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Dette record, hyperactivité diplomatique, promesses migratoires en demi-teinte… Retour sur les 100 premiers jours de Friedrich Merz à la tête de la première économie de l'UE.

The post Les 100 premiers jours du chancelier allemand Friedrich Merz  appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Le dirigeant français cite les figures emblématiques de l'indépendance qui ont été tuées lors d'opérations militaires menées par les forces françaises.

La Commission européenne prépare une révision de la législation sur les pratiques commerciales déloyales pour empêcher les agriculteurs de vendre à un prix inférieur au coût de production.

The post Pratiques commerciales déloyales : la Commission prépare un renforcement des règles pour le secteur agricole en 2026 appeared first on Euractiv FR.

The campaign allows players who lose their lives in-game to give up their friends up to eight extra lives – mirroring the fact that one organ donor can save up to eight lives in real life

Der ungarische Ministerpräsident Viktor Orbán hat am Dienstag erklärt, Russland habe den Krieg in der Ukraine gewonnen – nur wenige Tage bevor US-Präsident Donald Trump am Freitag zu einem Treffen mit Wladimir Putin zusammenkommt.

The last two major cities held by Kyiv in the region are also at risk. They are Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, which is an important logistical hub for the front.

Direct train plans have repeatedly derailed over tunnel safety rules, UK border checks, and station security hurdles

EU leaders stressed on Tuesday "the inherent right of Ukraine to choose its own destiny" and that "international borders must not be changed by force"

Tensions have escalated between the two countries since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022

It represents Europe's first contribution to a US-led programme, the Joint Polar System, a new satellite constellation orbiting between the north and south poles

Europe’s image as a principled, reliable, rules-based actor is being destroyed – not by autocratic Russia or adversaries with dictatorial regimes, but by its own refusal to enforce international law when the perpetrator is an ally.

La Commission européenne a clarifié mardi 12 août les définitions et les exemptions prévues dans son règlement anti-déforestation, tout en maintenant le calendrier de mise en œuvre.

The post Déforestation : la Commission actualise ses lignes directrices appeared first on Euractiv FR.

BBC Sport Africa analyse les troubles liés au surnombre, les graves manquements à la sécurité et les problèmes de billetterie rencontrés lors du Championnat d'Afrique des Nations au Kenya.

La BBC suit la situation et les souffrances d'un certain nombre de Palestiniens qui ont perdu des membres pendant la guerre qui se poursuit à Gaza, et met en lumière l'industrie des prothèses dans le secteur, qui a été touchée pendant la guerre.

Situation inédite, les développeurs européens de jeux vidéo ont vu leurs revenus diminuer en 2023, alors même que le secteur poursuit sa croissance sur le continent, selon un rapport de la Fédération européenne des développeurs de jeux (EGDF).

The post Le marché européen des jeux vidéo poursuit sa croissance, mais les revenus des développeurs baissent  appeared first on Euractiv FR.

While Orbán casts the outcome as settled, other European leaders want the US president to harden his stance towards Moscow ahead of the Alaska talks

The report sent a "chilling message" that the United States will overlook abuses if doing so suits its political agenda, Amnesty International USA said

Credit: Stella_E/Getty Images

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Aug 13 2025 (IPS)

When Kenita Placide co-founded United and Strong, St Lucia’s first LGBTQI+ organisation in 2001, death threats were routine. Over the years, several friends were murdered for being gay. But 24 years on, Kenita’s Caribbean island nation has become the latest to overturn a colonial legacy that criminalised LGBTQI+ people.

On 29 July, the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court – a St Lucia-based regional court that serves nine countries and territories – declared sections 132 and 133 of St Lucia’s Criminal Code unconstitutional, effectively decriminalising consensual same-sex sexual activity. This made St Lucia the fifth Caribbean country in four years to achieve this legal breakthrough through the courts.

St Lucia’s victory demonstrates that civil society can keep making gains even in largely regressive times. It offers fresh hope for LGBTQI+ activists in the six countries of the Americas that criminalise same-sex relations: Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago.

Colonial laws, contemporary resistance

All the criminalising countries in the Americas are part of the Commonwealth Caribbean, where the prohibition of consensual same-sex sexual activity remains an enduring legacy of British colonial rule.

Following independence in 1979, St Lucia retained criminal provisions that punished ‘buggery’ and ‘gross indecency’. Rather than liberalising these laws, a 2004 amendment expanded criminalisation to include sex between women, with jail sentences ranging from five to 10 years.

While prosecutions have been rare in recent decades, these laws have fostered stigma, legitimised prejudice and contributed to discrimination and violence against LGBTQI+ people. They’ve hindered access to essential services, particularly healthcare, and denied LGBTQI+ people full legal protection. Civil society has documented numerous instances of verbal harassment, physical abuse and discrimination in workplaces and public spaces.

The tide began to turn over the past decade. The Commonwealth Caribbean’s first public Pride event was held in Jamaica in 2015, marking the growing visibility of the LGBTQI+ movement. Laws began to change, starting with a successful court challenge in Belize in 2016.

Civil society’s strategic litigation

The legal challenge in St Lucia was spearheaded by the Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality, founded by Kenita in 2016, and United and Strong, which evolved from an HIV/AIDS organisation into a human rights group documenting abuses, advocating for reforms and providing essential services.

Together, they brought the case as part of a Caribbean litigation strategy launched in 2019, filing challenges in four Eastern Caribbean countries – Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis and St Lucia – plus Barbados, which has its own court system. The lawsuit argued that virtually identical criminal provisions violated constitutional rights to privacy, equality and liberty. Positive rulings came for Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados and St Kitts and Nevis in 2022, while a separate legal challenge succeeded in Dominica in 2024.

St Lucia’s ruling was particularly significant given recent setbacks, including the recriminalisation of consensual same-sex relations in Trinidad and Tobago in March, reversing a 2018 court ruling, and the dismissal of challenges to anti-gay laws in St Vincent and the Grenadines last year.

The road ahead: from decriminalisation to equality

Legal reforms are still needed. While the 2006 Labour Code prohibits workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and the 2022 Domestic Violence Act protects same-sex couples from abuse, significant gaps remain in housing and public services protection.

Future civil society advocacy is expected to focus on broader legal protections, marriage equality, adoption rights, recognition of non-binary genders, gender change procedures and banning harmful practices such as conversion therapy. But conservative religious groups, which hold significant sway in many Caribbean societies, are expected to resist further advances, which they frame as threats to traditional values. Experiences in Dominica and elsewhere suggest that backlash is likely.

Evidence indicates laws are moving faster than public opinion. St Lucia now ranks 154th out of 198 countries on Equaldex’s Equality Index, which rates countries according to their LGBTQI+ friendliness. But the index shows a significant gap between limited legal protections and broadly negative social attitudes, with legal rights scoring 46 out of 100 while public opinion lags at just 17 out of 100.

While governments and courts can advance recognition of LGBTQI+ rights through legislative and judicial reforms, deep-seated social prejudices may remain. Activists face a double challenge: pursuing legal victories while simultaneously engaging in the slower, more complex work of changing attitudes. Without this parallel effort, legal protections may fail to translate into genuine equality in daily life, leaving LGBTQI+ people formally protected but still vulnerable.

St Lucia’s LGBTQI+ rights activists still have much work ahead, but their approach – combining grassroots organising, strategic litigation, regional coordination and decades of persistence – offers a blueprint for others striving for rights. It proves that even in conservative contexts, civil society can achieve change by building coalitions and persisting over time. St Lucia has just offered fresh hope to embattled activists elsewhere in the Caribbean, and around the world.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

 

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