Global Voices Online

Jennifer Brea

French Language Editor

Stories

March 9th, 2009

Sub-Saharan Africa

Musengeshi Katata at Forum Realisance [Fr] calls Africa Must Reclaim Her Destiny, published by Harmattan in Paris, a “must read”. Katata writes, “We have to stop believing in Santa Claus and take destiny in our own hands.”

February 28th, 2009

Sub-Saharan Africa

In the DRC, Cedric Kalonji questions the Inspector General of the South Kivu police who, in a recent radio interview, pledged that the police were committed to raising revenue through security taxes or fees for the issue of public documents. Kalonji writes: “While killings, lootings, rapes and murders, which are spoken of almost with a smile in South Kivu, have become trivial, I am tempted to ask what is really the role of the police. Generating revenue for the coffers of the state or protecting people and their property?”

Americas

le blog de [moi] [Fr] discusses how a new vocabulary has entered into the creoles of Guadeloupe and Martinique since the beginning of the general strike: “What was really surprising (and for me, I admit, a little unsettling) was to see how in interviews, men and woman on the street would, without difficulty, answer [questions] with expressions being used by the national media!”

February 21st, 2009

Sub-Saharan Africa

Cedric Kalonji describes Kinshasa after a heavy rain [FR]. The roads turn into lakes, but “high up in their 4×4s, the authorities are untouched by the problem, the result being that there is almost no support for making storm sewers or gutters.”

Martinique: On independence and French “paternalism”

Jennifer Brea · 18:40 · Americas , Western Europe

lingua → fr · mg · es · sw

As the workers' movement in Martinique and Guadeloupe continues, bloggers in Martinique consider what it might mean for the overseas departments to become independent. le blog de [moi] finds the idea Martinique couldn't make it on its own offensive and paternalistic. Her readers think that one reality of being a small island country is that you are always under someone else's shadow. 6 comments · read »