Every week, “Hi news!” deciphers the news for 7-11 year olds, a podcast produced by franceinfo and the magazine Astrapi.
This week, Ingrid zooms in on Valentine’s Day, the feast of lovers. For those who don’t know how to declare their flame, several cities like Paris or Vesoul offer residents the opportunity to display their words of love in large format on their luminous panels. “It will make us smile and pep up when we see all these testimonials”, comments our guest who is called… Valentine! In Craon, in Mayenne, college students have launched a declaration contest on Instagram. The most “liked” will be rewarded with a voucher to spend in the shops of their city. And yes, Valentine’s Day is also a commercial holiday.
This episode evokes the crisis in Ukraine. Many Russian soldiers, about 100,000 according to Ukraine, have arrived at the borders of this neighboring country in recent months. Russia assures that it is only for military exercises, but several other countries including France fear that these soldiers will end up invading Ukraine, and this risk of war is causing an international crisis. But why would Russia want to attack Ukraine? On the one hand, these two countries were a long time ago part of a single larger country, the USSR, and since the USSR no longer exists, Russia continues to want to keep control over its Ukrainian neighbor.
There was already a war in a region of Ukraine, Crimea, in 2014. Russia invaded this region and the fighting left more than 13,000 dead. So to protect itself in the future, Ukraine wants to join the United States in NATO, a military alliance between 29 countries, of which France is a member. “If Ukraine joins NATO, Russia, it will no longer really be able to wage war because there are other countries that will intervene”, emphasizes Valentine. Exactly ! But that, Russia does not accept because it sees NATO as a threat. We will see in the coming days and weeks if the diplomatic discussions bear fruit…
This Monday, February 14, is Valentine’s Day… And by the way, what is love? Marina Cabiten has put her heart into it to gather the opinions of many children and concoct a touching and enlightening 100% love file.
We discover different definitions of love, it is for example “when we make kisses on the mouth” because yes, love happens in the head but also in the body. When you fall in love, there are signs that do not deceive. Love is also a state that transforms us, that makes us grow wings. Well, love is not just happy feelings… Negative emotions and arguments are also part of the game… Ups and downs, love is like life! And ultimately the most difficult thing when you’re in love is perhaps to say it. Long live love with a capital A!
Anna, 7, confides on the show’s answering machine. She asks for advice, she has a friend at school who asks her to be in love with him when she isn’t. In the section “We tell each other everything”, Salut L’info answers him. The children’s jokes are always there. They can leave it for us on the show’s answering machine on 01 47 79 40 00.
And Clémentine, 11, shares with us her crush on the romantic songs of singer-songwriter Vianney. “He’s gentle, he can have a very fine voice that lasts a long time and he can also go very strong and go very high. He talks a lot about love in his songs. I like his song Beau papa because he has become himself. I find that he often tells the truth”, confides the schoolgirl. His latest album is called Don’t wait (Sooner or later).
Good listening !
“Salut l’info” was concocted for you this week by:
Ingrid Pohu, Agathe Guilhem, Pauline Pennanec’h and Rémi Chaurand in production
Marina Cabiten and Marion Joseph as editors
Philippe Baudouin directing
Cherif Bitelmadji on mixing