The NATO summit in Vilnius on 2 June brought together the alliance’s eastern flank members – the Bucharest Nine –along with Nordic countries.

The one-day summit focused on strengthening security and defense amid ongoing Russian aggression in Ukraine. The meeting comes ahead of the full NATO summit later this month in The Hague.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who attended the Vilnius summit, reiterated his demand to be invited to the June NATO summit, warning that excluding Ukraine would be “a victory for Putin, not over Ukraine, but over NATO.”

The NATO summit coincided with the second round of direct peace talks between representatives from Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul, Turkey.

“The key to lasting peace is clear, the aggressor must not receive any reward for war. Putin must get nothing that would justify his aggression,” Zelensky told a press conference in Vilnius.

No breakthrough

Ukraine wants concrete Western-backed security guarantees – like NATO protections or troops on the ground – that have been ruled out by Russia.

Moscow has made sweeping demands such as calling for Ukraine to cede territory it still controls, a ban on Kyiv joining NATO, limiting Ukraine’s military and ending Western military support.

Zelensky on Monday again rejected those demands, with Kyiv and the West casting Russia’s assault as nothing but an “imperialist land grab”.

Russia and Ukraine hold first peace talks since 2022

While Ukraine and Russia agreed another large-scale prisoner exchange at talks in Istanbul on Monday, their representatives failed to make a breakthrough on an immediate halt to the fighting.

Ukraine said Moscow had rejected its call for an unconditional ceasefire, offering instead a partial truce of two to three days in some areas of the frontline.

Sharing the burden

Since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, NATO has bolstered its eastern defences, with Finland and Sweden overhauling their security policies to join the alliance. Eastern members like Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia – former Soviet republics now in the EU – remain particularly concerned about Russian threats.

France and UK rally allies for potential security force in Ukraine

The push for increased defence spending reflects growing concerns for regional security, but has also fuelled debates within NATO about burden-sharing and the pace of military modernisation.

While 22 of NATO’s 32 members currently meet the existing 2 per cent GDP defence spending target, none meet the proposed 5 per cent goal, which would include both direct military costs and broader security infrastructure such as cybersecurity and logistics.

Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned Monday that NATO’s target to boost defence spending by 2032 would come “too late,” as countries in the region rapidly increase their military budgets in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Frederiksen addressed the proposal to raise defence and security spending to 5 per cent of GDP by 2032 – a goal pushed by former US President Donald Trump but not currently met by any NATO member, including the United States.

“I hope that during the NATO summit in the Hague from 24 to 26 June, we will agree on 3.5 per cent for the armed forces and 1.5 per cent on broader defence-related spending,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster DR. “The question now is whether we will accomplish this before 2032. In my opinion, this is too late.”

As Europe pours money into defence, reliance on US remains a sticking point

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has proposed this phased target of 3.5 percent of GDP on direct military spending plus 1.5 per cent on wider security-related expenditures, aiming to finalise the agreement at the upcoming summit in June.

Since taking office in 2019, Frederiksen has significantly increased Denmark’s defence budget – from 1.3 percent of GDP at the start of her term to over three per cent today – but she stressed that more investment is necessary. “That’s not enough. We need to increase defence spending in the years to come,” she said.

‘Unpredictable threats’

Meanwhile, on Monday the UK published its “Strategic Defence Review” announcing that Britain will build 12 new attack submarines to move the country to “war-fighting readiness” in the face of “Russian aggression” and the changing nature of conflict.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned that “the threat we now face is more serious, more immediate and more unpredictable than at any time since the Cold War,” as he launched the review in Glasgow, insisting that UK defence policy will “always be NATO first,”  and that the UK “will innovate and accelerate innovation at a wartime pace so we can meet the threats of today and of tomorrow.”

(with newswires)

The French buy an average of 48 items of new clothing per year per person, but two thirds of those garments remain in the wardrobe, while others are thrown away and pollute the environment. Thirty-five garments are thrown away every second, according to Ademe – France’s environmental agency. 

On Monday, lawmakers in the upper house begin debating a proposed law to “reduce the environmental impact of the textile industry” – estimated to be responsible for 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide

In March 2024, MPs voted unanimously to define and regulate imports of low-cost, high-turnover clothing – known as ultra-fast fashion – embodied by Chinese online retailers like Shein and Temu. 

“Today, these giants of ultra-disposable fashion are invading the market without any oversight. We need to set rules and hit them as effectively and as hard as possible,” said Sylvie Valente Le Hir, a senator with the conservative Republicans and rapporteur of the bill.

Under the legislation, the legal definition of “fast fashion” would be based on factors such as production volume, product lifespan and repairability.

Companies falling under this definition would face new obligations, including environmental transparency and potential penalties through a bonus-malus system indexed to environmental labelling. It would reward virtuous production methods and penalise companies that adopt wasteful, fast-fashion practices.

Advertising for fast fashion would also be limited. 

French parliament votes to slow down fast fashion

Weakened proposals

However, following amendments by a Senate commission in February, the text put before senators is weaker than the original.

The proposed ban on advertising will now apply only to influencers, after senators argued it could infringe on economic freedom. 

Environmental labelling as the basis for the bonus-malus system has also been dropped. 

For Impact France, an NGO that spearheaded advocacy efforts for the law, the latest version is no longer aligned with France’s ecological transition goals.

“What made the first version of the text so strong was that it contained two measures that worked well. The first was a ban on advertising, and the second was a bonus-malus system based on the environmental impact of clothing,” said Impact’s co-president Julia Faure.

“The combination of these two measures made it possible to change the paradigm of the textile industry. If you take away half of the measures, you halve the effectiveness of such a text,” she told RFI.

Fashion and climate: why the greenest garment is the one you already own

Protecting France-based business

The amendments follow Shein’s intense lobbying of the French parliament. The Chinese giant hired former minister Christophe Castaner as a consultant. French media reported that Castaner had presented himself to MPs as a defender of low-income consumers.

The bill now targets mainly Asian ultra fast-fashion giants such as Shein and Temu. Critics such as the Stop Fast Fashion coalition fear this could turn the legislation into “an empty shell with no deterrent effect” by letting large European and French fast fashion platforms off the hook.

However, senator Sylvie Vallin, of the conservative Republicans party, defends the idea of excluding European fast fashion chains.

“Ephemeral fashion brands such as Zara, H&M and Kiabi are found in our shopping centres and city centres. And these brands and shops pay their taxes and employ people,” she told RFI. “I’m not going to green the entire textile industry with a bill like this one. However, we are seizing this opportunity to have an impact on the biggest Chinese giants, and then we are working at European level.”

The European Commission is considering introducing a tax on small parcels entering the EU – most of which come from China. In late May it urged Shein to respect EU consumer protection laws and warned it could face fines if it failed to address the EU’s concerns over the sale of unsafe and dangerous products sold on the sites of both Shein and Temu.

Donated clothes an environmental disaster in disguise for developing world

Impact France is calling for four key provisions to be reinstated in the fast fashion legislation – environmental labelling, inclusion of multi-brand platforms, a comprehensive ad ban, and extending producer responsibility on an international level.

“The fashion industry needs rules that reflect the scale of its impact,” Faure said. “We have an opportunity to set a global standard, France shouldn’t miss it.”

While the Senate opposes a blanket ban on fast fashion advertising, the government has said it will try and reintroduce it into the bill, with backing from the left.

 According to a police source, two women and a man entered the Grévin Museum posing as tourists and, once inside, changed their clothes to pass for workers.

The activists slipped out through an emergency exit with the 40,000-euro-statue, which they had covered with a blanket.

The Greenpeace activists then placed the figure in front of the Russian embassy in a stunt meant to urge France to stop gas and fertiliser imports from Russia.

“For us, France is playing a double game,” said Jean-Francois Julliard, head of Greenpeace France.

“Emmanuel Macron embodies this double discourse: he supports Ukraine but encourages French companies to continue trading with Russia.”

Greenpeace report reveals France’s double standards in dealing with Russia

Julliard said Greenpeace targeted Macron because he had a particular responsibility, adding that the French president “should be the first” among European leaders to end trade contracts with Russia.

France has been one of the most vocal supporters of Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Macron has taken the lead in seeking to forge a coordinated European response to defending Ukraine, after US President Donald Trump shocked the world by directly negotiating with Russia.

Ceasefire talks

In the latest developments in the conflict, Russia proposed a partial ceasefire of “two to three days” at talks with Ukraine in Istanbul on Monday, Moscow’s top negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said. 

“We have proposed a specific ceasefire for two to three days in certain areas of the front line,” Medinsky said, “so that commanders can collect the bodies of their soldiers.” Ukraine is pushing for a full and unconditional ceasefire.

Ukraine on Monday proposed to hold a next round of talks with Russia before the end of June.

Russia and Ukraine hold first peace talks since 2022

“We propose to the Russian side to hold a meeting by the end of this month, from 20th to 30th of June,” Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said after talks, adding that the delegations should try to agree a meeting between presidents Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday also reiterated his willingness to host a meeting between the American, Russian and Ukrainian leaders in an effort to end the war in Ukraine.

“My greatest wish for both sides is to bring both (Russia’s) Vladimir Putin and (Ukraine’s Volodymyr) Zelensky together in Istanbul or Ankara, and even to bring (US President) Mr (Donald) Trump to their side, if they accept,” he said, adding that Turkey would “take steps” to facilitate such a meeting.

(with AFP)

Playing for the first time on centre court, the world number 361 prevailed 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in two hours and 40 minutes to emulate the feats of Kristina Mladenovic and Caroline Garcia in 2017.

“It’s all down to you,” said Boisson gesturing to the packed stands during her on-court interview with Alizé Cornet.

“Thank you. It was a wonderful atmosphere.”

The 22-year-old provided the feel-good fodder for the partisans after levelling the encounter and matching the vastly more experienced Pegula in the decider.

Serving for a 5-4 lead, Pegula squandered three separate occasions to edge ahead and staved off three break points.

Boisson took the 11-minute long game with her fourth chance when a Pegula forehand slapped into the net.

Serving for the match at 5-4 up, she moved to within two points of victory and then wobbled.

Chances

Pegula had four separate chances to level at 5-5. Twice Boisson robbed her of parity with bold shot-making and twice Pegula botched makeable winners for a player of her calibre.

On her first match point, Boisson’s serve stretched Pegula out wide to the left and she moved in to claim the scalp with a forehand winner.

“I never thought I’d keep up with her in the final set,” Boisson said. “But I had the confidence to play my shots and I never gave up.”

Boisson, who returned to the circuit in March after an 11-month break for injury, will play the sixth seed Mirra Andreeva in the quarter-finals.

The 18-year-old Russian dispensed with Daria Kasatkina 6-3, 7-5 to reach the last eight for the second consecutive year. 

Target

Second seed Coco Gauff advanced to the last eight for the fifth time in six visits.

The 21-year-old American beat the 20th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-0, 7-5.

“It feels great to be back in the quarter-finals here. I am really happy with how  I played today and hopefully can keep going,” she said.

Gauff will play her fellow American Madison Keys for a place in the semi-finals. 

Keys, who won the Australian Open in January, dispatched her compatriot Hailey Baptiste 6-3, 7-5 in 95 minutes.

In the top half of the men’s draw, last year’s beaten finalist Alexander Zverev moved into the quarter-finals following the retirement of the Tallon Griekspoor in the second set with a stomach muscle injury.

Zverev was leading 6-3, 3-0 when the 28-year-old Dutchman threw in the towel.

“It’s a tough one to take,” said Griekspoor. “Especially since I felt very good coming into the second week physically even after playing two four-setters and one five-setter.

“I didn’t feel too tired. I felt pretty good. I felt mentally pretty fresh, So that hurts.”

Zverev will play the sixth seed Novak Djokovic.

The 38-year-old Serb, who is seeking a record 25th singles title at a Grand Slam tournament, beat Cameron Norrie 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 in two hours and 14 minutes to register his 100th victory at the tournament in his 21 visits to the Roland Garros Stadium.

“One hundred is a nice number,” said Djokovic. “But 101 is a better number. The journey is not finished yet. I want to continue to make history in this sport that has given me so much.”

PSG’s unprecedented 5-0 triumph over Inter Milan in Munich on Saturday night – their first-ever European title – should have been a unifying moment for the French nation.

The performance was hailed as “sublime” by President Emmanuel Macron, and 11.5 million fans across the country tuned in to watch history unfold.

But as fireworks lit the skies, flames erupted on the streets.

By Monday, the post-match glow had faded, replaced by a sombre national reckoning.

French president Macron hails PSG’s Champions League triumph at Elysée reception

Two killed, hundreds arrested

Nearly 600 arrests were made across the country, with 79 people detained in Paris alone during a second wave of disorder on Sunday.

In total, more than 200 vehicles were torched, businesses vandalised, and fireworks turned into dangerous projectiles – including one that left a police officer in an induced coma.

The violence claimed two lives: a 17-year-old boy was fatally stabbed in Dax in the southwest, and a 23-year-old man died after being struck by a vehicle in central Paris.

Dozens of police officers and firefighters were injured in the unrest. 

‘Malicious intent’

Ahead of the match, Paris police prefect Laurent Nunez went to the Avenue des Champs-Élysées to “inspect the system and to greet the law enforcement and emergency services put in place,” as posted on X.

However, speaking to RTL radio after the game, Nunez said that many of those arrested had no real connection to PSG or football at all.

The Paris police chief mentioned “four or five incidents of looting” during the weekend, specifying that the services are in the process of compiling an exhaustive inventory of the damage to businesses, “and there is quite a lot of it.”

“We saw a resurgence of individuals driven by malicious intent,” Nunez said. “Public order was restored by dawn, but the damage had been done.”

Thousands expected along Champs-Elysées for PSG’s Champions League victory gala

President Macron, hosting the PSG squad at the Élysée Palace on Sunday, did not hold back in his condemnation.

“The violent clashes are unacceptable and have come at a heavy cost,” he said. “We will pursue, we will punish, we will be relentless.”

He praised the team for speaking out swiftly against the violence, and made a point of recognising the “exemplary” behaviour of most fans.

RN look to score ‘political points’

Even so, political tensions have surged in the wake of the chaos.

Far-right leader Jordan Bardella accused Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau of gross mismanagement, calling the scenes in Paris a “fiasco” and accusing the government of underestimating the risks.

The National Rally (RN) claims the police presence – though numbering over 5,400 officers – was “insufficient”.

Retailleau fired back, insisting that policing alone cannot solve deeper societal problems.

“The response cannot be solely security-based,” he said, accusing the RN of exploiting the moment for political gain.

For their part, the far-left group France Unbowed (La France Insoumise) demanded “accountability” from the government over its handling of the events.

The move, led by President Brice Oligui Nguema, was announced at the weekend as part of a broader national strategy to industrialise Gabon’s economy and add more value to its abundant natural resources.

Eramet, the main shareholder in Comilog – Gabon’s leading manganese mining firm – said it has acknowledged the government’s decision and will continue to engage with officials “in a spirit of constructive partnership and mutual respect”.

The French firm also committed to preserving the 10,460 local jobs sustained by Comilog and its transport arm, Setrag.

Gabon military leader Oligui Nguema elected president by huge margin

‘Upskilling’ Gabon’s workforce

President Oligui, who took power following a 2023 coup and was elected in April 2025 with nearly 95 percent of the vote, is seeking to reshape Gabon’s economic model.

Manganese – a key ingredient in steelmaking and increasingly in electric vehicle batteries – is one of Gabon’s top export earners alongside oil and timber.

The export ban on unprocessed manganese, which will take effect from 1 January 2029, is designed to encourage local processing, upskill the workforce, and boost tax revenues.

“Gabon is giving the mining sector three years to prepare,” the government said in a statement on Saturday, outlining plans to support the transition with a new public-private investment fund.

Push for domestic refining

The policy shift echoes a growing trend across Africa, with countries such as Guinea, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania also moving to retain more value from their mineral wealth by restricting raw material exports and encouraging domestic refining and processing.

Eramet – which operates the world’s largest manganese mine at Moanda – processes some ore locally in Gabon but still relies heavily on exports to international markets including China, Europe, and the United States.

The company had temporarily suspended operations in Gabon during the 2023 coup and scaled back production targets in 2024 amid market headwinds.

What’s at stake for French businesses after the coup in Gabon?

Stock market turbulence

Shares in Eramet fell by over five percent in Paris on Monday following news of the ban, before recovering slightly to trade 4 percent lower by mid-morning.

Analysts say the impact of the export restrictions will depend on how quickly Gabon and its partners can develop local processing capacity.

Despite its natural wealth, around one-third of Gabon’s 2.3 million people live in poverty.

The government hopes that keeping more of the value chain within the country will change that.

While the path ahead presents challenges, there are signs of optimism, as  Eramet has already shown its willingness to adapt in Indonesia, where it recently signed a memorandum of understanding to invest in local nickel processing – a similar transition, after Jakarta banned raw nickel exports.

Polish nationalist opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki has narrowly clinched victory in the second round of Poland’s presidential election, securing 50.89 percent of the vote.

Poland’s electoral commission confirmed early on Monday, with the result marking a significant setback for the pro-European government’s reform efforts.

His opponent, Warsaw’s liberal mayor and former MEP Rafal Trzaskowski – a close ally of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government – garnered 49.11 percent.

A closely watched exit poll on Sunday had suggested a slim win for Trzaskowski, adding an extra twist to an already tense contest.

Poland braces for knife-edge presidential run-off in wide open election

‘Poland first’

42-year-old Nawrocki – a historian and former head of a national remembrance institute – ran on a nationalist platform pledging to prioritise Poles in economic and social policy, including ahead of refugees from neighbouring Ukraine.

A keen amateur boxer, Nawrocki overcame controversy in the final days of the campaign, including scrutiny over how he acquired an apartment from a pensioner and his admission of involvement in organised fights during his youth.

Although executive power lies largely with Poland’s parliament, the presidency carries the power to veto legislation.

As such, the election outcome is being closely monitored not only in Poland but also in Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and across the European Union.

Poland’s Trzaskowski on course for tight presidential election win

Congratulations

Nawrocki, backed by the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, is expected to follow in the footsteps of outgoing President Andrzej Duda – also a PiS ally – by resisting government moves to liberalise abortion laws or reform the judiciary.

President Duda took to social media platform X to express his gratitude to voters, celebrating a record second-round turnout of over 71 percent.

“Thank you! For taking part in the presidential elections. For turning out in such numbers. For fulfilling your civic duty. For taking responsibility for Poland. Congratulations to the winner! Stay strong, Poland!” Duda posted.

Hungary’s Viktor Orban has hailed Nawrocki’s win as a “fantastic victory”, while European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen also offered congratulations on X, saying she was convinced the EU could continue its “very good cooperation” with Poland, adding: “We are all stronger together in our community of peace, democracy, and values. So let us work to ensure the security and prosperity of our common home.”

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.

For more than 10 years, Lucia has been the closest thing to a doctor many here have seen.

She is a Community Health Worker, or CHW – part of a vast but often overlooked network of women who quietly sustain Kenya’s rural healthcare system.

Every day before sunrise, she walks up to 20 kilometres on dusty paths and rocky hills to visit people in their homes – checking on pregnant mothers, tending to sick children and referring emergency cases to distant health centres.

Women in rural Kenya urged to shun old ways and use antiseptic on umbilical cord

In places where clinics are scarce and roads barely exist, CHWs like Lucia are a lifeline. People know her, and they trust her – some owe their lives to her.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Lucia says. “I’m not paid much, but I do it because these are my people. They have no one else to rely on.”

A life-changing gift

Lucia used to spend hours walking between homes, which meant fewer visits and longer days. Then she received a gift that changed everything: a bicycle.

It was given to her by World Bicycle Relief, a global charity working to empower remote communities through mobility. It has distributed more than 24,000 bicycles across Kenya to support health workers, schoolchildren and displaced individuals.

With her new bike, the time Lucia once spent trekking between appointments could now be spent reaching more patients, and getting to them faster.

“This bike is a lifesaver,” she says. “Before, I could visit maybe five homes a day. Now I can reach 15, sometimes 20. Every minute counts.”

“A good quality bicycle means a health worker can serve more patients, and it requires almost no maintenance,” Maureen Kolenyo, regional director of World Bicycle Relief in  East Africa, told RFI.

Goats for healthcare –  an initiative for pastoralists in Kenya

Government support in Kenya is often lacking, leaving organisations such as World Bicycle Relief to step in and fill the gaps.

Esther Mwangi, a county health official, knows how crucial such interventions are. “People often underestimate how transformative a bicycle can be, especially in developing regions where the infrastructure supports it,” she said.

“We’re working closely with Kenya’s Ministry of Health to identify high-need areas. The pressing question now is: who will invest, and help scale up the solution?” Kolenyo added.

‘I carry my people’

Lucia’s relationship with her community is intimate, born of countless hours spent listening, checking and comforting.

“We can always count on her. She saved my baby,” Nthenya, a mother of four, said

An elderly man who receives weekly check-ups calls her “more reliable than the dispensary”, while one young woman in her final trimester of pregnancy said she sees Lucia as “a second mother”.

US grant cuts could affect two million worldwide, disrupt HIV aid in Kenya

At the end of another long day, she mounts her bicycle and begins the steep, uneven ride home. The light is fading and the road is rough, but she is still smiling.

“Before, my legs would be shaking by now,” she says. “But this bicycle – it’s like my partner. It carries me, and I carry my people.”

Marc-Olivier Strauss-Kahn was on a high-speed train in November 2022 when his phone rang. The 71-year-old retired economist had no idea he was about to join what he would later describe as “the best social experience of my life”.

The caller invited him to join France’s citizens’ convention on end-of-life care – President Emmanuel Macron’s bid to involve the public in a national conversation about assisted dying.

France’s current 2016 law allows for “deep and continuous sedation” for terminally ill patients, but assisted suicide – where a patient takes a lethal drug themselves – and euthanasia – where a third party administers it – remain illegal.

The convention was asked to answer one question: “Is the way we accompany those approaching the end of life adapted to the different situations which emerge, or do we need to introduce changes?”

Strauss-Kahn was curious to explore a topic that concerns everyone. “We’re all going to die at some stage,” he says.

He was also intrigued by the novel format. “How can you make so many people work together when they don’t know each other and they have so many different backgrounds?”

What followed was an intensive four-month process spanning 27 days of deliberation across nine weekends – backed up by online chats and virtual meetings. The participants – diverse in age, gender, region, and education level – were united by their willingness to engage.

“I met people that I might never have met or talked to before,” the retired economist and senior civil servant explains. He sat alongside people who “had difficulties understanding all the words” and needed help with some concepts.

Rather than creating division, the range of backgrounds became a strength. “The importance, the intimacy of the topic helped us to respect the views of the other, because there is no right or wrong,” he says.

Listen to a conversation with Marc-Olivier Strauss-Kahn in the Spotlight on France podcast

France begins citizens’ debate on end-of-life care

For and against

Another participant was 35-year-old Soline Castel, who runs a day centre for people with mental disabilities in rural Sarthe. Unlike Strauss-Kahn, who came in broadly in favour of assisted dying, Castel’s family background meant she leaned more towards opposing it.

Still, she was determined not to make up her mind in advance. “I let myself be guided by the convention to form an opinion,” she says.

Over the four months, the 184 participants sat through 60 hearings with health professionals, philosophers, lawyers and religious figures. They also heard from terminally ill patients and workers in palliative care.

By the end, their positions had crystallised in opposite directions. Strauss-Kahn became more supportive of assisted dying, calling it “the ultimate freedom”.

His conviction was strengthened by discovering the “many obstacles to be overcome”, including a lack of medicine, knowledge and information, and poor training for healthcare professionals.

“I have to confess that several times I cried,” Strauss-Kahn admits, reflecting on the testimonies he heard.

He remembers a particularly striking moment during a hearing with religious leaders from six different faiths, who all referred to the commandments “you shall not kill” and “you shall not steal”.

“A philosopher said in response: ‘When it’s your own money, you are not robbing yourself; when it’s your own life you’re not killing. It’s your own liberty to decide what you want.’ That helped me understand better the differences of views.”

‘My life, my death’: French woman battles for right to die with dignity

Castel, however, emerged “firmly opposed to any form of active assistance in dying”, believing it would be impossible to guarantee protection for vulnerable people.

“It’s extremely difficult to put sufficient safeguards in place to guarantee the safety of my fellow citizens, especially those who may be vulnerable,” she explains. “I work in the field of disability, and I’m also thinking of the elderly.”

Castel was raised a Catholic, though she does not believe faith should influence a country’s laws. However, she said the testimonies raised serious concerns about subtle pressure on elderly people from their families. They may have been influenced, she says, “but no one will know”.

Despite the 2016 law, 19 of France’s 101 administrative departments still do not have palliative care units, according to a health ministry report. Castel argues that if the existing law were properly applied, most cases would be resolved.

“Studies have shown that people who ask for help dying often do so because they are alone or in pain,” Castel says. These two factors can be resolved, she adds, while conceding there are also rare cases where no pain relief is possible.

Macron’s euthanasia bill prompts anger from health workers, church

Respecting diversity of opinion

The convention’s final recommendations reflected the range of views in the room.

A large majority – 95 percent – backed expanded palliative care. Some 76 percent supported medical assistance in dying, but only as a last resort and in strictly defined cases. Those in the 23 percent minority who opposed any form of assisted dying were given equal time to speak – a courtesy that stood in stark contrast to debates in parliament.

“At the same time, the so-called representative democracy, our elected members in parliament, were shouting and the contrast made us very proud of our respect for each other,” Strauss-Kahn notes.

He says the convention has already had an impact. A 10-year strategy for palliative care is being implemented, bringing total investment in the sector to around €6 billion by 2034. Arguments from the citizen panel – both for and against assisted dying – are now often cited by MPs and in the media.

Breathing life into death: a filmmaker’s tribute to palliative care

In a country like France, where political compromise is rare, the convention showed that deliberative democracy can handle divisive issues with nuance and respect.

Rather than seeking false consensus, the participants focused on clearly stating the arguments on both sides.

“We realised it was better to clarify any consensus, express the arguments for and against and assess how many were in favour,” Strauss-Kahn says. “We’re living through a crisis of representative democracy and the idea is not to replace representative democracy by deliberative democracy, but just to involve the citizens more as a complementary approach.”

Castel says of her minority stance: “I really felt I’d been heard. The arguments of those who were against were said, reiterated and written down.”

French citizens group in favour of allowing euthanasia, assisted suicide

Life after the assembly

Strauss-Kahn and Castel are now part of a broader group known as “The 184”, created after the convention to promote deliberative democracy and better end-of-life care. Although they disagree on assisted dying, they continue to work together to ensure the convention’s work stays part of the national debate.

The idea was also to ensure a life after the assembly. “I like to say that we thought about end of life but not the end of life of the convention,” Strauss-Kahn says. “For some people it really was a form of social inclusion.”

They are also advising the next citizens’ assembly – which will focus on school hours and children’s wellbeing – on what could be improved.

Strauss-Kahn says they are trying to improve ties with parliament, since some MPs viewed the convention as a threat. He also warns about the need to fight misinformation.

“Some were saying that up to a million people would be able to access assisted dying, this is false. We encourage the new convention to do fact-checking from the very beginning.”

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Whether France’s lawmakers follow the convention’s recommendations or not remains to be seen, but both Strauss-Kahn and Castel are convinced the process was important.

Strauss-Kahn encourages anyone who can to take part.

“If there’s a phone call that is not clearly a commercial, take it and try to participate because it’s a unique chance in your life,” he says.

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.”

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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. 

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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.”

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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.

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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’.”

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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. 

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.

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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)

France’s national medicines safety agency (ANSM) has been alerted to shortages of 14 psychiatric medications since the start of the year – including sertraline, an antidepressant sold under brand names including Zoloft and widely prescribed to treat depression and anxiety disorders.

Patients prescribed sertraline and some other psychiatric drugs have had to visit multiple pharmacies to have their prescriptions filled – if they are able to at all.

“We’re having a lot of trouble getting these drugs. We don’t have zero stock, but we do have very, very tight stocks and we cannot fill all prescriptions,” pharmacist Christine Bihr told RFI.

Overloaded services

For people with depression and other disorders such as schizophrenia, a break in medication can lead to mental health crises.

“Each break in treatment is likely to cause acute decompensation and unbearable mental suffering,” a group of psychiatrists and other healthcare professionals wrote in a letter published in mid-April in French newspaper Le Monde, warning of the impact of medication shortages.

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France’s already stretched healthcare system has had to contend with an increase in emergency psychiatric admissions, and the letter warned that a lack of access to medication will “further overload already overburdened psychiatric services”.

It added that: “It is estimated that around 20 percent of untreated bipolar patients die by suicide.”

The group has called for transparency on stocks and supplies so that doctors and pharmacists can anticipate needs.

The group, along with other healthcare advocates, has called on France’s health authorities to “take urgent measures to resolve this crisis”.

Worldwide issue

There are several reasons behind the shortages – which have also impacted other medications, including drugs for diabetes and asthma as well as antibiotics and painkillers.

The problem is being seen worldwide. The European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & Healthcare, which sets drug quality standards in the European Union, says drug shortages were already an issue prior to 2020, but were “exacerbated by events related to the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and an unstable geopolitical situation”.

In France, production problems have intersected with a growing consumption of psychiatric drugs over recent years.

Antidepressant consumption increased by 60 percent among French 12 to 25-year-olds between 2019 and 2023, according to a report by the country’s public health insurance scheme.

However, production has not kept up either demand. Many drugs are produced outside of France, and psychiatrists say the French public health system keeps the prices too low to interest manufacturers, who sell elsewhere for more profit.

France launches campaign to curb overuse of anxiety and sleep medications

Temporary setbacks have also impacted some drugs, such as quality control issues that slowed down a production plant in Greece which supplies 60 percent of the French market for quetiapine – sold under the brand name Seroquel and used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression.

Other factors in the shortage include European regulations that require some laboratories to export part of their production even if there is demand at home, and French restrictions put in place to protect hospital stocks.

Alternative solutions

The situation has been improving for some medications, including quetiapine, although the ANSM said at the end of April that activity at the plant in Greece had “not yet returned to normal levels”.

Supplies of teralithe – lithium salts used to treat bipolar disorder – are expected to return to normal in June. But the situation remains critical for SSRI antidepressants such as sertraline and venlafaxine.

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To address the shortages, the ANSM has introduced measures such as prescription restrictions and allowing pharmacists to issue single tablets instead of entire packages.

Last week the agency made it possible for pharmacists to make magisterial preparations – custom-made medicines prepared by a pharmacist by mixing compounds – as an alternative.

However, the pharmacists’ union has refused to endorse this procedure, saying that the price set for such preparations is too low to be worth it for pharmacists.

Anderson was appointed after last week’s departure of Italian Maria Grazia Chiuri, who had presided over its women’s collections for the last nine years.

Anderson had already been named as artistic director of the men’s collection in April, and will now become the first person to run both collections at Dior, which is owned by French luxury giant LVMH.

“Jonathan Anderson is one of the greatest creative talents of his generation,” said Bernard Arnault, LVMH’s billionaire chief executive.

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“His incomparable artistic signature will be a crucial asset in writing the next chapter of the history of the House of Dior,” Arnault said.

Anderson, 40, quit Loewe in March after more than a decade in which he turned around the fortunes of the heritage Spanish brand, which is also owned by LVMH.

Son of a rugby man

An influential tastemaker with many A-list fans, Anderson made the previously rather sleepy label, best known for its handbags, hot.

“It is a great honour to join the House of Dior as Creative Director of both women’s and men’s collections,” Anderson said in the company statement.

“I have always been inspired by the rich history of this house, its depth, and empathy. I look forward to working alongside its legendary ateliers to craft the next chapter of this incredible story,” he said.

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Anderson will present his first collection, Dior Men Summer 2026, at the Paris Fashion Week on 27 June.

There had been much speculation that Anderson, renowned for his creative flights of fancy, might take over both Dior’s men’s and women’s collections, which some observers had seen as needing fresh impetus.

Anderson, the son of former Irish rugby international Willie Anderson, is known as a low-key figure, who often appears dressed casually at the end of his shows.

Modern vision

He trained at the London College of Fashion and began his career in Prada’s marketing department before launching his own brand, JW Anderson, in 2008.

At Loewe, he built a reputation for sharp tailoring and generous use of luxurious materials such as leather and metal. He launched a new modern classic bag – the Puzzle – and dressed celebrities from Beyonce to Rihanna.

Dior boomed after Chiuri took over the women’s collection in 2016, with the Italian designer praised for her modernity and feminist activism.

Some observers, however, had suggested the classic French house was growing stale.

Its growth is of crucial financial and dynastic importance to Arnault, who placed his daughter Delphine in charge of Dior in February 2023.

“I am delighted to welcome Jonathan Anderson to lead the women’s and men’s creations of the House,” Delphine Arnault said.

“I have followed his career with great interest since he joined the LVMH group over 10 years ago. I am convinced that he will bring a creative and modern vision to our House,” she said.

(with AFP)

During a visit to the Armenian capital Yerevan last Monday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot made an impassioned call for Armenia and Azerbaijan to “quickly” finalise and sign a long-awaited peace treaty.

The two neighbours – long at odds over the contested Karabakh region – appeared on the cusp of reconciliation in March when they agreed on a draft deal.

However, negotiations have since stalled, with Azerbaijan demanding constitutional amendments from Armenia before signing the agreement.

Speaking alongside his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan, Barrot said: “It is essential that this treaty be signed.”

His words underscored France’s deepening engagement in the South Caucasus, where global powers – including Russia, the European Union, the United States and Turkey – vie for influence.

Armenia signs arms contract with France amid boost in military ties

Support for Armenia

France has been vocal in its support for Armenia’s sovereignty and security – a stance that has ruffled feathers in both Baku and Moscow.

In recent years, Paris has bolstered defence cooperation with Armenia, supplying equipment such as CAESAR self-propelled howitzers.

“All this is solely aimed at helping Armenia acquire the means to defend its population, its territorial integrity and its sovereignty,” said Barrot.

But this show of solidarity has not gone unnoticed by Russia. During a visit to Armenia the previous week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov voiced concern over Yerevan’s pivot towards France, casting doubt on the motivation behind the alliance.

Barrot pushed back, stating that France and Europe are not at war with Russia, but are resisting what he termed “the Putinisation of the world” – a veiled warning against territorial aggression.

French artist pardoned

France’s diplomatic efforts bore fruit on another front this week, with the return of street artist Théo Clerc, who was pardoned and released by Azerbaijan after spending more than 400 days behind bars for graffiti art he painted in a metro station.

France slams Azerbaijan’s ‘discriminatory’ jailing of graffiti sprayer

Barrot hailed the release as “the honour and pride of French diplomacy”.

Franco-Azeri relations have been strained due to France’s support for Armenia, criticism of Azerbaijan’s human rights record and accusations that Baku has orchestrated a disinformation campaign targeting French institutions.

Stand-off over French detainees

However, it wasn’t all diplomatic triumphs for Paris. On the same day Barrot stood with Armenian leaders in Yerevan, Tehran issued a scathing rebuke of France’s legal action at the International Court of Justice over the detention of two French nationals – Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris – on charges of espionage.

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

Iranian authorities blasted the case as “pointless” and accused France of “exploiting” legal institutions.

The pair – arrested in 2022 during a holiday in Iran – are among roughly 20 Europeans being detained in what critics say is a strategy of leverage by Tehran.

France alleges that the couple have been held in conditions amounting to torture and has accused Iran of violating international obligations.

“You’ve not only stirred and thrilled Parisians during the victory but the entire country over the past few weeks,” said Macron.

“You’ve also fired the dreams of thousands of youngsters who have been looking up to you.”

PSG claimed European club football’s most prestigious trophy for the first time after a 5-0 annihilation of Inter Milan at the Allianz Arena in Munich.

Désiré Doué set up Achraf Hakimi for the opener in the 12th minute and the 19-year-old extended PSG’s advantage eight minutes later.

Midway through the second-half, Doué effectively killed off the final with a sumptuous finish past the Inter goalkeeper Yann Sommer into the bottom right hand corner.

Surge

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia made it 4-0 after 73 minutes and academy graduate Senny Mayulu thrashed home the the fifth in the closing stages to give PSG a record win in the final in the 70-year history of the competition.

“The only thing I’d wish for is to be able to welcome you again next year with a second victory,” said Macron. “I know it is possible and that you have this hunger and desire for success.”

The party at the presidential palace followed a parade along a Champs-Elysées lined by an estimated 110,000 people.

The team headed to the procession directly from Roissy airport after flying in from Munich.

To the cheers and adulation of the serried ranks of fans, the players, all wearing shirts with ’25’ on it, brandished the Champions League trophy and addressed the supporters as they drove along the route.

“Lets’ all sing together,” shouted the PSG skipper Marquinhos.

After Macron’s reception, the squad travelled to the Parc des Princes where around 40,000 fans awaited the presentation of the trophy.

“The objective now is to win again,” said PSG president Nasser al-Khelaifi. “It has taken 14 years of hard work but we are building something for the future.”

Violence

In the aftermath of victory, police made nearly 600 arrests across France, the interior ministry said on Sunday. More than 200 cars were torched across the country and police clashed with youths.

In Dax in south-western France, a 17-year-old boy died after being stabbed in the chest. A 23-year-old man riding a scooter in central Paris also died after being hit by a vehicle.

A policeman was put in an induced coma after being injured by a firework.

Macron and PSG condemned the violence.

“These isolated acts are contrary to the club’s values and in no way represent the vast majority of our supporters, whose exemplary behaviour throughout the season deserves to be commended,” a PSG spokesperson added.

“There are 65 million people in France. If each gives one hour, imagine what we could do? We can change the world,” says Atanase Périfan.

He is behind L’Heure civique (the Civic Hour), a project that recruits people to volunteer an hour of their time each month to do tasks in their communities – tending to someone’s garden, helping with grocery shopping or giving homework help, for example.

Surveys show that about a quarter of the French population takes part in some volunteer activity, but in an organised way, through an organisation.

Filling the gap

“In France, the state is very present – maybe too much – but it cannot do everything,” Périfan said, reflecting on France’s social model and pointing out that volunteers fill in the gap between what families do for each other and institutional support from the state.

“When the three levels – family, state and neighbours – work together, it makes everything better.”

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The Civic Hour aims to get neighbours involved with helping each other.

Neighbourhoods are a particular focus for Périfan, who is at the origin of the now annual Fête des voisins – “neighbours’ party” – which sees apartment buildings or neighbourhoods organise an event to get to know each other.

The first was a gathering of Périfan’s own neighbours in Paris’s 17th arrondissement. He organised it after being horrified to learn that an elderly woman in his neighbourhood had died and her body had not been found for four months.

Listen to the history of the Fête des voisins in the spotlight on France podcast, here: 

After a successful gathering, Périfan decided to try and spread the concept.

A local councillor in the arrondissement at the time – he is a now a deputy mayor, charged with social issues – he was no stranger to organising and picked up the phone to call round his colleagues to get them on board.

By the following year he had recruited 20 cities. Now, 25 years later, 5,000 cities across France officially endorse the Fête des voisins, with millions of people organising the gatherings each year.

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‘Helping others brings happiness’

Périfan’s association, Voisins solidaires (“Neighbours Together”), launched the Civic Hour initiative in 2021, in the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic, when people began helping each other out during lockdowns.

As he did with the neighbours’ party, he began at home in his Paris neighbourhood. He then tested the idea in the Charente-Maritime department where he has a second home, before taking it to four other departments.

Today, more than 200 cities are taking part, with nearly 20,000 volunteers signed up – most of them young retirees, who had hesitated to get involved in an association.

Volunteering has dropped in recent years among older people, while it is on the rise with younger people. But the Civic Hour, with fewer constraints than other commitments, is appealing.

“Helping others brings a lot of happiness,” Périfan says. “Happiness is not just about having money – happiness comes from relationships, helping others.”

The French state has recently filed an appeal against the decision of a Paris court of 11 March, which ruled that the state should compensate people who have been exposed to chlordecone.

The move has angered victims in the French overseas departments of Martinique and Guadeloupe.

“I used to make boxes to pack bananas and stick the labels on,” said one woman, who has always lived among the banana plantations in Martinique, a few steps from the warehouse where she worked.

5 questions about chlordecone pesticide use in French Antilles

Every day she handled bananas treated with chlordecone by the hundreds, she told RFI.

“My fingers swelled up, my fingers and thumbs became deformed. It was after the occupational doctor came and I showed him my hands. He told me I couldn’t continue working.”

She continued: “And then one day, when I was going shopping with my children, I said to my daughter ‘I can’t see anything at all’. And the doctor said I needed immediate surgery.”

An emergency operation prevented the damage from spreading to her brain, but she lost her sight. Today, she is demanding accountability from those responsible and asking for further treatment.

“I want to get my eyes back and for justice to know that it was the chlordecone that did this to me,” she said.

Thousands protest in Martinique against ‘insecticide impunity’ in chlordecone case

Workers say no one spoke to them about the dangers of chlordecone.

Another woman remembers her years working in the banana plantations. She says that workers were given a bucket to spread fertiliser and pesticides by hand, without any protection or explanation.

“One day, I arrived in the middle of the fields, and I felt something was really wrong. Dizziness, weakness, trembling. And I collapsed with the bucket,” she recalled.

“They need to admit that they poisoned us. When I call all my friends, all my aunts, all my cousins, everyone is dying because of that poison they used. I’m asking for justice.”

Paris court dismisses probe into mass poisoning of French West Indies

“I carry all the rage of the people from Martinique, and this rage is directed at the state and at the poisoners… because they did this intentionally, they already knew,” said Yvan Sérénus, president of the group of agricultural workers poisoned by pesticides.

Chlordecone has been classified as a carcinogen by the World Health Organization since 1979 and was banned in the United States in 1977.

In the French Caribbean, it continued to be used until 1993, despite being officially banned in 1990 in mainland France.

Today, more than 90 percent of the adult population in Guadeloupe and Martinique has been contaminated by chlordecone, according to France’s public health body.

This report was adapted from RFI’s podcast Reportage France, produced by Jeanne Richard.

“Demat!” Greetings echo through the corridors of the Diwan secondary school in Vannes. In the entrance hall, Gabriella and her classmates are filling a whiteboard with words of farewell and thanks – “kenavo” and “trugarez” – for someone who is leaving.

Here, with the exception of French and the foreign languages taught, the 145 secondary school pupils and 45 high school students take all their lessons in Breton, and the use of the language is strongly encouraged during breaks, at lunch and in activities.

Diwan – meaning “seed” in Breton, which is a Celtic language – is a network of Breton language immersion schools, founded in 1977.

Gabriella, who is in her last year of middle school, is looking forward to continuing her studies in the high school here next year. “I’m so happy, it’s a big family,” she says.

She loves the fact that she can “talk in the street with her friends without others being able to understand” – although her parents do speak Breton.

Alsatian dialect taught in French state schools for the first time

But while the mood in school on the eve of the spring holidays may be light, the atmosphere in the wider Breton-speaking community is a little heavier.

According to the results of a survey by the TMO research institute, published on 20 January, there are now just 107,000 Breton speakers left – or 2.7 percent of the population of the five départements concerned. The last survey in 2018 put the figure at 200,000.

“It’s a culture, an identity that’s in danger of disappearing,” said Mathilde Lahogue, director of the Diwan network.

Fulup Jakez, director of the Public Office for the Breton Language (OPLB), responsible for developing and promoting the use of the language, agreed, and added that the results were not surprising. “It’s demographics – the last generations raised in the Breton language until after the Second World War are dying out.”

A very French linguistic history

Like half of France’s regional languages, Breton is considered to be “seriously endangered” by the United Nations’ cultural arm Unesco.

Rozenn Milin, a historian and journalist, and author of La honte et le châtiment – Imposer le français: Bretagne, France, Afrique et autres territoires (“Shame and Punishment – Imposing French: Brittany, France, Africa and other territories”) says this is the result of the country consistently encouraging the use of French as the sole language, to the detriment of local languages.

“At the time of the Reign of Terror [a period of violence and repression during the French Revolution in which those perceived as enemies of the revolution were arrested and executed en masse, from September 1793 to July 1794] it was decided that everyone had to learn French and that dialects and idioms – as they were called – which were considered to be linked to the clergy and counter-revolutionary ideas, had to be wiped out,” she explained.

With the arrival of compulsory education in 1882, French became the language of schools, and the use of local languages was banned.

The last word: why half of the world’s languages could vanish this century

“In Brittany, children who used Breton words were given a sabot [a wooden clog] to wear around their necks. At the end of the day, the last one to be wearing the sabot was punished,” Milin explained.

“So even though it was still the family language, they were gradually made to feel ashamed of speaking Breton. As a result, in the 1950s and 1960s, Breton stopped being passed down.”

It wasn’t until a handful of activists set up the Diwan network in 1977, followed by bilingual courses in state and Catholic education, that Breton began to be reclaimed. But the break had caused irreparable damage, and today, the Breton-speaking population is shrinking.

But it is also getting younger. The number of speakers is rising in the 25-39 age group. “This shows that long-term teaching policies are bearing fruit,” said Jakez.

The future of Breton today indeed depends essentially on education, with only 16 percent of current speakers having learnt the language at home, while 78 percent have learnt it at school.

But for the time being, this trend is far from offsetting the decline.

At the start of the school year in September 2024, 20,280 pupils were enrolled in Breton-French bilingual streams (across public, private Catholic and private Diwan schools), according to figures from the OPLB – representing less than 7 percent of children in the Rennes education authority.

‘Diwan is not a factory for political activists’

“We’re developing media, there are texts and books published in Breton, we’re working on voice recognition, but we need to develop teaching more generally,” said Paul Molac, MP for Morbihan, a department of Brittany.

Molac proposed the law that was passed in 2021 to allow instruction in France’s regional languages in the country’s state schools. It was passed by 247 votes to 76, however the provision on immersive learning included in the law was censured by the Constitutional Council, on the grounds that the Republic is one and indivisible and that this could be seen as calling into question the teaching of French.

France allows immersive teaching of regional languages in schools

This decision has prevented the consolidation of the teaching method offered by Diwan, which is now “financially and legally fragile” according to the director of the network, even though it has proved its worth.

“The State is much more opposed to regional languages than it is in other European countries,’ points out Milin, citing the examples of Switzerland and the United Kingdom: “[In France] they confuse a common language with a single language.”

“Diwan is not a factory for political activists,” insists Diwan president Marc-Yver Le Duic, adding that Breton education is “secular, free and open to all” and comparing the Diwan schools to French lycées abroad, a network of French secondary schools around the world which adhere to the French national curriculum, where French is the primary teaching language.

Responding to another oft-cited fear, he added: “Breton does not make our pupils bad French speakers. This is borne out by the good overall results achieved by our students in national exams.”

Florian Voyenne, headmaster of the Vannes Diwan school and a former classics teacher who grew up learning Breton, points to the success of the education system in Wales.

The teaching of Welsh has been made compulsory from the first to the fourth year of secondary school – a model that has helped to increase the number of Welsh speakers. According to the 2021 census, there are 538,300 in the country, almost 18 per cent of the population.

‘We don’t force it’

“I think that in the next 10 to 20 years, we’ll hit rock bottom at around 50,000 speakers,” predicted Milin. Jakez, however, remains optimistic: he sees the future of the language revolving around “a minority of speakers but who, unlike their ancestors who were not literate, will have access to reading and writing in the Breton language”.

Senegal launches English lessons in nursery and primary schools

Elouan is in his final year of secondary school, having done all his schooling at Diwan. His parents don’t speak Breton, although they did try a few lessons.

For Elouan, who wants to study history, “speaking a language from our regions is important, to know where we come from and who we are”. He would like to “link his future to Breton, to keep Breton alive” – maybe as a teacher.

According to the latest research, 19 percent of Breton-speakers are aged between 15 and 39 – amounting to around 20,000 people. How many of them will pass on the language?

“We just want them to enjoy speaking Breton. We don’t force it,” says David Le Gal, who teaches Breton and music, and whose wife and five children are all Breton speakers too. He’s part of the generation that reappropriated the language later in life, when his parents had written it off.

“If two out of 10 of them pass on the language, that’ll be good. For me, Breton opens doors to the world. It’s just one more way of enjoying life.”

This piece has been adapted from the original version in French. 

“The British don’t do anything like anybody else,” La Gacilly Photo Festival’s curator Cyril Drouhet told journalists at a press conference in Paris, as he unveiled the So British theme of this year’s programme.

“They drive on the left, they have their own currency, they play darts, they believe in ghosts and still have a monarchy. And that’s probably why we love them.”

Beyond the quirky humour and eccentricity seen in many of the photographs selected for the festival, there is also a keen observation of contemporary society with all its contradictions.

For Drouhet, the British “know how to cleverly capture a soul: the soul of an era, the soul of a country, the human soul.”

So near, yet so far

In a thousand-year history made up of “misunderstandings” (read: wars), “hostility” (rivalry), “admiration” (marriages) and “respect” (alliances), Drouhet says that despite all this, France and the United Kingdom have an unbreakable bond.

The British ambassador to Paris Menna Rawlings told journalists: “British photography has always pushed the limits. Photographs are more than just technical images – they are a reflection of global issues, social issues [and] have the power to tell stories.”

Sebastião Salgado’s 40-year journey in photographs celebrated in Deauville exhibition

Among the exhibits is a poignant link to photographic history, with a tribute to Anna Atkins (1799-1871), a pioneer in the technique of “cyanotypes” used by botanists.

In 1843, Atkins published Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, considered the first book of its kind and a major reference for scientists as well as an inspiration for contemporary photographers and artists.

The award-winning war reporter Don McCullin has been invited as one of the big names at the festival, with an exhibition entitled “Life and Death, and what’s left behind”.

Putting aside his images from war zones, the veteran photographer, born in 1935, has since turned his lens to the landscapes of Somerset, where he now lives.

A British perspective 

For Mélina Le Blaye, the festival’s director, photography “invites us to open our horizons, and transform ourselves”.

“In this world where images are omnipresent but often ephemeral, we want to take the time to contemplate and to put things into perspective,” she said.

From Martin Parr’s beachside snapshots to Mary Turner’s unassuming portraits of quiet, run-down mining towns and marginalised communities, it is clear there is no one, single Britain. The social and environmental terrain is uneven and complex, both beautiful and gritty.

Beauty and the blight: a photographer’s quest to expose an ecological disaster

The UK is also synonymous with music that defined generations. The exhibition of work by Terry O’Neill (1938-2019) takes the viewer behind the scenes of the music business with surprising portraits of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Elton John, to name a few.

The Year of the Sea

Organisers have also reserved a major part of the festival for nine exhibitions on environmental themes, with a particular focus on what France has designated “The Year of the Sea”.

The opening of the festival on 1 June comes a week ahead of a key United Nations Oceans Conference, to be held in Nice from 9 to 13 June.

Stunning images of sea life mix with those from coastal locations facing the effects of climate change, by photographers including France’s Laurent Ballesta and India’s Supratim Bhattacharjee.

Guided tours of Africa

The environment-themed exhibits also include photo reports from Africa, such as those from French photographer Frédéric Noy, who takes viewers to Tanzania to discover nature sanctuaries in need of protection – such as Udzungwa Mountains National Park, where monkey populations are threatened by urbanisation.

His work explores the difficult choices of local people, aware of the need for preservation, but under pressure to survive – the park’s forest being a source of food and firewood.

Noy says it is difficult for locals to accept outsiders when they are distrustful of the West’s discourse of “saving the planet”, given these same wealthy countries profit from Africa’s resources.

By photographing their plight, Noy is asking the public to see both sides of the story, with “humility and patience”.

How exiled photographer Ernest Cole captured apartheid’s human toll

Françoise Huguier’s work offers a guided tour of her years spent on the African continent – including in Burkina Faso, South Africa, Benin and Ethiopia – as seen in the “Africa and Me” collection.

She became particularly attached to Mali, where she founded the Photographic Encounters of Bamako event in 1994, helping discover artists such as Seydou Keïta and Malik Sidibé – now known around the world.

La Gacilly Photo Festival is outdoors and free to the public from 1 June to 5 October, 2025.

Presentation

Optics. Who is going to complain about no women’s matches in the night session when you can draft in a sleek PSG striker to brandish the most prestigious bauble in European club football? With his club supremo Nasser al-Khelaifi up in the presidential tribune, star forward Ousmane Dembélé strolled onto centre court after local lass Lois Boisson had dispatched the third seed Jessica Pegula and thrice proclaimed: “Ici, c’est Paris!” to replicate the lusty chant from PSG’s home ground which is situated an old school goal kick away from the Roland Garros Stadium. “It’s wonderful to have won the trophy,” Dembélé told the fans. “We gave everything to win it. Thank you for the support.” How they cheered. And not a homophobic insult to be heard, which is sometimes the case over the road.

I love you all

Love supreme as well to the centre court crowd from Lois Boisson after she beat third seed Jessica Pegula to became the first Frenchwoman to reach the last eight since Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic in 2017. Eight long years of hurting for the bosses at the French tennis federation and vindication of their decision to give the 22-year-old an invitation to compete in the main draw even though she lies at 361 in the WTA rankings. Boisson was gaining ground on the circuit last year but she twisted the cruciate ligament in her left knee just before the 2024 French Open. She returned to the main circuit three months ago and on her first appearance at the French Open she has gone through four opponents – one in the top 30 and one in the top 10. “Obviously, it’s absolutely great for me to have such a run,” said Boisson. “I couldn’t hope for anything better when I came here.”

Bubbly times

Prize money of Lois Boisson before the French Open? 148,000 dollars. Reaching the quarter-finals guarantees her at least 440,000 euros and enough WTA ranking points to get into the biggest tournaments on the circuit. We’ll drink to that.

Luck of the draw

Tallon Griekspoor led Alexander Zverev 4-1 in the final set of their third round encounter at the 2024 French Open. But the Dutchman blew his advantage and went down in the 10-point super tiebreaker. A year on, it must have seemed a case of déjà vu for Zverev as Griekspoor raced into a 3-0 lead in their last-16 clash on Court Suzanne Lenglen. But Zverev fought back. He won the opener 6-3 before establishing a 3-0 lead in the second set whereupon his 28-year-old adversary retired with a stomach injury. “You know, he still started off very strong,” said a relieved Zverev. “He was up in the first set but I could see he was not serving the normal speeds that he usually serves on the first serve. But from the baseline, you know, still there was some good rallies.”

Respect

Up next in the quarter-finals for Alexander Zverev lies a certain Novak Djokovic spurting vim and vigour. “Twelve sets played. Twelve sets won,” the 38-year-old Serb gushed after dismantling Cameron Norrie on centre court in two hours and 14 minutes. Djokovic lost some of his all-conquering magic for a while before winning the Geneva Open just before the French Open to conjure up his 100th ATP title. Zverev, who has claimed five of his 13 matches with Djokovic was somewhat startled when a reporter painted Djokovic as a dark horse for the French Open title. “He’s never going to be that,” spluttered the 27-year-old German. “I mean, the guy has won 24 Grand Slam tournaments. He definitely knows how to play tennis. He definitely knows what it means to be on the big stage and to play big matches.” Shazam! Novak’s still the man.

The sharp jump from the previous death toll of 115 came as bodies were recovered nearly 10 kilometres away from the town of Mokwa, the epicentre of the floods, Ibrahim Audu Husseini, a spokesman for the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, told AFP.

As Husseini warned that the toll could still rise, with bodies being swept away down the powerful Niger River, President Bola Tinubu said that search-and-rescue operations were underway, with the disaster response being aided by security forces.

Tinubu, in an overnight post on social media, added that “relief materials and temporary shelter assistance are being deployed without delay” in Mokwa, which was hit by torrential rains late on Wednesday through to early on Thursday.

Buildings collapsed and roads were inundated in the town, which is located more than 350 kilometres by road from the capital Abuja, an AFP journalist in Mokwa observed on Friday.

Emergency services and residents searched through the rubble as floodwaters flowed alongside.

“Some bodies were recovered from the debris of collapsed homes,” Husseini said, adding that his teams would need excavators to retrieve corpses.

He said many were still missing, citing a family of 12 where only four members had been accounted for as of Friday.

Mohammed Tanko, 29, a civil servant, pointed to a house he grew up in, telling reporters: “We lost at least 15 from this house. The property (is) gone. We lost everything.”

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said that the Nigerian Red Cross, local volunteers, the military and police were all helping in the response.

According to the figures shared by Husseini, 151 people were killed, 3,018 were displaced, 265 houses were “completely destroyed” and two bridges were washed away in the busy, rural market town.

Changing climate

Nigeria‘s rainy season, which usually lasts six months, is just getting started for the year.

Flooding, usually caused by heavy rains and poor infrastructure, wreaks havoc every year, killing hundreds of people across the west African country.

Scientists have also warned that climate change is fuelling more extreme weather patterns.

In Nigeria, the floods are exacerbated by inadequate drainage, the construction of homes on waterways and the dumping of waste in drains and water channels.

“This tragic incident serves as a timely reminder of the dangers associated with building on waterways and the critical importance of keeping drainage channels and river paths clear,” NEMA said in a statement.

According to the Daily Trust newspaper, thousands of people have been displaced and more than 50 children in an Islamic school were reported missing.

Severe flooding in northeast Nigeria impacts one million, sparks disease, food shortage fears

Warning sounded

The Nigerian Meteorological Agency had warned of possible flash floods in 15 of Nigeria’s 36 states, including Niger state, between Wednesday and Friday.

In 2024, more than 1,200 people were killed and 1.2 million displaced in at least 31 out of Nigeria’s 36 states, making it one of the country’s worst flood seasons in decades, according to NEMA.

Displaced children played in the flood waters on Friday, heightening the possibility of exposure to water-borne diseases, with at least two bodies lying nearby covered in banana leaves and printed ankara cloth.

Describing how she escaped the raging waters, Sabuwar Bala, a 50-year-old yam vendor, told reporters: “I was only wearing my underwear, someone loaned me all I’m wearing now. I couldn’t even save my flip-flops.”

“I can’t locate where my home stood because of the destruction,” she said.

 (AFP)

The work will take a decade but from 2035 the Luxeuil-Saint Sauveur base will be twice the size it is now and it will house new generation hypersonic missiles carried by 50 of France’s Rafale fighter jets.

President Emmanuel Macron announced at the base in March – on the day that US President Donald Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin discussed the Ukraine war – that it was to become the first to welcome the latest Rafale jets and France’s ASN4G nuclear-capable air-to-ground missiles.

Luxeuil will become the fourth, but most modern, base in France capable of storing nuclear weapons.

The base currently has about 20 Mirage-2000 jets, which are no longer in production.

Its triangle shaped hangars date from 1952, according to base commander, Colonel Emmanuel Roux. They have been “well used”, according to Roux who said he had seen pictures of President Charles de Gaulle there in 1962. “It was the same,” he joked.

‘Like building a cathedral’

The hangars will go as the Rafales will not fit in them. “We will have to redo everything for the infrastructure,” the colonel said.

The Rafale is also heavier than the Mirage so Luxeuil’s runway will also have to be made longer and tougher.

As nuclear bases are given extra protection, “we will have to increase security measures and the entire infrastructure to get up to speed,” the colonel said, likening his work to “building a cathedral”.

“We have 10 years to build the best base in France with planes that do not exist (yet), a nuclear weapon that does not exist and technicians who are not yet in school,” said Roux.

Luxeuil will be closed between 2029 and 2032 for the key works and the arrival of the first Rafales.

France’s Dassault says stepping up Rafale warplane output

There will be four times as many pilots as now as the Rafale has two crew. The 300 technicians currently at the base will expand to 1,000 by the time the new base is fully operational.

“Logistics wins the war,” said Roux who highlighted the importance of speed in preparing jets for faster rotations between flights. A Rafale engine can be changed in one hour and an ejector seat in 15 minutes, he said.

Weapon of ‘last resort’

Pilots at the base, who cannot be named, also said they were ready to carry nuclear weapons. “It’s the weapon of last resort, but I think we’re all ready to use it to protect our loved ones and our nation,” said one.

Luxeuil is close to France’s border with Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium and the position could also prove strategic.

EU ministers push for joint defence fund to secure a more self-reliant Europe

Macron has also said that with the Russian invasion of Ukraine raging and heightening worries in the rest of Europe, France is ready to start discussing with other European countries the possible deployment of French nuclear-armed jets.

“I will define the framework in a very specific way in the weeks and months to come,” Macron said in a television interview this month.

Russia has already condemned his comments. “The proliferation of nuclear weapons on the European continent is something that will not add security, predictability or stability to the European continent,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

(with AFP)

Lissu, chairman of Tanzania’s main opposition party and runner-up in the 2020 presidential election, was arrested last month and charged with treason, a capital offence, over comments he is alleged to have made calling on supporters to prevent national elections in October from going ahead.

Tanzania‘s government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

While President Samia Suluhu Hassan has won plaudits for easing political repression, she has faced questions about unexplained abductions of government critics in recent months.

Hassan, who will stand for re-election in October, has said her government respects human rights and ordered an investigation into the reported abductions.

Lissu’s international lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, said the confidential complaint to the UN working group, which issues opinions but has no enforcement power, was part of a wider pressure campaign.

The European Parliament this month adopted a resolution denouncing Lissu’s arrest as politically motivated, and Amsterdam said he would petition the US State Department to impose sanctions.

“Right down to prosecutors, judges, police – all the people that are involved in this false show trial had better be aware that they should protect their US assets,” Amsterdam told Reuters.

In response to the European Parliament resolution, Tanzania’s foreign ministry said outside criticisms about the case were based on “incomplete or partisan information”.

The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tanzania’s top opposition party barred from upcoming election

Lissu, who was shot 16 times in a 2017 attack for which no one has ever been charged, will appear in court on Monday.

Before he appeared in court last week, authorities detained a Kenyan and a Ugandan rights activist who had come to attend the hearing.

They were abandoned several days later near the borders of their home countries, and the Kenyan activist, Boniface Mwangi, said both were badly tortured while in custody.

Tanzanian officials have not responded to requests for comment about the allegation. Hassan has warned outsiders against “invading and interfering in our affairs”.

 (Reuters)

“I am deeply disgusted by these heinous acts targeting the Jewish community,” said French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on X.

No arrests have been made.

Retailleau last week called for “visible and dissuasive” security measures at Jewish-linked sites amid concerns over possible anti-Semitic acts.

In a separate message seen by AFP, the interior minister on Friday had again ordered heightened surveillance ahead of the upcoming Jewish Shavuot holiday.

The French Jewish community, one of the largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials since the Gaza war erupted on 7 October 2023.

“Anti-Semitic acts account for more than 60 percent of anti-religious acts, and the Jewish community is particularly vulnerable,” Retailleau said in the message seen by AFP.

Paris authorities would be lodging a complaint over the paint incident, said the city’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo.

“I condemn these acts of intimidation in the strongest possible terms. Anti-Semitism has no place in our city or in our Republic,” she said.

In May 2024, red hand graffiti was painted beneath the wall at the memorial in central Paris honouring individuals who saved Jews from persecution during the 1940-44 Nazi occupation of France.

 (AFP)

The doctor and researcher, who achieved worldwide renown for his work that led to the pill, had an eventful life that included fighting in the French resistance and becoming friends with artists such as Andy Warhol.

“His research was guided by his commitment to the progress made possible by science, his dedication to women’s freedom, and his desire to enable everyone to live better, longer lives,” Baulieu’s wife Simone Harari Baulieu said in a statement.

French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to his life, calling him “a beacon of courage” and “a progressive mind who enabled women to win their freedom”.

“Few French people have changed the world to such an extent,” he added in a post on X.

Baulieu’s most famous discovery helped create the oral drug RU-486, also known as mifepristone, which provided a safe and inexpensive alternative to surgical abortion to millions of women across the world.

For decades, he pushed governments to authorise the drug, facing fierce criticism and sometimes threats from opponents of abortion.

When Wyoming became the first US state to outlaw the abortion pill in 2023, Baulieu told AFP it was “scandalous”.

Then aged 96, Baulieu said he had dedicated a large part of his life to “increasing the freedom of women,” and such bans were a step in the wrong direction.

On news of his death, French Equality Minister Aurore Bergé passed on her condolences to Baulieu’s family, saying on X he was “guided throughout his life by one requirement: human dignity.”

‘Fascinated by artists’ 

Born on 12 December, 1926 in Strasbourg to Jewish parents, Etienne Blum was raised by his feminist mother after his father, a doctor, died.

He changed his name to Emile Baulieu when he joined the French resistance against Nazi occupation at the age of 15, then later adding Etienne.

After the war, he became a self-described “doctor who does science,” specialising in the field of steroid hormones.

Invited to work in the United States, Baulieu was noticed in 1961 by Gregory Pincus, known as the father of the contraceptive pill, who convinced him to focus on sex hormones.

Back in France, Baulieu designed a way to block the effect of the hormone progesterone, which is essential for the egg to implant in the uterus after fertilisation.

This led to the development of mifepristone in 1982.

Dragged before the courts and demonised by US anti-abortion groups who accused him of inventing a “death pill”, Baulieu refused to back down.

“Adversity slides off him like water off a duck’s back,” Simone Harari Baulieu told AFP.

“You, a Jew and a resistance fighter, you were overwhelmed with the most atrocious insults and even compared to Nazi scientists,” Macron said as he presented Baulieu with France’s top honour in 2023.

“But you held on, for the love of freedom and science.”

In the 1960s, literature fan Baulieu became friends with artists such as Andy Warhol.

He said he was “fascinated by artists who claim to have access to the human soul, something that will forever remain beyond the reach of scientists.

Alzheimer’s, depression research 

Baulieu kept going into his Parisian office well into his mid-90s.

“I would be bored if I did not work anymore,” he said in 2023.

His recent research has included trying to find a way to prevent the development of Alzheimer’s disease, as well as a treatment for severe depression, for which clinical trials are currently underway across the world.

“There is no reason we cannot find treatments” for both illnesses, he said.

Baulieu was also the first to describe how the hormone DHEA secreted from adrenal glands in 1963.

He was convinced of the hormone’s anti-ageing abilities, but drugs using it only had limited effects, such as in skin-firming creams.

In the United States, Baulieu was also awarded the prestigious Lasker prize in 1989.

After his wife Yolande Compagnon died, Baulieu married Simone Harari in 2016.

He leaves behind three children, eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, according to the statement released by his family.

 (AFP)

Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday. This week, you’ll hear musical requests from your fellow listeners Jayanta Chakrabarty from New Delhi, India, Alan Holder from Isle of Wight, England, and Karuna Kanta Pal from West Bengal, India.

Be sure you send in your music requests! Write to me at thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr Tell us why you like the piece of music, too – it makes it more interesting for us all.  

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme:  “A Million Roses” by Raymond Pauls and Leon Briedis, performed by L’Orchestre Dominique Moisan; “Anak” by Freddie Aguilar, performed by Aguilar and his orchestra, and “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira, Wyclef Jean and Archie Pena, performed by Shakira and Wyclef Jean.

The quiz will be back next Saturday, 7 June. Be sure and tune in! 

On 26 May, pro-EU centrist Nicușor Dan was sworn in as President of Romania, having vowed to oppose “isolationism and Russian influence.”

Earlier, Dan had emerged victorious in a closely contested election rerun, widely viewed as pivotal for the future direction of the NATO and EU member state of 19 million people, which shares a border with war-torn Ukraine.

The vote followed a dramatic decision by Romania’s Constitutional Court five months prior to annul a presidential election, citing allegations of Russian interference and the extensive social media promotion of the far-right frontrunner—who was subsequently barred from standing again.

Although nationalist and EU-sceptic George Simion had secured a commanding lead in the first round, Dan ultimately prevailed in the second-round run-off.

RFI speaks with Claudiu Năsui, former Minister of Economy and member of the Save Romania Union, about the pressing challenges facing the country—from economic reform and political polarisation to the broader implications of the election for Romania’s future, including its critical role in supporting Ukraine amid ongoing regional tensions.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa met with Donald Trump in Washington last Wednesday.

The meeting took place amid tensions over several issues, including the United States’ resettlement of white Afrikaners – whom President Trump has controversially described as victims of “genocide” – and South Africa’s ongoing land reform.

South Africa’s Ramaphosa to meet Trump on high-stakes White House visit

However, the US President defied all expectations of diplomacy by repeating allegations against Ramaphosa and accusing South Africa of the alleged killing of white farmers.

President Ramaphosa remained composed, however, and the visit continued the following day with further discussions on bilateral relations and trade.

To discuss, the recent evolution of the relations between the two countries, Spotlight on Africa has two guests this week:

• Cameron Hudson, senior fellow at the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington DC
• Ivor Ichikowitz, founding director of the Ichikowitz Family Foundation and keen observer of South Africa’s foreign affairs.

We also visit the Paris Noir exhibition, currently on display at the Pompidou Centre  in central Paris. It showcases the largest collection ever assembled of works by Black artists who created art in the French capital from the 1950s onwards.

Paris Noir is at the Pompidou Centre in Paris until 30 June, 2025.

‘Paris Noir’ exhibition showcases work made in French capital by black artists

Finally, we go on a tour with the black British photographer, writer and broadcaster Johny Pitts, who has himself documented the black and Afropean communities all over Europe for over ten years. 

Episode mixed by Erwan Rome.

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

The pledge was made during a meeting of the US-Turkey Working Group in Washington, where diplomats committed to “increasing cooperation and coordination on the security and stability of Syria”.

Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, who heads the German Marshall Fund office in Ankara, said this signals progress.

“I think it shows us that Turkey and the US can get on the same page when it comes to Syria,” he said. “Disagreements in Syria were part of the problem between Turkey and the United States. There are other issues, but this one was one of the core issues.”

Unluhisarcikli believes the good chemistry between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Donald Trump is playing a role.

“I think it’s significant President Erdogan is one of the leaders that President Trump likes working with and trusts. But of course, this is the case until it’s not,” he said.

Macron urges Syrian leader to protect minorities after deadly clashes

Israeli pushback

The move comes despite a warning from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who told Trump during his February visit to Washington that Turkey was a security threat in Syria.

Both countries have troops in Syria and see each other as rivals.

Trump appeared to dismiss Netanyahu’s concerns, speaking to the international media from the Oval Office with the Israeli leader at his side.

“I told the Prime Minister: Bibi, if you have a problem with Turkey, I really think I can be able to work it out,” Trump said. “I have a really great relationship with Turkey and its leader.”

Erdogan, along with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is credited with helping persuade Trump to lift sanctions on Syria. Israeli foreign policy analyst Gallia Lindenstrauss said the decision went against Israel’s position.

She explained that Israel wanted any easing of sanctions to be linked to concessions by Damascus.

“I think the fact the US ambassador to Turkey has been appointed as the envoy to Syria also means the Turkish position will get more attention from the US side,” Lindenstrauss said.

“That in itself makes some concern in Israel. Because here Israel has its priorities with regards to Syria, it wants someone pushing Turkey to be more flexible and not, of course, to build bases throughout Syria. That would be a very threatening scenario regarding Israel.”

Turkey’s rivalry with Iran shifts as US threats create unlikely common ground

Turkish airbases

Israeli warplanes recently destroyed a Syrian airbase that Turkish forces were preparing to take over. Turkey says its growing military presence, including control of airbases, is aimed at helping Syria’s new rulers fight insurgent groups like the Islamic State.

“For Turkey, Syria’s security and stability are of the utmost importance, and Turkey is devoting resources to keep Syria stable because Syria’s stability is so important for Turkey’s security, and that’s what Israel should understand,” Unluhisarcikli said.

But Turkish airbases equipped with missile defences would restrict Israel’s freedom to operate in Syrian airspace.

“Israel has just found an opportunity, an air corridor towards Iran (via Syrian airspace), which it can use without asking for permission from any third party,” Unluhisarcikli said. “If Turkey takes over the bases, then Israel would need to get permission from Turkey, which it doesn’t want to, and I think that’s understandable.”

Azerbaijan has been mediating talks between Israel and Turkey to reduce tensions. The two sides have reportedly set up deconfliction systems, including a hotline.

“There has been progress between Israel and Turkey over Syria. There have been at least three announced talks in Azerbaijan which is positive,” Lindenstrauss said.

PKK ends 40-year fight but doubts remain about the next steps

Iran and the F-35s

Iran’s nuclear programme is another source of friction between Israel and Turkey.

Unluhisarcikli said Trump seems to be leaning more towards Erdogan’s view than Netanyahu’s.

“For Turkey, military conflict with Iran is a very bad scenario. I am not entirely sure that’s how Trump feels, but for him, any conflict should be just a second choice because conflict is not good for business,” Unluhisarcikli said.

“It seems Israel has made the judgment that it is time for military action, the time for talking is over. There should be military action. Trump disagrees. He thinks he does have a chance of negotiating.”

US and Iranian negotiators met in Rome on Friday for the fifth round of talks. Erdogan supports the talks and has also claimed that Trump is open to lifting the US embargo on selling F-35 fighter jets to Turkey. That would remove Israel’s technical advantage in the air.

Trump’s increasingly close relationship with Erdogan comes amid reports that he is uneasy about Israel’s war in Gaza. But Lindenstrauss warned that Israel is counting on Trump’s unpredictability.

“We know that Trump has a basic favourable view towards Erdogan. This was already in his first term, and it is continuing now. But we also know that Trump can be tough towards Turkey, and he did implement sanctions against Turkey in his first term,” she said.

“So this good relationship depends on whether Turkey is in line with US interests. But of course, Israel is watching.”

However, with Israel’s war in Gaza showing little signs of ending, threatening further diplomatic isolation, Erdogan for now appears to have Trump’s ear, with the two leaders sharing similar agendas.

“Trade, not aid, is now the pillar of our policy in Africa,” said United States ambassador Troy Fitrell, from the Bureau of African Affairs, in a speech on 14 May at business summit in Abidjan.

The declaration settles any doubts over the Trump administration’s position on aid towards Africa. The US – the world single largest aid donor in the world, according to the United Nations – no longer wants to disburse billions in foreign aid, despite the fact that it represents a small percentage of its entire budget.

In 2023, the US spent $71.9 billion in foreign aid, which amounts to 1.2 percent of its entire budget for that fiscal year.

President Donald Trump repeatedly stated that aid is a waste. For years, Africa has been the region receiving more funding from the United States than any other.

Across the African continent, Trump’s executive orders were initially met with shock, anger, and despair — but also with a renewed determination to change course and place African resources at the heart of African healthcare.

In February, at an African Union summit, Rwandan President Paul Kagame announced that the AU’s health institutions, including the Centres for Disease Control, would take the lead in seeking alternatives to US funding.

“Africa now finds itself at a crossroads. The health financing landscape has shifted dramatically.

“I propose that, over the next year, we work together to define new mechanisms for concrete collaboration on healthcare among governments, businesses, and philanthropies,” he told African leaders.

“The work of building our continent, including our healthcare systems, cannot be outsourced to anyone else.”

To untangle what is going on, for this edition of Interntional Report, RFI interviewed Eric Olander, editor-in-chief of the China-Global South Project; Chris Milligan, former foreign service officer at USAID, in Washington; Mark Heywood, human rights and social justice activist in South Africa, co-founder of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC); Onikepe Owolabi, vice president of International research at the Guttmacher institute in New York; Monica Oguttu, founding executive director of KMET, Kisumu Medical and Education Trust, in Kenya.

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.   

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.