The power of French presidents to nominate the heads of the country’s state-funded television channels and radio stations is to be removed under new legislation aimed at guaranteeing the independence of France’s publicly-owned broadcast media. But while the new law, expected to be approved by parliament and enacted before the end of the year, does away with the excesses of political interference introduced under the previous presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, it is hardly the clean sweep that the government proclaims. Dan Israel outlines the bill’s proposals and weighs the arguments for and against.
French President François Hollande has ended more than 50 years of official silence over the massacre by Paris police of an estimated several hundred Algerians demonstrating for their country’s independence from France. “On October 17th 1961, Algerians demonstrating for the right to independence were killed during a bloody repression,” read a brief statement by Hollande. “France recognizes these events with lucidity. Fifty one years after this tragedy, I pay homage to the memory of the victims.” It was the first public recognition by a French president of the killings and was hailed by campaigners and historians who had lobbied for decades for France to assume what was the deadliest act of repression on its own soil since World War II. Lénaïg Bredoux reports.
Following the creation of an independent Greece in 1830, the country’s administration has been significantly shaped by European models, while its cultural, religious and historical heritage, along with its geographical situation, have given the country, the first European state to have emerged from the Ottoman Empire, an exceptional political and economic destiny. In this interview with Joseph Confavreux, Geneva-based historian Dimitri Skopelitis offers a historical insight into the nature of the current turmoil in Greece, tottering on the brink of bankruptcy, its future within the European Union still uncertain, and the complex relationship between the population and the State.
