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Published on: 02/10/2026 - 06:13

On the front page of the press this Tuesday, February 10, is the situation in Ukraine, where the Russian army's winter offensive is causing heavy human losses. Europe's fear of a new affront from the United States at the next Munich conference. The mixed results of a meeting on Western Sahara under the leadership of Washington. The fight of so-called “comfort” women in South Korea. And the very next trip into space by French astronaut Sophie Audenot.

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On the front page of the press, the situation in Ukraine, where the winter offensive of the Russian army is causing heavy human losses.

Nearly four years after the start of the Russian invasion, Ukraine is undergoing an intensive bombing campaign and fears a "large-scale offensive in the spring and summer", according to the Kyiv Post. The Ukrainian newspaper claims that despite their violence, the ongoing fighting offers Russia only "meager territorial gains" and that despite the Kremlin's rhetoric, "Putin's generals still plan to defeat Ukraine and dictate the terms of peace."

In Kherson, in the south of the country, the special correspondent of Le Figaro tells how the inhabitants are subjected to incessant attacks by Russian drones, an "aerial manhunt", which barely protects them from the fishing nets offered by Breton sailors. Vitali Howuka, surgeon in a hospital in the city, testifies: "Every day we come to work with fear in our stomachs. We are not safe anywhere. But we will not leave. Russia is not waging this war to conquer territory but to destroy our nation."

European disunity

On the diplomatic side, the Europeans are still struggling to assert themselves in discussions between Ukraine, Russia and the United States. L'Humanité deplores "the disunity" of EU members, part of which, France and Italy, "demand the resumption of dialogue with Moscow", while Poland, the United Kingdom and Germany "firmly oppose it".

Europe fears a new affront from the United States at the next Munich security conference, which begins on Friday. Le Parisien/today in France announces that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will represent the United States this year in place of Vice-President JD Vance, whose extremely aggressive speech last year dismayed Europeans. The newspaper indicates that the secretary of state will also begin a European visit, including meetings with Hungarian and Slovak leaders, to the right of the right. The Guardian, which consulted the preparatory report for this Munich Conference, reports the Europeans' "painful realization" that they must now show themselves "more assertive and more militarily independent vis-à-vis an "authoritarian" American Administration, which no longer shares its attachment to liberal democratic norms and values.

“Purely geopolitical interest”

The United States, which managed to bring together around the same table, Sunday and yesterday, in Madrid, Spain, the actors in the conflict in Western Sahara. El Confidencial, which revealed the existence of this meeting, specifies that it was held in the presence of the foreign ministers of Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Polisario Front and the UN special envoy for Western Sahara, under the leadership of the Americans. Although little information has filtered out on its content, the Spanish site reports that the meeting ended "without concrete results, despite pressure" from American diplomacy, which is seeking to quickly sign an agreement between Morocco on the one hand and the Polisario Front and Algeria on the other hand, to put an end to this half-century-old conflict.

Washington also intends to "serve its own interests in the region", according to African media cited by Courrier International. The weekly relays in particular the analysis of the Burkinabe newspaper Le Pays, recalling that "the United States is not involved in the matter out of altruism or sentimental attachment, but out of purely geopolitical interest" for a territory located "at the gates of Europe and at the crossroads of sensitive commercial and energy routes".

Strange proposition

In South Korea, 117 former so-called “comfort women” filed a complaint last year against the American army. Le Monde recounts the legal battle of these women, whose prosecutions constitute “a first for a country still hosting American bases”. The newspaper indicates that the complaint of these victims is, however, unlikely to succeed due to the very protective status of American forces, defined in 1966 by a framework prohibiting any prosecution against the United States if its soldiers commit crimes abroad.

Hence the choice of the plaintiffs to sue the South Korean government, which can then request reimbursement of possible compensation from Washington. South Korea, where a local elected official made a strange proposal to combat the declining birth rate: import women from Vietnam or Sri Lanka. A statement which greatly shocked his compatriots and caused his dismissal, according to Le Figaro.

believe it

Le Figaro also returns to more exciting news, the departure, tomorrow, to space of the Frenchwoman Sophie Adenot, twenty-five years after Claudie Haigneré. Postponed for 24 hours due to the weather, this space stay aboard the ISS, planned for 9 months, will be the culmination of a childhood dream.

Sophie Adenot explained a few days ago in front of 300 young people that each step was “one more step, despite the doubts”. “You have to believe it, you will hear like me “she is cute with her dream”, but you have to hang on. The trigger, I had it at 14, when Claudie Haigneré took off, and I have been hanging on to it for twenty-nine years”.

Find the Press Review every morning on France 24 (Monday to Friday, 7:20 a.m. and 9:20 a.m. Paris time). Also follow the Revue des Hebdos every weekend in multicast.

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