Featured: the expected cast of Castex

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By: Norbert Navarro

Publicity

Emmanuel Macron and the new Prime Minister Jean Castex compose the new French government, with a view to a rapid announcement: "  I want to act quickly,  " says Jean Castex on the front page of the Journal du Dimanche . The new Prime Minister says to this weekly want to put "  double work  " with the president to compose the new government, which he hopes to "  finalize tomorrow  ", reports The JDD .

In this newspaper, Jean Castex also says he wants to quickly tackle sensitive files, like that of pensions which he intends to settle "  in the short term  ", with, "at least, a new social agenda  ". As for Ségur de la Santé, suspended at the end of the week for lack of agreement with the unions before the reshuffle, he said he wanted to conclude it "  next week  ".

Jean Castex also declares that he does not believe in "  soft consensus. Now is the time for action,  ”he insists in Le Journal du Dimanche .

In Le JDD , Jean Castex stressed that the Head of State did not want to make him "  a subordinate dedicated to secondary tasks  " and that his personality "  is not soluble in the term of " collaborator "".

It is also in this weekly that Yannick Jadot expresses himself. The European leader of EELV deplores that "  the president begins again to point the finger at the French with the same catchphrase of working more and the preference for unemployment  ".

Exactly. In the appointment of Jean Castex to Matignon, La Tribune discerns above all a “  change of style and method  ”. In other words, we change the method, not the course…

France, Saudi arms range

On a training campus in eastern France, Saudi military personnel are to train in simulators and live fire on armored vehicles such as those subsequently engaged in the deadly Yemen conflict. It is La Chronique , the magazine of Amnesty International , which reveals this affair of establishment of an armaments company "  charged with training soldiers engaged in an armed conflict  ".

This campus is located in Commercy, in the department of Meuse, locality known for its madeleines. This is where the Belgian company John Cockerill set up this center, with financial support from France. Saudi soldiers are expected to be trained in marksmanship and piloting on tanks equipped with gun turrets, tanks sold by Canada to Saudi Arabia.

But it is France which provides training in these weapons on its soil, in violation of its international commitments, stresses La Chronique , which ensures that "with  all impunity (...), France supplies arms to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, countries involved in the Yemen conflict. Conflict described by the UN as the worst humanitarian disaster in the world . "

The magazine reports that there is " evidence today  that light armored vehicles equipped with 90mm Cockerill gun turrets were used in the war in Yemen. Or the same type of weapons, in an older version, than those on which the Saudi forces must come to train at Commercy . "

The reconversion of Gérard Longuet

And it was under the leadership of Gérard Longuet, in 2011, that the establishment of this center was launched. Friend of the CEO of John Cockerill, the Minister of Defense of Nicolas Sarkozy put this Belgian boss in contact with the French general Ract-Madoux, at that time chief of staff of the army, who opened to this company the military firing range near Commercy supposed to be used by the Saudis, says La Chronique . Which magazine reports that, two years later, Gérard Longuet will join the board of directors of John Cockerill, with, as a result, 25,000 euros in directors' fees per year from 2013.

Interviewed by La Chronique , Gérard Longuet gets annoyed. "  When France sells Rafales to India, it's not for the local July 14 parade, it's to transform people into charcoal  ," says Gérard Longuet! In charcoal? "  Coal  ", rather, "  ouille-ouille-ouille  ", even!

Elected from Commercy, Jean-Philippe Vautrin was president of the community of local municipalities. "  Military training is none of my business , " he told La Chronique . Whether it's Saudis, Chinese, we sold, there is a market, that's good. When we sell weapons to countries, it's not to mumuse,  ”he adds. Before pointing out that "  from the start, in 2014, the decision-makers close to the file (…) had asked not to speak of Saudis, but of customers  "!

Only here, recalls this review of Amnesty International, "  no country and no company has the right, under international treaties, to provide arms and training to a power which turns them against civilians. This is precisely what is currently happening in Yemen  . ” Welcome to Commercy, its madeleines, its foreign students, its training campus for gun turrets ...

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• Jean Castex
• Emmanuel Macron
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