How many will be on the streets next Thursday at the call of the unions to say no to the government’s pension reform project?
“The unions are preparing their weapons, point The echoes. The day of January 19 will (indeed) be decisive. Employee organizations like the government know that, as in any social conflict, the battle will be fought both in the streets and in public opinion. street side, specifies the economic daily, no central has posted a quantified target for the number of demonstrators on January 19, even if a pension manager indulged in dreaming of putting 2 million people in the street. »
“The battle for pensions is on, exclaims The world. In the midst of an energy crisis, the country, tired and worried, is about to experience one of those episodes of social tension to which it is accustomed. (…) Neither the consultation carried out over the past three months nor the apparent concession made on the retirement age which was to be raised to 65 in the initial project have enabled the government to establish the slightest compromise with the trade unions. . »
So consider The world, “The outcome of the confrontation will depend on the mood of the country, which has become unpredictable. Supported by retirees, but disavowed by two-thirds of French people, who declare themselves hostile to raising the retirement age, Emmanuel Macron took the risk of setting the country ablaze. »
Indeed, increase The Latest News from Alsace, “the mobilization is unpredictable, as in 1995 and 2010. Neither the presidential majority nor the opposition parties know what form and what intensity the protest will take tomorrow. If, in the mind of the Head of State, the pension reform gives body to the right-left duel, this return to fundamentals is no guarantee against social explosions. »
Where is the Congolese oil money going?
Also on the front page, this affair of oil and big money between Paris and Brazzaville… A case revealed this morning by Release.
Release which reveals “the extent of a powerful occult financial system whose source is uniquehe says: the oil fields of one of the poorest countries in the world, the Republic of Congo. Paris has been one of the hubs of a waltz of cash payments reaching hundreds of millions of euros for the past ten years, still affirms Release, whose great treasurer is a character known to all the palaces and boutiques of the Parisian golden triangle, but who managed to remain under the radar of investigators until January 24, 2012. Lucien Ebata was arrested that day in Roissy- Charles de Gaulle, reports the newspaper,when he has a large sum of cash on him that he has not declared – 182,000 euros and 40,000 dollars. In their investigation, continues the newspaper, French customs officials go from surprise to surprise, from thousands of euros in gifts bought in luxury stores on the Champs-Élysées to cash movements of millions of euros in Paris and Monaco. Who is Lucien Ebata, boss of a mysterious oil company called Orion Oil, and who are the recipients of his infinite generosity? French justice suspects him of having enriched himself to millionspoint Release, by plundering, with the clan of President Denis Sassou-Nguesso, the resources of the Republic of Congo through a vast system of embezzlement of revenue from the sale of oil. Still presumed innocent, he is indicted in this case. The procedure resonates with that of “ill-gotten gains”, in which members of the Sassou-Nguesso clan are suspected of having built up illicit assets in France through embezzlement of public funds. » And Release to wonder: “Who in France has been able to benefit from this system? »
“Twisted blow”
The same Denis Sassou-Nguesso gave an interview to the Figaro : a full page in which the Congolese president mainly talks about the ongoing reconciliation in Libya. Denis Sassou-Nguesso has chaired the African Union High Level Committee on Libya since 2020. Not a word on the affair revealed by Release. But the Congolese president reacts on the case of ill-gotten gains: “This story is a twisted blow, he says, which relates to media and legal harassment in France. Where is the evidence of this diversion? »
► To read also: A case of embezzlement of several billion CFA francs shakes the Agricultural Bank of Niger