🇫🇷Weekly Dispatch - Past and future
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🇫🇷Weekly Dispatch - Past and future
Anniversary of the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup, ”A national coordination against police violence”, Livret A maintained at 3%, and Emmanuel Macron announces the Etats généraux de l'information
The Weekly Dispatch is your weekly update on major events in French and European politics, published on Sundays to give you the ideal summary of current affairs.
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This week
✡️Anniversary of the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup
👮♂️“A national coordination against police violence”
🏦Livret A maintained at 3%
🏛️Macron announces Etats Généraux de l'Information
✡️The Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup anniversary
I hope you’ll allow me to start your Weekly Dispatch this week on a more sombre note than usual, with today, July 16, being the anniversary of the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup in 1942, where 13,152 Jews were arrested, including 4,115 children and 5,919 women.
Also known as the ‘Rafle du Vel’ d’Hiv’ en bon français, this crime against humanity was perpetrated by French police and gendarmes following orders from the German authorities in Paris. It was the result of previous roundups coming short of the 32,000 jews that were promised by French authorities.
This horrific event in our national history was the culmination of a series of anti-Semitic measures carried out by the Vichy government in cooperation with the Nazis. In September 1940, the French government issued a decree requiring all Jews in the occupied territories to register with the police. A series of restrictions on Jewish businesses and workplaces followed.
In May 1941, a similar event occurred: the Green Ticket Roundup (rafle du billet vert, where 3,747 Jewish men were arrested after 6,694 foreign Jews were summoned for a status review before being arrested and shipped to camps.
Finally, in May 1942, the Nazis ordered the Vichy government to expel all foreign Jews from the occupied territories.
The Vel’ d’Hiv raid was carried out in two stages. On the morning of July 16, French police began roundups of Jews in their homes. They were told they had been arrested for “regrouping” and would be released soon.
In reality, they were taken to the Velodrome d'Hiver, a sports stadium in Paris. In the space of one day, 11,000 Jews had been arrested and collected.
The situation at the Velodrome d’Hiver was appalling. The stadium was overcrowded, with up to 100 people sleeping in each of the 14,000 seats the stadium held. There was no food or water, the toilets overflowed, and the police verbally and physically abused the detainees.
On July 17, the prisoners were taken to the Drancy transit camp north of Paris, and from here, they were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where most were killed. Only a few hundred survived.
The Vel’ d’Hiv roundup represented a turning point in the Holocaust, or Shoah in Hebrew. This marked the beginning of the mass deportation of French Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and showed the extent to which the Vichy government was willing to cooperate with the Nazis in their persecution of Jews.
This is an abhorrently dark chapter in French history and is a constant reminder of the dangers of intolerance and the importance of fighting all forms of discrimination. It also serves as a reminder of the importance of remembering the victims of the Holocaust and ensuring that such atrocities never happen again.
In recent years, the Vel’ d’Hiv, Roundup has regained prominence in France after many years of forget. In 2017, the French government held a national ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of the attack. The government also announced the establishment of a new museum dedicated to the event that can only be described as a crime against humanity.
The remembrance of the event is also an important reminder of the active complicity of the Vichy Regime. It is also a strong signal for caution regarding the behaviour of the far-right, who are attempting to rehabilitate the regime whose atrocities they attempt to whitewash.
All of this to say: remembering the past and fighting intolerance in all its forms is something that must not be left to the side, and the necessity of educating future generations about the Holocaust so that such atrocities are never repeated will never change.
However, this requires an effort from all of us.
👮♂️“A national coordination against police violence”
50 associations, trade unions and left-wing political parties, such as La France Insoumise, Europe Ecology Les Verts, CGT and others condemned the ban on a Saturday 15 July protest on Place de la Republique in the centre of the capital.
Associations, trade unions, associations and political parties are co-signatures of the press release issued in the morning. They see the new ban on demonstrations as a "clear sign of authoritarianism".
“We condemn in the strongest terms this attempt to silence political expression and suppress social and environmental movements in working-class neighbourhoods.
The ban was initially announced by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on Wednesday, as well as a ban on any other protests that could be linked to the Nahel M riots, would be banned until July 15.
Police Prefect Laurent Nunez issued the ban on the following day, arguing that the event ran the risk of “disturbing public order” at a time when the police and gendarme was stretched too thin to ensure public safety.
This argument was deemed credible by the administrative court, who supported the ban “given the very recent nature of the serious riots” that had rocked France for a full week and caused countless damage.
Naturally, those organising the protests were very unhappy.
Those who formed the “national coordination against police violence” were very angry, with the leaders’ lawyer, Lucie Simon, declaring this an undemocratic action:
“The police headquarters, supported by the judges of the administrative court of Paris, prevents all channels of democratic expression of perfectly legitimate demands”
Police headquarters had already banned demonstrations in Paris last week to commemorate Adama Traoré, who died shortly after being arrested by gendarmes in July 2016. Despite these measures by the prefecture, about 2,000 people gathered on July 8.
🏦Livret A maintained at 3%
So, in news that will probably draw surprise from those outsides of France: the Livret A savings account will maintain an interest rate of 3% until at least January 2024.
Announced midweek by Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire, this was the result of a lively debate regarding this rate within the banking sector, with many actors arguing for this rate to be increased to 4 - 4.1% to support French citizens in overcoming the challenges linked to the cost-of-living crisis.
Two key actors, the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDC), which manages 60% of the amounts deposited by the 55 million or so French people who hold Livret A savings accounts, and the Union Sociale pour l'Habitat (USH), had both argued in favour of keeping the rate at 3%.
The governor of the Banque de France, François Villeroy de Galhau, made the following argument on FranceInfo this week:
"We need to protect the interests of savers on the one hand, of course, and on the other, a sector that is extremely sensitive for the French, which is the housing sector, because the Livret A is used to finance social housing in particular, and more broadly property lending.”
The Livret d’épargne populaire (LEP, Popular Savings Account), a special savings account reserved for people with modest financial ability, will, in comparison, drop from 6.1% to 6%.
However, to continue to support those using the accounts, the ceiling until tax breaks are stopped will be increased from €7,700 to 10,000 euros, according to Le Maire.
🏛️Macron announces Etats Généraux de l'Information
The Estates General of Information, a campaign promise made by Emmanuel Macron during the 2022 presidential election. The initiative aims to "fight against all attempts to interference and give journalists the best framework to fulfill their essential mission".
First announced by Macron in March 2022 during the presidential campaign, it was originally scheduled to launch in the summer of that year. However, the launch was delayed, and it was not until this week that the Elysée announced that the Estates General would finally be getting underway.
The composition of the steering committee is important, and it will be chaired by Bruno Lasserre, the President of the Commission for Access to Administrative Documents (CADA). Christophe Deloire, the Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), will serve as the general delegate of the Estates General.
The committee will also include several other experts from the fields of journalism, law, and technology.
This initiative is being promptly brought to the fore, even if slightly delayed. The recent and ongoing standoff between the editorial staff of the JDD and the Bolloré group has raised serious concerns about the independence of the media in France.
The Bolloré group is a major media conglomerate with several French media outlets, including CNews and Europe 1, and has received much criticism due to its far-right-wing leanings. The JDD editorial staff has been on strike for three weeks in protest of the appointment of Geoffroy Lejeune, a far-right journalist, as the new editor-in-chief of the newspaper.
This has been accompanied by ongoing discussions regarding the fact that Bolloré owned publications have skewed further and further towards the right over time, creating more friction in a media environment that is already polarised.
One big issue recently has been the attacks on Pap Ndiaye by editorialists who form part of the Bolloré group and their sympathisers within Les Républicains and the Rassemblement National.
Pap Ndiaye, the Minister of National Education, recently waded into the debate with a strong statement on Radio J, where he described CNews and Europe1 as “controlled by a character who is clearly very close to the most radical far-right”
This was a wider part of a discussion where he defended and supported the protest by the JDD team, stating that he understood that “they do not want to enter the galaxy of publications or media controlled by a character who is obviously very close to the most radical far right".
“When you look at CNews, when you look at what has become of Europe 1, the conclusion is obvious. CNews is very clearly the far right”
Due to the audacity that Ndiaye showed by having an opinion, he has been the target of personal and racist attacks from some of the Bolloré group's journalists. Emmanuel Macron has defended Ndiaye, and the Estates General of Information will likely address the issue of media independence.
There is very clearly a need to protect the freedom of the press and ensure political independence, which is becoming increasingly important in a divisive world. The Estates General of Information is an important opportunity to potentially achieve this by discussing the media’s challenges in France and developing new methods to accomplish this goal.
Parts of the discussions will also revolve around the omnipotence of platforms and social networks that drive acts, the eruption of generative artificial intelligence, and the need for a truly trans-partisan approach to defining a democratic framework for the digital age.
The Estates General of Information is an important opportunity to address these challenges and to ensure that the media can continue to play its essential role in a democratic society.
The initiative will naturally be open to all stakeholders, including journalists, media owners, politicians, and members of the public who wish to make themselves heard. It will be a series of workshops and roundtables expected to last for several months.
The conclusions of the Estates General will be published in a report, and it is hoped that this report will significantly impact the future of the media in France and potentially even our democracy itself.
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🇫🇷Weekly Dispatch - Past and future
Do you see any similarities between the UK and France regarding new decisions about demonstrations and protests?