Hello everyone ! A historical issue has been bugging me for a while. During the French presidential campaign of last year, on 30 March 2017, Jean Luc Mélenchon, a major left-wing French politician released a video as part of the series of unscripted videos he releases every week on his Youtube channel to discuss the news and his ideas. If you speak French, the video is here, and the part about Yugoslavia starts around 16:00. He spends around 2 minutes in the video discussing the break-up of Yugoslavia for his young fans (to justify one of his policies towards Russia). I would like to know to what extent is his account accurate, because what he said runs contrary to everything I've read about the issue, by either skipping Serb reprehensible behaviour, blaming the Germans for the war, or straight up switching responsibilities for starting the war between Serbia and Croatia in 1991. Back in April 2017, it prompted me to stop being a lurker and actually ask for an explanation about it on the biggest French subreddit, which seemed to lean heavily in Mélenchon's favour at that time. One user then suggested to me to ask questions here, but I never found the time to do it until today. Enough talking now, here is a translation of what he said. I tried to be as accurate as possible, but some sentences may still sound unnatural.

Yugoslavia was a country that gathered several countries that have become independent since then. When troubles started on all sides, the French presidency said "we can agree to recognize some countries as independent, the Croats, the Slovenes, etc. On one condition: each country which claims to be independent must explain how it will guarantee the rights of the minorities living in their territories." For example, how the Croats would guarantee the rights of the Serbs. Good. That's where we were.

We had this request on the table, and our German friends and neighbours did not surround themselves with such precautions and decided to recognize everyone. The recognized Croatia and Slovenia, and it turns out that those were their allies during the last two years, so they know each other well. They recognized [Croatia and Slovenia], and boom it started.

Consequently, because there was no protection set up for minorities, the Croats kicked the Serbs out of their homes, this was an abominable war. Obviously, the Serbs retaliated, a war is never clean. The only thing that is clean is the propaganda that chooses which side are the good guys and which sides are the bad guys.

I artificially created the paragraphs myself so I could address my problems with what he said more clearly. I didn't really have a problem with the first paragraph about the French presidency's position, as far as I know, the French presidency was indeed reluctant to recognize Croatia and Slovenia as independent. But it just seems odd to me to only mention those two (with a focus on Croatia) when speaking about countries that caused worries regarding their minorities. I seem to recall that a few years before the war, Milosevic had revoked Kosovo's constitutional autonomy, leading to many human-rights abuses and oppression against Albanians in Kosovo, that was still going on in 1991. So, my sub-question here would be "Were there actions of the Croat and Slovene governments that justified extra caution around them, even more than around Serbia, to the point where failing to mention Milosevic's own actions against minorities in Serbia becomes understandable?"

Then there is the part about the Germans' decision to recognize Croatia and Slovenia. I have three sub-questions about this one. First, he says that Germany recognized those two as independent and then links that recognition to how they were Germany's allies during the last two wars, and I assume he meant the two World Wars. I do know about the collaborationist Independent State of Croatia and the Ustase, but first, that does not mean that this Nazi alliance and historical affinity was the motivation behind Germany's decision. So my first sub-question here would be: "What was the motivation behind Germany's decision to recognize the independence of Croatia and Slovenia?" The second, "was Slovenia also a Nazi ally back in WW2, similar to the Independent State of Croatia?" I know absolutely nothing about the role Slovenia played in WW2, if any. And the third one would be "Is it fair to describe the German decision to recognize Croatia and Slovenia as a trigger for the war?" (he described it as "They recognized them, and boom it started"). This seems totally bogus to me, as I thought the German recognition only came in December 1991, when the war between Serbia and Slovenia took place in June-July, and the war in Croatia started in August, with the siege of Dubrovnik starting in October, and the Vukovar Massacre taking place in November, all very serious events.

And finally, the part about how the Serbs only retaliated against the Croats who were kicking them out of their homes. My question here is simple: “Can the Serbs be said to have retaliated against a Croat aggression?”. Everything I've read about the war points to the opposite being true: the Serbs attacking Croatia because they don't accept it being independent, the Serbs of Croatia declaring their independence in the Kraijna region whey they formed a majority and starting to ethnically cleanse the non-Serbs in the region, with the Croat government only claiming that region back in 1995 with Operation Storm, where hundreds of Serb civilians were killed and thousands of Serbs fled ahead of the Croat army. Am I missing things here?

I’m sorry for the length of my question, I hope it is still appropriate for this sub in terms of format. I’m really interested in the recent history of the Western Balkans, and I’ve read a few books on the topic of the Yugoslav Wars, as well as a few judgements from the ICTY, but I’m nowhere near an expert on the topic so I have many questions (especially since even though I have strong doubts about what he said, Jean Luc Mélenchon is generally considered by his peers to be anything but uneducated). Thank you very much in advance for reading all of this!

Edit: formatting issues

The Gayer-Anderson Cat.

Full disclosure: I am, of course, very curious about this, but it's also for a gift for my wife. She's a historian and I've printed her a nearly-original-size Gayer-Anderson Cat. The artifact is unpainted bronze with no remaining paint. However, the Wikipedia page suggests it was originally painted.

I've searched online to see if anyone has re-created some plausible version of the original artist's coloring, but haven't found anything, yet. The British Museum's online gift shop offers this miniature but comparing to the few notes about paint on Wikipedia it's already probably not very accurate.

I'm guessing she would have had gems or glass of some kind in her eyes, earrings and a septum ring (as the British Museum has in the G-A cat), and probably all her necklaces would have been painted. Are there "standard" ways of doing the statue's eyes? And "standard" ways of painting the necklaces? I think I see an Eye of Horus and maybe a Ra (and Eye of Ra?), going only from my Wikipedia-surfing about Egyptian mythology (I'm not anything like a historian), but I don't know how those might have originally looked.

As for the statue itself, what color(s) might it have been? Wikipedia suggests the tail might have been striped (!). Would the cat have been painted to look like a common housecat or feral cat of 600BC?

Any plausible explanations appreciated. Also, any mythological background is more than welcome. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading about the myth of Osiris and other ancient Egyptian stuff as tangents arising from this project.

Edit: added link to print in its current "primer and epoxy putty" phase.

I noticed them at first in London in AC: Syndicate Picture 1 Here are multiple in the distance: Picture 2

And also in the (amazing) series Peaky Blinders in Birmingham: Picture 3

It must be some kind of factory, but in AC there is no way of entering it. It also seems like you need an excessive amount of iron/steel to build these things. So what are they used for?

I tried googling but no luck so far, Thanks in advance!