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January 18, 2026

Microsoft’s AI deal promises Canada digital sovereignty, but is that a pledge it can keep?

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Blayne Haggart, Associate Professor of Political Science, Brock University

Over the past year, few words have been abused as much as “sovereignty,” particularly in relation to Canadian digital policy and artificial intelligence. In early December, Microsoft promised to invest more than $7.5 billion over the next two years to build “new digital and AI infrastructure” in Canada. This investment is backed by a pledge that it will “stand up to defend” Canadian digital sovereignty.

Framing the investment in terms of protecting Canadian sovereignty isn’t incidental. Politically, countries are increasingly worried that tech companies based in the United States are vulnerable to pressure from the increasingly authoritarian government of President Donald Trump to turn over foreign citizens’ data, trade secrets, emails and any activity or metadata produced on their systems to the U.S. government.

If you’re wondering how investments in essential digital infrastructure from a U.S. company can help protect Canadian sovereignty, you’re not alone. It can’t and it won’t, for the simple reason that Microsoft — and other tech companies based in or that do business in the United States — are promising something that’s beyond their control to deliver.

Data sovereignty

Sovereignty, in its simplest terms, refers to the ability of a state to control what happens within its borders and what crosses those borders. It has other aspects, such as whether a state is recognized by other states, but at heart it’s about control.

In June 2025 testimony before a French Senate committee examining the issue of government procurement and digital sovereignty, Microsoft France’s director of public and legal affairs, Anton Carniaux, was asked if he could guarantee under oath that data could not be transmitted to the U.S. government without the French government’s approval. He replied: “No, I cannot guarantee that, but, again, it has never happened before.”

Carniaux’s response reminds us that the U.S., through its 2018 CLOUD Act, has claimed the right to exercise control over data collected by U.S. companies, even if it’s stored outside the country. In other words, American law explicitly requires that U.S. law takes precedence over other countries’ laws.

This is a clear infringement of any definition of sovereignty in terms of control. In response, Microsoft has promised to write “into contracts that Microsoft will challenge any government demand for Canadian data where it has legal grounds to.”

While meant to sound reassuring, Microsoft’s promise is less than it appears. Not only does their commitment leave it up to Microsoft and U.S. courts to determine the validity of any demand, but the law itself is only half of the problem.

Mass surveillance

The mass illegal surveillance of global communications by U.S. intelligence agencies, revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, was abetted by American tech companies. The U.S. National Security Agency collected vast amounts of data on people around the world, including non-American citizens, by tapping into internet firm servers.

American companies are uniquely beholden to pressure from the U.S. government. They depend on the government to negotiate favourable international agreements, and also as a major purchaser of their goods and services.

As research by York University criminology professor Natasha Tusikov has shown, the U.S. also engages in “shadow regulation,” putting pressure on private companies to fulfil government objectives that go beyond what’s required by law — even, as Tusikov discusses, pursuing policies that have been explicitly rejected by democratically elected legislatures.

All that happened before the Trump era. And given his clear contempt for the principle of sovereignty and American tech companies’ close ties with the government, U.S. abuse of the non-American data held by its tech companies is certainly a possibility.

Carney government vague about sovereignty

As misleading as Microsoft’s promises may be, it’s the Canadian government that’s playing the loosest with digital sovereignty talk. Prime Minister Mark Carney arguably won the federal election on his promise to protect Canadian sovereignty against a rapacious United States.

While the prime minister has promised a “Canadian sovereign cloud,” it is unclear what exactly this means. Evan Solomon, Canada’s minister in charge of promoting AI, has expressed openness to including U.S. companies like OpenAI (a Microsoft partner) in Canada’s sovereign cloud, indicating that it could include “hybrid models” with “multiple players.”

Solomon has also argued that “sovereignty does not mean solitude … we can’t look at AI as a walled-off garden. Like, ‛Oh, we cannot ever take money from X or Y.’”

It’s true that sovereignty is never absolute. The real world is much messier than a world divided into neat, discrete packages that the principle of territorial sovereignty implies. No community or state is fully self-sufficient.

We live in a global world of economic and social connections. Global governance involves a mix of domestic laws, international agreements and formal and informal cross-border working relationships. Countries benefit when they can draw on expertise and resources they lack at home.

But Microsoft’s and Solomon’s comments elide the deeper issue that come from focusing too much on abstract notions like “sovereignty.” Canada’s problem isn’t a loss of Canadian sovereignty in the abstract. It’s a U.S. that has violated Venezuela’s sovereignty, threatened others (including Canada) with annexation and is led by a president who has declared himself above international law.

Reasserting control

Sovereignty is about control. In the digital era, power lies with those who control the software and the data. Canada’s problem is that American companies control enormous swaths of Canada’s essential digital infrastructure, including emerging AI technologies and cloud services, but also email and the increasingly networked office software that underpin our entire society.

There’s a reason why France and Germany are collaborating on an alternative to Google Docs.

So long as the U.S cannot be trusted to respect domestic and international laws, companies based or working in the U.S are vulnerable to political pressure. This could potentially include capturing Canadians’ data for political and economic reasons, and cutting off our access to their products or limiting their functionality.

These hard facts about control, rather than abstract musings about sovereignty, should be our starting points for discussions about Canadian digital policy.

Blayne Haggart has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Microsoft’s AI deal promises Canada digital sovereignty, but is that a pledge it can keep? – https://theconversation.com/microsofts-ai-deal-promises-canada-digital-sovereignty-but-is-that-a-pledge-it-can-keep-272890

January 18, 2026

Nowhere to stay: Canada needs a rights and responsibility approach to international student housing

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Zhixi Zhuang, Associate Professor, School of Urban and Regional Planning, Toronto Metropolitan University

International students in Canada are vulnerable to housing insecurity and exploitation in the rental market.

Across Canada, students are grappling with record-high rents, low vacancy rates and widespread housing shortages. International students, however, experience these pressures in uniquely severe and unequal ways.

Many of them are unfamiliar with local rental markets and have small social networks. As well, they often have limited knowledge of their rights and often face uncertain immigration and financial situations.

As a result, international students are especially vulnerable to rental discrimination, housing insecurity, financial exploitation and even homelessness.

Ongoing research I’m conducting with colleagues highlights the responsibilities of governments and institutions who are obligated to uphold the housing rights of international students. Researchers have included Rupa Banerjee, Mariam (Mo) El Toukhy, Jack Krywulak and Rushde Akbar from Toronto Metropolitan University, and Sandeep Agrawal and Pradeep Sangapala from the University of Alberta.

This research examines the accountability measures and actions governments and institutions must take to ensure students’ rights are preserved using the Rights and Responsibility framework developed by researcher Kathryn Sikkink.

Based on our preliminary findings, grounded partly in interviews with
students as well as research dialogue at a housing symposium, we offer urgent recommendations.

Housing is human right

Housing is widely recognized as a basic human right. Yet, international students often lack protection when securing safe and affordable housing.

They are also unfairly blamed for worsening Canada’s housing crisis.

Across the Global North, the lack of accessible and affordable housing has put international students at risk of housing insecurity. While financial instability is one main cause, many students also experience exploitation.

This includes overcrowded housing, rent hikes, forced evictions, illegal upfront rent payments, rental scams and harassment from landlords.

These negative housing experiences are linked to growing mental distress. Many students struggle to meet basic daily needs, such as food and shelter, and they face barriers to social integration. These vulnerabilities put international students at risk of psychological, academic and financial stress.

Limited support regarding tenant rights

International students also frequently report discrimination based on their status, race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. These challenges are worsened by the limited support higher education institutions provide regarding tenant rights or finding safe, stable long-term housing.

Canada formally acknowledges housing as a basic human right under the National Housing Strategy Act of 2019. Through this legislation, the federal government has committed to ensuring that everyone in Canada has access to adequate housing. For international students, this means the right to live in safe, secure, affordable and adequate conditions.

But many international students are denied this right. Unfairly high rent, unsafe living conditions and discrimination often leave them living in severely inadequate conditions, all while being scapegoated for Canada’s growing housing pressures.

Root causes

In January 2024, the federal government capped international student visas to approximately 360,000. The 2025 budget also proposes cutting study permits by over half within three years.

Rather than addressing the longstanding housing crisis, this approach wrongly shifts blame onto international students, further marginalizing them and risking lasting harm to their health, academic success and future careers.

Current housing policies are outdated and lack intergovernmental co-ordination. This has worsened the country’s housing crisis by creating regulatory bottlenecks, misaligned incentives, inadequate development of affordable housing and insufficient co-ordination among stakeholders across sectors.

Government policies affecting student housing are complex and fragmented. They involve overlapping jurisdictions, including federal immigration decisions (like visa caps), provincial education mandates (such as student recruitment goals) and municipal zoning rules that regulate student housing development.

Not addressing housing needs

Canada’s National International Education Strategy (2019–24) incentivized universities and colleges to boost international student enrolment through grants tied to tuition revenue.

Institutional dependence on these fees grew, but the strategy was not accompanied by housing funding. Similarly, provinces regulate only domestic tuition, allowing institutions to maximize their reliance on international fees without addressing housing needs.

At the municipal level, zoning bylaws have also acted as barriers to student housing.

All levels of government should create formal avenues for collaboration on housing issues, while higher education institutions should play a key role in leading student housing development.

There is a clear need for co-ordinated action to address the policy, infrastructure and human rights dimensions of these challenges. Existing research rarely examines the role of multisectoral partnerships — or how key stakeholders, such as governments, higher education institutions, housing developers and community organizations should collaborate.

Research with students, stakeholders

We conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 international students from 14 countries, representing 10 higher education institutions from across southern Ontario — as well as with two private and non-profit housing developers, two student housing providers and one higher education representative.

Drawing on interview insights, we conducted an online survey with nearly 1,800 Ontario and Alberta international and domestic students.

Our findings echo recent studies showing that limited institutional services and resources, combined with poor governmental policy co-ordination, have left international students disproportionately vulnerable to exploitation and discrimination in housing markets.

Many turn to digital platforms, such as Facebook Marketplace, Kijiji and other rental agencies, in addition to social media, for housing information and resources. However, as several students from Nigeria, China and Cambodia reported, many online housing options are scams, including listings with false information and demands for six to 12 months of rent paid upfront. There is clearly an urgent need for safer and more reliable digital student housing infrastructure.

In the survey, international students reported greater stress during their housing search, heightened financial anxiety and more negative housing experiences compared to their domestic counterparts.

Key takeaways

International students’ lived experiences must be central to multi-level interventions. Their perspectives should be prioritized in shaping future housing policies and services.
Higher education institutions are in the best position to provide pre-/post-arrival online resources and guides to support international students in navigating safe and appropriate housing and protecting their housing rights.
Social integration and connections with the wider community help shape students’ well-being. Universities and colleges should facilitate opportunities for civic participation and community building through both on-campus and off-campus housing arrangements. This requires engaging community organizations and non-governmental organizations in building long-term partnerships focused on shared housing, digital infrastructure, legal protection and rights advocacy.
The fragmentation between immigration, education and housing policies requires special co-ordination. This project calls for an intergovernmental student housing task force as a platform for federal, provincial and municipal governments to work in tandem with universities and colleges.
Student housing developments should be incentivized, as current housing approval processes are often lengthy, complex and inconsistent. Fast-track reviews and standardized guidelines are needed. Current zoning regulations in many jurisdictions primarily recognize higher education institutions as legitimate student housing developers, requiring other private or non-profit developers to seek zoning amendments or institutional partnerships.

These rules should be expanded to allow private and non-profit developers, multi-tenant buildings and the reuse of commercial or office spaces. Student housing should also be developed near campuses with shared space designs to help students connect socially.

International students contribute significantly to Canada’s culture, prosperity and global standing. Urgent action is needed to protect these students’ rights and well-being while fostering community cohesion and long-term sustainability.

Zhixi Zhuang receives funding from Migrant Integration in the Mid-21st Century: Bridging Divides, a research program funded by the Government of Canada through the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF).

– ref. Nowhere to stay: Canada needs a rights and responsibility approach to international student housing – https://theconversation.com/nowhere-to-stay-canada-needs-a-rights-and-responsibility-approach-to-international-student-housing-267080

January 18, 2026

Microsoft’s AI deal promises Canada digital sovereignty, but is that a pledge they can keep?

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Blayne Haggart, Associate Professor of Political Science, Brock University

Data sovereignty

Mass surveillance

Carney government vague about sovereignty

Solomon has also argued that “sovereignty does not mean solitude … we can’t look at AI as a walled-off garden. Like, ‛Oh, we cannot ever take money from X or Y.’”

Reasserting control

There’s a reason why France and Germany are collaborating on an alternative to Google Docs.

These hard facts about control, rather than abstract musings about sovereignty, should be our starting points for discussions about Canadian digital policy.

Blayne Haggart has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Microsoft’s AI deal promises Canada digital sovereignty, but is that a pledge they can keep? – https://theconversation.com/microsofts-ai-deal-promises-canada-digital-sovereignty-but-is-that-a-pledge-they-can-keep-272890

January 18, 2026

What Iran’s latest protests tell us about power, memory and resistance

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Shirin Khayambashi, Assistant Professor, Sociology, Toronto Metropolitan University

For Iranians, the past year has meant contending with everyday necessities slipping further and further out of reach. The cost of living has surged beyond what many households can manage, and what felt like economic strain became an economic freefall.

On Dec. 28, 2025, the Iranian rial plummeted to a historic low of 1.4 million rials per American dollar. The unprecedented inflation ignited nationwide protests demanding economic stability.

The movement began with a peaceful sit-in at Tehran’s Grand Bazaar but was immediately met with violent response by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The grassroots initiative — made up of merchants, shopkeepers, university students and anti-regime members of the general public — expanded rapidly to other major cities, drawing protesters from across Iran to the streets. The call for economic stability quickly evolved into a political demand for emancipation and freedom.

Iranians have been expressing their dissatisfaction with the current regime for decades. And although the recent protests were initiated in response to the dire economic crisis, the country’s future will depend more on whether authoritarian repression and political fragmentation — both inside its borders and across the diaspora — can be overcome.

Violence, fear and the tools of repression

Political upheaval in Iran often follows a predictable cycle: the public participates in peaceful protests in response to corruption, which are then silenced by IRGC forces through the threat or use of violence, including arrests, indefinite prison sentences and mass executions.

In the recent political unrest, the IRGC used force to control, intimidate and silence protesters. Hospitals have reportedly been instructed to reject injured protesters or face consequences, and a new law has been introduced to classify any civil disobedience as a capital crime punishable by death.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian responded to the new citizen-driven movement with a similarly callous dismissal, referring to protesters as victims of western influence. This claim has been used to justify the nationwide digital blackout.

Iranians who relied on various social media platforms to raise awareness about government violence now encounter censorship. This digital silence also affects reporters inside Iran, limiting transparency and preventing unfiltered news from being distributed out of the country.

Monarchist narratives divide the movement

The grassroots movement, however, has been hijacked by a small faction of monarchists demanding the return of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the former shah, as the Shah of Iran. This suggestion has been met with criticism as many question both the dismissal of the real concerns of the movement inside Iran and the credibility of Pahlavi as the leader of a country in crisis.

Various groups in Iran have shown leadership and organization as they demand recognition and cultural autonomy from the government. Elevating an outside figure diminishes Iranians’ own role in driving change.

While the national protest movement requires direction and leadership, Pahlavi is seen as creating division rather than cohesion. Many argue that a return to monarchy would leave Iran in a weakened political state vulnerable to outside influences.

These concerns are tied to the 1953 coup d’état, orchestrated by the CIA and MI5, against Iran’s first democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. The shah, relying on support from the United States, removed Mossadegh from power, which strengthened the Shah’s unilateral authority.

Many political activists are wary of the dangers of a monarchy and the potential of imperialist influence over Iranian politics.

This is heightened by the fact that Pahlavi has openly requested support from U.S. President Donald Trump and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to reinstate him as the Shah of Iran. He held a news conference in Washington ⁠D.C. on Jan. 16 to call for political, economic and military ⁠pressure on Tehran.

Disapora politics and the cost of exclusion

Shared grief and solidarity have pushed the Iranian diaspora to raise awareness and speak out for their homeland.

During the digital blackout, they used various social media platforms to amplify information about the ongoing protests. Simultaneously, Iranians abroad physically joined the global movement by participating in rallies and marches across the world.

However, the movement within the diaspora has seen some challenges.

The domination of the monarchist movement as the primary opposition to the Islamic Republic has created a divide among the communities in the diaspora. The overall friction presented as a form of in-group Islamophobia and patriarchal attitudes that stem from classism within the community.

Divisive rhetoric has also resurfaced as criticism of Pahlavi, Trump or Israel is often met with hostility and name-calling.

During the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, the Iranian diaspora was more cohesive and welcoming to different perspectives.

But the current movement has become divided. An us-versus-them tension has developed in the diasporic community, as many perceive the movement as an expression of support for the monarchy. This divisive atmosphere has left many members of Iranian diasporas in a state of despair.

History suggests that moments of liberation in Iran do not fail for lack of courage, but for lack of political cohesion. The question now is whether the grassroots movement can sustain its momentum and legitimacy, and whether its demands won’t be overshadowed by external political frictions and agendas.

Shirin Khayambashi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What Iran’s latest protests tell us about power, memory and resistance – https://theconversation.com/what-irans-latest-protests-tell-us-about-power-memory-and-resistance-273432

January 18, 2026

Parcoursup : comment faire le « bon » choix d’orientation, ou le défi d’accompagner les lycéens

Source: The Conversation – France (in French) – By Chloé Pannier, Doctorante en Sciences de l’éducation et de la formation, Nantes Université

À partir du 19 janvier 2026, les lycéens peuvent s’inscrire sur la plateforme nationale Parcoursup pour déposer leurs candidatures auprès d’établissements d’enseignement supérieur. Ce cheminement personnel les confronte à des normes et à des attentes sociales souvent sources d’anxiété. En quoi l’accompagnement des candidats est-il un défi pour les familles comme pour le monde enseignant ?

Chaque année, Parcoursup revient au cœur du débat. Autour de cette plateforme sur laquelle les lycéens déposent leurs candidatures auprès des établissements d’enseignement supérieur se cristallisent nombre des tensions qui traversent l’école française. La procédure d’orientation post-bac constitue surtout une épreuve sociale qui mobilise simultanément élèves, familles et équipes éducatives.

À partir de travaux croisant plusieurs enquêtes qualitatives (entretiens auprès d’élèves, de parents, de professeurs principaux, de psychologues de l’éducation nationale, et observations dans des commissions d’examen des vœux), nous proposons d’éclairer ce que produit concrètement Parcoursup dans la vie lycéenne : stress, malentendus, redéfinition des rôles éducatifs et montée des logiques stratégiques.

Une procédure technique devenue une expérience morale

Pour les lycéens, Parcoursup ne représente pas qu’un ensemble de démarches administratives ; il s’agit d’un moment décisif de leur parcours personnel, rythmé par différentes étapes, de la formulation des vœux à la publication des réponses. Cette temporalité crée un climat particulier où s’entremêlent injonction à l’autonomie, pression à la performance et nécessité de faire des choix engageants à 17 ans ou à 18 ans.

Les élèves décrivent une procédure marquée par l’attente, l’incompréhension du fonctionnement de l’algorithme et la crainte de faire « le mauvais choix ». Pour certains, Parcoursup confirme ou infirme l’image qu’ils se font d’eux-mêmes d’un point de vue scolaire, provoquant un sentiment de déclassement lorsque les réponses sont jugées décevantes.

Ces expériences individuelles renvoient à des enjeux collectifs : la massification scolaire, la hiérarchisation des filières ou encore la valeur persistante du diplôme dans les trajectoires sociales.

L’orientation devient ainsi une « épreuve morale », pour reprendre les mots du sociologue Danilo Martuccelli : il s’agit d’un dispositif où les individus se confrontent à des normes, des attentes et des défis qui les dépassent.

Dans les familles, de l’accompagnement stratégique à l’anxiété généralisée

Si Parcoursup concerne au premier plan les élèves, les parents occupent une place centrale dans la procédure. Les résultats de nos recherches montrent que les familles les plus dotées en capital culturel s’engagent très tôt dans des démarches de comparaison, de recherche d’informations et de sélection des « bonnes formations ». Elles mobilisent salons, portes ouvertes, réseaux personnels et compétences rédactionnelles.

Si elles s’investissent aussi dans la procédure, les familles populaires le font selon des modalités plus limitées : soutien moral, aide technique, relecture orthographique. Ces écarts témoignent d’une inégale familiarité avec les attendus scolaires et les codes implicites de la procédure.

Toutefois, un élément apparaît transversal : l’anxiété parentale. Les résultats de Parcoursup sont fréquemment interprétés comme une forme d’évaluation indirecte du travail éducatif réalisé au sein de la famille. Plusieurs parents rencontrés disent avoir eu le sentiment d’être « jugés » lorsque les réponses obtenues ne correspondaient pas à leurs attentes, même lorsque leurs enfants avaient de bons résultats.

Cette dimension affective est renforcée par la perception d’un système perçu comme opaque ou arbitraire. L’incompréhension de l’algorithme, l’absence de communication standardisée entre établissements et les variations locales des critères nourrissent un sentiment d’incertitude. Parcoursup devient ainsi, pour les familles, une épreuve domestique, un moment de mobilisation mais aussi de mise en tension.

Les enseignants de lycée face à un rôle flou et ambigu

Les professeurs principaux et les équipes pédagogiques se retrouvent également en première ligne. Si la majeure partie des enseignants interrogés estiment que l’accompagnement à l’orientation relève des psychologues de l’Éducation nationale (PsyEN), dans les faits, ce sont plutôt les professeurs principaux qui assurent la majorité du suivi en raison non seulement du renforcement de leur mission d’orientation depuis la loi « Orientation et réussite des étudiants » de 2018, mais aussi faute de ressources suffisantes et de PsyEN dans les établissements.

Inscriptions universitaires : l’éternel parcours du combattant (Franceinfo INA, avril 2021).

Les enseignants interrogés décrivent une mission complexe, marquée par un mandat flou et des injonctions contradictoires. D’un côté, ils doivent répondre à des prescriptions institutionnelles : harmonisation des pratiques, appropriation de la plateforme, organisation des semaines de l’orientation. De l’autre, la relation avec les élèves sollicite une dimension plus expressive : écoute, soutien émotionnel, aide à la construction d’un projet, gestion des inquiétudes.

Cette tension se manifeste particulièrement lorsque les enseignants se sentent démunis face au manque de formation ou aux évolutions rapides de la procédure. Certains développent des stratégies d’accompagnement très poussées, parfois au-delà de leur rôle formel, tandis que d’autres adoptent une posture plus distante pour éviter la surcharge ou les malentendus avec les familles.

Plus largement, Parcoursup met en lumière des malentendus école-familles en raison des attentes implicites de réflexivité et d’autonomie du côté de l’école, et des attentes plus concrètes ou protectrices du côté des parents. Ces décalages peuvent générer incompréhension, frustrations et parfois même des conflits.

Un terrain où se rejouent les inégalités scolaires

Les inégalités scolaires n’attendent évidemment pas Parcoursup pour faire des différences, mais la procédure les rend visibles et parfois les amplifie. Le recours inégal aux ressources d’information, l’aisance variable dans la formulation d’un projet, la maîtrise des codes rédactionnels des « projets de formation motivés » ou la connaissance de la hiérarchie des formations structurent fortement les trajectoires.

Ces écarts renvoient à ce que les sociologues appellent des malentendus socioculturels. L’école attend des élèves (et de leurs familles) des compétences implicites : aptitude à se projeter dans l’avenir, capacité à se raconter, mobilisation stratégique, autant de compétences qui ne sont pas également partagées. Ce décalage explique en partie les incompréhensions ou les réactions divergentes face au verdict de la plateforme.

Plutôt que de considérer Parcoursup uniquement comme un outil technique, il importe de comprendre comment cette procédure reconfigure les relations entre école, familles et élèves. À travers elle se jouent des enjeux de justice scolaire, d’accompagnement, de communication et de reconnaissance des différents acteurs.

Parcoursup ne fait que traduire un système scolaire compétitif et sélectif où chacun tente de trouver sa place dans un système perçu à la fois comme indispensable et comme source de tensions. En ce sens, la plateforme ne fait que mettre en lumière les défis plus larges de l’orientation dans une école massifiée, sélective et traversée par de fortes attentes sociales.

Chloé Pannier a reçu des financements durant son contrat doctoral financé dans le cadre d’un projet lauréat d’un PIA3.

Alban Mizzi a reçu des financements du PIA3 ACCES – ACCompagner vers l’Enseignement Supérieur.

– ref. Parcoursup : comment faire le « bon » choix d’orientation, ou le défi d’accompagner les lycéens – https://theconversation.com/parcoursup-comment-faire-le-bon-choix-dorientation-ou-le-defi-daccompagner-les-lyceens-271875

January 18, 2026

Ursula K. Le Guin, l’autrice de science-fiction qui nous invite à réinventer le monde

Source: The Conversation – France (in French) – By Aurélie Thiria-Meulemans, Maîtresse de conférences en littérature anglophone, Université de Picardie Jules Verne (UPJV)

Ursula K. Le Guin en 2009. Marian Wood Kolisch, Oregon State University., CC BY-SA

Alors que Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) s’apprête à donner son nom à une rue et que la chanteuse Rosalia la cite en interview, Ursula K. Le Guin, disparue il y a six ans, nous a laissé une œuvre qui alimente plus de réflexions et de discussions que jamais, débordant largement les contours des littératures dites de l’imaginaire. De l’utopie anarchiste des Dépossédés à l’école des sorciers de Terremer en passant par les pérégrinations des ethnographes intergalactiques du Cycle de l’Ekumen, les mondes de fiction de Le Guin et leur philosophie nourrie de taoïsme continuent de nous proposer des manières alternatives de penser la crise et de concilier l’inconciliable.

Fille d’anthropologues et autrice multiprimée de romans de science-fiction et de fantasy, l’autrice américaine Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) porte sur le monde un regard venu de loin. Aux yeux de l’autrice, inspirée depuis son enfance par la pensée taoïste (elle publie en 1997 sa propre traduction du Daodejing), les sociétés occidentales contemporaines et les récits glorieux qui les fondent ou les font vibrer souffrent d’un excès de yang – le principe masculin d’expansion, de chaleur et de lumière, de dureté, d’action et de contrôle, dans le taoïsme.

Pour guérir de nos maux et résoudre les crises qui nous traversent, l’autrice propose d’explorer des alternatives yin (principe féminin de réception et d’acceptation, froid et obscur, humide, aussi souple et modulable que l’eau, selon le taoïsme), en pensant en termes de processus plutôt que de progrès. Dans ses œuvres, Le Guin imagine des « utopies ambiguës » – pour reprendre le sous-titre de son roman les Dépossédés – loin de la fixité minérale et impersonnelle d’un idéal quasi mythologique, et qui se conçoivent, à l’inverse, comme des mondes vivants, humains, imparfaits, ouvrant des fenêtres sur d’autres manières de vivre, de faire et de penser.

Penser le politique : la rencontre plutôt que la conquête

Sur le plan politique, l’autrice propose une philosophie mêlant le concept taoïste du wuwei (l’action par l’inaction) aux principes de respect de l’autre dans sa différence, de liberté individuelle et de responsabilité collective. Inspirée par cette pensée yin, Le Guin nous appelle à questionner notre propre rapport aux questions politiques : la nouvelle « Ceux qui partent d’Omelas », régulièrement enseignée au lycée en France comme aux États-Unis, est une fable interrogeant la part de responsabilité individuelle dans le fonctionnement des systèmes oppressifs – à quel moment notre ignorance se mue-t-elle en complicité ?

Celles et ceux qui partent d’Omelas ne combattent ni par les armes ni par l’anathème ; leur résistance est celle des lignes de fuite et de l’appel à l’imaginaire pour ouvrir de nouveaux espaces dans le réel. Le refus de la résignation et l’ouverture sur l’ailleurs constituent ainsi des gestes politiques fondateurs. De même, dans les Dépossédés, Le Guin – qui fustigeait régulièrement le capitalisme dans ses discours et défendit ardemment les auteurs du bloc de l’Est pendant la guerre froide – se demande à quoi pourrait ressembler une véritable société anarchiste. Elle en propose une des réalisations les plus totales jamais offertes par la fiction comme la non-fiction, et montre que seule la vigilance d’individus responsables et libres empêche les régimes de basculer dans l’autoritarisme : pour que l’utopie vive elle doit demeurer mobile, ouverte à toutes ses contradictions, en constante quête d’équilibre.

Enfin, le Cycle de l’Ekumen, dans lequel s’inscrit ce roman et beaucoup d’autres, se propose plus largement de subvertir les récits traditionnels de conquête qui peuplaient les romans de SF de l’âge d’or (les années 1960 et 1970), eux-mêmes inspirés de la geste glorieuse de la conquête de l’Ouest. Le Guin imagine au contraire une expansion affranchie des dominations, où la violence laisse la place à la rencontre et où les sociétés humaines, dans leur infinie diversité, s’enrichissent mutuellement de leurs différences.

Penser le vivant comme une même communauté

Le Guin fut aussi une grande penseuse de la crise écologique et du rapport entre l’humain et le non-humain.

Dès le premier tome du Cycle de Terremer, l’autrice met en scène un monde dans lequel tous les êtres vivants – du chardon à l’épervier, du dragon aux vagues de la mer – parlent le même langage sacré de la création. Le magicien y devient gardien de l’équilibre du monde, et les aventures des protagonistes au fil des tomes n’ont de cesse de rétablir et d’entretenir l’équilibre fragile entre humains et non-humains, entre la parole et le silence, entre le monde des vivants et le royaume des morts.

Dans la Vallée de l’éternel retour – œuvre la plus radicale et la plus dense de l’autrice –, Le Guin imagine une archéologie du futur : elle dépeint la société traditionnelle du peuple Kesh, dans une Californie au relief totalement redessinée par les cataclysmes et le changement climatique. En lisant, guidés par l’ethnographe Pandora, nous suivons les mœurs et les vies de ces humains du futur ayant renoué avec les modes de vie des peuples autochtones américains ; les plantes et les animaux sont pour eux des personnes à part entière, avec qui l’humain partage le monde sans hiérarchies – et si l’on peut les mettre à mort pour s’en nourrir, cela doit se faire dans le respect de rituels assurant la dignité de tous.

Télescopant le passé et le futur, Le Guin décrit un monde où la solution à la crise climatique ne se trouve ni du côté de la technologie, ni à l’échelle globale, mais bien à une échelle locale, dans un « faire monde » commun, basé sur l’immanence et le respect mutuel entre humains et non humains, tous membres d’une même communauté.

Penser l’individu autrement

C’est aussi sur le plan intime que Le Guin interroge radicalement ce qui fait l’humain et l’origine de nos crises personnelles. Dans la Main gauche de la nuit, elle montre à quel point les rapports de genre sont déterminants dans notre expérience du réel, en mettant en scène un peuple humanoïde androgyne dont les membres ne sont sexués que quelques jours par mois – aussi bien au féminin qu’au masculin. L’ethnographe (humain de sexe masculin) envoyé sur cette planète pour l’inviter à rejoindre l’Ekumen, alliance intergalactique pacifique, est décontenancé par ce monde où l’on peut être père de certains de ses enfants et mère des autres, où il n’existe ni galanterie ni misogynie, ni rapports de force ou de séduction basés exclusivement sur le genre.

Dans la nouvelle « Solitude », l’autrice se livre à une autre expérience de pensée en imaginant une société entièrement structurée par l’introversion ; sur Eleven-Soro, planète hantée par les ruines d’anciennes mégalopoles ultratechnologiques, la civilisation représente une ombre mortifère. Pour les lointains descendants de ce monde disparu, revenus à un mode de vie aux apparences primitives, toute forme de relation interpersonnelle – ou même de communication – est devenue un objet de menace et de méfiance. Ce mouvement de recentrement rejette la civilisation au profit d’une communion directe de l’être avec le monde ; il revient à chacun et chacune, dès l’enfance, de « faire son âme » à l’aide d’un sac personnel où collecter des objets signifiants, glanés au fil d’une vie et qui acquièrent ainsi une valeur sacrée.

Penser le récit : la « fiction-panier »

Cette figure du contenant, du panier que l’on remplit au fil du chemin, est une constante chez Le Guin. Elle l’érige en étendard de son écriture : contre l’éternel héros mythique qui parvient à occire les monstres pour sauver son peuple (et en devenir le chef), l’autrice invente et met en pratique une théorie de la « fiction-panier », où le soin mutuel et l’art du glanage sont les éléments centraux.

Car, en plus de ses œuvres en science-fiction et fantasy (SFF), Le Guin a aussi beaucoup écrit de poésie (une douzaine de recueils) et d’essais sur l’art de l’écriture. Elle achève d’ailleurs sa trajectoire romanesque par une œuvre étonnante, Lavinia, qui reprend et étend l’Enéide en adoptant le point de vue de Lavinia, ultime épouse du héros, à qui Virgile n’accorde que quelques vers et aucune parole. Entre courage, désir de liberté et piété filiale, l’héroïne est témoin de la bêtise et de la violence propres aux récits héroïques comme celui dans lequel elle est prise : que peut l’étoffe tissée des mains d’une mère face à la pointe d’une lance transperçant la chair ? Dans ce texte conçu comme une conversation avec Virgile et qui souligne à quel point la littérature est un monde partagé, en constante mutation, Le Guin fait dialoguer une Lavinia consciente de son propre statut fictif avec le poète qui lui a donné vie – une vie toute entière faite de mots, où rien ne s’efface mais où tout peut toujours s’ajouter.

La pensée de Le Guin ne fait pas système, au sens où une théorie irréfutable rendrait ses propos péremptoires. Comme Lavinia elle-même, Le Guin, doute, hésite, reprend. Ainsi, renouant après des décennies, avec son cycle de fantasy Terremer, l’autrice change totalement sa façon d’écrire : ses protagonistes ont vieilli, leur regard s’est affûté, et Le Guin explore sans concession les ambiguïtés de son propre imaginaire. Remettant en question la relation des individus au pouvoir, elle confie à une femme d’âge mûr le soin de répondre à l’appel du héros, pour le bien commun, avant de pouvoir revenir avec soulagement à sa ferme, à son potager, et à l’homme qui l’y attend.

Aujourd’hui, alors que nous commémorons la disparition d’Ursula K. Le Guin il y a six ans, des autrices et auteurs du monde entier (Rivers Solomon, Han Song, Wu Ming-yi, Céline Minard, Luvan et bien d’autres), revendiquent l’influence de cette légende des lettres états-uniennes, dont la sagesse n’a pas fini de nous éclairer :

« Lorsque nous parlons d’avancer vers l’avenir, c’est une métaphore, de la pensée mythique interprétée littéralement, peut-être même du bluff, né de notre peur machiste d’être un instant inactifs, réceptifs, ouverts, silencieux, immobiles. […] C’est lorsque nous confondons nos rêves et nos idées avec le monde réel que les ennuis commencent, quand nous pensons l’avenir comme un endroit qui nous appartient. »

Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.

– ref. Ursula K. Le Guin, l’autrice de science-fiction qui nous invite à réinventer le monde – https://theconversation.com/ursula-k-le-guin-lautrice-de-science-fiction-qui-nous-invite-a-reinventer-le-monde-272913

January 18, 2026

Africa’s human rights institutions are electing leaders. Why this matters

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, Professor of Practice, International Human Rights Law, Tufts University

Member states of the African Union (AU) will hold their most consequential election of the year in February 2026, to fill ten vacancies in continental human rights institutions.

They will elect three experts to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and seven to the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

These individuals will serve on the committee for five years and on the commission for six, alongside 23 peers with unexpired terms.

The elections are important because these institutions exist primarily to ensure that the continent’s governments take African lives seriously. They are entrusted with ensuring that Africans live in dignity and equality. This is a difficult task in a continent where human rights often sound hollow or precarious.

As a scholar who studies Africa’s regional institutions, I find that they are deeply underestimated. Yet, these institutions have considerable powers to undertake investigations and issue decisions against African governments. Their decisions can attract serious sanctions if disregarded.

Recent events show why these institutions continue to matter. Several AU treaties, particularly the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, protect the right to vote and mandate independent and impartial courts as arbiters of election disputes.

However, most of Africa’s elections are now more poorly managed than ever before. In 2025 alone – in Cameroon, Côte d‘Ivoire and Tanzania, among others – thousands of Africans were killed in state-sponsored election violence.

In many African countries, the judiciary and other independent institutions face attacks or are captured by politicians, depriving people of legal recourse.

This has contributed to deepening civic apathy, a creeping return of military and authoritarian rule, and further erosion of democratic governance.

Of course, treaty institutions do not organise or supervise national elections. But they can counter authoritarianism by mobilising responses to the underlying causes of rigged elections.

This is why Africans everywhere should show an interest in the process and outcome of the African Union’s February 2026 elections for continental human rights institutions. They protect the continent’s citizens and communities.

Good intentions, poor outcomes

When the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) elected the pioneer experts to the African Commission in 1987, most were senior ministers from dictatorships.

Today, the AU no longer elects obvious politicians to these bodies. Still, the candidates are mostly aligned with ruling African governments.

This was not the intention. The continental institutions were created to respond when, for instance, governments attacked protesters, shut down the internet, displaced communities without compensation, or hijacked elections.

The institutions are Africa’s official human rights enforcers. They should ensure that governments uphold the principles and values they have undertaken under continental treaties. Those include “respect for democratic principles, human rights, the rule of law and good governance” and “respect for the sanctity of human life”.

For this reason, the treaties only allow to be elected to these roles “African personalities of the highest reputation, known for their high morality, integrity, impartiality, and competence in matters of human and peoples’ rights.” Such individuals work in their personal capacities and not as stooges of any government.

In practice, these criteria are not always met.

Regrettably, most Africans are unaware that these mechanisms exist. That affects the credibility of the selection process.

The AU doesn’t give the selection much publicity. Although it nominally encourages member states to adopt transparent nomination processes, most states prefer to keep their nominations ad hoc and opaque.

A 2020 report by Amnesty International described the selection as characterised by “secrecy and largely merit-less national nomination processes”. Three years earlier, the Open Society Justice Initiative and the International Commission of Jurists similarly criticised it as “largely unknown and shrouded in secrecy”.

In 2023, African citizens and civil society instituted the Arusha Initiative to improve citizen awareness, the quality of nominations and the outcomes.

What should happen

These institutions, especially the African Commission and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, exist to foster shared values. They are committed to the rule of law and due process. And they are supposed to create an enabling environment for entrepreneurs and investors, who in turn can help develop the continent.

By protecting labour and land rights, these mechanisms guide states in implementing socio-economic rights in Africa and support innovation. By addressing all forms of discrimination, including xenophobia, they can also encourage mobility across the continent.

By advancing jurisprudence on free movement as a human right and promoting associated treaties that complement regional integration, these mechanisms could help achieve free movement across Africa.

The institutions could also address environmental degradation, livelihoods and forced displacement. In doing so they would centre the interests of Africa’s indigenous peoples.

Africa’s citizens and communities fund these institutions through their taxes. That alone is reason enough to care about them.

Human rights bodies should not be disembodied entities ministering from distant lands to unrepresented people. Instead, citizens should choose capable, independent experts to protect their livelihoods and futures.

Ikechukwu Uzoma, human rights lawyer and researcher at the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center in the US, is co-author of this article.

Chidi Anselm Odinkalu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Africa’s human rights institutions are electing leaders. Why this matters – https://theconversation.com/africas-human-rights-institutions-are-electing-leaders-why-this-matters-273495

January 18, 2026

AI can make the dead talk – why this doesn’t comfort us

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Tom Divon, Researcher , Hebrew University of Jerusalem

For as long as humans have buried their dead, they’ve dreamed of keeping them close. The ancient Fayum portraits – those stunningly lifelike images wrapped in Egyptian mummies – captured faces meant to remain present even after life had left the body.

Effigies across cultures served the same purpose: to make the absent present, to keep the dead around in some form.

But these attempts shared a fundamental limitation. They were vivid, yet they could not respond. The dead remained dead.

Across time, another idea emerged: the active dead. Ghosts who slipped back into the world to settle unfinished business, like spirits bound to old houses. Whenever they did speak, however, they needed a human medium – a living body to lend them voice and presence.

Media evolved to amplify this ancient longing to summon what is absent. Photography, film, audio recordings, holograms. Each technique added new layers of detail and new modes of calling the past into the present.

Now, generative AI promises something unprecedented: interactive resurrection.

It offers an entity that converses, answers and adapts. A dead celebrity digitally forced to perform songs that never belonged to them. A woman murdered in a domestic-violence case reanimated to “speak” about her own death. Online profiles resurrecting victims of tragedy, “reliving” their trauma through narration framed as warning or education.

We are researchers who have spent many years studying the intersection of memory, nostalgia and technology. We particularly focus on how people make meaning and remember, and how accessible technologies shape these processes.

In a recent paper, we examined how generative AI is used to reanimate the dead across everyday contexts. The easy circulation of these digital ghosts raises urgent questions: who authorises these afterlives, who speaks through them, and who decides how the dead are put to work?

What gives these audiovisual ghosts their force is not only technological spectacle, but the sadness they reveal. The dead are turned into performers for purposes they never consented to, whether entertainment, consolation or political messaging.

This display of AI’s power also exposes how easily loss, memory and absence can be adapted to achieve various goals.

And this is where a quieter emotion enters: melancholy. By this we mean the unease that arises when something appears alive and responsive, yet lacks agency of its own.

These AI figures move and speak, but they remain puppets, animated at the direction of someone else’s will. They remind us that what looks like presence is ultimately a carefully staged performance.

They are brought back to life to serve, not to live. These resurrected figures do not comfort. They trouble us into awareness, inviting a deeper contemplation of what it means to live under the shadow of mortality.

What ‘resurrection’ looks like

In our study, we collected more than 70 cases of AI-powered resurrections. They are especially common on video-heavy platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.

Given their current proliferation, the first thing we did was to compare all cases and look for similarities in their purposes and application. We also noted the data and AI tools used, as well as the people or institutions employing them.

A prominent use of generative AI involves the digital resurrection of iconic figures whose commercial, cultural and symbolic value often intensifies after death. These include:

Whitney Houston – resurrected to perform both her own songs and those of others, circulating online as a malleable relic of the past.
Queen Elizabeth II – brought back as a rap sis from the hood to perform with a swagger drawn from Black urban culture. This transformation illustrates how nationally significant figures, once held at an ivory-tower distance, become a form of public property after death.

These algorithmic afterlives reduce the dead to entertainment assets, summoned on command, stripped of context, and remade according to contemporary whims. But AI resurrection also moves along a darker register.

A woman who was raped and murdered in Tanzania has reappeared in AI-generated videos, where she is made to warn others not to travel alone, transforming her death into a cautionary message.
A woman is summoned through AI to relive the most tragic day of her life, digitally reanimated to tell the story of how her husband killed her, embedding a warning about domestic violence.

Here, AI ghosts function as admonitions – reminders of injustice, war and unresolved collective wounds. In this process, grief becomes content and trauma a teaching device. AI does not merely revive the deceased. It rewrites and redistributes them according to the needs of the living.

While such interventions may initially astonish, their ethical weight lies in the asymmetry they expose – where those unable to refuse are summoned to serve purposes to which they never consented. And it is always marked by a triangle of sadness: the tragedy itself, its resurrection and the forceful reliving of the tragedy.

The melancholy

We suggest thinking in terms of two distinct registers of melancholy to locate where our unease resides and to show how readily that feeling can disarm us.

The first register concerns the melancholy attached to the dead. In this mode, resurrected celebrities or victims are summoned back to entertain, instruct or re-enact the very traumas that marked their deaths. The fascination of seeing them perform on demand dulls our capacity to register the exploitation involved, and the unease, cringe, and sadness embedded in these performances.

The second register is the melancholy attached to us, the living revivalists. Here, the unease emerges not from exploitation but from confrontation. In gazing at these digital spectres, we are reminded of the inevitability of death, even as life appears extended on our screens. However sophisticated these systems may be, they cannot re-present the fullness of a person. Instead, they quietly re-inscribe the gap between the living and the deceased.

Death is inevitable. AI resurrections will not spare us from mourning; instead, they deepen our encounter with the inescapable reality of a world shaped by those who are no longer here.

Even more troubling is the spectacular power of technology itself. As with every new medium, the enchantment of technological “performance” captivates us, diverting attention from harder structural questions about data, labour, ownership and profit, and about who is brought back, how and for whose benefit.

Unease, not empathy

The closer a resurrection gets to looking and sounding human, the more clearly we notice what is missing. This effect is captured by the concept known as the uncanny valley, first introduced by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970. It describes how nearly-but-not-quite-human figures tend to evoke unease rather than empathy in viewers.

This is not solely a matter of technical defects in resurrections, imperfections may be reduced with better models and higher-resolution data. What remains is a deeper threshold, an anthropological constant that separates the living from the dead. It is the same boundary that cultures and spiritual traditions have grappled with for millennia. Technology, in its boldness, tries again. And like its predecessors, it fails.

The melancholy of AI lies precisely here: in its ambition to collapse the distance between presence and absence, and in its inability to do so.

The dead don’t return. They only shimmer through our machines, appearing briefly as flickers that register our longing, and just as clearly, the limits of what technology can’t repair.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. AI can make the dead talk – why this doesn’t comfort us – https://theconversation.com/ai-can-make-the-dead-talk-why-this-doesnt-comfort-us-272944

January 18, 2026

Ransomware: what it is and why it’s your problem

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Thembekile Olivia Mayayise, Senior Lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand

Ransomware is a type of malicious software that makes a victim’s data, system or device inaccessible. It locks the target or encrypts it (converting text into an unreadable form) until the victim pays a ransom to the attacker.

It’s one of the most widespread and damaging forms of cyberattacks affecting organisations around the world. An Interpol report identified ransomware as one of the most widespread cyber threats across Africa in 2024. South Africa reported 12,281 detections and Egypt reported 17,849.

Despite global efforts to curb it, ransomware continues to thrive, driven by cybercriminals seeking quick financial gain. In its first-quarter 2025 report, global cybersecurity company Sophos revealed that 71% of the South African organisations hit by ransomware paid the ransom and recovered their data. But the full cost of a ransomware attack is difficult to quantify. It extends beyond the ransom payment to include revenue losses during the system downtime and potential reputational damage.

Cybercriminals often select organisations where service disruption can cause significant public or operational effects, increasing the pressure to pay the ransom. Power grids, healthcare systems, transport networks and financial systems are examples. When victims refuse to pay the ransom, attackers frequently threaten to leak sensitive or confidential information.

One reason ransomware has become so pervasive in Africa is the continent’s cybersecurity gap. Many organisations lack dedicated cybersecurity resources, along with the skills, awareness, tools and infrastructure to defend against cyberattacks.

In this environment, hackers can operate with relative ease. Every business leader, particularly those overseeing information and communication technology (ICT) or managing sensitive data, should be asking a critical question. Can our organisation survive a ransomware attack?

This is not just a technical issue; it is also a governance matter. Board members and executive teams are increasingly accountable for risk management and cyber resilience.

As a researcher and expert in the governance of information technology and cybersecurity, I see the African region emerging as a hotspot for cyberattacks. Organisations must be aware of the risks and take steps to mitigate them.

Ransomware attacks can be extremely costly, and an organisation may struggle or fail to recover after an incident.

Weaknesses that increase ransomware risk

Telecommunication company Verizon’s data breach report for 2025 revealed that the number of organisations hit by ransomware attacks had increased by 37% from the previous year. This exposes how unprepared many organisations are to prevent an attack.

A business continuity plan details how a business would continue its operations in the event of a business disruption. An ICT disaster recovery plan is part of the continuity plan. These plans are critical in ensuring continuity of operations after the attack, as affected businesses often experience prolonged downtime, loss of access to systems and data, and severe operational disruptions.

Professional hackers actually sell ransomware tools, making it easier and more profitable for cybercriminals to launch attacks without regard for their consequences.

Hackers can infiltrate systems in various ways:

weak security controls such as weak passwords or authentication mechanisms
unmonitored networks, where there is a lack of intrusion detection systems that can report any suspicious network activity
human error, where employees can mistakenly click on e-mail links which contain ransomware.

Poor network monitoring can allow hackers to remain undetected long enough to collect data on vulnerabilities and identify key systems to target. In many cases, employees unknowingly introduce malicious software, links or downloading attachments from phishing emails. Phishing is a social engineering attack that uses various manipulation techniques to deceive a user into disclosing sensitive details, such as payment or login details, or to trick them into clicking on malicious links.

Paying up

Attackers commonly demand payment in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies because the payments will be quite difficult to trace. Paying the ransom offers no guarantee of full data recovery or protection against future attacks. According to global cybersecurity company Check Point, notorious ransomware groups like Medusa have popularised double extortion tactics.

These groups demand payment and threaten to publish stolen data online. They often use social media platforms and the dark web – part of the internet which is only accessible by means of special software – allowing them to remain anonymous or untraceable. Their goal is to publicly shame victims or leak sensitive information, pressuring organisations to comply.

These breaches also contribute to phishing scams, as exposed email addresses and credentials circulate across the internet, which leads to more data breaches. Websites such as Have I Been Pwned can assist in checking whether your email has been compromised in any previous data breach.

Organisational resilience against ransomware

Organisations should strengthen their cybersecurity in several ways.

Put strong technical and administrative measures in place to keep data safe. They include effective access controls, network monitoring tools and regular system and data backups.
Use tools that block malware attacks early and provide alerts when suspicious activities occur. This includes using strong endpoint protection ensuring that any device which connects to the network has intrusion detection systems that help spot unusual network activity.
Equip staff with the knowledge and vigilance to detect and prevent potential threats.
Develop, document and communicate a clear incident response plan.
Bring in external cybersecurity experts or managed security services when the organisation does not have skills or capacity to handle security on its own.
Develop, maintain and regularly test business continuity and ICT disaster recovery plans.
Obtain cyber-insurance to cover the risks that can’t be completely prevented.

Ransomware attacks are a serious and growing threat to individuals and organisations. They can cause data loss, financial losses, operational disruptions and reputational damage. There are no security measures that can fully guarantee complete protection from such attacks. But the steps outlined here might help.

Thembekile Olivia Mayayise does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Ransomware: what it is and why it’s your problem – https://theconversation.com/ransomware-what-it-is-and-why-its-your-problem-269430

January 17, 2026

La série médicale « The Pitt », aux frontières du réel

Source: The Conversation – France in French (3) – By Khalil Chaïbi, Maitre de conférence universitaire en Medecine Intensive Réanimation, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord

Une plongée en apnée dans le service (fictionnel) des urgences d’un hôpital de Pittsburg (Pennsylvanie). Canal +

The Pitt s’est imposée comme la série médicale de référence de l’ère post-Covid, tant pour le grand public que pour les soignants eux-mêmes. Accueillie avec un enthousiasme rare et une quasi-unanimité critique, elle cristallise une attente de vérité et de justesse, après des années de fictions médicales où le spectaculaire l’emportait souvent sur le vraisemblable. Alors que débute sa deuxième saison, reste une question centrale : la réputation de la série est-elle à la hauteur de son ambition de réalisme médical ?

Le récit médical constitue depuis longtemps un genre à part entière, doté de ses codes et de ses déclinaisons. Il s’est prêté à toutes les tonalités : du soap opéra (Grey’s Anatomy, depuis 2005), où l’hôpital devenait avant tout un théâtre sentimental, à la farce (Scrubs, de 2001 à 2010), jusqu’au drame médical réaliste, dont l’étalon demeurait jusqu’à présent Urgences (1994-2009).

Cette dernière a profondément marqué l’histoire de la télévision. En représentant les urgences de Chicago avec une crudité et une nervosité inédites, elle proposait un réalisme alors sans équivalent. Elle a surtout façonné l’imaginaire de générations entières de médecins, contribuant, parfois à leur insu, à faire naître leur vocation et à inscrire l’hôpital comme lieu de destin autant que de soin.

La fiction et ses accommodements avec le réel

Toutefois, même les œuvres les plus exigeantes n’échappent pas à une romantisation implicite du soin, acceptée par le public au nom des nécessités dramaturgiques. Cette concession se manifeste notamment par une confusion systémique des rôles, les personnages étant régulièrement amenés, pour les besoins du récit, à franchir les frontières entre spécialités, au mépris de la segmentation réelle des compétences médicales.

Cette dérive atteint son paroxysme dans Dr House (2004-2012), où un interniste se mue tour à tour en ophtalmologue, microbiologiste, neurologue ou infectiologue, au prix de processus plus proches de la devinette que du raisonnement clinique. La tension narrative y prévaut clairement sur toute ambition d’authenticité.

Un réalisme pluriel et incarné

The Pitt se distingue précisément par son refus de cette facilité. Son réalisme ne se limite pas à la véracité des gestes techniques : il s’incarne d’abord dans la construction des personnages.

Les figures étudiantes, ancrées dans le modèle états-unien, reposent néanmoins sur des caractéristiques suffisamment générales pour dépasser les frontières : l’étudiante brillante, sûre d’elle jusqu’à l’aveuglement ; l’étudiante socialement inadaptée, maladroite dans ses interactions ; l’étudiant sacrificiel, littéralement usé par le service, que l’on voit contraint de se changer à répétition après avoir été souillé par l’urine, le sang ou les vomissures des patients, véritable running gag de la série. En découlent les scènes liées au manque de crédits de pyjamas du distributeur automatique, dans lesquelles tout soignant se reconnaîtra.

La série aborde également, sans pathos excessif, la précarité matérielle et sociale de certains étudiants, composant un tableau crédible et familier de l’hôpital contemporain.

Gestion des proches et fin de vie

L’un des sommets de justesse se trouve à l’épisode 4 de la saison 1, à travers la représentation d’une situation de fin de vie. Le refus d’intubation exprimé par le patient dans ses directives, face au désir de ses enfants (adultes) de prolonger coûte que coûte des thérapeutiques actives, donne à voir avec une remarquable acuité ces situations où la souffrance familiale entre en collision avec ce que les soignants peuvent encore raisonnablement proposer.

Le personnage de Rabinovitch incarné par Noah Wyle, le docteur Carter d’Urgences, chef de service dans The Pitt, agit alors comme une figure démonstrative, presque pédagogique : patience, empathie, sens de la temporalité et maîtrise du langage non verbal. Il incarne une application concrète du célèbre modèle du Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross sur les stades du deuil.

Le quotidien dans ce qu’il a de plus trivial

Au-delà des grandes scènes, The Pitt excelle dans la représentation des microsituations ordinaires. La scène où Rabinovitch, empêché à plusieurs reprises de satisfaire un besoin élémentaire, parvient enfin à un urinoir après une succession d’interruptions, frappe par son évidence. Elle condense ce sentiment d’intranquillité permanente, constitutif des soins critiques, dans une acception que Fernando Pessoa a rendue familière.

Autre moment frappant : cette tentative de débriefing à l’ouverture de l’épisode 9, là où le spectateur attend un moment de gravité émotionnelle, brutalement interrompue par une urgence, laissant surgir ce réel qui, pour reprendre Lacan, se manifeste toujours comme un heurt.

Une précision technique rarement atteinte

La série ne sacrifie jamais la crédibilité médicale à la facilité narrative. Les erreurs médicales présentées sont plausibles et fréquentes, jusque dans les rappels pédagogiques adressés aux étudiants (« Ne perds jamais le guide de vue quand tu cathétérises ») – le guide étant le fil métallique souple introduit en premier dans le vaisseau et servant de rail pour faire glisser le cathéter au bon endroit.

Les gestes techniques impressionnent par leur exactitude : l’usage généralisé de la FAST-echo – échographie rapide de dépistage des hémorragies internes – devenu le pilier de la réanimation traumatologique moderne, le recours systématique aux vidéolaryngoscopes, l’évocation de l’anesthésie locorégionale qui consiste à endormir une région du corps en ciblant un nerf ou un plexus nerveux, ou encore le recours au REBOA (Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta), dont l’usage s’est développé au cours des quinze dernières années, qui consiste en l’occlusion de l’aorte descendante par un ballonnet inséré par voie artérielle périphérique en cas d’hémorragie réfractaire (bien que son efficacité ne fasse pas l’unanimité dans la littérature médicale).

Les limites inhérentes au genre

Le genre n’échappe cependant pas à certaines limites récurrentes des séries médicales : ici des patients parlant pendant l’auscultation (peu crédible, tant l’écoute en est rendue très incertaine), là des détresses respiratoires clairement surjouées ; ou encore une sous-représentation du travail informatique, pourtant omniprésent et un « oversharing » émotionnel avec les patients, peu réaliste bien que fonctionnel sur le plan narratif.

On retrouve enfin une légère tentation à la Dr House, avec une exagération ponctuelle des compétences diagnostiques, notamment sur des pathologies qu’il est peu courant de diagnostiquer aux urgences (comme la neurocysticercose, maladie se caractérisant par la présence de kystes dans le cerveau principalement).

Parallèlement, le propos peut par moments s’inscrire dans une dynamique globalisante, tendant à traiter de front tous les sujets, du poids des directions hospitalières à la défiance envers la science, dans une Amérique où cette suspicion irrigue jusqu’aux plus hautes sphères sanitaires. Une vaste ambition qui, plus qu’une limite, témoigne surtout de la densité des enjeux contemporains que la série choisit d’affronter.

Une austérité formelle au service de l’émotion

L’absence de musique et le rythme quasi documentaire de la série, tournée en majorité en plan-séquence, laissent néanmoins émerger des moments d’une beauté brute, comme cet épisode du patient ancien secouriste, mémoire vivante du système de santé, racontant l’histoire des premiers secours devant des étudiants suspendus à ses mots, assumant dimension historique et pédagogique jusqu’au bout.

La série adopte parfois une veine plus lyrique, quand face au flux incessant des patients, l’un des personnages évoque Albert Camus et cette réponse devenue nécessité plus que consolation :

« Il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux. »

Au final, bien qu’elle reprenne les ressorts fondateurs des séries d’urgences, l’entrée conjointe des cas et des personnages, les inévitables « What do we got ? » (« Qu’est-ce qu’on a ? »), The Pitt, sans musique dramatique mais avec une intensité rare, s’impose comme une représentation majeure du soin hospitalier contemporain, appelée, si elle maintient cette exigence, à devenir une référence durable et, peut-être, à susciter des vocations. À l’image de sa grande sœur Urgences, il y a plus de trente ans.

Khalil Chaïbi a reçu des financements de la Société de Réanimation de Langue Française (SRLF), de l’Assistance Publique des Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), du programme d’échange franco-américain Fulbright et du ministère de la santé dans le cadre d’appels à projets différents.
Khalil Chaïbi est également visiting researcher au Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Boston

– ref. La série médicale « The Pitt », aux frontières du réel – https://theconversation.com/la-serie-medicale-the-pitt-aux-frontieres-du-reel-273257