Press Review

PRESS REVIEW – Thursday, November 12: We look at reactions from Spain after the country's first nationwide general strike in 14 years. It comes two weeks before snap general elections. Also: Scott Colom makes history as the first Black senator in Mississippi in 145 years after an epic Senate midterm race finally concluded. Finally, fans of Barça will be able to inter their ashes at Camp Nou as part of a new offer by the club to allow supporters to cheer on the team in the afterlife. Wednesday saw Spain's first 24-hour strike in 14 years. Hundreds of thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Barcelona, Madrid and other cities. It comes a fortnight ahead of a general election that will pit Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez against a strong right-wing opposition. El Periodico, the centre-left Catalan daily, calls it a "different kind of strike". The Madrid version of 20 Minutos says the strike filled the streets but did not paralyse the country. It laments, however, that 15 days before the election, the demonstration does not allow enough time for dialogue to solve the housing crisis and properly address the demands of protesters. El Pais headlines with a warning from major unions: they will continue protesting if the future government cuts pensions or public services. In its editorial, El Pais says the November 11 movement should not be "mistaken as a momentary expression of frustrations. Voters will pun­ish those who take excep­tion to the mobil­isa­tion instead of debat­ing the reas­ons that motiv­ate it". In the US, papers report on a historic victory in the Mississippi Senate race. Democrat Scott Colom has won the seat, several days after midterm elections in the US. He is the first Black senator ever directly elected by the voters of Mississippi. He'll be the first Black Senator to serve since 1881, Time magazine notes. The local news outlet Mississippi Today hails Colom's win on the front of its website. It notes that Mississippi – or rather "Messy-ssippi" – has a history of elections that don't end on Election Day. The 1999 governor's race in the state dragged on until the new millennium. The paper also tells us the strange story of 2015, when a race for the House Seat ended in a tie between a Democratic incumbent and a Republican challenger. It was decided quite literally by a drawing of straws – with the incumbent picking the winning straw! Finally, the Guardian reports that fans of football team Barcelona will soon have the opportunity to inter their ashes at the stadium. The Guardian says die-hard supporters of Barcelona – pun intended – will be able to cheer on the club in their afterlife. The club is upgrading its Camp Nou venue and will include now a memorial with 26,000 niches where fans can deposit their ashes after they call full time on their life. Being an afterlife supporter will cost you – €6,000 for 50 years or €10,000 for eternity – but there will be annual maintenance fees and if you want a plaque, you'll have to fork out for that too. But for some, it's a small price to pay to cheer the club's goals from beyond the grave! You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.

PRESS REVIEW – Wednesday, November 11: Spanish and French papers discuss protests in the two countries. An investigation by The Guardian and ITV accuses comedian David Walliams of "preying on young women for sex". Finally, a Doberman sensed something was wrong with a baby. It may have saved his life.   Spain's first general strike in 14 years is making headlines. El País reports that trade unions intend to "test their strength in the face of attacks from the right". The unions are counting on the "support" of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's government to secure progress on housing, the issue at the heart of their demands. Meanwhile, the country is still in mourning following last month's deadly rail disaster, and in just two days, the official campaign for the snap general election will begin. El Mundo views the call for a general strike as "a deeply worrying democratic anomaly". The paper accuses the Socialist government of "encouraging a mobilisation against the consequences of its political failure, in the hope of gaining an electoral advantage". El Mundo says that this comes at a time when polls show the right and far right gaining momentum. Protests in France are continuing as well, and trade unions are calling for the mobilisation to continue. Aujourd'hui en France says we are seeing an escalation of violence, adding that school staff, the authorities and parents are concerned about the deteriorating atmosphere in schools. Right-wing paper Le Figaro headlines: "The French stand united behind the police". Le Figaro says a large majority believe that the police are not adequately equipped to deal with rioters and that the government has failed to ensure public safety, notably during the October 17 unrest. In England, another sexual predator has been exposed: comedian and former "Britain's Got Talent" judge David Walliams. Walliams has been accused of preying on young women for sex. This was revealed by a joint investigation between the Guardian and ITV that showed how the comedian groomed fans as young as 15. The Telegraph writes that Walliams first faced questions about his behaviour after an investigation by the paper revealed that he had been accused of "harassing" junior employees at his publisher, HarperCollins. Last year, reporters uncovered that the author's own publisher had already investigated him and that staff had also been interviewed. The Hollywood Reporter explains that the best-selling children's author had previously sought an injunction to prevent revealing his identity – over fears that he would be "highly likely" to kill himself. Walliams denies all the allegations and says abusing his power is something that he "never did". Finally, we bring you a heartwarming story from The Washington Post. Kim Reynolds noticed that her Doberman, Saraya, was behaving oddly around her baby Alexander. Saraya was whining and pacing near the 5-month-old infant, licking his face and becoming increasingly distressed. Later that day, the baby started crying uncontrollably. Then, thinking back to her dog's behaviour, Reynolds decided to take Alexander in for emergency care. It turned out that the baby's heart rate was dangerously high and he was diagnosed with a syndrome that can cause dangerous heart palpitations. Such a fast heart rate is very dangerous if undetected. If the dog hadn't alerted Reynolds, she might never have suspected that something was wrong. An expert told the paper that dogs can detect this sort of problem because of two things: their heightened senses and their deep affection for humans. You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.

PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, November 10: French Olympic judo champion Teddy Riner announces he will run for president in next year's French elections. But how serious is his bid? Also, a new government directive in France says schoolchildren must participate in Remembrance Day commemorations – but the unions are not happy. British comedian Russell Brand is sentenced to 10 years in prison for rape and sexual assault. Finally, we bring you the best of the memes on Nvidia's Jensen Huang. French Olympic judo champion Teddy Riner has announced he is running in next year's presidential elections in France. The five-time Olympic judo champion made the announcement on social media. He gave an exclusive interview to Aujourd'hui en France - Le Parisien in which he explained that his decision to run has been in the works since the Paris Olympics. He is positioning himself as an alternative to the two likely extremist frontrunners, Marine Le Pen on the far right and Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the hard left. Le Parisien's editor hails Riner's style, while cautioning that he has a lot to lose with this candidacy – his popularity in France, his sponsors but also his possible bid for the 2028 Olympics in LA. He could also face criticism for his recent tax issues and his reluctance to incite the people of Guadeloupe, the French overseas territory from where he comes, to vaccinate themselves against Covid-19. From the Olympic flame to "political flame", French sports paper l'Équipe notes that more and more sportsmen and women seem ready to enter politics and give their opinions on issues beyond sports venues. Le Temps notes that President Emmanuel Macron is also to blame – for 10 years, he siphoned away support from the two main political parties, with only the extremists left. In this analysis, Le Temps is sceptical, reminding us that these would-be candidates will need 500 signatures to run and usually what happens is that the candidates have a way of parlaying support for a frontrunner into obtaining a ministerial post. La Charente Libre, a local French paper, says that "with all respect to Riner, his candidacy is above all a symptom of France's political malaise." For the first time this year, French primary, middle, and high schools will organise a commemoration ceremony for November 11, Armistice Day. But it is proving controversial among teachers' unions, according to the Huffington Post. Schoolchildren will partake in a commemoration ceremony that will become an annual homage to those who died for France – with the aim of transmitting the memory of history and peace to younger generations. Unions have criticised the move, saying it could favour military culture in school and be used politically. Historians and teachers debate the issue in La Croix, the Catholic paper. Those in favour says it will transmit the memory of history, while those against say that students already study the First and Second World Wars and thus participation in the commemoration service is redundant. Turning to the UK, comedian Russell Brand will spend a decade behind bars after being found guilty of rape and sexual assault. Brand was a career chameleon: a stand-up comic, MTV host, political analyst and, lately, conspiracy theorist. In a high-profile trial, six women testified against him over the past month. He has now been sentenced to over 10 years in prison – vindication for some British dailies like Metro. His face is splashed across the dailies, including Daily Mirror, Daily Express and the Guardian. In its analysis, Le Monde says that Russell Brand's conviction is unlikely to have the stratospheric consequences of that of Harvey Weinstein, but that the cases share one thing in common: a culture of silence broken by the press and a wave of accusations that shattered the denials long maintained by two prominent figures who were eventually brought to justice. Finally, Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia who confessed to having an affair with a rumoured Chinese spy, is the butt of all jokes on the Internet. His extramarital affair confession took everyone by surprise and briefly send Nvidia stocks tumbling, especially as rumours of a possible Chinese honeytrap abounded. The illustrated press has been merciless. We look at Morten Morland and Patrick Blower from the Times and Telegraph respectively. Morten Morland sees the Nvidia CEO as a "Nvidiot". He is also mocked in online memes gathered by Buzzfeed. You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.

PRESS REVIEW – Monday, November 9: Papers condemn the Kremlin's closure of Russian independent paper Novaya Gazeta on its last day. Also in Russia: leaked numbers suggest that almost half a million Russians have died in the war in Ukraine. Next: NASA is recruiting astronauts who will live and work on the Moon. Finally: who will be the next James Bond?     Novaya Gazeta's front-page headline reads: "What will we leave behind?" Moscow has classed the independent paper as a "foreign agent", a label used to stifle dissent and media that don't obey the Kremlin. They received the label back in September, so what followed didn't come as a surprise. In late October, the team received an eviction notice – they have to be gone by November 10 and evict the office that many journalists have called home for decades. Banks also blocked readers' donations, leaving the editorial team without a single source of income. The Times says that Novaya Gazeta was "the last free newspaper in Russia. Now Putin has come for it". The paper writes that for more than 30 years, the Russian paper "has fearlessly defended human rights in Russia". It says that its closure is "widely seen as revenge for its criticism of the invasion of Ukraine". Dmitry Muratov, Novaya Gazeta's co-founder, spoke to the paper. He said that this is the culmination of a long and violent journey that started in 1993, when Mikhail Gorbachev donated money from his Nobel Peace Prize to help establish the paper. El País condemns the closure of Novaya Gazeta, which it describes as a symbol of "great Russian journalism". Its final issue comes after three decades of exposing war crimes, political assassinations and high-level corruption. Also in Russia, a new data leak from the state statistics agency reveals some numbers about the war in Ukraine, The Moscow Times reports. The leaked figures say that more than 450,000 Russians have been killed in the war in Ukraine. Russia hasn't officially disclosed its battlefield losses since September 2022. But if this number is correct, it would make the war the fourth most common cause of death in the country since 2022 and the deadliest conflict since World War II. Next: NASA is expanding its Artemis programme. The Guardian reports that it now wants to send a new generation of astronauts to live and work on the Moon. NASA says the successful candidates would help "shape humanity's future in space". If you're interested, the application deadline is December 3. Applicants must be US citizens and have a master's degree in a related field, such as science or mathematics, or training as a pilot. They must also have three years of "related professional experience". This is all happening as the space agency is currently building a base on the Moon and is planning the first crewed missions to Mars. Finally, who will be the next James Bond? MovieWeb says Robert Pattinson will play the iconic British spy. But according to OK! Magazine, there are three frontrunners: Jack Lowden, Jacob Elordi and Callum Turner. Nothing has been officially confirmed yet, but the winner could be revealed "within weeks". You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.

PRESS REVIEW – Friday, November 6: Italian, British, French and Bulgarian papers discuss the bomb threats that diverted multiple flights across Europe on Thursday. British papers discuss Russell Brand's rape and sexual assault conviction. Finally, kids in Hanoi chase tourists – not for money, but for vocabulary. Bonus: we learn a fun fact about chihuahuas. Italian papers La Stampa and La Corrierre della Serra headline with "Bomb threats and chaos in the sky". Eight of the flights diverted on Thursday were flying to or from Italy. La Stampa spoke to a bomb expert who says that it's all connected and part of a "covert war". The news is also on the front page of the British newspaper Financial Times. The paper quotes intelligence leaders who say it's a campaign of "intimidation," "bearing the hallmarks of Russia's hybrid warfare". French paper Le Figaro writes about the movement that's believed to be behind some of the bomb threats. It's called the "Male State" and it's a Russian far-right, racist and misogynistic movement. The airports in Rome and Sofia received a mysterious email on Thursday, attributed to members of this masculinist group. Bulgaria's bTV quotes the threat that was sent to many people working at these airports: "We, the Male State, will go down in history through our actions today. Your feminist regime will remember this forever. The explosion will take place in 60 minutes. Today, your skies will turn red". Le Figaro writes that the messages haven't been verified and the group hasn't taken responsibility for them. But if the origin of the threat is confirmed, the paper writes, it would mark an unprecedented escalation. Next, British comedian Russell Brand faces jail time after he was found guilty of raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others. The Times reports that Brand now faces years in prison. The crimes took place at the height of his fame. The paper says Brand was described as a "ruthless, calculated and manipulative sexual predator". The convictions follow a joint investigation by The Times, The Sunday Times and Channel 4's investigative programme "Dispatches". It began in 2019 and took four years to complete. Its reporters spoke to many women from the comedy, TV and film industry, amid hundreds of sources. The Times says that the project was only made possible thanks to the bravery and courage of the women involved. In another article, The Times looks at Brand's fixation with sex and why and how it began so early. The paper writes that "he became a predator hiding in plain sight". The Independent's columnist Victoria Richards writes that she was personally warned about Brand 20 years ago "and the verdict surprises no one". She writes that "no woman was safe from his sleazy attentions" and that she is "shocked" that "he managed to get away with it for so long". Elsewhere, The Wall Street Journal writes about kids in Hanoi. They go after tourists: not for their money, but for their English vocabulary. For Vietnamese kids, tourists are often living, breathing Duolingo lessons. The paper writes that practicing English like this is a staple of Asian tourism. Alibaba's Chinese founder Jack Ma gave tours of his hometown lake in exchange for conversations in English when he was a kid. But in Hanoi, particularly by the lake, the phenomenon is everywhere. Finally, we bring you a fun fact from The New York Times: "Tiny chihuahuas hold a big surprise: a sliver of coyote DNA". They have four percent of coyote in their little bodies. It's confirmed by researchers! You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.