In the News: New Caledonia, the "Caillou" in France's shoes
Audio 05:06
This October 4, 2020, New Caledonia votes for the second time in two years on its independence from France.
Theo Rouby / AFP
By: Norbert Navarro
10 mins
Publicity
Second self-determination referendum in New Caledonia.
France or Kanaky, this archipelago of the South Pacific flying the French flag will decide its destiny.
One in two registered voters having already moved before noon local time, midday turnout was up 8 points compared to the previous referendum in 2018 which saw the “No” win at nearly 57% voices.
Because for the second time in two years, this archipelago of the South Pacific, at the antipodes of France, which has owned it for one hundred and sixty-seven years, is voting today to choose whether it will remain in the Republic or become independent.
This week, the magazine
La Croix L'Hebdo
gives the floor to Emmanuel Kasarhérou, new president of the Quai-Branly-Jacques-Chirac Museum, who claims to be “as
much a descendant of the colonist as of the colonized
”.
His hope?
May the New Caledonian body politic “
find within it men and women of wisdom ready to build a common future together, as Jacques Lafleur and Jean-Marie Tjibaou did in the past.
I do not see how it can be otherwise,
”says this son of a Kanak father and a mother from Metropolitan France.
New Caledonia is “
a small country where we all know each other a little, he emphasizes, we went to the same schools… We must not allow hatred to be reborn (…) We are on the same boat !
We share the same water, the same air, the same Caillou
… Emmanuel Kasarhérou also said to this weekly.
It is listening that must now be shared.
The story of the descendant of a settler like that of Kanak has, in my eyes, both vocation to be told
”.
Paris: the bar is closed
Coronavirus… The closure of bars in Paris from tomorrow… The announcement is imminent.
The government is expected to announce it this Sunday.
Parisian restaurants still hope to escape this precautionary measure.
According to an Elabe poll for BFMTV, 61% of Ile-de-France residents would be in favor of the complete closure of bars in Paris and in the inner suburbs.
An armchair for two at the Elysée
Politics: if the first round of the presidential election in France took place today, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen would be neck and neck, far ahead of all the other candidates.
This is what an Ifop poll indicates for
Le Journal du Dimanche
.
Emmanuel Macron would garner between 23 and 26% of the vote, Marine Le Pen between 24 and 27%, being recalled that in 2017, Emmanuel Macron had collected 24% of the votes in the first round, against 21.3 for Marine Le Pen.
Whoever they are, the opponents in the ballot box come far behind.
In the event of a single candidacy on the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon would collect 15% of the vote, ahead of Anne Hidalgo and Yannick Jadot both 13%.
The remedy and the poison
"For" or "against" the legalization of cannabis in France?
On the right, there is no photo, the "cons" prevail.
Last week, in
Le Journal du Dimanche
, three elected Republicans had spoken "for".
This week, in a second column published by
Le JDD
again, 80 elected LR and related parties oppose the legalization of cannabis.
“
There is no such thing as a 'soft drug'.
Drugs are poison, a scourge that we must fight!
“, They say in this weekly.
Novels at Le Mans: the Faire Lire festival!
A bit of reading to conclude, with the Faire Lire! Festival, which opens its doors tomorrow in Le Mans, center-northwest of France, and which will take place until Saturday.
Five times twenty-four hours from Le Mans, department of Sarthe, known for its rillettes, its racing cars and now its books.
Read!
In partnership with the weekly
L'Obs
, Le Mans hosts some sixty events as part of this festival, reports this weekly.
With, in the role of the godfather of the event, François Morel, who became known to the general French public with Les Deschiens, and who is most recently the author, with his son Valentin, of a Dictionary in love with the useless (Plon).
What is the unnecessary?
To know for example "
the size of General de Gaulle, answers François Morel in L'Obs.
(…) It's still difficult to revive a conversation about Gaullism by saying: “
By the way, you know that he was 1.96 meters tall?
"
".
Or even the “
lotos-bouses
”, to be discovered in François Morel's dictionary.
You probably know the lottery: numbers grids, an animator who, in a ballot box, draws numbers.
The first to complete their grid wins.
The "
dung lottery
" is slightly different.
“
We divide a field into large squares, with numbers, we put cows in it,” explains François Morel
in
L'Obs
.
(Then) we wait for the dung.
A guy sells sausages at the entrance, it can take an afternoon ”.
In the Sarthe, this week, there will be much better than the “
bouses loto
” to pass the time: the Faire Lire festival!
So, good festival and good reading ...
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