Drugs: let’s condemn the users!
Madeleine Gibon, Saumur (Maine-et-Loire)
North of Cholet, a narcotics “company” was dismantled. In my small sub-prefecture of Saumur, trafficking is also observed… When will we make the decision to fine consumers? (“Drug trafficking is spreading to the French countryside.L’Express of November 14.)
Shame and war
Jean-Michel Bénard, Châtillon (Hauts-de-Seine)
Bravo to Marion Van Renterghem for her column, fair and a little terrifying. Will we finally wake up? I want to hope so. It also seems that this is the case at the level of European political authorities. President Macron, without giving him a general blank check, has still understood everything about Europe and has for a long time. Let’s hope that the future German leader will have the same vision. We must therefore support Ukraine, which means creating a common European defense; get out of our national selfishness, which is not easy given the behavior of our current political class. Churchill warned that we would face shame and war. Let’s not agree with him. (“When the ostriches raise their heads, they see the void around them, and an elephant.L’Express of November 14.)
Citizens will save the Franco-German couple
Gilbert Schuh, Morsbach (Moselle)
Can we reduce the Franco-German couple to the relationship between our president and the chancellor? This would disregard the cross-border relations established since the reconciliation between our two countries following the Second World War. Municipalities, departments and Länder, citizens and associations have created living areas without borders, where Franco-German cooperation is carried out in trust and in a spirit of permanent progress for the benefit of everyone. This is where Europe is built close to citizens, by improving mobility, health, multilingualism and interculturality. Let us not lose sight of these millions of people, whose daily lives no longer know borders. (“France-Germany: the horizon will not clear up”L’Express of November 14.)
Ukraine: the Yugoslav precedent
Marion Ion, Paris
I would like to react to Marion Van Renterghem’s article (which I really appreciate). The sentence that caught my attention is: “The disastrous war in Iraq in 2003 without a green light from the UN discredited the United States on the world stage, provided the arguments for Vladimir Putin to seize part of Georgia and invade Ukraine…” In my opinion, the first mistake was made by Bill Clinton, at the time of the war in Yugoslavia carried out under the aegis of NATO but without the approval of Nations united. It resulted in a rewriting of borders, which was prohibited by the 1975 treaty signed at the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). By settling on this treaty, the members of NATO – and first of all the United States – gave Russia the ideological ammunition to also redraw the borders of neighboring countries as it sees fit… (“When the ostriches raise their heads, they see the void around them, and an elephant.L’Express of November 14.)
A Europe without incarnation
Bertrand Da Pozzo, Villeurbanne (Rhône)
For our continent to have a future, we must think and reflect on our strengths and our weaknesses. In the interview with Boris Johnson as in Marion Van Renterghem’s column, the question of the future of Europe is raised. While the European Union is made up of 27 countries with divergent interests, it finds itself alone and without incarnation to face the great dangers of the world. It persists on a path that seems harmful to the people of different countries. Have politicians become blind and deaf? Citizens of different countries want to be able to identify their representatives. (Boris Johnson: Trump will be better than you thinkL’Express of November 14.)
Abnousse Shalmani crowned with three prizes
We told you this in a previous issue: our columnist Abnousse Shalmani received, at the end of October, the Simone Veil 2024 prize (which rewards a work of literature written by a woman) for her novel published by Grasset at the beginning of the year: I fished, fished with pleasure. Since then, she has received yet… two more! The Gisèle Halimi Prize, which “pays tribute to one of the emblematic figures of the fight for the cause of women”. And the courage prize, awarded by the Brousse Dell’Aquila Endowment Fund. The editorial team is proud to congratulate her on these three well-deserved awards. Abnousse Shalmani has been writing in L’Express for almost five years, and we know that many of you wait for her every week in our columns.
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