Dressed in a black suit, black shoes and a dark shirt, the 38-year-old Spaniard soaked up the applause from the 15,000 spectators in the stands during a 45-minute ceremony at the end of the daytime matches.

A four-minute video splicing images of Nadal unleashing his trademark shots and fist pumps from over the years at the Roland Garros Stadium brought cheers and chants of “Rafa! Rafa!”

“I played here for 20 years,” Nadal said. “I suffered. I won and I lost. I have lived many emotions on this court.”

From his first appearance in May 2005 until his departure in 2024, Nadal contested 116 matches. He was outwitted on the court four times.

He had pocketed four crowns when Robin Soderling was the first to beat him in 2009. Novak Djokovic saw him off in the 2015 quarter-finals and Nadal withdrew before his third round match against Marcel Granollers in 2016.

Djokovic vanquished him in the semis in 2021 and Alexander Zverev dispatched him last year in the first round.

In the prelude to the 2025 competition – the first since his retirement from the ATP circuit in November – French Open directors announced they wanted to celebrate the 124-year-old tournament’s greatest champion.

“Thank you to Roland Garros for giving me the opportunity to be again on the most important court of my tennis career,” said Nadal who was forced to withdraw from the 2004 tournament due to injury.

Dressed in pirate shorts, bandana and a bicep-revealing gilet, the fist-pumping 18-year-old blazed through a field that included the world number one Roger Federer.

“I’ve had incredible rivals,” Nadal added. “Roger, Novak and others who pushed me to my physical and mental limits.”

After thanking tournament administrators, his friends and family, Djokovic, Federer and Andy Murray – the other members of what tennis writers dubbed “the Big Four” came out to share the stage.

“After all these years fighting for biggest things in our sport, we showed that we can fight in a good way,” Nadal told his old foes.

“Thank you. We respected each other and it is important that you are here. I appreciated pushing myself to the limit because of you all. You mean everything to me and that we can be good friends sends a message to the world.

“I hope we continue to do positive things together.”

After French Open bosses Gilles Moretton and Amelie Mauresmo presented him with a trophy with his signature and a list of all his victories, they ushered him over to a plaque in the ground bearing his footprint and the number 14.

More cheers and more tears.

In a dramatic and emotional close to the 78th Cannes Film Festival, Iranian director Jafar Panahi was awarded the prestigious Palme d’Or for his powerful revenge thriller It Was Just an Accident.

The moment was both triumphant and poignant, marking a major victory for a filmmaker who has long worked under extreme political pressure.

Panahi, who has been banned from leaving Iran for over 15 years, was presented the award by Cate Blanchett to a roaring standing ovation.

The filmmaker, visibly stunned, threw his arms up in disbelief before rising to applaud the crowd.

In a heartfelt speech, he championed freedom of expression, declaring: “No one should dare tell us what kind of clothes we should wear, what we should do or what we should not do. The cinema is a society”.

Story of revenge

Panahi’s win marks a sixth consecutive Palme d’Or for the indie distributor Neon, continuing a remarkable streak that includes Parasite, Titane, Triangle of Sadness, Anatomy of a Fall, and Anora.

With North American rights already secured, It Was Just an Accident seems poised to follow in the footsteps of its award-winning predecessors.

The film, inspired by Panahi’s own imprisonment, follows a group of ex-prisoners grappling with whether to take revenge on their former tormentor.

Panahi, jailed in 2022 after seeking information on fellow filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, was freed in 2023 after a hunger strike.

Despite years of surveillance, censorship, and a travel ban, he continued to make films in secret, often smuggling them to festivals on USB drives.

Festival jury president Juliette Binoche, a long-time supporter of Panahi, praised the film’s spirit of “resistance and survival.” She added, “Art will always win. What is human will always win”.

Cannes surprises US actor Denzel Washington with honorary Palme d’Or

‘Contemplation and empathy’

The Grand Prix – Cannes’ second-highest honour – went to Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, a moving Norwegian family drama that reunites the director with actress Renate Reinsve.

Trier used the moment to reflect on the power of cinema in a world oversaturated with images, praising Cannes for honouring films that invite contemplation and empathy.

Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho scooped up Best Director for his political thriller The Secret Agent, while Wagner Moura won Best Actor for the same film.

Juror Jeremy Strong noted simply, “That was our wish”.

The wins follow Brazil’s recent Oscar success with I’m Still Here, adding to a celebratory year for the country’s cinema.

Cannes power outage won’t dim the glamour of film festival finale

Cannes accolades

The Jury Prize was shared by Óliver Laxe’s Sirât and Mascha Schilinski’s German generational drama Sound of Falling.

Nadia Melliti took home Best Actress for her role in The Little Sister, and Cannes regulars Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne added yet another accolade – Best Screenplay for Young Mothers.

Iraq also celebrated an historic first, with Hasan Hadi’s The President’s Cake winning the Camera d’Or.

Despite a day rocked by a major power outage – suspected to be arson –Cannes carried on.

As actor John C. Reilly put it, “The films gave us all the electricity we needed”.

For his first feature-length film, Ratchapoom Bookbunchachoke relies on ghosts who contact humans to comment on several societal and environmental issues – such as deadly air pollution in Bangkok. 

The film is full of dark, mischievous humour and operates on several levels, surprising the audience with its unusual twists and turns. 

On the surface, it’s a story about a young man, March, who is struggling with grief after the death of his wife, who died due to an air-pollution related illness.

She is reincarnated in the form of a vacuum cleaner, which lends itself to some hilarious scenes. 

The couple are able to resume a relationship, but one that is considered “bizarre” and “unnatural” by March’s family.  

In order for the ghost to stay among the living, she must accept to help “chase away” the various lost souls who haunt her husband’s family’s electric appliances company in the form of angry fridges and epileptic ventilators. 

Nat becomes a kind of “ghostbuster” of the afterlife – in other words, a “useful ghost”. 

• Find out about the winners of the Critics’ Week Prizes here

Alert over pollution

“Ghosts are very common in Thailand,” Boonbunchachoke told RFI from the Cannes Film Festival, admitting that he himself hasn’t been personally haunted, but he has heard many stories. 

He explains that ghosts are in integral part of Thai society and accepted.

Unlike in Western cultures, they are not always seen as malevolent – sometimes they simply want to comfort the living, like in the case of Nat and March. 

For Boonbunchachoke, the vacuum cleaner as a lead character is a key, as it represents dust, allowing him to address the very serious problem of air pollution in Bangkok, which has reached “shockingly high” levels, he says.

Opposition in Thailand accuses junta of rigging elections

Dust as powerful metaphor

But on another level, dust has a social and political connotation. 

“When you say you are dust, you are people without power, without voice … You cannot control your life. You are easily swept away, cleaned up, wiped away – wiped out by the ruling class,” he explains. 

In the film there are entire residential areas being razed to make way for modern highrise buildings and business districts, sweeping the ordinary folks away. 

Funding insufficient to tackle air pollution, world’s biggest health threat, study shows

He goes on to show that these same people have been seen over the years as “subhuman” and therefore expendable in political terms. 

To address this, Boonbunchachoke introduces another ghost – a political activist – who falls in love with the man whose house he is haunting.

He pleads with his human host to remember the dissidents of the past who were killed by a zealous regime.

Former Thai leader Thaksin jailed after return from exile

Red Shirt crackdown

Without referring to it specifically, it is understood that Boonbunchachoke is talking about the crackdown on the the Red Shirt movement in 2010. 

At least 90 people were killed when the army brutally broke up protesters who were demanding new elections after former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted in a coup. 

The ghost of Nat is also recruited by a shady government minister who brings her in to find and terminate the dissident ghosts and civilians that are haunting his home. 

Boonbunchachoke recalls seeing “a lot of debris, mess on the street” after the demonstrations, when the Thai authorities quickly launched a campaign to clean up the city. 

People with water and brooms appeared out of nowhere “to cleanse the blood, the dirt … all the evidence, and I found it pretty weird,” he says. 

“In Thailand, the state always tries to erase something they don’t like”.

Telling queer stories

In terms of tackling other forms of discrimination in society, the film also openly embraces queer culture, with several homosexual relationships built into the story. 

“In Thailand LGBTQ love or coming-out stories are common,” Ratchapoom says, adding that despite a law since January for same-sex marriages, there’s still a way to go. 

His film draws a comparison between a “bizarre” or “unnatural” relationship between ghosts and humans and homosexual or non binary relationships considered by society as “taboo”. 

“We need more diverse queer stories to be told,” he maintains. 

There aren’t many 136-year-old metal cylinders tucked away in Paris basements that can claim global fame.

Yet “Prototype 35” – a shimmering iridium-platinum artefact – quietly changed the course of modern life.

At just 39 millimetres high and wide, this unassuming 1 kilogram weight helped anchor the world’s understanding of mass – and with it, the uniformity of measurement that underpins everything from baking a cake to building a bridge.

This week marked the 150th anniversary of the Metre Convention, signed in Paris on 20 May, 1875 by 17 nations eager to bring order to a chaotic patchwork of global measurements.

The treaty established a universal system of units – ushering in consistency, accuracy, and international cooperation in science, industry and daily life.

As the French national metrology institute posted in celebration on X: “This international convention laid the foundations for scientific cooperation to harmonise measurements across the world”.

Revolutionary beginnings

Before the Convention, the world was a confusing place.

A pound of wheat in Marseille didn’t weigh the same as one in Brest, and a yard in one city might be a foot in another.

The French Revolution, with its rallying cry for equality, prompted scientists to invent the metric system, based not on arbitrary traditions but on nature itself, with the metre originally defined as a fraction of Earth’s meridian.

Louis de Broglie’s quantum leap that changed physics forever

What began as a revolutionary idea soon gained traction beyond France. The 1875 Convention established the International Bureau of Weights and Measures and marked the beginning of a truly global system.

Today, more than 150 countries use the International System of Units, which comprises seven base measurements: the metre, kilogram, second, kelvin, candela, ampere and mole.

Far from being stuck in the past, this system is constantly evolving.

Gone are the days of relying on physical objects such as Prototype 35 as ultimate standards. Instead, modern definitions rest on fundamental constants of nature. The metre, for example, is now linked to the speed of light and the kilogram to Planck’s constant, a cornerstone of quantum physics.

International cooperation

These definitions require practical application, and that’s where national metrology institutes such as France’s LNE come in.

At its laboratory in Paris, scientists including Florian Beaudoux meticulously calibrate masses, lasers and gauge blocks, ensuring precision across industries. “Even a microscopic miscalculation can affect everything from engineering to medicine,” he explained to French news agency AFP.

Their work ensures that a litre of petrol in Lyon matches one in Lagos, that an aircraft part built in Toulouse fits seamlessly with another from Hamburg, and that a blood test result is identical whether processed in Tokyo or Toronto.

Towering Scientists: Foucault’s pendulum and Earth’s rotation

International cooperation is at the heart of what they do. As Maguelonne Chambon, director of research at LNE, said: “We need to compare ourselves, understand differences and agree on how to resolve them.”

With climate, altitude and even gravity varying across the globe, collaboration is not a luxury but a necessity.

(with newswires)

Despite the thousands of languages, just 20 or so dominate the global linguistic landscape. Mandarin, Spanish, English, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Japanese, Javanese, German, Wu, Korean, French, Telugu, Marathi, Turkish, Tamil, Vietnamese and Urdu are the mother tongues of more than 3 billion people.

The vast majority of languages on Earth – 95 percent – are actually spoken by just 5 percent of the world’s population. And these are the ones that are in danger – threatened with extinction because they are often based solely on oral tradition and struggle to spread or survive beyond their region or ethnic group of origin.

The most alarming studies say that a language disappears every fortnight, while others, more measured, estimate it to be one every three months.

Unesco, the UN agency for culture and education, estimates that if nothing is done, half of all languages could vanish by 2100.

This warning comes from its World Atlas of Languages. The atlas is based on data from national governments, universities and language communities. It shows the type, structure, situation and usage of every known language.

The scale of the problem

Unesco considers a language to be “endangered” when it is “no longer taught to children as a mother tongue at home” and the youngest speakers are their parents.

It is “seriously endangered” when it is only spoken by grandparents, and parents understand it “but no longer use it with their children or among themselves”.

The last stage before extinction – what Unesco calls the “critical situation” stage – is when “the last speakers are from the great-grandparents’ generation” and the language is “not used in everyday life”.

The research centre for linguistic intelligence, Ethnologue, uses another tool in its research – the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale, which uses 13 stages to determine the status of a language.

But its conclusions are similar to those of Unesco: 3,170 languages (44 percent of those in use) are currently endangered. It says a language is under threat as soon as “users begin to transmit a more dominant language to the children of the community”.

The Asia-Pacific region is the most affected, with Indonesian and New Guinean languages at the top of the list, followed by Aboriginal languages in Australia. The Americas too rank high, with many indigenous languages in danger of extinction in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Brazil.

Africa is the third most affected continent, particularly Nigeria and Cameroon. But Europe is not immune to the phenomenon, with Russia notably affected.

Hundreds take to the streets to protest in support of French regional languages

Linguistic domination

European colonisation is one of the major factors that explains the trend, having “led to the deaths of millions of indigenous people, disrupting the transmission of languages from one generation to the next,” says linguist Evangelia Adamou, senior researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

Massacres and epidemics led to the disappearance of entire peoples, and colonial policies added insult to injury by “devaluing indigenous languages” and “forcing children to move away from their families”, she continued.

The residential schools set up by colonisers – such as those in Canada, the United States and Australia – were designed to separate indigenous children from their parents and cut them off from their mother tongue.

Local languages found it very difficult to withstand the pressure from colonial languages and racist and discriminatory policies.

The formation of nation states has also contributed significantly to these disappearances. The idea of a single people speaking the same language, united under the same flag and the same values, has led in many countries “to monolingual mass education, usually in the national language,” said Adamou, leading to “the linguistic displacement of minority languages towards the dominant languages”.

This is how Breton, Basque and many of the languages of New Caledonia and French Guiana have come close to disappearing.

In France and elsewhere, the lack of recognition of traditional languages has led and continues to lead to their abandonment in favour of languages considered more “prestigious” – synonymous with academic and professional success.

Climate change

The other major factor, according to Adamou, is any period of crisis which “profoundly disrupts the use and transmission of languages”. During conflicts, pandemics and natural disasters, “people are fighting for their survival, so the traditional organisation of their society suffers greatly”, she explained. 

Climate change is having a major impact in this regard. Untenable living conditions are pushing people to leave their home regions, often to move to urban areas where they are forced to integrate, losing their traditions and language in the process.

The issue of climate change is all the more important because its consequences are felt most acutely in the regions of the world where there is the greatest linguistic diversity.

Indonesia and Papua New Guinea are under threat from rising sea levels. The Amazon is increasingly affected by deforestation. Nigeria, with its 500 languages, is facing rising temperatures, pollution and coastal erosion. All of these factors are leading to the displacement of populations and threatening the survival of local languages.

Senegal launches English lessons in nursery and primary schools

‘A major impact on health’

This loss has far-reaching consequences. With every language that disappears, cultural identity and traditional knowledge are extinguished.

“A language, through its words, etymology and syntax, conveys a philosophy. Toponyms [place names derived from a topographical feature] carry the characteristics of the region. And cosmology – how the universe was conceived – is conveyed through myths in the ancestral language,” said Adamou.

The extinction of a language takes this heritage with it, impoverishing the heritage of humanity. But it also has very real consequences for the speakers.

Being cut off from one’s language means a reorientation of one’s relationship with the world, losing one’s bearings. This can lead to difficulties functioning in mainstream society, isolation, depression and alcoholism, often compounded by racism and social pressure.

“Studies show that not speaking one’s own language has a major impact on health. People need this traditional framework to be healthy, both physically and mentally,” Adamou explained.

Alsatian dialect taught in French state schools for the first time

Reclaiming identity

Several initiatives are attempting to preserve languages in danger of disappearing, as awareness of the issue and its consequences grows. Unesco has proclaimed 2022-2032 the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, in order to promote preservation and rehabilitation programmes.

Institutions are making available archives of information on endangered languages – such as the CNRS’s Pangloss website and the catalogue of the Endangered Language Project. This is material that is invaluable for local communities embarking on language revitalisation projects.

“There is currently a real movement to reclaim one’s culture and identity, often driven by young indigenous people, who are stepping up their efforts and attempts to revitalise their language all over the world,” said Adamou. These young people, she says, are railing against the pessimism engendered by statistics and the use of expressions such as “the last speakers”.

“We can act before it’s too late and, even when a language is no longer spoken, there is always hope,” Amadou insists. She feels it is more accurate to talk about “dormant” languages rather than “dead” ones  – after all, languages can be revived. 

This phenomenon has been witnessed, for example with Wampanoag in the United States and Livonian in Latvia. But the most striking example is undoubtedly Hebrew. After disappearing for centuries, it is now the official language of a state and the mother tongue of several million people. We haven’t necessarily heard the last of those languages in danger now. 

This article was adapted from the original version in French.

The Dutch museum has removed 113 Benin bronzes from display and is restoring them, ahead of shipping them back to Lagos in June. 

The bronzes were looted from the ancient Kingdom of Benin, in modern-day Nigeria, more than 120 years ago by British colonisers.

The Netherlands agreed to return 119 Benin bronze statues to Nigeria in February.

“These don’t belong here. They were violently taken, so they need to go back,” museum director Marieke van Bommel told French news agency AFP. “This is a typical example of looted art.”

Netherlands agrees to return 119 Benin statues to Nigeria

Setting an example

While the majority of these 19th-century African sculptures remain in France and the UK, van Bommel hopes the Dutch example will be noted around the world.

“I think we all agree that this collection doesn’t belong in European museums. We do hope that other countries will follow this example,” she said.

According to her, the collection is priceless: “It’s a cultural value, so we never put a price on it.”

The museum in Leiden has also restored hundreds of pieces of colonial loot to Indonesia (a former Dutch colony), Mexico and the United States.

It is currently showing an exhibition entitled Our Colonial Inheritance, which examines Dutch colonial history in Indonesia, Suriname, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, among other countries.

“Colonialism is not a thing of the past,” the exhibition text reads. “It has shaped the world: our physical, mental and personal world. Colonialism lives on to this day.”

Van Bommel said they had struck a deal with Nigeria to retain four of the bronzes on loan, so visitors can continue to learn from their story.

“We want to talk about the expedition, but also about the whole subject of restitution,” she explained.

Former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari declared in 2023 that the returned works would be given to the Oba, the traditional ruler of the kingdom, and not to the Nigerian state.

Plans are taking shape to build a museum in Benin City, Nigeria, where the bronzes will take pride of place.

A violent history

The story of the theft of the Benin bronzes began in 1897, when nine British military officers were killed on a trade mission to the Kingdom of Benin, in the south of present-day Nigeria.

The UK deployed a military expedition to avenge the death of its officers, with British troops killing several thousand locals and torching Benin’s capital city. They also looted the royal palace, stealing hundreds of artworks – including the Benin bronzes.

Most were auctioned off or sold to finance the expedition, to museums across Europe and the US.

Now, 128 years later, Nigeria is negotiating their return, with mixed degrees of success.

The Netherlands has agreed to return 119 bronzes in total (with six coming from Rotterdam in addition to the 113 from Leiden) and Germany has also begun restitution.

Beyond Nigeria, a growing number of African countries have called for works of art and priceless artefacts to be returned, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Egypt, Ghana, Ethiopia and Benin – to which France agreed to return 127 treasures this year.

How an RFI investigation helped return an ancient treasure to Benin

Belgium has also agreed to hand over an inventory of 84,000 Congolese artefacts dating from the colonial period to the government of the DRC – but their return has not taken place yet.

However, the British Museum in London continues to refuse to return any of its famed collection, due to a law passed in 1963 which technically prevents the museum from giving back the treasures in its possession.

 (with AFP)

Jihadists in Nigeria and their supporters are increasingly turning to social media platform TikTok, posting videos of themselves posing with rifles, grenades and stacks of cash, according to reports by French news agency AFP.

AFP reviewed videos on the social network, easily accessible to everyone, they said.

At least 100 people were killed in the new wave of jihadist attacks in April, as the governor of Borno, the epicentre of the violence which has raged since 2009, said the state is losing ground to armed groups.

The news agency has identified several accounts on the Chinese-owned platform on which men and women, some of them very young, display weapons and wads of cash.

Algerian TikTok influencer convicted in France for inciting terrorism

Some of them broadcast live, preaching anti-Western ideologies in a style reminiscent of the videos released by deceased Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in the early days of the 15-year-old insurgency.

Criminal gangs that carry out raids on villages and kidnappings for ransom in the northwest of the country have used TikTok in the past, as Nigerians have testified.

“It started with bandits,” Bulama Bukarti, a security analyst at the Texas-based Bridgeway Foundation wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Now, Boko Haram members are hosting live TikTok shows – spreading propaganda, justifying their violence and threatening anyone who dares speak against them.”

A Boko Haram fighter even threatened Bukarti himself in a now-deleted TikTok video for speaking against the group, he said.

‘It’s paying off’

Among the 19 accounts reviewed by AFP were men dressed as clerics, their faces revealed to the camera even as they called for violence against the government and teamed up with accounts that showed off weapons hauls.

Accounts also post old footage of the original Boko Haram founder, Mohammed Yusuf, and those of Isah Garo Assalafy, who was banned from preaching in public places in Niger state for using violent rhetoric against democracy and Western civilisation.

These accounts frequently go live, interacting with followers, answering questions and receiving digital gifts that can be converted into cash.

French cyber agency warns TikTok manipulation could hit Romania’s vote, again

Nigeria’s jihadist conflict, which over the years has expanded to include a rival Islamic State group, has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced some 2 million people in Africa’s most populous country.

Saddiku Muhammad, a former jihadist who has since defected, told AFP that armed groups are turning to TikTok in part because security forces cracked down on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.

They also know TikTok is popular with young people.

“Jihadists realised that to capture the minds of young people, they need to speak to them in the language they understand, instead of the traditional didactic and demagogic styles that are boring and unattractive to them,” Muhammad said.

“From all indications, it is paying off. They are reaching out to young potential recruits.”

‘They aren’t afraid’   

Analysts say the use of TikTok by members of armed groups is a direct challenge to the government.

For Malik Samuel, an Abuja-based security analyst at the pan-African think tank Good Governance Africa, it is a common Boko Haram tactic to use the group’s young members to spread propaganda.

“I believe showing their faces is strategic, to show that they aren’t afraid and to let their target know that they are engaging with real people,” Samuel said.

Bukarti had already raised concerns about the increasing presence of the Boko Haram terrorist group on major social media platforms, particularly TikTok, in a 2022 report.

Last month Bugatti – who is also a senior fellow at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change – highlighted on Nigerian television that group members are actively using TikTok to propagate their ideology through video clips and live streaming in the Hausa language.

Boko Haram survivors in Cameroon share their chilling stories

Counter-action

Many of the jihadist accounts on the video-sharing app have been flagged and taken down, but the capability of broadcasting live streams on the platform adds another layer of difficulty to monitoring the content they put out.

A TikTok spokesperson said it was difficult to quantify the number of accounts linked to terrorist organisations that have been taken down.

“Terrorist groups and content related to these groups have no place on TikTok, and we take an uncompromising stance against enabling violent extremism on or off our platform,” a spokesperson for the company told AFP in an emailed statement.

TikTok says it is partnering with the United Nations-backed Tech Against Terrorism to improve the detection and removal of violent extremist content.

“Our community guidelines clearly state that we do not allow the presence of violent and hateful organisations or individuals on our platform,” the company states. “We will always take action on content found to violate these policies.”

 (with AFP)

The High Seas Treaty, adopted in June 2023 by 193 countries, aims to protect international waters that cover nearly half the planet.

These areas lie beyond any country’s control and remain largely unregulated, despite being vital for marine biodiversity, carbon storage and climate stability.

But the treaty cannot take effect until it is ratified by 60 countries. So far, only 21 have done so.

“What’s the point of negotiating a historic treaty if we leave it in a drawer? A signed treaty protects nothing, but a ratified treaty changes everything,” Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, France’s ambassador for the poles and oceans, told reporters this week.

Once the 60-country threshold is reached, a 120-day countdown begins before the treaty enters into force.

It would then allow countries to set up marine protected areas in international waters and require environmental checks on potentially harmful activities, such as fishing or deep-sea mining.

Spain and France were the first two European Union countries to ratify the treaty, doing so in early February 2025.

Other major maritime nations – including the United States, Australia, Russia, the United Kingdom and Japan – have signed the treaty but have yet to ratify it.

Poivre d’Arvor urged these top maritime powers to “take responsibility” and help bring the agreement into force.

Climate-driven changes to ocean colour fuel urgency ahead of UN summit

Why the treaty matters

The high seas cover more than 60 percent of the world’s oceans, but just 1 percent is currently protected.

A 2021 UN report estimated that 3 billion people rely on the ocean for their livelihoods. Ocean-based industries are worth $2.5 trillion a year and employ some 40 million people.

The treaty provides legal tools for protecting marine ecosystems, regulating access to genetic resources and boosting scientific cooperation.

It also supports the global target of protecting 30 percent of the world’s land and sea by 2030 – known as the “30×30” goal, adopted in 2022 under the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

The UN Ocean Conference opens in Nice on 9 June. It is expected to bring together dozens of heads of state and 2,000 scientists from over 100 countries.

France hopes the event will generate political momentum and persuade more countries to ratify the deal.

A ceremony on the opening day will be “a unique opportunity to reaffirm our collective political commitment” Sandrine Barbier, head of the French delegation, said.

France has been clear that visibility alone won’t be enough. Even if more European countries ratify the treaty before the summit, Poivre d’Arvor warned that failure to reach the 60-country threshold by the end of the year would “signal a major failure”.

New Caledonia bans ‘dangerous’ seabed mining for half a century

A test of political will

Two weeks of talks in New York earlier this month saw movement on how the treaty would function once in force.

“There was a lot of love in the room,” said Rebecca Hubbard, director of the High Seas Alliance, a coalition of more than 50 NGOs working to protect international waters.

She called the agreement “one of our best opportunities to deliver action to protect the ocean”.

Others also noted signs of progress. Nichola Clark, of the Pew Charitable Trusts – a US-based research and policy organisation – said negotiators had moved “one step closer to shaping the institutional backbone” of the deal.

Still, the absence of the United States raised concern.

Washington signed the treaty during Joe Biden’s presidency but has not ratified it. It was also absent from talks in New York.

At the same time, opposition to stricter ocean protections has resurfaced. President Donald Trump this month issued an executive order backing commercial deep-sea mining in international waters.

“This is a clear sign that the US will no longer be a global leader on protecting the oceans,” said Arlo Hemphill, who leads Greenpeace’s campaign against deep-sea mining in the United States.

France sees the treaty as a building block for the first UN Ocean “Cop” and a chance to show leadership in global ocean governance.

“This is not just a treaty,” Poivre d’Arvor said. “It’s a test of our collective commitment to the ocean.”

Dan, a pro-European centrist, defeated far-right leader George Simion in Sunday’s run-off vote. The result was clear-cut – but the campaign exposed how fractured Romania has become.

“We’re relieved, because we dodged the bullet,” says Claudiu Nasui, an MP for the Save Romania Union party. “A Simion presidency would have been potentially disastrous for Romania.”

But, he warns, now is the time to look ahead.

“Romania has a huge deficit problem, huge economic problems – we need to solve those problems [before] the next elections, if we don’t want to just be dodging bullet after bullet.”

The state of Romania’s economy could require the new government to take unpopular measures, such as increasing taxes and cutting spending – while the far-right opposition will be eager for the chance to garner more popular support if such measures are seen as too harsh.

Reflecting on the outcome, Nasui said: “People are tired of being ignored by the political class,” speaking to RFI in the cavernous central hall of the parliament building in Bucharest, designed by communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

Sorin Ionita, political scientist and director of the public policy think tank Expert Forum in Bucharest, described the scale of Dan’s victory as unexpected.

“It was surprising in terms of magnitude, we didn’t expect a seven points difference after the first round, when the winner ended up 20 percent behind. But still this happened and it shows how volatile the situation was.” 

During the first round, the turnout was 53.2 percent, but the second round saw a historic 64.7 percent, the highest in 25 years. “The turnout made all the difference,” says Ionita. 

Romania at a crossroads: confronting communist nostalgia on election day

That the pro-EU candidate won by a comfortable margin means that “when the stakes are very high [Romanians] felt it is about something more than just one party or the other, or one coalition versus the other,” says Ionita. “It was an existential issue: security and identity. What is the geostrategic direction of Romania? So it’s not just about left or right with more taxes or less taxes.”

‘Simion became ridiculous in the eyes of voters’

Aside from domestic economic challenges, Dan also faces hurdles in foreign policy.

His rival, Simion – leader of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians and a self-proclaimed Trumpist who wanted to “make Romania great again” – may have been better placed to deal with the United States president, but Dan will continue to try and strengthen Romania’s crucial NATO connection and its growing integration within the European Union.

Why are Romanians abroad voting for far-right candidate Simion?

“Trump doesn’t care very much for ‘small leaders’ no matter how sycophantic they are. They don’t give you an exception on tariffs, so you don’t benefit much by copying the MAGA discourse. By doing that, Simion became ridiculous in the eyes of the Romanian people and the voters,” said Ionita.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Europe has sought to beef up its eastern flank, and France leads NATO’s multinational battle group in Romania of 1,200 troops.

But Simion, speaking two days ahead of the second round 18 May vote, accused French President Emmanuel Macron of interference in the Romanian election.

The AUR leader spent the last day of his election campaign in Paris. During a joint press conference with French far-right MEP Marion Maréchal, broadcast live on his Facebook page, he denounced what he called Macron’s “dictatorial tendencies”, shouting: “Hands off!”

Romanian far-right candidate accuses Macron of election interference

On Sunday, 18 May, Pavel Durov, the Russian-born founder of the Telegram messaging service, also published bombastic claims accusing the head of the French secret service of seeking to meddle in the Romanian election.

“This spring at the Salon des Batailles in the Hotel de Crillon, Nicolas Lerner, head of French intelligence, asked me to ban conservative voices in Romania ahead of elections. I refused,” Durov, 40, said on X (formerly Twitter). “We didn’t block protesters in Russia, Belarus, or Iran. We won’t start doing it in Europe.”

The French intelligence service on Monday rejected Durov’s claims.

The wing will form part of a $450 million prison announced in 2017, which is expected to be completed by 2028 and hold 500 inmates.

The prison is to be built in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, a town bordering Suriname that once received prisoners shipped by Napoleon III in the 1800s, some of whom were sent to the notorious Devil’s Island off the coast of French Guiana.

French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin announced plans to build the high-security wing during an official visit to French Guiana on Saturday, saying: “I have decided to establish France’s third high-security prison in Guiana.”

Drug trafficking

Darmanin was quoted by French weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche as saying that the prison also aims to keep suspected drug traffickers from having any contact with their criminal networks.

French prison attack probe shifts from terrorism to drug gangs

“We are seeing more and more drug trafficking networks,” he told reporters. “My strategy is simple – hit organised crime at all levels. Here in Guiana, at the start of the drug trafficking route. In mainland France, by neutralising the network leaders. And all the way to consumers. This prison will be a safeguard in the war against narcotrafficking.”

Darmanin, who forged a reputation for a tough stance on drugs in his previous role as interior minister, added that the prison’s location “will serve to permanently isolate the heads of drug trafficking networks” since “they will no longer be able to contact their criminal networks”.

He also said in a Facebook post that 15 of the wing’s 60 spaces would be reserved for Islamic militants.

French media, quoting the Justice ministry, reported that people from French Guiana and French Caribbean territories would be sent in priority to the new prison.

‘Astonishment and indignation’

The announcement has angered many across French Guiana, a French overseas territory situated north of Brazil.

Jean-Paul Fereira, acting president of French Guiana’s territorial collective, an assembly of 51 lawmakers that oversees local government affairs, said the announcement came as a surprise, as the plan had never been discussed with them.

“It is therefore with astonishment and indignation that the elected members of the Collectivity discovered, together with the entire population of Guiana, the information detailed in Le Journal Du Dimanche,” he wrote in a statement posted on social media on Sunday.

France to seize drug users’ phones in crackdown on prison attacks

Fereira said the move was disrespectful and insulting, noting that the agreement French Guiana signed in 2017 was for the construction of a new prison meant to alleviate overpopulation at the main prison.

“While all local elected officials have long been calling for strong measures to curb the rise of organised crime in our territory, Guiana is not meant to welcome criminals and radicalised people from [mainland France],” he wrote.

Also decrying the plan was Jean-Victor Castor, a member of parliament in French Guiana. He said he wrote directly to France’s prime minister to express his concerns, noting that the decision was taken without consulting local officials.

“It’s an insult to our history, a political provocation and a colonial regression,” Castor wrote in a statement issued on Sunday, as he called on France to withdraw the project.

A spokesperson for France’s justice minister did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Cocaine use in France doubles as workplace pressures drive demand

Guiana has the highest crime rate of any French department relative to the size of its population, with a record 20.6 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023, nearly 14 times the national average.

Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni is a strategic hub for so-called drug mules, mainly from Brazil, who attempt to board flights to Paris’s Orly Airport carrying cocaine originating from neighbouring Suriname.

(with newswires)

Upon hearing the news that the PKK was ending its war and disarming, Kurds danced in the streets of the predominantly Kurdish southeast of Turkey. The region bore the brunt of the brutal conflict, with the overwhelming majority of those killed being civilians, and millions more displaced.

From armed struggle to political arena

“It is a historic moment. This conflict has been going on for almost half a century,” declared Aslı Aydıntaşbaş of the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

“And for them [the PKK] to say that the period of armed struggle is over and that they are going to transition to a major political struggle is very important.”

The PKK, designated as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and most of Turkey’s Western allies, launched its armed struggle in 1984 for Kurdish rights and independence. At the time, Turkey was ruled by the military, which did not even acknowledge the existence of Kurds, referring to them as “Mountain Turks.”

Nearly fifty years later, however, Turkey is a different place. The third-largest parliamentary party is the pro-Kurdish Dem Party. In its declaration ending its armed struggle and announcing its dissolution, the PKK stated that there is now space in Turkey to pursue its goals through political means.

However, military realities are thought to be behind the PKK’s decision to end its campaign. “From a technical and military point of view, the PKK lost,” observed Aydın Selcan, a former senior Turkish diplomat who served in the region.

“For almost ten years, there have been no armed attacks by the PKK inside Turkey because they are no longer capable of doing so. And in the northern half of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, there is now almost no PKK presence,” added Selcan.

Selcan also claims the PKK could be seeking to consolidate its military gains in Syria. “For the first time in history, the PKK’s Syrian offshoot, the YPG, has begun administering a region. So it’s important for the organisation to preserve that administration.

“They’ve rebranded themselves as a political organisation.” Turkish forces have repeatedly launched military operations in Syria against the YPG. However, the Syrian Kurdish forces have reached a tentative agreement with Damascus’s new rulers—whom Ankara supports.

Kurdish leader Ocalan calls for PKK disarmament, paving way for peace

 Erdoğan’s high-stakes gamble

For Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is trailing in opinion polls and facing growing protests over the arrest of his main political rival, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, on alleged corruption charges, this could be a golden opportunity. “This is a win for Erdoğan, no doubt,” claimed analyst Aydıntaşbaş.

Along with favourable headlines, the PKK’s peace announcement offers a solution to a major political headache for Erdoğan. The Turkish president wants to amend the constitution to remove term limits, allowing him to run again for the presidency.

The pro-Kurdish Dem Party holds the parliamentary votes Erdoğan needs. “Yes, Erdoğan, of course, will be negotiating with Kurds for constitutional changes,” said Aydıntaşbaş.

“Now we are entering a very transactional period in Turkish politics. Instead of repressing Kurds, it’s going to be about negotiating with them. And it may persuade the pro-Kurdish faction—which forms the third-largest bloc in Turkish politics—to peel away from the opposition camp,” added Aydıntaşbaş.

However, Aydıntaşbaş warns that Erdoğan will need to convince his voter base, which remains sceptical of any peace process with the PKK. According to a recent opinion poll, three out of four respondents opposed the peace process, with a majority of Erdoğan’s AK Party supporters against it.

For decades, the PKK has been portrayed in Turkey as a brutal terrorist organisation, and its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan, is routinely referred to by politicians and much of the media as “the baby killer.” Critics argue the government has failed to adequately prepare the public for peace.

“In peace processes around the world, we see a strong emphasis on convincing society,” observed Sezin Öney, a political commentator at Turkey’s PolitikYol news portal. “There are reconciliation processes, truth commissions, etc., all designed to gain public support. But in our case, it’s like surgery without anaesthesia—an operation begun without any sedatives,” added Öney.

Turkey looks for regional help in its battle against Kurdish rebels in Iraq

Political concessions?

Public pressure on Erdoğan is expected to grow, as the PKK and Kurdish political leaders demand concessions to facilitate the peace and disarmament process.

“In the next few months, the government is, first of all, expected to change the prison conditions of Öcalan,” explained Professor Mesut Yeğen of the Istanbul-based Reform Institute.

“The second expectation is the release of those in poor health who are currently in jail. And for the disarmament process to proceed smoothly, there should be an amnesty or a reduction in sentences, allowing PKK convicts in Turkish prisons to be freed and ensuring that returning PKK militants are not imprisoned,” Yeğen added.

Yeğen claimed that tens of thousands of political prisoners may need to be released, along with the reinstatement of Dem Party mayors who were removed from office under anti-terrorism legislation.

Turkey’s Saturday Mothers keep up vigil for lost relatives

Erdoğan has ruled out any concessions until the PKK disarms, but has said that “good things” will follow disarmament. Meanwhile, the main opposition CHP Party, while welcoming the peace initiative, insists that any democratic reforms directed at the Kurdish minority must be extended to wider society—starting with the release of İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s chief political rival.

While the peace process is widely seen as a political victory for Erdoğan, it could yet become a liability for the president, who risks being caught between a sceptical voter base and an impatient Kurdish population demanding concessions.

According to Amnesty International, Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency has hastened trends already unfolding over the past decade.

Just one hundred days into his second term, President Trump has demonstrated a complete disregard for universal human rights, making the world both less safe and less just, the organisation’s latest report claims.

“His all-out assault on the very concepts of multilateralism, asylum, racial and gender justice, global health and life-saving climate action is exacerbating the significant damage those principles and institutions have already sustained and is further emboldening other anti-rights leaders and movements to join his onslaught,” Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Agnès Callamard, wrote.

While Africa’s armed conflicts caused relentless civilian suffering, including increasing levels of sexual and gender-based violence, and death on a massive scale, international and regional responses remained woefully inadequate.

The NGO also denounces global failures in addressing inequalities, climate collapse, and tech transformations that imperil future generations, especially in fragile zones. 

To discuss the implications for Africa in detail, this week, Spotlight on Africa’s first guest is Deprose Muchena, senior director for regional human rights impact at Amnesty International. 

Meanwhile, in South Africa, experts reflect on a recent visit from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as the country leads the G20 this year and tries to become a platform for peace talk.

Did Zelensky’s South Africa visit signal a diplomatic pivot by Pretoria?

We talked to the French business and veteran diplomat, Jean-Yves Ollivier, founder of the Brazzaville Foundation, who was a key actor in organising Zelensky’s meeting with South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Finally, we hear from Djiby Kebe, one of the founders of  Air Afrique magazine, created by and for young members of the African diaspora in Paris and Abidjan. Inspired by the once-successful Pan-African airline of the same name, the publication centres on culture and travel.

Episode mixed by Erwan Rome.

Spotlight on Africa is produced by Radio France Internationale’s English language service.

Promised the Sky opens Un Certain Regard

Franco-Tunisian director Erige Sehiri returns to Cannes with Promised the Sky, which opens the Un Certain Regard section. Her previous film, Under the Fig Trees, drew wide acclaim for its focus on women’s lives and quiet resilience.

Sehiri’s new story centres on Marie, an Ivorian pastor living in Tunis, who opens her door to two young women – Naney, a mother seeking a better life, and Jolie, a determined student. Their fragile household is shaken when they take in Kenza, a young girl who has survived a shipwreck.

Set against a backdrop of growing hostility towards sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia, the film explores themes of solidarity, migration and the search for identity.

Aisha Can’t Fly Away shows life in the margins

Morad Mostafa’s debut feature, Aisha Can’t Fly Away, also screens in Un Certain Regard. It follows Aisha, a 26-year-old Somali care worker living in Ain Shams, a working-class neighbourhood in Cairo with a large migrant population.

Violence between local gangs and different communities is a constant threat, with the authorities turning a blind eye. Based on Mostafa’s own experience growing up in the area, the film offers an intimate and sometimes unsettling view of daily life for migrants in Egypt.

Mostafa’s earlier short, I Promise You Paradise, was shown at Cannes Critics’ Week in 2023 and went on to win the Poulain d’Or prize at this year’s Fespaco festival. Aisha Can’t Fly Away marks Egypt’s first return to the Croisette since Clash in 2016.

Postcard from Cannes #1: Honouree De Niro unleashes attack on ‘philistine’ Trump

Indomptables brings Cameroonian noir to Cannes

French-Cameroonian actor and comedian Thomas Ngijol surprises audiences with Indomptables, a gritty thriller selected for the Directors’ Fortnight. The film follows Commissioner Billong as he investigates the murder of a police officer in Yaoundé.

Inspired by A Crime in Abidjan, a documentary by Mosco Levi Boucault, the story explores justice, corruption and personal limits in a violent and fractured society. Ngijol plays the lead role himself, and the film was shot entirely in the Cameroonian capital.

“The ensemble of the cast is perfect,” the selection team said. “Thomas Ngijol is absolutely extraordinary, not only as a director, but also as an actor.” The team described the film as a powerful and unexpected addition from Cameroon.

My Father’s Shadow marks a first for Nigeria

For the first time, a Nigerian film is part of the official competition at Cannes. My Father’s Shadow, by Akinola Davies Jr, is set during Nigeria’s 1993 presidential election – the country’s first attempt to return to civilian rule after years of military leadership.

That vote, widely seen as the fairest in the nation’s history, was annulled by General Ibrahim Babangida, triggering mass protests. Around 100 people died in the unrest that followed.

In the midst of that chaos, the film follows two brothers spending the day together in Lagos. Blending fiction and autobiography, Davies reflects on family, power and the weight of political memory.

Tom Cruise returns to Cannes with Mission Impossible finale

L’mina reveals Morocco’s hidden miners

In the Moroccan town of Jerada, coal mining never truly stopped despite the official closure of pits in 2001. In L’mina, French-Moroccan visual artist and filmmaker Randa Maroufi reconstructs the reality of this underground economy in a 26-minute short.

The film features Jerada residents who play themselves, acting out scenes drawn from their daily lives. This collaborative approach offers a raw and authentic glimpse into the community’s resilience and resourcefulness.

L’mina is screening in Critics’ Week and is Maroufi’s fifth short film.

Life After Siham explores grief and memory

Life After Siham, by Franco-Egyptian director Namir Abdel Messeeh, is an emotional documentary selected by ACID – a group that supports independent filmmaking at Cannes.

Following the sudden death of his mother, Siham, Abdel Messeeh revisits family archives, old home videos and childhood memories. Through an investigation into his family history between Egypt and France, the film becomes both a tribute and a personal journey into grief, memory and identity.

Messeeh’s earlier film, The Virgin, the Copts and Me, combined humour with cultural reflection. This new work strikes a more introspective tone.

Ukraine, Gaza and #MeToo in the spotlight as Cannes Film Festival opens

This article was adapted from the original version in French by RFI’s Yann Le Ny

A 29-year-old man was shot dead overnight in the eastern French city of Dijon, with investigators treating the case as a likely gang-related killing, according to the local prosecutor.

The incident took place in the southern Chenôve district, an area known for drug trafficking, prosecutor Olivier Caracotch confirmed in a statement on Sunday.

Police recovered “a dozen shell casings from an automatic weapon” at the scene, which took place on a residential street.

Some bullets struck nearby cars and even reached a third-floor flat, but fortunately, no one else was injured.

Youth dies from gunshot wounds sustained during drugs gang violence in Poitiers

No prior convictions

According to the criminal investigation unit, the gunman approached a group including the victim around midnight, opened fire, and fled the scene by car.

The man who was killed was a local resident and had no prior convictions related to drug offences, Caracotch added.

A formal investigation has been launched into murder by an organised gang and criminal conspiracy.

(With AFP)

France is seeking to expand its €5.3 billion trade relationship with Vietnam, focusing on energy, infrastructure and technology.

More than 30 agreements are expected to be signed during the visit, including collaborations in nuclear energy and satellite development.

According to the latest EU figures, Vietnam is France’s 17th biggest trade partner outside the EU, while French exports to Vietnam value €1.6 billion against €3.7 billion of imports from Vietnam. More than 2,000 French companies currently export to Vietnam.

Vietnam’s efforts to diversify foreign investment – particularly in transport and renewable energy – align with France’s ambitions to counterbalance China’s growing influence in the region.

Although France ranks only 16th among Vietnam’s foreign investors, Macron’s delegation aims to position French firms as credible alternatives to Chinese infrastructure financing.

‘Bamboo Diplomacy’

Meanwhile, Vietnam is actively strengthening its own multilateral partnerships to hedge against Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea and economic coercion.

China asserts control over vast areas beyond internationally recognised maritime boundaries, militarising the region by establishing bases on shoals and atolls, sometimes claimed by other countries such as the Philippines, and frequently encroaching on waters claimed by Vietnam.

France’s Indo-Pacific strategy sees Vietnam as critical for securing maritime routes and ensuring supply chain resilience.

In October 2024, France became the first EU country to upgrade ties with Vietnam to a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” after more than 50 years of diplomatic relations.

This approach aligns closely with Hanoi’s so-called “bamboo diplomacy”, which has recently seen Vietnam upgrade its relations with the US, Japan, and now France.

Macron’s subsequent visits to Indonesia and Singapore underscore broader European efforts to re-engage with ASEAN amid ongoing US-China tensions.

Macron outlines France’s vision for Asia-Pacific relations, rejects confrontation

The show goes on

Following his stop in Vietnam, Macron will travel to Indonesia from 27 to 29 May, where he is set to meet President Prabowo Subianto in Jakarta and Yogyakarta.

On the program: defence cooperation, nuclear energy and economic ties. Macron will then proceed to Singapore, where he will participate in a series of official meetings and investor roundtables before delivering a keynote address at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defence summit. 

His message will highlight France and Europe as trustworthy partners offering cooperation “with no strings attached”, as Southeast Asia navigates intensifying US-China rivalry and seeks to diversify its economic and security partnerships

Macron urges trade cooperation with China ahead of South East Asia tour

Shadows of the past

The legacy of France’s colonial past looms over the Vietnam visit. Between 1858 and 1885, France conquered Vietnam through a series of military campaigns, establishing Indochina as a colony.

The 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu, where Viet Minh forces defeated French troops after a 56-day siege, brought an end to colonial rule but left enduring cultural ties.

The French withdrawal was followed by an increasing US presence, culminating in the Vietnam War, which claimed the lives of around two million people.

France played a significant diplomatic role in ending the Vietnam War in 1973 by hosting the peace negotiations that led to the Paris Peace Accords, signed at the Majestic Hotel on Paris’ Champs-Elysées.

Macron is unlikely to address France’s colonial history and its aftermath directly, but Vietnam’s enduring French architectural influences and the presence of some 30,000 francophone residents reflect the complex postcolonial relationship.

Human rights

Macron also faces pressure to address Vietnam’s deteriorating human rights record.

“Vietnam is waging an unprecedented and really brutal crackdown on civil society,” said Penelope Faulkner, president of the Paris-based Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR).

In a press release signed by four human rights organisations – including the FIDH, the VCHR and Global Witness – activists called on Macron to press for the release of human rights defenders during his visit to Vietnam.

The organisations addressed an open letter to Macron, attaching a list of 40 individuals currently serving prison sentences of up to 20 years.

“Most of them are bloggers, independent journalists, environmental activists, people who are really not calling for the regime change, but wanting a better life for the people of Vietnam,” Faulkner told RFI.

The list includes independent journalist Pham Doan Trang, serving nine years for writing critical articles on environmental issues, environmental lawyer Dang Dinh Bach, who is serving a five-year sentence on charges of tax evasion, and Pham Thi Nhung, who received a 15-year sentence after calling on the European Parliament to postpone ratification of an EU-Vietnam trade agreement pending “concrete human rights progress” in Vietnam.

Faulkner said the current US–China trade dispute and tensions between China and the EU have shifted Western focus to Vietnam, with governments now less inclined to criticise Hanoi’s rights record.

“Vietnam is one of the countries which is receiving most of foreign direct investment” in Asia, said Faulkner, pointing out that Western companies are keen to move operations to the country because of its low wages, which are “at least one third lower than other countries in Southeast Asia”.

She added: “Vietnam is becoming known as a cheap labour destination. And that’s very detrimental to the people’s lives.”

Meanwhile, UN experts have condemned Vietnam’s use of torture and arbitrary detention ahead of its 2025 bid for re-election to the Human Rights Council.

A few days before the trip that took him to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Trump reportedly floated the idea of renaming the Persian Gulf the “Arabian Gulf”.

It echoed an earlier decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” in an executive order signed hours after he took office in January.

In the end, Trump gave up on the idea during his week in the Middle East, resorting to realpolitik – perhaps wary of upsetting the Iranians even if it meant disappointing his Arab partners.

The sea – bordered by Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and the Musandam Peninsula (an exclave of Oman) on one side, and Iran on the other – has been at the centre of a naming dispute for decades.

Centuries of use

The 251,000 km² gulf in the Indian Ocean has been known as the Persian Gulf since at least the time of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. The name refers to the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian empire in history.

Greek and Roman geographers, including Ptolemy in the 2nd century, later referred to the Persian Gulf or the Persian Sea. Renowned Arab historians such as Ibn Al-Athir and Ibn Khaldun used this toponymy in their history books in the 12th and 15th centuries AD.

By the 18th and 19th centuries, the name Persian Gulf appeared in treaties signed by regional leaders and the British, who dominated the area at the time.

France sues Iran at top UN court over citizens detained in Tehran

Arab nationalism in the 20th century gave rise to the term Arabian Gulf – even though when the Egyptian Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power in the early 1950s, the slogan “One nation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf” was all the rage.

The term Arabian Gulf also appeared earlier in history. The Greek historian Strabo used it in the 1st century AD, but he was referring to what is now known as the Red Sea, on the western side of the Arabian Peninsula.

In today’s Arab press, the Persian Gulf is usually referred to as Al-Khaleej, which means simply “the Gulf”. The countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman – all use the term Arabian Gulf.

Today, Google Maps uses the term Persian Gulf, with Arabian Gulf in brackets. For years, the US military has unilaterally referred to the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf in its statements and images.

‘A denial of history’

The body of water is linked to the Indian Ocean by the Strait of Hormuz and holds around 60 percent of the world’s oil reserves and 40 percent of its gas. The area is a vital shipping route and has seen many disputes between Arab states and Iran.

In 1970, a journalist from the French monthly newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique wrote an article in which he used the term Arabian Gulf when reporting on the latest clashes in the region between “traditionalist elements and revolutionary forces”.

The Iranian embassy in France responded with a letter calling the term “a denial of history”.

The letter said: “The gulf in question has been called the Persian Gulf for over 2,000 years… All the geographers and historians of antiquity knew the Gulf only as the Persian Gulf… From the 16th century onwards, in the great atlases… it was referred to exclusively as the ‘Sinus Persicus’ [Persian Gulf in Greek]. 

The statement noted that until around 1960, even Arab schoolbooks used the Farsi name Kha-Lidj Al Farsi – Persian Gulf. It ended with the question: “So why the change in terminology?”

Back at Cannes, Iran filmmaker Panahi defies repression

Iran has taken strong action against publications and organisations using the term Arabian Gulf. In 2004, National Geographic was banned after placing “Arabian Gulf” in brackets next to “Persian Gulf”. The Economist faced a similar ban in 2006.

In 2010, Iran cancelled the Islamic Solidarity Games – a Saudi-led initiative – after it emerged that the medals and logos would say Persian Gulf. That same year, Iran warned that foreign airlines using the term Arabian Gulf could be banned from its airspace.

National pride

In 2006, a commission of UN experts, geographers, geologists, archaeologists and historians concluded, after analysing more than 6,000 maps of the area, that the term Persian Gulf was historically the most widely used designation.

It remains the term officially recognised by the UN, the International Hydrographic Organisation and the International Maritime Organisation.

For Iran, it is not just about history – it is a matter of national pride.

“Politically motivated attempts to alter the historically established name of the Persian Gulf are indicative of hostile intent toward Iran and its people, and are firmly condemned,” foreign minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X after Trump’s intentions were revealed.

He added: “I am confident that @realdonaldtrump is aware that the name PERSIAN Gulf is centuries old and recognised by all cartographers and international bodies… any short-sighted step in this connection will have no validity or legal or geographical effect. It will only bring the wrath of all Iranians from all walks of life and political persuasion in Iran, the US and across the world.”

Iran mulls moving capital to ‘lost paradise’ on southern coast

Exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi also weighed in on X. “The Persian Gulf is not just a name but a historical reality… The reported decision by President Trump to abrogate history, should it be true, is an affront to the people of Iran and our great civilisation.”

With nuclear negotiations under way between Tehran and Washington, Trump’s decision to back down on renaming the Gulf has been seen in Iran as a sign of restraint.

This article was adapted from the original version in French.

Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday – here on our website, or wherever you get your podcasts. You’ll hear the winners’ names announced and the week’s quiz question, along with all the other ingredients you’ve grown accustomed to: your letters and essays, “On This Day”, quirky facts and news, interviews, and great music … so be sure and listen every week.

Erwan and I are busy cooking up special shows with your music requests, so get them in! Send your music requests to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr Tell us why you like the piece of music, too – it makes it more interesting for us all!

Facebook: Be sure to send your photos to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr for the RFI English Listeners Forum banner!

More tech news: Did you know we have a YouTube channel? Just go to YouTube and write “RFI English” in the search bar, and there we are! Be sure to subscribe to see all our videos.

Would you like to learn French? RFI is here to help you!

Our website “Le Français facile avec RFI” has news broadcasts in slow, simple French, as well as bilingual radio dramas (with real actors!) and exercises to practice what you have heard.

Go to our website and get started! At the top of the page, click on “Test level” and you’ll be counselled to the best-suited activities for your level.

Do not give up! As Lidwien van Dixhoorn, the head of “Le Français facile” service, told me: “Bathe your ears in the sound of the language, and eventually, you’ll get it.” She should know – Lidwien is Dutch and came to France hardly able to say “bonjour” and now she heads this key RFI department – so stick with it!

Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!

In addition to the news articles on our site, with in-depth analysis of current affairs in France and across the globe, we have several podcasts that will leave you hungry for more.

There’s Spotlight on France, Spotlight on Africa, The International Report, and of course, The Sound Kitchen. We also have an award-winning bilingual series – an old-time radio show, with actors (!) to help you learn French, called Les voisins du 12 bis. 

Remember, podcasts are radio, too! As you see, sound is still quite present in the RFI English service. Please keep checking our website for updates on the latest from our journalists. You never know what we’ll surprise you with!

To listen to our podcasts from your PC, go to our website; you’ll see “Podcasts” at the top of the page. You can either listen directly or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone.

To listen to our podcasts from your mobile phone, slide through the tabs just under the lead article (the first tab is “Headline News”) until you see “Podcasts”, and choose your show. 

Teachers take note! I save postcards and stamps from all over the world to send to you for your students. If you would like stamps and postcards for your students, just write and let me know. The address is english.service@rfi.fr  If you would like to donate stamps and postcards, feel free! Our address is listed below. 

Another idea for your students: Brother Gerald Muller, my beloved music teacher from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, has been writing books for young adults in his retirement – and they are free! There is a volume of biographies of painters and musicians called Gentle Giants, and an excellent biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., too. They are also a good way to help you improve your English – that’s how I worked on my French, reading books that were meant for young readers – and I guarantee you, it’s a good method for improving your language skills. To get Brother Gerald’s free books, click here.

Independent RFI English Clubs: Be sure to always include Audrey Iattoni (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department in your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me (thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr) when you write to her so that I know what is going on, too. N.B.: You do not need to send her your quiz answers! Email overload!

This week’s quiz: On 26 April, I asked you a question about the late Pope Francis, who’d died earlier that week. As the Vatican prepared to elect a new pope, we published an article about the men who were responsible for electing the next head of the Roman Catholic Church.

You were to re-read our article “What happens now after the death of Pope Francis?” and send in the answer to this question: What are the nationalities of the 135 cardinal electors who will elect the next pope?

The answer is, to quote our article: “Currently there are 135 so-called cardinal electors, 108 of whom were appointed by Francis. Of these, 53 are from Europe, 20 are from North America, 18 are from Africa, 23 from Asia, four from Oceania, and 17 from South America.”

As you know, the cardinals elected Robert Francis Prevost, the first American to hold the post. He took the name Leo XIV as his papal name, and he was formally inaugurated to serve the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics on 18 May.

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, which was inspired by the long-running BBC program “Desert Island Discs”. You were to write in with the names of the three records, or audio recordings, that you would take with you to an uninhabited island.

Do you have a bonus question idea? Send it to us!

The winners are: RFI Listeners Club member Christian Ghibaudo from Tende, France. Christian is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations, Christian,on your double win.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are A. K. M. Nuruzzaman, the president of the RFI Amour Fan Club in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, and Paresh Hazarika, a member of the United RFI Listeners Club in Assam, India, as well as RFI Listeners Club members Shadman Hosen Ayon from Kishoreganj, Bangladesh, and Hans Verner Lollike from Hedehusen, Denmark.

Congratulations, winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme:  “Mother” by Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd; “A Mighty Fortress is our God” by Martin Luther, played by Kaleb Brasee; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and Buenos Aires Symphony in Three Movements by Astor Piazolla, performed by the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Leonardo Garcia Alarcon.

Do you have a music request? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

This week’s question … you must listen to the show to participate. After you’ve listened to the show, re-read our article “EU and UK reunite in London for talks on diplomacy and defence”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 23 June to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 28 June podcast. When you enter, be sure to send your postal address with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

Click here to learn how to win a special Sound Kitchen prize.

Click here to find out how you can become a member of the RFI Listeners Club, or form your own official RFI Club.   

A widespread power outage plunged much of Cannes and the surrounding area into darkness on Saturday, cutting electricity to 160,000 homes.

But despite the disruption, the much-anticipated closing ceremony of the 78th Cannes Film Festival will go ahead as planned, organisers have confirmed.

The blackout, which struck the western Alpes-Maritimes region, was first reported on social media by local authorities and electricity grid operator RTE.

The cause appears to be a two-pronged blow to the power network: a suspected arson attack at a high-voltage substation in Tanneron during the night, followed by the collapse of a pylon on a major transmission line later in the morning.

Emergency crews were quick to respond, with seven fire engines and 20 firefighters tackling the blaze, which was brought under control by 7 am.

Unfortunately, the damage had already destabilised the network, leading to a cascading failure just hours later.

Postcard from Cannes #5: Zooming in on talented cinematographers

The show must go on

In Cannes, the effects were immediate. Traffic lights went dark, shops shuttered, and telecommunications became patchy.

Even the iconic Palais des Festivals – the heart of the festival – experienced a brief interruption to screenings around 10 a.m.

However, the show must go on – and it will. Festival organisers reassured the public that the venue had switched to a dedicated generator system, ensuring all scheduled screenings and the closing ceremony – including the prestigious Palme d’Or presentation – will proceed without a hitch from 6:40 pm local time.

The annual Prix Angénieux prize, now in its 12th year, was established to bring image experts – without whom cinema would not exist – into focus. 

Many films released recently have benefited from the high-quality lenses made by the French company, named after Pierre Angénieux, who founded it 90 years ago. 

These include the 2024 Palme d’Or winner Anora by Sean Baker, and Jury Prize Emilia Perez by Jacques Audiard, among many others.

The 2025 recipients are Australia’s Dion Beebe, who won the Prix Angénieux tribute award and South Korea’s Eunsoo Cho, who won the Prix Angénieux Encouragement Award. 

They were invited to the Cannes Film Festival to attend an award ceremony and a gala dinner on Friday.

Known for stylised, highly saturated colour palettes and an experimental approach to high-speed digital video, Beebe has collaborated with top names in Hollywood from Jane Campion (Holy Smoke) to Michael Mann (Collateral and Miami Vice). 

One of his key artistic partnerships over the years has been with American director Rob Marshall, who he credits with having “taught” him so much about camera work and the “language of movement”.  

Postcard from Cannes #4: Call for music prize as Desplat and del Toro talk synergy

Their first project together was the film musical Chicago, released in 2002.

It was the first musical in 34 years to win the Academy Award for Best Movie, along with awards for Best Supporting Actress (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and four technical Academy awards. 

“Rob is an amazing storyteller and has a wonderful sense showmanship and spectacle,” Beebe tells RFI in Cannes. 

Language of movement

“Every time an actor walks in a room and the camera is in the room with them, there’s choreography. The movement for him is crucial. When actors pick something up, he looks at the height of that table they pick it up from, because that affects movement.”

When asked about how he works with actors, he said that is an important part of the cinematographer’s work. 

“Protecting and looking after the actors is really such an important part of the cinematographer’s role. There really has to be a lot of trust,” Beebe told RFI. 

He recounts the rumours about working with a “difficult” Christian Bale, with whom he worked on Equilibrium by Kurt Wimmer (2002). 

Compassion

He says that more compassion is needed on set to help the actor get to “a vulnerable place” in order to be convincing in their role. 

“The truth is for an actor in a role, it’s incredibly tough to create this sort of belief that you’re in their world. Everything we see, of course, as the viewer, as the cinematographer is the perfect view of this movie, but what the actor sees is just a mess. It’s not as immersive as we might think for the actor.”

Tom Cruise returns to Cannes with Mission Impossible finale

Winner of numerous awards over the past thirty years; he received the Academy Award for Best Cinematography and a BAFTA in the same category for his work on Rob Marshall’s Memoirs of a Geisha in 2006. 

He is currently finishing a film with Antoine Fuqua, Michael, a biopic about Michael Jackson. 

Eunsoo Cho is a graduate of the Korean National University of Arts and the University Of Southern California School Of Cinematic Arts.

She has shot numerous fiction and documentary shorts in Africa, Asia, and North America. 

Inspired by Tim Burton growing up – she says she decided to be a cinematographer because she wanted to “have the director’s ear”.  

“I didn’t know what they really did besides standing behind the cameras. Later on, I gradually learned what it is and it was even more fascinating,” she told RFI. 

Postcard from Cannes #5: Indian cinematographer bags coveted prize

Although animal documentaries were her first preference, she has loved filming people and helping them tell their stories, such as her most recent project – The Last of the Sea Women – by Sue Kim (2024). It profiles the Haenyeo, a community of female divers on South Korea’s Jeju Island who have harvested seafood without oxygen tanks for centuries. 

Her work beside acclaimed documentary cinematographer Iris Ng for this film won the Best Cinematography award at the 9th Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards. 

‘Art of emptiness’

For her, cinematographers are the “shadows that complete the existence” of a film – always present but never seen. 

She says that her Korean cultural heritage has guided her in her filmmaking approach, particularly when it comes to using space. 

“I’m not sure I can speak for Koreans or Korean culture in general but I think we naturally try to do less. We don’t try to fill every corner and every space,” Cho says, adding this is concept comes from Korean paintings. 

“I try to do less. I try not to use many lights. I try not to use many objects in the frame. I try to concentrate on a few and emphasise them.”

Cho’s encouragement prize includes a special endowment allowing her to use optimal Angénieux technologies to capture the images of her next project, which is about to be signed off – but for now – Mum’s the word.

More than 10,000 square metres of solar panels have been installed across the area. Along with energy upgrades and new technologies, the project has turned this working-class part of central France into a model for sustainable living.

Around 8,000 people live in Fontaine d’Ouche, with some 1,100 residents in the main renovation zone where social housing units are now fitted with solar panels.

The energy produced is shared and partly owned by the community.

“We produce 118 percent of our energy needs,” says Massar N’Diaye, deputy mayor in charge of social economy and jobs, who grew up and still lives in the neighbourhood. “So we’re producing more than we consume and the rest can be sold on.”

Low-tech living in Paris: A four-month journey to suburban self-sufficiency

Officially inaugurated on Friday, Fontaine d’Ouche is France’s first positive energy neighbourhood (PED).

The pilot project is being co-led by Dijon and the Finnish city of Turku. It forms part of the European Union’s Green Deal and long-term goal to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

“We’re proving that a human-scale city can be at the forefront of ecological innovation,” said François Rebsamen, head of Dijon Métropole and the city’s former mayor.

“This is not just about technology, it’s about giving every neighborhood a stake in the energy transition,” he told FranceInfo.

A €36m green investment

The overhaul of Fontaine d’Ouche cost €36 million. This includes €6.2 million in EU subsidies, €13.8 million in public investment and €16.7 million from social housing providers.

In total, 4,500 solar panels have been added to rooftops – not only on social housing, but also on schools and sports centres. These generate 2 megawatts of power, N’Diaye told RFI.

Buildings have been retrofitted to be more energy efficient and homes equipped with smart thermostats, sensors and automated heating systems. This has cut energy use by up to 38 percent  improving comfort all year round.

Hemp, the ‘green gold’ that France hopes will help cut carbon emissions

Local residents are already feeling tangible benefits.

“The increase in purchasing power exists. Residents live in homes that have been renovated and that gives them better protection from the cold,” said N’Diaye, whose mother lives in one of the renovated buildings. 

The innovation goes far beyond solar panels. The neighbourhood now boasts a district heating system fuelled by 83 percent renewable energy. Surplus electricity is stored in recycled EV batteries and hot water tanks. 

“Residents can control their energy consumption remotely via applications and people are teaching them how to use these new tools,” he adds. “When a project like this finally becomes concrete, you say to yourself ‘I’m the pilot of what  may affect others tomorrow’.”

Macron revives climate council as French emissions targets fall short

Positive energy all round

N’Diaye says there’s a sense of local pride that a working-class community like theirs is at the forefront of the ecological transition.

“When you live in a priority urban district, you are often stigmatised but now we’re being watched by Europe as an example of positive energy production.”

He continued: “In the end we also produce positive energy in the community and we’re showing that we too, as residents of the city’s priority zones, are at the heart of the fight against global warming and respect for our planet.”

Altogether, 30,000 square metres of buildings in Fontaine d’Ouche are energy positive, resulting in a 75 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, making Dijon a pioneer in France’s climate transition.

The EU is aiming for 100 positive energy districts by 2025. 

Diminished by foot and abdominal injuries, Nadal retired from the ATP circuit last November, boasting 22 trophies from the four Grand Slam tournament venues in Melbourne, Paris, London and New York.

To honour his exploits, most notably in Paris, French Open organisers will allot him pride of place at the end of the first day of play on centre court on Sunday.

“Rafa made history at Roland Garros,” said tournament director Amélie Mauresmo. “And his 14 titles will perhaps remain unequalled at any Grand Slam tournament.”

“We want to have a vision for the future. But we want to celebrate those who have thrilled us in the past. For Rafa, we want the celebration to be exceptional and special.” 

‘I don’t miss tennis’ says Nadal

‘A love story’

In May 2005, aged 18 and sporting pirate shorts, a gilet and a bandana, Nadal fought his way through a field that included the world number one Roger Federer.

Two days after turning 19, he came back from a set down in the final to overpower the Argentine Mariano Puerto and claim the crown.

His 2006 showdown against Federer followed the same pattern. Nadal beat the Swiss in four sets in 2007 and crushed him in the 2008 final 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 to notch up his fourth title.

Robin Soderling from Sweden ended his winning streak in the last-16 in 2009.

But Nadal came back in 2010 to rekindle his supremacy. And there were four more successes to take him to nine. A run of four from 2017 propelled him to 13.

Tennis star Djokovic ends coaching partnership with Murray as French Open looms

His 14th title in 2022 was the stuff of legend.

In the quarter-final, he saw off the top seed and defending champion Novak Djokovic in an epic four-hour battle.

Clearly under the cosh against Alexander Zverev in the semi-final, he advanced to his 14th final when the German twisted his ankle chasing a shot and was forced to retire.

An expected storm which would have forced the closure of the centre court roof and given a slight advantage to Casper Ruud in the final failed to materialise. Nadal wrapped up proceedings an hour or so before the heavens opened.

“It’s difficult to describe the feeling,” Nadal said afterwards. “At 36, playing in the most important court of my career and still competitive. I just want to say thank you to everyone here in Paris.”

Gratitude too perhaps to the weather gods who held off the conditions that neutralise Nadal’s arsenal of wicked spins that force the ball to rear up high after bouncing on the clay. 

“Rafael Nadal and Roland Garros is a love story,” said Gilles Moretton, president of the French Tennis Federation, which organises the only Grand Slam tournament on clay courts.

“I think it is important to put it in terms like that because he has a profound respect for the surface of clay and we have the same respect for the player.”

Other tributes will follow during the French Open fortnight. Mary Pierce – the last French player to win a singles title at the tournament – will be hailed for her achievement in 2000.

There will also be an adieu to the French veteran Richard Gasquet, who will retire from the circuit after his last match at the tournament. The 38-year-old reached a career high of seventh in the world in July 2007 and claimed 16 titles during his 23 years on the ATP tour.

The closest he came to emulating Yannick Noah – the last Frenchman to lift the 1983 French Open – was a quarter-final appearance in 2016.

French hopes

None of his younger compatriots figure among the favourites to succeed the 2024 champion Carlos Alcaraz, who will launch the defence of his singles title against the Japanese veteran Kei Nishikori.

Top seed Jannik Sinner will start against the Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech and third seed Zverev, who lost in the 2024 final, will play Lerner Tien from the United States.

Tien’s fellow American, Taylor Fritz, seeded fourth, will play Daniel Altmaier from Germany.

Fourteenth seed Arthur Fils will experience the 2025 tournament for the first time as France’s top player following a solid campaign in the warm-up tournaments.

He lost to Alcaraz in the last eight in Monte Carlo and the semis in Barcelona. Zverev saw him off in the last 16 at the Italian Open.

However, Ugo Humbert, the French number two, has fared less favourably. The 26-year-old injured his right hand in a freak accident in his hotel room during a tournament in Nimes, southern France, and has staggered through events.

After retiring from his second round match at the Italian Open, Umbert announced he would skip the Hamburg Open to rest his wrist before his home Grand Slam, where as 22nd seed he will face Chris O’Connell from Australia in the opening round.

The current crop of Frenchwomen appear light years away from eclipsing Pierce’s feats. 

At 65 in the WTA rankings, Varvara Gracheva leads the pack. The 24-year-old will play the 2020 runner-up Sofia Kenin in the first round.

Diane Parry, the French number two, will take on the unseeded American Robin Montgomery and Léolia Jeanjean, the French number three, will begin against the experienced Romanian Irina-Camelia Begu.

French tennis chiefs seek new skipper for women’s team to replace Benneteau

Caroline Garcia, who won the WTA end-of-season championships in 2022 to rise to number four in the world, has slumped to 145 in the rankings.

A day after she was drawn to play Bernarda Pera in the first round, the 31-year-old Frenchwoman announced on social media that the 2025 French Open would be her last.

“That said, it’s not quite over yet,” Garcia added. “I still have a few tournaments to play. After 15 years competing at the highest level and more than 25 years devoting almost every second of my life to this sport, I feel ready to turn the page and open a new chapter.”

Garcia will be remembered for a bold attacking game that brought her 11 singles titles and two French Open doubles crowns.

‘Every year is different’

The Russian 18-year-old Mirra Andreeva is expected to eclipse such exploits.

Earlier in the season, she arrived at Indian Wells in the United States with the crown from the Dubai Open – one of the most prestigious on the tour.

In the Californian desert, she outwitted the world number two and number one – Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka respectively – to add that title to her burgeoning trophy cabinet.

“Winning Dubai and Indian Wells, that was progress,” said Andreeva’s coach Conchita Martinez. “She’s getting stronger and now I feel like she can compete with the top girls.”

Jasmine Paolini beat Andreeva in last year’s semi-finals before going down to Swiatek in the final. A year on, Paolini, who claimed the 2025 Italian Open singles and doubles crown, appears far more likely than the Pole to feature in the women’s singles final on the last Saturday of the tournament.

Since raising the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen on centre court last June, Swiatek has not brandished any trophies and fallen to number five in the rankings.

After her third round elimination at the Italian Open, the 23-year-old dismissed her chances of a fifth French Open title in six years.

‘People don’t know me’, says defiant Swiatek ahead of French Open defence

“It would be stupid to expect too much because right now, I’m not able to play my game,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what I achieved in Paris before — every year is different,” she added.

Coco Gauff, who lost to Swiatek in the 2022 French Open final, discounted Swiatek’s pessimism as she surged to the runners-up spot at the Italian Open.

“I think for sure it changes some things when you see someone who won the French Open that many times not having the best results.”

“But you also have to respect that she’s a four-time champion. I always think if someone wins a tournament that many times, regardless of what shape they’re in, they can definitely figure out a way to win again.”

Swiatek’s hero, Nadal, wrote the book on that.

“You know, everything in this life passes at an incredible speed. I didn’t see the time go by,” Salgado said, upon opening the exhibition at the Franciscaines cultural centre. “I’ve done a lot of things, I’ve travelled, I’ve captured images. And this morning, when I arrived here, I felt a summary of my life and it moved me deeply.”

The photographer, who has spent much of his life in Paris and in 2019 was given a place in France’s prestigious institution for artists, the Academy of Fine Arts, explained that he was feeling “a bit battered” due to medical reasons.

“The happiest day of my life was when I turned 80. I’ve lost so many friends. We were all together in Goma [Democratic Republic of Congo] for four years, four photographers were murdered, and I was there. So being alive at 80 is an immense privilege.”

For this exhibition, supported by the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP), Salgado took part in selecting the photos, which are being displayed in smaller formats to offer a better vision of his work.

It is a body of work spanning more than 40 years, in which he travelled to all corners of the world, capturing themes as diverse as the precarious nature of manual labour amid the transformation of the industrial world – as seen in “The Hand of Man” – and human migration, as seen in “Exodus”.

‘An immense universe’

“As a photographer, we ask ourselves questions […] about security, legitimacy, ethics, and more generally about the world,” Salgado explained.

His work has taken him to more than 130 countries, photographing gold mines, oil fields in Kuwait during the Gulf War and the genocide in Rwanda. This, he says, was his most difficult assignment, and he eventually had to stop covering it on the advice of his doctor.

After this, he returned to Brazil with his family for three months and began reconsidering his work as a photographer.

“Before, I believed in one species: mine. What made me completely lose hope in my species was discovering that we are a terrible, violent, horrible species, that we are destroying our planet. And discovering other species, I fell that I was part of an immense universe of species.”

In 1998, he created the non-profit organisation Instituto Terra with his wife Lélia Wanick Salgado to restore the ecosystem in the Rio Doce Basin in Brazil.

‘The Amazon is paradise on earth’

For his series “Genesis” (2004-2011), Salgado traveled from the Galapagos to the Amazon, via Africa and the Arctic. “It’s perhaps one of the most interesting journeys of everything I’ve done in my life. Because the Amazon is paradise on earth,” he said.

“These Amazonian populations are the prehistory of humanity. They are us from 10,000 years ago. They live in such a pleasant, gentle way, in communion with nature. There are no lies, there is no repression.”

However, contemplating what he had learned from these trips, Salgado said: “I travelled for eight years across 32 countries or regions of the world, but the greatest journeys I’ve made are within myself.”

The exhibition Sebastião Salgado: The MEP Collection runs until 1 June, 2025 at the Franciscaines venue in Deauville.

Insee, France’s national statistics agency, examined migration trends between 2006 and 2023. The number of people moving to France rose steadily in that period – from 234,000 in 2006 to 347,000 in 2023.

The research also found that for the first time, Africa has overtaken Europe as the main region of origin for people immigrating to France – with 45 percent of new arrivals in 2023 coming from African countries.

Half of those were from the Maghreb – North African countries such as Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. The rest were mostly from the Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal.

European immigration, once dominant, has fallen sharply.

Insee data shows that in 2006, 44 percent of immigrants came from Europe. By 2023, that number had dropped to 28 percent.

There has also been a slight shift in the gender balance, with Insee finding that women made up 53 percent of new arrivals in 2006. In 2023, they made up 51 percent.

France accused of failing migrant teens trapped in legal limbo

More diplomas

The biggest change observed was in education levels. Among immigrants aged 25 and over, 52 percent had a diploma in 2023 – up from 41 percent in 2006.

The share of those arriving without any qualifications also fell, dropping from 30 percent in 2003 to 22 percent in 2023. Insee included the 2003 figure to provide a longer-term comparison beyond the 2006 baseline used elsewhere in the study.

The strongest gains were seen among African immigrants.

In 2006, fewer than one in three held a higher education diploma. By 2023, that figure had risen to one in two.

One in three immigrants was able to find work within a year of arriving in France. Europeans were the most likely to enter the workforce quickly, with more than half employed within 12 months of arrival.

This article was adapted from the original version in French.

France’s interior minister told police on Thursday to “step up surveillance at sites linked to the Jewish community” after a gunman killed two Israeli embassy staff in the US capital on Wednesday.

Security measures must be “visible and dissuasive”, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said in a message sent to prefects. He called for more patrols around synagogues, schools, shops and media and cultural events.

Police and gendarmes were stationed in front of the Israeli embassy in Paris on Friday morning.

Representatives of France’s Jewish community, the largest in Europe, welcomed the measures.

“We’ve noticed an increase in patrols and law enforcement officers. There is a great deal of concern”, said Benjamin Allouche, head of security at the Crif – the umbrella body for Jewish institutions in France – speaking to FranceInfo.

Retailleau also called for “extreme vigilance” during upcoming Jewish holidays in France.

Interior Minister Retailleau calls for ‘extreme vigilance’ during Jewish holidays in France

Israel-France tensions

The shooting took place during an annual reception organised by the American Jewish Committee for young Jewish professionals and diplomats in Washington.

The suspect, Luis Rodriguez, was born in Chicago and has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

Washington is treating the crime as an anti-Semitic terror attack after Rodriguez shouted “free Palestine” in reference to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The conflict has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.  

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Thursday described the killings as “an abhorrent act of antisemitic barbarity”, while President Emmanuel Macron condemned what he called an “anti-Semitic attack”.

France pressures Israel to resume full humanitarian aid to Gaza

Tensions between Israel and France rose further on Thursday when Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused European governments of inciting anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli violence.

France rejected the accusation. “These are completely outrageous and completely unjustified remarks,” foreign ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine said.

“France has condemned, France condemns and France will continue to condemn, always and unequivocally, any act of anti-Semitism.”

Jewish communities in France have been on alert for months due to a rise in attacks and desecration of memorials since the Gaza war began on 7 October 2023, when Hamas launched a terror attack on Israel.

France’s interior ministry recorded 1,570 anti-Semitic incidents so far in 2024 – a number similar to the previous year.

With global plastic production doubling in less than 10 years, reducing it is key for protecting the ocean, according to findings at the Reducing Plastics: A Vital Issue for the Ocean conference, held in Marseille on Monday.

French and European scientists and policymakers gathered at the Mucem museum in Marseille for the summit – organised by the Tara Ocean Foundation and the French branch of the Interparliamentary Coalition to End Plastic Pollution.

“Today, we are facing a plastic crisis, which is a major crisis affecting the oceans and the environment in all its dimensions – climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss,” Henri Bourgois-Costa, head of public affairs for the Tara Ocean Foundation, told RFI. 

French schooner Tara charts a course for change ahead of UN oceans summit

Recycling not (the only) solution 

Today, at a global level, 50 percent of plastics are landfilled, 14 percent are recycled, 17 percent incinerated and 19 percent are poorly managed, explained Fabienne Lagarde, an environmental chemist at Le Mans university.

“Recycling is the tree that hides the forest, because the end of life of plastic is also polluting,” she said.

Moreover, 98 percent of plastics today are not biodegradable, and two-thirds are not recyclable, Lagarde pointed out.

France pushes for action as high seas treaty hangs in the balance

“Most of our waste is either buried or incinerated, leading to a major environmental leak that originates primarily from land,” explained Jean-François Ghiglione, a researcher from the French National Centre for Scientific Research and the scientific director of the Tara Microplastics mission 2019, whose initial results were published in April. 

“And more than 80 percent of plastics that end up in the sea come from the land,” he added.

The study published last month, which focused on nine major European rivers, showed that 100 percent of these rivers were polluted by microplastics arriving directly from land.

“Microplastics come from the breakdown of large waste. A large piece of waste – through abrasion, friction and UV exposure – breaks into smaller and smaller pieces, almost infinitely,” explained Ghiglione. 

These microplastics measure between 0.025mm and 5mm, and are invisible to the naked eye.

Digital boom makes Marseille a global data hub – but at what cost?

The study also showed that 85 percent of plastics in the sea are in microplastic form. 

These microplastics are also found throughout the food chain, affecting 1.4 million birds and 14,000 mammals every year. Doctors are now investigating the consequences for human health.

“We absolutely must reach a global plastics treaty that reduces the quantity of plastics, because we have scientifically shown that the more plastic is produced, the more pollution there is. The relationship is linear,” concluded Ghiglione. 

Earlier this week, France urged countries around the world to ratify the landmark High Seas Treaty before the UN Ocean Conference, which opens in Nice on 9 June.

The treaty was adopted in June 2023 by 193 countries but cannot take effect until it is ratified by 60 countries. So far, only 21 have done so.

On Thursday, 88 senators voted in favour of lifting Kabila’s immunity; five opposed and three abstained.

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi alleges Kabila conspired with the Rwanda-backed M23, whose recent offensive has intensified the more than three-decade-long conflict in the east of the country.

Kabila, who has been outside the country since 2023, was not present in the chamber at the time of the vote. 

By the vote, “the Senate authorises the prosecution and lifting of Joseph Kabila‘s immunity,” declared the upper house’s speaker Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde.

Kabila now faces the prospect of being tried in military courts for “treason, war crimes, crimes against humanity and participation in an insurrectionary movement”.

DRC seeks to remove ex-president Kabila’s immunity from prosecution

On leaving power, Kabila became the first former DRC leader to obtain the honorific title of senator for life and with it, parliamentary immunity.

To allow legal proceedings to move forward, the Congolese army’s public prosecutor lodged a request for the Senate to lift that privilege. 

The accusations against Kabila were based partly on testimony from opposition figure Eric Nkuba, who claimed to have overheard the former president urging M23 leaders to remove Tshisekedi via a coup.

Senior political researcher Ithiel Batumike of the Ebuteli research institute told AFP that confession was extracted under duress.

However, the army prosecutor told the Senate commission that the claims were “credible and constant”.

From 1960 to present day, 11 dates that explain the conflict in the DRC

‘No Congolese above the law’

Kabila has been out of the country since 2023. Recent reports claim he has returned to the town of Goma, which was seized by M23 in January. However, no evidence of his return has emerged.

The government has suspended his People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), while security forces have raided several of his properties.

In a social media post on Thursday Kabila called the Senate’s move “a desperate political manoeuvre in a climate of panic at the top of the state,” adding that it was made “without respect for institutional balance”.

The PPRD rejected the Senate’s authority to act alone.

“Joseph Kabila is not a senator like the others. As a former head of state, he falls under a special legal regime,” said PPRD spokesperson Ferdinand Kambere, describing the decision as a “witch hunt”.

Senator Jules Lodi of president Tshisekedi’s UDPS party underlined that the Senate’s vote did not constitute a conviction and that Kabila was presumed innocent,  but that “No Congolese is above the law”.

Fellow senator Jean Tshisekedi hailed the decision as “historic,” adding that the accusations against Kabila were “dangerous for the nation”.

“They touch the heart of every Congolese. We are here to set an example,” he said.

Water shortages can stunt the growth of crops such as wheat, corn, rapeseed and barley, Nicolas Guilpart, a lecturer in agronomy at the Agro Paris Tech research institute, told AFP.

Countries including France, Belgium, Britain and Germany have seen much lower levels of rainfall than usual in some areas this spring, leaving the soil parched and dusty.

The unusually dry weather has already delayed the life cycle of crops that would normally have sprouted by now.

Luke Abblitt, a farmer in eastern England, said he was “praying for the rain” as Britain suffers its driest spring in well over a century.

The weather is going from “one extreme to the other,” he told AFP.

“We’re having a lot of rain in the wintertime, not so much rain in the spring or summer time,” he said. “We need to adapt our cultivation methods, look at different varieties, different cropping possibly to combat these adverse weather conditions.”

According to the Environment Agency, levels in Britain’s reservoirs have fallen to “exceptionally low”.

Some farmers have begun irrigating their crops earlier than usual, the National Farmers’ Union said, calling for investments to improve water storage and collection systems.

Chocolate and rice among key EU imports facing climate threats

High sun levels

In the Netherlands, it has not been this dry since records began in 1906, and Germany’s environment minister warned in April of a high risk of forest fires and poor harvests due to a “worrying” lack of rain.

From February 1 to April 13, Germany saw 40 litres of rainfall per square metre, the its lowest level since records began in 1931, according to the German Weather Service (DWD).

And in early May, the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) warned that the previous three months had been exceptionally dry, with just 63 millimetres of rainfall.

Since 1874, there have only been seven times when less rain fell during the period from February to April, it said.

Denmark has also seen above-average temperatures for the time of year.

The country’s drought index, which runs on a scale of one to 10, has been above nine since May 15, the first time this has happened so early in the year since the index was established in 2005.

The Federation of Swedish Farmers said it was “too early to say what the impact on farming will be this summer” but advised farmers to go over their water planning.

Ominous dead tree emoji brings climate anxiety to your phone

Irrigation

In France, groundwater levels remain satisfactory but plants need surface water to grow – and that means rain.

Northern France has been on drought alert since Monday after seeing the same rainfall between February and early May as it would normally see in a month.

Strong northeast winds have also dried out the soil, with farmers increasingly turning to irrigation.

Between March and May, the village of Beuvry-la-Foret saw eight times less rain than during the same period last year.

Chicory farmer Sebastien De Coninck told AFP that until five years ago, “irrigation was not even considered in the north” – but these days it can as much as double crop production.

Irrigation can help compensate for low rainfall, Guilpart said, but “you need the resources to do it”.

Water for irrigation is primarily obtained from surface water such as rivers, lakes and reservoirs or from groundwater using wells and aquifers.

In France, air temperatures have also been warmer than usual, meaning plants need more water from the soil.

The dry spell in northern Europe contrasts with southern Europe, including Spain and Portugal, where rainfall has been up to twice the usual amount for the time of year.

Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday – here on our website, or wherever you get your podcasts. You’ll hear the winners’ names announced and the week’s quiz question, along with all the other ingredients you’ve grown accustomed to: your letters and essays, “On This Day”, quirky facts and news, interviews, and great music … so be sure and listen every week.

Erwan and I are busy cooking up special shows with your music requests, so get them in! Send your music requests to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr Tell us why you like the piece of music, too – it makes it more interesting for us all!

Facebook: Be sure to send your photos to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr for the RFI English Listeners Forum banner!

More tech news: Did you know we have a YouTube channel? Just go to YouTube and write “RFI English” in the search bar, and there we are! Be sure to subscribe to see all our videos.

Would you like to learn French? RFI is here to help you!

Our website “Le Français facile avec RFI” has news broadcasts in slow, simple French, as well as bilingual radio dramas (with real actors!) and exercises to practice what you have heard.

Go to our website and get started! At the top of the page, click on “Test level” and you’ll be counselled to the best-suited activities for your level.

Do not give up! As Lidwien van Dixhoorn, the head of “Le Français facile” service, told me: “Bathe your ears in the sound of the language, and eventually, you’ll get it.” She should know – Lidwien is Dutch and came to France hardly able to say “bonjour” and now she heads this key RFI department – so stick with it!

Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!

In addition to the news articles on our site, with in-depth analysis of current affairs in France and across the globe, we have several podcasts that will leave you hungry for more.

There’s Spotlight on France, Spotlight on Africa, The International Report, and of course, The Sound Kitchen. We also have an award-winning bilingual series – an old-time radio show, with actors (!) to help you learn French, called Les voisins du 12 bis. 

Remember, podcasts are radio, too! As you see, sound is still quite present in the RFI English service. Please keep checking our website for updates on the latest from our journalists. You never know what we’ll surprise you with!

To listen to our podcasts from your PC, go to our website; you’ll see “Podcasts” at the top of the page. You can either listen directly or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone.

To listen to our podcasts from your mobile phone, slide through the tabs just under the lead article (the first tab is “Headline News”) until you see “Podcasts”, and choose your show. 

Teachers take note! I save postcards and stamps from all over the world to send to you for your students. If you would like stamps and postcards for your students, just write and let me know. The address is english.service@rfi.fr  If you would like to donate stamps and postcards, feel free! Our address is listed below. 

Another idea for your students: Brother Gerald Muller, my beloved music teacher from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, has been writing books for young adults in his retirement – and they are free! There is a volume of biographies of painters and musicians called Gentle Giants, and an excellent biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., too. They are also a good way to help you improve your English – that’s how I worked on my French, reading books that were meant for young readers – and I guarantee you, it’s a good method for improving your language skills. To get Brother Gerald’s free books, click here.

Independent RFI English Clubs: Be sure to always include Audrey Iattoni (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department in your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me (thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr) when you write to her so that I know what is going on, too. N.B.: You do not need to send her your quiz answers! Email overload!

This week’s quiz: On 26 April, I asked you a question about the late Pope Francis, who’d died earlier that week. As the Vatican prepared to elect a new pope, we published an article about the men who were responsible for electing the next head of the Roman Catholic Church.

You were to re-read our article “What happens now after the death of Pope Francis?” and send in the answer to this question: What are the nationalities of the 135 cardinal electors who will elect the next pope?

The answer is, to quote our article: “Currently there are 135 so-called cardinal electors, 108 of whom were appointed by Francis. Of these, 53 are from Europe, 20 are from North America, 18 are from Africa, 23 from Asia, four from Oceania, and 17 from South America.”

As you know, the cardinals elected Robert Francis Prevost, the first American to hold the post. He took the name Leo XIV as his papal name, and he was formally inaugurated to serve the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics on 18 May.

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, which was inspired by the long-running BBC program “Desert Island Discs”. You were to write in with the names of the three records, or audio recordings, that you would take with you to an uninhabited island.

Do you have a bonus question idea? Send it to us!

The winners are: RFI Listeners Club member Christian Ghibaudo from Tende, France. Christian is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations, Christian,on your double win.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are A. K. M. Nuruzzaman, the president of the RFI Amour Fan Club in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, and Paresh Hazarika, a member of the United RFI Listeners Club in Assam, India, as well as RFI Listeners Club members Shadman Hosen Ayon from Kishoreganj, Bangladesh, and Hans Verner Lollike from Hedehusen, Denmark.

Congratulations, winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme:  “Mother” by Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd; “A Mighty Fortress is our God” by Martin Luther, played by Kaleb Brasee; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and Buenos Aires Symphony in Three Movements by Astor Piazolla, performed by the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Leonardo Garcia Alarcon.

Do you have a music request? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

This week’s question … you must listen to the show to participate. After you’ve listened to the show, re-read our article “EU and UK reunite in London for talks on diplomacy and defence”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 23 June to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 28 June podcast. When you enter, be sure to send your postal address with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

Click here to learn how to win a special Sound Kitchen prize.

Click here to find out how you can become a member of the RFI Listeners Club, or form your own official RFI Club.   

French MPs are shortly to vote on whether or not to legalise assisted suicide and euthanasia. The draft legislation draws heavily on the work of the Citizens’ Convention on end-of-life care – a group of 184 people, randomly selected in late 2022 to reflect France’s diverse population. Though strangers to each other and to the subject, they spent four months in thoughtful debate, building a spirit of mutual respect despite deep differences of opinion. Economist Marc-Olivier Strauss-Kahn, one of the participants, talks about why this exercise in deliberative democracy was so enriching and valuable to society. Along with others, he’s helped launch an association to ensure the dialogue, and the social inclusion it fostered, continues beyond the convention itself. (Listen @0′)

This year’s Cannes film festival is taking the issue of sexual harassment in the movie industry more seriously than ever, just weeks after actor Gerard Depardiee was convicted for sexual assault. Ollia Horton talks about what’s changing. She also introduces a film about the life of Marcel Pagnol – one of France’s most cherished writers and a former Cannes jury president. (Listen @20’15”)

The annual fête des voisins, held on the last Friday of May, is an opportunity for neighbours to get to know each other. Launched 25 years ago in Paris by local councillor Atanase Périfan, it was aimed at bringing more solidarity into everyday life and it seems to be working. (Listen @14’10”)

Episode mixed by Cécile Pompeani

Spotlight on France is a podcast from Radio France International. Find us on rfienglish.com, Apple podcasts (link here), Spotify (link here) or your favourite podcast app (pod.link/1573769878).

Upon hearing the news that the PKK was ending its war and disarming, Kurds danced in the streets of the predominantly Kurdish southeast of Turkey. The region bore the brunt of the brutal conflict, with the overwhelming majority of those killed being civilians, and millions more displaced.

From armed struggle to political arena

“It is a historic moment. This conflict has been going on for almost half a century,” declared Aslı Aydıntaşbaş of the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

“And for them [the PKK] to say that the period of armed struggle is over and that they are going to transition to a major political struggle is very important.”

The PKK, designated as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and most of Turkey’s Western allies, launched its armed struggle in 1984 for Kurdish rights and independence. At the time, Turkey was ruled by the military, which did not even acknowledge the existence of Kurds, referring to them as “Mountain Turks.”

Nearly fifty years later, however, Turkey is a different place. The third-largest parliamentary party is the pro-Kurdish Dem Party. In its declaration ending its armed struggle and announcing its dissolution, the PKK stated that there is now space in Turkey to pursue its goals through political means.

However, military realities are thought to be behind the PKK’s decision to end its campaign. “From a technical and military point of view, the PKK lost,” observed Aydın Selcan, a former senior Turkish diplomat who served in the region.

“For almost ten years, there have been no armed attacks by the PKK inside Turkey because they are no longer capable of doing so. And in the northern half of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, there is now almost no PKK presence,” added Selcan.

Selcan also claims the PKK could be seeking to consolidate its military gains in Syria. “For the first time in history, the PKK’s Syrian offshoot, the YPG, has begun administering a region. So it’s important for the organisation to preserve that administration.

“They’ve rebranded themselves as a political organisation.” Turkish forces have repeatedly launched military operations in Syria against the YPG. However, the Syrian Kurdish forces have reached a tentative agreement with Damascus’s new rulers—whom Ankara supports.

Kurdish leader Ocalan calls for PKK disarmament, paving way for peace

 Erdoğan’s high-stakes gamble

For Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is trailing in opinion polls and facing growing protests over the arrest of his main political rival, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, on alleged corruption charges, this could be a golden opportunity. “This is a win for Erdoğan, no doubt,” claimed analyst Aydıntaşbaş.

Along with favourable headlines, the PKK’s peace announcement offers a solution to a major political headache for Erdoğan. The Turkish president wants to amend the constitution to remove term limits, allowing him to run again for the presidency.

The pro-Kurdish Dem Party holds the parliamentary votes Erdoğan needs. “Yes, Erdoğan, of course, will be negotiating with Kurds for constitutional changes,” said Aydıntaşbaş.

“Now we are entering a very transactional period in Turkish politics. Instead of repressing Kurds, it’s going to be about negotiating with them. And it may persuade the pro-Kurdish faction—which forms the third-largest bloc in Turkish politics—to peel away from the opposition camp,” added Aydıntaşbaş.

However, Aydıntaşbaş warns that Erdoğan will need to convince his voter base, which remains sceptical of any peace process with the PKK. According to a recent opinion poll, three out of four respondents opposed the peace process, with a majority of Erdoğan’s AK Party supporters against it.

For decades, the PKK has been portrayed in Turkey as a brutal terrorist organisation, and its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan, is routinely referred to by politicians and much of the media as “the baby killer.” Critics argue the government has failed to adequately prepare the public for peace.

“In peace processes around the world, we see a strong emphasis on convincing society,” observed Sezin Öney, a political commentator at Turkey’s PolitikYol news portal. “There are reconciliation processes, truth commissions, etc., all designed to gain public support. But in our case, it’s like surgery without anaesthesia—an operation begun without any sedatives,” added Öney.

Turkey looks for regional help in its battle against Kurdish rebels in Iraq

Political concessions?

Public pressure on Erdoğan is expected to grow, as the PKK and Kurdish political leaders demand concessions to facilitate the peace and disarmament process.

“In the next few months, the government is, first of all, expected to change the prison conditions of Öcalan,” explained Professor Mesut Yeğen of the Istanbul-based Reform Institute.

“The second expectation is the release of those in poor health who are currently in jail. And for the disarmament process to proceed smoothly, there should be an amnesty or a reduction in sentences, allowing PKK convicts in Turkish prisons to be freed and ensuring that returning PKK militants are not imprisoned,” Yeğen added.

Yeğen claimed that tens of thousands of political prisoners may need to be released, along with the reinstatement of Dem Party mayors who were removed from office under anti-terrorism legislation.

Turkey’s Saturday Mothers keep up vigil for lost relatives

Erdoğan has ruled out any concessions until the PKK disarms, but has said that “good things” will follow disarmament. Meanwhile, the main opposition CHP Party, while welcoming the peace initiative, insists that any democratic reforms directed at the Kurdish minority must be extended to wider society—starting with the release of İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s chief political rival.

While the peace process is widely seen as a political victory for Erdoğan, it could yet become a liability for the president, who risks being caught between a sceptical voter base and an impatient Kurdish population demanding concessions.

The impact of Donald Trump’s second term in the White House is being felt far beyond US borders. Observers say this ripple effect can be seen across Europe, not just in policy but in the continent’s political culture itself.

For Dr Célia Belin of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the stakes are nothing less than the future of European liberal democracy.

In her latest ECFR report, MAGA Goes Global: Trump’s Plan for Europe, Belin warns that what might appear to be chaotic decisions from the Oval Office are, in fact, part of an ideological project.

“There’s actually a strong direction, a clear destination,” Belin told RFI. “Trump, surrounded by loyalists and MAGA Republicans, is ready to implement his plan – to push back on liberal democracy, and to push back on Europe.”

According to her, he sees Europe as “an extension of his political enemies – liberals and progressives” and views its institutions as bureaucratic hurdles rather than allies in global leadership.

Culture wars without borders

Trump’s administration – bolstered by figures including Vice President JD Vance and media mogul Elon Musk – has also made overtures to Europe’s far right.

They have voiced support for Germany’s far-right AfD party and France’s Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally, including on Musk’s social media platform X (formerly Twitter) – helping to disseminate nationalist and populist rhetoric across the continent.

“We’re seeing a systematic attack on the liberal model that Europe represents,” said Belin. “This ‘Trumpian wave’ has fired up nationalist opposition in Europe, even if it hasn’t created a united front.”

‘Free Le Pen’: US conservatives rally behind French far-right leader

Non merci to MAGA

However, some of the European political parties that share Trump’s scepticism of liberal institutions are treading carefully when it comes to embracing his brand of politics.

While leaders such as Viktor Orbán in Hungary openly welcome MAGA-style backing, others see it as a double-edged sword.

Following her recent legal conviction, Le Pen received support from MAGA-aligned figures. But her party responded with conspicuous silence.

“They don’t want or need this Trumpian support,” Belin noted. “Their political strategy is not about aligning with MAGA America – it’s more French, more sovereignist.”

Embracing Trump too openly could risk undermining years of effort to mainstream the National Rally’s image. “Nationalists are realising that now – it brings fuel to the fire, yes, but it also complicates their own domestic positioning,” said Belin.

Trump’s first 100 days: Revolution or destruction? The view from France

Europe responds

French President Emmanuel Macron was among the first European leaders to sound the alarm on the changing nature of the US-European alliance. 

“I want to believe that the United States will stay by our side but we have to be prepared for that not to be the case,” he said in a televised address to the nation in March.

I January, in a speech to French ambassadors, he said: “Ten years ago, who could have imagined it if we had been told that the owner of one of the largest social networks in the world would support a new international reactionary movement and intervene directly in elections, including in Germany.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz followed suit, criticising Musk’s decision to give the AfD a platform just weeks before Germany’s federal elections.

However, Belin points out that the European response is still taking shape. “It’s brand new as a phenomenon,” she said. “Europeans were prepared to be challenged on trade, on security – even on Ukraine. But this cultural challenge is unprecedented.”

Meloni positions herself as Europe’s ‘trump card’ on visit to White House

Still, as Belin notes, Trumpism is not a winning formula everywhere. “Turning fully Trumpist would derail Marine Le Pen’s strategy. It’s not a winning strategy in France,” she said. “But in more insurgent political systems, it might be.”

And there is concern too that Trumpism could outlive Trump himself.

“There’s been a transformation in the perception of America’s global role,” Belin said. “And that will stick around. It will be pushed by some of the nationalist parties in our countries. That is the Trumpist legacy”.

Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday – here on our website, or wherever you get your podcasts. You’ll hear the winners’ names announced and the week’s quiz question, along with all the other ingredients you’ve grown accustomed to: your letters and essays, “On This Day”, quirky facts and news, interviews, and great music … so be sure and listen every week.

Erwan and I are busy cooking up special shows with your music requests, so get them in! Send your music requests to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr Tell us why you like the piece of music, too – it makes it more interesting for us all!

Facebook: Be sure to send your photos to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr for the RFI English Listeners Forum banner!

More tech news: Did you know we have a YouTube channel? Just go to YouTube and write “RFI English” in the search bar, and there we are! Be sure to subscribe to see all our videos.

Would you like to learn French? RFI is here to help you!

Our website “Le Français facile avec RFI” has news broadcasts in slow, simple French, as well as bilingual radio dramas (with real actors!) and exercises to practice what you have heard.

Go to our website and get started! At the top of the page, click on “Test level” and you’ll be counselled to the best-suited activities for your level.

Do not give up! As Lidwien van Dixhoorn, the head of “Le Français facile” service, told me: “Bathe your ears in the sound of the language, and eventually, you’ll get it.” She should know – Lidwien is Dutch and came to France hardly able to say “bonjour” and now she heads this key RFI department – so stick with it!

Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!

In addition to the news articles on our site, with in-depth analysis of current affairs in France and across the globe, we have several podcasts that will leave you hungry for more.

There’s Spotlight on France, Spotlight on Africa, The International Report, and of course, The Sound Kitchen. We also have an award-winning bilingual series – an old-time radio show, with actors (!) to help you learn French, called Les voisins du 12 bis. 

Remember, podcasts are radio, too! As you see, sound is still quite present in the RFI English service. Please keep checking our website for updates on the latest from our journalists. You never know what we’ll surprise you with!

To listen to our podcasts from your PC, go to our website; you’ll see “Podcasts” at the top of the page. You can either listen directly or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone.

To listen to our podcasts from your mobile phone, slide through the tabs just under the lead article (the first tab is “Headline News”) until you see “Podcasts”, and choose your show. 

Teachers take note! I save postcards and stamps from all over the world to send to you for your students. If you would like stamps and postcards for your students, just write and let me know. The address is english.service@rfi.fr  If you would like to donate stamps and postcards, feel free! Our address is listed below. 

Another idea for your students: Brother Gerald Muller, my beloved music teacher from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, has been writing books for young adults in his retirement – and they are free! There is a volume of biographies of painters and musicians called Gentle Giants, and an excellent biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., too. They are also a good way to help you improve your English – that’s how I worked on my French, reading books that were meant for young readers – and I guarantee you, it’s a good method for improving your language skills. To get Brother Gerald’s free books, click here.

Independent RFI English Clubs: Be sure to always include Audrey Iattoni (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department in your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me (thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr) when you write to her so that I know what is going on, too. N.B.: You do not need to send her your quiz answers! Email overload!

This week’s quiz: On 19 April, I asked you a question about Mario Vargas Llosa, a Nobel Prize-winning author from Peru. You were to re-read Paul Myers’ article “Nobel prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa dies aged 89”, and send in the answers to these questions: In which year did Llosa win the Nobel Prize for Literature, and what did the Nobel Committee write about his work?

The answer is, to quote Paul’s article: “His Nobel Prize in 2010 came 51 years after The Cubs and Other Stories. The Nobel committee said the accolade was an award for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, “What are the obstacles that impede your happiness?”, which was an idea from Erwan Rome, who suggested we look at the philosophy questions asked on the French baccalaureate exams, the French leaving-school exam. This one was for the 2018 students.

Do you have a bonus question idea? Send it to us!

The winners are: RFI Listeners Club member Father Stephen Wara from Bamenda, Cameroon. Father Steve is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations, Father Stephen,on your double win.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are RFI Listeners Club members Samir Mukhopadhyay from West Bengal, India – who noted Vargas is one of his favorite Latin American writers; Mahfuzur Rahman from Cumilla, Bangladesh; Niyar Talukdar from Maharashtra, India, and last but not least, RFI English listener Tanjim Tatini from Munshiganj, Bangladesh.

Congratulations, winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme:  “En route à Bengal” inspired by traditional Bengali folk music, arranged and performed by the Hamelin Instrumental Band; Traditional Peruvian Cumbia; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “The Loud Minority” by Frank Foster, performed by the the Loud Minority Big Band.

Do you have a music request? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

This week’s question … you must listen to the show to participate. After you’ve listened to the show, re-read Ollia Horton’s article “Ukraine, Gaza and #MeToo in the spotlight as Cannes Film Festival opens”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 16 June to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 21 June podcast. When you enter, be sure to send your postal address with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

Click here to learn how to win a special Sound Kitchen prize.

Click here to find out how you can become a member of the RFI Listeners Club, or form your own official RFI Club.   

According to Amnesty International, Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency has hastened trends already unfolding over the past decade.

Just one hundred days into his second term, President Trump has demonstrated a complete disregard for universal human rights, making the world both less safe and less just, the organisation’s latest report claims.

“His all-out assault on the very concepts of multilateralism, asylum, racial and gender justice, global health and life-saving climate action is exacerbating the significant damage those principles and institutions have already sustained and is further emboldening other anti-rights leaders and movements to join his onslaught,” Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Agnès Callamard, wrote.

While Africa’s armed conflicts caused relentless civilian suffering, including increasing levels of sexual and gender-based violence, and death on a massive scale, international and regional responses remained woefully inadequate.

The NGO also denounces global failures in addressing inequalities, climate collapse, and tech transformations that imperil future generations, especially in fragile zones. 

To discuss the implications for Africa in detail, this week, Spotlight on Africa’s first guest is Deprose Muchena, senior director for regional human rights impact at Amnesty International. 

Meanwhile, in South Africa, experts reflect on a recent visit from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as the country leads the G20 this year and tries to become a platform for peace talk.

Did Zelensky’s South Africa visit signal a diplomatic pivot by Pretoria?

We talked to the French business and veteran diplomat, Jean-Yves Ollivier, founder of the Brazzaville Foundation, who was a key actor in organising Zelensky’s meeting with South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Finally, we hear from Djiby Kebe, one of the founders of  Air Afrique magazine, created by and for young members of the African diaspora in Paris and Abidjan. Inspired by the once-successful Pan-African airline of the same name, the publication centres on culture and travel.

Episode mixed by Erwan Rome.

Spotlight on Africa is produced by Radio France Internationale’s English language service.

Madhya Pradesh is often referred to as the Heart of India. Located right in the middle of the country, the Indian region shows everything India has to offer through its abundant diversity. The IFTM trade show, which took place in Paris at the end of September, presented the perfect opportunity for travel enthusiasts to discover the region.

Sheo Shekhar Shukla, Managing Director of Madhya Pradesh’s tourism board, sat down to explain his approach to sustainable tourism.

“Post-covid the whole world has known a shift in their approach when it comes to tourism. And all those discerning travelers want to have different kinds of experiences: something offbeat, something new, something which has not been explored before.”

Through its UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Shukla wants to showcase the deep history Madhya Pradesh has to offer.

“UNESCO is very actively supporting us and three of our sites are already World Heritage Sites. Sanchi is a very famous buddhist spiritual destination, Bhimbetka is a place where prehistoric rock shelters are still preserved, and Khajuraho is home to thousand year old temples with magnificent architecture.”

All in all, Shukla believes that there’s only one way forward for the industry: “Travelers must take sustainable tourism as a paradigm in order to take tourism to the next level.”

In partnership with Madhya Pradesh’s tourism board.

Also known as the Land of the Beautiful Islands, Malaysia’s landscape and cultural diversity is almost unmatched on the planet. Those qualities were all put on display at the Malaysian stand during the IFTM trade show.

Libra Hanif, director of Tourism Malaysia, explained the appeal of the country as well as the importance of promoting sustainable tourism today: “Sustainable travel is a major trend now, with the changes that are happening post-covid. People want to get close to nature, to get close to people. So Malaysia being a multicultural and diverse [country] with a lot of natural environments, we felt that it’s a good thing for us to promote Malaysia.”

Malaysia has also gained fame in recent years, through its numerous UNESCO World Heritage Sites, which include Kinabalu Park and the Archaeological Heritage of the Lenggong Valley.

Green mobility has also become an integral part of tourism in Malaysia, with an increasing number of people using bikes to discover the country: “If you are a little more adventurous, we have the mountain back trails where you can cut across gazetted trails to see the natural attractions and the wildlife that we have in Malaysia,” says Hanif. “If you are not that adventurous, you’ll be looking for relaxing cycling. We also have countryside spots, where you can see all the scenery in a relaxing session.”

With more than 25,000 visitors at this IFTM trade show this year, Malaysia’s tourism board got to showcase the best the country and its people have to offer.

In partnership with Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board. For more information about Malaysia, click here.