A Tunisian immolated in December 2010 to protest against the regime of President Ben Ali and that all Arab countries that will ignite a few weeks later. On 25 January, a crowd gathers in Cairo, Egypt, on the place Tahir who became the symbol of protest. In Libya, Algeria, Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Syria and elsewhere, the people rose up against the law of the most powerful and injustice.

In January, heavy rains descend near Rio causing unprecedented flooding. Brazil reported nearly 1,000 victims or missing.

March 11. An earthquake shakes the Tohoku region, north of Tokyo. It is followed by a tsunami of exceptional magnitude. The double wave devastates everything in its path. Fukushima nuclear power plant can not resist. A race against then agrees to limit the spread of radioactive particles. In Japan, the psychological shock is obviously huge, but, as after the earthquake of 1995, the economic and industrial impact, is less spectacular. It only took a few months for the country to this new challenge.

In May, the new austerity measures imposed on Greece by the government of George Papandreou trigger a series of events that will end in violent clashes with police.

After being devastated by the storm Janis in May 2011. The inhabitants of the city of Joplin, Missouri on November 15 celebrating the reopening of the WalMart shopping center, completely rebuilt. The tornado was 161 deaths in the United States.

On May 1, Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The West won a victory against terrorism.

May 14, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, prospective candidate for the primary patron of the PS and the IMF, was arrested by the NYPD, suspected of having forced oral sex on a woman’s room in the Hotel Sofitel New York. The case leaves the French first stunned and incredulous, but the shock images of his arrest and the statements of the alleged victim and the display of the privacy of DSK sound the death knell of his political pretensions.

In June, the U.S. government announced that 467,000 jobs were destroyed in a single month. The most pessimistic forecasts are exceeded. The unemployment rate in the U.S. reached 9.5%.

In late June, the Board of Directors of the IMF chooses the French Minister of Economy Christine Lagarde to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn to the general direction of the IMF.

Who Framed Societe Generale? In August, the British tabloid the Daily Mirror sow panic in the markets by taking for granted a summer fiction published by Le Monde: French bank would be on the verge of bankruptcy. The title falls on the stock market. The bank filed a complaint, but the damage is done.