Les actus du jour - Hugo Décrypte: Nouveau coup d’État en Afrique, manifestations en Syrie, fin des trottinettes à Paris… Actus du jour

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In Africa, the situation is absolutely unprecedented.

Hi, it's Hugo. I hope you're doing well.

It's the subject of one of today's news.

So, to give you a little bit of context,

at the beginning of the week,

Ali Bongo, president for 14 years of the Gabon,

was officially announced as president,

and that for five additional years,

and that while his father had already been president for 41 years.

The problem is that at the end of this election,

the Internet and several media had been completely cut off.

The election is actually judged by many completely fraudulent.

So, in the crowd of the announcement of these official results

that give Ali Bongo a new winner,

well, a dozen military and police officers

have announced to take power.

In other words, to make a coup d'état

and end the Bongo dynasty with the head of Gabon.

So, the situation is quite historic,

since this Wednesday in the evening,

the Putschist military have placed in their heads

the head of the Republican Guard,

I named the general Brice Oligy N. Gema.

He was officially named president of the transition.

As far as this general is concerned,

he was considered as close to the president,

but he therefore participated in this coup d'état.

So, this coup d'état makes a lot of reactions,

and there are many things to analyze,

especially on the question of impact with France.

Already, at the international scale,

there were several reactions.

We can quote, for example, the African Union,

which is an intergovernmental organization

that brings together several African states.

The African Union has firmly condemned the attempt of coup d'état.

It is a coup d'état that was also condemned by the UN,

but also condemned by China.

We must know that China is the main commercial partner of Gabon.

It was one of the first to react to this coup.

He called the parties concerned

to guarantee the security of President Ali Bongo.

On his side, and it is also interesting to note,

France, which is therefore an old colonial power in Gabon,

condemned this coup d'état.

France has also indicated to follow with the greatest attention

the situation.

Note to the passage that this coup d'état

only intervenes two days after the French president Emmanuel Macron

said that the Sahel, a region of Africa

located in the south of the Sahara desert,

disengaged these last months.

I quote an epidemic of pooch.

Here, Emmanuel Macron did not refer to Gabon

since Gabon is not located in the Sahel.

But it is therefore a new country in Africa

concerned by a coup d'état.

To summarize, these three years,

coup d'état are multiplied in Africa.

We can quote for example Mali who faced a pooch in 2020 and in 2021.

We can also quote the Sudan and Guinea

which each had one at the end of 2021.

Burkina Faso on his side met two pooches in 2022.

And more recently, it's Niger.

We have talked a lot about it on the channel

who faced a coup d'état.

And here, it's interesting to note that all the countries that I'm going to quote,

except the Sudan, are from the old French colony.

So for Vincent Kruse,

interviewed by the magazine L'Express,

in an article that I put in the description,

who is a specialist in Africa

and former collaborator of the DGSE,

which is the service of teaching in France,

the Gabon military took an example

on what happened during these last few years

in other countries and other countries,

to follow up in the next few months.

Now, obviously, we must note that there are elements of nuance,

especially on the question of the relationship with France.

In Niger, there were demonstrations against the French government

and against the links of the French government

with the regime that was in place in Niger.

It was the same thing in Burkina Faso.

We had demonstrations against the French government

and against the French presence in Burkina Faso.

For the moment, in Gabon, it's not the case.

We did not observe demonstrations of this kind.

On the other hand, it is necessary to know that on site,

the French government is also criticized

by a part of the population,

especially because the president of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron,

had visited the president Ali Bongo a few months ago.

And it had been seen by a part of the population

as a sort of implicit support to the president Ali Bongo.

Now, attention,

certainly there is a succession of coups d'état or coups these last few years,

but it's still situations that still have their peculiarities.

Here, for example, in Gabon,

it leads directly to a election that is judged fraudulent.

So what is the consequence of this coup on the French presence in Gabon?

First, what you have to know is that the French presence is important.

There is a presence, from an economic point of view,

with a certain number of large French companies,

large multinational companies that are present in Gabon,

about 80 branches of French companies

such as Total Energy or other mined groups.

Moreover, there is a French military activity in Gabon today.

About 400 French military personnel are present in Gabon,

in the context of agreement that there was therefore

between the government of Ali Bongo and the French government.

So what is going to happen now, following this coup d'état?

We will already see if the coup d'état will hold.

We will see what will happen next.

And the impact that it will eventually have on France.

After, of course, I talk a lot about France

because of course there are many French people who look at this format of daily activities,

but it is obviously a subject that is much wider in the case of Gabon

and even in the case of the region.

And so we will see what we have in the coming days.

I put you links in the description.

I leave the word to Lea for the news.

In short, and I'll be right back.

Thank you Hugo and hello to all.

We start with this act.

Hundreds of Syrians have been protesting since the mid-autumn in the south of Syria

to claim the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the president of the country.

Specifically, for a few weeks, the country has faced a serious economic crisis,

especially since the end of governmental subventions on oil.

It led to a rise in the cost of life in a country where 90% of the population

lives below poverty thresholds according to the UN.

So, to give you an example, the price of a bottle of 25-centiliter oil

is over 9,000 pounds Syrian to 33,000 pounds today,

equivalent to 12 euros.

On its side, the regime fears a spread of demonstrations

until Damascus, the capital of the country.

We will keep you updated.

The second act, electric scooters in free service in Paris

will no longer be available from this Thursday evening.

Individual scooters remain at least authorized in Paris.

This decision is followed by a vote that took place in the beginning of April in Paris

during which almost 90% of the Parisians voted for their ban.

Well, this figure remains to be noted

since only 8% of the Parisians participated in the vote.

So, electric scooters that were in the capital will not be destroyed,

but they will be redeployed in France and Europe,

and especially in Lille, where more than 1,500 scooters are expected in the next three.

Third act, the Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune,

announced this Wednesday in an interview with L'Opse,

where the game site will be installed in a minimum tariff for plane tickets in Europe.

The goal would be to fight against the low prices offered by some airlines,

sometimes even lower than the train,

while the planes are much more polluting.

So, Clément Beaune explained that this proposal would be submitted to the European Union

in the coming days and for the moment,

we do not yet know the minimum tariff that the French government wants to set.

Fourth act, 156 planes are deposited in average every day

for sexual assaults in the Parisian public transports since 2020,

according to a note from the police prefecture of Paris.

In fact, it comes back to more than 57,000 planes since 2020.

And this figure is possibly undervalued,

especially because some victims feel that wearing a plane is useless.

In this note from the police prefecture,

we learn that sexual assaults in public transports have doubled since 2009.

Fifth act, the Chile, a country from South America,

launched a vast plan to find the missing of the military dictatorship of Pinochet,

which took place between 1973 and 1990.

During this dictatorship, more than 3,000 people were killed.

So, concretely, this plan, which is financed by the state,

aims to know the fate of 1,100 people who have always been missing.

In fact, for decades, research was carried out only by victims' families

and with very limited means.

These are only 307 bodies that have been found until today.

And we finish with this act.

The world record for a sport event

has been fought this Wednesday during an American flying university match.

This match took place at the University of Nebraska, in the United States,

and more than 92,000 people were present to attend this meeting.

The previous record was dated on April 22, 2022,

during the final half of the Women's Football Champions League,

between FC Barcelone and Wolfsburg, which attracted 91,648 people.

That's the end of this summary of today's news.

Obviously, think about subscribing to not miss the next one,

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Also, visit YouTube or Instagram for other exclusive news content.

You know the name of the accounts, it's Hugo Descriptes.

Listen, I think I said everything.

Take care and see you soon.

Cutting through the noise with reporting that makes sense of what matters.

You can find that same sound reasoning in our daily podcast,

hosted by me, Jason Paulber, and my fellow economist journalist,

Bore Oganbiyi.

It's called The Intelligence.

Every weekday, we speak to our global network of correspondence

to bring you clarity on the stories shaping your world.

From global conflicts, to business and finance,

to culture, science and technology,

and something a little fun, too.

Get the bigger picture. Get The Intelligence.

Start listening today.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.