PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, October 6: The death of a researcher in Siberia, reportedly from the plague, sparks concern despite Russian authorities' denial. But first: French high school protesters are promising "Act 3" of their protest movement against learning conditions. Also, Le Monde speaks to the editor of Russian independent outlet Novaya Gazeta ahead of the 20th anniversary of the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Finally, it appears that butter is back in fashion.
French high schoolers are promising "Act 3" of their protest movement and there is great concern in the press about how it is going to unfold. French left-wing daily Libération worries about the police crackdown on the high schoolers. It calls on police to "act with discretion". The Communist paper L'Humanité evokes the "rage of student protesters". In its editorial, the paper pays tribute to a generation who have grown up with social anxiety: they learned to read with soldiers patrolling their schools in 2015 (due to terror attacks), they hit puberty during the social distancing years of Covid-19 and they are finishing school amid two wars and rising inflation. The right-wing paper L'Opinion, however, is less sympathetic. It expresses concern about how violent the protests will become and says the student movement has "no instruction manual", calling it "a movement that has been, up to now, volatile, violent and unable to be controlled by the government."