiraciste, sociale et écologique, féministes et pour que cessent les politiques sécuritaires et anti sociales.

La crise démocratique, sociale, politique que nous traversons est très grave.

Nous ne pouvons accepter qu’il y ait encore d’autres morts comme Nahel, ou d'autres blessé.es, victimes des violences policières.

Nous appelons à reprendre la rue samedi 23 septembre, à organiser des manifestations ou d’autres initiatives sur tout le territoire, pour faire front ensemble contre la répression des contestations sociales démocratiques et écologiques, pour la fin du racisme systémique, des violences policières, et pour la justice sociale climatique, féministe et les libertés publiques.

Nous exigeons des réponses immédiates et dans l’urgence :

– abrogation de la loi de 2017 sur l’assouplissement des règles en matière d’usage des armes à feu par les forces de l’ordre ;

– une réforme en profondeur de la police, de ses techniques d’intervention et de son armement

– le remplacement de l’IGPN par un organisme indépendant de la hiérarchie policière et du pouvoir politique ;

– la création d’un service dédié aux discriminations touchant la jeunesse au sein de l’autorité administrative présidée par le Défenseur des droits et le renforcement des moyens de lutte contre le racisme, y compris dans la police ;

- Un plan d’investissement public ambitieux dans les quartiers populaires et sur l’ensemble du territoire pour rétablir les services publics, le financement des associations et des centres sociaux

Marchons toutes et tous ensemble

le 23 septembre !

Premières organisations signataires :

Collectifs/comités de quartiers populaires, de victimes de violences policières : Coordination pour la Défense des habitants des Quartiers Populaires, Coordination nationale contre les violences policières, Coordination nationale “Marche 40 ans”, Collectif Justice pour Claude Jean-Pierre, Comité Justice pour Othmane, Collectif Justice et Vérité pour Yanis, Comité Justice pour Alassane, Collectif Stop Violences Policières à Saint-Denis, Comité vérité et justice pour Safyatou, Salif et Ilan, Mémoire en marche Marseille.

Organisations syndicales : CGT, FSU, Union syndicale Solidaires, Fédération Syndicale Étudiante (FSE), Mouvement national lycéen ( MNL ), L'Union étudiante.

Associations et autres collectifs : Alternatiba, ANV-COP21, Attac France, Collectif National pour les Droits des Femmes (CNDF), Coudes à Coudes, Dernière Rénovation, Droit Au Logement (DAL), FASTI (Fédération des Associations de Solidarité avec Tou-te-s les Immigré-e-s), Fédération nationale de la LIbre Pensée, Femmes Egalité, Fondation Copernic, Gisti (Groupe d’information et de soutien des immigré·es), Les Amis de la Terre France, La Révolution est en marche, Marche des Solidarités, Memorial 98, Planning familial, Réseau d’Actions contre l’Antisémitisme et tous les Racismes (RAAR), Association Stop Aux Violences d’État, Alternatiba Paris, Association Intergénérationelle de la Rabière (AIR-37), Association Naya (37), Association Nouveaux Souffle pour l'Insertion Sociale et Professionnelle (ANSIP-37)

Organisations politiques : EELV Europe Ecologie Les Verts, ENSEMBLE Mouvement pour une Alternative de Gauche, Écologiste et Solidaire, LFI - La France insoumise, Front Uni des Immigrations et des Quartiers Populaires ( FUIQP), Gauche démocratique et sociale (GDS), La Gauche Ecosocialiste, Génération.s, Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA), Nouvelle Donne, Parti Communiste des Ouvriers de France (PCOF), Parti Ouvrier Indépendant (POI), Révolution Écologique pour le Vivant (REV), Vivre Ensemble Solidaires en Métropole Tourangelle (VESEMT-37)

Latest post on my Substack newsletter

 

"Migration is not a crime"

And why we all need to understand why displacements increase, to feel more sympathetic, and learn about what led the world to this situation...

MELISSA CHEMAM

30 AOÛT 2023

Read from here: 

https://melissa.substack.com/p/migration-is-not-a-crime

France News - European Correspondent

 

France ・ Discrimination

France bans abayas dresses in schools, despite criticism

France will ban children in state-run schools from wearing loose-fitting, full-length robes known as 'abayas', worn by some Muslim women. This is the first major announcement from new education minister Gabriel Attal, who spoke to French media on Sunday ahead of the back-to-school season.

Melissa Chemam For girls wearing them, abayas are cultural clothes, not religious ones. It is not a garment directly linked to the Muslim faith, but "to a culture", according to Anne-Laure Zwilling, anthropologist of religions at the CNRS, , France’s scientific research centre.

〉Article by RFI English: New French education minister bans abaya dresses

〉Article by Euronews: France bans abayas in schools

〉Video by BBC: France to ban Muslim students wearing abayas in state schools

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Link here: https://www.europeancorrespondent.com/story?s=france-bans-abayas-dresses-in-schools-despite-criticism&utm_source=The+European+Correspondent&utm_campaign=7f4d16b1ac-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_04_04_10_18_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-d2e5faad91-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D 

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France ・ Corruption

Ex-president Sarkozy to go on trial over Libya-funded campaign

French investigative magistrates have decided that former president Nicolas Sarkozy will go on trial in 2025, with 12 others. The charges: illegal campaign financing, embezzling, passive corruption. Sarkozy received millions from Muammar Gaddafi's government for his 2007 presidential campaign.

Melissa Chemam The case is the biggest and most shocking of multiple corruption investigations involving Sarkozy. In 2007, Sarkozy welcomed Gadhafi with high honours, but then put France at the forefront of NATO-led airstrikes that helped topple the Libyan leader in 2011.

〉Article by Le Monde: web article

〉Article by New York Times: web article

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Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy to go on trial over Libyan campaign funds

  French investigative magistrates have decided that former president Nicolas Sarkozy will go on trial in 2025, with 12 others. 

The charges: illegal campaign financing, embezzling, passive corruption. 

Sarkozy received millions from Moammar Gadhafi's government for his 2007 presidential campaign. 

The case is the biggest and most shocking of multiple corruption investigations involving Sarkozy.

In 2007, Sarkozy welcomed Gadhafi with high honours, but then put led the NATO-led airstrikes that helped topple the Libyan leader in 2011.

Read more here:

 

In Le Monde in English:

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/08/25/former-president-nicolas-sarkozy-to-go-on-trial-over-libya-financing-for-election-campaign_6108081_7.html 

In the New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/world/europe/sarkozy-trial-france-libya-corruption.html 

And to know more about the situation in Libya now, read my analytical piece for RFI English  here:

Spike in violence shows Libya remains crippled by rival armed groups

Following a year of relative calm in Libya, fighting erupted again this week in the capital Tripoli. The UN-backed government remains powerless in more than a third of the country, whose people have not seen an election in almost a decade.