In the spotlight: the Afghan tragedy
Many Afghans are still trying to leave the country and are waiting at Kabul airport after the Taliban seized power on Sunday August 15, 2021. © Mark Andries / US Marine Corps via AP
By: Sébastien Duhamel Follow
10 mins
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Like the daily press this week, it is naturally impossible for magazines to miss this tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan. Starting with the front page and the photos of
Paris Match
, as often striking and which recall in particular "
Why the world trembles for Afghan women
". We thus read the word “
fear
”, in capital letters, next to the effectively frightened eyes of a young girl. So
The Obs
, him, presents us once again those who instill this fear. These "
new Taliban
" who "
claim to have changed but still practice amputations and public hangings
", when already multiplying "
the testimonies of rapes and forced marriages of widows and adolescents
”.
The magazines are obviously trying, in turn, to understand how we got there.
Le Figaro Magazine
explains to us "
why the Taliban won
" or, rather, it is Cédric Bannel who explains it to us in his columns, enarque, former diplomat, author of a series of novels on Afghanistan.
It is in the first place because of "
the endemic and systematic corruption of the Afghan elites
", he explains but, here, "
responsibilities shared with the Westerners
" which in particular supported a phantom army according to him.
Debacle and rout
"
Debacle
" is a word that comes up a lot in the weeklies this week, or even "
the American rout
", as the
L'Express
poster
. The magazine, for its part, observes the story of a “
humiliated superpower
”. "
Joe Biden intended to turn the page of September 11, 2001
", one reads but Afghanistan will have finally been "
the nightmare of the last four American presidents
". Yes, “
the longest war in US history will have been a burden on every occupant of the White House. Twenty years of hesitation, reversals and failures,
”estimates
L'Express
.
And after “
this American fiasco
”, adds
Marianne
, “
Europe is going to pay
!
The situation is indeed likely to "
galvanize the fundamentalist movements
" at home.
And this “
completely powerless
”
Europe
, also wonders
Marianne
: “At the
same time, will she have to manage a migratory situation similar to that of 2015 after the Syrian crisis?
"
The Calvary of the Armenians of Karabakh
It is
Le Figaro Magazine
which takes us this week to this enclave, one of these “
territories in foreign land
”, where the Armenians are reduced to a “
survival operation
”, underlines the magazine. Indeed, "
surrounded by territories conquered by Azerbaijan during the" 44-day war "of autumn 2020, Nagorno-Karabakh is now reduced to less than 3000 square kilometers
". This "
little country forgotten by the world,
Le Figaro Magazine
tells us
, is linked to Armenia by a corridor that it does not even control
". He lives "
under the threat of Azerbaijan but tries to rebuild himself
", tells us
Le Figaro
. However, for the time being, "
he relies above all on the Russian army to protect himself
".
And to show the tension on the spot, the magazine even shows in images: "
Near the town of Shushi, an Armenian position and an Azeri position face each other only a few tens of meters away
". A contact line thus long of several tens of kilometers, where "
the pressure is constant on the Armenian populations
". "
Sometimes civilian cars come under fire,
" one reads. "
Farmers say they receive threatening calls ... The water from local rivers, whose sources are now located on the other side of the border, flows with less intensity, less fluidity, less clarity
", notes
Le Figaro
.
He describes here a strategy of the Azeri power which does everything "
to push the Armenians into exile
".
But they stick, no matter what.
Yes, because “
since the year 301 and their conversion to Christianity, Armenians have learned to rebuild themselves after misfortunes
: resilience is their business,
” explains the article.
An example of resilience and reconstruction
In A
Today in France Week-end
, a leap in time: 77 years in the past.
The magazine makes us relive the Liberation of Paris, "
by those who lived it
".
Photos and testimonies, return on this week of August 19 to 25, 1944, "
the week which saw the capital free itself from the German yoke
".
From the start of the insurrection, on the 19th, to the arrival of General de Gaulle on the 25th, “
the Parisians were then emancipated from four years of German occupation
”.
In short, says
Today in France Weekend
, it was "
one of the most feverish weeks that the capital has lived
".
Political communication and pre-campaigns
Feverish, nowadays, this presidential year may also be so in France ... How to miss the pre-campaign communications this week? We must say a quick word about it. The couple of the Republican Xavier Bertrand on vacation in Corsica in
Paris Match,
and in
Le Point,
his rival Valérie Pécresse on vacation in Corrèze, no doubt to put on Jacques Chirac's Charentaises. “
I'm 2/3 Merkel and 1/3 Thatcher,
” she says. Just that ! And then in
Le Point
again, focus on the Macrons and “
the book of their secrets
”.
A book immersed in the intimacy of the couple and the Elysée Palace, signed Gael Tchakaloff and published by Flammarion.
A book that "
will make noise,
" says
Le Point
.
It's called “
As long as we're both
”.
And the couple does well to prepare for it because, next year, the Macrons may ultimately be just the two of them.
No longer at the Elysee but at home, in Le Touquet.
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