(Editorial) “Far from the noise”, by Samuel Lieven

It’s one of my favorite rituals. Every Monday, while sipping hot coffee in front of the computer, I glance at the issue’s cover project in progress. New week, new editorial, new closure… The mechanics of the weekly quickly take away the daydreams of the weekend. What will we choose to watch this week with our readers?

These three faces camped in front of the water tower of La Clisse (Charente-Maritime) sobered me up more surely than a double espresso. The long electoral zapping of the day before still cluttered my mind. Results of municipal elections city by city, chain reactions of winners and losers, feverish projections of commentators on 2027… And the highlight of the show: a new mayor of Paris cutting through the crowd on a bicycle like on Liberation Day. So is this all that is at stake in the France of 2026?

Air, water! This is the bias of this issue outside the walls, after a sequence dominated by the political destiny of the great metropolises. Because if mayors, small and large, are the primary guarantors of the general interest in a democracy, other more anonymous figures contribute quietly and decisively. This is the case of these guardians of drinking water who, in our countryside, try to reconcile divergent interests to protect the first of the common goods.. No big speeches there. We must defend catchments, convince, arbitrate, change practices, reconcile agricultural economics and public health. In short, act in the service of all, far from the noise.

The librarian who opened the doors of his college in Yvelines to us, located a stone’s throw from the one where Samuel Paty was assassinated, is another discreet guardian of the essential: transmitting to young people who (almost) no longer read the taste for understanding, discussing, resisting – to appearances, to slogans, to lazy shortcuts on social networks.

Our freedom is not something that fell from the sky. It does not come down to a simple ballot slipped from time to time into a ballot box. It works in the folds of everyday life.

As Easter approaches, it sometimes even has something of a Stations of the Cross: less of a spectacular ordeal than of fidelity, attention to others, a shared responsibility.