French weekly magazines review 15 November 2015

France, knee deep in fire arms problem as police seize 6000 weapons from crime syndicates every year; Genocide looms in Burundi as leader of the country's Senate threatens the opposition with "Gukora" or death threats. And inside Vladimir Putin's propaganda machine as trolls speak out about the hard rules in place for the glory of the Russian leader.

DR

The magazines hit the stands well before the Black Friday terror attacks here in Paris. But as the French people observe three days of national mourning for the 128 killed by the suicide squad, an article about the high demand for Kalashnikovs in France caught my eye.

More than 6000 firearms are seized in the country every year with up to 84 arms trafficking case files treated by prosecutors between 2011 and 2014. Little did the New Observer l’Obs know that its investigative report about arms trafficking would be so timely.

L’Obs says police had already raised an alarm at the quantity of war weapons changing hands in the neighbourhoods, sometimes within the reach of young delinquents. The left-leaning weekly found out that the illegal trade is being facilitated by accomplices in the firearms business, some coming from the military.

The supplement digs into Marseille’s crime underworld at a moment when the southern French city was rocked by the settling of score by powerful drug barons.

L’Obs says the problem coupled with the surge in organized crime has forced Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to prepare a draft bill aims at bolstering the crackdown on arms trafficking.

There is another country where the authorities seem quite pleased with the free circulation of fire arms. It’s Burundi and Le Canard Enchaîné says its leaders have in recent days been speaking repeatedly about their intention " to work". In this Great Lakes country “working” means "Gakora" or killing in the local language Kirundi.

The man itching to start “working” is the President of the country’s Senate. He spoke at a rally of President Nkurunziza’s ruling party last month threatening that when " working time comes they will not hesitate to pull out those who seek refuge under the bed."

Le Canard says the lugubrious expression “Gukora” evokes grim memories in neighbouring Rwanda, where employees of the infamous Radio des Mille Collines ordered the massacre of Tutsis in 1994.

According to the satirical weekly, this is the first time since the 1993-2006 Hutu-Tutsi civil war, which claimed 300,000 lives, that government officials have borrowed the “genocidal” vocabulary of its neighbours to threaten the predominantly Tutsi opposition.

This is as President Pierre Nkurunziza struggles to contain a popular uprising and a coup attempt against his forced re-election for a third mandate despite being barred by the constitution.

Le Point continues its build up to the Climate summit in Paris with a deep reflection about the positive ecology we need so as to hand the planet to future generations in the condition in which we met it.

The right-wing publication likens the COP 21 conference as a great circus where seemingly the main issue of interest to governments will be most about their positions on the family picture.

In the wake of galloping demography and pollution, Le Point regrets that cupidity and cynicism have become the essence of human ideology at a time ecology takes the central ground of politics.

For the conservative publication the issues are neither the preserve of the left nor the right and it implores world leaders coming to Paris to start showing interest in the various threats endangering the existence of the human species.

It names them: global warming, the shortage of drinking water, defoliation, the abuse of pesticides, the extinction of bees and the over exploitation of our oceans. Nothing has really changed says Le Point, since Jacques Chirac’s outcry at the opening declaration of the Johannesburg Earth summit in 2002 that "while the house burns we are looking away."

The journal lauds positive initiatives following in the foot steps of Ecofolio an eco-organization which funds the collection of waste.

Ecofolio has signed a fascinating manifesto on the recycling of used paper, a domain in which France is lagging behind but which could become a wonderful spring board for economic growth with the creation of thousands of jobs in coming decades.

According to the magazine, while the world upstairs holds its summits it will be the responsibility of everyone downstairs to implement the recommendations on a daily basis through recycling , healthy eating, reducing the consumption of energy.

That’s what children need to be taught in schools instead of the pedagogical ramblings witnessed at some inter-disciplinary courses, according to the weekly.

Le Point also has an inside account of life in Vladimir Putin’s army of trolls. According to the weekly, on top of the fighter jets and tanks fighting his war in the Middle East and Ukraine, the Russian leader also owns a crack squadron of cyber soldiers preaching his word and running the Kremlin’s propaganda machine on the internet.

They are more than 400 spin doctors charged by the Kremlin to flood Russian social media websites and the portals of prominent western news organizations with glorifying messages about Vladimir Putin.

Le Point says the favoured themes of the trolls specially groomed to post false messages on the media are the wars in Ukraine and the military campaign in Syria where Russia aspires to incarnate good against the evil designs of the Islamic Stated armed group.

As Le Point found out, there is enough to keep the trolls busy notably after Western experts questioned the Kremlin’s line about the cause of the Russian airbus crash in Egypt.

Moscow blamed the disaster on engine failure but most aviation experts leaned towards a terrorist attack, sparking the circulation on internet of a formatted message. “Hey you bloody liberals. "Why are you insisting about a terrorist plot? If you think Russia will pull out from Crimea and Putin taken in a cage to appear before the International Criminal court then you are dead stupid.”

Le Point says the seat of Putin’s trolls is a 3-storey building situated in the north of Saint Petersburg where bloggers put in up to 12 hours per day for wages of between 580 and 1100 Euros. But according to Le Point the introduction of hefty fine for so-called ideological errors forced many of the propaganda experts to leave, with some saying that had they not left they would probably be mad by now.