Rachida Dati s’est déclarée favorable aux mesures proposées par la commission chargée de réviser l’ordonnance de 45, relative à la justice des mineurs, et notamment à l’idée de ramener à 12 ans l’âge auquel pourront être appliquées des sanctions pénales, dont éventuellement une mise en détention dans le cas d’un crime.

À lire sur Lemonde.fr :  La prison à 12 ans, une mesure de “bon sens”, pour Rachida Dati

L’Affaire des affaires sera un des albums incontournables de janvier 2009. Et pour cause, tout ce qui parle de près ou loin l’Affaire Clearstream est décortiqué par la presse, la classe politique sans oublier les adeptes du “tous pourris”. Surtout que cette adaptation en bande dessinée de la vie du journaliste d’investigation Denis Robert est chapeautée directement par l’intéressé, aidé au scénario par Yan Lindingre.

Les éditions Dargaud viennent de mettre en ligne les 6 premières pages du premier volet qui en comptera 200, dessinées par Laurent Astier, auteur d’Aven et Cellule Poison. On y découvre un Jacques Chirac à 200 à l’heure – ça nous change – et des personnalités clefs de l’affaire Clearstream comme un Dominique de Villepin taillé au couteau ou un Nicolas Sarkozy surexcité – là, ça change pas. À en croire ces premières pages et la fameuse phrase du “croc de boucher” lancée par le ministre de l’Intérieur d’alors, le scénario risque d’être ponctué d’anecdotes, en plus d’un aspect pédagogique mis en avant par l’éditeur. Les auteurs devraient ainsi s’étendre sur les arcanes des banques offshores ou des paradis fiscaux.

Avec son côté thriller politique, L’Affaire des affaires devrait autant séduire les amateurs de polar que les passionnés de BD reportage. À moins que ce ne soit les fans de Jean-Jacques Beineix, persuadés d’y voir là une suite à la mémorable Affaire du siècle.




Les images sont © Dargaud-Robert-Lindingre-Astier.

When the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe gazed into the heavens on November 11, 1572, he witnessed one of the defining events in the history of his science.

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The Speaker of the House of Commons expressed regret over the police raid on Damian Green’s office yesterday – and blamed officials for failing to tell him that they did not have a warrant.

Immigrants who make little effort to integrate into society will wait longer before they can become British citizens under changes to citizenship rules.

Nature reserves designed to provide safe havens for marine wildlife are to be created as part of legislation announced yesterday.

A threadbare Christmas tree, dubbed the worst in Britain, is to be replaced.

A police officer filmed last year striking a black woman outside a nightclub died on Snowdon after taking sleeping tablets, an inquest was told.

A bottle of whisky recovered from the wreck of a ship that inspired the film Whisky Galore! was sold at auction for £2,200 to a teenager fascinated by its story. The bottle of Ballantine Scotch was one of about 240,000 that sank with the SS Politician in the Outer Hebrides in 1941. For weeks the islanders celebrated on the spirits they had looted from the wreck, hiding the bottles from government officials. The incident inspired a novel by Compton Mackenzie and the 1949 Ealing comedy film. The bottle was sold at Gorringes auctioneers in Lewes, East Sussex, to the family of Tam Burt, an 18-year-old student, from Dollar, Clackmannanshire. He said: “I like to drink whisky but this one will stay untouched.”

Ornithologists have instigated a search for “Europe’s dodo” but admitted that the bird may already be extinct. Slender-billed curlews, common in the 19th century, have fallen into an apparently terminal decline.

The world’s oldest living animal has been identified as Jonathan the tortoise after a photograph of him was discovered among a collection of Boer War scenes.

A new type of pterosaur has been identified from a squashed fossil that was almost ruined when car body filler was used to hold it in place.

Older drivers are six times more likely to be fined for speeding than a decade ago, according to a study which also reveals that young motorists have adapted far better to the increased use of speed cameras.

The biggest worry for ministers now is what to do when, not if, a big-name manufacturing or services company goes bust. In the 1970s the answer would have been vast taxpayer subsidies, almost regardless of the company’s prospects, as we saw with car companies such as BL, British Shipbuilders or the Meriden motorcycle cooperative. That will not happen now. The word “bailout” is banished in Whitehall.

The Serious Fraud Office suffered a huge defeat yesterday with the collapse of its £25 million, six-year investigation into alleged price fixing among drugs manufacturers.

Homeowners who lose their jobs or suffer a severe drop in earnings are to be allowed to defer their mortgage interest payments for up to two years, Gordon Brown announced yesterday.

Sales of electric cars have fallen by more than half this year, according to figures released two days after the Government’s climate change advisory body predicted a huge increase.

Blizzards and snowdrifts threaten to disrupt rail services and motorways today as heavy snow and high winds make milder winters seem a distant memory.

A year and a half on from his seventh and final adventure, Harry Potter mania has erupted again. J. K. Rowling’s latest book The Tales of Beedle the Bard went on sale early this morning, forcing thousands of parents out of bed and into frostbitten queues outside bookshops long before dawn.

The last Serjeant at Arms, Peter Grant Peterkin, left his job after finding it impossible to work with the Speaker, Michael Martin. Last night Jill Pay was heading the same way after Mr Martin blamed her for sanctioning a police raid on Parliament. The Speaker made clear to MPs he was shocked that Mrs Pay had consented to the raid without a warrant.

Apple’s iTunes music store faced a new challenger yesterday as Amazon introduced a rival online MP3 service with knockdown prices.

Eight million people on lower incomes will receive 50p from the Government for every £1 they save under a new scheme to encourage savings.

It sounds like a dream ticket for homeowners: the chance to take a two-year holiday from interest repayments on a mortgage. But as always with government initiatives rushed out in haste the devil is in the detail. In the case of the new homeowner mortgage support scheme, what we know about the detail is extremely scant, raising suspicions that it may not be the “get out of jail free” card that struggling homeowners will hope.

Banks that mistreat their customers could be fined and have assets frozen under plans to put the voluntary banking codes on to a statutory footing.

Boris Johnson was accused yesterday of undermining the investigation into Home Office leaks when he declared that he did not think there would be any charges.

It is hard to believe that Damian Green, the rather hapless MP for Ashford, has become a celebrity but, after yesterday, who can doubt it? He sat there, free at last, head bowed, arms crossed, legs jiggling up and down. It was supposed to be the Queen’s day, but it was Damian’s day instead. If he has done nothing else, Mr Green is most surely guilty of stealing the Queen’s limelight.

Gordon Brown’s rabbit out of the hat to give homeowners who lose their jobs a mortgage holiday on loans of up to £400,000 caught bankers and borrowers by surprise yesterday and raised many more questions than the Treasury could ans