Public policy evaluation in France

The future of public policy evaluation in France seems at once promising and uncertain. Although the signs of development are evident-increasing numbers of evaluations, aroused public and parliamentary interest, active administrative involvement-the process is not uniform, codified, or generally rigorous. The administration itself is the chief initiator of evaluations, possessing the greatest resources, yet only in a small minority of instances are the ideal conditions of evaluation met. Strong political pressure would almost certainly be essential to move the government toward the institutionalization of an effective appraisal system.     

Burkina Faso: Between Taiwan's active public diplomacy and China's business attractiveness

Burkina Faso and Taiwan restored official relations in 1994, after which Taipei's aid has been generous. Taiwan's approach to official development assistance has remained largely traditional, closely linking its public diplomacy to its foreign policy objectives. Trade between both countries has remained very modest. In the same period, because of mainland China's rise and active strategy of ‘going out’, Burkina Faso has developed a robust trade and business relationship with China. As a result, the pull to establish official ties with China (and thus end ties with Taiwan) has become a domestic political issue. After the ousting of President Blaise Compaoré in 2014, a failed coup and then the return to democracy as seen in the November 2015 elections, this debate has become more public. While Burkina Faso has remained faithful to Taiwan and continues to publicly appreciate its assistance, there is no certainty that the political values that both Burkina Faso and Taiwan share will prevent a Burkinabe move towards China.     

Detection and quantification of the age-related point mutation A189G in the human mitochondrial DNA

Mutation analysis in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region is widely used in population genetic studies as well as in forensic medicine. Among the difficulties linked to the mtDNA analysis, one can find the detection of heteroplasmy, which can be inherited or somatic. Recently, age-related point mutation A189G was described in mtDNA and shown to accumulate with age in muscles. We carried out the detection of this 189 heteroplasmic point mutation using three technologies: automated DNA sequencing, Southern blot hybridization using a digoxigenin-labeled oligonucleotide probe, and peptide nucleic acid (PNA)/real-time PCR combined method on different biological samples. Our results give additional information on the increase in mutation frequency with age in muscle tissue and revealed that the PNA/real-time PCR is a largely more sensitive method than DNA sequencing for heteroplasmy detection. These investigations could be of interest in the detection and interpretation of mtDNA heteroplasmy in anthropological and forensic studies.     

Early marriage in pre-modern France

In France, from the end of the seventeenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century, despite noticeable age fluctuations, most subjects of the French kings entered into matrimony well beyond the age of puberty. In the present article, females marrying when under the age of 20 will be considered “precocious,” following the principle that early marriages not only fell outside the result of normal distribution but were a forceful expression of the marriage behavior peculiar to certain couples. The analysis sought to determine whether these exceptional unions were idiosyncratic or whether they reflected rational conduct that could be generalized. Certain features stood out, without any single one being decisive because of the relative weakness of the differences observed. The daughter who married young was often well-born and literate. Coming from the South, she was more frequently found in data from the nineteenth rather than the eighteenth century. Her husband was also young and had grown up not far away from her. She had a mother and a mother-in-law who had been young brides and at least one sister who had married young. As the youngest of a large family, she often had lost her father.     

Informalising Readmission Agreements in the EU Neighbourhood

A number of factors explain why some EU member states, particularly France, Italy and Spain are gradually opting for informal patterns of cooperation on readmission issues with Mediterranean and African countries. This adaptive inclination is more of a necessity than an option. It reflects the more urgent need of some EU member states to find flexible solutions for cooperation on readmission rather than to conclude bilateral readmission agreements. The agenda remains unchanged, but there has been a shift in priority actions with regard to these countries. The operability of cooperation on readmission has been prioritised over formalisation.     

Psychiatric disorders and management of sexual offenders in the prison psychiatric consultation unit of Marseille

Since 2017, complaints of sexual violence have increased in France. At the same time, the management of sexual offenders has been at the center of international public health policies. The prevalence of mental disorders among sexual offenders is an essential field of research. There are some published studies on the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in sexual offenders in detention, but there are few recent published studies among French individuals who were detained. Our objectives were to determine the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among persons detained for sexual offenses and the level of care received according to their diagnosis. For this purpose, we carried out a retrospective observational study from January 2017 to October 2021 of all adult sexual offenders, whether accused or convicted, who were seen in the psychiatric consultation unit of Les Baumettes prison, Marseille, France. The primary outcome measure was the psychiatric diagnosis entered in the medical records. One hundred forty-two patients were included in analysis. All patients were men, and the majority (n = 97, 68.3%) of these patients presented with at least one psychiatric disorder, principally a personality disorder (31.7%). 10.6% presented with a schizophrenic disorder, 4.9% a bipolar disorder, 3.5% a depressive disorder, 5.6% pedophilic paraphilia, and 25.4% an addictive disorder. Their management and comorbid addictions were analyzed in subgroups for each psychiatric disorder. Patients appeared to receive an appropriate level of care for their diagnosed disorder. It seems important to develop structured assessment of recidivism risk for better management of sexual offenders.     

Working women in France,nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Where,when, and which women were in work at marriage?

We look at women's labour force participation for the whole of France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We study to what extent young women were working at the time of their marriage, in which occupations, and how differences in labour force participation might be explained. Using a sample of 53,451 marriage records from the TRA project, we identify regional and temporal differences in rates of female labour force participation and in types of work in France between 1860 and 1986.We observe rather stable levels of female labour force participation between 1860 and 1950 of about 60 per cent, but higher levels in the second half of the twentieth century. Over time, women started to work across virtually all occupational sectors. Regional differences declined over time but continued to exist in the late twentieth century. We formulate a set of hypotheses to explain which women worked, taking into account their resources, as well as their expectations, in a male-breadwinner-dominated society. The results of our hierarchical logistic analysis indicate that women with fewer parental resources were more likely to work.     

China in a New Era after the 19~(th) CPC National Congress: from A Rising Power to A World Leader

正Ⅰ.China decides to shoulder the leadership responsibility instead of adopting a low profile and being reserved.In December 2017,representatives of nearly 300 political parties from all over the world attended the CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-Level Meeting.This meeting and the 19th CPC National Congress convened in autumn 2017,are both of far-reaching global significance.     

Palatine Sutures as Age Indicator: A Controlled Study in the Elderly

Abstract:  Vault sutures have proven their low reliability for estimating age at death in individual forensic science cases. We broke down the palatine sutures of 134 skulls (with known sex and age at time of death) into 15 subparts and 5 stages of fusion to obtain a mean coefficient of obliteration ( C p) which was then linked to five age classes. We completed this study with multiple regression equations of total palatine suture scores. We compared our results with those obtained using the Mann method on the one hand and classically segmented and scored ectocranial suture age determination methods on the other. Palatine sutures generally do not estimate age at death any better than cranial vault sutures. Despite the partly subjective aspect of suture study, palatine suture observation contributes additional information to age-range estimation, especially in old and very old subjects where other methods lose their effectiveness.