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From Monday, say hello to the vaccine pass. The French high court ruled on the law establishing this new certificate by validating the main provisions. The vaccination pass thus replaces the health pass. Cinés bars restaurants, theaters, small concerts and sports hall: it will be used from Monday to access places of leisure and catering but also in transport. Political rallies are still exempt. In his intervention on Thursday evening, Castex also said “to consider» an easing of the health protocol in schools upon returning from the February holidays, from March 7. He also announced that from February 2, the gauges will be removed in establishments receiving the public seated and wearing the mask. On February 16, it will again be authorized to eat in cinemas and public transport. Nightclubs will reopen and standing concerts will resume from this date, at least if the pandemic stalls. More information here.
Covid-19 in France: in fact, the peak has not yet passed. “It is premature to consider that the peak is exceeded.” The weekly epidemiological point of Public Health France had the effect of a cold shower this Friday. While France was bathed in a sequence of executive communication focused on the upcoming exit from the long tunnel of the pandemic, the figures for this weekend hurt. More than 500,000 cases recorded in twenty-four hours, an incidence over seven days that exceeds 3,200 per 100,000 inhabitants. France continues to prance in the front runners of the countries most affected by contamination. Our decryption. In addition, the High Authority for Health has authorized Paxlovid, an antiviral drug from the American laboratory Pfizer, in France. Intended primarily for at-risk populations, it shows encouraging results, provided it is administered very soon after the onset of symptoms. Contraindications and limitations.
Claude Guéant remains in prison. The former secretary general of the presidency under Nicolas Sarkozy, Claude Guéant, currently imprisoned for a previous conviction, was sentenced to a year in prison on Friday, including 8 months, for favoritism, in the Élysée polls affair. . A conviction he will appeal, according to his lawyer. Patrick Buisson, then a close adviser to the Head of State, was given a two-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 150,000 euros. The ex-sounder Pierre Giacometti was given a 6-month suspended sentence and a 70,000 euro fine. At the time director of cabinet, Emmanuelle Mignon was sanctioned with a 6-month suspended sentence. Held for more than a month in the prison of Health for non-payment of fines and damages following his conviction for “embezzlement of public funds” in the so-called “Ministry of the Interior cash bonuses” case. the 77-year-old former Minister of the Interior was not present in the box for the reading of the judgment of the 32nd correctional chamber. Read our article.
Russia and the United States talk to each other and the tension drops a little notch. The heads of Russian and American diplomacy met for two hours in Geneva to try to find a way out of the escalating threats in Ukraine. The meeting between Sergei Lavrov and Antony Blinken in a palace on the shores of Lake Geneva is the last pas de deux of an intense diplomatic ballet which began 11 days ago, already in Geneva, between their deputies. They had agreed to continue talking to each other despite the strong differences of opinion and the hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers massed on the borders of Ukraine. Sergei Lavrov and Antony Blinken have made an appointment next week. The diplomatic ballet continues. More information here.
In Yemen, 100 dead in an airstrike carried out by the Saudis against a prison in Saada. The balance sheet is likely to increase because the wounded are numerous. During the night of Thursday to Friday, an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition fell on a prison in Saada in the north of the country, held by Houthi rebels. This deluge of fire which claimed at least 100 victims “is not acceptable”, denounced the Norwegian ambassador to the UN, Mona Juul, who chairs the Security Council for the month of January. More information here.
The Islamic State attacks a prison in Syria, jihadists escape. A long and complex attack on one of the most sensitive prisons in the Middle East. Islamic State targeted the Al-Sinaa detention center in Hassaké (Al-Hasakah in Arabic), in northeastern Syria under Kurdish control, overnight from Thursday to Friday. The attack continued this Friday afternoon near the prison where around 3,500 Islamic State jihadists are detained, including former leaders of the organization and French people. Read our article.
The alleged leader of the Zouaves sentenced to one year in prison. Marc de Cacqueray-Valmenier, alleged leader of the Zouaves Paris, a far-right group dissolved on January 5, was sentenced to one year in prison on Friday for the attack on a Parisian antifa bar. This conviction comes the day after his imprisonment for non-compliance with his judicial review in another case. He had participated on Saturday in Paris in a rally on the sidelines of demonstrations against the vaccine pass during which AFP journalists were attacked. Read our article.
Rocker Meat Loaf is dead. The American star singer famous for “Bat Out of Hell”, one of the best-selling albums of all time (more than 43 million copies sold), has died at the age of 74. The cover featured a giant flying fox perched on the highest point of a graveyard screaming under a blazing sky as a motorbike emerged from between the graves, ridden by an ecstatic Rahan. Born in Dallas, Texas in 1947, Meat Loaf whose real name is Marvin Lee Aday was the only child of an alcoholic police officer and a gospel singer teacher. More information here.
Read also on liberation.fr
Christiane Taubira: “We must distinguish between the desire of the left and what the left gives to see”. Eleven weeks before the first round of the presidential election, “Liberation” met the former Keeper of the Seals, who intends to validate his candidacy by the popular Primary. She claims the environmentalist label and highlights her thirty years of political life. Read our interview.
Cold and snow descend on Syrian refugee camps: “The reality on the ground is nightmarish”. The exceptional climatic conditions are worsening the humanitarian situation of tens of thousands of people in Syria and Lebanon, at a time when international aid has been reduced. Read our article.
The co-founder of Refuge, an association for the protection of young LGBT +, indicted for rape. Nicolas Noguier, co-founder and ex-president of the Refuge foundation, which hosts young gays rejected by their families, has been indicted for “rape” and “sexual assault”, announced this Friday the public prosecutor of Montpellier. The companion of Nicolas Noguier, co-founder and ex-director of the Refuge, Frédéric Gal, was also indicted “for two acts of sexual harassment”, adds the magistrate. Read our article.