Reportages

In a country beset with spiralling jihadist violence, young people from Burkina Faso’s Fula community are the ideal recruits for armed groups keen to capitalise on the discontent stemming from extreme poverty and the frequent abuses committed by government troops in this part of Africa. And as François Hume and Olivia Macadré report, if they reject the jihadists’ call to arms, they are widely seen as guilty by association.

This weekend, like every weekend for just more than a year, France’s ‘Yellow Vest’ demonstrators will hold their weekly nationwide protests over social inequalities, the declining living standards of low- and middle-income earners, the jobless and pensioners, against the privileges of the social and political elite, and for a greater participative exercise of democracy. But despite its stamina, many in the eclectic movement, which has no politically organised structure, are seeking a new way forward. In the Vosges département in north-east France, a fiefdom of the Right for decades, a group of 'Yellow Vests' have decided to bite the bullet and stand in local elections due in March 2020, a move that would once have been anathema to them. Mathilde Goanec reports from the Vosges.

After sixteen years and much deliberation and delay, the French state has finally given the green light for a marina to be built at Brétignolles-sur-Mer on the west coast of France. The surprise decision has re-ignited long-standing opposition to the scheme amid fears it will harm biodiversity on that section of coastline. Now protestors have set up a camp near the site and staged a peaceful demonstration. Pierre-Yves Bulteau reports.

Couriers working for the meal delivery service are angry at the new rates of pay that they now receive, which they say will leave many of them worse off than before. They are particularly upset that the minimum payment of 4.5 euros a delivery has been axed. Rouguyata Sall joined Deliveroo riders as they took their protest to local restaurants in central Paris.

The body of Steve Maia Caniço, 24, was finally found earlier this week in the River Loire in the town of Nantes, north-west France, close to where he apparently fell from a quayside amid a violent police charge on an overnight rave party on June 21st. The party was one of thousands held during the national Fête de la Musique street events, but turned sour after a confrontation with police who used stun and teargas grenades, Tasers and LBD rubber pellet guns to disperse the crowd. His confirmed death has further fuelled growing controversy over violent police tactics, which the government has defended, while an internal police report that found no link between Caniço’s fatal fall and the police assault has caused outrage among those present that night. “The authorities have transformed anger into hate,” said one of his friends, ahead of a demonstration planned for this weekend. Elisa Perrigueur reports from Nantes.

A number of fatal road accidents in April 2019 highlighted the plight of many female agricultural workers in the North African country. These women, who have long been regarded as a source of cheap exploitable labour and many of whom live in poverty, are effectively forced to take perilous journeys in the backs of pick-ups and lorries to their place of work. They are now hoping for changes in their work and living conditions. Lilia Blaise reports.

In the well-heeled village of Widdington in rural Essex in eastern England, the residents are in a state of inner turmoil. Like the rest of the country this small community is pondering the issue of Brexit – which now faces a new deadline of the end of October 2019 – with passionate, engaging and ultimately irreconcilable arguments. Antoine Perraud reports.

At the end of January 75 delegates from 'Yellow Vest' groups around France met at an 'assembly of assemblies' at Commercy in the north east of the country. From April 5th to 7th some 300 delegates will converge on a community centre in Saint-Nazaire in the west for a second such national assembly. The three-day gathering based on “exemplary fraternity” has required lots of last-minute local preparations and comes at what some describe as a key point in the protest movement's short life. Pierre-Yves Bulteau reports.