Should we be worried about a plague outbreak in Russia?

PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, October 6: The death of a researcher in Siberia, reportedly from the plague, sparks concern despite Russian authorities' denial. But first: French high school protesters are promising "Act 3" of their protest movement against learning conditions. Also, Le Monde speaks to the editor of Russian independent outlet Novaya Gazeta ahead of the 20th anniversary of the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Finally, it appears that butter is back in fashion.

French high schoolers are promising "Act 3" of their protest movement and there is great concern in the press about how it is going to unfold. French left-wing daily Libération worries about the police crackdown on the high schoolers. It calls on police to "act with discretion". The Communist paper L'Humanité evokes the "rage of student protesters". In its editorial, the paper pays tribute to a generation who have grown up with social anxiety: they learned to read with soldiers patrolling their schools in 2015 (due to terror attacks), they hit puberty during the social distancing years of Covid-19 and they are finishing school amid two wars and rising inflation. The right-wing paper L'Opinion, however, is less sympathetic. It expresses concern about how violent the protests will become and says the student movement has "no instruction manual", calling it "a movement that has been, up to now, volatile, violent and unable to be controlled by the government."

The movement is garnering a lot of interest in Europe too. The British daily The Times says the French government is "bewildered" by the anger and fury of the high school students. The conservative daily quotes a Paris school principal as saying that in 20 years she has seen strikes, blockades and protests, but never as violent as what is happening now. Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine explains the movement by France's economic woes, which were exacerbated by the 2024 dissolution of parliament and by the emergence of artificial intelligence while Le Soir, the Belgian daily, reports that the movement is starting to spread to Belgium as well. Students in Liège told the paper that they too want to fight against a "sick" educational system.

Meanwhile, authorities in Russia are playing down fears after a researcher in Siberia died of the plague. Time magazine reports that dozens of people have been quarantined and outbreak control measures are underway at the Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia. A 28-year-old lab worker known as Darya Shipilova died in unknown circumstances. A local report says she died after being exposed to the plague via a broken test tube, but those reports are no longer available online. Local authorities say there is no evidence to support this. But experts have been quick to play down fears of an outbreak. The Times of London explains that the pneumonic plague can be spread through close contact and is dangerous if untreated. However, it can be managed with antibiotics and outbreaks can be controlled if cases are caught early and isolated and treatments are respected.

We stay in Russia for our next story. Wednesday marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was assassinated in Moscow on October 7, 2006. As Le Monde notes, Politkovskaya was killed for "understanding Putin before anyone else did". Her reporting from Chechnya foreshadowed the war in Ukraine. The paper interviews Dmitry Muratov, the founder of the independent Russian media outlet Novaya Gazeta, where Politkovskaya worked. He notes that her belongings are still in the office, including a yellowed copy of the Russian penal code opened to the last page she had consulted before her death. For Muratov, her death was clearly orchestrated by the Russian government.

Finally, it appears that butter is back in fashion, at least according to the Guardian. Here in France, butter was never out of fashion but elsewhere, butter is enjoying a renaissance right now: from butter sculptures, to a quest for a butter sommelier, to after-dinner "butter and crackers". This summer, a young entrepreneur opened Le Butter in Paris, a shop dedicated to 50 different varieties of butter. An Egyptian American artist has carved fragments of Michelangelo's David out of butter. Butter is back – butter late than never!

You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.