Every Wednesday, L’Express mobilizes its editorial staff and invites you to decipher the news through a word, a quote, a figure, a nomination, without forgetting of course our indiscreet people. The opportunity to change focus and zoom in on information not seen elsewhere, that has gone under the radar or that requires a more in-depth explanation.
Word of the week: war crime
The legal concept of war crime was born in 1945, used for the first time by the Nuremberg tribunal responsible for judging Nazi leaders: it includes assassination, mistreatment or deportation of civilian populations… but also of prisoners, the execution of hostages, the looting of public or private property, the wanton destruction of towns and villages.
This definition will be taken up and supplemented in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and in the Rome Statute which governs the International Criminal Court (ICC). It remains to demonstrate that these acts actually take place in the context of armed conflicts and to provide proof. In Ukraine, a race against time has begun to recover them because they can disappear or be destroyed… Around forty NGOs are working to gather as many elements as possible: photos, videos, satellite images (cross-referenced on Internet). These actors are valuable, including for the International Criminal Court, which does not have its own police resources and is not recognized by certain large countries (Russia, United States, China). Which poses a problem of legitimacy.
Offs from L’Express
While Alstom has just signed a contract in Saudi Arabia, the railway manufacturer is struggling to meet its deadlines for the supply of new rolling stock. In Ile-de-France, deliveries of the new metro lines 14, 11 and 4 were a year late, as were those of the RER B, while those of the RER E and D were two years behind schedule. As a result, the penalties requested by Ile-de-France Mobilités, the network manager, could reach a little over 100 million euros.
Policy gaps
Researchers are not the only ones to lament the lack of scientific culture among politicians. Sandrine Josso, MoDem MP, too: “If you saw the level in the ministries and prefectures… It’s a disaster!” The president of the cancer commission trained at the Institute of Science and Technology and is campaigning for her colleagues to do the same.
The quote of the week
Elisabeth Borne: “We can’t say that the collective is our thing, we’ll say that that’s not what characterizes us”
An assumed joke from the Prime Minister to those around her at a time when some, within the government, regret a lack of “solidarity”.
Figures of the week
Counter-terrorism inspires vocations. In the week following the Arras attack, the General Directorate of Internal Security received more than a thousand applications. The secret service must recruit 600 agents by the end of the five-year term, particularly in cyber. Decoding encrypted messaging is a major challenge, with the major platforms refusing to help.
By the end of 2024, the government will unveil its method for financing the nuclear recovery. The equation turns out to be more complex than expected. “We know that we need to find 50 billion euros to ensure the construction of six new EPRs. But everyone forgets that we need 50 more in order to increase the lifespan of the existing fleet,” slips a expert. A hell of a headache in perspective.
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