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Published on: 01/09/2026 - 10:32 Modified on: 01/09/2026 - 10:35

On the front page of the press, this Tuesday, September 1, a technological start to the school year, and Emmanuel Macron's educational results. Financial reparations considered necessary by the UN for countries involved in slavery. And the press, particularly Argentinian, which pays tribute to Lionel Messi.

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It's the start of the school year for 11.6 million students in France today, and the last for Emmanuel Macron. Libération devotes its front page to it, with a caricature of the President of the Republic as a punished Bart Simpson: "I will no longer bother national education" are the lines that he must copy on the blackboard. The banner also pays homage to Edouard Balladur, saluting an emblematic figure of the right.

But let's return to Emmanuel Macron, on page two: vain upon vain, A-I-N is not a good mark. The daily draws up an assessment marked by “changes of minister” (there have been eight) and “sterile” reforms. A column is notably devoted to the end of the experiment on school uniforms, abandoned after the financial disengagement of the State. The article also notes the growing inequalities as the most characteristic feature of the French situation, according to a former rector.

This return to school is also marked by the question of technology, and the place it should occupy in school... The return of AI makes the front page of l'Humanité. The idea is to make students aware of “critical use” of this tool. Knowing that around 68% of 12-17 year olds already use AI for their work at home. Another reform is highlighted in Le Figaro: the ban on cell phones in high school, students will have to leave them in these boxes. But studies seem to show that teenagers tend to compensate for deprivation after school.

Quite another thing: the UN which issues an opinion on the issue of financial reparations for slavery. However, this recommendation is not legally binding, but it marks a paradigm shift. Restorative justice is moving from “historical responsibility” to “legal obligation,” at least in theory.

The Guardian chooses a photo of a protester in London, holding a sign reading: "We march with our ancestors." The Committee Against Racial Discrimination estimates that at least 12.5 million African people were sold during more than 400 years of the transatlantic slave trade, and that their descendants therefore deserve compensation for the lasting consequences of racial discrimination.

Concretely, what could these repairs look like? This is the question asked by the South African site The Independent Online. But the answer remains quite vague. The article lists various requests from African or Caribbean states, which demand financial reparations, but without precise figures, proposals for debt relief or cancellation of countries having suffered enslavement, investment requests, or even the establishment of a global fund for these reparations.

Initiatives exist, but they are rare and isolated. La Première recalls that a city in Illinois is offering up to $25,000 in housing assistance for households that have suffered from racial discrimination. But the Trump administration is trying to cancel this program.

To end this press review: the announcement of Lionel Messi's retirement. "Argentina is losing its Messi" the team tells us on this corner of the front page. “At the end of the tale” he continues on page 11, with a census of the statistics of the “master of Argentina and the World” with his 207 selections for the national team, and 125 goals all the same.

La Nacion, a leading Argentine daily, has created this superb infographic: it lists the number of Léo Messi's goals, by tournament, by coach, by year, by area in the goal, and whether it was with the head, the right foot, or the left foot. The newspaper devotes many other articles to this bow drawn by the Argentine number 10. There is even an interview with graphologists who analyze Messi's state of mind in the calligraphy of his farewell letter: according to them, the use of capital letters serves to protect oneself, the inclination to the right would mark his emotion, and occupying the entire page from left to right would indicate that Messi had said everything, without hiding anything.

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