The +
: Receive the France 24 Press Review every morning on your
iPhone
or
any other mobile
. And also always on your PC by becoming a fan on
…
On the front page of the press: the entry into the Pantheon, Wednesday February 21, of the communist resistance fighter of Armenian origin Missak Manouchian, 80 years to the day after her execution by the Nazis.
“Happiness to those who will survive us and taste the sweetness of the freedom and peace of tomorrow. I am sure that the French people and all the freedom fighters will be able to honor our memory with dignity,” Missak Manouchian wrote two hours before to be shot. Some 80 years later, his wish is about to be granted. “Enter here Manouchian”: the communist newspaper
L’Humanité
uses the words of André Malraux during the pantheonization of another great resistance fighter, Jean Moulin, to salute this “historic event”. Missak Manouchian will enter the Pantheon, alongside his wife Mélinée. And for L'Humanité, "it is only justice, for them, but also for the FTP army which is in procession following them." “Behind Manouchian, it is the communist contribution to the Resistance that is celebrated, which united French and foreigners in the same impulse that is both internationalist and patriotic.”
L'Humanité of February 21: Enter here, Manouchian
📰: https://t.co/s4nZf9sS5I pic.twitter.com/iFCg23GDTj
— L’Humanité (@humanite_fr) February 20, 2024
This historic ceremony is also political.
La Croix
believes that "at a time when hostility against foreigners is openly expressed, it is not useless to remember how the best of (France) was also accomplished with those who came to seek refuge on (his) soil". But the newspaper also notes "the ambiguity of Emmanuel Macron's strategy" which, by multiplying (the) moments of memory, also makes them tools of personal communication, thus trivializing the historical and national dimension of an event which risks being seen as nothing more than a political coup."
Mediapart
bluntly accuses the president of showing "hypocrisy" and of using this ceremony to "redeem himself an anti-fascist virginity", "shortly after having succumbed to the sirens of national preference and the questioning of the right of ground" with immigration law.
Le Soir
observes that by choosing Missak Manouchian, after Simone Veil, Maurice Genevoix and Joséphine Baker, all three of whom entered the Panthéon under Emmanuel Macron, the president "shows implicitly the legacy he would like to leave to the history". “Emmanuel Macron, keen on history and literature, is particularly fond of these republican rites which allow us to evoke values and give an interpretation of the five-year term which goes beyond that of the crises”, notes the Belgian newspaper. Emmanuel Macron, who expressed his disapproval of the coming of Marine Le Pen, the head of the National Rally, to this ceremony – without managing to dissuade her from participating. But for
Le Monde
, the presidential intervention "appears to send Jean-Marie Le Pen's daughter back to an era that she thought was over, where the RN was deemed 'unfriendly'."
In the history section, still, the decision of the Chilean justice to reopen on Tuesday the investigation into the death of the poet Pablo Neruda.
The France 24 website in Spanish
specifies that justice is seeking to know whether the Nobel Prize for Literature, also a communist, was poisoned on September 23, 1973, 12 days after General Pinochet's coup d'état against President Salvador Allende - who was a great friend of the poet.
#ÀLaUne de La Croix:
🟠 Missak Manouchian, in the name of all #Pantheon
➡️ In Central Asia, the importance of Russian TV in question
➡️ “The empire”, Bruno Dumont's cinematic UFO
➡️ Meat, a French passion? pic.twitter.com/HgctwkjATq
— La Croix (@LaCroix) February 20, 2024
A word also about the controversy in the United States, after the decision on Friday by the Supreme Court of Alabama to define embryos preserved by freezing as “children”. This decision provokes a barrage of criticism, including in this very conservative southern state, where
The Birmingham News
wonders: "If the frozen embryos are people in Alabama, then what will happen next and if anyone has the any idea?" According to the newspaper, this decision risks putting an end to infertility treatments and leads to a paradox: the fact that Alabama "is now so pro-life that couples wishing to become parents may no longer be able to able to have babies.
The
Washington Post
even believes that the state of Alabama "inaugurates theocracy." The newspaper cites as proof the words of the President of the Supreme Court of Alabama, Tom Parker, who cites pell-mell, in his decision, Genesis, the prophet Jeremiah, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and others Christian thinkers. Tom Parker, of whom
The Washington Post
recalls that he had denounced the Roe vs. Wade ruling on abortion – ruling overturned in 2022 by the Supreme Court of the United States – as a “constitutional aberration”, and had asked that state courts oppose same-sex marriage.
We won't leave each other on this. There is a report in
Libération
on the exile of Afghanistan's first national snowboard team. This mixed team was able to take refuge in Haute-Savoie after the arrival of the Taliban thanks to the mobilization of French champion Victor Daviet – a beautiful story of exile “with the means of the board”.
Thanks to the mobilization of French champion Victor Daviet, Afghanistan's first mixed national snowboard team was able to take refuge in Haute-Savoie after the arrival of the Taliban. @Libe went to meet them. https://t.co/fWf73cWbWN
— Libération (@libe) February 20, 2024
And then also take a look at the Spanish daily
El Pais
, which reports the arrest on Monday of a priest and his partner in the Badajoz region, in southwest Spain, after the Guardia Civil searched his house and found a large quantity of Viagra and "other powerful aphrodisiacs", which this priest was selling illegally to his parishioners. A pretty ole-ole priest.
Find the Press Review every morning on France 24 (Monday to Friday, at 7:20 a.m. and 9:20 a.m. Paris time). Also follow the Revue des Hebdos every weekend in multicast.
The France 24 summary of the week
invites you to look back at the news that marked the week
I subscribe
Take international news everywhere with you! Download the France 24 application