The Debate: Recent Episodes
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A live debate on the topic of the day, with four guests. From Monday to Thursday at 7.10 pm Paris time.
For citizens still reeling from the crackdown on the 2022 ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement, it's now about hunkering down as best one can.
Nearly 700 killed in Iran since last Friday, according to the human rights activists of HRANA with citizens bracing for more in scenes that hark back to the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. How do those who defied the regime just a couple of years ago feel about this moment and about those cheerleading for regime change from abroad?
Donald Trump sold us a different kind of Pax Americana. The US-led global rules-based order was always about soft power backed by bulk military might. Trump's rules on Inauguration Day veered instead to the utilitarian: yes to the world’s top superpower staking imperial claims to parts of the planet deemed vital to national interests. Yes to coveting Greenland’s strategic minerals and Panama’s essential waterway. No to forever wars in places like Ukraine where the US pays while Europe reaps the benefits of curbing Vladimir Putin’s westward march.
He says he wants "better than a ceasefire". Donald Trump has returned to the White House, leaving behind the rest of the G7 leaders in western Canada. After five days of war between Israel and Iran, the US president faces a stark choice: he can either approve bunker-busting bombs to target underground nuclear facilities or tell Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu it’s time to stop.
The threat had been repeated so often over so many years that it had started to ring hollow. Now, Israel's actually done it: striking Iran in a bid to destroy its capacity to build nuclear weapons. Tel Aviv sees a window of opportunity, and with Tehran's proxies in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza either gone or debilitated, the Israelis are also targeting the senior leadership around Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. So what’s the ultimate goal: military superiority or regime change?
A death spiral in Gaza with no end in sight; a Middle East peace process that’s been moribund for years. What’s the point of talking solutions when not even a truce is in sight? In New York next week, France is slated to co-chair with Saudi Arabia what's officially billed as a "UN International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution".
How to stop our needless overconsumption of cheaper and cheaper clothes that pollute the planet? France's Senate has just passed a bill to curb advertising and tax pollution of fast fashion, with lawmakers even talking up the distinction of ultra-fast fashion: garments made in a hurry – increasingly using polyester and other polluting plastics – that are shipped at warp speed by plane and fall apart after only a few washes.
The United States Marine Corps, the country's main foreign expedition force, has been deployed to Los Angeles – this on top of the US president enrolling the National Guard in a show of force against pockets of violent protest against the arrest of undocumented immigrants at their place of work.
Overheated and overfished: an SOS for oceans under duress is being sent from a UN summit in Nice. But try telling that to those who advocate deep-sea drilling for precious metals. In a world hungry for the minerals that power our batteries and connect our computers, the United States but also China, India, Japan, Norway and more are seriously studying whether science fiction can become reality.
What have learned? What have we enacted in the six years since Christchurch and the far-right fanatic who livestreamed his own mass shooting in a New Zealand mosque?
Ukraine's "no surrender" attitude is on display, what with daring drone raids deep in Russian territory last weekend and a new attack on the Kerch Strait bridge that links Moscow-occupied Crimea to the mainland. These are spectacular shows, but can outgunned and outnumbered Kyiv keep it up?
Can South Korea turn the page on its most turbulent time since democracy was installed? An election held this Tuesday looks like a landslide victory for the Democratic Party of Lee Jae-myung. What is his agenda? Where will he take South Korea? Will he be able to bring stability to the East Asian economic powerhouse that was plunged into doubt and confusion last December with a declaration of martial law by soon-deposed leader Yoon Suk Yeol?
Why did an EU success story vote for a pro-Trump candidate? Karol Nawrocki has been narrowly elected Polish president, in part thanks to a first-round surge by candidates further to the right. Why has a nation that's a net recipient of EU funding, one that shares a border with Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, turned its back on Brussels?
A fortnight after Romania, Poland is holding a presidential run-off where the pro-EU candidate faces uncertain odds. On Sunday, Warsaw's liberal mayor Rafał Trzaskowski will need the kind of boost in turnout that propelled his counterpart from Bucharest to victory. Nicoşur Dan came to campaign last weekend for Trzaskowski, the candidate from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk's Civic Platform party.
The man who coined the term "soft power" recently died. It’s ironic that Joseph Nye taught at Harvard University, the institution that's in the eye of the storm of the Trump administration’s crackdown on foreign students. A court has now stopped the US government from banning foreign student enrolment at the country's most elite university, but more suspensions of federal funding are in the works.
A way to pull the rug out from under Hamas or a scheme to permanently chase Palestinians out of parts of Gaza? Israel insisting that a brand-new Geneva-registered aid group aims to deliver long-awaited aid to secure distribution sites while preventing the Palestinian militant group from diverting food and medicine.
With 299 victims over 25 years, why wasn’t serial rapist Joël Le Scouarnec stopped sooner? Closing arguments in the trial of the 74-year-old surgeon in the western French city of Vannes. We’ll ask about a man convicted of purchasing child pornography online two decades ago and yet investigators failed to uncover worse crimes and the medical board allowed him to continue to practice.
Is it something in the water? Why insist on bottled brands at every meal when in a country like France, it flows freely from the tap – even if it’s not exactly free. We’ll ask about old habits and new realities that force a rethink of what we drink.
It’s a White House visit preceded by some heavy-handed sales tactics. South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa in the lion’s den of the Oval Office after Donald Trump advisor Elon Musk accused Pretoria of discrimination over a stalled commercial deal to buy his Starlink low orbit satellite system.
Aid returning at a trickle into Gaza after a two-month blockade, but troops are on the move and the bombing continues with an average of dozens killed a day the past week. Israel’s prime minister talking up what might sound like a permanent reoccupation. This collective punishment of two million civilians, many, says the UN on the brink of starvation, is exactly the sort of overreaction that Hamas wanted when it perpetrated the worst terror attack in Israel’s history more than 18 months ago.
Two weeks after the far right's George Simion garnered a whopping 41 percent in the first round of presidential elections, a surge in voter turnout instead propelled the pro-EU mayor of Bucharest Nicosur Dan onto a rocky road to victory.
In the end, Vladimir Putin did not go to Istanbul for the one-on-one on offer. Instead, in what critics call a worse snub than an empty chair, the Russian president dispatched his former culture minister, a "greater Russia" ideologue, for the first face-to-face meeting with Ukraine since 2022. What's the Trump administration's next move after pushing so hard for talks?
Once a year, movie fans from near and far flock to the French Riviera resort of Cannes to catch a glimpse of their favourite celluloid stars: real stars, in the flesh. They've always seemed larger than life – particularly on a big screen –but now, in the age of virtual reality, what exactly is real? These days, what still resonates as authentic in the make-believe world of cinema?
He’s back in the Gulf to do deals. But a familiar ally seems cut out of all the dealmaking. Donald Trump is on familiar ground in Saudi Arabia, where he made his first trip as president back in 2017. The US president may have said no to ceremonial Arabic coffee, but he seems ready to approve a landmark civilian nuclear agreement – one that no longer seems linked to Riyadh normalising ties with Israel.
What started it? Who ended it? After the worst week of fighting between India and Pakistan in a quarter century, the whole world is breathing a sigh of relief that it didn’t escalate further between nuclear-armed neighbours .... and wondering how much superpower showdowns weigh on the dynamic in the decades-old rivalry over Kashmir.
How about that phone call? The US president has gone over the heads of the Ukrainians and the Europeans by promising talks "immediately" with Vladimir Putin, this on the same day that his new defence secretary told NATO counterparts that returning to Ukraine's borders of 2014 was "unrealistic". Donald Trump may not have forced a sit-down on Day One of his presidency, as he had boasted as a candidate, but here it comes.
What can Volodymyr Zelensky do or say as he meets in person with Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference? The likes of France insist they'll continue to honour bilateral security agreements with Ukraine – with or without the United States.
But by keeping out Russia's neighbours in Europe, is this the beginning of the end of the NATO alliance that kept the peace on the continent throughout the Cold War? With Trump wanting the Europeans to finance Ukraine's reconstruction, what do they ask for in return? What leverage do they have?
Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.
Remember the run-up to Inauguration Day in the US, when Donald Trump's envoy twisted arms to push a Gaza ceasefire over the line? How did we so quickly go to Trump not only doubling down on his plan to forcibly deport the entire Palestinian population of Gaza, but also telling visitors like the king of Jordan to take them in? We ask about the plan, the pushback to the plan and the whether that ultimatum to Hamas to free all its hostages by Saturday noon signals a return to all-out war. Israeli troops are certainly preparing.
More broadly, how much does Trump want to own this conflict? After all, this is a US president known for campaigning against forever wars. Already it seemed like Bashar al-Assad’s fall in Syria might signify a once-in-a-generation reshaping of the region's balance of power.
But now, what to make of the Trump factor?
Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.
Is it down to the Digital Age? Not only has the world become a smaller place but now, more and more power’s concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Elon Musk’s offer to buy the parent company of ChatGPT from Sam Altman’s OpenAI is the latest example of a whole new age, an age where a billionaire like Musk can also have one foot in government as he and Donald Trump arbitrarily purge the federal payroll.
Altman, who swiftly rejected Musk’s offer is here in Paris for the AI summit co-hosted by France and India. Are Silicon Valley tech titans to be courted or combatted at the dawn of an almighty scramble for the planet’s data and resources? Is it a battle for market share or a battle of values?
In writing global governance rules for AI, who defines what's public and what's private, what's free speech and what's censorship or stoking hate? And how much in common between those that are neither the US nor China in setting global standards that actually protect citizens rights and foster trust in these most turbulent times?
Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.
As France and India co-host an AI summit in Paris, we ask if technology has advanced too far beyond our control and that any well-intentioned bid by world leaders to forge common rules and guidelines is too little, too late?
Right now, it’s Silicon Valley that’s got the money to draw the best and the brightest and the cheap energy to power the bigger and bigger data centres needed for AI. With a new US administration that’s ready to start a trade war with all those in its path, how does the rest of the world defend privacy, shared natural resources – including strategic minerals mined in places like China and Africa?
And what to do about a digital age that so far seems to concentrate so much power and wealth in the hands of a few? More broadly, is the technology evolving faster than humanity can process its potentials and its dangers? We'll ask our panel.
Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Guillaume Gougeon and Ilayda Habip.
Does what goes for Greenland and Gaza also go for Ukraine? With the third anniversary of Russia's all-out invasion approaching and Kyiv on the back foot, allies are scrambling to figure out the "art of the deal" power plays of a US president they thought they already knew. Do you placate or push back when dealing with Donald Trump? Ukraine's president has been showing transactional flair by vaunting his country's rare minerals in exchange for protection from Vladimir Putin. Zelensky is now openly contemplating what Trump wants: direct negotiations with Moscow. We review terms and conditions and – on the day that France delivered its first Mirage jets to Kyiv – the degree of volatility that the coming weeks and months may bring for Ukraine and for a Europe that's still divided over whether to wean itself off its reliance on the United States for its own security.
Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.
Donald Trump has told the world in the company of a beaming Binyamin Netanyahu that "the US will take over the Gaza Strip". Should we take at face value what he's selling as a grand development scheme and what critics denounce as a quixotic pipe dream that can only lead to the ethnic cleansing of the two million Palestinians who live in Gaza?
How does one rebuild Gaza after destruction on a biblical scale? In the aftermath of past wars, Gulf states footed much of the bill. The money went to housing, but was also sometimes diverted by Hamas. We gauge regional reactions after Tuesday night's bombshell announcement out of Washington.
And where in the short term does the promise of a US takeover leave the current ceasefire deal? Did Trump just torpedo his administration's own efforts? What's the next surprise going to be?
Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Guillaume Gougeon and Ilayda Habip.
One might assume that the new president of the United States has a pretty full in-tray. So at first glance, it was a bit of a surprise to hear Donald Trump lash out at South Africa, threatening to cut aid over its 2023 Employment Equity Act. There's obvious suspicion over who did the whispering in Trump's ear. South African-born Elon Musk has been locking horns with the ANC-led government of Cyril Ramaphosa over its refusal to sign onto SpaceX founder's Starlink broadband via satellite system. Musk calls post-Apartheid laws on Black empowerment "openly racist". Who wins this showdown? More broadly, are tech titans now dictating US foreign policy? How much power do they wield? And as the developing world goes online, who controls the personal information of citizens who log on?
Watch more'US driving South Africa and other Global South, non-aligned countries into the arms of China'
Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.
Forget soft power. It's all about hard bargains. Donald Trump is making good on his campaign promise of tariffs and is starting with his closest neighbours. We ask if it's all a big made-for-reality-TV drama that ends at the negotiating table. He has already hit pause on tariffs for Mexico. How much has the world's most powerful nation decided to throw its weight around? We gauge reactions.
Trump turned heads at his inauguration when he referenced William McKinley, the tariff-loving turn-of-the-20th century predecessor to Theodore Roosevelt, who tested the powers of the presidency and went to war with Spain to assert dominance over the Americas and the South Pacific.
On that score, Trump's threats to annex Panama seem to be yielding results, with the Central American nation telling his secretary of state that it's ready to allow Panama's participation in China's Belt and Road infrastructure initiative to expire. Will it be enough to quell talk of land grabs?
Editor's note: Since this programme aired, the US has also agreed to pause tariffs on Canadian imports.
Produced by Théophile Vareille, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Habip.
For exiled Syrians, this is their Berlin Wall moment—the doors to a homeland they thought they'd never see again are suddenly swinging open. The heady days following December 8 and the fall of Assad's seemingly immovable regime have brought an unexpected Christmas gift: a return to Damascus. But as the initial euphoria fades, clear-eyed Syrians know better than to declare "and they all lived happily ever after". The lessons of the Arab Spring loom large, and the challenges ahead are daunting. How to navigate a landscape shaped by heavily armed factions: sometimes allies, sometimes rivals?
What to do with thousands of Syrian civil servants and state security employees left unpaid since Assad’s fall?
And as the international community moves to lift sanctions, the bigger question remains: how to channel money and efforts toward rebuilding a Syria that is not just revived, but reimagined?
Produced by François Picard, Théophile Vareille, Guillaume Gougeon and Ilayda Habip.
On his first full day back in power, US President Donald Trump trumpeted a $500 billion plan to build giant data centres for artificial intelligence. The photo op put the rest of the world on notice: the billionaire tech bros of Silicon Valley reign supreme, with the full weight of the White House behind them. Fast forward to Monday and the record $590 billion drop in the market value of US chipmaker Nvidia. Spooking the markets is the announcement that a Chinese startup can operate its latest AI model 18 times cheaper than Sam Altman's GPT-4. Is DeepSeek for real? Why the sudden surprise? If it upends America's dominance of artificial intelligence, does that mean a democratisation of global information systems or a showdown between superpowers that ultimately decides who rules the world?
Produced by François Picard, Théophile Vareille, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.
Some 50 former inmates of the largest of the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau have made the trip to Poland for the 80th anniversary of the camp's liberation. How to process the collective folly of the industrial-scale mass extermination of 1 million Jews, along with 100,000 others, in the space of a few short years? The Holocaust shattered the belief that technology could only be synonymous with progress and on that score, the gas chambers serve as a cautionary tale.
How do citizens and nations remember the Holocaust in 2025? From the former Soviets whose forefathers liberated the camps, to nations at the other end of the globe untouched by World War II, what's the lesson?
The words "never again" ring hollow in today's world. An all-too-long list of genocides have unfolded since. How, then, to talk about it?
Produced by François Picard, Théophile Vareille, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.
With public coffers depleted and an ageing population putting pressure on social safety nets, how can Europe mobilise the financial resources necessary to meet its triple goals of a decarbonised economy, effective defence and technological competitiveness? FRANCE 24's Charles Pellegrin puts the question to his panel of guests at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The EU's objectives are threefold:
- Completing the transition to a fully decarbonised economy in the face of global warming;
- Guaranteeing self-reliance in security in the face of Russian expansionism and US isolationism;
- Boosting European competitiveness in the tech sector to be able to fully rival the United States and China.
The cost of these goals was outlined in Mario Draghi's competitiveness report in September 2024: a whopping €800 billion. Achieving them would be no mean feat.
Watch moreCan Europe get its industrial groove back?
But public coffers are depleted and demographic decline is adding pressure on social safety nets. Capital and banking markets are shallow and fragmented. Yet on the other hand, private savings are at high levels.
So what can Europe do? Our panelists give us their take.
Read moreFull coverage of the World Economic Forum
In a crowded Paris metro car or at the counter of a bustling café, it’s easy to forget what loomed over us just five years ago. Yet, on the fifth anniversary of the first Covid-19 lockdown in Wuhan, China, the headlines tell a different story: Donald Trump, on his first day back in office, signing an order for the United States to withdraw from the World Health Organization.
We’ll examine why the UN health body might lose its largest donor and discuss the grievances surrounding global health leadership. Are we dealing with fringe anti-vaccine groups—or a more profound dissatisfaction?
And just as many who fell ill in the early days of the pandemic continue to battle long Covid, have the fear, isolation, and anxiety from lockdowns left a lasting mark on our politics? Five years on, Covid is barely part of the conversation. What crucial issues remain unresolved?
Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Guillaume Gougeon and Annarosa Zampaglione.
Do they stand firm or bow to the pressure? Europe is facing a clear message: Donald Trump’s administration isn't just pushing liquefied natural gas exports. The US is demanding that the continent adjust to a new reality. From walking away from multilateral efforts on climate change and global tax standards, to charting its own course on regulating tech – especially artificial intelligence – Washington is making its priorities clear.
Trump's domestic AI initiative showcases America's edge, leveraging deep pockets and abundant cheap energy to lead the digital transformation race. Meanwhile, Europe faces tough questions. Can its leaders muster the collective strength to protect their consensus-driven welfare model and chart their own path forward? Or will they be forced to follow the lead of the planet's most powerful nation?
Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Guillaume Gougeon and Annarosa Zampaglione.
With a few strokes of the pen, it’s as if he never left. Or is it? On day one of his second term, Donald Trump pardoned nearly all those convicted in the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol. Has the 45th and now 47th president succeeded in rewriting the narrative?
His diehard supporters are cheering, hailing the pardoned as "hostages" of a political witch hunt and celebrating his promise of mass deportations targeting "criminal aliens". But can Trump keep his coalition intact? From populist voters to billionaire tech titans like Elon Musk, do their interests truly align?
And in Washington, where his party controls Congress and the Supreme Court is stacked with his appointees, can the disrupter-in-chief truly crush his enemies and solidify his legacy?
Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Guillaume Gougeon and Annarosa Zampaglione.
It's a second coming and a very different Washington. Four years after his unseating at the ballot box and an insurrection that rattled the world's most powerful nation, a victorious Donald Trump returns to the White House with the promise of radical change. François Picard's panel of guests give us their take on his inaugural address and what we can expect from Trump 2.0.
Read moreTrump's inaugural address: The main takeaways
How should US allies deal with Donald Trump's return? His inauguration, featuring far-right figures, signals a US president-elect who's intent on shaking up alliances and settling scores. Critics warn he could hand concessions to leaders like Binyamin Netanyahu or Vladimir Putin to dismantle the Washington consensus.
But early moves, like pressuring Israel towards a Gaza ceasefire, complicate the picture. Will Trump push Ukraine into a rushed deal that favours Moscow, scale back Europe's defence or take an entirely different approach?
For NATO allies, what does "America First" mean now, as Trump's far-right fanbase grows across Europe?
Produced by François Picard, Théophile Vareille, Guillaume Gougeon and Ilayda Habip.
It's a done deal for some; close but not quite over the line for others. After so many false starts since the last ceasefire 14 months ago, a deal finally appears at hand for the guns to go silent in the Gaza Strip.
Could the difference be the imminent return of Donald Trump? His return comes in the wake of the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and the pummelling of Iran proxy Hezbollah at the hands of Israel. What leverage is left for Hamas? And who to pick up the pieces of a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and a territory that is largely destroyed?
A truce would also prove a moment of truth for Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu. Do his personal fortunes depend on prolonging the war, or is this a window of opportunity to pivot away from the far right and prolong the political shelf life of Israel's longest-serving leader?
Force majeure is defined as an event that's above and beyond our control. That expression is borrowed by insurers from the French to describe what may otherwise be described as an act of God. Los Angeles's devastating wildfires certainly qualify as force majeure: the explosive cocktail of prolonged drought, low humidity and hurricane-force winds together sparking an unprecedented disaster. But is it all down to Mother Nature?
What does it take to prevent and put out wildfires in times of global warming? There is what insurers should cover in earthquake, mudslide and fire-prone Southern California, and what authorities should do – from building codes and safety norms, to how much tax should be raised to fund rescue services.
The well-to-do in the posh Pacific Palisades neighborhood will almost certainly land on their feet. Some can even pay for private firefighters. But what about the rest of the population?
More broadly, are we ready for the new normal?
It's not just Elon Musk. Be they cabinet picks, ambassadors or advisers, Donald Trump’s roster of nominees is stacked with a record number of billionaires. What does that say about the times we live in? And if Trump's first stint as US president is anything to go by, it's safe to predict more deregulation and tax cuts that will serve his team nicely. But does success in making money imply success in serving the common good?
Four years ago, captains of industry and tech titans were distancing themselves from Trump's brand of politics after the storming of the Capitol that attempted to stop the January 6 certification of his defeat.
Last week, Facebook's boss Mark Zuckerberg announced that he was ditching US-based fact-checkers on his platforms. Will kissing the ring be good for Meta and will the rest of the world feel the impact of what is happening across the Atlantic?
At a time when the world needs to come together on issues of environmental norms and artificial intelligence, what response will there be if things get adversarial?
Is it more than the final sendoff for a long-gone one-term president? With Jimmy Carter's passing, Washington is marking two legacies: that of a peanut farmer-turned-governor of a southern state whose rise to power embodied a backlash after the Vietnam War and Watergate scandal; and that of a leader voted out of the White House after a hostage and energy crisis but whose second act in life made him a moral authority on issues such as peacebuilding, election monitoring and affordable housing.
Carter's funeral comes in the final days before another one-term president leaves office. And just as Carter's loss begat the Reagan years and a backlash against his vision of the social contract between citizens and their government, what does the coming presidency mean at this moment, both for the US and for the world?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Habip.
Imagine if Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping threatened a hostile takeover of Greenland or the Panama Canal. So what about the president-elect of the United States? Is Donald Trump serious? Trump's growing fixation comes two weeks ahead of Inauguration Day. He even sent his son to Greenland, much to the dismay of Denmark. That EU member has ruled Greenland for two centuries. Today it needs US-led NATO support to stare down the more pressing threat of the Russians in the Baltic Sea.
Trump has goaded other allies, again suggesting a merger with Canada on the day when his liberal opposite to the north, Justin Trudeau, announced his resignation. Meanwhile, Trump vexed his neighbour to the south by saying he wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. How do the Trudeaus of this world react?
Beyond performative politics, what is it all about? Is the man who wants a Ukraine deal on Day One an isolationist or an imperialist at heart? What sets him apart from his Russian and Chinese counterparts?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Habip.
It's been 10 years since the attack on a very French institution: the targeting of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and the murder of 12 people, including five cartoonists and two police officers. That attack would launch a wave of jihadist terror on French soil and spark a slogan that would go global.
In 2025, what does it mean to post "Je suis Charlie" - I am Charlie? How has that slogan evolved since that massive demonstration in Paris, four days after the Charlie Hebdo attack, where some 40 world leaders attended and where in a very rare moment of national unity, crowds even cheered the police?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayd Habip.
Guilty verdicts for all. A court in southern France has sentenced Dominique Pelicot along with the 50 co-defendants he invited over the internet into the family home to rape his drugged wife. The 72-year-old pensioner got the maximum 20 years behind bars, but his co-accused received lighter sentences than those demanded by the prosecution.
The killing in the heart of Moscow of Vladimir Putin's general in charge of chemical weapons comes on the eve of the Russian president's traditional marathon end-of-year press conference. Putin is so far yet to comment on his country's precipitated drawdown from Syria after the fall of Assad, but he's sure to opine on the death of under-sanctions General Igor Kirillov, what with the arrest of an Uzbek suspect who's confessed to working for Ukraine.
Just as the leader of the Islamist-led alliance that toppled Syria's Assad announced he was shedding his wartime alias Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, can Ahmed al-Sharaa's HTS shed its past as the al-Nusra Front, a hardline offshoot of al Qaeda? FRANCE 24's Wassim Nasr was one of just a handful of journalists to interview Sharaa on Monday.
Will it be dozens, hundreds or thousands killed? Mayotte's worst cyclone in 90 years has flattened homes, knocked out power and cut phone service, leaving faraway loved ones in limbo as they desperately try to get in touch with those in the French Indian Ocean department. We ask why Chido proved so devastating and track the storm as it now hits Mozambique and the nearby Comoro Islands.
Paris got 46 hours of sunlight in November. The weather wasn’t particularly cold, it was only slightly wetter than usual, but definitely grey. As for France's political climate, the deadlock's enough to make the natives want to hibernate.
Taking advantage of a brief power vacuum or are we witnessing a scramble for Syria? As Islamist-led rebels savour their surprise swoop on Damascus, foreign powers are seizing the moment to either clean house or settle scores: Turkey targeting Kurds in the north, the US hitting Isis positions in the east and Israel firing on all cylinders in a bid to debilitate Iran-backed military installations.
Refugees, asylum seekers, Syrians in exil: the return to Syria begins with people who have given up on returning now back on their home soil.
And suddenly, they were gone. For more than half-a-century, the Assads ruled Syria with an iron fist, seeing off uprisings, plots and a civil war. But in less than two weeks, encountering little resistance, an Islamist-led rebellion managed to swoop into Aleppo, Hama, Homs and now Damascus.
Forget that France is without a government, forget illiberal winds, superpower tensions and the overseas wars. On Saturday, the City of Light welcomes the world for the grand reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral.
For Michel Barnier, negotiating with the Tories will have seemed a breeze compared with his short stint as French prime minister. The EU’s former Brexit negotiator is on the cusp of watching his minority government fall to the hands of parliament, a first in this country since 1962.
It took years for Bashar al-Assad’s forces to take back Syria’s second city. But it took only days for Islamist rebels to overrun Aleppo. Why has a conflict that has been effectively frozen for four years suddenly sprung back to life? What to make of Hezbollah, which says it won’t be sending help for now as it’s pinned down at home by a precarious truce with Israel?
Is France broken? Is France broke? Marine Le Pen to join the left and bring down a minority government that was scrambling to plug France's spiraling budget deficit. What is the plan for the far-right leader of parliament’s largest opposition party?
Is it a mere lull? Or the first time in more than a year, can the Middle East point to genuine de-escalation? We ask about the timing of guns going mostly silent in Lebanon after both Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire. A ceasefire; not a peace treaty. Still, with Egypt now renewing moves to follow up with a truce in Gaza, we take stock of a region that’s still holding its breath.
Will this trial be remembered as France's reckoning with sexual violence in the digital age? Closing arguments are underway in the mass rape trial of 51 men who were invited over the internet to the home of Dominique Pelicot to assault his heavily sedated wife Gisèle repeatedly, over several years. The defendants come from all walks of life: some confess fully, while others insist they're not rapists, claiming they believed it was all part of a consensual sex game.
It's hard to believe she’s only been out of power for three years. While no one expects Angela Merkel's supporters to rally behind calls to "make Germany great again", the excitement surrounding the release of her memoirs highlights a sense of nostalgia for a leader whose record-breaking tenure came to embody stability in a changing world. But what is Merkel's true legacy?
Is it about the man or the nation? The International Criminal Court’s indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has sparked global debate, highlighting just how much Israel and its longest-serving leader have lost international sympathy since the Hamas-led attacks on innocent civilians on October 7, 2023. As we examine the merits of the war crimes case, we also ask: are the reactions to Netanyahu a reflection on one man, or on a nation that has charted a controversial course in recent years?
With just two months to go until Donald Trump’s anticipated return to the White House, tensions are rising on multiple fronts amid the war in Ukraine. The Biden administration, in its final stretch, has eased restrictions on Ukrainian use of Atacms long-range missiles, approved the provision of landmines to Ukraine, and announced $4.7 billion in debt forgiveness for Kyiv. Meanwhile, Russia is ramping up nuclear threats. Although Washington has downplayed Ukrainian claims of Moscow's first-ever use of intercontinental ballistic missiles, the US was alarmed enough to briefly shut its embassy in Kyiv this week.
Is it all part of a bigger plan, or has Donald Trump simply decided that cabinet picks no longer matter? What to make of a TV host for defence secretary, a vaccine sceptic for health secretary, an ex-pro wrestling executive for education chief and a Putin-friendly conspiracy theorist to head intelligence services? Not to mention a now former congressman under investigation to head the Justice Department.
Will history remember Rio as the swansong gathering of the US-led world order as we now know it? The curtain is coming down on Joe Biden's last G20 summit – his last big global gathering before the return of Donald Trump to the White House. The outgoing US president, who turns 82 on Wednesday, is slightly older than the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund; all institutions that evolved on Washington’s watch. The neoliberal rules of the global game are often referred to as the Washington consensus.
Major escalation or final gesture? Nine weeks before handing over power to Donald Trump, US President Joe Biden has approved the use of American-made long-range missiles by Ukraine inside Russian territory. The decision comes in response to Russia's deployment of North Korean troops to the front lines in the Kursk region. Will the missiles be limited to this area, and what will US policy look like after Inauguration Day on January 20?
Ukraine is at a crucial point in its existential fight against the Russian invasion launched by Vladimir Putin in February 2022.
Day 995 of the full scale Russian invasion: Donald Trump, US president elect, is said to want to accelerate the timetable to a truce. Ukraine wants guarantees against future Russian invasion before any discussion of talks.
And there is the question over Ukrainian territory now occupied by Russia. Kursk could be a major bargaining chip for Volodymyr Zelensky if it ever comes to that stage.
In this Debate we examine how the war might evolve between now, Trump's inauguration in January, and beyond.
A football match in Paris is raising concerns over potential clashes between Jewish and Palestinian sympathisers. Security measures have been heightened following last week's violence in Amsterdam, where Israeli supporters clashed with both local men of Arab origin and Dutch fans. Tensions fueled by the Gaza conflict have brought emotions to a boiling point. We’ll ask our special panel: can we still say that sports and politics don’t mix?
Produced by Mark Owen, Théophile Vareille, Guillaume Gougeon and Ilayda Habip.
Gaza's humanitarian crisis is worsening. With a US ultimatum pressing Israel to restore aid access, we focus on the escalating disaster within the Palestinian territory. We’re joined by a humanitarian who has witnessed the devastation firsthand, navigating the ruins of Gaza’s cities and seeing up close how lives have been torn apart by more than a year of continuous bombardment. Is a solution finally in sight? And will the US follow through on its threat to cut military support if Israel doesn’t restore aid access to levels NGOs deem essential?
In Baku, the UN climate conference is underway. The stakes could not be any higher. 2024 is set to be the hottest ever year on record. The damage caused to human life and habitat by the effects of climate change are still being counted in Spain in the wake of deadly floods that claimed over 200 lives.
Donald Trump has been elected US president for a second time on an America-first agenda. We know from his first term that he is not afraid to break norms on the world stage. So what can we expect from Trump's foreign policy agenda this time around? Charli James puts the question to her panel.
After Donald Trump's historic victory in the US presidential election, we bring you a special edition of The Debate live from Washington. François Picard's panel of guests and FRANCE 24 correspondents break down the factors that contributed to Trump's triumph and discuss what this landmark result means for America.
Election Day has arrived. Polls are open across the United States, the culmination of a divisive and gruelling presidential campaign. All eyes are on the seven swing states likely to decide whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris wins the presidency. We bring you a special edition of The Debate from Washington.
On the eve of Election Day, The Debate focuses on the US presidential candidates' final messages and the state of the vote. Charli James's panel breaks down the biggest issues on the minds of voters and discusses when Americans may know the results.
The planet's predominant superpower prides itself on its rules-based order and a constitution that codifies and sets in stone the transfer of power through the ballot box; a model and values that the United States tries to impose on the world scene. But for all the laws, all the rules, there is also Mao's line about political legitimacy, that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
Ukraine's president warns it could lead to "a world war." Is Volodymyr Zelensky overreacting by sounding the alarm over the deployment of North Korean soldiers to Russia? NATO believes the troops are destined for the Kursk region on the border with Ukraine, where the Kremlin's forces have struggled to push back a Ukrainian incursion.
Eight years ago, the mood on the campaign trail was so toxic that US First Lady Michelle Obama told voters "when they go low, we go high." In 2024, with a campaign that's too close to call, it feels even darker. To borrow the title of a famous book about the 1972 election, there is plenty of fear and loathing on the campaign trail in the homestretch of a tight US presidential race marred by character assassinations and racist tropes.
Could the nation that back in 2008 fought a war against Vladimir Putin be giving up on its EU dream? Packed crowds are massing outside Georgia’s parliament to protest what the pro-Western president calls a stolen election. We scrutinise Saturday's vote, which gave another outright majority to the Georgian Dream party of billionaire former prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili.
Far from the war in Ukraine and the multiple fronts in the Middle East, a power grab between feuding coup leaders rages on. Since April 2023, Sudan has descended into a full-blown civil war where momentum has swung several times and may be doing so again. The government forces of Abdel Fattah al-Burhan are trying to recapture the whole of the capital. Meanwhile, a senior general has switched sides, defecting from the Rapid Support Forces of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, aka Hemedti, who has laid siege to the last major city beyond his reach inside his native Darfur.
It's the home stretch of a fiercely partisan presidential race in the United States, a nation where political fault lines seem to increasingly match the gender of the voter who is casting a ballot. If you are an American woman, you are more and more likely to vote for Kamala Harris. If you are a man, for Donald Trump. Why does this election seem like a battle of the sexes?
It's been not too shabby a week so far for Russia’s leader of 24 years, sandwiched between a Moldova referendum where the pro-EU camp underwhelmed and a crucial general election in fellow former Soviet state Georgia.
Is the off ramp in sight, or did Binyamin Netanyahu’s government deliberately blow past it? If achieving the stated aim of killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar offers Israel a reason to relent in Gaza and Lebanon, that has yet to happen. The days since have been particularly lethal: air strikes near Beirut targeted Hezbollah’s financial assets just as US envoy Amos Hochstein was touching down to talk ceasefire conditions.
He masterminded the bloodiest day in Israel's history. One year and one week later comes news that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed. Before October 7, much of the planet knew only the names and faces of Hamas's political leadership in exile, but that all changed when the 62-year-old native of Khan Younis launched the devastating attacks from Gaza. We ask if Sinwar's demise is a turning point for the war and if it will bring any hope of a ceasefire in Gaza.
Can Europe compete? Part of the answer is on display in Hall 5 of the Paris Motor Show, which opened its doors to the public on Tuesday. Chinese maker BYD is signalling its play for the French market with affordable – albeit subsidised – fully electric models. We ask about EU pushback against those subsidies, and how the homegrown competition is faring.
How porous are sanctions? The war in Ukraine has familiarised this show with the concept of dual-use products, like the washing machine whose computer chip can power a lethal drone. FRANCE 24's investigative news website The Observers got reports from citizen journalists in Iran during the 2022 "Woman, Life, Freedom" protests about shotgun cartridges made in France and used in the crackdown on peaceful protesters. We track their journey from the factory to the streets.
They are called peacekeepers, but what is their mission when they cannot keep the peace? The United Nations, along with the 40 nations that contribute UNIFIL blue helmets to monitor the buffer zone in south Lebanon, is condemning the growing standoffs with Israel's invading army that have culminated in a tank ramming the gates of an observation post on Sunday. We hear about the fallout and comment on the counterargument.
Time is not on Volodymyr Zelensky's side. Ukraine's president is on a tour of five European cities in two days as he seeks the green light for longer-range missile strikes inside Russia from NATO allies. In a week that has seen his side lose two key towns in the Donbas region, fate seems to be conspiring against Zelensky as Hurricane Milton keeps Joe Biden away from a now-scrapped summit of Kyiv's allies in Germany.
Here in France, the flood waters are rising as the remnants of Storm Kirk dump biblical amounts of rain. But that's just a drop in the bucket compared with what the southeastern United States faces. Hurricane Milton is forcing the evacuation of 5.5 million Florida residents, with President Joe Biden warning this could become the storm of the century.
When does escalation morph into overreach? On October 8, the one-year anniversary of the first Hezbollah rockets fired on Israel, the IDF is announcing the killing of another top-ranking Hezbollah commander – the heir apparent to Hassan Nasrallah – and the deployment of a fourth division to southern Lebanon.
It was an unspeakable terror attack that succeeded: succeeded in shock value, succeeded in triggering a massive overreaction that has appalled the planet, succeeded in stoking an escalation that's drawn in the whole region. Fortunately, not everyone is hell-bent on an all-out clash of civilisations in the Middle East.
As Israel ponders its response to Iran, as allies urge restraint, as battles targeting Tehran proxies rage in Lebanon, let’s begin with a simple fact of geography: Iran and Israel don’t share a common border. Since October 8th, Tehran has been touting a so-called axis of resistance, what Israelis brand as a ring of fire with Iranian-backed militants in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, Syria… to which the US would add Iraq.
Are the past two weeks of military successes a short run that restores a measure of aura for Israeli might, or a more profound blow that could deal a blow to these non-state actors and upend the region’s balance in ways unseen since the 1979 Iranian revolution?
One can look at Middle East rivalries and alliances through the prism of Israel’s relations with its neighbors, but also through the up-and-down Sunni-Shia divide.
In the middle are the likes of Jordan whose military shot down Iranian missiles Tuesday night. Its own population sees no good outcome in the current spike in tension. With the US and Europe ineffective in stopping this spiral the past twelve months, is there any bold initiative that can turn the current nightmare into a positive dynamic?
Today, in the France 24 Debate, the Middle East's domino effect.
After a string of setbacks and humiliations that include the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon, Iran fired its long range missiles directly at Israel. As Benjamin Netanyahu and his generals ponder their next move, there are obvious targets and huge unknowns.
First the pager attacks of two weeks ago on Hezbollah command became a bombing campaign that triggered mass displacement of Lebanese civilians, then signs of growing incursions into Lebanon and now direct confrontation on a whole new scale between Israel and Iran.
Since October 7th, US diplomacy has been in overdrive to prevent an out-of-control regional war. Can an aging lame duck president be heard above the din of blaming and brinkmanship? If not, who then?
Today - in the France 24 Debate - what response from Israel?
It's only the second time Iranian missiles have rained down on Israel. Tehran's pushback comes as no surprise to François Picard's panel after a string of humiliations that included last week's assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the targeting of the militant group's commanders. Will the response beget more retaliation? Who to stop the spiral with the United States currently in a state of limbo ahead of its presidential election?
Tonight, 72 hours on from the bombing of Beirut, and the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader and figure head of the Iranian backed militants Hezbollah for thirty years, the Israeli air strikes have continued relentlessly on three fronts at the same time, in Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen. Israel’s military thinks it has Hezbollah on the ropes, assassination after assassination, the senior chain of command effectively wiped out according to the U.S. The Hamas leader in Lebanon killed today. Central Beirut hit for the first time too, leaders of another Palestinian militants group killed.
Israel’s opposition leader and former defence minister Benny Gatz, said it is a moment of opportunity that can weaken what he called Iran's ring of fire with proxies surrounding his country.
According to reports in the Washington Post tonight, Israel has told Washington it is planning a limited ground operation in Lebanon.
We will analyse tonight the many questions of where this conflict stands, the humanitarian situation for almost a million displaced Lebanese, and where this conflict could be heading.
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Habip.
Ceasefire or all-out war? While Israel’s prime minister headed to UN week in New York, his office stating Benjamin Netanyahu had not even started considering a Franco-American plan for a 21-day truce deal with Hezbollah. Word of the plan was greeted by immediate pushback from hawks within Netanyahu’s right-wing cabinet.
Winter is coming. So are the US elections. So how about diplomacy? It's UN Week in New York and before heading to Washington, Ukraine's president is trying to rally support for what he's branded his "victory plan". How much support and how much leverage can he expect?
Will it be all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah? What was a dangerous dance is now a major escalation. Monday’s air strikes killed hundreds and triggered a mass exodus by civilians. Not since 2006 had Lebanon experienced such scenes. Could a ground invasion follow?
Back in May, Emmanuel Macron said he wanted to clear the air and called surprise snap elections. Nine weeks and one hung parliament later, does the naming of France's new centre-right coalition government seal his fate for the history books as a lame duck president whose gamble backfired miserably?
"Rape is rape." Gisèle Pélicot emphatic on the stand Wednesday in a trial that has sent shockwaves beyond France’s borders: the 71-year-old retiree batting away suggestions that the 50 defendants invited by her ex-husband to enter their bedroom when she was under sedation could have engaged in anything in the slightest consensual.
A precision operation that’s part of a grander scheme or a one-off magic trick to score spy ops points against the enemy? Either way, what to make of a second day of exploding devices that has killed a dozen and wounded more than 3-thousand? Hezbollah's response awaited after a security breach that will go down in the history books: how did those recently-equipped pagers explode? Why the aftershock of exploding walkie-talkies in several regions. We will examine possible scenarios in this edition of The Debate.
It's a daring operation with no claim of responsibility. But with the pagers of Hezbollah members exploding in Lebanon and Syria, with Iran's ambassador in Beirut among the injured, all eyes are turning to Israel. For years, militants of the Tehran-backed militant group have been warned off using cellphones, preferring ethernet cables and pagers to communicate. In this special edition, we unpack the significance of Tuesday's pager blasts.
How violent are liberal democracies these days? Authorities in the US are investigating what is possibly the second assassination attempt against Donald Trump of this presidential election campaign.
We have asked the question before: does Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine put superpowers on a collision course? With the revelation that Iran is supplying Russia with not just drones but ballistic missiles, allies strongly suggest that a UK-US summit in Washington this Friday could, on the quiet, mean the end to the Biden administration's restrictions on Ukraine using the long-range missiles it provides for strikes deep inside Russia.
So what are US presidential debates about: substance or style? Policy or punchlines? Our panel has brought its scorecard from Tuesday's one and so far only showdown between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
After a stint at the Dutch embassy in Caracas, Venezuela’s opposition candidate for president Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia has chosen exile in Spain over arrest by his election rival, incumbent Nicolas Maduro. Did the 76-year old former diplomat do the right thing?
As Europe waits on France to form a government, as the world waits on the US to pick a president, who drives the agenda?
In the wake of the January 6th 2021 storming of the US Capitol, the rest of the world thought there is no way Americans would ever again elect Donald Trump.
The seven-week wait is finally over. Succeeding France's youngest prime minister of the past century is its oldest yet: Michel Barner. President Macron on Thursday appointed the Brussels veteran to try and form a government that can survive a vote of no confidence. The EU's former Brexit negotiator will now have to muster all his negotiating savvy.
First the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov, now the ban on Twitter in Brazil. After years of making outrage and tribalism their business model, are tech titans getting their comeuppance? In this edition, we ask about the almighty showdown between the billionaire owner of the social media platform now known as X and the chief justice of Brazil’s Supreme Court who has extended the ban to VPN systems that try to flout the ruling.
Are the gloves off in Israel? After the October 7th attack by Hamas, the nation put aside bitter differences.
But after the killing of six Israeli hostages, cue the biggest protests since last year’s attempted judicial overhaul by Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard right government. Demonstrators accuse a prime minister of piling on the demands to extend a war that has become his ticket to staying in power. Not at all, insists Netanyahu.
He is doubling down over his decision to now prioritize the occupation of the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt, while pushing back against growing pressure from allies. He has branded as ‘shameful’ the United Kingdom’s decision to suspend certain arms exports licenses. What is the plan in London and Washington?
What is the plan for Netanyahu? Can he lead a divided nation in a war that is also involving the West Bank and the Lebanese border? For all the protests, does he still have the support to keep going?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Juliette Brown.
Thuringia may represent just two percent of Germany’s population, but the eastern region is hardly an outlier. The far-right finishing first in Sunday’s regional elections while also surging in nearby Saxony. True, the AfD, whose lead candidate Bjorn Hocke was twice fined this year for using Nazi-era slogans at rallies, will not be in government.
It is precisely with the Nazis in mind that Germany hard baked moderation and compromise into its federal system. Still, how will these results impact policy both in Berlin and in Brussels?
There is another layer of Germany’s past evoked with these elections: the sudden inroads by anti-immigrant left wing populist Sarah Wagenknecht, formerly of the Communist-rooted Die Linke party, plays to a “make East Germany great again” sentiment among voters frustrated by western-looking policy makers.
Both her BSW and the AfD denounce military support for Ukraine and enjoy warm relations with Russia, where all the Cold War era nostalgia can only be music to Vladimir Putin’s ears.
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Juliette Brown.
At what point does the French president have to hand over the reins of power? It's business as usual on this last Thursday in August at the Élysée Palace for Emmanuel Macron, meeting the new British prime minister before jetting off to Serbia for an official visit. But it’s been nearly two months since his surprise gamble on snap elections backfired and he’s yet to name a new prime minister.
What happens when summer turns to fall? After the slow and steady Russian gains in the Donbas comes the surprise Ukrainian counter-invasion in Kursk. Now come harrowing nights of bombings across Ukraine. What to expect when fall turns to winter?
Could we be seeing a turning point for tech titans who reap huge profits for the "anything goes" content served up on their platforms? Free speech absolutists – including Elon Musk – are up in arms over the weekend arrest near Paris of the 39-year-old founder of Telegram. How strong is the case against the Russian-born Pavel Durov and his messaging app Telegram, which is popular among dissidents and pro-Putin milibloggers alike? Durov's detention comes as online hate speech and disinformation continues to spiral, as evidenced with the false narrative spun on social media during the UK's recent far-right riots.
There is a paradox that is often forgotten: the United States’ share of the global economy continues to grow, its tech giants rule the world, its culture reaches the whole planet, even where dictators try to put up firewalls.
So is this the best its democracy can do? In these volatile times, citizens in the US have the choice between two aging boomers, one who stands charged with trying to overturn the will of the people through insurrection and yet, who’s leading in the polls.
The other whose fitness for four more years is doubted by many within his own camp. We will ask about Joe Biden’s insistence on staying in the race and why it’s proving so hard to contemplate alternate scenarios.
Is it really too late? The last time, millions followed Donald Trump when he made good on his threat to challenge the result if he lost. What further erosion of trust in government? Here in France, snap elections with no clear winner are also testing institutions. Why do politics seem broken on both sides of the Atlantic?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Juliette Brwn.
World leaders converging on Washington for a 75th anniversary Nato summit were sold a show of strength hosted by the Alliance’s driving force.
But beyond the photo ops, there is a feeding frenzy. The White House swamped by questions over the fitness of a U.S. president who is older by six years than the defense and security pact that in those days bound together nations against the threat of Soviet expansion.
The optics are startling. Russia bombing a children’s hospital in Kyiv while the leader of the country that holds the rotating presidency of the European Council wrapped up a so-called peace tour that included stops in Moscow and Baku before Beijing. At no point during his Kremlin visit did Hungary’s Viktor Orban denounce Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine nor display an EU flag.
Orban who waited until after the French elections to announce that his Fidesz party was joining forces with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in the next European parliament. Their new voting bloc called Patriots for Europe to be chaired by Le Pen’s lead candidate for French elections, 28-year old Jordan Bardella. Will the National Rally stick to its newfound support for Ukraine? Will the duo supplant Italy’s Giorgia Meloni as the leader of the nationalist right in Europe?
After recent European elections, it is the start of a new term in Brussels. The last five years saw a pooling of resources in the fight against Covid, the first-ever mutualisation of debt among the twenty-seven, the Green Deal, the emergence of an embryo of a common European defense. As Orban and others get set to travel to the Nato summit in Washington, what is in store for Europe over the next five years?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Juliette Brown.
This time, the polls got it wrong. The French stared at the prospect of a far-right win and despite the start of summer vacation voted in their greatest numbers since 1981 to stop that populist surge. Instead, a left-wing alliance cobbled together three weeks ago after Emmanuel Macron’s shock dissolution of parliament boasts the largest bloc.
The ink on the campaign posters barely had time to dry. Yet, France’s frenzied snap legislative election races are nearly over. President Macron hoped to clear the air with his shock dissolution of parliament but after the far-right’s unprecedented surge and so many unholy alliances and tactical withdrawals ahead of the runoffs, good luck predicting the makeup of the next National Assembly.
While French voters ponder the temptation of the far right, across the Channel they are also campaigning. But there, it feels like the revenge of the moderates. Out with Little Britain Brexiteers, out with Jeremy Corbyn's hard left, in with a more genteel version of the Labour Party. Before 2016, Britain always seemed like that isle of temperance where the tabloid headlines screamed, but that was just a bit of fun to sell newspapers.
A sitting president who goes for it without reading the room. We could be talking about French President Emmanuel Macron's shock dissolution of parliament that this coming Sunday could usher in France's first far-right government since Nazi occupation. Or we could be talking about a floundering US President Joe Biden, who at 81 broke his campaign promise to only seek one term in office and who turned in a disastrously weak performance in last Thursday's debate with Donald Trump.
It turns out the polls did get it right. One in three French voters chose the far right in Sunday’s first round of snap legislative elections, putting Marine Le Pen's party on the brink of power with an unprecedented score for an extreme party that's never before won in France through the ballot box. With one short week before the run-off, we ask why and what it will take for rivals to coalesce.
Don't blink or you'll have missed the shortest electoral campaign of France’s Fifth Republic…
Will nineteen days of canvassing have moved the needle since Emmanuel Macron’s surprise dissolution of parliament on the night of European elections? Not according to polls. They suggest that the president may regret getting what he wished for with his decision to clear the air. The far-right’s never been closer to power since the Nazi collaborator regime of Vichy.
Many who read the polls might say 2024 seems like the year of living dangerously. No one is arguing about who's got the momentum, only four days out from snap legislative elections here in France and on the eve of the first presidential candidates' debate in the United States.
When Iran's ageing supreme leader is urging citizens to get out and vote, you can only guess that what's really at stake is turnout. We ask if there's more than meets the eye to a heavily-vetted presidential contest precipitated by last month's death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash.
In the blink of an eye, France is already into the final days of campaigning, a speed dating exercise that has got the far-right’s more than ever knocking on the doors of power. Polls suggest that Emmanuel Macron’s surprise decision to dissolve parliament just two weeks ago has not sparked a rethink. On the contrary, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella continue to carry the momentum from the record tally of European elections earlier this month.
In fact, a full one-quarter of voters told an Ipsos poll for the Financial Times that they trust the National Rally more on the economy than Macron’s centrists or the left-wing alliance. Other than an unconstitutional pledge to reduce benefits and public services for immigrants, the party that once spooked voters with its now defunct call to leave the euro still remains fuzzy on how it’ll pay for all its campaign promises. So why the leap of faith?
Under Macron, unemployment’s down, foreign investment’s up but a soaring cost of living has stoked genuine fear that middle class families could slide into poverty. Put the far-right’s great replacement theory to one side. For these citizens, it feels like a great demotion. Who is best to address their genuine concerns?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Aline Bottin, Elena Colonna, Rebecca Gnignati and Juliette Brown.
Emmanuel Macron decided to take a punt by calling a snap election. Now will voters do the same?
For all its insistence that it’s no longer far-right, for all reversals and reviews on issues like pension reform and support for Ukraine, the cornerstone of Marine Le Pen’s party remains identity politics and the notion of national preference, a brand unseen in France’s high halls of power since the Nazi occupation of World War Two.
You know you've got a reclusive regime when an outside world hungry for clues salivates at the prospect of a visit by Vladimir Putin. Putin is on his first visit to North Korea in 24 years. We ask our panel what they’ve parsed from reviews of honour guards, official communiqués and hagiographic state media coverage. More broadly, do these images project strength or weakness?
Will Putin get the mortar shells and missiles he needs for his war in Ukraine? Will Kim Jong Un get the sanctions-busting link to the outside world that Pyongyang needs to ease some of its dependence on that other neighbour, China?
And what about the spiking tensions with Pacific rivals, starting with South Korea? We ask about warning shots again this week across the 38th parallel and recent ballistic missile tests in the Pacific that have the South Koreans drawing closer to old rivals Japan. We focus a lot on Taiwan, but what about the Korean peninsula?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Louise Guibert.
No ceasefire in Gaza since November. And just as it is subsiding a little, fears are growing over Lebanon. We will ask with the latest border incidents whether initial fears of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah could still prove true.
In hindsight, Iran's first-ever direct missile attacks on Israel back in April seemed like a symbolic gesture so far, but it has got Benjamin Netanyahu's top brass' attention. The same top brass that’s at loggerheads with the PM over the lack of an exit strategy in Gaza, the prime minister who has managed to steady his political ship despite foreign and domestic pressure to resign to the point where he can do without the opposition in a unity war cabinet and by dissolving said cabinet, stare down his own far-right coalition partners.
But for how long? And how long can the rest of the world feel the spillover? Take France, where eight months of war have strained political alliances to the point where divisions could prove a factor in crucial snap legislative elections where every vote counts.
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Melissa Kalaydjian
To Americans who complain that their election campaigns drag on for far too long, welcome to France where it is indeed a sprint, not a marathon.
Here, politicians have twelve short days to convince in snap legislative elections that could redraw France – and Europe’s – political landscape: to think it has only been a week since a far-right surge in European elections sparked Emmanuel Macron’s shock decision to dissolve parliament.
With the country split in three between a hastily-concluded alliance of the left, the center-right under Macron, and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally… we will ask which way the pendulum is about to swing… and whether calls for a Republican front against the far-right still resonate, even when they come from stars of the national football squad.
France’s president has been roundly criticized for taking too great a leap into the unknown with his “clear the air” strategy of sending citizens back to the polls. The question now is whether voters too are willing to take a gamble and flirt with a rollback of the republic’s universal values?
Produced By Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Juliette Brown.
What are summits about? Most of the time, minions and sherpas have long before agreed on policy points before the red carpet has even been rolled out. Arguably most important in a summit are the photo ops: a chance for politicians to show they are at the helm, helping to rule the world in a spirit of cooperation. So what does this lot rule over? Dateline the Puglia resort of Borgo Egnazia on Italy’s Adriatic coast.
Let's start with the good news for Ukraine. Long-range weapons from the West have finally arrived, with more on the way, and the Russian offensive of the past month seems to be stalling. Now for the not-so-good news. As Volodymyr Zelensky lobbies a repair and reconstruction conference in Berlin, his country might be on borrowed time.
When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, everyone knew war would follow. But few probably expected it to last eight long months in one of the world's most densely populated areas. Will the latest hopes of a truce once again be dashed? Critics contend that for leaders on both sides, managing a war is easier than ending it. After all, they run the risk of being held to account once it's over.
First came the exit polls. Then, less than an hour later: a second shock. On the heels of the French far-right’s record score in European elections, Emmanuel Macron dissolving parliament and calling surprise snap elections.
D-Day is being commemorated, this June 6th marks the 80th anniversary of what became known as The Longest Day.
For the soldiers and for French civilians killed as part of the collateral damage of the liberation of their country, there is is a complex legacy of one of the most compelling stories of military history.
Fake news, bogus websites, deepfake interviews augmented by AI: we have all, often without our knowledge, fallen foul of this kind of manipulation. And most of it is coming from Russia. With our panel, we explore the how and why behind this. We also aim to provide you with some ways to be more aware of what you are exposed to online.
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Juliette Brown.
Welcome to the France 24 Debate. Tonight we are focusing on the elections on India where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is already claiming victory. A historic third successive term. Counting continues, but not that he is bothered.
Modi has been criticised throughout the election campaign for abusing state press and broadcast media - essentially using them as the mouthpiece for his campaign. There was also the case of the jailed opposition figures, the alleged suppression of the Muslim vote.
When first elected in 2014 Modi's central mantra was Identity is Nationality not Religion. Modi enters - perhaps - a third successive term with his BJP Party firmly tethered to a political course called Hindu Nationalism. Minorities? Muslims, Christians, a Sikh separatist is elected from his jail cell. All have reasons not to be optimistic about what's to come with Modi's 3rd Term.
Our panel will be assessing the election and throwing forward to where Modi could take India next. Foreign policy issues: Pakistan, Kashmir, China, Russia, Ukraine. Where will India stand?
Produced By Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Juliette Brown.
What if the far-right gets its act together? Europeans pick a parliament this week, the first since the EU's significance went to the next level with Covid, the war in Ukraine as well as showdowns over Chinese dumping and US tech. Europe matters more than before yet for the first time in a quarter century, the status quo is in play. Why?
One woman is at the heart of it all, Giorgia Meloni. Italy's prime minister has proven to be a team player to mainstream partners at the EU level while harking back to her far-right roots on the current campaign trail. Could she tack center-right as she claims to be or strike a deal with the likes of Marine Le Pen, whose National Rally pollsters could smash its record high here in France.
Even if nationalist and far-right voting blocs remain splintered in the next parliament what impact on policy if the center-left fades? Will nascent efforts for a common European defense die a quick death? Will the EU’s Green Deal and the move away from fossil fuels run out of gas? What migration policy? More broadly, as another campaign unfolds in the US, how strong is nativist sentiment here in Europe?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Juliette Brown.
Can Israel ignore the pressure?
Young people outraged by the graphic images of the Rafah tent fire that killed dozens of civilians out in the streets of Paris and Marseille, this as Ireland, Norway and Spain recognize a Palestinian state and international courts mount cases over the war in Gaza.
A war that could last another seven months, says a top official in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Fact is, Israeli citizens are also traumatized by October 7th and its aftermath but not seeing the same images as the rest of the world on their social media feeds.
Then there’s Israel’s biggest backer, with a Biden administration that so far refuses to say that Israel’s operation in Rafah crosses its red lines and a Republican opposition that is 100-percent behind Netanyahu.
In past Middle East wars, it is often the US that has been the one to call time. Why after nearly eight months, is this time different?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Juliette Brown.
What is Europe's next move... what with Kharkiv is subjected to a daily pounding from the other side of a Russian border that is just 20 kilometres away?
It is in the name of Kharkiv that Emmanuel Macron on a state visit to Germany, with chancellor Scholz nodding in agreement, said he would allow French missiles supplied to Ukraine to, as he put it, “neutralise” military targets on Russian soil. That comes on top of talk of French military advisors sent to the front line.
Vladimir Putin quick to react Tuesday with threats against the West as a whole and what sounds like the Baltic states in particular. With Russian troops now on the offensive and Ukraine desperately waiting for supplies of not just missiles but also ammunition and eventually fighter jets…how close is the day when Nato and Russian troops square off on the battlefield? Eleven days out from European elections, how does public opinion feel about it?
And what of Nato’s biggest member? The United States, which for now refuses to allow its weaponry to strike inside Russian territory. Can the Alliance speak with one voice at this crucial juncture?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Louise Guibert.
What if this time, the ANC does not win? Since 1994, South Africa’s known plenty of ups and downs but the party of Nelson Mandela – no matter the criticism or defections - could bank, come election time, on a winning machine that has always secured an outright majority. What if it’s not the case? And why?
We will ask about a sluggish economy, huge inequality, corruption and whether this time incumbent fatigue will finally catch up with the African National Congress. How will those born after the fall of Apartheid vote? How do they see a country long touted as the Rainbow nation?
Would a weakened ANC signal a new narrative for what remains a regional and continental powerhouse? The opposition includes those who tout black nationalism instead of diversity. In nation that’s still got a vibrant press and an independent judiciary, will the election outcome strengthen or weaken institutions?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Juliette Brown.
How to stop the slide in the Americas’ poorest nation? The last time this show put the spotlight on Haiti was nearly three months ago. The capital had been overrun by gangs who’d banded together against prime minister Ariel Henry who had just secured a deal to deploy a Kenyan-led international police force.
He is literally gone halfway around the world. Now what can Emmanuel Macron do with his surprise visit to New Caledonia?
Critics see deadly riots in the French Pacific island as a crisis of his government’s own making, with an electoral reform that indigenous Kanaks say dilutes their voice in upcoming provincial elections. Sovereignists loyal to Paris point to longstanding residents who do not have the right to vote.
The last time New Caledonia witnessed this kind of eruption was the 1980s. Then too, it was electoral reform that lit the spark. It ended with a carefully-worded deal that granted a special status to an overseas collectivity which the United Nations still lists to this day as an occupied colony.
We will ask what it means in the 21st Century to fly a French flag in a land that’s more than 17-thousand kilometres from Paris. Remember, the majority like it that way. And how strategic is a South Pacific that’s in Australia’s backyard, patrolled by the United States and coveted by China?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Imen Mellaz.
Is it about justice or politics? In the same breath, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court requesting arrest warrants against Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas’ Yahya Sinwar.
We will ask about the alleged war crimes, the measure and equation and the sharp reactions with a U.S. president who brands as "outrageous" the accusations against prime minister Netanyahu and his defense chief Yoav Gallant, the likes of the UK, Italy and Germany who bemoan quote “the inaccurate impression of an equivalence” between both sides.
France is among those which leaves the matter to the judges of the ICC, an international court with jurisdiction in 124 nations. The ICC’s indicted sitting leaders before, but never a democratically elected one.
What impact on Israel’s reputation? On its politics? And will these charges alleviate the suffering in Gaza?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Imen Mellaz.
Iran has regime just lost a safe pair of hands. Yes, another hardliner’s sure to replace Ebrahim Raisi – known to detractors as the butcher of Tehran for the thousands of dissidents he sent to the gallows as a state prosecutor – but the president’s sudden death in a helicopter crash may still change the equation…
A black swan moment. The assassination attempt of populist Slovak leader Robert Fico has shocked both Slovaks and Europeans. But in hindsight it is easy to point to security lapses and a climate of verbal violence in a country that finds itself increasingly polarised. Our guests take a look.
Another showdown in the country that launched the so-called coloured revolutions. Georgia’s parliament has shrugged off some of the biggest protests in its post-Soviet history by approving a “foreign agents” bill that mirrors legislation in neighbouring Russia. The opposition argues it is the way for the government to curb media freedom and dissent in a country which only recently graduated to EU candidate status.
It’s that place where once a year, high art and hustlers rub elbows, a place for icon worshipers and insurgents, old legends and young upstarts…
Welcome to the French Riviera resort of Cannes and the 77th film festival that bears its name… the first one since French actress and director Judith Godrèche went back on her personal story – her filmmaker's mistress at age 14 – and sparked a MeToo reckoning in French cinema.
Moscow has opened a new front with Ukraine after taking several villages near Kharkiv. Russia’s spring offensive takes form as President Vladimir Putin replaces defence minister Sergei Shoigu with another Kremlin loyalist – Andrei Belousov, the deputy prime minister in charge of the economy.
After the massive party in Marseille to welcome the arrival of the Olympic flame, it's time to turn our gaze north for what's also billed as another "it's a small world after all" feelgood celebration. Malmö, Sweden is host of the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest, that heart-shaped ode to kitsch where pop contestants do battle with tremolos, glitter and kicks. But just as politics bleeds into sports, it bleeds into music.
Paris hosts the Olympic Games this summer, but it's in a city founded by the ancient Greeks that it all begins. The Olympic flame has arrived in the Mediterranean port of Marseille, the start of a long journey to the July 26 opening ceremony. What's it all about? After all, the torch relay hasn't always been part of the pageantry. Organisers insist it's not political, but also boast of the values they purvey.
They say it’s darkest before the dawn. Let's hope it's true because Gaza’s definitely in the dark this Tuesday.
Israeli tanks cutting off the Egyptian border crossing in the southernmost city of Rafah as the coalition war cabinet rejects what Hamas brands as acceptance of a truce deal, instead reading it as an underwhelming counteroffer. The start of the all-out ground offensive that US mediators among others fear will lead to a new level of humanitarian disaster?
Can you still send strong messages when you have rolled out the red carpet and chilled the champagne for a state dinner?
China’s Xi Jinping feted in the French capital for his first visit to Europe since 2019, this despite trade tensions, spy scandals and insistence that he isolate Vladimir Putin over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. How much has changed since a year ago when Emmanuel Macron was accused of lax messaging on human rights and Taiwan when he traveled to Beijing?
How did an argument in Khartoum between rival generals drag Sudan into civil war and push it to the brink of a repeat of the Darfur genocide of two decades ago?
It has not happened yet but the stage is certainly set in El Fasher, the west’s only city still in the hands of junta leader Abdel Fatah al-Burhan, besieged by the Rapid Support Forces of Mohammed Hamdam Dagolo - aka Hemdeti.
His RSF is the offshoot of the Arab Janjweed militias that two decades ago, slaughtered upwards of 200-thousand Masalit, Fur and Zaghawa civilians. After 2005, there were mea culpas and pledges to never again to allow a repeat of the 21st Century’s first genocide?
Fast forward to 2024 and the international community has a chance to do just that and yet, its gaze is elsewhere.
Why? And why, after a year of fighting, is there no end in sight for the people of Sudan?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Juliette Brown.
The ravages of too much screen time: for me, the axe fell when I brought home my first report card in the sixth grade: my TV viewing was curtailed to a single hour a day. That was before the Internet.
It is now been three decades since mobile phones went mainstream... nearly two since the advent of the tablet and the smartphone and what have we got? Many teachers and psychiatrists link long hours of scrolling and exposure to violent and pornographic images, cyberbullying, anxiety and sleep deprivation among a generation whose attention span has shrunk.
We will ask about a panel that has just submitted recommendations to France's president, starting with a ban on smartphones for youth under 13. What is the right measure in a connected world? What responsibility for parents, teachers and the tech giants whose entire business model rests on keeping us on our screens as long as possible. Can curbs be enforced?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Juliette Brown.
For the first time since November, could there finally be a respite in Gaza?
As warring parties and negotatiors shuttle through Cairo, we'll try to see through the smokescreens and the mixed messages if the stars are truly aligning. Beyond a swap of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners...
The expression went viral in the 1960s. Generation Gap. Those in power had fought in World War Two. They were shocked to see college students in the U.S. rebel against the call to serve their country and go to war.
In 2017, France’s new president went to Paris's Sorbonne University to defend Europe’s strategic autonomy. Since then, there's been Covid and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Now, ahead of June's EU elections, Emmanuel Macron was back with an update.
Is it a spiraling superpower showdown or a glorified trade negotiation? The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is kicking off a three-day visit in China’s economic capital, Shanghai. Unlike during the Cold War, when exchanges between the blocs were anecdotal, today it's the world's two biggest powers at the table – powers whose biggest trading partners happen to be each other.
Ecuador's new president is on a winning streak, with the recapture of the alleged leader of the Los Lobos gang coming hot on the heels of a referendum giving Daniel Noboa a mandate to get tougher on drug cartels.
Will it be enough to dissipate doubt over Ukraine's ability to hold out in a war of attrition with Russia? After months of delay, the US House of Representatives has finally approved a $60 billion military aid package for Kyiv. Overruling the objections of Republican hardliners, Speaker Mike Johnson praised lawmakers who came together to "answer history's call". That said, he also conferred first with Donald Trump.
A world record of 969 million citizens are called to the polls for what some see as a referendum on one man. India is about to embark on the world's biggest election, staggered over seven weeks, with Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP expected to extend its solid lead in parliament. Modi has been pointing to a decade of unprecedented growth and power for a nation courted by the West and beyond.
Ukrainians wonder if there's a double standard. An international community that comes together to fend off Iran's attack on Israel can't increase its air defence commitments in time to defend against Russian air strikes, such as the one that took out the Trypilska thermal power station last week. We ask if Volodymyr Zelensky is right, and whether EU leaders gathered at a summit in Brussels need to treat Iran and Russia as one common foe, particularly given how close the pair have drawn in the past two years.
Did it finish with Saturday night, or will it spiral further out of control? Iran's first-ever direct attack against Israel has already sent the whole region into uncharted territory. We ask about the measure of its response to Israel's targeting of Tehran's embassy compound in Syria. We also ask whether the proportionality shows Iran's strength or weakness, and whether Israel's prime minister will heed the call of G7 allies to leave it there and move towards an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Roll out the red carpet for Japan. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is being feted with a speech before a joint session of Congress and a White House state dinner. Key to the courtship is Tokyo's ramped-up role in policing the Pacific. Like the Germans in Europe, the Japanese have had to shed the post-war pacifism that's even embedded in their constitution. It’s with an eye to China, North Korea and Russia that they’ve drawn closer to South Korea and supported Ukraine.
It's not only in the US and UK that border protection is on the ballot. The European Parliament's vote on a migration pact was always going to be a nail-biter, especially two months out from EU elections. We ask about the close result and about burden sharing, this as the numbers of those crossing the Mediterranean hit their highest level since 2015.
"To choose not to choose is still to act," as French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once said. Judges at Europe's highest jurisdiction agree. Their non-binding ruling against Switzerland over its failure to formulate a concrete climate action plan resonates as scientists confirm that the planet is coming off the hottest month of March on record.
After six months, are we seeing proof that Israel's longest war since the 1980s is winding down? Or is the weekend announcement of troops withdrawing from southern Gaza the calm before a whole new storm?
How to prevent a genocide? Rwanda is marking 30 years since the slaughter of an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. During those 100 days of horror, a stunned international community watched from the sidelines. On that score, France's president is slated to recognise the international community's failure to prevent the 1994 genocide.
Originally, it was supposed to be a NATO foreign ministers' meeting to plan a birthday party. But at 75, the same alliance that just a few years ago wondered whether it had outlived its purpose, now has to instead figure out how to quickly take on more responsibility. Up until now, the United States led efforts to arm Ukraine. But the eventuality of a return of Donald Trump has members – including the current administration in Washington – preferring that NATO HQ safeguard that remit.
Israel is certainly taking on all comers. Monday's air strike on Damascus that killed three senior Iranian commanders is the most spectacular of its kind since Hamas's October 7 attacks. We ask about Tehran's response, whether it will try to draw in the United States, and – after months of cross-border rocket exchanges between Israel and Lebanon – about the risk of all-out war on a second front.
After more than two decades of uninterrupted rule, is the tide turning in Turkey? President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threw all the weight of his AKP party behind a bid to unseat Istanbul's charismatic mayor Ekrem Imamoglu. Instead, the possible presidential contender extended his gains in Sunday's local elections.
If you're wondering why Sweden and Finland broke with neutrality and joined NATO, just look at a map. Long before 2022 and Vladimir Putin's play for Ukraine's capital, Stockholm was already boosting its military, reintroducing a base on the strategic island of Gotland in 2018. Across the Baltic Sea lies the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. We bring you an exclusive FRANCE 24 report from Gotland.
Kindred spirits or odd couple? Three days of joint photo ops featuring Emmanuel Macron and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva make for more than just entertaining viewing: they're downright confusing. The first state visit by a French president to Brazil in 11 years highlights how long overdue this reckoning was.
With the war between Israel and Hamas now in its sixth month, the needle is moving. But by how much? For the first time, the United States has lifted its veto on a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. In past conflicts, whenever Washington has called time, Israel has bended. But what's to say this story follows the pattern?
The West blames jihadist radicals, the Kremlin is searching for a Ukraine connection and Moscow is reeling. Russia's deadliest terror attack in nearly two decades follows the same modus operandi as the 2015 Bataclan concert hall massacre in Paris.
Ukraine is the central theme of EU talks in Brussels, and notably whether Russian assets frozen in Europe should be diverted to Kyiv for the war effort. The support of the 27 states is increasingly under the spotlight as doubts persist over America's continued financing of the Ukrainian resistance.
In this edition of The Debate, we examine the situation in Gaza as diplomatic efforts are stepped up to find a path to a truce. This as the death toll continues to rise.
Violent gangs in Haiti have overrun the country while Prime Minister Ariel Henry went to Kenya to seal a deal for an international policing force. With the PM now stuck in Puerto Rico, the situation in America's poorest nation, which has been without a president since the 2021 assassination of Jovenel Moise, has gone from bad to worse.
Five months, 30,000 Palestinians killed and an Israeli prime minister whose only plan seems to be to reoccupy Gaza indefinitely. This time, has the US had enough?
Why set it in stone? France has become the first nation to enshrine abortion rights in its constitution, thanks to overwhelming approval from a rare joint session of both houses of parliament. Lawmakers launched the initiative after the US Supreme Court's overturning of a half-century-old federal guarantee. But does the rolling back of reproductive rights across the Atlantic and in places like Poland and Hungary necessitate a constitutional amendment in France?
It's 30 years since the first Oslo accord - a move that was touted as unprecendented for peace in the Middle East.
Flooding, brought by Storm Daniel, has pushed a divided nation to the limit with alarming levels of death and destruction. The death toll in Libya is estimated at more than 2,300.
Our programme is dedicated to the people of Morocco in mouring right now for the more than 2,000 people killed in the earthquake. We examine what happened, why it has proved so devastating and looking at the effort to rescue, recover and get aid to those in need. The epicentre of the quake is near to the famous city of Marrakech. And much of the area worst affected is high in the Atlas mountain range.
It’s India’s moment. New Delhi welcomes the world for the G20 summit at a time of unprecedented clout on the world stage. From its rivalry with China and its ever-warming ties with the United States to its calculated neutrality on Russia and its stated aim to champion the global south, what kind of a difference will the world’s most populous nation and its populist leader make going forward?
Which way for India and its democracy? As Hindu nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi welcomes the world for the G20 summit, he’s basking in the glow of a decade of development. But at what cost? From poverty reduction and digitalization to bitter identity politics and curbs on civil liberties, François Picard’s panel offers differing perspectives on a pivotal moment for both the nation and the model it represents for the rest of the world.
Africa has been discussing how to save the planet. The first Africa Climate Summit has just wrapped in Nairobi, Kenya. Hosted by President William Ruto, there has been a heavy accent on how to find opportunities among the clear threats the modern world has made to the climate and our planet. Ruto stressed the word "renewables".
Ukraine is fighting a war against an invader, Russia. But also against a problem considered endemic within its own borders.
Corruption has long been an enemy within for Ukraine: one of the principle criticisms of the country when it comes to candidate status for, for example, the European Union.
School's back in for France's 12 million pupils, and in a nation that prides itself on its state education system, hot topics include lack of teachers, exam reform, the skyrocketing cost of supplies for parents and how to tackle bullying.
How a scandal can steal the spotlight from a remarkable achievement. When the Spanish women won the World Cup on Sunday 20th August, they would have been forgiven for thinking their names would be making headlines for weeks, months even years. It is the case, but now it's because of the scandal over the unwanted, unsolicited kiss that was forced on a star player Jenni Hermoso by the head of the Spanish Football Association Luis Rubiales.
Soldiers in the pre-dawn hours popping up on television to announce they’d overthrown Ali Bongo just one hour after just as suddenly election results in the dead of night gave Bongo a third term in office. We’ll ask about the latest, who’s in charge in Libreville.
After Guinea, Mali, and Burkina Faso, this time feels like it’s personal. France’s president taking on all comers in his annual address to his ambassadors in Paris… insisting his man in Niamey is staying put, defying an ultimatum from Niger’s coup leaders… and ruing what Emmanuel Macron sees as wavering on the part of European and U.S. allies.
Will Wagner outlive its founder? Russian authorities confirming the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin and his number two in the downing of their private jet on a flight to his native Saint Petersburg. We’ll ask about the downing of the plane on the two-month anniversary of his aborted march on Moscow and the thousands of irregulars on three continents that still answer to the private military company.
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Paris this Thursday for a special visit. Modi is the guest of honour at the July 14th parade on the Champs Elysées, but his visit is also expected to deepen ties with New Delhi's oldest strategic partner in the West, with a deal worth over 5 billion euros for India to take delivery of 26 French Rafale fighter jets.
Joe Biden laid out a vision and threw down the gauntlet to Vladimir Putin, now further isolated by a NATO summit that strengthens the alliance at Russia’s border – a summit that came in the wake of wavering support for his Ukraine campaign.
NATO’s no longer brain dead. Emmanuel Macron who authored that quip back in 2019 can thank Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine for that. But now that it’s back to its original mission of containing Russia, can the Alliance keep up?
Too old, too out of touch, gaffe-prone – the president of the United States has his critics. But has Russia’s invasion of Ukraine put 80-year old Joe Biden back in the saddle?
FRANCE 24 brings you a special debate about the rush for cobalt, a strategic mineral essential to making electric car batteries. Electric vehicles will help reduce the pollution caused by the internal combustion engine, the current standard for most motorised transport. But as our special full-length Reporters programme shows, the mining of the cobalt necessary for the batteries is already a source of human misery and damage to the environment, particularly in DR Congo. We delve into the issue with our guests, including the co-director of "The Battle for Cobalt", our documentary about the dark side of the cobalt rush.
News junkies can be forgiven if they've never heard before of gallium and germanium. That's all about to change. If our growing general knowledge of the physics periodic table seemed timed with the visit to Beijing of the US Treasury Secretary, it's because China's announcing controls on exports of key rare minerals that only it produces, minerals essential for microchips as well as electric vehicles and fibre optic cables. And after the recent ban on U-S memory chip maker Micron.
It's an easy way to get clicks when the world's richest man challenges the ninth richest to a cage fight. But it's actually win-win for them if the owner of Twitter and the founder of Facebook have us debating whether we are Team Musk or Team Zuckerberg, instead of the outsized power the pair enjoy thanks to the concentration of popular, mostly unregulated social media platforms in the hands of a few.
It is as if it never happened. The unrivaled master of the Kremlin for twenty-three years has emerged from a moment of wavering with the leader of an aborted march on Moscow sidelined and forced abroad, Russia troops on the front line in Ukraine who continue to hold their ow and a public opinion that’s either staying out of it or still squarely behind Vladimir Putin.
From the anger over a police shooting and its attempted cover-up to the riots and destruction that have left a local mayor’s wife in hospital, has the violence now drowned out the legitimate outrage over what sparked it?
There is no justification for looting and destruction nor for the targeting of law enforcement with firecrackers. Why are so many of those in the street so young? Was the escalation avoidable? We will ask about the state's response.
It's about policing and France's unresolved issues with its banlieues, its working-class suburbs.
After two nights of rioting, the battle lines drawn over Tuesday's police shooting of Nael, the 17-year old who tried to flee the scene in Nanterre west of Paris. One officer faces potential murder charges. The fact that he is even in custody's a rarity in a country.
A continent away from the Kremlin, a host of African strongmen now wait for the chips to fall in Moscow. Russia’s foreign minister took to the airwaves Monday to immediately insist that it’s business as usual for the Wagner group’s ties to the continent. Why the haste? Turns out Yevgeny Prigozhin’s outfit’s much more than guns for hire. It’s influence and a cash cow.
What is a wounded bear to do? Good luck deducing Vladimir Putin’s next move as he sort of returns to the public eye in the wake of Saturday’s aborted march on Moscow by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s irregulars. What are the master of the Kremlin’s true intentions? With Belarus' president now claiming that he is hosting the Wagner Group mercenaries boss, we ask what the real deal is and what it means for Ukraine and a leader who has made a point of staying in the public eye.
Hailed as a hero as he departed, Yevgeny Prighozin filing out of Rostov-on-Don Saturday evening with his Wagner mercenaries. Fourty-eight hours later, the question still begs: What just happened? What prompted Yevgeny Prigozhin’s march on Moscow and its abrupt halt? We chart the current whereabouts of the Wagner group leader and that of the master of the Kremlin.
Joe Biden rolling out the red carpet for India’s prime minister. And more. The halls decked for Narendra Modi’s first White House state banquet just one illustration of how much clout carries a diaspora of four-and-a-half million in the United States… and how strategic India’s become in superpower showdowns.
$400 billion is how much the World Bank estimates could be needed to rebuild Ukraine. Today Ukraine's allies at a major conference in London did promise significant chunks of cash, not just for the war effort but for Ukraine's reconstruction. With the conflict still raging and the counteroffensive to retake occupied territory just getting underway: Is now the right time for a Marshall Plan for Ukraine?
No sign of life since Sunday.It would be wrong to entertain false hopes for the five crew and passengers who plunged into the North Atlantic aboard a small tourist sub to explore the Titanic. We’ll ask about the massive search and rescue effort and see why it would be a miracle if those inside the Titan live to tell the tale.
Could it really spiral out of control? Increasingly militarized standoffs in the Pacific just part of the picture as Blinken became the highest-ranking US official to visit Beijing in five years. A trip pushed back at the start of the year when a Chinese spy balloon was shot out of the sky over US territory. Are the tensions about Taiwan or trade? Both, if you consider that more than half of the world’s semi-conductors are manufactured by Taipei and that Beijing remains the world’s factory.
More than a hundred migrants were rescued from an overcrowded fishing vessel that capsized southwest of the Greek port of Pylos on Wednesday. At least 78 people have been confirmed dead, making it Greece's deadliest migrant shipwreck since 2016. However, that figure is expected to rise, with estimates of the number on board ranging from 400 to 750.
His legacy stretches beyond Italian borders, well beyond Europea, borders. Nothing less than a state funeral for Silvio Berlusconi, Italian longest-serving post-war leader who has passed at age 86. Inside, the high and mighty packed Milan Duomo Cathedral, outside pressed Forza Italia loyalists and fans of AC Milan and Monza, the football clubs he owned.
Donald Trump in a court of law is nothing new – two months after New York City charged the former US president with felony business fraud, federal prosecutors in Miami are now accusing Trump of stashing and concealing classified documents that contain nuclear and military secrets at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after he left office in 2021.
The frontline dam burst that flooded southern Ukraine is a nightmare scenario come true. Who stands to gain from the catastrophe? Also, the nightmare scenario for the planet: Canadian forest fires follow freak spring droughts. The smog is choking North America and sending smoke to Europe, and it's only early June.
Are the United States and Saudi Arabia quietly drawing closer? It’s been nearly a year since we were in Jeddah covering that frosty fist bump between Joe Biden and crown prince Mohamed Ben Salman. Critics quick to evoke memories of 9/11, the brutal war in Yemen and the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi… Biden's hosts irked by what they view as patronizing lecturing on how to run a kingdom.
It’s a worst nightmare come true. How big a catastrophe?
Whether it’s sabotage or carelessness to blame for the bursting of the Russian-held Nova Khakova dam, the livelihoods of tens of thousands downstream have been washed away in an instant.
Is Ukraine armed and ready for its long-touted spring counter-offensive? We’ll ask about air cover, cross-border strikes and ammunition. More broadly, what does it take to claim heavily fortified, heavily mined Russian-held positions? Is Kyiv ready? Is NATO ready? Will stepped-up supplies of military hardware suffice? We’ll weigh the consequences of a protracted war on the Alliance.
In 2020, American startup Clearview AI introduced one of the most highly controversial facial recognition applications. This inspired FRANCE 24's documentary “Your faces are ours: the dangers of facial recognition”. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look into our investigation of a technology using artificial intelligence to precisely identify anyone who has been photographed or filmed.
Two female journalists are on trial in Iran. They face charges of spying and working for foreign intelligence. Their crime cold perhaps best be described here in the west as as good old fashioned journalistic coup.They revealed the truth about a story and dared to publish it. The stroy was the death in police custody of a 22 year old Kurdish woman.
Uganda's legislation that outlaws indentifying as LGBTQ is receiving widespread condemnation. US president Joe Biden has spoken out to describe the new law as shameful. Biden, who is himself a practising Roman Catholic, a religion that says homosexuality is a sin, says Uganda's new legislation could very well harm US-Uganda relations. Before Biden's words were uttered, the law had been condemned by the United Nations as the "worst of its kind in the world."
Recep Tayyip Erdogan wins an extension of his more than two decades in power in Turkish presidential election.An election that veered to the hard right still leaves unanswered questions on the economy, the earthquake response, corruption and the plight of Syrian migrants.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says his company could "cease operating in Europe if the EU gets too tough". Altman is currently in Europe, visiting Paris after London. When he was called before Congress last week in Washington to talk about the same issue of regulating artificial intelligence, Altman made three proposals: a federal agency to control licences; safety standards for high-capability AI models; independent audits of creators.
There is the age-old question of what makes someone want to run for president. And then there is the question of how the candidate announces. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is opting for Twitter: not a tweet but a live discussion hosted by none other than the boss of that social media platform. Elon Musk insists the event does not constitute an endorsement on his part. But if the medium is the message, what does this launch say about the candidate and the times we live in?
Were often asking if Russia's invasion of Ukraine can lead to some kind of world war. But what if global conflict creeps up on us from a different quarter? Infuriated by what it portrayed as an "anti-China" G7 summit, Beijing has now made good on its threat to ban the US's biggest memory chipmaker, Micron. The move was expected, one might argue, after the West's growing restrictions on Chinese tech brands that include the likes of Huawei and TikTok. Is this a fight for market share disguised as a battle of values? Or is technology the battleground of national security in the Information Age?
How many lives have been lost so far in Bakhmut? And why? Russia claims to have fully captured the eastern Donbas city while Ukraine spins it as part of the plan, with its forces elsewhere gaining ground to the north and south.
This time, it’s an out-of-competition opening night film that's lighting the spark. Is the Cannes Film Festival in tune with the times when it rolls out the red carpet for Johnny Depp – megastar of the silver screen, and a polarising figure for those who followed his acquittal in the ugly bare-all trial that pitted the actor against ex-wife Amber Heard?
Is Thailand at a turning point, or will the military-backed elites quickly call time on reform? High turnout in Sunday’s general election delivered an unprecedented result, with Pita Limjaroenrat's Move Forward party topping the populist Pheu Thai of Paethongtarn Shinawatra. Together, the pair blew away the United Thai National Party of the outgoing prime minister and former coup leader Prayuth Chen-Ocha.
Turkey's leader of 20 years has done it again. Recep Tayyip Erdogan magnanimously told supporters to respect a result that forces a first ever run-off for president. But Erdogan's supporters can cheer: with 49.5% of Sunday's vote, his lead seems all but insurmountable. We ask why predictions underestimated fierce loyalty to Erdogan, particularly in conservative strongholds of the Islamist-rooted AK Party. What do the results say about the direction Turkey seeks?
Could an eleventh-hour surprise swing Sunday's elections in Turkey? After two decades in power, it was always going to be close as Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces a mostly-united opposition. Still, the charismatic leader of the Islamist-rooted AK Party controls all the levers of power and commands a loyal following. Now, three days out, comes the shock withdrawal of third-party candidate Muharrem Ince. With a niche following among younger voters, we ask if it's a game changer. Could the opposition score a first-round knockout against the incumbent?
For the second year running, Moscow's Victory Day commemorations have been staged as war rages. Vladimir Putin's message at the military parade in Red Square was that we are in it for the long haul. The day began with Russian missiles raining down on Ukraine's capital Kyiv. We hear from a Russian president who claims a "real war" has been unleashed against his country. Is that how ordinary Russian citizens see it? As sanctions bite and the body count rises, will enthusiasm wax or wane?
Saudi Arabia’s crown prince is mending fences with Syria and Iran, soothing rivalries with Gulf rivals and now welcoming the Biden administration’s point man on security to Jeddah.
There is the outrage and the timing of the outrage. Russia's state media is in overdrive after the purported downing of two drones over the Kremlin, just days before the May 9th Victory Day parade on Red Square.
Two years and one World Cup after hosts Qatar bought the greatest footballer of our time, Lionel Messi is leaving Paris Saint-Germain. But perhaps the Argentine player is already gone.
Third week in and counting, and if the international community secretly hoped it could stay out of the crisis, and that maybe one of Sudan’s warring generals could settle their long-simmering rivalry with a quick blow, it is now time to face reality.
The first day of May marks International Workers Day, with marches and demonstrations erupting all across the world in recognition of everyone who works hard for a living. In France, Labour Day is referred to as "La Fête du Travail", and this specific May Day falls in the middle of strikes and industrial actions following the most controversial set of reforms in decades.
Nearly two weeks on in Sudan, with no clear winner in sight, the personal power play between rival generals shows all the signs that it could spiral into all-out civil war. There’s the big prize, the capital Khartoum but there are also the tens of thousands who’ve fled Darfur for neighboring Chad, as armed factions choose sides while local rivalries and banditry flare up. How to stop the spiral? Who to stop it? Produced By François Picard, Maya Yataghene and Clémence Waller
As President Joe Biden announced he is tossing his hat in the ring for a second term, we'll ask about his fitness for the job. Is he up for the task to once again be the most powerful person in the world?More broadly, is U.S. politics skewed towards seniority? Is it a misperception that the baby boomer generation born before 1965 continues to hold a lock on power? Produced by François Picard, Andrew Hilliar and Clemence Waller
Which Lula is it this week? In Lisbon, Brazil’s president charming his hosts in a speech before the Portuguese parliament to mark nearly half a century since the Carnation Revolution that ended dictatorship there. Lula had raised eyebrows with his recent visit to China. There he accused the U.S. of “encouraging” the war in Ukraine, and then with last week’s warm welcome for Russia’s foreign minister.
A loose cannon or did China’s ambassador to France just test the waters for a more offensive posture on Ukraine? Lu Shaye has made headlines before, most notably with his wolf warrior calls to order over Taiwan. Now come his latest comments questioning not only Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea, but the very legitimacy of the 14 independent States that peeled off from Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed. The embassy claims he was speaking only for himself.
No ceasefire in sight. Does it mean civil war? Sudan caught since last Saturday in the crossfire of an argument between top brass. Neither junta leader Abdel Fattah al-Buhran nor his nominal number two Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo seem ready to listen to outside mediation attempts. The longer the death match continues, the greater the risk that armed factions at home and abroad get drawn in.
What do the French want – a leader who respects the will of the people or one that gets things done?
How to stop Sudan from descending into all-out civil war? Civilians caught in the crossfire of a lethal dispute between coup leader Abdel Fatah al-Buhran and his number two Mohammed Hamdam Dogolo, aka Hemiti. Stray bullets and aerial bombardments pinning down citizens in the capital and other major cities.
Loose lips sink ships, read the poster during World War Two. The U.S. government was then urging citizens to refrain from sharing what might even seem like benign information to the untrained ear.
A nostalgia tour or a chance to consolidate the peace in Northern Ireland? On the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement that ended decades of what was effectively sectarian civil war in an impoverished corner of Europe, a U.S. president who is proud of his Irish Catholic heritage return, but for less than a day in the north. Joe Biden does not want to appear to be endorsing the current gridlock in Belfast power sharing assembly. 25 years on, peace is still a work in progress.
Surely Ukraine’s not the prelude. As Emmanuel Macron was departing Guangzhou, Chinese warships were cruising towards the Taiwan straits. We ask about the three-day show of force staged as a show of displeasure with last week’s visit by the Taiwanese president to California and the US Navy destroyer now dispatched to what China claims are its territorial waters.
French president landed in Beijing for his first post-Covid visit. Emmanuel Macron is accompanied by the European Commission president who last week went on the offensive over unfair trade practices and Chinese backing of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Justice may be blind but can it block out the noise? Somewhere between spectacle and tribal rage comes the first-ever criminal indictment of a president of the United States. There is Donald Trump’s supporters energized for his return to New York City and the glee of detractors, both sides using the hashtag #TrumpMugShot on Twitter. We ask about the media circus.
Are those sanctions starting to bite? On the surface of it, it is business as usual for a Russia that Saturday took over the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council and still enjoys plenty of support from the likes of China. Still, last week, president Vladimir Putin for the first time told his cabinet to expect trouble ahead.
Maybe we are not as smart as we think we are. We thought technology would set us free, liberate us from menial tasks, democratize access to information and knowledge. We marvelled at our ability to connect instantaneously to whoever, wherever, whenever. We even fell for the illusion that each one us is our own brand with a global reach. Beyond the way the digital age plays tricks on the human mind... comes an even bigger threat.
"They cannot continue down this road." Joe Biden's blunt talk on Israel putting to bed speculation that the US president would reward Benjamin Netanayhu with a White House visit, this after the prime minister paused his overhaul of the judiciary. As we see, it is not the first time that Biden has crossed swords with Netanyahu whose own son - without proof - accuses Washington of formenting the mass protests against the reform.
It is a moment of truth for Israel and its democracy: The uncertainty grows with every hour as Benjamin Netanyahu stands firm and stays silent over a plans to weaken the power of the courts. First the opposition, then army reservists and now a general strike yet the country’s longest-serving leader still sees a path to a win.
If a Manhattan grand jury hands up a criminal indictment against Donald Trump, that will make him the first US president – sitting or former – to face felony charges.
"In love, there is always one who kisses, and one who offers the cheek." That French proverb was borrowed by Winston Churchill's daughter to describe the British prime minister's relationship during World War II with US president Franklin D. Roosevelt. When observing the optics of Xi Jinping's three-day state visit to Moscow, we ask about the stakes of the first trip to Russia by China's president since Vladimir Putin's decision to launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine.
A nation is up in arms, but Emmanuel Macron still fancies his chances. By turning the passage of a highly unpopular pension reform bill into a vote of confidence, the French president convinced enough conservatives to avoid bringing down the government. But it was close, with PM Élisabeth Borne's government clinging on by just nine votes. We ask about the lasting impact on the rest of Macron's term-limited four years in office.
FRANCE 24 brings you a special full-length report on how the conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is investing in home-grown cinema. Making films in stunning Saudi locations is also a way of attracting foreign tourists to the country. Young people are now rushing to see films at multiplex cinemas and women make up a large proportion of the audience – a sign of the country's liberalisation. But is all this simply a smokescreen for serious human rights violations? We discuss the issue in this debate.
Emmanuel Macron will have gotten his pension reform out of the way early in his second mandate but at what cost? His prime minister triggering a vote of confidence rather than a straight up and down vote on the bill. How will the railroading through parliament of a plan that sparked France’s biggest strikes and demonstrations in years test the legitimacy of a term-limited president and his minority government in his future dealings with the unions and lawmakers?
Xi Jinping boasts about a great wall of steel in the speech marking the kickoff of his precedent-breaking third term as China’s president. Xi – who’s consolidated his grip on power and flexing his might just as leaders of the US, Australia and the UK converged on San Diego where they vowed to stand up to Beijing’s expansionist designs in the Pacific and elsewhere. How adversarial is Xi, what with so much trade between Aukus allies and China.
Are banks going bad again? Markets are scrambling to contain the shockwaves after Silicon Valley Bank, a California lending institution favored by tech startups, whose seemingly safe bet on government bonds proved a bust, triggering an old-fashioned run on the bank. Is it contagious? It's the first major default since rising interest rates signalled the end of decades of cheap money. 2008 triggered a return to regulation, forcing big banks to keep more reserves in the vault… but was it enough?
Street protests forced Georgia’s parliament to back down on a bill aimed at making groups with overseas funding register as foreign agents, a mimick say critics of the law that’s on the books in Russia. We’ll ask about a government there that’s on paper pro-European… but whose main backer first made his fortune in Russia. Why did lawmakers bend? What next for Georgia?
Who did sabotage the Nord Stream pipelines?Without much proof to go on, pundits could only root for the version that would suit their cause. German investigators reveal they found traces of explosives aboard a yacht that may have carried the charge that last September knocked out the undersea conduit that supplies Russian gas to Europe via the Baltic Sea.
France is growing older. However, Europe's record-breaking life expectancy has a downside: in order to pay for its increasingly healthy legion of retirees, the French right wing says there's no other option but to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. The left retorts that if corporations paid their fair share in taxes, that would more than sustain the country's cherished pay-as-you-go pension system. Ahead of what unions are billing as their biggest strikes yet against the government's pension reform, what exactly does the future hold for workers?
Since November, over 1,000 schoolchildren have apparently been poisoned by toxic gases in their classrooms, and it seems the attacks are on the rise.An investigation by France24's Observers team shows 26 schools were targeted this Wednesday which is the highest figure in a single day.It is not known who is behind the poisonings, or indeed why.However, what is clear is the impact, girls struggling to breathe, fatigued and nauseous and many ending up in hospitals.
In Africa's largest democratic exercise, the votes have been counted. But will the results hold?Bola Tinubu is Nigeria's president-elect. Described as a Godfather of Nigerian politics, the 70-year-old has been a major political operator for decades and a close ally of incumbent president Muhammadu Buhari.The opposition, then, have failed to deliver the upset they fought for. But, they are crying foul play.Citing fraud and vote rigging, they have promised to challenge the results in court.
There is yet another brutal cycle of violence in Israel and the Occupied West Bank. It is a story you may feel well you have heard before. A Palestinian attack on Israeli civilians, and a response as disproportionate or even collective punishment.
With France's influence waning in Africa, it was time to push reset. President Emmanuel Macron has laid out a revamped strategy for the continent. He has insisted Africa is a priority of his second term as president. Indeed, this week he will head there for the second time since being re-elected last year, embarking on a four-nation trip to Gabon, Angola, the Republic of Congo and finally the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
One year after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, FRANCE 24 brings you an special 35-minute report on the Ukrainian resistance. Our reporter Gwendoline Debono went to meet resistants in the southern Kherson region, which was retaken from Russian forces last November. The clandestine actions of these ordinary citizens, driven only by their conscience, played a key role in the liberation of Kherson. But today, how much longer can Ukraine resist? Will Western arms deliveries to Kyiv really prove decisive? We discuss this and more in this special debate.
Here in Europe, in the 21st Century, unfolds a World War One-style artillery war that has killed thousands and lays to waste vast parts of Ukraine. Whereas World War One was preceded by a decades-long buildup. One year on, we are still asking why Vladimir Putin made a grab for Kyiv. To think that just a year ago, we were marking 30 years since the breakup of the Soviet Union. What is left of a shared past? What can that past and this present teach us all about our future?
Will Nigeria’s two-party system tremble? Africa’s most populous nation has known its share of bruising campaigns, but never since the 1999 return to democracy has there been a run-off in the presidential election. Now, in a nation where the average age is 18, could voters turn away from big tent parties and candidates who are both in their seventies?
Duelling speeches, duelling world visions, Ahead of the first anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin accused a West bent on destroying Russia of holding Ukraine hostage.Joe Biden was back in the same setting where last year the U-S president quipped of his Russian counterpart At the time, the White House rolled back those remarks but in fact was that and is that the plan?
The president of the United States in Kyiv ahead of the first anniversary Ukraine invasion. We ask about the drama and the logistics of a visit kept secret until Joe Biden was on the ground, a visit punctuated by air raid sirens. How different from a year ago when Biden was derided on the world stage over the U-S’ messy pullout from Afghanistan? What standing today?
Enter the latest revelations from Forbidden Stories: the worldwide consortium of 30 media blowing the cover of the election hacking and disinformation firm known as Team Jorge founded by a 50-year-old former Israeli special forces operative who bragged to undercover reporters how he could launch cyberattacks and swing elections.
Russia’s foreign minister is coming off a barnstorming tour of the African continent, which included Mali, where coup leaders have kicked out the French and replaced them with Wagner mercenaries. The same scenario has already unfolded in the Central African Republic, and Mali’s neighbor Burkina Faso could be next to welcome the Russians.
Edward Snowden’s revelations about hacked undersea cables familiarized us with large-scale spying and surveillance satellites from space are as old as the Cold War. Balloon Now though, where to fit in the US claims of Chinese balloons hovering in the upper atmosphere? What for? and, what about the unidentified floating objects shot down over North America this past weekend? The Pentagon is so far tight-lipped. Is it something or is it nothing?
Imagine your world collapsing around you in the middle of the night. That is literally what happened to so many in Turkey and Syria. Eight days on from the earthquake of the Century, the odd miracle like the one witnessed by our team in Antakya still occurring but that is fleeting solace for relatives and survivors. It is easy in hindsight to lay blame for the 37,000 confirmed dead while the residents give it their all.
It's five days on from Turkey's deadliest earthquakes since 1939 and through the grief and despair, rescuers persist. Turkey's president acknowledging hiccups and vowing a 10,000 lira handout, the equivalent of 531 dollars, to each family affected by the quake.Over the border in Syria, it was four days before a very first United Nations convoy could cross into rebel Idlib province through the Bab-al-Hawa checkpoint. For the first time since the earthquakes, Syria's president traveled on site.
It’s not a thank you tour - not with Russia back on the offensive.After London and Paris, Ukraine’s president was in Brussels to rally support. Making the case for more weapons, he pitched the war as one of values. We’ll ask about the timing: his second trip abroad since Russia’s invasion nearly a year ago. Is Kyiv ready for the crucial test ahead on the battlefield?
A third night of searching through the rubble for survivors. How to deal with disaster? Turkey and its citizens have long experience in the sudden tragedy that comes with living on two fault lines. In Monday’s earthquakes, structures new and ancient tumbled alike. How best to get to those still alive under the rubble?
Two earthquakes have claimed over 2,500 lives on the border between Turkey and Syria. It was in the early hours of the morning as people slept that a quake of 7.8 magnitude hit. The scale of the devastation caused to the surrounding area of Gazientep is clear to see from the news footage captured at the scene. The initial impact could be felt as far away as Ankara, Beirut and Cairo. Over the border in northern Syria the impact was just as devastating. The death toll there is rising.
The pope in Kinshasa called for mutual forgiveness as he met with survivors of the brutal three-decade old war in eastern DR Congo. It was just one of the highlights of a three-day visit that comes at a crucial juncture for the nation that is home to Africa’s largest Catholic population, one where the Church often fills the role of the state in providing basic social services and where the clergy’s mediation matters in what's an election year for DR Congo.
Any diplomat will tell you. Your friends’ friends aren’t necessarily your friends. We knew that at the start of the war in Ukraine when Israel made sure to keep up relations with Russia so it could keep on targeting Moscow ally Syria. Did that all change last Saturday night in Isfahan? Israeli drones reportedly targeting a defence facility in Iran’s third largest city.
Six Peruvian presidents in six years and counting. The left-wing opposition setting the wheels in motion to remove Dina Boluarte. Her camp had already disowned her when she was vice-president. The 60-year old Boluarte was plucked from obscurity just last month when her predecessor was impeached on the third try and jailed for trying to rule by decree.
After much pondering and perhaps prevaricating, chancellor Olaf Scholz breaking with a seven-decades old non-aggression policy. How momentous? Did he dither and cave to pressure or did he drive a hard bargain to make sure Berlin did not go out on a limb alone?
He has been in power 20 years, currently enjoys a winning streak of 12 elections and three referendums in a row and always knows how to stack the cards in his favour. Turkey’s Recep Tayep Erdogan is back on the campaign trail, moving up by one month the date of presidential and legislative elections to May 14th while judges and prosecutors keep his most popular opponent busy in the courts. We ask about the calendar and the fate of Istanbul mayor Ikram Imamoglu.
Why the tanks? Vladimir Putin wanted a lightning capture of Kyiv but seems happy to settle for a long artillery war that potentially lasts years. Ukraine’s allies argue that only tanks can speed up a win. We ask why and look at the World War One-style trench warfare that is flattening city after city in the Donbas.
As the European Union races to diversify its hydrocarbon imports and electrify its economy, what impact will the ongoing energy crisis have on Europe’s climate ambitions and on the EU's industrial competitiveness? FRANCE 24 Business Editor Kate Moody asks her prestigious panel of guests at Davos, in a discussion developed in collaboration with the World Economic Forum.
Is it one reform too many for Emmanuel Macron? France’s president braving the wrath of the street in what organizers promise is only Day One of the protest movement against his pension reform. A reform he put off during his first mandate because of Covid but insisted he would submit again in his second term.
You won’t see Elon Musk in Davos this year. He says it’s boring on Twitter, which he now owns. And is still bleeding money. Same big losses for his electric car maker Tesla. But it would take a lot more for the billionaire to go broke. Fact is, in today’s world, tech titans seem unbreakable, even when the likes of Musk face a lawsuit for allegedly manipulating Tesla’s share price.
Just a few months ago, the West still hoped to revive the Iran nuclear deal. Now, the UK and the EU are openly considering outlawing the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. What’s the right response to Tehran's weekend execution of British-Iranian citizen Alireza Akbari? We ask about the timing of his killing and the other foreign nationals currently held in Iran.
Russia’s cruise missile strike on an apartment building far from any strategic target sends calling cards to both Ukraine and its NATO allies. We ask about the consequences of the Dnipro attack both domestically and among member states of the Atlantic Alliance. Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, NATO has upped its support for Kyiv in increments.
Jair Bolsonaro’s backers were inspired by the 2021 storming of the U.S. capitol by Donald Trump supporters. In both cases, it started with unbacked claim of election fraud long before the vote and ended in violence. We’ll ask about Bolsonaro’s successor vowing to pursue those who financed last Sunday’s riot.
A salt-mining town of 10-thousand in eastern Ukraine the new focal point of a war where the Kremlin badly needs some good news from the battlefield. We’ll ask who controls the town that’s a gateway to the Donbass town of Bakhmut where the Russians have been pushing for months.
The retirement age here in France is to be raised from 62 to 64 years. Prime minister Elisabeth Borne revealed the plan earlier. It is part of the reforms President Emmanuel Macron has been considering since he was first elected in 2017. The issue of changing the pension system in France is an explosive issue. It has been a rolling topic on the agenda of successive presidents and governments since 1993, even before that.
Scenes of open revolt in Brazil - protestors invaded the Presidential palace and the Supreme court in the capital Brasilia. An angry mob of supporters of the defeated presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro. The far-right mob caused huge damage to the headquarters of the three Powers in Brasília: the Palácio do Planalto, the Congress, and the Federal Supreme Court.
Anarchy in the UK. How far has Brexit created the current crisis? Britain's Winter of Discontent. Strikes, shortages and Brexit make the perfect stormThe UK is in the grip of a new winter of discontent. Strikes this Thursday across the board. Rail workers continue their rolling dispute that has stopped train services: they are calling for a better wage and conditions package.
Stalemate on Capitol Hill. The US Congress recovenes but cannot yet get down to work because there is no House Speaker elected. Quick explainer here: the US Congress is in two chambers. The Senate: where the Democrats have the majority. The House of Representatives: this is where the problem lies. Without a House Speaker the wheels of power cannot turn.
Why did China suddenly go from draconian Covid restrictions to anything goes? The nation where the coronavirus originated kept a lid on it for three years and an easing was expected after the October Communist party congress but to go from Covid protests in November to suddenly opening the floodgates and stopping the count on casualties makes for a stunning u-turn.
Sometimes a single person really can change the world. Pele not only captured the planet’s heart with his Midas touch, he made football the world’s top spectator sport, acting as the graceful ambassador for the beautiful game. The king also put Brazil on the map. As a nation mourns, we’ll ask about the black shoeshine boy from the favela who made a point - like the recently departed Queen Elizabeth - of staying out of his country’s politics, both through dictatorship and democracy.
When did the French get so good at football? Perennial losers back in the 1980s, the defending World Cup champions are now in their second consecutive final, their fourth since 1998. Back then, a nation feted a win on home soil and a golden "black, blanc, beur" generation. On Wednesday night, France celebrated another black, white and Arab generation. The communion even included opposing fans, proud of a Morocco that's the first African and first Arab side to reach the final four at a World Cup.
You have seen African summits in Paris, Brussels, Beijing and Ankara. For only the second time ever, after 2014, Washington is hosting an Africa leaders summit. With superpower rivalries heating up, no long lectures planned on human rights and corruption. Instead, the Biden administration bowing to the African Union’s own blueprint for sustainable growth. Is it the same script as former colonial powers France and Britain?
The cold will not let up. Neither will the fighting. As a conference for Ukraine brings allies and investors to Paris, Russia continues to pound critical infrastructure. How to talk rebuilding when Moscow’s still destroying? We ask our panel where priorities lie, who pays for what and at what point national security interests trump trade and business as usual.
Just when the on-field drama of the football finally seemed to be eclipsing all else coming out of Qatar, the World Cup hosts back in the headlines for all the wrong reasons: Doha denies any part in the piles of cash uncovered by Belgian police or the arrests that include a vice-president of the European parliament. The greasing of the wheels came as the EU started to ponder visa-free travel to Qatari citizens. Why would the Gulf emirate even want the waiver?
The red carpet has been rolled out for Chinese President Xi Jinping in Riyadh. Xi is set to meet some 30 heads of state and businesses during his three-day state visit. China is the top customer for Saudi oil and both sides are keen to expand their relationship at a time of economic turmoil and geopolitical uncertainty. The Chinese leader's visit coincides with a US judge dismissing a lawsuit against the Saudi crown prince over the horrific 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Latin America will long remember what went down Wednesday in Peru. President Pedro Castillo taking to live television to dissolve a hostile Congress but neither his cabinet nor the military followed, and by day’s he was the one out of a job and behind bars for attempting a coup. In his 16-month scandal-ridden stint, how did the 53-year old left-wing trade unionist fail so badly in his campaign pledge to stamp out the corruption that’s plagued the country’s political elites?
Indonesia's parliament approved legislation on Tuesday that will outlaw sex outside marriage. Critics are already calling this a huge setback to rights. It was endorsed by all nine political parties in a sweeping overhaul of the criminal code. Rights groups are protesting against the amendments, denouncing them as a crackdown on civil liberties and political freedoms as well as a shift towards fundamentalism.
Can Iran’s hardline theocracy make concessions? Since September, there has been no sign of it. Now though, is something afoot? The attorney general floating the idea of scrapping the morality police, the force that is blamed for the death of 22-year old Mahsa Amini. Others hint at a repeal of the 1983 law that criminalized defiance of the mandatory headscarf for women. So far, no follow up. Are authorities serious? And will it be enough?
Last week's surprise burst of protests across China seemed to subside as quickly as they erupted. Overnight clashes breaking out in the southern port city of Guanzhou. Social media images from the megacity's Haizhu district include the sound of glass breaking and shouting with arrests following. The clashes came hours after local authorities announced a partial loosening of Covid lockdown rules.
It's a state visit that's also a chance to gauge superpower status. French President Emmanuel Macron heads to Washington at a time when Europeans are wondering aloud if Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has not made the EU even more dependent on the United States. Arming the Ukrainians has shown just how much NATO relies on its top contributor. Europe's scramble to replace Russian oil and gas also means turning to places like the US for imports of liquefied natural gas.
Much of the world is wondering if the worst of Covid has run its course. So why, nearly four years on, is the country where the coronavirus originated still under lock and key? Rare scenes of protest out of China, like in its most populous metropolis Shanghai, have spread during a weekend when citizens clamoured for an end to draconian confinements.
Who would have thought that a Supreme Court ruling in the United States could trigger a constitutional amendment in France? After all, there is zero threat here to a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy on the books since 1975. Earlier this month we saw the blowback in the US to that June decision by the high bench in Washington with midterm election results pointing to record mobilization there by young people. For them, women’s rights were on the ballot.
Back in September, when Iran's protest movement caught the world by surprise, conventional thinking was that with patience and ruthlessness, the regime would eventually outlast whatever came its way. After all, that has been the playbook so many times since the Islamic revolution of 1979. But is this time different?
It was always a stretch, Emmanuel Macron keeping the lines of communication open with Vladimir Putin while Russia’s propaganda machine and the mercenaries of Wagner fueled anti-French sentiment in Africa. In an interview on the sidelines of a Francophone nations summit in Tunisia, it sounds like now, the gloves are off.
If the rise of cryptocurrencies seemed too good to be true, Bitcoin and its ilk have lost 74-percent of their value since reaching dizzying heights just one year ago. What was billed as the insurgent innovation that would decentralize and democratize global finance has instead proven an unregulated mess prey to money laundering and scams. Now comes a real reckoning with the collapse of a company that as recently as September was valued at 32 billion dollars: FTX.
If you build it, they will come. Qatar 2022 is now upon us with the opening kickoff slated for Sunday. The World Cup in a tiny desert dictatorship with virtually no footballing tradition. What could possibly go wrong? When the opening whistle blows, will we all forget about human rights, the carbon footprint of air conditioned stadiums built from scratch and a fall schedule that factors in the desert heat?
All it takes is a spark. After a day when Russia missiles rained down across the whole of Ukraine, two projectiles landing over the border in a Polish farming village killing two. We gauge the evidence and the latest reactions from NATO headquarters where according to its Article 5, an attack against one is an attack against all.
All it takes is a spark. After a day when Russia missiles rained down across the whole of Ukraine, two projectiles landing over the border in a Polish farming village killing two. We gauge the evidence and the latest reactions from NATO headquarters where according to its Article 5, an attack against one is an attack against all.
In less than half a century, the planet's population has doubled. We know that humanity's carbon footprint is unsustainable. How about its birth rate? The two are closely tied but the answer for many a nation is not as straightforward as it seems.
The US and Chinese leaders have held a three-hour bilateral from which the two sides produced completely different accounts. What we do know is that Xi Jinping was adamant that Taiwan was a red line he would not cross. Although Joe Biden stated there is "no Cold War" between China and the USA, there is not a lot of love lost either. Biden's $3 billion military aid package for Taiwan may not help thaw the situation, with Taipei looking to deepen the Taiwan-US security accord. This amid fears that Taiwan could be invaded by China.
The US and Chinese leaders have held a three-hour bilateral from which the two sides produced completely different accounts. What we do know is that Xi Jinping was adamant that Taiwan was a red line he would not cross. Although Joe Biden stated there is "no Cold War" between China and the USA, there is not a lot of love lost either. Biden's $3 billion military aid package for Taiwan may not help thaw the situation, with Taipei looking to deepen the Taiwan-US security accord. This amid fears that Taiwan could be invaded by China.
How does a nation teetering on the brink of becoming a failed state restore its legitimacy? Welcome to a special edition of The Debate. Fed-up Haitians have been speaking out in the streets and on social media about gang rule in the Americas’ poorest nation. Citizen journalists and fact checkers from FRANCE 24’s Observers website have put together a short documentary.
How does a nation teetering on the brink of becoming a failed state restore its legitimacy? Welcome to a special edition of The Debate. Fed-up Haitians have been speaking out in the streets and on social media about gang rule in the Americas’ poorest nation. Citizen journalists and fact checkers from FRANCE 24’s Observers website have put together a short documentary.
What happens when the world's richest man, who fancies himself as a champion of free speech, buys a global brand that aspires to act as the planet’s digital town square? There has been plenty of turmoil in the two weeks since Elon Musk completed his $44 billion purchase of Twitter.
What happens when the world's richest man, who fancies himself as a champion of free speech, buys a global brand that aspires to act as the planet’s digital town square? There has been plenty of turmoil in the two weeks since Elon Musk completed his $44 billion purchase of Twitter.
It wasn't the red wave that many had predicted. Still, the forecast for Washington politics over the next two years remains stormy with a strong chance of gridlock. We break down the midterm election results that so far have split control of Congress between Democrats and Republicans. What explains this outcome?
It wasn't the red wave that many had predicted. Still, the forecast for Washington politics over the next two years remains stormy with a strong chance of gridlock. We break down the midterm election results that so far have split control of Congress between Democrats and Republicans. What explains this outcome?
Is democracy really on the ballot, as Joe Biden claims? The whole world is watching the US midterm elections: the first since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine fuelled soaring inflation and the first federal elections since Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. We ask about the issues that have pollsters predicting a win for opposition Republicans and what to make of anticipated record turnout in many races.
Is democracy really on the ballot, as Joe Biden claims? The whole world is watching the US midterm elections: the first since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine fuelled soaring inflation and the first federal elections since Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. We ask about the issues that have pollsters predicting a win for opposition Republicans and what to make of anticipated record turnout in many races.
Forget trying to cool an overheating planet. In a few short years, the burning issue facing humanity has quickly become how to adapt to and afford the new normal. A summer of drought in Europe, floods in places like Pakistan and Nigeria and searing temperatures all around are just the latest illustration of what's at stake at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt.
Forget trying to cool an overheating planet. In a few short years, the burning issue facing humanity has quickly become how to adapt to and afford the new normal. A summer of drought in Europe, floods in places like Pakistan and Nigeria and searing temperatures all around are just the latest illustration of what's at stake at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt.
Far from being over, the Covid-19 pandemic has created another widespread problem: long Covid, the persistence of symptoms beyond the initial infection. In some cases this can last months and be seriously debilitating. There are 2 million long Covid patients in France. The World Health Organization says there are some 145 million worldwide. However, the French government’s scientific council COVARS has concluded that it's a psychosomatic problem. Has enough been done to understand long Covid?
Far from being over, the Covid-19 pandemic has created another widespread problem: long Covid, the persistence of symptoms beyond the initial infection. In some cases this can last months and be seriously debilitating. There are 2 million long Covid patients in France. The World Health Organization says there are some 145 million worldwide. However, the French government’s scientific council COVARS has concluded that it's a psychosomatic problem. Has enough been done to understand long Covid?
Now 60 years old, the trade embargo on Cuba has been perpetuated primarily at the behest of Washington. When it was imposed in 1962, John F. Kennedy was US president and Fidel Castro was the revolutionary leader of Cuba: a Communist too close for comfort for Washington at the height of the Cold War. Arms sales to Havana had been banned four years earlier and Cuba leant on its major ally, the Soviet Union, to fill the gap. Our panel discusses why the embargo remains in place today and if there is any hope of lifting it.
Now 60 years old, the trade embargo on Cuba has been perpetuated primarily at the behest of Washington. When it was imposed in 1962, John F. Kennedy was US president and Fidel Castro was the revolutionary leader of Cuba: a Communist too close for comfort for Washington at the height of the Cold War. Arms sales to Havana had been banned four years earlier and Cuba leant on its major ally, the Soviet Union, to fill the gap. Our panel discusses why the embargo remains in place today and if there is any hope of lifting it.
By holding its fifth election in less than four years, can Israel break the stalemate? Prime Minister Yair Lapid hopes to remain in power after his coalition collapsed in June, but veteran politician Benjamin Netanyahu, now 73 years old and on trial for corruption, is eyeing a comeback. Many say the country's proportional representation system does not help stability in the Knesset. Meanwhile, some one million Palestinian voters make up 17 percent of the Israeli electorate but are historically disenfranchised. What will this election hold for them?
By holding its fifth election in less than four years, can Israel break the stalemate? Prime Minister Yair Lapid hopes to remain in power after his coalition collapsed in June, but veteran politician Benjamin Netanyahu, now 73 years old and on trial for corruption, is eyeing a comeback. Many say the country's proportional representation system does not help stability in the Knesset. Meanwhile, some one million Palestinian voters make up 17 percent of the Israeli electorate but are historically disenfranchised. What will this election hold for them?
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, better known as Lula, has thanked the people of Brazil for his election victory. It marks a miraculous political comeback for the man who was elected president twice before being sent to prison over a corruption scandal, then released and allowed to stand again. Lula stands on the brink of his third term as Brazil's president. Can he unite a country bitterly divided by this presidential election?
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, better known as Lula, has thanked the people of Brazil for his election victory. It marks a miraculous political comeback for the man who was elected president twice before being sent to prison over a corruption scandal, then released and allowed to stand again. Lula stands on the brink of his third term as Brazil's president. Can he unite a country bitterly divided by this presidential election?
Will the 2022 World Cup, which is taking place in less than a month, be a successful exercise in "sportswashing"? Plagued with accusations of worker abuse, homophobia, sexism, racism and corruption since FIFA awarded them the World Cup 12 years ago, Qatar has had to answer for thousands of harrowing accounts of exploitation – mostly of South Asian migrant workers toiling for long hours in intense heat to build the glittering new stadiums, hotels, roads and airports in place to welcome an expected 1.2 million visitors. We put the question to our panel, including journalist Chloé Domat, who has filmed a special documentary on the issue.
Will the 2022 World Cup, which is taking place in less than a month, be a successful exercise in "sportswashing"? Plagued with accusations of worker abuse, homophobia, sexism, racism and corruption since FIFA awarded them the World Cup 12 years ago, Qatar has had to answer for thousands of harrowing accounts of exploitation – mostly of South Asian migrant workers toiling for long hours in intense heat to build the glittering new stadiums, hotels, roads and airports in place to welcome an expected 1.2 million visitors. We put the question to our panel, including journalist Chloé Domat, who has filmed a special documentary on the issue.
This Wednesday saw a working lunch between Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz – a meeting stripped of fanfare and followed up with no press conference, simply a laconic tweet from the German side. Just how badly is Europe's Franco-German motor misfiring? Germany has decided to go solo on energy security and favour US military hardware over European in its landmark military overhaul. The EU's united front in the face of Russia's war in Ukraine may be showing some cracks. Which way for Germany and for Europe?
This Wednesday saw a working lunch between Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz – a meeting stripped of fanfare and followed up with no press conference, simply a laconic tweet from the German side. Just how badly is Europe's Franco-German motor misfiring? Germany has decided to go solo on energy security and favour US military hardware over European in its landmark military overhaul. The EU's united front in the face of Russia's war in Ukraine may be showing some cracks. Which way for Germany and for Europe?
What does Rishi Sunak stand for? Britain’s youngest prime minister in two centuries is also its first Asian and first Hindu PMwhose "whatever it takes" Covid-19 rescue plan as chancellor helped the poorest when they needed it most. The UK’s fifth Conservative leader in six years is also the Oxford and Stanford-educated pro-Brexit former banker whose personal wealth makes him the target of "out of touch" accusations.
What does Rishi Sunak stand for? Britain’s youngest prime minister in two centuries is also its first Asian and first Hindu PMwhose "whatever it takes" Covid-19 rescue plan as chancellor helped the poorest when they needed it most. The UK’s fifth Conservative leader in six years is also the Oxford and Stanford-educated pro-Brexit former banker whose personal wealth makes him the target of "out of touch" accusations.
Seven men and all his ducks in a row. Xi Jinping's third term has been rubber stamped and a new Communist Party leadership unveiled at a Congress that is set to shape China’s politics for much more than just the next five years. We ask about those promoted, like Li Qiang, the man in charge of Shanghai’s harsh Covid-19 lockdown. His biggest asset is loyalty.
Seven men and all his ducks in a row. Xi Jinping's third term has been rubber stamped and a new Communist Party leadership unveiled at a Congress that is set to shape China’s politics for much more than just the next five years. We ask about those promoted, like Li Qiang, the man in charge of Shanghai’s harsh Covid-19 lockdown. His biggest asset is loyalty.
Despite their record brevity, Liz Truss's 44 days in office will long be remembered. The UK prime minister has now resigned after pressure that became too much. How did the Conservative Party elect a leader who so badly misread the mood and the markets with her failed bid for unfunded tax cuts for the rich? We do forensics on a leader whose time in office could have been even shorter had the queen not died in her second day on the job.
Despite their record brevity, Liz Truss's 44 days in office will long be remembered. The UK prime minister has now resigned after pressure that became too much. How did the Conservative Party elect a leader who so badly misread the mood and the markets with her failed bid for unfunded tax cuts for the rich? We do forensics on a leader whose time in office could have been even shorter had the queen not died in her second day on the job.
How will a Russia in retreat react? Vladimir Putin's brand new military commander is foretelling the pullout from the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, the Kremlin's first major catch at the start of the invasion. If the objective is to subdue Ukraine on the battlefield, the signs for Moscow do not look great.
How will a Russia in retreat react? Vladimir Putin's brand new military commander is foretelling the pullout from the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, the Kremlin's first major catch at the start of the invasion. If the objective is to subdue Ukraine on the battlefield, the signs for Moscow do not look great.
We knew about the figurehead king. But does Britain now have a figurehead prime minister? Liz Truss's grip on power is slipping by the day. A U-turn on unfunded tax cuts for the rich will most likely not be enough to repair the damage. Is she really reduced to the role of prime minister in name only? And is she the problem or the symptom of the problem?
We knew about the figurehead king. But does Britain now have a figurehead prime minister? Liz Truss's grip on power is slipping by the day. A U-turn on unfunded tax cuts for the rich will most likely not be enough to repair the damage. Is she really reduced to the role of prime minister in name only? And is she the problem or the symptom of the problem?
A strongman who is stronger than ever, or is this the point where Xi Jinping goes too far? A third term for China's president is sure to be a rubber stamped at a 20th Communist Party Congress that will further cement his stature as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. We ask how Xi got here and whether he is overextending.
A strongman who is stronger than ever, or is this the point where Xi Jinping goes too far? A third term for China's president is sure to be a rubber stamped at a 20th Communist Party Congress that will further cement his stature as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. We ask how Xi got here and whether he is overextending.
Gunfire and tanks, teenage girls detained in psychiatric wards, and the Internet blocked - yet from the outside, Iran's nationwide anti-regime protests seem to be gaining momentum one month after 22-year old Mahsa Amini died at the hands of the morality police.
Gunfire and tanks, teenage girls detained in psychiatric wards, and the Internet blocked - yet from the outside, Iran's nationwide anti-regime protests seem to be gaining momentum one month after 22-year old Mahsa Amini died at the hands of the morality police.
“There will be consequences,” Joe Biden warned Saudi Arabia after Riyadh sided with Russia and other OPEC+ nations to cut oil production. What type of consequences are Biden referring to? For their part, Gulf states argue they are not trying to bankroll on the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine, but prop up a price of crude threatened by the spectre of a global recession and slowing demand.
“There will be consequences,” Joe Biden warned Saudi Arabia after Riyadh sided with Russia and other OPEC+ nations to cut oil production. What type of consequences are Biden referring to? For their part, Gulf states argue they are not trying to bankroll on the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine, but prop up a price of crude threatened by the spectre of a global recession and slowing demand.
What if we do not follow the money? Seen through western eyes, the dark art of world domination can be shrouded in ideology but must never be bad for business. Does Russia's president follow that logic? The Kremlin has warned that Monday's targeting of major urban centers was "only a first step". How might G7 nations respond to a Vladimir Putin who is ready to cut off his own revenue streams when targeting energy infrastructure?
What if we do not follow the money? Seen through western eyes, the dark art of world domination can be shrouded in ideology but must never be bad for business. Does Russia's president follow that logic? The Kremlin has warned that Monday's targeting of major urban centers was "only a first step". How might G7 nations respond to a Vladimir Putin who is ready to cut off his own revenue streams when targeting energy infrastructure?
How far will the war in Ukraine escalate? Russian missiles have rained over Ukrainian cities in the wake of the weekend bombing of the Kerch Strait bridge. Our panel of guests discuss the latest developments and the potential response from both Kyiv and the West.
How far will the war in Ukraine escalate? Russian missiles have rained over Ukrainian cities in the wake of the weekend bombing of the Kerch Strait bridge. Our panel of guests discuss the latest developments and the potential response from both Kyiv and the West.
Call it Act Two of Iran's protest movement. Teenagers and in particular teenage girls defying Iran's repressive theocracy. Their daring is contagious: Week Three of the movement's seen fewer mass demonstrations than during the initial outrage over the death of 22-year old Mahsa Amini. Instead, more targeted acts of protests, even strikes.
What happens when the people no longer believe their own leaders? With a stroke of the pen, Vladimir Putin annexed Russian-held parts of Ukraine even as those territories shrink in real time. As the casualties mount and amid the blowback against mobilisation, what will this Russian president do if he keeps losing on the battlefield? How does a cornered nuclear-armed strongman react?
The whole region knows the drill by now. Dateline Ouagadougou. If you are watching images of pro-junta demonstrators protesting the visit of West African mediators looking for rule-of-law guarantees from their new interlocutors after a coup, there's no need to reach for the remote control as this is not a re-run. The capital of Burkina Faso just experienced its second coup in eight months, once again following a rout by an emboldened jihadist insurgency.
Brazil's pollsters got it wrong, very wrong. Not only did far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro rob left-wing predecessor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of a first-round knockout, he can also boast upset wins for key allies in gubernatorial and congressional races. Next up is the October 30 presidential run-off, where Lula still boasts a sizeable five-point lead, but where the momentum undoubtedly is with his rival.
Brazil's pollsters got it wrong, very wrong. Not only did far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro rob left-wing predecessor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of a first-round knockout, he can also boast upset wins for key allies in gubernatorial and congressional races. Next up is the October 30 presidential run-off, where Lula still boasts a sizeable five-point lead, but where the momentum undoubtedly is with his rival.
Vladimir Putin with Moscow's four proxy leaders of eastern Ukraine provinces annexed this Friday in a ceremony at the Kremlin. For the Russian president, it is not mission accomplished but rather no going back in a war directed at Ukraine and the West. The signing followed by celebrations, a pop concert on Red Square to celebrate the annexation in stark contrast with the bloodiest attack on Ukranian civilians in weeks.
All summer, we asked if Europe was ready for winter. Now, is Europe ready for hybrid warfare? Swedish authorities are reporting a fourth leak on the Nord Stream pipelines that connect Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea. The EU calls Monday's explosions sabotage, with Poland and Ukraine blaming Russia. Moscow asks: why would we do billions in damage to our own pipelines? Four days on, we are still asking whodunnit and why.
There's a run on the pound and panic in the markets over the UK's biggest tax cut for the rich in half a century. New Prime Minister Liz Truss is taking the concept of "going for broke" to a whole new level, with an almighty gamble that the deficit will take care of itself once all the investment pours in.
What happens when there is that knock at the door? Moscow's hastily-organised referendums in occupied parts of Ukraine – complete with house-to-house searches of ballot recipients – take the concept of "get out the vote" to a whole new level. We ask about turnout numbers that already beggar belief and what happens after Vladimir Putin's Friday address scheduled before a joint session of the Russian parliament.
How far to the right will Italy go? The new face of European politics is called Georgia Meloni. Her fascist-rooted Brothers of Italy party has swept to power, overshadowing her hard-right coalition partners Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi and routing the centre-left, which finished under 20 percent. Why did voters go for a Meloni whose allies include illiberal parties in power in Hungary and Poland, along with Spain's far-right Vox?
There's been no let-up in Iran's biggest protests since 2019, which have seen unprecedented footage of public burnings of the hijab. Despite disruptions to the internet, popular unrest has flared for a sixth day across the country over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini. The 22-year old Kurdish woman had been detained by the morality police for improperly wearing her hijab. We ask our panel: how far will this women's rights movement go?
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, it deployed 160,000 troops. Vladimir Putin has now called up 300,000 after major setbacks in Ukraine, while coupling his announcement with his most overt nuclear threat to the West. Our panel analyses Biden's answer to Putin and the world at the UN General Assembly. One year after the messy US pullout from Afghanistan, what's Washington's stature in the face of Russia's nuclear-sized threats over Ukraine and the knock-on effect on US-China tensions over Taiwan?
How does a Russia in retreat read the room at the United Nations General Assembly? On the day that world leaders gather in New York for UN Week, Vladimir Putin's proxies are unveiling plans for hastily-staged referendums to annex conquered parts of Ukraine that are now under assault from a counter-attack.
The United Kingdom and the world have bidden farewell to Queen Elizabeth II with a state funeral that drew presidents and kings, princes and prime ministers. Her reign has defined an age, up to the point that our panel wonders if she was in reality the queen... of the world? In this special edition, we delve into the moment in time that is a 21st century funeral for a monarch who ruled for seventy years.
Is Beijing going all in, or hedging its bets as sanctions start to bite and Russia suffers setbacks on the battlefield in Ukraine? After their talks, the Russian president conceded that his Chinese counterpart has doubts over the invasion. What to make of this week's summit in Uzbekistan that brings in former Soviet republics plus Iran, Turkey, India and Pakistan?
Ursula von der Leyen's message was loud and clear in her State of the European Union address. To drive home the point, the EU Commission President, sporting the yellow and blue of the Ukrainian flag, had Ukraine's First Lady as her guest of honour. We ask about von der Leyen's message and the cost of a quick segue away from Russian oil and gas.
After Edinburgh, King Charles III goes to Belfast. In a United Kingdom where the monarch plays the symbolic role of unifying figure, the new king of Great Britain and Northern Ireland arguably has a taller order here than in Scotland, where nationalists so far want to keep the crown with or without independence.
Is it a turning point? After weeks of warning of a counter-offensive in the south, Ukraine has caught the Kremlin off guard with the reclaiming of vast swathes of the north, pushing the front away from the country's second city of Kharkiv. We ask what just happened, if there's more to come or if Kyiv is going to struggle to consolidate its gains.
Brazil is celebrating its bicentennial. Four weeks before he stands for re-election, President Jair Bolsonaro is opting for a decidedly martial tone to celebrate the 200th anniversary of a South American giant that has experienced plenty of ups and downs in the 36 years since the generals made way for a return to democracy.
It's day one on the job for Britain's new prime minister and as Russia squeezes natural gas exports, Liz Truss faces a wartime economy. How to keep the lights on across the Channel? How to rein in inflation? As Europeans work to pool their energy purchases, tax windfall profits and collectively ease costs for consumers, will they include Britain and their now Brexiteer PM in that conversation?
She won over the Conservative Party faithful. Now can she win over the UK? Our panel discusses the challenges ahead for prime minister-in-waiting Liz Truss. The one-time Remainer played the hardline Brexiteer in a sometimes bitter Tory leadership campaign, often courting comparisons with Britain's first female PM, Margaret Thatcher.
First the glaciers melt, then the monsoon rains stall. As Pakistan bails out from unprecedented floods comes the stark realization: this is not some freak of nature, it is the new normal for a nation that scientists rank among the most vulnerable to global warming. We ask about the latest, the challenges faced by rescuers.
First the glaciers melt, then the monsoon rains stall. As Pakistan bails out from unprecedented floods comes the stark realization: this is not some freak of nature, it is the new normal for a nation that scientists rank among the most vulnerable to global warming. We ask about the latest, the challenges faced by rescuers.
Can a single person change the world? Yes is the consensus after the passing of Mikhaïl Gorbachev. And change it for the better, claims the West: the last Soviet leader boldly brought the USSR in from the cold, reforming, agreeing to independence for satellite states, all without bloodshed.
Can a single person change the world? Yes is the consensus after the passing of Mikhaïl Gorbachev. And change it for the better, claims the West: the last Soviet leader boldly brought the USSR in from the cold, reforming, agreeing to independence for satellite states, all without bloodshed.
As quickly as Baghdad erupted, Moqtada al-Sadr's supporters went home. All it took was a word from the leader a demonstration of force by the populist Shiite cleric as protracted coalition building in Iraq spills over into a power play with neighbouring Iran. Can Al Sadr stare down pressure from across the border? His umpteenth announcement Monday that he was quitting politics was the signal for clashes that killed at least 30.
As quickly as Baghdad erupted, Moqtada al-Sadr's supporters went home. All it took was a word from the leader a demonstration of force by the populist Shiite cleric as protracted coalition building in Iraq spills over into a power play with neighbouring Iran. Can Al Sadr stare down pressure from across the border? His umpteenth announcement Monday that he was quitting politics was the signal for clashes that killed at least 30.
How to avoid the unthinkable when Europe’s largest nuclear power plant finds itself on the front line of war. As UN inspectors prepare to visit Zaporizhzhia in hopes of securing a facility hit by power outages and alleged attacks, we ask about accusations of Russian shelling from the compound, the risk of a Chernobyl-style meltdown, and the toll it’s already taken on a complex that’s now under Russian control but still operated by under pressure Ukrainian staff.
How to avoid the unthinkable when Europe’s largest nuclear power plant finds itself on the front line of war. As UN inspectors prepare to visit Zaporizhzhia in hopes of securing a facility hit by power outages and alleged attacks, we ask about accusations of Russian shelling from the compound, the risk of a Chernobyl-style meltdown, and the toll it’s already taken on a complex that’s now under Russian control but still operated by under pressure Ukrainian staff.
Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine is breathing new life into NATO, which has not only committed to turbocharging its eastern flank but is now more than doubling its borders with Russia, as Finland and Sweden join an alliance that has rediscovered its purpose.
Who has got who over a barrel? G7 leaders are pushing the idea of capping the price they pay for Russian oil and gas, effectively forcing Moscow to choose whether to supply at a discount or cut off the revenue stream of its pipelines.
It all started in 2013 with Russia steering Ukraine’s then president away from a trade partnership with Brussels. Eight years, one revolution and two invasions on, the EU is now set to grant Kyiv and Moldova EU candidate status. But what does this mean? And what will be the backlash? Would the bloc have the resolve to weather Russia cutting all gas exports? Putin may be assuring his people that Ukraine joining the EU is no big deal, but past pronouncements say otherwise.
Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman is visiting Turkey, less than four years after dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi entered his consulate in Istanbul, never to reemerge. Does President Recep Tayyip Erdogan burying the hatchet with the Gulf oil giant have anything to do with Turkey's skyrocketing inflation and soaring energy costs? As for the crown prince, this trip is part of a broader return to grace, precipitated by Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and the scramble for alternatives to Russian oil.
Israel is now on track for its fifth election in three years after PM Naftali Bennett called for parliament to be dissolved. In line with his coalition deal, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid will be caretaking premier pending new elections, which will be held no more than five months from the day the bill is written into law. So what next? Could this be Benjamin Netanyahu's big chance at a comeback? And what does the Israeli public make of this never-ending electoral merry-go-round?
Eight weeks after his re-election, Emmanuel Macron is now in uncharted territory? On Sunday, French voters have left no obvious path to a working majority in parliament. In this debate, we did the post-polling forensics and looked ahead.
What does EU candidate status for Ukraine really mean, and what have Europe's leaders really offered Volodymyr Zelensky? In the end, it was more just than a photo op. On a visit to Kyiv, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, Mario Draghi and Klaus Iohannis backed the idea of Ukraine joining the EU, or at least for it to be granted "candidate status" to the club.
What does today's Britain stand for? Do illegal migrants deserve to be deported thousands of kilometres away to a country they have never been to? An eleventh-hour ruling from the European Court of Human Rights is for now halting the maiden flight in a scheme to send them to Rwanda. Despite outcry that extends all the way up to Prince Charles and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the government vows to fight it and is even making veiled hints at reviewing its relationship with the ECHR.
It's not the sort of news Ukrainian officials wanted to hear. The last bridge linking the eastern city of Severodonetsk with Ukrainian-controlled territory to the west has been destroyed. This comes as bloody street battles continue in the besieged city, with scores of civilians remaining stranded under relentless bombardment. This is all happening as French President Emmanuel Macron is visiting neighbouring Romania and then Moldova. We ask our panel what his trip means.
After choosing between the familiar faces on offer in April's presidential vote, the French legislative election campaign that followed seemed to many like a seven-week snoozefest. That was until Sunday night. Now, with the first round's ballots counted, Emmanuel Macron has just one week to convince voters to return a centrist majority to parliament for his second term as president. We break down the odds for next week's run-offs.
In France, the parliamentary elections are almost seen as a simple procedure that confirms the president's hold on power with a majority in parliament. Indeed, the polls take place just a few weeks after the presidential election. But will this year be different? Emmanuel Macron secured his second term as president fairly comfortably, with over 58 percent of the vote in the second round. But this may have been less of an endorsement and more of a resigned move to block the far right.
Talk about competing narratives. Russia's foreign minister in Turkey's capital where his hosts talked up the prospect of a UN-brokered plan to free up the Black Sea and the food supplies blocked by the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin wants the waters demined and the West to lift sanctions on food supplies that are critical to the developing world.
It is a word on a lot of lips these days, imperialism. Ukrainians use it to denounce an invasion that they say recalls the days of Czarist Russia, Vladimir Putin uses it to rally support against the U.S. and its allies. In the spotlight over the next week, one of the darkest examples of imperialism as the King of Belgians kicks off a tour of DR Congo.
From Friday's boos at St. Paul's Cathedral for his entrance to the Queen's jubilee thanksgiving service, to a Monday morning leadership challenge at Westminster, the Conservative revolt against the prime minister has suddenly gone into overdrive. With two big by-elections coming up, why set the wheels in motion now?
Do monarchies still matter? In Britain, four days to celebrate seventy years of the world's longest reign. It is a very different United Kingdom from the one where Queen Elizabeth first saw the light of day in 1926. What is the platinum jubilee about in post-Brexit Britain?
First it was a stadium fiasco, then a blame game. Now will political football lead to sackings? The French senate questioning Emmanuel Macron's interior minister after first the tear gassing of Liverpool fans shut out of last Saturday's Champions League final, then the claim that up to 40-thousand English supporters showed up with forged tickets or no tickets.
It took one month of haggling for the European Union to agree on a Russian oil embargo that offers an exemption for holdout Hungary. How big or how small a caveat? After all, the EU is reducing dependency on Russian oil by 90 percent. In the long run, it's a further incentive to accelerate the continent's move away from fossil fuels.
The EU is weighing up more sanctions against Russia. In Brussels, a special summit has been examining a sixth round of sanctions against Moscow since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24. Is this the moment an oil embargo comes into play?
Two years of crises have changed almost everything we thought we knew about business and politics, including how they intersect. Supply chains have been turned upside down, while national economic interests have clashed with global partnerships. So is now the time for bigger and bolder spending, cooperation and innovation? Is this the beginning of a new area of industrial development? At the World Economic Forum in Davos, FRANCE 24's Business Editor Kate Moody puts these questions to a panel of prestigious guests.
Is a peace generation coming of age in Colombia? Six years after the FARC rebellion laid down its arms and one year after student-led protests against inequality and police brutality, citizens will vote on Sunday in the first round of a presidential election where the 2016 peace deal that ended the Americas' longest civil war is but one factor. For the very first time in the country's history, the left could come to power.
Twenty-seven school shootings have taken place since the start of the year in the United States. Ten days after Buffalo, the news cycle turns to Texas with the familiar ritual of shock, grief and outrage before counter-arguments about mental health and the responsibility of parents.
How the world has changed in 90 days. Remember the eve of the Russian invasion? Even after a massive troop buildup, and even as Vladimir Putin was questioning Ukraine's very right to exist as a sovereign state, it still beggared belief that war was imminent.
Who is winning the room? Who is winning the region? Joe Biden has inflation and an uphill battle to the midterms back home, but that is no bother for Indo-Pacific allies. Monday saw the launch of a regional trade partnership and plans for a partnership to stare down maritime threats. Tuesday will see a Tokyo summit of the Quad, which despite its denials, looks more and more like the far east's answer to NATO. The alliance brings together the leaders of the US, Japan, India and Australia.
It took the invasion of Ukraine for Europeans to realise that decades of short-sighted energy policy have caught up with them. As Germany strips its former chancellor of parliamentary privileges over his refusal to sever ties with Gazprom, Gerhard Schröder's downfall is a reminder that it's all of Germany and most of Europe that went for a quick buck by buying Russian oil and gas.
After becoming the first French president in two decades to win re-election, Emmanuel Macron now has to convince enough voters to once again give him a mandate in next month's legislative elections. A centrist who this time has to face an unusually united left, Macron has to persuade the electorate to stick with free-market reform, while shedding his "too clever for his own good" image.
He is not a lone wolf. The 18-year-old who travelled to Buffalo, New York to livestream a shooting spree targeting Black shoppers had the complicity of an "anything goes" internet where hate can spread at the speed of light, and a "land of the free" mantra where he could buy assault weapons over the counter.
It never happened during the entire Cold War. But all these years later, Russia's border with NATO is about to double in size. Finland remains unmoved by threats out of the Kremlin over its bid to join the US-led alliance. The same goes for neighbouring Sweden, which is so concerned by Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine that it is ready to call time on two centuries of neutrality.
Enter the twilight of the world's longest reign. The 96-year-old Queen Elizabeth II missed what is arguably the highlight of any British monarch's calendar: the reading of the government's parliamentary program instead delivered by her son, the crown prince. The importance is mostly symbolic, since the Queen's Speech is written by the prime minister. However the optics of the exercise beget the question: what United Kingdom will Charles inherit?
In the end, there was no big reveal on Moscow’s Red Square on May 9. But is the devil in the detail of Vladimir Putin's Victory Day speech? In commemorating 1945 win over the Nazis, the Russian president did not declare war on Ukraine or announce a mass mobilisation, defying some expectations. He did however single out the perceived aggression of ''America and its minions”.
Is it a sign that Northern Ireland is ready to overcome old divides, or of new troubles ahead? For the first time ever, Unionists could find themselves in the minority when ballots are counted in regional assembly elections. Under the Good Friday Agreement, the DUP would still share power with Sinn Fein, who could trigger a referendum on a united Ireland.
What surprise will he spring on May 9th? All eyes are on Vladimir Putin ahead of what has become on his watch the most sacred day on the Russian calendar. Victory Day in World War II means remembrance of the estimated 26 million who lost their lives while turning the tide in what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War.
It was only a leak of a draft. Yet punches have already been thrown outside the US Supreme Court in the first standoff over Justice Samuel Alito's 98-page argument in favour of overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalised abortion in the United States. We ask whether the document leaked to Politico is a turning point for more than just reproductive rights.
Thousands of civilians have been killed and millions others displaced since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Having failed to capture Kyiv in the early weeks of the war, Moscow has been focusing its military efforts on crushing resistance in southern and eastern Ukraine. Towns in the east are currently facing intense Russian bombardment.
A victory for free speech or for disinformation? That's the $44 billion question after Elon Musk's swoop on Twitter. Does it matter any more than Amazon's Jeff Bezos owning The Washington Post or all the French captains of industry whose often money-losing media purchases buy them a platform to voice their views?
The rest of Europe may not be at war, but is it ready for the sacrifices of a wartime economy? The Kremlin shutting the gas tap on Bulgaria and Poland may be but a prelude to a brutally swift transition away from Russian gas and oil. Deals will be dropped, money will be lost.
As violence intensifies on the ground in Ukraine, the diplomatic tension has also ratcheted up a notch. As Russia accuses NATO of waging a proxy war, the UN chief Antonio Guterres is in Moscow, asking for cooperation over humanitarian access to places like Mariupol. Sergei Lavrov says Moscow is "ready to cooperate" with the UN to help civilians, but only a day earlier, he warned that World War III was a real danger.
Five years ago, it was a party. This time it felt more like a town hall reception after a marriage of reason. Two hours after French voters had handed their now 44-year-old president a second term, Emmanuel Macron's acceptance speech was already over and supporters were set to call it an early night beneath the Eiffel Tower. From abroad, many were asking: how can a 15-point margin turn into a sobering affair?
Russia has claimed control of the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, but President Volodymyr Zelensky says as many as 120,000 civilians remain trapped there, including hundreds in bunkers below the Azovstal steelworks. Is this the shape of things to come in other cities in the Donbas region now targeted by Russia? We put the question to our panel.
Can she erase the memory of her meltdown in 2017? Trailing in the polls, Marine Le Pen has ground to make up when she squares off with Emmanuel Macron in the one and only French presidential election candidates' debate. It's an exercise that matters in a nation that takes its politics seriously. We review what went wrong for the far-right standard-bearer on the night in 2017, whether she has softened her stances – as she claims – and whether the sitting French president can overcome incumbent fatigue or avoid coming across as a know-it-all.
They're calling it the battle of Donbas. After nearly two months of mishaps and setbacks, Russia is putting all its might into a bid to capture the entire east of Ukraine. But will it capture it or flatten it? We ask our guests about the Kremlin's endgame and the scramble to re-arm the Ukrainians.
What if the French left stays home next Sunday? Two-thirds of those who actively support Jean-Luc Mélenchon see no reason to choose centrist incumbent Emmanuel Macron over the far-right's Marine Le Pen in the presidential run-off. In a nation where the president enjoys outsized powers, this is the election that matters. Why are so many of his supporters unfazed by the prospect of Le Pen beating Macron? She's the leader of a party whose roots go back to Vichy France and the 1961 attempted coup to keep Algeria French.
What happened to the Moskva? Russia's flagship cruiser in the Black Sea is out of action. Moscow claims there was a fire on board, while Kyiv is crowing that it was due to a Neptune anti-naval missile. Either way, how will it impact the Kremlin's designs on the entire Ukrainian coast?
When French voters cast their ballots in the April 24 presidential run-off, the result will be watched well beyond our borders. For now, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen are serving up opposing visions of France's place on the world stage. He is for ratcheting up concerted EU sanctions against Vladimir Putin, while she is against any oil or gas embargo. The incumbent backs working together on defence, while his far-right rival wants France to quit NATO's integrated military command. Amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, who is the right candidate for this moment?
There are calls from the US and Britain for an investigation after Ukrainian soldiers of the Azov regiment were reportedly injured by a "poisonous substance" during a Russian attack on the port city of Mariupol. No evidence has yet been gathered. The UK foreign secretary says it would be "a callous escalation" of the war. The Pentagon says it's "deeply concerning". Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has already expressed his fears that Russia could deploy chemical weapons in his country.
And so begins a mad dash to the finish in the French presidential race. After a surprisingly sluggish start to the campaign, the first round served up the predicted outcome but also its fair share of surprises. The April 24 runoff is incumbent Emmanuel Macron's to lose, say the pollsters. But in a rematch of the 2017 second round, the centrist incumbent has his weaknesses that the far-right's Marine Le Pen astutely exploited in a campaign where she has been out pounding the flesh while Macron has been attending summits.
All of a sudden it's neck and neck in the race for the French presidential election. Emmanuel Macron was sitting pretty and on course for a second term. So how has April turned into the cruellest month for the sitting French president? Macron's second term is facing a real threat from far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, as polls show a closing of the gap between the incumbent and his main rival. Could he really lose?
More evidence is emerging of what happened when towns around Kyiv were under Russian occupation after heavy bombardment. Ukraine's president is warning that there are more shocking revelations to come. The Ukrainian president is warning that the deaths in Bucha could be only the beginning and says he has intelligence that even more civilians have been killed in places like nearby Borodyanka.
Moscow has so far shrugged off hard evidence of summary executions in the liberated Kyiv suburb of Bucha, evidence which continues to mount. As the West dials up sanctions and arms shipments, as Ukraine's president makes his case to the UN Security Council, we gauge the mood in the room. Will blanket denials be enough to keep on board nations big and small who by necessity or principle see it in their interest to give equal air time to the Kremlin?
Is it a turning point? There's outrage over the carnage and desolation left behind by retreating Russian forces north of Ukraine's capital. We discuss war crimes accusations in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha and ask – now that the war's set to last – whether the Kremlin's ultimate objective is to occupy Ukraine or reduce it to rubble.
It's that old adage: your friends' friends are not always your friends. Over the years, India has drifted towards the United States, partly due to its border tensions with China. But even the invasion of Ukraine cannot break the historic ties binding Delhi to Moscow – from arms and oil imports to the non-aligned strategic autonomy that steered India through the Cold War. So can India stay out of it? Can anyone? If nations don't actively oppose an invasion, do they enable it?
Can Russia still win the information war? Public opinion in the West was quick to swing solidly against Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, with even the fringes of the far right and far left here muting their admiration of Moscow's strongman, but that doesn't mean Moscow's spin machine has gone quiet.
Does 22 years in power change a man? Or was this Vladimir Putin's grand design all along? In justifying his invasion of Ukraine, the master of the Kremlin talked of "denazification" and how Russians and Ukrainians are the same people. Now, with the ground offensive failing to net a quick win, Moscow is reportedly dialling back the "denazification" part. We ask if it's true.
Did he go off script or was he on message? The Biden administration is partially rolling back what the US president said about Vladimir Putin at the conclusion of his Saturday speech in Warsaw. Washington insists it is not plotting or espousing regime change in Moscow, instead describing an "unworkable relationship" with the current master of the Kremlin.
Remember not so long ago when France's president blasted NATO as being "brain dead", wondering aloud what purpose it served? The biggest invasion Europe has seen since World War II now has the Alliance scrambling, shoring up defences on its eastern flank and trying to beef up its battle readiness in real time. We ask our guests about Thursday's NATO summit and the allies' red lines on Russia.
Would Russia really use nuclear weapons? The Kremlin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told CNN that that would only happen if Moscow faced an existential threat and certainly not in the current campaign in Ukraine. Is that simply stating the obvious, or should we worry?
The world was stunned when Russia launched an old school ground invasion of Ukraine. But how about the great cyberwar we had been warned of? Ukrainian institutions and companies have been hacked, but none of the major attacks are taking out power grids and telecom networks – at least not yet. With the Russian military using Ukrainian mobile networks on the battlefield, some wonder if the West overestimated Moscow's tech savviness.
Nearly a month in, Ukraine is resisting as invading Russian forces increasingly resort to shelling civilians. With an estimated 300,000 people trapped in the besieged port city of Mariupol and amid shelling in major cities including the capital, Kyiv is refusing to surrender and the Russian advance is slow going. Are we now digging in for a long war? And what does a long war mean for the invaders and the besieged?
Exactly 60 years ago, the Évian Accords were signed, ending the Algerian War of Independence. For almost eight years, French colonial forces and Algerian independence fighters had been locked in a bloody conflict, but in March 1962, a ceasefire was agreed and in July of that year, 130 years of colonial occupation finally came to an end. Our guests discuss what this means today, where Algeria is going and the shadow still cast by Algeria's colonial past.
Who are the people keeping Vladimir Putin in power? Much is made of the oligarchs and their billions of dollars. Their support has been vital to keeping Putin financed. But how is Putin's influence protected? This is now down to his St Petersburg friends a collection of hard men who are now in positions of power that they own to Putin.
Volodymyr Zelensky has addressed the US Congress. Ukraine's president made a plea for more help to defend his country against Vladimir Putin's forces. On day 21 of the Russian invasion, with shelling and air strikes continuing, Zelensky appealed to the United States to do more. But will he get what he wants?
We examine the role played by Western allies in the Ukraine conflict. We're asking: what will NATO do next? There was more destruction in and around Kyiv this Tuesday. So what will NATO do? It's a question many observers are asking. Most importantly, it's the only question people in Ukraine want answered.
In Ukraine the destruction continues and the death toll increases. Tonight we are focusing on the humanitarian situation. This Monday, day 19 of the Russian invasion, there have been strikes on residential buildings on the outskirts of Kyiv. A Russian vice squeezing the Ukrainian capital.
What a difference an invasion makes. As EU leaders gathered for an emergency summit in the Paris suburb of Versailles, gone were the dissenting voices willing to cosy up to the Kremlin. From the far right to the far left, the excuses of 2014 – when Russia annexed Crimea – have gone silent.
A fortnight in, there's no turning back for Vladimir Putin. His ground forces have progressed in stops and starts, while shelling Ukrainian cities and the civilians trapped inside. So is it really going to plan for the Kremlin? For Ukrainians, it's a blunt choice of fight or flight. In this debate we get the latest both from inside the country and among NATO allies who have made it clear they're not putting boots on the ground, but are continuing to step up support. Is it enough for Ukraine to hold out?
Europe's first full-scale invasion of a sovereign state since World War II, a refugee crisis to match and an endgame sure to upend more than just the West's resolve: as the EU turns up the heat on Vladimir Putin, it's already asking citizens to turn down their thermostats. How will citizens react if on the one hand, Russia conquers Ukraine and on the other, the price of crude oil shoots past $200 a barrel? How to make do without Russian oil and gas?
Does the West go all in? A third day of broken ceasefire promises in Ukraine clearly illustrates that Russia has gone all in and will not settle for anything short of victory on the battlefield. We ask about the latest out of the crucial port cities of Odessa and Mariupol and speculation over Poland sending Soviet-era fighter jets to its under-siege neighbour.
As bells ring out across Europe in support of Ukraine, refugees fleeing the country are now in excess of a million. On the Polish border, women and children part ways with the men who must return and fight against Russian forces. France has welcomed the first Ukrainian refugees with open arms. Their plight is uniting public opinion more than the Syrian refugee crisis ever did. Meanwhile, military supplies have been sent to Ukraine...but is this enough?
With the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv devastated and the capital Kyiv braced for an attack by a massive Russian convoy, we're asking whether the US has made the right calls on Ukraine. The message of Joe Biden's State of the Union address was one of solidarity with President Volodymyr Zelensky. But seen from Kyiv, will this feel like enough?
The situation in Ukraine is the focus of the world's media. The shelling of Kharkiv has been condemned as a war crime by the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. There has been damage across the whole of Ukraine, but the next phase of the Russian operation is expected to be even more violent. Ukrainian people say they are resolute and prepared to lay down their lives – perhaps best represented by their own president. Volodymyr Zelensky is still in Kyiv and says he is ready to fight.
Talks have begun on the Belarus border between representatives of Ukraine and Russia. But the one voice that counts and can immediately stop the violence is that of Vladimir Putin. Has the Russian president already gone too far and signed the end of his own time in power? With almost all the world united against his aggression against Ukraine, we ask our guests if talks and sanctions can stop Putin.
Western powers ramp up sanctions against Russia, but will it be enough? Never since World War II has a sovereign state attacked another with such force. Russia launched an invasion with attacks by land, sea and by air. It followed a speech in which President Vladimir Putin promised the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine's democratically-elected government.
How to respond to Russia's soldiers and tanks? After months of buildup and shuttle diplomacy, the gloves are now off as Russian President Vladimir Putin's has made his move for southeastern Ukraine. How far is the West willing to go for a non-NATO member that is pining to join the military alliance?
All bets are off: the Russian president has made his move. Months of Western efforts to stave off a Crimea-like land grab seem to have been wiped out with the stroke of a pen. Does Vladimir Putin's recognition of two breakaway regions of Ukraine's Donbass as independent mean war? Armoured vehicles are now near the front line, after Putin claimed that another Vladimir - Lenin - gave away eastern Ukraine when he formed the Soviet Union. We discuss the situation, and the international response.
Has war been declared? Following a day during which the Kremlin ratcheted up its rhetoric, François Picard’s panel weighs the consequences of the call in Moscow to recognise Ukraine’s pro-Russian separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. They also discuss Vladimir Putin’s ultimate goal.
Europe and Africa already had more than enough in their in-tray going into their first Brussels summit in nearly eight years. Now you can add coup contagion and the pullout of French-led anti-terror forces from Mali. The day began in Paris for key players in the Sahel. Will the crisis overshadow the EU-African Union summit?
It's not a question of if but how: France's president is hosting African and European allies before the announcement of a withdrawal from Mali. Relations have seriously soured with the junta in Bamako ever since a second coup in as many years and the cozying up of the military to Russia and the mercenaries of the Wagner Group.
Could inflation prove more perilous to livelihoods than lockdown? The latest figures from France and its neighbours show light at the end of the public health crisis tunnel, but there's no time to celebrate. The recovery has spawned a bidding war over goods and raw materials that's cancelled out wage hikes for an in-demand labour force.
Diplomacy continues in a bid to resolve the Ukraine crisis. This Monday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz went to Kiev to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy. This as a ring of Russian troops tightens around Ukraine.
The fate of Muslims, women and the media are just three of the issues under the spotlight in India's regional elections. The northern state of Uttar Pradesh perhaps best sums up what's at stake. It has been ruled by PM Modi's Hindu nationalist BJP for the past five years but today, there's increasing concern for the rights of Muslims in particular. Our guests discuss what's at stake in these elections.
Is tying humanitarian assistance to human rights the right course for Afghanistan? Aid agencies are this week imploring the West and in particular the US Treasury to allow money transfers to flow unhindered and to unblock desperately needed funds.
After Moscow and Kiev, Emmanuel Macron is in Berlin to huddle over Ukraine. The French president's host is also fresh off the plane. German chancellor Olaf Scholz is just back from Washington to host Macron and his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda. We find out if the three are on the same page, what with 100,000-plus Russian troops still surrounding Ukraine on three sides.
Emmanuel Macron is on a special trip to Moscow to meet and talk with Vladimir Putin. The mission: to try and calm matters on the Ukraine-Russia border and avoid what many analysts say is certain war. Macron is representing the EU, with France holding the rotating presidency. What influence does he take into these talks?
Can Xi Jinping's China pull it off? Can happy pictures of a torch relay reduced to 72 hours and tightly cropped images of top-level competitions make the world forget about the empty seats, the Covid bubble, the artificial snow, the tight security and the pressure on sponsors over human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong?
Denmark is the EU's first nation to lift all domestic Covid restrictions, raising hopes in northern Europe and beyond. Here in France, new infections have never been higher, but the authorities are relaxing rules too. That's because the vaccination rate is near 90 percent and hospitals are managing. The omicron variant is more infectious but milder. Milder if you are vaccinated, warns the World Health Organization. Many nations remain vulnerable.
Is there no stopping all-out civil war in Myanmar? On the first anniversary of the coup that ended power sharing between Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and a military whose candidates had just been trounced in a general election, a silent strike took place to protest the brutal crackdown against calls to return to civilian rule. Can peaceful protest still work?
Condemn or cooperate? West African leaders are grappling with that question as they scramble for the antidote to coup contagion. Since regional bloc ECOWAS decided earlier this month to play hardball with Mali's junta, tensions have spiralled far and wide. Now Bamako is expelling France's ambassador amid a war of words over the hiring of the Russian mercenaries of Wagner, right under the noses of French and EU forces there to fight a jihadist insurgency.
Every two years, football comes home... to Africa. This year, the Africa Cup of Nations is hosted by Cameroon and, no doubt, there's plenty to criticise: dodgy calls by the ref, questionable Covid-19 protocols and a deadly stampede that left eight dead. And yet, football fans the world over are enthralled. Every day brings new twists: minnows have upset powerhouses, and stars who normally spend winter in the European leagues have shown up for their national sides. So what exactly is it about AFCON that's got us riveted?
As Antony Blinken responds in writing to Russia's demands for an overhaul of Eastern Europe's security architecture, in the same breath he urges American citizens in Ukraine to leave. This Wednesday's "Normandy Format" talks, including France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine, serve as a reminder that Ukraine has already lost its territorial integrity – back in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and supported the insurgency that's raged since in the southeast. So what is Moscow after this time?
The West still doesn't know why war in Ukraine might happen, but it increasingly seems like it's happening. Kiev is trying to keep calm and rally support while being surrounded on three sides and being the recent victim of a cyberattack that feels like a dry run. Meanwhile, NATO countries are sending weapons and advisors while deploying fresh troops elsewhere in Eastern Europe. But that's small compared to the 100,000-plus forces amassed by Moscow.
Saying they feel exposed in the face of an Islamist insurgency rampant across the Sahel region, soldiers in Burkina Faso have taken to national television to confirm the ousting of President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré. But what will a coup change in yet another poor, landlocked nation where radicals seem to prey on weak institutions? Seven years ago, young people were instrumental in the popular uprising that led to the downfall of strongman Blaise Compaoré. Do these soldiers represent a different generation, or a return to the past?
Is he living on borrowed time, or does Boris Johnson's brand of populism make the British PM scandal-proof? It's certainly not great optics when a Tory MP crosses the aisle to join the Labour opposition benches during Prime Minister's Questions, but that seems to have at least stalled a backbench revolt against Johnson for now. We ask why, and whether he can ride out the storm.
With prices at the pump surging and a showdown looming with major gas supplier Russia, the French president addressed the European Parliament to mark France's rotating presidency of the bloc. We ask about what Emmanuel Macron said and didn't say about the highest fuel prices in seven years with some of Paris's petrol stations asking two euros a litre at the pump.
How strong is the West's resolve when it comes to Ukraine? A steady diet of diplomacy is so far failing to lift the uncertainty over Vladimir Putin's true intentions when it comes to those 100,000 troops amassed at the border.
Call it an Olympic-sized gamble. Ahead of Chinese New Year holiday travel and the Winter Games, authorities there are sticking to their zero-Covid policy. As Omicron tears through much of the rest of the world, can the coronavirus really be barred from the Beijing Olympics?
Order has been restored in Kazakhstan after protests turned to open revolt in clashes last week. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev calls it an attempted coup, blaming foreign terror networks, but he's also arrested the former head of security left over from his once all-powerful predecessor. At 81, Nursultan Nazarbayev is out as head of the country's ruling supreme council. We ask about his whereabouts and his exit from the limelight. From Angola to Uzbekistan, controlling your legacy is tricky when you run an oil-rich oligarchy.
Why are Mali's neighbours coming down hard? A harsh embargo has been decided after coup leaders in that landlocked West African state reneged on their promise of a quick return to civilian rule. How harsh? We talk border closures and trade embargoes. It's not as if the region has never seen a putsch before: look no further than neighbouring Guinea.
Is it better than Putin bargained for? Critics of Geneva talks between Cold War rivals say they reward the Kremlin for its massive troop build-up on the Ukrainian border. Would the United States be sitting down with Russia without the threat of an invasion? Is it better to talk or not to talk?
On the first anniversary of the US Capitol assault, the arrests and revelations keep coming over a planned insurrection, encouraged and never denounced by an outgoing president who was trying to stop the certification of an election he had lost. Two weeks later, despite pressure from the top to overturn the will of the people in states like Georgia and Pennsylvania, institutions held firm and a new president was sworn in.
When Emmanuel Macron first ran for president five years ago, he touted himself as a disruptor; a leader who could reform France from outside the box of the traditional political parties. It turns out the reformer can sometimes be a loose cannon. We ask our panel about the incumbent's latest shock statement that's got the chattering classes going in Paris.