Headlines: Terrorism, again

Audio 08:27

By: Norbert Navarro

Publicity

" Terrorism "! In these times of coronavirus crisis, we hardly expected to see this word on the front page of the Sunday press. And yet " terrorism is coming to France in the midst of a health crisis ," Le Parisien Dimanche dismisses. The threat comes brutally to remember the French ».

The National Counter-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office announced last night that it would take over the investigation for " assassinations and attempted assassinations in connection with a terrorist enterprise and criminal terrorist criminal association ", after Abdallah Ahmed-Osman - that is the name of the suspected terrorist - in fact attacked seven people with knives in the city center of Romans-surIsère, in the department of Drôme.

During a search of the aggressor, manuscripts were found in which the author complains " of living in a country of unbelievers ", reports Le Parisien Dimanche . Newspaper that this 33-year-old Sudanese refugee " also wrote in Arabic :" There is only God, only God, and (Mohammed) is his prophet "". Le Parisien Dimanche adds that " the man benefits from a refugee status which was granted to him in June 2017 and from a resident title ".

Citing a source close to the investigation, Le Journal du Dimanche confirms that writings, " around twenty lines in which he actually speaks of unbelievers ", have been found but " we do not know when (these lines) were written " According to The JDD , the investigators have, however, for the moment, " not updated a will or oath of allegiance to any organization ".

Still in France, the welfare state is ready to open the credit valves to avoid a “ sinking ” of the economy linked to the coronavirus crisis :

The State will provide " the necessary financial means as long as the crisis lasts, " said Bruno Le Maire this morning in Le Journal du Dimanche . The Minister of Finance says he prefers " that we go into debt today, avoiding a shipwreck, rather than let whole sections of our economy be destroyed ".

Drawing up the provisional balance sheet of State aid already requested by companies, Bruno Le Maire points out in Le JDD that, " over eight days, 20 billion euros " of loans guaranteed by the State were " requested by more than 100,000 businesses ”. In addition, " 5 million employees " benefit from partial unemployment, says Bruno Le Maire in Le Journal du Dimanche .

And then this concern: under the pretext of circumventing the epidemic, will States make massive use of new technologies, and in particular geolocation data from mobile phones ?

According to L'Obs , in the coming days, the telecommunications operator Orange must " provide information on the application of containment: do the French go out every day?" Do they respect the distance of one kilometer around their home? How many are they to continue working? For its part, SFR also says "ready to share anonymized and aggregated data on [its] subscribers", from its Geostatistics tool, comparable to (software) Flux Vision from Orange , also reports L'Obs . In Switzerland, the operator Swisscom goes further by reporting to the authorities, using the same technique, any gathering of more than 20 people over 100 square meters ”. Which leads L'Obs to ask in One this question: " Can Big Brother save us ?" With reference to the 1984 novel by George Orwell.

A dizzying question in ordinary times that, however, the coronavirus crisis seems to have trivialized. Precisely, a magazine this week explains why :

It's Le Figaro Magazine. " Why do European peoples so easily give up individual freedoms ", launches this weekly, noting that " on social networks, some suspect our politicians of taking advantage of the situation to stifle protests and take measures that would never have been accepted in normal times ”.

A connoisseur of La Boétie's Speech on voluntary servitude , Le Fig Mag believes that " the abolition of our individual freedoms is the price of our economic and technological downgrading ". And this newspaper takes as proof the examples of the countries " most advanced, he says, like South Korea or Israel, (where) general confinement is avoided only at the cost of use without shameless geolocation systems that allow us to trace each of our meetings. We thus pass from Charybdis to Scylla without the spirits rebelling, with the active support of the media and doctors, ”explains Le Figaro Magazine . Which weekly recalls that, “ in the 1970s, Michel Foucault had prophesied the return of a dictatorial power in the name of health, by controlling bodies and populations. It was based on statistical standards. He called it biopower . ”

In the weekly Le Point , the Israeli writer Yuval Noah Harari goes further. The author of the bestsellers Sapiens and Homo deus explains that “ with this health crisis, we have entered a historic vortex. The normal laws of history are suspended. For a few weeks, the impossible is ordinary. This means that on the one hand we have to be extremely careful, but on the other we also have to allow ourselves to dream , says Yuval Noah Harari at Le Point. By the end of this year, we will live in a new world. Hopefully it will be better . "

In Africa, the coronavirus crisis is undermining the fragile balance of the informal economy, which has so far made it possible to survive day to day. And anger rises against the leaders and their privileges when their fellow citizens have to choose between dying of the virus or of hunger:

Illustration in Cameroon this week in the French weekly press, with this report from L'Express in Douala. “ In a country where almost a third of the population lives on less than $ 1 a day, containment is seen as a privilege. Especially since the cost of surgical masks has increased fivefold in pharmacies - when there are left. Commodity prices are soaring in the markets, and distrust is growing vis-à-vis the government, ”points out this weekly.

Crossed in the street by L'Express , a chicken seller is indignant: " at best, with my wife, aunt and our five children, we have enough to last a week ", he sighs, before add that he has " no confidence in Paul Biya (the president) to compensate for his losses (of income). The leaders do not respect the quarantine and they would like us to sacrifice everything because of the virus ? ", He indignantly," approved by his customers ".

And, indeed, reports L'Express , " the wives of the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Economy, as well as Franck Biya, 47, the president's eldest son, all returned from Paris in mid-March to escape containment on site. This without observing the distancing measures since the return. So many individualistic behaviors which have further contributed to weary Cameroonians yet accustomed to the privileges of the elites, ”states L'Express again .

Meanwhile, at the Bonabéri hospital, teams of carers are busy " without any protection ", notes this weekly, to which the nurse who manages admissions declares: " In a way, the death of Manu Dibango (…) Could be a blessing : Cameroonians may understand that confinement is not an option ”.

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• Newspaper
• Coronavirus
• Terrorism