Joe Biden goes to Georgia as a great civil rights defender

The trip is symbolically charged and politically risky: Joe Biden is going to Georgia on Tuesday to advance a crucial promise of his presidency, that of protecting the access of minorities, and particularly African-Americans, to the right to vote. The American president, with Vice-President Kamala Harris, chose this southern state emblematic of the past struggle for civil rights, but also of today's political heartbreaks, in order to defend a draft legislation on "voting rights". It is not a question of legislating on the right to vote itself but on the conditions under which it is exercised, from registration in the electoral registers to the counting of the votes, including postal voting or verification of the identity of voters. These are all criteria that many conservative states in the South have undertaken to modify, with the effect of complicating, in practice, access to the ballot box for African Americans and minorities in general. “We must be firm, resolute and unyielding in our defense of the right to vote and the right to make every vote count,” the Democratic president tweeted on Monday.

Vaccination pass in France: the text in the hands of senators

After a turbulent adoption by the deputies, the Senate dominated by the right-wing opposition in turn seized on Tuesday of the bill transforming the health pass into a vaccination pass which it should vote on at first reading, but with "adjustments". The examination in the hemicycle, which the LR president of the Law Commission François-Noël Buffet wishes "peaceful and serious", is planned from Tuesday afternoon and can continue on Wednesday, evenings included. "There will still be difficult debates", warned Monday evening the rapporteur LR Philippe Bas after the vote on the amended text in committee. The President of the Senate Gérard Larcher will himself be on the set for the kick-off of the discussion, a priori guarantee of a good performance of the exchanges, after three days and nights of heated debates last week at the National Assembly, electrified by the controversial remarks of Emmanuel Macron, ready to "fuck the non-vaccinated". The Minister of Health Olivier Véran, whom the senators criticize for being rare at the Luxembourg Palace, will also be present for the opening of the debates.

IN SHORT

A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hit the Mediterranean Sea off the west coast of Cyprus at dawn on Tuesday, the US Seismological Institute (USGS) said.

The seven years from 2015 to 2021 were "clearly" the hottest on record, confirming the advance of global warming with record concentrations of greenhouse gases, announced the European Earth observation service Copernicus .