French weekly magazines review 17 September 2017

This week, the UN warns that climate refugees fleeing their countries could top 250,000 in 30 years,while the French press is also questions whether Europe resolve the worsening problem of its sperm cell count?

French weekly magazines DR

We begin with a bombshell about police abuse in France. The French New Observer l'Obs digs into what it calls a national taboo.

It's about a pattern of deadly pursuits of suspects, malaise during police arrests and detentions, and brutal conduct by gendarmes and police men which are not sanctioned by the judiciary.

The investigative report includes details about four cases that shocked the country. They include the 2014 incidents in Sivens the site of the controversial Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport.

That’s where a green party supporter opposed to the project was found dead on the scene of clashes between Gendarmes and so-called “Zadistes” occupying the site.

L'Obs claims that while there are no official statistics of people killed by police violence, it is able to report that 94 citizens were killed in connection with security operations between 2007 and 2017. That is in addition to 13 policemen and Gendarmes who lost their lives while on duty.  

Marianne relays a warning by the United Nation's that 250 million people will be forced to flee their countries due to climatic upheavals.

The projections come as the world contemplates the trail of death and destruction left behind in the Caribbean’s, the southern coast of the United States and in the Gulf of Mexico by mega-storms such as Harvey and Irma which many climate scientists believe are boosted by global warming.

According to Marianne, while the populations of these areas and others could be forced to leave these islands, the urgency of putting place a real status for the victims of climate change is an imperative.

Sometimes the most interesting stories don't always come from the cover pages. That’s the case of a disturbing piece in this week's le Point about a degradation of sperm quality in Western countries.

The findings were reportedly made by researchers at Israeli, American and European laboratories who collected, analyzed and synthesized samples collected from some 40,000 men in different European countries between 1973 and 2011.

The conclusions of the new study published in July's issue of the respected Human Reproduction update review, are particularly alarming, according to le Point.

The publication reports that in just 40 years the concentration of sperm cells is down to less than 50 percent, in Europe, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, with France's fertility rate said to be decreasing by up to 1.9 percent every year.

And talking about life in tomorrow's new world, there is a stunning revelation in this week's l'Express' that die hard trans-humanists at California's Silicon Valley are sticking with the fancy that the mastery of science will enable man to live for up to a thousand years.

According to the magazine, while the issue continues to divide the scientific community, a fundamental question remains about how far the human body can be manipulated.

L'Express recalls that the oldest human being in the record books was a French lady, Jeanne Calment who died at the age of 122 years, 5 months and 14 days.

The weekly says that the longevity of her life continues to fascinate geneticists who set 115 as the oldest age for human beings could live.

According to l'Express, Madame Calment was a sportswoman of exceptional energy, who practiced fencing up to the age of 85, and who rode her bicycle well beyond the age of a hundred. 

The right-wing weekly concludes the fascinating piece, with short profiles of the living centenarians.  There is Violet Brown of Jamaica, born on the 10th of March in 1900 who is currently the dean of humanity, Japan's Masazowu Nonaka aged 112 and born on the Island of Hokkaido and France's oldest citizen Roger Auvin aged 109 who lives in Limalonges in the western department of Deux Sèvres.