Adieu Roe: Watching from Paris as my rights are stolen away
When Roe v. Wade fell, I was sitting in the lobby of my long-stay hotel nestled among the skyscrapers of the La Defense business district just outside the city limits of Paris. I had spent the day working my summer internship remotely, while dealing with a leaky ceiling and a hotel concierge who didn’t understand my broken French.
My first reaction to hearing the news was physical. I got chills; my heart sank; I felt sick; Then I texted my mom, my grandma, my childhood best friend if they had seen the news. Sitting with another intern from my program, a student from Texas, all we could do was stare at each other. I can’t speak for her, but I simply couldn’t find words.
I am angry. I am sad. I am scared. And I am in France, watching my U.S. constitutional rights deteriorate from abroad. It’s surreal.
If my current travel plan stays the same, when I return home to the U.S., I will land in my mother’s home state of Idaho in late July. Idaho has a trigger ban on abortions with exceptions for rape and incest that is expected to go into effect just days after I arrive.
Essentially, I will be returning to the U.S. with fewer rights to my own bodily autonomy than I had when I left two months earlier.
Living in a post-Roe world
Spending my summer in Paris as a tourist-intern hybrid has been an exhausting dream, but my dream has suddenly become memorable for an entirely different reason.
Last weekend, I watched through the lens of Instagram posts as many of my friends mobilized with protests against our most basic rights being taken away. I happened to be scrolling through the photos and videos, the anger and tears, from a gorgeous beach getaway on the coast of Normandy. I went boating; I collected seashells; I snapped pictures as the most picturesque rainbow spread across the sky; I watched the sunset over the water. I somehow found a moment of peace that I can only imagine is pretty hard to find right now back home.
I now have a month to process what living in a post-Roe world means before I enter it. One more month of living in a country — however temporary — where abortion is still legally protected, everywhere, without a patchwork of state laws to navigate.
France legalized abortion in 1975, two years after the U.S. did, and will have it for quite a while longer. Since Roe was overturned, the French government has already begun to mobilize to enshrine the right to abortion in its constitution. There has been talk about trying to somehow codify abortion rights in the U.S., but at the moment I have little faith our government will see it through. The Supreme Court decision is with us for years to come. The jokes I’ve been making about staying in France have taken on a whole new meaning.
Going back in more ways than one
The weight of what is happening in America right now is daunting. As I watch my friends take to the streets in the States while I ride the metro to work, I can’t help but feel the smallest twinge of guilt, irrational though it might be, that I am not at home.
I will relish my last moments of living as a guest in a country that respects its women’s right to choose. I will also be sure to soak up the singular beauty of this city and eat as many crêpes as I can. Then I will head to Charles de Gaulle airport to board a plane that will take me home, 3,000 miles across the Atlantic — and 50 years back in time.
— McKenna Johnson
• 19 civilians killed by Russian missiles in Odessa region: 19 civilians were killed and 38 Injured in the village of Serhiyivka, in Ukraine’s southern Odessa region, as Russian missiles hit a nine-story residential building and a holiday resort overnight.
• Xi Jinping celebrates Hong Kong handover ceremony: Chinese President Xi Jinping made his first trip to Hong Kong in two years to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Britain returning the city to China. This was the occasion for the president to defend China’s “one country two systems” principle and increased control over Hong Kong, saying it should be preserved in the long term.
• Supreme Court restricts the EPA’s power: The U.S. Supreme Court voted to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating fossil-fuel companies and states’ carbon emissions. The same day, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in as a replacement of liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, which will not change the conservative majority of 6 to 3.
• Israel’s new interim prime minister: Israel’s foreign minister and centrist party leader Yair Lapid has become the country’s interim prime minister following the dissolution of parliament. He will occupy this position until Israel’s fifth election in three years on November 1.
• Machu Picchu threatened by wildfires: Peruvian firefighters are having difficulty stopping a wildfire near the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu in the Andean mountains due to the area’s remoteness. The fire was started on Tuesday by farmers preparing to sow crops and had burnt 49 acres by Wednesday.
• North Korea blames COVID on “unusual items”: North Korean authorities have blamed the recent COVID-19 outbreak in the country on “unusual items” brought by the wind and “balloons” through their border with South Korea. For years, activists have sent humanitarian aid and leaflets by balloons across the border.
• Ecuador government and Indigenous leaders reach deal: Following 18 days of violent protests against the rising cost of living, leaders from the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities have obtained that the government would cut fuel prices and increase the monthly aid to the poorest inhabitants.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz devotes its frontpage to Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid who has become interim Prime Minister for four months after the Parliament — or Knesset — was dissolved. Lapid replaces Naftali Bennett, while former longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plots his return ahead of November elections.
3,328 km
The Tour de France kicks off today in Copenhagen with a 3,328 km-long race that includes 21 stages in Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland and France. The world’s most famous cycling race, which includes 176 athletes this year, will end on July 24 on the Champs-Elysées in Paris.
Return to clay: Why an ancient building material is back in fashion
Concrete and glass are often thought of as the only building materials of modern architecture. But Francis Diébédo Kéré, the first African winner of a prestigious Pritzker architecture prize, works with clay, whose sustainability is not the only benefit, reports Clara Le Fort in French daily Les Echos.
🌱 "Clay is fascinating. It has this unique grain and is both beautiful and soft. It soothes; it contributes to well-being..." Francis Diébédo Kéré, the first African to be awarded the prestigious Pritzker Prize last March, is paying tribute to clay. It's a material that he adores, which has too often been shunned and attributed to modest constructions and peasant houses. Diébédo Kéré has always wanted to celebrate “earthen architecture”: buildings made out of clay. It's a technique that has been used for at least 10,000 years.
🏰 This architecture, mainly associated with underdeveloped countries, was widespread throughout urban and rural Europe, until the 20th century: among the French rural housing built before 1914, and still standing, 15% are made from this material. Palaces, fortifications, entire cities, mosques, cultural landscapes and archeological sites constructed in raw clay are still standing nowadays.
🌡️ Although it is no longer fully appreciated, earthen architecture, including brick, has all the qualities needed: aesthetic, economic, structural and environmental. "This technique does not require any firing and is environmentally friendly as it does not emit any CO2. It also allows for natural insulation of the building: cool inside when it is hot outside, and vice versa, the porous earth regulates the temperature, which remains constant," chief architect Papa Omotayo says.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
"There is no reason to change such a good system.”
— In a speech to mark Hong Kong’s 25th handover anniversary, China’s President Xi Jinping defended his “One country, two systems” principle of governance that gives Hong Kong its own laws and legislations and whose objective is to protect the sovereignty of the country and its security. Xi Jinping added “it must remain for a long time” as it is a success under Beijing’s “comprehensive jurisdiction.” The former colony returned to China in 1997.
Tokyo citizens shield themselves from the heat as Japan faces its worst heat wave ever recorded. This week, temperatures rose to 40.2 °C in the city of Isesaki, northeast of the capital. — Photo: Rodrigo Reyes Marin/ZUMA
✍️ Newsletter by McKenna Johnson, Lila Paulou, Lisa Berdet and Anne-Sophie Goninet
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