Evicting Vulnerable ahead of Paris Olympics is “Social Cleansing”

On a Tuesday morning in late May, at least three dozen police officers surrounded an encampment of migrants in central Paris. The streets above the banks of the Seine were virtually empty and the cafés still closed when they evicted more than 100 boys and young men, many from West Africa. It was just past 7 a.m. Read More  Read More

Division on the Right, Implosion on the Left

As Russian forces poured across Ukrainian borders on Feb. 24, French President Emmanuel Macron warned in a televised address that the incursion marked “a turning point in the history of Europe and of our country” and would have “profound, lasting consequences for our lives.” Read More  Read More

In the Horn of Africa, a coalition to prevent the next locust invasion

Locust outbreaks, which are becoming more frequent due to climate change, are occurring in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti. To face this plague, scientists, computer programmers and volunteer “locust hunters” are getting organized in the Horn of Africa. Read More  Read More

In Africa, using apps to expand access to healthcare

Serge Mahougnon’s condition was worsening. What little food he ate, he could not keep down. In February 2020, temperatures in Cotonou, Bénin, reached close to 30° Celsius, but Mahougnon was freezing. The 24-year-old financial trader was suffering from Typhoid fever, a disease that begins with intestinal inflammation, and can be fatal. Read More  Read More

Cops are in Crisis. In this History of Policing in North America, France and Britain, we find out why

Over the past year, public anger over police violence has led to calls for de-funding or abolition of police forces. Some even want to police their own communities — which it turns out, is precisely how policing began. Read More  Read More

Rethinking the Role of Police

Law enforcement scholar David Bayley begins his book, Police for the Future, with what he calls one of the best-kept secrets of modern life: “The police do not prevent crime.” He points to US studies that show increases in police numbers had virtually no impact on crime rates, something he also observed in Australia, Britain and Canada. In this documentary we rethink... Read More

Small Countries to Suffer in Wild West World Economy

The World Trade Organization is charged with preventing small trade disputes from erupting into full-scale economic warfare. In what may seem a minor administrative inconvenience, it has been dealt a near-fatal blow. The US government has blocked the WTO from hiring more members – judges who rule on trade complaints – effectively paralyzing the WTO’s trade dispute... Read More

French Authorities deny shelter to teen migrants

Standing on a small Paris street armed with a thermos of tea, biscuits and a bag of mobile phones, Sylvie Brugnon and Quentin Gauthier stop several young men heading toward the French Red Cross offices a few metres away. A pair of boys arrive, ill-dressed for the cold and shivering. They slept outside the night before. Read More  Read More

The Hierarchy of Suffering * La Hiérarchie de Souffrances

Some tragedies are prized over others.  From the heroes we put on pedestals to our choice of commemorations, it is clear that some atrocities are engraved in our collective memory while others are all but ignored. In this article for MediaPart I argue (in French), that this hierarchy of suffering is part of a continuing pattern of inequality. Read More  Read More

The whitewashing of 200 years of enslavement

Why is it common knowledge that we saved runaway slaves from the United States, but few know that Africans and Indigenous peoples were bought, sold and exploited, right here? In this two-part radio documentary for CBC, I examine the history of slavery in colonial Canada, its lasting legacy and the ways in which it has been whitewashed from our history.  Read More Read More