Ils ont l’habitude d’errer à la tombée de la nuit dans le quartier de la Goutte-d’Or à Paris. Même discrètement, difficile d’échanger quelques mots avec ces adolescents. Pour en savoir davantage sur ces jeunes Marocains qui seraient plusieurs dizaines dans les quartiers de Paris, il faut demander aux habitués de ce café. “Ce sont des enfants, le plus grand à 20 ans. Quand ils sont alcoolisés, drogués, ils sont parfois un peu virulents”, confie un habitant. Ces mineurs isolés échappent aux associations et à l’État et ont parcouru des milliers de kilomètres pour tenter leur chance en Europe.Un jeune sur deux au chômage au MarocPour certains, le chemin de l’exil est parfois passé par l’enclave de Ceuta, au nord du Maroc. Des jeunes attendent leur tour aux portes du poste-frontière. Chaque tentative réussie par l’un d’entre eux renforce la détermination des autres. Beaucoup de ces jeunes se regroupent à Tanger, la grande ville du nord du Maroc, avant de tenter la traversée vers l’Europe. Leurs récits difficiles révoltent Taieb Bouchiba, de l’association “Touche pas à mon enfant”. “Si on ne peut pas les aider, c’est que nous ne sommes pas des êtres humains“, selon lui. L’Europe reste un Eldorado pour les adolescents marocains. La tentation déchire des familles. Les associations estiment à 20 000 le nombre de jeunes Marocains partis ces dernières années vers l’Europe. Beaucoup n’ont plus donné de signes de vie à leur famille.Le JT
Grand Soir 3 du lundi 28 janvier 2019 L’intégrale
Les autres sujets du JT
1
Gironde : nouveau sursis pour l’usine Ford de Blanquefort
2
Assurance chômage : les patrons ne discutent plus à cause du bonus-malus sur les contrats courts
3
Sécurité routière : la route n’a jamais aussi peu tué
4
Limitation de la vitesse à 80 km/h : “Trop tôt pour faire un bilan d’une mesure”
5
Chasse à l’homme dans trois départements du Sud
6
Européennes : Bellamy, un conservateur trentenaire tête de liste LR ?
7
Élections européennes : les partis français jouent la carte des jeunes
8
Eurozapping : les routes en Espagne limitées à 90 km/h, des poules OGM pour soigner au Royaume-Uni
9
L’intelligence artificielle dégrade notre façon de s’exprimer
Ne pas se laisser corrompre par les policitiens. C’est l’un des messages diffusés par la commission électorale nigériane (Inec) aux électeurs. Dans un clip diffusé depuis le début du mois de janvier 2019, une jeune femme, vêtue tour à tour de tenues qui renvoient aux différents groupes ethniques du pays, interpelle ses compatriotes en pidgin nigérian (créole local). “Les élections ne sont pas une affaire de ‘Cash and Carry’ (payer et emporter)”, dit-elle. Le conseil est ensuite explicitement décliné : “Don’t sell your vote (Ne vendez pas votre vote) ! Don’t sell your voter’s card (Ne vendez pas votre carte d’électeur) ! Don’t sell your PVC (Ne vendez pas votre PVC, acronyme utilisé pour désigner les Permanent Voters Cards qui sont les cartes d’électeurs) ! Don’t sell your conscience (Ne vendez pas votre conscience) ! Don’t sell your future (Ne bradez pas votre avenir) !”
Don’t sell your VOTE Don’t sell your CONSCIENCE No Sell Your Vote pic.twitter.com/xSNDvIChZm — INEC Nigeria (@inecnigeria) 1 février 2019
Dans la même optique, l’Inec a lancé en décembre 2018 une application baptisée Inec eReporter. Elle “permet à chaque Nigérian d’être un observateur et de rapporter les événements tels qu’ils se produisent (…). Vous pouvez ainsi prendre des photos, vous pouvez également prendre une courte vidéo et nous l’envoyer. C’est géolocalisé. Nous savons donc exactement où se trouve le problème et nous pouvons facilement attirer l’attention de la police ou d’autres agences de sécurité pour veiller à ce que le problème soit réellement résolu”, indiquait un responsable de l’Inec lors de la présentation de l’application, rapporte Vanguard.La Commission électorale ne fait pas que dénoncer les achats de voix, elle diffuse également des messages d’apaisement. Notamment par le biais de ses ambassadeurs auprès des jeunes (Youth Ambassadors). Ces derniers, des artistes renommés issus du monde de la musique, du cinéma et du divertissement, ont participé à la conception d’un hymne qui appelle à un processus électoral apaisé. Peaceful #NigeriaDecides2019 pic.twitter.com/K1h1VyfCfX — INEC Nigeria (@inecnigeria) 30 janvier 2019
Soupçons de fraudeLes élections dans la première puissance économique et le pays le plus peuplé du continent africain constituent souvent un test pour l’unité nationale. Les tensions ethniques et inter-religieuses viennent s’ajouter à la corruption ambiante qui mine la démocratie nigériane, notamment lors des grands rendez-vous électoraux. Le président sortant, Muhammudu Buhari, est déjà accusé de vouloir organiser une fraude électorale massive lors des élections générales qui démarrent le 16 février 2019. Opposé à Atiku Abubakar, l’ancien vice-président qui représente le Parti démocratique du peuple (PDP), Muhammadu Buhari brigue un second mandat.Sa récente décision de suspendre le président de la Cour suprême, qui tranchera en cas de litige électoral, et de faire assurer son intérim par un juge originaire du nord du pays, comme lui, est loin de rassurer. “Les motivations (de cette suspension) sont totalement politiques et indiquent que le président veut exercer une influence sur l’appareil judiciaire, qui devra déterminer le vainqueur des élections en cas de litiges”, note le Centre de recherche en sciences politiques basé à Lagos, SBM Intelligence, cité par VOA Afrique.Le centre a aussi “rappelé que la dernière fois qu’un président de la Cour suprême avait été démis de ses fonctions, cela se passait en 1975, lors du coup d’Etat militaire de Murtala Muhammad”. Plus de 84 millions d’électeurs sont enregistrés dans un pays qui compte plus de 190 millions d’habitants.
Alors que la saison 1 de la série “New Girl” touche à sa fin, Zooey Deschanel pourrait revenir vers le grand écran pour être l’héroïne de “About Time”, film de science-fiction signé Richard Curtis.
On la connaît certes plus pour ses rôles comiques, mais il ne faut pas oublier que Zooey Deschanel n’est pas étrangère à la science-fiction, comme l’ont prouvé H2G2 ou Phénomènes. Grâce à Richard Curtis, la comédienne pourrait persévérer dans le genre, puisque le réalisateur de Love Actually serait sur le point de lui confier le rôle principal d’About Time, une histoire de voyage dans le temps. Un sujet qui peut, au premier abord, surprendre quand on voit la filmographie de Curtis, mais ce serait oublier qu’il a récemment écrit un épisode de Doctor Who, dans lequel ce dernier se rendait dans le passé pour rencontrer Vincent Van Gogh. Même si le contenu de l’intrigue est encore secret, il semble peu probable que Zooey Deschanel fasse ce type de rencontre, mais elle a de grandes chances d’y donner la réplique à Domhnall Gleeson (fils de Brendan, vu dans le dernier Harry Potter), également sur les rangs. Aucune date de tournage et de sortie n’ont encore été annoncées, mais tout porte à croire que ce n’est qu’une question de temps.
Ireland’s first female European commissioner trailblazes again.
Those unfamiliar with Irish politics watching the European Parliament hearings for nominee commissioners might have been forgiven for assuming Máire Geoghegan-Quinn had just been plucked from some high-profile ministry back home. “I am a politician, I am not a civil servant. I am into action, we’ve done enough talking, the time is now for action,” she thundered before MEPs. Yet despite the robust performance, the commissioner for research, innovation and science, who was once tipped to be a prime minister of Ireland, has spent the past 13 years in the political wilderness.
In 1997, she stepped down from Irish politics and her appointment to the European Court of Auditors in 2001 has kept her out of the limelight ever since. Not even during the two recent referendums on the Lisbon treaty held in Ireland was her opinion registered.
But she is now back with a bang. Bagging what appears to be a good portfolio in the European Commission, given the €50 billion budget it commands and the fact that innovation is a centre-piece of the EU’s job-creation plans, Geoghegan-Quinn has been given a second chance to shine. Whether she does shine in Brussels will depend on how committed she remains to a policy area she has no experience in. Maintaining a good relationship with her boss, José Manuel Barroso, will also be crucial, since this is a woman who is fiercely independent and who has not been afraid in the past to stand up to powerful men.
One such man was then prime minister Charles Haughey, who, in appointing Geoghegan-Quinn minister for Irish-speaking areas in 1979, made her the first woman minister since the foundation of the Irish state in 1922.
She had stood out as articulate and charming since she was first elected to the Irish parliament in 1975 following the death of her father Johnny Geoghegan, who had held the west of Ireland seat since 1954. Her relationship with Haughey later faltered and she was kept out of his subsequent inner cabinets, though she did serve in a junior ministerial role in the European affairs portfolio when Ireland held the EU presidency in 1990. She was part of the faction that ousted Haughey in 1992 as leader of Ireland’s dominant political party, Fianna Fáil. His successor, Albert Reynolds, made Geoghegan-Quinn minister for tourism, transport and communications, and then gave her the high-profile portfolio of minister for justice. One senior Irish journalist remembers her as “formidable and competent” as minister for justice, especially for her courageous decision to introduce legislation decriminalising homosexuality in 1993 in the fiercely Roman Catholic country.
She stood for the leadership of Fianna Fáil when Reynolds resigned in 1994, but withdrew her name on the day of the contest, knowing that her challenger, Bertie Ahern, was sure to win. After newspapers printed details of her son’s expulsion from school (she has two children) and following years of lacklustre support for Ahern while Fianna Fáil served in opposition, Geoghegan-Quinn announced she would not contest the 1997 general election.
Her time in the European Court of Auditors was remarkably low-profile compared with the tenures of previous Irish appointees, who made some effort to keep in touch with events in Ireland. But a former colleague at the court says she was hard-working and respectful of procedures, while allowing experts in her cabinet to get on with the job of auditing. “Her style of working was ‘arms-length’, in that she relied on what auditors in her cabinet were saying. I prefer that to colleagues who audit themselves; members of the court should supervise rather than audit,” says the former colleague. She is also described as having had a “good sense of humour” at the court and being a “good communicator”.
Geoghegan-Quinn’s comeback as Ireland’s first female European commissioner had more to do with political expediency than a sudden rediscovery of her talents. Prime Minister Brian Cowen could not appoint a member of his government since its majority in parliament is too slim. He also knew Ireland had a chance of a better portfolio if he concurred with Barroso’s request to put forward a woman. But that does not make her a second-rate commissioner. “She is competent and interested in the job, unlike her predecessor, Charlie McCreevy. She is also capable of being politically forceful, more so than former Irish commissioner David Byrne,” says one observer.
Fact File
Curriculum Vitae
1950: Born, Galway 1970: Degree in education, Carysfort College 1970-75: Teacher 1975-97: Member of parliament 1977-79: Minister of state for commerce 1979-81: Minister for the Gaeltacht 1982: Minister of state for education 1987-91: Minister for European affairs 1992: Minister for tourism, transport and communication 1993-94: Minister for justice 1997-2000: Writer and journalist 2001-10: Member of the European Court of Auditors 2010-: European commissioner for research, innovation and science
Geoghegan-Quinn has already demonstrated just how forceful she can be, by refusing last month to appoint to her cabinet Deirdre de Burca, a senator from the Green Party, the junior coalition partner in the national government. De Burca afterwards stoked a political storm in Ireland, resigning her senate seat and insisting that the move was a snub to the Greens, which had supported Geoghegan-Quinn’s nomination. But the prospect of having a hard-line Green in a cabinet that will be in charge of giving funding to nuclear research projects and biotechnology projects, possibly including projects on genetically modified organisms, was unacceptable to Geoghegan-Quinn. She was clearly less concerned about offending people back in Ireland over the issue, including Cowen and the Green Party.
Communication is high on the agenda for her role in the Commission, and her time at the European Court of Auditors does not seem to have turned the trained teacher into a technocrat spouting EU jargon. “Talk to any man or woman on the street, they probably wouldn’t know what FP8 or FP7 or FP6 was,” she said recently of the EU’s successive ‘framework programmes’ on research and technological development. “People have to understand what you’re communicating.”
Geoghegan-Quinn has other strings to her bow: she is a published novelist, writing “The green diamond” in 1996, and she penned a political column for the Irish Times. She lists Irish as her mother tongue but admits to having only a “basic knowledge” of French.
She has set her sights high, saying she wants to see the EU take on the US, China and India in turning innovation into commercial success. After such pronouncements and her performance in the Parliament hearings, a lot will be expected of her.
Debate report – The right to know? Should information to patients be restricted?
The debate was held at the representation of the Stockholm region in Brussels, on 24 February 2010. Chaired by Phil Hammond, a British doctor and journalist, it explored how to break the deadlock over the latest proposal by the European Commission on the issue. Also discussed were concrete examples of how to provide patients with the most useful and accurate information on their condition and available treatments, in the age of the internet.
The Commission’s proposal for a directive would authorise manufacturers of medicines to post non-promotional information about their products on their websites. The proposal has been criticised for opening the door to direct-to-patients advertising. Furthermore, the proposal is blocked in the Council of ministers, with several national governments refusing to consider it.
The debate started with a view from a patient’s perspective. Jan Geissler, director of the European cancer patient coalition (ECPC), a federation of cancer patient and advocacy groups, who was affected by a rare form of leukaemia, explained how difficult it had been for him to find information about his condition. Having had a rare condition, he sought information through a US website, and had to pretend he was a US citizen. Had he not understood English, he said, he most probably would not have learned about a clinical trial in which he then enrolled, which ultimately saved his life. He wants to make sure that others could also benefit from information. He started to translate the available scientific literature into German and made it available over the internet on a dedicated portal. Asked about the current Commission proposal, he criticised an approach that singled out industry as the main provider of information, and emphasized the contribution of patient groups to disseminate relevant information. Such groups, he said, were best positioned to ensure a rapid circulation of up-to-date information on various conditions, whereas governmental vetting of information could be slow and bureaucratic.
The next focus of the discussion was the state of the patient-doctor relationship. With patients increasingly active in seeking information on their own conditions, the traditional, top-down relationship that existed in past decades has become outdated. As Phil Hammond pointed out, some patients know more about their conditions than doctors themselves.
Dr Konstanty Radziwill, president of the permanent committee of European doctors (CPME) said that trust was necessary. He stressed that the purpose of any regulation should be to guarantee the quality of the information made available. He emphasised the importance of the patient-doctor relationship, saying that doctors were trained to guide patients through difficult choices, and that they should not let them take the wrong decisions. Information should be checked and approved by an independent authority before it reaches the patient, as he doubted that industry could be trusted to deliver unbiased information. He also stressed that if industry was to change the presentation of information to make it more ‘reader-friendly’, there was a risk of bias.
When asked how appropriate the proposal was to address this situation, Christofer Fjellner, the Swedish centre-right (EPP) MEP responsible for drafting Parliament’s position, pointed out that the Commission proposal did not deserve the treatment it had so far received from member states. He said that the main problem was a problem of trust: public authorities did not trust pharmaceutical companies to provide unbiased information over their own products. But member states should give the proposal a fair chance by at least considering it. Indeed some member states have refused to consider the proposal, because they fear that it would lead to disguised advertising by pharmaceutical companies. They believe that this would lead to an increase in demand for medicines, and an increased burden on public health systems. A representative of the Swedish government specified that member states were not united in their criticism of the proposal. Not every member state’s hesitancy about the proposal originated in a fear of disguised advertisement: for Nordic governments, he explained, the issue was more linked to the possible incompatibility of the proposal with constitutional guarantees of freedom of information in these countries.
In spite of these difficulties, some member states appear to have found solutions to the information problem. In opening of the debate, Hammond said that he was surprised to see that the EU had not solved the issue yet. The debate in the UK had long moved on since the creation of the UKMi portal, a public website making information on all NHS-approved medicines and treatments available to the public as soon as authorisation has been granted. Per Manell, chief technology officer at LIF, Sweden’s pharmaceutical industry association, gave a presentation of FASS.se, a similar portal in Sweden. The significant difference between the two systems is that FASS.se is run by the industry, under government oversight.
Manell presented figures showing that the introduction of FASS.se, which gives public access to information on non-prescription and prescription drugs alike, did not lead to an explosion in demand for branded medicines. On the contrary, it was followed by a fall in medicine sales. Manell said that there had not been any complaints about the quality of information available on FASS.se. This last point was contested by a representative of consumers, saying that Swedish government websites had up to very recently displayed out of date information on particular treatments, questioning the quality of the government’s oversight.
Fact File
The speakers
Christofer Fjellner MEP
Christofer Fjellner MEP is the European Parliament rapporteur on information to patients.
Per Manell
Per Manell is chief technology officer at LIF, the Swedish association of the pharmaceutical industry.
Dr Konstanty Radziwill
Dr Konstanty Radziwill is the president of the permanent committee of European doctors (CPME).
Jan Geißler
Jan Geißler is the director of the European cancer patient coalition (ECPC), and the chair of Leukämie-Online, a German communication platform about leukaemia.
The moderator
Dr Phil Hammond
Phil Hammond is a doctor, comedian, writer and broadcaster. He has been a lecturer in medical communication at two UK Universities (Birmingham and Bristol) and presented six series of an evidence-based medicine show, Trust Me, I’m a Doctor, for BBC television.
Full biographies of all speakers can be downloaded here.
For the programme of the event, click here.
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Asked about why FASS.se could not be extended to the rest of Europe or translated, Manell stressed that even if FASS.se was translated into English, it would not be of great use, as it would still only include medicines available on the Swedish market, in forms and dosage that might not be identical in other countries. Whether a similar initiative could be put in place at the European level was not obvious either, as countries’ cultures with regard to freedom and regulation of information are very different.
During the discussions, participants were asked about whom they most trusted as a source of reliable information on health, and it was interesting to see that, at least in that room, governments, industry and doctors enjoyed a relatively high credit. Only the media were given much lower trust. One speaker concluded that this might give an indication of what patients are really looking for: have access to ‘pull’ information, i.e. information they request, and at the same time, be protected from ‘push’ information they never asked for in the first place.
Plans will mark “a real step forward in the democratic life” of Europeans, says commissioner.
The European Commission has set out the rules for a ‘citizens’ initiative’ that allows one million people to ask the Commission to propose new laws.
Using the initiative, which was introduced by the Lisbon treaty, will require at least one million signatures from at least nine of the 27 member states.
Organisers will also have to make sure they get a minimum number of names from each country, based on the so-called ‘digressive proportionality’ system, which is used to divide up seats between member states in the European Parliament.
Maroš Šefčovič, the EU commissioner handling the European Citizens’ Initiative, said the measure will mark “a real step forward in the democratic life” of Europeans.
Šefčovič presented a draft guidebook on how the initiative will work on Wednesday.“It should not be too difficult, not too technical or complicated for citizens”, he said.
“It is a concrete example of bringing Europe closer to its citizens and it should foster a lively debate about what we are doing in Brussels”.
The plan, which still needs the backing of the Parliament and member states, will give citizens across the 27-nation bloc their first direct say in setting the EU’s legislative agenda, a procedure which could lead to gridlock in EU decision-making.
But it will not go as far as other, similar direct democracy instruments such as those in Switzerland or California, where citizens can bypass parliaments to pass new rules and regulations via ballot initiatives or referenda.
Šefčovič acknowledged the initiative would also allow interest groups and political parties to launch signature drives, raising doubts about how effective the initiative would be in bringing citizens closer to the EU.
“We are trying to be as open as possible, we would not like to limit who would be the organisers …so political parties clearly fall within the remit,” he said.
The initiative opens the door for people to voice their position on an array of contentious issues, from the use of genetically modified crops to Turkey’s EU entry talks, all of which fall under the remit of the Commission, which has powers to draft and amend EU rules and regulations.
Under the proposed rules, those wanting to change EU legislation will have to organise and collect at least one million signatures from at least nine of the 27 member states. Added to those requirements is another complex one that will force organisers to make sure they get a minimum number of names from each country.
At least 72,000 signatures will be needed from Germany for example, 54,750 from the UK and only 4,500 each from tiny Malta and Luxembourg.
The initiative will have to be formally filed via a special Commission website, after which organisers will have one year to collect the signatures.
Šefčovič said he had introduced several safeguards to prevent extremists or “silly” initiatives from hijacking the process. An initial check will be carried out once an initiative is filed on the website to see whether the proposed signature drive abides by European rights and values.
A second check takes place once organisers reach 300,000 signatures to see whether it falls under its legislative powers and is viable.
The names collected either online or on paper will have to be verified by national authorities and the organisers of the initiative will have to disclose who finances their campaign.
A group representing thousands of EU-based non-governmental organisations, including Greenpeace, the European Trade Union Confederation and the European Women’s Lobby, welcomed the proposal calling it “an important new step to increase public participation in EU decision-making.”
Seventeen member states already have similar initiatives at national level.
MEPs call for greater say over economic governance
Parliamentary groups seek a stronger role and threaten to delay important legislation.
The European Parliament’s four largest political groups issued a joint warning on Wednesday (16 June) against any attempt by member states to sideline them over key decisions on economic governance and emergency measures to stabilise the eurozone.
They threatened EU leaders that they would hold up important legislation – the EU’s 2011 budget or the European External Action Service (EEAS) – if the Parliament’s role under the Lisbon treaty was not fully respected. “We intend to fight for that,” said Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the liberal Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE).
This rare common stance – Verhofstadt was appearing with the leaders of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the Greens – underlined their demand for a stronger role for EU institutions in economic management. They accused member states, notably France and Germany, of marginalising EU institutions.
“The institutions have been losing power and losing respect,” said Martin Schulz, leader of the S&D group. He said this “very strong signal” came from a majority of MEPs exasperated by backroom deals among large member states that excluded the European Commission and the Parliament.
Excluded from decisions
Verhofstadt said that EU institutions had to be in charge to achieve success with new economic governance rules, with stabilising the euro, with fully implementing the Europe 2020 jobs and growth programme, and with setting up the EEAS.
Many MEPs resent being excluded from recent decisions by national governments during the eurozone sovereign-debt crisis. The €110 billion fund for Greece agreed on 2 May, consisting of bilateral loans from member states, did not require approval by MEPs. And €440bn of the €500bn stability facility created for eurozone countries is being managed by a special entity outside the EU’s usual legal framework; governments used a treaty article designed for emergencies, which allowed them to avoid consulting MEPs.
The Parliament has potentially the greatest leverage over a €60bn stability facility because any loans provided will be guaranteed against funds from the EU’s 2011 budget. The Parliament has the final say over the EU’s budget in negotiations with national governments.
Alain Lamassoure, a French centre-right MEP who chairs the budgets committee, warned that MEPs would not accept being sidelined when member states set up the €60bn credit line.
“We can’t leave it at that. We must make sure that the guarantee of these potential loans are decided upon by the budgetary authority; that is to say, the Council and the Parliament,” he said.
Plans to set up the EEAS also depend on MEPs’ support as they have full co-decision rights over changes to EU rules on staff and financial controls. They could block the setting up of the service by refusing to approve essential changes unless their demands were met.