NM's blog

Describing entrenched poverty as a "monster," Pujol painted a picture of a society radicalised by decades of neglect . "The monster is a mixture of patronage, corruption, and political and economic decisions made against the public interest," Pujol said. Indigenous deaths in custody in Australia hit highest level since 1980 .

Interview with Jean-Numa Ducange

 

Why has a power such as France, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, for so long behaved as the silent accomplice or the broom wagon of a ‘rogue state’ such as Israel? —Serge Halimi et Pierre Lambert, Le Monde Diplomatique, translated from the French, August 2025

The writer and activist of the Israeli pacifist left  David Grossman on the war in Gaza: "Now, with immense pain and a broken heart, I must acknowledge what is happening before my eyes — a genocide."

"Inequalities in access to vacations have remained stagnant in France for around forty years. Four out of ten French people still cannot afford to go on a trip. In a context where poverty in France has reached 'a level unmatched in nearly 30 years,' according to INSEE [ L'Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques],  this trend is unlikely to reverse."

'Zionism and its destiny ’

Makers face human trafficking trial

I watched Papillon. A fantastic movie. “The penal colony was the setting of French writer Henri Charrière's book Papillon, which was later made into a Hollywood film starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.” A high security prison in Amazon jungle

A two-part essay from 2018 Secularists, Secularism and the Syrian Uprising Part 1 Part 2

Jean-Michel Aphatie : «  Chaque année, nous commémorons le massacre d’Oradour-sur-Glane, c’est-à-dire le massacre de tout un village. Mais nous en avons fait des centaines en Algérie. Est-ce qu’on en a conscience ?  »

   أقدم معتقل سياسي في فرنسا

First we must study how colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral relativism; and we must show that each time a head is cut off or an eye put out in Vietnam and in France they accept the fact, each time a little girl is raped and in France they accept the fact, each time a Madagascan is tortured and in France they accept the fact, civilization acquires another dead weight, a universal regression takes place, a gangrene sets in, a center of infection begins to spread; and that at the end of all these treaties that have been violated, all these lies that have been propagated, all these punitive expeditions that have been tolerated, all these prisoners who have been tied up and interrogated, all these patriots who have been tortured, at the end of all the racial pride that has been encouraged, all the boastfulness that has been displaye...

“The surgeon and former Labour health minister found England had spent almost £37bn less than peer countries on health assets and infrastructure since the 2010s. Twenty per cent of the NHS estate predates the founding of the service more than 75 years ago, and some of NUH’s facilities date back to the Victorian era .” In 2022 healthcare expenditure in Germany and France was equivalent to 12.6% and 11.9%, respectively. In 2023, the UK spent 8.9% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on public healthcare.  This is a decrease from 2020 and 2021, when the UK spent 10.1% of its GDP on healthcare.

  France responsible for ‘extreme violence’ in Cameroon independence war, report says

In Defence of Barbarism:  Non-Whites Against the Empire

Act 1 “In a shocking act that has gone viral, a male monarchist desecrated the grave of Gholam-Hossein Sa’edi (the pen name: Gohar Morad), the iconic Iranian leftist writer, by urinating on it in Paris’s Père Lachaise Cemetery. Draped in an Israeli flag, the individual symbolically weaponized Sa’edi’s final resting place—a site sacred to Iranian exiles and the global left—against the very values the writer championed: resistance to tyranny and solidarity with the oppressed.” Act 2 “A break-in at the country home of Jean-Luc Mélenchon saw his house graffitied with far-right slogans and a swastika. The troubling attack followed past assassination plots against the French left-wing leader — but international media totally ignored it.”

Granting immunity to Netanyahu and co.

No news here, but a norm France’s double standard