A rowdy review of pension reform in the National Assembly, earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, Chinese balloons in the American sky… marked the news in February. Without forgetting the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the 24th. In eleven drawings, “La Matinale” offers you an overview of the highlights of the past month.

A year of war in Ukraine

On February 24, 2022, at 5:30 a.m. in Moscow, Vladimir Putin announced the launch of a “special military operation”. In the process, Russian troops massed for months at the borders invade Ukraine, from Belarus, Crimea and the east of the country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky decrees general mobilization. Twelve months later, the front is concentrated in the South and East.

According to military analysts, a new Russian offensive is currently underway in Donbass, at the cost of heavy losses. No official figures are given on either side, but, according to Western intelligence estimates, 200,000 Russian soldiers are dead or disabled since the start of the war. The balance sheet would be half as high on the Ukrainian side.

On a whirlwind visit to London and then to Paris on February 8, before the European summit in Brussels the next day, Volodymyr Zelensky urged his allies to increase their support and deliver fighter planes and heavy weapons to his country, in order to to resist any new Russian offensive. The urgency of the situation, at a time when the Ukrainian army is facing a critical phase on the front, led political leaders and heads of Western defense industries, meeting in Munich (Germany) from February 17 to 19, to s heard to quickly restart ammunition production.

A Chinese balloon over the United States

A Chinese balloon flying over the United States was shot down on February 4 by a missile fired by a US fighter jet over the Atlantic Ocean. Washington assured that the machine was part of a large spy program conducted for several years. China, for its part, denounced an “obvious overreaction”, asserting that it was a civilian balloon for meteorological observation purposes which had mistakenly entered American airspace. Three other unidentified flying objects were also destroyed by the Americans between February 10 and 12.

The earthquake in Turkey and Syria

A 7.8 magnitude earthquake followed by numerous aftershocks hit southeastern Turkey and neighboring Syria on Monday, February 6. The earthquakes killed more than 50,000 people, including more than 44,000 in Turkey, according to a new report announced on Friday February 24, far exceeding that of the August 1999 earthquake in Izmit (17,480 victims), which was until that is the most important that occurred in Turkey.

Unlike his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Syrian leader, Bashar Al-Assad, remained invisible for a long time. On the fifth day after the earthquake, he had not yet addressed the nation and had not issued a statement to the address of the victims, while regions considered to be strongholds of the regime were affected.

The earthquake in Turkey revealed the fragilities of power: years of corruption in the construction industry and laissez-faire that weaken Recep Tayyip Erdogan today. As soon as he came to power in 2003, the Turkish president promised to clean up the construction sector. However, twenty years later, almost three quarters of the buildings erected in the country would be at risk.

Roald Dahl’s books rewritten not to offend

New editions of British children’s author Roald Dahl’s books will be edited, with the aim of removing vocabulary that might be considered offensive. References to weight, mental health, violence, racial or gender issues will thus be redacted and rewritten.

Faced with the outcry caused in the United Kingdom by this decision, Puffin UK, the publisher of Roald Dahl, however announced, on Friday February 24, that it would continue to publish the original versions in a special collection.

Pension reform

The war of nerves promised by the left against the pension reform took place in the National Assembly. In total, the deputies of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) tabled around 17,000 amendments. But on the fifth day of the examination of the amending social security financing bill, Monday, February 13, they withdrew more than 1,300 in connection with the “senior index”. A change of strategy made under pressure from the unions and the presidential camp, which accuses left-wing parliamentarians of obstruction. The debates ended on the evening of February 17, without the deputies having been able to vote on the text, or even to examine article 7 on the postponement of the legal age to 64 years.

The Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, intervened on February 2 in the program “L’Evénement”, on France 2, two days after the record mobilization against the pension reform project. If the head of government has claimed so far that the postponement of the retirement age to 64 years old was “no longer negotiable”, she nevertheless assured that she wanted to “find compromises” and “ensure that the effort “.

Concessions were not long in coming: on the eve of the start of the examination of the text of the law by the deputies, she made known, in an interview with the Sunday newspaper, her inflections, in particular on long careers and the ” senior indexes”.

Soaring toll prices

After the sharp rise in fuel prices in January – between 17 and 27 euro cents per liter – following the end of the general rebate financed by the State (which cost 8 billion euros in 2022), it is the turn of toll rates, indexed to inflation, to increase significantly: 4.75% on average on February 1.

While the seven historic concessions that financed the construction of the French motorway network expire from 2031, the results of Vinci, presented on Thursday February 9, recalled the financial importance of the subject. Of the 4.3 billion euros earned by the group, 2.2 billion come from French motorways alone.