Have you been a bit out of the news lately? We summarize the main titles to remember from the last two days.
Revaluation of the minimum wage, access to condoms, end of the discount at the pump… which changes on 1is January 2023
The new calendar year marks the entry into force of new rules. Among the most significant of this beginning of the year 2023: the minimum wage is revalued by 1.81% on 1is January, bringing the gross amount to 1,709.28 euros over one month, the regulated gas prices are “burning” and will increase by an average of 15% including tax before being frozen again until mid-2023, and access to condoms in pharmacies and without a prescription becomes free for those under 26 years of age.
In addition, very energy-intensive dwellings, consuming more than 450 kilowatt hours (kWh) per square meter per year, will no longer be considered as “decent”.
The red stamp, which promised delivery in one day, disappears on the 1is January. The vignette bearing the image of Marianne will give way to a formula called “red e-letter” for shipments on D + 1.
On the transport side, the beginning of the year 2023 marks the end of the discount of 10 euro cents at the pump. New device taking over for the poorest 50% of households using their car or two-wheeler to get to work: aid of 100 euros, for the year. In Ile-de-France, the increase to 1is January of the monthly price of the Navigo pass, the subscription which allows unlimited travel on the public transport network, will finally be 12%, at 84.10 euros.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI dies aged 95
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died Saturday at the age of 95 in the monastery in the Vatican Gardens, where he had retired. Pope Francis paid tribute to his predecessor late in the afternoon during a ceremony held in his memory at St. Peter’s Basilica, greeting a “so noble person, so kind”.
Around the world, tributes have multiplied. French President Emmanuel Macron hailed Benedict XVI’s efforts in favor of a “more fraternal world”, and US President Joe Biden, a practicing Catholic, his “devotion to the Church” you know ” generosity “. The Conference of Bishops of France has paid tribute to a pope who “wanted to serve the unity of the Church” and who has “faced with courage the fact of sexual assaults committed by priests or religious and did not want to preserve anyone from the truth that had to be done in this area”.
Pope Francis will preside over the funeral of Benedict XVI on Thursday at the Vatican. His body will be exposed from Monday morning in the solemn setting of the basilica to allow the faithful to greet him, before he is buried in one of its crypts on Thursday. It is the first time in recent times that the highest representative of the Catholic Church has been called upon to bury his predecessor.
A pontiff is normally buried before the election of his successor. Benedict’s surprise renunciation, on February 11, 2013, had ipso facto opened the way to this unprecedented configuration, in which a man in a white cassock, the distinctive sign of the Roman pontiff, is led to bury another man in white.
Emmanuel Macron carries a message of “confidence and unity” for 2023, the year of the controversial pension reform
Emmanuel Macron sent his wishes to the French on Saturday, carrying an optimistic message and “confidence and unity” to the French, so as not to “give in to the spirit of division” in a year 2023 which promises to be uncertain economically, socially and geopolitically. After returning to the return of the war to European soil, the President of the Republic spoke of the important projects of his second term.
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He first defended the principle of pension reform and repeated his determination to bring it into force “from the end of summer 2023”. “This year will be the year of a pension reform which aims to ensure the balance of our system for the years and decades to come” and to “consolidate our pay-as-you-go pension scheme”argued Mr. Macron, again highlighting the “work value”.
From the end of the Christmas truce, the government will enter into the hard of reforms. First of all, there will be the presentation of the long-awaited pension reform project by Elisabeth Borne, on January 10, which provides, among other things, for a decline in the retirement age from 62 to 64 or 65 years old. Wind up against the presidential project as it was presented to them during the consultation phases, the unions have already unanimously called for mobilization, making the executive fear the return of a social spark.
Lula sworn in as president of Brazil, in the absence of Jair Bolsonaro
Brazil’s President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was officially inaugurated in Brasilia on Sunday after taking an oath before Congress to respect the Constitution. Up to 300,000 people were expected for this day to combine the pomp, with ceremonies regulated to the millimeter which must attend seventeen heads of state, and a popular festival with concerts.
Under the blazing sun of this early southern summer, thousands of Brazilians, often dressed in the emblematic red of Lula’s Workers’ Party, had to wait in queues of hundreds of meters because of security checks, noted a journalist from Agence France-Presse. According to the magazine see, uA minute of silence will be observed in Congress in tribute to Brazilian football legend Pelé, who died on Thursday.
Then, Lula will head to the Planalto presidential palace, an architectural gem designed by Oscar Niemeyer, to receive the famous presidential sash set with gold and diamonds. It is not the outgoing president, Jair Bolsonaro, who will give it to him since he left the country on Friday, before the end of his mandate. It is the first time since 1985 that an outgoing president will not wear his successor with the presidential sash. That year, the last president of the military dictatorship established in 1964, General Joao Figueiredo, refused to participate in the investiture ceremony of his successor, José Sarney.
The future first lady, Rosangela da Silva, known as “Janja”, was the great organizer of the festive aspect of the day, with numerous concerts and an eclectic program, which included the drag-queen Pabllo Vittar or the living legend of the samba Martinho da Vila. As for Lula, who has only finalized the composition of his government of thirty-seven ministers in recent days, he will have to tackle a “herculean task”according to its vice-president: the transition team has drawn up a very bleak inventory of Brazil after four years of Bolsonarism.
Covid-19: States restore entry restrictions for travelers from China
After the abrupt abandonment of the strict zero Covid policy by China, leading to an explosion of contaminations in the country, the world is worried about the appearance of new variants. Several countries, including France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, in unison with the United States and even South Korea, decided this week to impose a Covid test on travelers arriving from China. The latest, Australia announced on Sunday that it would take the same measure from January 5.
Despite the catastrophic situation of the health situation due to the epidemic in China, Chinese President Xi Jinping during his televised New Year’s address on Saturday said that the “light of hope is ahead of us”the prevention and control of epidemics entering “a new stage”. Officials from the World Health Organization met with Chinese officials on Friday to discuss the explosion in the number of cases in their country, calling on them to share the data they have in real time so that other countries can respond effectively.
Official figures were low, while at the same time some hospitals and morgues appear overwhelmed. On December 25, the National Health Commission, which acts as the Ministry of Health, even announced that it would no longer publish the daily figures of cases and deaths due to Covid-19, as it had done since the beginning of 2020, without giving any explanation.