Headlines: Lukashenko "must go", believes Emmanuel Macron

Audio 05:27

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on the phone from the Independence Palace in Minsk, August 23, 2020. BelTA via Reuters

By: Norbert Navarro

11 min

Publicity

It is in the

Journal du Dimanche

that the French president says it loud and clear.

Reelected last month, the Belarusian president is accused by the opposition of having rigged an election that the European Union and the Baltic countries did not recognize, with Lithuania even giving refuge to the leader of the opposition Belarusian.

“ 

What is happening in Belarus is a crisis of power, an authoritarian power which cannot accept the logic of democracy and which hangs on by force.

It is clear that Lukashenko must leave,

 ”insists Emmanuel Macron in

Le JDD

, on the eve of his first visit to Lithuania and Latvia.

In this weekly, the French president also says he is “ 

impressed by the courage of the (Belarusian) demonstrators.

They know the risks they take by parading every weekend and yet they are continuing the movement to bring democracy to life in this country which has been deprived of it for so long,

 ”adds Emmanuel Macron.

Should Ouattara say that?

With his eyes fixed on a third term, Alassane Ouattara takes over the media space via

Paris Match

.

The Ivorian president is speaking there.

And shows himself.

Here, very glamorous, Dominique and Alassane, hand in hand, in their garden;

there, the president - who has taken off his jacket - seated at his desk;

the same again, but an anti-Covid suit, tie and mask this time, in the company of two “little dancers” in traditional loincloths…

Paris Match

pure juice, but rather in the suave.

Clearly, the interest of the six pages devoted to it by this magazine lies more in the weight of the words pronounced by Alassane Ouattara than in the shock of the photos which this newspaper usually prides itself on.

Should a president say that?

Among other declarations by the Head of State, the one concerning the Constitution.

Unlike the entire Ivorian opposition, he believes that the 2016 Constitution " 

established a new Republic in Côte d'Ivoire

 ".

His potential rivals who aspire to succeed him?

The Ivorian president calls them "

 predators without faith or law

 ".

But it is when he speaks of his former Prime Minister Guillaume Soro that Alassane Ouattara's words take on even more weight.

According to him, " 

Guillaume Soro's place is not in the electoral campaign but in prison

 ".

No wonder, in these conditions that the Ivorian head of state found that the candidacy of Guillaume Soro for the presidential election, like that of his predecessor Laurent Gbagbo, "comes 

under provocation,

 " he told

Paris Match. .

Controversial cash at the BCEAO

Laurent Gbagbo, precisely.

In this interview, Alassane Ouattara evokes the so-called case of the “ 

breakage of the BCEAO

 ” which earned the former president a sentence of twenty years in prison by the Ivorian courts.

Here is what Alassane Ouattara says in Match: " 

to circumvent the embargo which aimed to make him release power, (Laurent Gbagbo) signed orders which allowed the police to rob the Central Bank of the States of West Africa.

Half a billion euros have been stolen

 ”, being recalled that in January 2011, President Gbagbo had in fact signed, not ordinances, but a decree issued under an Ivorian law of 1964, allowing then the Head of State to requisition the buildings and Ivorian personnel of the BCEAO in Côte d'Ivoire.

And when

Paris Match

pointed out to him that the Constitution "

 only authorizes two five-year terms 

", Alassane Ouattara does not fail to offer grain to grind to his opponents by noting that Laurent Gbagbo " 

remained eleven years in power and Henri Konan Bédié was driven out by a coup d'état during his second term (…) So I am not the only one running for a third term,

 "he retorts to this weekly.

Towards a reconfinement in France?

In France, this new threat of re-containment due to coronavirus.

The Order of Physicians launches a major epidemic alert.

"

 If nothing changes

 ", France will have to face a " 

generalized epidemic

 ", with a health system " 

unable to respond to all requests

 ", warns, in

Le Journal du Dimanche

, the president of the National Council of the Order of doctors.

Patrick Bouet warns that "

 the second wave is coming faster than we feared

 ".

Unknown at this address

The chopper attack on Friday in front of the former premises of

Charlie Hebdo

.

The prime suspect believed it was still the headquarters of the satirical newspaper.

It is the newspaper

Le Parisien

which revealed this information.

A source close to the investigation indicates that in police custody, this man, who claims to be an 18-year-old Pakistani, declared "to 

assume his act which he places in the context of the republication (by

Charlie Hebdo

) of the cartoons. that he did not support

 ”.

In

Le Parisien Dimanche

, Manuel Valls said this Sunday morning that it is necessary "to 

clearly designate Islamism as the enemy and the challenge of this beginning of the century

 ".

According to this former Socialist Prime Minister, " 

it is the whole of French society which is placed by the jihadists as a priority target (...) We must stop apologizing for being French and republican

 ", insists Manuel Valls in

Le Parisien Dimanche.

.

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