Shrinkflation, or disguised inflation
How to pass a price increase without the consumer noticing? Some industrialists have found a solution: “shrinkflation”. This portmanteau word composed of the English verb “to shrink” (that is to say “reduce”) and the term “inflation” designates a marketing technique consisting in reducing the quantity of a product while maintaining the same price on the label. For the consumer in a hurry who does not look at the price per kilo or liter on the shelves, the increase is almost invisible… At least until he opens his box of chocolates or his packet of cereals! This sleight of hand is nothing new. But with the widespread rise in transport and raw material costs, it has made a big comeback in 2022, as it allows the companies that use it to preserve their margins. Another trick used: “cheapflation”. Manufacturers then replace a product used in their recipe with another less expensive one. An even more invisible technique, except to carefully dissect the list of ingredients…
>> Understanding “shrinkflation” in video
Zaporizhia
When a nuclear power plant name becomes world famous, it is rarely a good sign. However, the disaster is still avoided to this day in Zaporijia, the largest installation in Europe with its six reactors, built on the banks of the Dnieper. The Russians seize it from the first weeks of their invasion, and keep the personnel hostage. But all around, the war continues. Bombs rain down, fires break out. Moscow and Kiev blame each other, and the world holds its breath, fearing that Zaporizhia will meet the same fate as its northern sister, Chernobyl. In August, L’Express returned on video to all the danger zones of the plant.
ChatGPT
This artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform has been making waves since its release on November 30. It allows, very quickly and with a creativity never seen for a machine, to write articles, to compose songs, or quite simply, to dialogue with a sensitivity that approaches (surpasses?) that of humans. ChatGPT embodies the immense progress of so-called “generative” AI in 2022, with the advent of tools such as Dall-E, Midjourney or Stable Diffusion which reproduce artistic works with the same ease. This real technological breakthrough raises major economic and philosophical questions. And opens the field of possibilities: “How far will the AI go?”
>> Plagiarism, cheating on exams… The revolution of AIs that create texts from scratch
quiet quitting
The quest for meaning at work is not a new idea, but in recent months it has taken on a whole new dimension. Take three years of organizational adjustments (thank you Covid), an anxiety-provoking international context (thank you Putin) and galloping inflation (no thank you), and you will get employees running around like headless roosters. After the “great quitting” that hit the United States in 2021, another phenomenon has set the world of work on fire this year: “quiet quitting” or silent resignation. Basically, employees who only want to do the bare minimum. According to an Ifop study, 37% of French workers would feel concerned, the younger generation being at the forefront. A real fundamental movement? 2023 will tell us… A cause for concern for companies? Without a doubt.
>> Loss of meaning, too low wages… France won by the “Great resignation”?
Nudes
This was the unexpected of this 2022 campaign: the alliance of the lefts. An old myth that we thought was impossible as the invectives and accusations of treason had been pouring out since the Hollande quinquennium. And then the New Popular Ecological and Social Union – the Nupes – was born, thanks to Mélenchon who took advantage of the weakness of others to leave them no other choice for survival. But besides, should we pronounce “Nupess”, “Nupse” or “Nupe”? And if, there too, it was a victory for Mélenchon over his partners. “Words ending in -es, the s is not heard,” decided the French Academy. Time will do its thing. Who will still hear the “e” of the ecologists and the “s” wanted by the socialists?
>> Who killed the PS? “Autopsy of the corpse”, the book that tells all about the death of the left
Bivalent
These are the new generation messenger RNA vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna. They are said to be bivalent because they simultaneously protect against two strains of the Sars-CoV-2 virus. There are two versions. The first targets the legacy virus (the Wuhan strain) and the Omicron BA.1 subvariant. The second targets the historical virus and the sub-variants of Omicron BA.4 and BA.5, the latter representing 92% of cases in France, recalls Public Health France. These vaccines have all been validated by the European Medicines Agency. So far, the first results seem to confirm their effectiveness against Omicron, but it will still be a few weeks before the researchers can consolidate their analyses.
Shake
Yesterday in social negotiations, we made “concessions” before concluding “compromises” with the trade unions. Since 2022, in Macronie, we “make a move” or we expect one from the opposing party. The term is particularly popular on the eve of the mother of all reforms, that of pensions. No, we are not backing down by agreeing to set the legal age of departure at 64 (and no longer at 65 as long displayed in the presidential campaign), we are “moving”. The CFDT is also strongly encouraged to make a “move”. We are not asking him to approve the reform, but at least to recognize that the government has made a gesture. Failing to reinvent politics, newspeak.
>> Pensions, the unpublished story of a chaotic reform: dispute at the Elysée, alliances, 49.3…
Himars
It is pronounced “ail mare”. At his mention, during the meeting at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on December 21, Joe Biden clenched his fist in satisfaction. This rocket launcher delivered in 38 copies to kyiv by the United States put the logistics of Vladimir Putin’s army to the test. With a range of 80 kilometres, its missiles, thanks to their GPS guidance, are capable of reaching their target to the nearest metre. They destroyed many of the ammunition dumps of the Russian forces, weakening their formidable artillery. Without them, the Ukrainians would have had a much harder time regaining the initiative on their opponents and pushing them back in Kharkiv and Kherson.
>> Ukraine: the Himars, the weapon that changed the course of the war
Of consumption
The word entered the Little Robert in 2022. “Deconsumption: tendency to consume less, to reduce consumption.” And it says something about our times. After decades when France was above all looking for growth and dreamed of reconnecting with the postwar boom, it would now be a question of modifying our behavior to take account of global warming and the scarcity of resources. The idea is meeting with some success in some youth and anti-globalization circles. On the other hand, it struggles to seduce those who cannot make ends meet.
>> Sandrine Rousseau facing JM. Daniel: “Debating with a liberal is always a test!”
Artemis
The Americans will therefore rest their “Moonboot” on the surface of the Moon. The return program was officially launched in November with the first stage (Artemis-1) thanks to the flight of the Orion automatic capsule, powered by the largest rocket in activity (SLS), which lasted twenty-five days. During this journey of 2.2 million kilometers to and around the lunar star, all the critical elements were tested until the return of the capsule during a landing on December 11 in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. . The next stage is scheduled for 2024, this time with astronauts aboard Orion for a similar moon tour. But to set foot on its soil, they will have to wait until 2025 at best.
Photo provided by NASA on November 16, 2022, showing the takeoff of the Artemis 1 lunar rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida (United States)
© / afp.com/Joel KOWSKY
>> “The Artemis mission is a first step towards moving humanity off Earth”
Kyiv
French football fans have always believed that the club from the Ukrainian capital is called Dynamo de kyiv, with an e, according to Russian usage. However, the 1995 Constitution theoretically imposes to say and write Kyiv, according to the Ukrainian pronunciation. For a long time, no one paid attention to this difference as the two languages were used on the banks of the Dnieper. But the war started by Moscow on February 24 changed customs. And this, even in the West where people now hesitate between the habit of saying kyiv and the desire to affirm their solidarity with the attacked country whose capital is none other than… Kyiv.
>> Ukraine: why France refuses to say Kyiv instead of kyiv
Transphobia
“Attitude of hostility, discrimination towards transsexual or transgender people” according to the Little Robert. But, while the question of transidentity is increasingly present in the media, the accusation of “transphobia” can also be used to prevent legitimate debates, such as about sports competitions or the medical care of people minors. In an essay titled The Factory of the Transgender Child published in early 2022, psychoanalysts Caroline Eliacheff and Céline Masson, for example, called for caution on the treatments prescribed to children and adolescents. Since then, several of their conferences have been canceled or disrupted by activists, a censorship exercised in the name of a supposed “transphobia”.