Press Review

PRESS REVIEW – Friday, February 7: The Belgian capital Brussels has been rocked by a spate of violent drug-related shootings that authorities are at a loss to control. Also in the news: the Greek island of Santorini is in a state of emergency due to thousands of earthquakes registered since January. We also look ahead to France's clash against England in the Six Nations rugby tournament. Finally, Italian scientists have determined the best cooking method for a perfect egg!

We start with a spate of gang warfare shootings in the Belgian capital Brussels. The situation has become so dire that Politico even compares them to an episode of the TV series "The Wire". The violent shootings have been triggered by drug turf wars – massive amounts of cocaine and other illicit drugs have been flooding the port of Antwerp and it’s believed the violence is part of efforts to win back certain territories. Three shootings in the space of 24 hours have rocked Brussels this week. As Belgian daily Le Soir reports on its front page, it adds to an interminable series of shootings in 2024 – 89 such shootings took place, with nine people killed and dozens injured. The situation is completely unprecedented. Authorities are holding emergency meetings to try to figure out how to stop the violence – but for the moment, there is no simple solution. In its editorial, Le Soir says that authorities must remain united in the face of an enemy that we cannot control right now. 

Over in Greece, a state of emergency has been declared as the island of Santorini is rocked by earthquakes. As the Greek newspaper Kathimerini report, since January 26, more than 7,700 earthquakes have been recorded in the Santorini Amorgos region and most of them had a magnitude of over 1. Experts fear that Santorini, with its steep slopes, could be vulnerable to landslides. A state of emergency is in place until March. 

Turning to rugby news, France plays an all-important game in the Six Nations on Saturday against England at Twickenham. France has a not-so-secret weapon in captain Antoine Dupont, the best player in the world and the accolades are numerous in the British press. The Guardian calls him rugby's Messi and puts him in an elite sporting list alongside American football star Patrick Mahomes, gymnast Simone Biles, Formula One driver Max Verstappen and tennis star Novak Djokovic. The Independent likens Dupont to the French alien with mystifying qualities that make him the best in the world. The sports pages of French paper Le Figaro, meanwhile, are focusing on the financial woes of English rugby. England remains the only Northern Hemisphere team to have won a World Cup. Yet the team has suffered several defeats over the past years. The pandemic put a financial and structural dent into English rugby union. Adding insult to injury, the historical Twickenham stadium was renamed Allianz Stadium after they signed a deal with the German insurance giant. Moreover, three top rugby clubs have been forced to shut down. The paper explains that rugby in England is also suffering from an ideological crisis: signups at clubs are in freefall in a country where football reigns. There also concerns around traumatic brain injuries due to the violent nature of the sport and rugby has had trouble shaking off its image as a sport for "posh white boys".

Finally, we bring you a study reported by Science News that has determined the cooking conditions that make for a perfect boiled egg! It’s a challenge as old as time – trying to boil an egg without overcooking the yolk or undercooking the white part. It's no easy feat: yolk proteins cook at 65 °C and the white parts at 85 °C. The idea for testing this came after an Italian scientist found out that a chef is charging €80 for the perfect boiled egg, which involves cooking the white and yolk separately and then putting them together. So a group of Italian scientists set out on their own research to find a more cost-effective way. They've concluded that periodic cooking is the way to go. The perfect boiled egg involves two pans and takes 32 minutes. You start with the egg in boiling water and move it to a pan with warm water every 2 minutes. This allows you to have the right consistency of both yolk and white. As proof of the success of this technique, some of them have now adopted the method in their day-to-day lives!

You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.

PRESS REVIEW – Thursday, February 6: The international press are still largely headlining on US President Donald Trump's proposal to turn the ruins of Gaza into a luxury resort. An all-important AI summit begins in Paris, while French Olympic biathlete Martin Fourcade renounces the presidency of France's 2030 Winter Olympics, citing differences over governance, ideology and the environment. Finally: if you have "Zoom fatigue", a study shows it could be because you cannot stand the sight of your own face!

Trump's controversial statements on Gaza continue to dominate headlines. The international community is still reeling from his proposal for the US to take over Gaza and turn it into a luxury resort. The comments drew intense backlash from US allies and a stern rebuke by the United Nations. For French paper Libération, it’s earned him the Fortnite reference Chaos Agent – provoking disorder and chaos, literally. British tabloid the Daily Star calls him a "wingnut leader of the Free World", "thick as a brick" and someone who wants to solve the decades-long Middle East crisis by turning the ruins of Gaza into a luxury resort. Chaos is also the word on Israeli centre-left daily Haaretz's front page. The paper calls the proposal "impractical, illogical and illegal". It also highlights fears that Trump's reckless proposition could negatively impact the second round of ceasefire and hostage release negotiations between Israel and Hamas. Saudi Arabia's Arab News notes that the kingdom is leading the opposition to Trump's comments. The paper reiterates the viewpoint that peace is intrinsically linked to the Palestinian people obtaining their legitimate rights.

Trump is not the only one making eye-raising offers this week. The President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has offered to open up the country’s supermax prison to US prisoners. The notorious mega facility opened in 2023 and houses thousands of Salvadoran gang members. The Wall Street Journal reminds us that it's a facility where prisoners have no visits from family and where inmates sleep on stainless steel cots stacked several layers high in large cells. When it first opened, Bukele released videos on social media of handcuffed inmates, who were barefoot, shirtless, with their tattooed bodies and shaved heads being corralled by prison guards. These conditions sparked accusations of a lack of respect of prisoners' rights. For the moment, it's just an idea – even the Trump administration has said the legal basis for such a proposal would need to be studied.

Here in France, an important summit on artificial intelligence kicks off in Paris this Thursday, with business leaders and AI experts gathering over the next few days. It comes at a time when US AI efforts have been shaken up by the explosive arrival of DeepSeek, the Chinese AI player. Let the best one win, French current affairs mag Courrier International says on its weekly front page. French newspaper L'Opinion notes that when it comes to AI development, Europe is lagging behind. The writer says that while Europe can boast of the quality of its science education and training of high-level engineers, and of its culture and multilingualism, the continent is suffering from a lack of investment and a delayed growth in technological leadership. The Paris summit should be the spark that France and Europe need to kickstart their AI ambitions.

Staying in France, Olympic gold medal-winning biathlon athlete Martin Fourcade has renounced the presidency of the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps. His withdrawal is a huge blow to the Winter Olympics campaign that has faced quite a few setbacks already. The Games will be held in 2030 in a host of French cities and riding high on the success of Paris 2024, Fourcade seemed like the ideal person to lead the campaign. But he renounced earlier this week, saying that he and organisers could not agree on the Games' vision and governing style and that he was not willing to sacrifice his convictions. The French sports paper L'Equipe reports that disagreements over the environment were a contributing factor. An environmental protection advocacy group dedicated to combating climate change in the French Alps hailed Fourcade's decision to withdraw from the Games. The group cites an email sent by him to founding members, urging that the Games take into consideration the environmental and ecological challenges and that saying this vision was not shared by everyone.

Finally, a new study reveals some interesting insight into why some of us might be suffering from Zoom fatigue. Five years after many of us were forced to work on Zoom for three months of the pandemic, it appears that Zoom fatigue is a real thing. The Times of London reports on a new study which says Zoom weariness can be attributed to facial appearance dissatisfaction. Basically, people who use video meeting technology regularly may be sick of the sight of their own face staring back at them from the corner of the screen. It’s also led to an increase of people using filters or avatars to alter their appearance. Other studies say that some people even went a step further – using cosmetic surgery to change their appearance, a move brought on in part by an excessive use of this virtual video technology.

You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.

PRESS REVIEW – Wednesday, February 5: Papers react to US President Donald Trump's shock announcement that he wants the US to take over Gaza and turn it into the "Riviera of the Middle East". Meanwhile, Google has lifted a ban on using its AI for weapons and surveillance. Also, one company has created an AI granny designed to drive scammers wild. Finally, the sporting world celebrates as one of the greatest footballers of all time, Cristiano Ronaldo, turns 40 and is still going strong.

PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, February 4: We look at reactions from the Canadian and Mexican press after US President Donald Trump's decision to suspend tariffs on imports from both countries in exchange for more policing at the borders. Is it a victory or a concession? Meanwhile, The New York Times reports on how Elon Musk has garnered alarmingly unfettered access to federal institutions and systems. Plus: we look at a key legal victory in the French #MeToo movement.

We start with reactions from the Canadian and Mexican press after Trump agreed to suspend a plan to impose 25 percent tariffs on imports, in exchange for soldiers and personnel to secure the Mexican and Canadian borders. The Canadian daily The Globe and Mail headlines on this 30-day reprieve. In its analysis, the paper says that for Trump, brinkmanship isn’t just a tactic but a way of life. The writer adds that the livelihoods of many Canadians and Mexicans float precariously on the capricious whim of Trump – and that’s how he likes it.

Another Canadian daily, the National Post, sees it as Trump backing down because he sees the foolishness of fighting the Canadians. The paper concedes, though, that the threat of tariffs is a hostile act from a nation Canada thought was like a best friend. Meanwhile La Jornada, a Mexican newspaper, underlines that Trump has merely suspended but not cancelled the threat of tariffs.

Trump's right-hand man Elon Musk is also causing alarm because of the extraordinary amount of control he has over government affairs. As The New York Times explains: in just two weeks,  Musk and his lieutenants have gained access to key financial and data systems, while they've shuttered specific programmes and entire agencies. They've ended USAID, a key source of foreign assistance with massive repercussions around the world. It represents an extraordinary flexing of power by a private individual on government affairs and sources close to Musk say he's even moved a bed into a bureau near the White House to work around the clock, deploying the same frantic, obsessive strategy he used at Twitter and Tesla. An article from Wired magazine looks at how Musk has surrounded himself with young Silicon Valley tech executives from his own companies. In some cases, they are accessing classified material – despite not being elected public officials. Worse, Congress can't intervene precisely because they’re not public officials, allowing Musk to operate virtually unchecked.

Here in France, the papers are reacting to the sentencing of French director Christophe Ruggia to four years in prison, with two suspended, for sexual assault on actress Adèle Haenel when she was underage. Ruggia says he'll be appealing the decision, but Mediapart, the French investigative website, hails the ruling as a victory and a ray of hope in this unprecedented case, which opened the door to the #MeToo movement in France. French actress Haenel became a flagbearer for the moment and a symbol of resistance by daring to speak out against the impunity of those who commit sexual assault. For Belgian paper Le Soir, it’s an historic verdict and a turning point for French cinema, where investigations and lawsuits continue to be filed, but where there is little justice for the accused or guilty.

Finally, a fungus that causes spiders to become zombies may sound like the plot of the hit TV series "The Last of Us". But the fungus, named gibellula attenboroughii, has been discovered to alter the behaviour of cave-dwelling orb weaver spiders, known for their geometric webs. Basically the fungus goes on to nearly swallow the spider whole, in research observed in Northern Ireland. The fungus was named after British naturalist David Attenborough because it was first observed in one of his documentaries. It was previously known that fungi can cause ants to become zombies, but this is the first time the phenomenon has been documented in spiders. Sadly for the spiders, it does not end well.

You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.

PRESS REVIEW – Monday, February 3: The papers in the United States react to President Donald Trump's new tariffs, as Canada responds with measures of its own. Meanwhile, residents of Kyiv are forced to withstand nightly Russian drone attacks. Also, a Ukrainian unit in Kursk is tasked with trying to get locals to abandon their loyalties to Vladimir Putin. Finally, perhaps the biggest trade in basketball history nearly breaks the internet, as Luka Doncic becomes a Los Angeles Laker.

PRESS REVIEW – Friday, January 31: Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is under investigation over the suspicious release and seemingly VIP repatriation of Osama Almasri, who is wanted by the ICC for acts of torture, murder and sexual violence in Libyan detention centres. In other news, Donald Trump has withdrawn security detail from four men involved in the assassination he ordered of a senior Iranian commander in 2020, arguably endangering their lives. Finally, we learn about the mysterious virgin birth of a swell shark.

PRESS REVIEW – Thursday, January 30: Friedrich Merz, Germany's conservative CDU leader and candidate for chancellorship, receives votes and applause from the far-right AfD party in the Bundestag – we look at the press reaction to the centre right breaking the taboo on working with the far right. Also, with a growing crime rate and overcrowded prisons, Sweden proposes sending detainees to foreign jails. Finally, does the polar bear hold the key to replacing certain toxic PFAS chemicals?

PRESS REVIEW – Monday, January 27: The papers remember the horrors of Auschwitz, as Monday marks 80 years since the camp's liberation. Meanwhile, there is a worrying survey about the number of young people who have no knowledge of the Holocaust. Elsewhere, Donald Trump is widely criticised for his comments on "cleaning out" Gaza. Finally, Kim Jong Un is doing his best to keep the North Korean youth in line.

PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, January 21: We look at reactions and analysis from the US press as Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States. While the Wall Street Journal hails an "inaugural of optimism", The New York Times calls Trump's pardons of some 1,500 January 6 rioters an "opening act of contempt". The international press express concern as they ponder Trump's next moves, including a US withdrawal from the WHO. Elsewhere, Elon Musk is under fire for what some have described as a Nazi salute. Finally, First Lady Melania Trump sends the internet into overdrive with her choice of headgear.

PRESS REVIEW – Monday, January 20: Scorned by the right and lamented by the left, Joe Biden's legacy is not the one he hoped for. This as the US prepares for round two of a known, yet unpredictable, quantity: Donald Trump. We look at comment from across the American press and at cartoonists' interpretations of what's to come.