Latest post on my Substack Newsletter:
On what 'France' has become...
...and whether or not Europe can survive its far-right obsession
Latest post on my Substack Newsletter:
10/06/2024
European elections results... and French bad news
Exhausting evening here, after a lovely day...
I love voting, but apparently not for the same reasons as my fellow French citizens.
French president dissolves parliament after far-right National Rally's EU elections victory
French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday announced he was dissolving parliament and called snap legislative elections after the far-right trounced his centrist alliance in EU polls.
The first round of elections for the lower house National Assembly will take place on 30 June, with the second round on 7 July.
Von der Leyen vows to build 'bastion against extremes'
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Sunday to build a "bastion against extremes" in the new EU parliament, where vote projections show her centre-right group in first place.
"We will build a bastion against the extremes from the left and from the right," she told members of her European People's Party (EPP) in Brussels.
"No majority can be formed without EPP," she said. "We will stop them. This is for sure."
French far-right leader Le Pen welcomes elections
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Sunday welcomed President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to dissolve the National Assembly and announce new parliamentary elections later this month. “We are ready to take over the power if the French give us their trust in the upcoming national elections,” she said during a rally.
09/06/2024
08/06/2024
Saint Levant - Allah Yihmeeki feat. Kehlani
There is sadly not much music I like at the moment... But luckily there's Saint Levant:
Stream DEIRA the album: https://lnk.to/sl-deira 2048 Presents: Saint Levant - Allah Yihmeeki feat. Kehlani Subscribe to Saint Levant: https://tinyurl.com/SaintLevant Connect with Saint Levant: http://instagram.com/saintlevant http://tiktok.com/@saintlevant Directed by Pedro Damasceno Shot by William Chapin & Pedro Damasceno Produced by 2048 Executive Produced by Rashid Abdelhamid Line Producer Faris Halaseh | Where to Film Styling by Tintein Studio Song produced by Khalil Cherradi & Marwan Abdelhamid Bass by Domenico Lorenzo "Buddy" Caderni Guitar by Ben Thomson & Victor Martinez Additional vocals by Adham Bayoumi & Zein Sajdi #saintlevant #allahyihmeeki © 2024 Universal Arabic Music / SALXCO UAM LLC.
06/06/2024
On Olympics' social cleansing
How the current ‘Olympic’ plans...
created social cleansing in Paris
6 June 2024 - Melissa Chemam
Official inauguration of the "Franchissement Urbain Pleyel" pedestrian footbridge connecting the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic athletes' village to Olympic event venues, in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, on May 16, 2024. Photo credits: Thomas SAMSON / AFP
With the Olympic Games coming up in Paris, French authorities have started to “prepare” some of the sport venues and neighbourhoods, especially in Seine-Saint-Denis (93), just north of the capital, a "département" (aka district or borough) where a lot of the facilities are installed, but also students will be forced to leave their accommodation for the summer.
The Paris Olympics are set to run from 26 July to 11 August, followed by the Paralympics from 28 August to 8 September.
The 93 is one of the most populous, multicultural and poorest of the country, but the Olympic committee wants it to shine…
NGOs, including campaign group ‘Revers de la Médaille’ (The Other Side of the Medal), have alerted on issues, and published a report describing the French methods as “social cleansing”.
‘The Other Side of the Medal’ group brings together 80 different charities In their new report, the group says Paris’s authorities are following a “playbook” used by other Olympic host cities to crack down on migrants, squatters, homeless people and sex workers.
The report released early June says: "We hoped that this edition would be different from previous ones and we made suggestions over a long period in this regard. Today we can state that Paris 2024 will be no different from previous editions and will truly accelerate the exclusion of the most vulnerable."
The report shows notably how French police clear squats, migrant camps, and chase away homeless people from Paris streets, ahead of the Olympic games, with 26 operations to clear migrant camps so far in 2024, "almost the same as for the whole of the year 2022” (there were 30). Since April last year, a total of 10 squats used by migrants – including a former factory close to the Olympic village – had been cleared, affecting 1,967 people.
At least two thirds of 6,000 migrants were sent to regional shelters outside of the Paris region under a policy defended by the French authorities as a means of relieving housing pressure in the capital. The report also challenges French ministers and police chiefs who claim the crackdown is not connected with the Olympics. "This argument was weak before and today it is totally unconvincing," the report concludes.
"This summer, Paris and its region will be able to present themselves in a way that authorities see as favourable: a sterile 'City of Light', with its misery almost invisible, without important informal areas of life, 'clean' neighbourhoods and woods, without beggars, drug use or sex work," the report concluded.
The collective has organised a series of protests to raise awareness about its work, including projecting "We are not ready" on to the Arc de Triomphe and its own name on to the headquarters of the organising committee.
Other NGOs have reported similar concerns. And the UN's special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, has also backed their finding.
When asked for comment on the latest report, the Paris 2024 organising committee stressed it was not responsible for social policies or policing. The social affairs ministry said it "took the concerns seriously" and had "regularly consulted" charities.
The cabinet director of the Paris regional prefect, Christophe Noel du Payrat, responsible for policing and security, defended the policies of the French government, suggesting the "Other Side of the Medal" was unrealistic.
The Seine-Saint-Denis region, Stephane Troussel, said last week that the Games should draw attention to the capital's housing problems, telling reporters: "I would like it to be a moment of awareness for the fact that the emergency shelters in the Paris region are completely full and we need more places".
The Muslim population is estimated to represent the largest religious community in Seine-Saint-Denis, coming from West Africa, the Arab world or other former French colonies like the Comoros Islands, with an estimation of around 700 000 believers.
Last year, the government also decided that if foreign women athletes could wear hijabs and muslim-related clothes, French sportswomen wouldn't be allowed to.
The French Football Federation (FFF) effectively prohibited Muslim women players who wear a headscarf from participating in competitive football matches.
The FFF was accused of discriminatory policy.
In response, some sports women have created a committee, named the ‘Hijabeuses collective’, and brought the case against the FFF before the highest administrative court, the Conseil d’État.
They said: The “decision is a missed opportunity to right a long-standing wrong and let us play, simply. Our fight is not political or religious but centred on our human right to participate in sports. Many women are excluded from football fields in France every weekend solely because they wear a veil.”
But the Conseil d’État sided with the FFF.
Anna Blus, Amnesty International’s Researcher – Women’s Rights in Europe, then said: “The deeply disappointing decision today from the Conseil d’État entrenches both racism and gender discrimination in French football.
She added the Football Federation’s ban on religious clothing "not only prevents Muslim women footballers who wear headscarves from playing in competitive matches, it also violates their rights to freedom of expression, association, and religion."
The decision ignores the Public Rapporteur’s recommendation to end this discriminatory ban and seriously undermines efforts to make women’s sports more inclusive.
It means that Muslim women football players in France will continue to experience differential treatment to other players, "in clear breach of several of the country’s international human rights obligations.”
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more soon...
European elections start today
A very important vote, often misunderstood by citizens, while the whole of the European Union is almost at war again, Ukraine is far away from peace, the media focus on the far right, Russian disinformation is through the roof, and the UK won't vote for the first time...
A polling station in Paris, 18
A few links:
EUROPEAN ELECTIONS 2024
EUROPEAN ELECTIONS 2024
EU struggles to counter Russian disinformation ahead of European elections
As the European Union prepares for this weekend's EU-wide parliamentary elections, the bloc faces significant challenges in combating alleged Russian disinformation. Despite Russia's denials of interference, the potential impact of a disinformation campaign on voter opinion remains difficult to measure.
EUROPEAN ELECTIONS 2024
03/06/2024
South Africa: Coalition perspectives
My latest, for RFI English:
SOUTH AFRICAN ELECTIONS
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As South Africa's current President Cyril Ramaphosa calls for unity and open discussion on the coming coalition, the former president, Jacob Zuma, boycotted the results ceremony. His third-placed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party still refused to recognise the results, but could have been the best placed to influence the country's future.
The final tally gave Ramaphosa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) 159 seats in the 400-seat National Assembly, its lowest score in a general election.
The vote share of the party of late liberation leader Nelson Mandela slumped to just over 40 percent from the 57 percent it had won in 2019.
The centre-right opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) won 87 seats, Zuma's MK 58 and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of leftist firebrand Julius Malema 39, followed by several minority outfits.
The new parliament is to meet within two weeks and its first task will be to elect a president to form a new government.
But, with no outright winner for the first time since the advent of South Africa's post-apartheid democracy, the ANC will first need to seek outside support to secure Ramaphosa's re-election.
Zuma kingmaker?
Zuma is still barred from standing for parliament because of a conviction for contempt of court. So he is unlikely to be a coalition partner, analysts say.But the former President and ANC member looks like the biggest winner in South Africa's election, as he's the one most able to shift the ANC's decisions.
And one of Zuma's conditions to discuss forming a coalition with the ANC is the departure of Ramaphosa. Zuma still says that the ANC under Ramaphosa is not the real ANC, researcher Harlan Cloete, from the University of Free State, told RFI. He claims he had to form his own movement because of the "political orientations that Ramaphosa gave to the ANC."His supporters keep saying they will not consider joining a coalition unless there is an agreement to pardon Zuma for his conviction.
Zuma was forced out of office as the president and ANC leader in 2018 due to multiple corruption allegations, was jailed for contempt of court in 2021, events which triggered riots where more than 350 people died.The MK party's demands appear key as it is also on course to unseat the ANC by a landslide in the populous province of KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma's home region.
'Doomsday Coalition'
The ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula says the party is having "exploratory discussions at the moment: "We talk to everybody".
The ANC hopes to achieve a deal "as fast as we can", according to him.
Though the DA is the bigger opposition winner in numbers, it is highly unlikely to find common ground for a coalition with the ANC.
The DA's white leader John Steenhuisen says he is keen to work with the ANC, but if only to head off what he calls the "Doomsday Coalition" between the ruling party, Zuma's MK and Malema's EFF.
He described pledges in the MK and EFF manifestos to nationalise privately owned land and undermine judicial independence as "an all-out assault on the constitution of our country".
"We urge all others who love our constitution and all it represents to set aside petty politics and narrow sectarian interests and join hands now," Steenhuisen said.Yet, as the country still feels its painful history of codified racism - apartheid, white South Africans only make up just 7% of the population.
The DA thus appears to be struggling to shake off an image as a party of rich whites, according to political analyst Melanie Verwoerd.
"I don't believe that they set out to be a party of white privilege," she said. "But they end up being that."
An accusation the DA has repeatedly rejected.
EFF in the front line
For all these reasons, Malema and his EFF appear as the safest partner for the ANC for now.
Malema has actually scored points by announcing first that he was open for discussions.
“Julius Malema has achieved a masterstroke by taking the first step, like an opening in chess, in the sense that he is opening a path that distances himself from the MK party," political scientist Ongama Mtimka, from Nelson Mandela Bay University, told RFI.
Malema, who like Zuma used to be part of the ANC, also says he doesn't care whoends up being president, Cyril Ramaphosa or anyone else.
He only told his voters, "we do not need to agree on everything before the fourteen-day deadline to form a coalition.”
For all these reasons, analysts thinks he is positioning himself cleverly, and could be the ANC's strongest ally for now.
(with newswires)
31/05/2024
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