Every morning, the editorial staff of Libé selects the essential news in France, the rest of the world and those to follow during the day.
With his feet on the floor, Trump begins his second day in office
After a lively start, Donald Trump begins the second day of his return to the White House this Tuesday with the desire to surf the myriad of presidential decrees signed after his inauguration, but with questions about the realism of his ambitions. The Republican will go in the morning to the Washington National Cathedral for a religious service placed more under the sign of sobriety after the pomp, pomp and euphoria of the ceremonies the day before. At 78 years old, Donald Trump became the oldest president in the history of the United States to be inaugurated. Which did not prevent him from starting his second term with full throttle with the signing of executive decrees emphasizing his electoral program: fight against illegal immigration, increase in hydrocarbon production, recognition of “two sexes” only to end the “transgender delusion”. This Tuesday morning, Trump also fired four senior government officials appointed by his predecessor and warned that more than “a thousand more” were also at risk of being fired, in the first message posted on his social network Truth Social since his inauguration.
Taliban government announces prisoner exchange with the United States
The Taliban government announced this Tuesday the release by the United States of an Afghan detainee in exchange for American prisoners at the end of “long discussions” facilitated by Qatar and the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump. “An Afghan “fighter”, Khan Mohammed, imprisoned in America was released in exchange for American citizens and returned home”indicates on X the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It says the Afghan detainee was serving a life sentence in California after being arrested “nearly two decades ago” in Nangarhar in eastern Afghanistan. The announcement comes the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump. When the Republican was re-elected in November, the Taliban government said it hoped to open a “new chapter” in bilateral relations.
In Türkiye, ten dead in a fire at a ski resort
Ten people died and more than 30 people were injured in a fire that broke out overnight from Monday to Tuesday in a hotel in the Kartalkaya ski resort in central Turkey, the Turkish Minister of Defense said on Tuesday. ‘Interior, Ali Yerlikaya. “Today at 3:27 a.m. (1:27 a.m. French time), a fire was reported at a hotel in the Kartalkaya ski center. […] Unfortunately, the number of deaths increased to 10 and the number of injured to 32,” announced the minister on X. 267 firefighters and rescuers were still working Tuesday morning to bring the fire under control, the minister said. The fire, which broke out on the upper floors of the hotel for a still unknown reason, quickly spread due to the building’s wooden cladding, Turkish media reported. Hotel employees helped evacuate guests of whom 237 were staying at the time of the fire, according to private Turkish channel NTV.
Half as many narchomicides in Marseille, but a form of “narcoterrorism”
Narcobanditry cost the lives of 24 people in 2024 in the Marseille region, half as many as the bloodbath of 2023. But “however the threat remains very significant» facing a form of “narcoterrorism”warn the authorities. On the eve of the start of the examination of a proposed law on drug trafficking, the Bouches-du-Rhône police prefect and the Marseille public prosecutor made an annual assessment of their fight against this scourge on Tuesday morning. . After the disastrous record of 49 deaths including 4 collateral victims by 2023, violence linked to drug banditry cost the lives of 24 people in this department in the south-east of France last year, including a VTC driver shot dead by a teenager. barely 14 years old.
Should we criminally redefine rape? A parliamentary report relaunches the debate
“It’s time to act” : a parliamentary report published this Tuesday recommends integrating the notion of non-consent into the criminal definition of rape, relaunching the debate on an issue which divides both among legal professionals and in the ranks of feminist associations. “So that closed” the Mazan rape trial “which has in many ways been the trial of rape culture, it is time to act”considers in its final report the fact-finding mission on “the criminal definition of rape” led by the women’s rights delegation of the National Assembly. Currently, article 222-23 of the penal code defines rape as “any act of sexual penetration, of whatever nature, or any oral-genital act committed on the person of another or on the person of the perpetrator by violence, coercion, threat or surprise”.
According to the Association of European Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA), sales of electric cars have fallen sharply (-5.9%) on the continent compared to 2023. All in a market, all engines combined, increasing by +0.8% to 10.6 million units – far from 15.3 million in 2019. But, while sales of electric cars increased by 25% worldwide in 2024, mainly thanks to China, the matter is more complex. Over one year, there is a drop of 91,000 100% electric cars in the EU. But the drop in Germany alone is 144,000 units. We can therefore summarize the situation as follows: without the Berlin disaster, sales of electric cars would, on average, have increased by 5.2% in the EU in 2024.
To be continued today
Karachi case: appeal decision in the financial aspect
The Paris Court of Appeal must rule on Tuesday, thirty years after the events and almost five years after the first instance judgment, on the fate of six men suspected of having played a role in a system of occult commissions, in margin of arms contracts, which would have fueled the presidential campaign of Édouard Balladur in 1995. In this financial aspect of the Karachi affair, the criminal court had sentenced, on June 15, 2020, the six defendants to sentences ranging from two to five years in prison. Everyone had appealed. Among them, the sulphurous intermediary Ziad Takieddine, who had fled to Lebanon just before the judgment, as well as Thierry Gaubert, a close friend of Nicolas Sarkozy – two men currently on trial in the case of suspicion of Libyan financing of another presidential campaign, that of 2007.
-In Paris, Vuitton opens the Fashion Week ball at the Louvre
Paris Men’s Fashion Week kicks off on Tuesday, culminating in the highly anticipated new show by star designer Pharrell Williams for Louis Vuitton, which this time takes over the Louvre in the evening. After creating a buzz at the Pont Neuf, the Jardin d’Acclimatation and UNESCO, the American artist will present his fall-winter 2025-2026 collection – the fifth – in the square courtyard of the famous museum. A well-known location for the LVMH flagship house, Nicolas Ghesquière, artistic director of the women’s collections, having presented numerous collections there. The event should once again attract an audience of stars from rap, cinema and sport, the American basketball players Lebron James and French Victor Wembanyama and the star swimmer of the last Olympics Léon Marchand being muses of the brand.
The decryption
Autistic children and adolescents: a generation under pills
Anxiolytics, sleeping pills, sedatives… Nearly four out of ten autistic minors take powerful psychotropic drugs in France, according to a book to be published Thursday, which reveals an unprecedented analysis of health insurance. Behind this overmedication, a glaring lack of resources to care for these children. Read here.
The report
Trial of Sarkozy’s Libyan financing: businessman Alexandre Djouhri, the president and the “macaroni with foie gras”
This Monday, January 20, the sulphurous character, omnipresent in the case and prosecuted for having contributed to the payment of 500,000 euros to Claude Guéant, spoke about his powerful friends without ceasing to deny any involvement in Libyan financing of the 2007 campaign. More info here.
The portrait
Sabrina Ouazani, trump card
Often labeled a comedy actress, the thirty-year-old, with a wide range to her credit, wants to return to auteur cinema. Read our portrait.
