'Humiliation': French see Covid-19 vaccine flops as sign of decline

France, the land of vaccine pioneer Louis Pasteur, has a long and celebrated history when it comes to medical breakthroughs.

Issued on: 26/01/2021 

French pharma giant Sanofi was an early frontrunner in the vaccine race, until a lab mistake left it months behind schedule. © Joël Saget, AFP

Text by: FRANCE 24

France's slip from frontrunner to laggard in the race to develop a Covid-19 vaccine has sparked dismay among politicians, reigniting a debate about the country's scientific prowess and its global standing.

France, the land of vaccine pioneer Louis Pasteur, has a long and celebrated history when it comes to medical breakthroughs.

With the world-renowned research centre that bears his name in Paris, the Pasteur Institute, as well as leading pharma group Sanofi, the country looked well positioned in the race to produce a jab against the novel coronavirus.

But the Pasteur Institute announced Monday that it was abandoning research on its most promising prospect, while Sanofi – an early frontunner in the vaccine race – has said its candidate for inoculation will not be ready before the end of 2021 at best.
France's Pasteur Institute abandons Covid-19 vaccine

"It's a sign of the decline of the country and this decline is unacceptable," François Bayrou, a close political ally of President Emmanuel Macron, said Tuesday.

Bayrou, head of the centrist MoDem party and named by Macron last year as commissioner for long-term government planning, said the problem was a brain-drain from France to the United States.

Speaking on France Inter radio, he said it was "not acceptable that our best researchers, the most brilliant of our researchers, are sucked up by the American system".

He referred to Stéphane Bancel, a Frenchman who heads US-based biotech firm Moderna, whose vaccine was the second to be approved for use in the United States and Europe.

Experts say the US government has invested more in vaccine research in the previous decades, while innovative companies are also drawn to the country because raising funds from private investors is easier and quicker.

Long-time Socialist minister Ségolène Royal, on the other hand, blamed "liberal ideology" for reductions in public funding for vaccine research, while Communist Party head Fabien Roussel called the setbacks a "humiliation".

Standing up to les anglo-saxons

The failure of French Covid vaccine research so far touches on several sensitive issues for the country.

The political class and many voters have long worried about France's relative decline in power and influence – the ominous "déclassement" – in an increasingly globalised world.

This tendency is seen by many analysts as part of the explanation for strong support for the far-right party of Marine Le Pen, whose rhetoric is tinged with nostalgia for the past.

Since World War II, French governments have always had a strong industrial policy which has seen the promotion and protection of national champions to rival "les anglo-saxons" in Britain and America.

Sanofi, the only remaining major French pharma group, has come in for fierce public criticism, particularly in May last year when CEO Paul Hudson – a British citizen – said the United States would get first access to a future vaccine because it invested more in research.

His words kicked up a storm in France, and the company's managers were duly summoned by President Macron and his ministers.

Sanofi followed up this public relations disaster at home by announcing 1,700 job cuts a month later, including 1,000 in France.

Chance

The vaccine flops come at the height of a pandemic that has rattled the self-confidence of many of the world's richest nations, exposing a lack of preparedness and huge gaps in their manufacturing capabilities.

Amid the self-criticism and introspection, some experts and politicians have called on France to avoid taking the vaccine setbacks too hard.

Chance plays a major role in cutting-edge research, evident in the work of the most celebrated past French researchers from Pasteur to Nobel Prize-winning chemist Marie Curie.

Nathalie Coutinet, an economics of medicine researcher at the Sorbonne University in Paris, said many different approaches were being taken by scientists worldwide in the Covid fight.

The Pasteur Institute bet on adapting a measles vaccine to fight Covid, while Sanofi tried to tweak one of its flu jabs – only for a lab mistake to throw it off track.

The most successful approach among Western researchers turned out to be "messenger RNA," which was harnessed by German biotech group BioNTech as well as Moderna, whose jabs have been approved.

"If everyone had opted for RNS Messenger and it hadn't worked, we would have said it was stupid," Coutinet told AFP.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

UK
Vaccinated people could still spread virus, warns Van-Tam

Deputy chief medical officer hits back at doctors who criticised decision to extend gap between vaccine doses

Gavin Cordon
2 days ago

Deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van Tam
(POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Coronavirus vaccines may not fully prevent people from passing the virus on to others and people who have had the jab should still continue to abide by lockdown restrictions, the deputy chief medical officer for England said.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam said that if those who have been vaccinated begin easing off because they are protected, they are potentially putting at risk those further down the priority list who still need inoculation.

His warning came as the latest Government figures showed the number receiving the first dose of the vaccine across the UK has passed 5.8 million, with a record 478,248 getting the jab in a single day.

Prof Van-Tam, writing in the Telegraph, said it was still not known if people who had been vaccinated could still pass on the virus to others, even though they were protected from falling ill themselves.

"So even after you have had both doses of the vaccine you may still give Covid to someone else and the chains of transmission will then continue," he wrote.

Florida Is Cracking Down On Canadians Flying There To Get COVID-19 Vaccines

© Mariia Boiko | Dreamstime, Marc Bruxelle | Dreamstime

When it comes to COVID-19 vaccines in Florida, local officials are cracking down.

This week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis confirmed that people from outside the state will no longer be able to get a COVID-19 vaccine there, including Canadians.

“We’re not doing vaccine tourism."
Ron DeSantis

“To just kind of come in from another country or whatever, we don’t support that and we’re not going to allow that… we’re not doing vaccine tourism,” he explained on Tuesday.

Anybody who owns property in Florida and lives there at least part-time will still qualify.

However, travellers and vacationers will no longer have access to the state’s supply of COVID-19 vaccines as of Tuesday, January 19.

Those wanting to get the vaccine in Florida will now be asked to provide evidence that they live there permanently or semi-permanently.

Before this, anybody aged 65 and over was eligible, leading some Canadians to cross the border to get vaccinated early.

According to CTV News, some Canadians even took private planes to the U.S. to get vaccinated.

The Canadian federal government continues to urge against all non-essential travel outside of the country, with Justin Trudeau even advising those with upcoming vacations to cancel them.

PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF BIG PHARMA

Drug firms ‘must deliver’ on Covid-19 vaccine obligations, EU chief says

CENTRAL PLANNING & GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION

Issued on: 26/01/2021 - 

EU Chief Ursula von der Leyen says pharma companies must ‘honour their obligations’ to supply the bloc with Covid-19 vaccine. © John Thys AFP / file picture

Text by: NEWS WIRES|

Video by: Yena LEE

The European Union on Tuesday warned pharmaceutical giants that develop coronavirus vaccines to honor their contractual obligations after slow deliveries of shots from two companies hampered the bloc’s vaunted vaccine rollout in several nations.

The bloc already lashed out Monday at pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, accusing it of failing to guarantee the delivery of coronavirus vaccines without a valid explanation. It also had expressed displeasure over vaccine delivery delays from Pfizer-BioNTech last week.

“Europe invested billions to help develop the world‘s first COVID-19 vaccines. To create a truly global common good,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the World Economic Forum’s virtual event in Switzerland . “And now, the companies must deliver. They must honor their obligations.”

The statement Tuesday highlighted the level of distrust that has grown between the 27-nation bloc and pharmaceutical companies over the past week. On Monday, the EU threatened to impose strict export controls on all coronavirus vaccines produced in the bloc to make sure that companies honor their commitments to the EU.

The EU said it provided 2.7 billion euros to speed up vaccine research and production capacity and was determined to get some value for that money with hundreds of millions of vaccine shots according to a schedule the companies had committed to.

“Europe is determined to contribute to this global common good, but it also means business,” von der Leyen said Tuesday via videolink.

And Germany was firmly behind von der Leyen’s view.

“With a complex process such as vaccine production, I can understand if there are production problems—but then it must affect everyone fairly and equally,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn told ZDF television. “This is not about EU first, it’s about Europe’s fair share.”

The EU, which has 450 million citizens and the economic and political clout of the world’s biggest trading bloc, is lagging badly behind countries like Israel and Britain in rolling out coronavirus vaccine shots for its health care workers and most vulnerable people. That’s despite having over 400,000 confirmed virus deaths since the pandemic began.

The EU has committed to buying 300 million AstraZeneca doses with option on 100 million extra shots. Late last week, the company said it was planning to reduce a first contingent of 80 million to 31 million.

The shortfall of planned deliveries of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is expected to get medical approval by the bloc on Friday, combined with hiccups in the distribution of Pfizer-BioNTech shots is putting EU nations under heavy pressure. Pfizer says it was delaying deliveries to Europe and Canada while it upgrades its plant in Belgium to increase production capacity.

The European Medicines Agency is scheduled to review the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine Friday and its approval is hotly anticipated. The AstraZeneca vaccine is already being used in Britain and has been approved for emergency use by half a dozen countries, including India, Pakistan, Argentina and Mexico.

The delays in getting vaccines will be make it harder to meet early targets in the EU’s goal of vaccinating 70% of its adults by late summer.

The EU has signed six vaccine contracts for more than 2 billion doses, but only the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been approved for use so far.

(AP)

PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF BIG PHARMA

Vaccine nationalism could cost global economy $9 trillion, ICC report says



Issued on: 25/01/2021 - 

By: Kate MOODY

The risk of vaccine nationalism is a moral quandary that could also have huge economic consequences. A new report from the International Chamber of Commerce says unequal distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine could cost the global economy $9 trillion, with wealthy countries having to shoulder half the cost.

 John Denton, Secretary General of the ICC, tells FRANCE 24 that supporting equitable distribution of vaccines is not an act of charity; "it's absolutely economic common sense".

>> Covid-19: Melinda Gates warns against 'vaccine nationalism'

Ottawa residents seek to dump Trump street name

Issued on: 27/01/2021

The 'Trump Avenue' sign is seen in a west side neighborhood

 in Ottawa on January 26, 2021 Michel COMTE AFP

Ottawa (AFP)

Residents of an Ottawa neighborhood are looking to distance themselves from Donald Trump by renaming their street, which bears his name -- once a source of intrigue, but now an embarrassment.

Trump Avenue on the Canadian capital's west side is lined with brick homes, each with two-car garages and kids playing hockey in driveways.

The Central Park neighborhood, known for New York City-themed street names, was built in the late 1990s -- long before a certain Big Apple real estate mogul entered politics.

There's also a Madison Park, Bloomingdale Street, Manhattan Crescent, and Staten Way in the area.

Bonnie Bowering moved here in 2008.

"When I used to tell people I live on Trump Avenue and I would add, 'Yes, it is The Donald,' people would smirk, some offered sympathies, that sort of thing," she told AFP.

"But now -- after he's undermined democracy, and incited an insurrection, a violent attack on the US Capitol -- it's time to change our street name," she said.

"Trump doesn't deserve the honor and I think it's inappropriate to have a street named after him in Canada's capital."

Ottawa city councilor Riley Brockington started gathering support for the name change from people who live on the street this week.

Some residents had been petitioning the city for years to change it, but Brockington resisted, saying he feared offending Trump while he was in office.

"I was concerned that there might be ramifications against Canada, that Trump would take punitive measures if word got out that Canada's national capital wanted to take his name off a street sign," Brockington said.

"With his exit from the White House, I felt now was a good time to try it."

At least 50 percent of residents must agree to the name change to trigger a process that would take several months.

That's not soon enough for Diane Hosker, who was out walking her dog Tuesday afternoon.

"It was a novelty at first, a fun way to start off a conversation when you told people where you lived," she said. "Now it's an embarrassment."

"The man's an idiot and I don't like his brand of politics," she added.

Nearby, a father stuck his head out of his front door to call his son in from the cold, and nodded in agreement.

Changing the street's name would require new signage, but also new maps and postal addresses for 62 homes.

And then there's the matter of selecting a new name.

Most other New York names are already taken in Ottawa, and numbered street names such as Fifth Avenue won't do. "We already have one of those in Ottawa," Bowering explained.

"I hope we end up with a name that everybody is happy with," she concluded. "Of course, some people say 'Anything would be better.'"

© 2021 AFP

Africa

Can the ‘Great Green Wall’ carry out Sankara’s ecological, pan-African dream?

Issued on: 17/01/2021 - 

Women build dikes to hold water in a drought-prone area of eastern Burkina Faso. © Raphaël de Bengy, AFP

Text by: Benjamin DODMAN 

Thomas Sankara, Burkina Faso’s folk-hero president, once marshalled a nation to halt the spread of the Sahara. Decades after his brutal death, a pan-African project of epic scale and ambition is aiming to reverse the creeping desertification that threatens to engulf a vast region, accelerating climate change, migration and conflict.

Burkina Faso, a landlocked country lashed by the hot and dusty winds of the Sahara, was once a land of lush forests, high grass and impetuous rivers, Captain Thomas Sankara, its revolutionary leader, was fond of saying.

“Back then, it was the roots of our trees and grass that bound together the soil’s fertiles humus, withstanding the force of torrents and floods,” said the “African Che Guevara” in a landmark speech detailing his plans to reforest the country.

“Today, all the rain that falls on Burkina Faso runs away to other countries, to the sea,” Sankara added in his 1985 address. “We will hold it back through our struggle.”

The man who renamed the former French colony of Haute-Volta as Burkina Faso – meaning the “Land of the Honest”, or “Upright” – was ahead of his time in recognising climate change and desertification as the single biggest threat to the wellbeing of its people. “The desert is at our gates, it’s already upon us, ready to engulf us,” he warned.

A baobab tree pictured at Nedogo village, near Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou. © Luc Gnago, REUTERS

In order to turn back the tide, Sankara launched a massive tree-planting drive to “regreen” the country, halt soil erosion and foster sustainable agriculture. His “fight against the desert” was both “ideological” and “existential”, a means to empower the impoverished nation and guarantee its survival.

“Step by step, tree by tree, we will create this great park of 10 million trees,” he promised. “Even if it takes 10 million years.”

Just two years later, aged 37, Sankara was mowed down by soldiers in a military coup. But his vision of a “wall of trees” holding back the encroaching desert has taken root in a pan-African project of breathtaking scale, a cross-continental barrier stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

Halting the desert

An African-led project, the Great Green Wall aims to buttress the fragile ecosystems of countries in the Sahel region south of the Sahara. Its advocates say it will restore huge swathes of degraded land, capture carbon emissions, create millions of green jobs, stem mass migration and reduce conflict in a hotbed of jihadist militancy.

This week, the ambitious but underfunded initiative received a much-needed shot in the arm with donors at a conference in Paris pledging more than $14 billion to speed up the Wall.

“We are now standing shoulder to shoulder with the entire African continent,” said French President Emmanuel Macron, who hosted the One Planet Summit on Monday. "The future of the Sahel region depends on the Great Green Wall," added Akinwumi Adesina, the head of the African Bank for Development. "Without it, the Sahel region as we know it may disappear."

A train station swallowed by the encroaching desert in Sudan. 

© Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah, Reuters

Sankara was long dead when the Great Green Wall was launched in 2007, but the project is in many ways his brainchild, argues Sylvestre Bangré Ouédraogo, a former environment minister who grew up in the same town as the revolutionary leader.

“Sankara began building Burkina Faso’s own barrier against the desert and worked hard to inspire other countries,” he says. “He would warn them, ‘Today the desert is creeping into Burkina Faso, but tomorrow it will be Ivory Coast’s turn and then Liberia’s'.”

The centrepiece of Sankara’s barrier was a vast reforestation drive that required every household, village, school and business to plant saplings and tend to tree nurseries. Both Burkinabes and foreigners were expected to plant trees on special occasions, such as weddings. At times the president would personally roll up in his trademark Renault 5 – the cheapest car of the day (he famously banned ministers from using luxury cars) – to make sure they did.

Ouédraogo, who served as head of environmental affairs in the Ouagadougou area during Sankara’s time, recalls frantic preparations to ensure venues were always decked in green whenever the president was due: “When he arrived and saw plants on the stage he was happy; when there were none he frowned and summoned us to do better.”

Sankara declared drastic curbs to tree-felling and livestock grazing, the main drivers of deforestation. He even considered marshalling the air force to “bomb” the country with tree seeds in the hope some would sprout. “You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness,” he would say when challenged over his unorthodox practices.

Thomas Sankara celebrates the second anniversary of Burkina Faso's revolution on August 4, 1985, with a suitably green backdrop. © Daniel Laine, AFP

“Some of his methods were, let’s say, ‘empirical’, but there is no disputing the vision and ambition,” Ouédraogo says. “He never missed an opportunity to stress that however poor Burkina Faso may be, it had a purpose and a mission. Sadly, he did not have a chance to carry it out.”

Sankara’s pioneering environmentalism was not entirely abandoned after his death, but the impetus and urgency vanished.

“He would ride his bicycle incognito to visit people’s homes and discuss trees,” Ouédraogo recalls. “It’s that kind of enthusiasm that went missing after he was gone.”

No to prêt-à-porter, yes to bespoke

Sankara was perhaps most insightful in his belief that the “fight against the desert'' would only bear fruit if local communities were empowered and invested with the responsibility to improve their lot and that of their children. For this reason, he argued, development of the Sahel region must necessarily be African-led and community-led.

“No to ready-to-wear aid, yes to bespoke aid,” was one of the many slogans coined by the staunch anti-imperialist, whose antics irked the former colonial power, France.

Ouédraogo, a 20-year veteran of the UN Development Programme, says the same concern underpins the Great Green Wall, a vastly ambitious but unsung project led by the African Union with support from international donors.

“When I joined the UNPD, donor countries would say, ‘You’re only getting the money if you do so and so’. They did not get the communities involved and interested, and rode roughshod over local specificities,” he says. “Fortunately, that’s changed now. Investments are focused on local needs and expertise.”

When the Great Green Wall was launched, Ouédraogo worked with international charity Tree Aid to help restore degraded land in some of the poorest parts of the country. This involved fostering new techniques to improve water conservation, increase yields in a sustainable way, and find alternative fuels to wood.

Of course, it also involved planting, nursing and protecting trees, from the mighty baobab to the supple moringa, a drought-resistant plant sometimes referred to as a “miracle tree” because of its nutritious and pharmacological properties.

“Every action is based on local needs, assessments and expertise,” Ouédraogo explains. “Local actors are responsible for its implementation – otherwise, it just doesn’t work.”

Healing ecosystems

Tree Aid was set up in 1987, the year of Sankara’s assassination, in response to famine in Ethiopia. It now operates in several countries of the Sahel, including Burkina Faso’s neighbours Mali and Niger. Its chief executive, Tom Skirrow, says the charity has long found it difficult to push its work up the agenda of international leaders and donors.

“It’s important that the Great Green Wall is African-led and inspiring a grassroots movement across the continent. But, as a result, international leaders and donors tend to take a back-seat and to date haven't engaged in a meaningful way,” he says. “In this respect, we’re delighted to see growing momentum for support and investment in this epic movement,” he adds, referring to the pledges made at the Paris summit.


Tree Aid’s CEO is also thrilled by the start of the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration (2021-30), a global initiative aimed at strengthening cooperation to restore damaged ecosystems and thereby safeguard biodiversity, food security and water supplies. The 10-year project has opened with the world in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic – a timely and ominous reminder of the direct link between biodiversity loss and vital threats to humanity.

>> ‘Humanity is bullying nature – and we will pay the price,’ WWF chief says

The UN says around two billion hectares of degraded lands worldwide have potential for ecosystem restoration. Most of the rehabilitation work could take the form of “mosaic restoration”, in which forests are combined with protected areas, sustainable agriculture, water bodies and human settlements.

That is precisely the model envisioned for the Great Green Wall, but progress has been frustratingly slow.

According to a status report published last September, the scheme has covered only 4 percent of its initial target area despite being more than halfway towards its 2030 completion date. The figure rises to 15 percent when including other initiatives, including a vast reforestation programme in Ethiopia, which are now part of an expanded Great Green Wall.

“Either way, it’s clearly not enough to ensure the Great Green Wall fulfils its ambition for the millions of people living on the frontline of the climate crisis,” says Skirrow. “But it was always going to take time to get started. The skills and tools are in place to scale up, now we need the funds to drive it forward.”

Tree Aid's chief executive says the Great Green Wall has already had a huge impact on communities that are part of the programme, restoring their land, securing food supplies, and nurturing activities that are both sustainable and profitable.

“Obviously, we still need to reach many more people who are living with the devastating effects of desertification,” he adds. “The Wall will only work if it’s undertaken by, literally, millions of people on the ground. It won’t work if the money gets stuck in conferences and bureaucracies. As Macron put it, ‘we need to make things simpler’, to streamline the process so the funds arrive more quickly where they are urgently needed.”

‘The roar of women’s silence’

The UK-based charity says experience has shown that people will get behind the Great Green Wall if they can identify a tangible benefit. That is especially the case for women who bear a disproportionate share of the burden in a country that is still 80 percent rural.

Women “carry the other half of the sky”, Sankara would say – on top of the wood that fuels stoves and cookers and the water that feeds their families, their crops and their livestock.

  

Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso's largest city. 

Thomas Sankara said every household should plant a tree, including in urban areas.

 © Luc Gnago, REUTERS

Clémence Ouédraogo, Tree Aid’s head of gender equality and inclusion, says women’s empowerment is a core driver of the green wall project, “in the spirit championed by Sankara”. It rests on three pillars: giving women leadership roles, restoring their environment and allowing them to profit from it too.

“When women have a voice, it is easier to identify and address problems,” she says. “We can then help them to reduce their dependence on unsustainable practices that hurt both them and the environment, like the wood burning that breaks their backs and damages their lungs. This, in turn, frees up time to grow nutritious foods and process other products, like shea butter, for an income.”

Clémence Ouédraogo says she must tread delicately to ensure women’s empowerment does not lead to social rifts of the kind Sankara encountered when he promoted gender equality in a very male-dominated society.

“We must do so with agility, adapting our efforts to local frameworks that are sometimes very rigid,” she explains. The benefits, she adds, are soon obvious: “We can see from experience that when women are involved from the decision-making stage to the project’s accomplishment, you end up with the added blessing that the project is looked after in time.”

Desert and jihad

There can be no social revolution without the liberation of women, Sankara would stress in his fiery speeches up and down the country. “May my eyes never see and my feet never take me to a society where half the people are held in silence,” he once said. “I hear the roar of women’s silence. I sense the rumble of their storm and feel the fury of their revolt.”

Another storm has been rumbling in the arid drylands of the Sahel, this one sowing chaos and death – and threatening to stop the wall in its tracks.

More than six years after a popular uprising chased away strongman Blaise Compaoré, a worsening jihadist insurgency has blighted Burkina Faso’s hopes of freedom and prosperity, and wreaked havoc in rural areas worst affected by desertification.

“We think carefully before sending teams into some areas, which are often the worst affected by desertification,” says Sylvestre Bangré Ouédraogo. “Some places we have stopped going to altogether, including areas where we were successfully experimenting new technologies to foster tree growth. It’s tragic, because they are the people most in need.”

A pregnant woman carries a jerrycan of water at a camp for people displaced by conflict in Kaya, Burkina Faso. © Zohra Bensemra, REUTERS

Youths with no hope or job prospects are easy prey to jihadist recruiters, which is why aid workers are touting the Great Green Wall as crucial to conflict prevention. More trees on the ground today, they argue, means fewer peacekeeping troops in future. Conversely, rising instability results in population displacement, increased demographic pressure, more land degradation and mass emigration.

Ouédraogo is hoping the violence will not end a UN-funded programme designed to improve the livelihoods of women and youths in some of Burkina Faso’s poorest provinces, which is now up for renewal.

“The programme has already had a significant impact,” he says. “We’ve seen some militants lay down their weapons and this give us hope for the struggle against the jihadist scourge. We cannot abandon these people.”

Warning of 'humanitarian crisis' for shipping workers unable to disembark

Some 300 companies have signed a pledge to help hundreds of thousands of maritime workers stranded aboard freight ships around the world because of Covid-19 restrictions. The crisis has prevented crew changes on many vessels and the companies are calling on governments to recognise maritime personnel as key workers, following a UN resolution passed in December. Also today, we look at how some hairdressers in Belgium are breaking Covid-19 rules by giving haircuts in customers' homes. They say they need to work to survive.

Tunisian protesters march on parliament amid government reshuffle

Issued on: 26/01/2021 - 

Tunisia, mired in a political and economic crisis worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic, has been rocked by a wave of social unrest a decade after the Arab Spring uprising. © Fethi Belaid, AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Video by: Andrew HILLIAR

Tunisian riot police turned water cannon on protesters outside the heavily barricaded parliament on Tuesday, trying to quell the largest rally since demonstrations began this month over inequality and police abuses.

Hundreds of protesters had marched from the Ettadhamen district of the capital Tunis, where young people have clashed with police several nights this month, and were joined by hundreds more near the parliament.

Police blocked the march with barricades to prevent protesters approaching the parliament building where lawmakers were holding a tense debate on a disputed government reshuffle.

"The government that only uses police to protect itself from the people – it has no more legitimacy," said one protester, Salem Ben Saleh, who is unemployed.

Later, police also barred Avenue Habib Bourguiba, the broad tree-lined boulevard that is home to the Interior Ministry and where major protests have traditionally taken place, as demonstrators tried to gather there.

Protests flared earlier this month on the 10th anniversary of Tunisia's 2011 revolution that inspired that Arab Spring and introduced democracy in the North African country.

Political paralysis and economic decline have soured many Tunisians on the fruits of the uprising.

In parliament, Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi proposed a new cabinet, a move President Kais Saied had on Monday rejected as unconstitutional.

The political deadlock in Tunisia since elections in 2019 has stymied efforts to address festering economic problems, with both foreign lenders and the main labour union demanding reforms.

Last year, as the global coronavirus pandemic struck, Tunisia's economy shrank by more than 8%. The fiscal deficit rose above 12% of gross domestic product, ballooning public debt to more than 90% of GDP.

The nightly clashes between young people and police have been matched by growing daytime protests at which demonstrators have chanted slogans including "the people want the fall of the regime" – echoing Arab Spring uprisings.

Riots continue in Tunisia after wave of arrests

On Tuesday, with anger high over the death on Monday of a young man whose family said he had been hit by a tear gas canister, protesters chanted against the security forces.

In Sbeitla, the hometown of Haykel Rachdi who was buried on Tuesday, mourners later clashed with police, witnesses said.

As parliamentary debate on the reshuffle paused in the afternoon before a vote expected in the evening, some opposition lawmakers left parliament to join the protest outside.

If parliament endorses Mechichi's new government, it could put him on course for a major showdown with President Saied, complicating any government efforts to overhaul the economy.

"Mechichi has transformed this into a police state... No work, no development, no investment, just police against the people," said Imed, another protester who did not want to give his family name.

(REUTERS)

'Sick of Zoom': Teachers and students rally in France for more virus support

Issued on: 26/01/2021 

Text by: Benjamin DODMAN

Video by: Claire PACCALIN

French schoolteachers and university students staged nationwide strikes and protests on Tuesday as they joined forces to demand more government support amid the pandemic.

“No virus protocol, no school!” read posters carried by schoolteachers, demanding better virus protections at their schools, which have remained open since September amid concern over learning gaps and to ease the burden on working parents.

“Sick of Zoom!” chanted university students, frustrated that they've been barred from campuses since October.

Aside from virus fears, the common concern at Tuesday's protests in Paris, Marseille and other cities around France was economic.

Teachers unions, who are negotiating with the government for improved conditions, want higher salaries and for the government to hire more educators after years of cost cuts.

At a rally in the western city of Rennes, Axel Benoist, the head of the Snuep-FSU union, said teachers had lost "an average of 275 euros per month in purchasing power over the past decade".

Other protesters stressed the need to hire more supply teachers, noting that colleagues are seldom replaced when they fall sick.

The education ministry said about 12% of teachers nationwide took part in Tuesday's strike, though unions said the figure was higher.

'Lost generation'

Students, meanwhile, are seeking more government financial support and want to call attention to emotional troubles among young people cut off from friends, professors and job opportunities amid the pandemic.

With French universities in limbo amid the latest resurgence in Covid-19 infections, alarm bells are ringing over the social, psychological and academic consequences of months of lockdowns, curfews and online teaching for students holed up in cramped dwellings many can ill afford.

>> As students despair, France addresses plight of pandemic’s ‘lost generation’

Acknowledging their concerns last week, President Emmanuel Macron said students would be allowed to return to campus one day a week, provided lecture halls and classrooms don’t exceed 20% capacity.

Macron also said he would look to ensure all students have access to one-euro meals twice a day at university cafeterias, as well as psychological support free of charge.

While welcoming the measures, student unions want more financial support and a return to the rotating scheme that was in place ahead of the country’s second nationwide lockdown, with students alternating between online and classroom teaching.

UNEF, the country's largest student union, has called for a 1.5 billion euro ($1.8 billion) emergency plan to boost grants and help students pay for accommodation.

(FRANCE 24 with AP)

Isolated and depressed: Being a student in France in times of Covid-19

Issued on: 26/01/2021 -

18-year-old Ivo has never set foot in a lecture hall. Unlike high school students, or those on technical courses, he hasn't had any in-person tutorials since the second lockdown. © FRANCE 24

By:Camille PAUVAREL|Julien CHEHIDA|Noémie ROCHE|Ellen GAINSFORD
7 min

Students have been particularly hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and those here in France are no exception. Starved of social contact and with no in-person lessons for months, many are feeling isolated and frustrated. The crisis has also affected them financially and some are struggling to make ends meet. FRANCE 24's Noémie Roche and Julien Chehida went to meet several students, who are trying hard to remain positive despite the difficult circumstances.