France produced a staggering 15.4 billion eggs in 2024, more than any other EU country. Yet there are regular gaps on supermarket shelves.

“Demand for eggs has gone up a lot, especially over the past few months,” says Alice Richard, head of the National Committee for the Promotion of the Egg (CNPO).

Egg consumption jumped 4-5 percent in 2023 and 2024, with the trend accelerating in early 2025. French consumers now eat an average of 240 eggs per person annually, whether as whole eggs or in processed foods – a 20-year record.

This love affair is largely driven by economic factors. France sells different categories of eggs – barn, free range, red label and organic – and the average price per egg is around 26 cents. A two-egg omelette could cost as little as 50 cents – far cheaper than a burger or chicken wing – making eggs an affordable option in a cost of living crisis.

“It really started two years ago, during the surge in inflation,” Richard notes. “Eggs are the cheapest source of animal protein, so naturally people turned to them when prices were rising across the board. And now, those habits have kind of stuck.”

The surge in demand has been compounded by psychological factors, she adds. Recent images of empty egg shelves in the United States, where bird flu has devastated poultry farms, triggered panic buying and some stockpiling among French consumers.

Cracking for imports 

But unlike the US, where avian influenza decimated 15 percent of laying hens, France has largely avoided production disruptions thanks to a vaccination programme for ducks – the primary spreaders of bird flu. “Only two minor outbreaks have been reported this year on relatively small farms,” Richard notes.

However, countries such as Poland and Hungary, hard hit by bird flu, began importing cheap eggs from Ukraine. With demand outweighing production, France has also turned to imports, which now account for 20 percent, and many are from Ukraine. 

That’s a problem, Richard says, since France and Ukraine have very different production costs and animal welfare standards.

“Around 75 percent of French hens are now raised in free-range, organic or in barn systems rather than in cages, but in Ukraine almost all hens are raised in cages or in barns and the standards aren’t the same. Their health and safety standards are different too, especially around things like salmonella.”

Listen to a conversation about egg production and animal welfare in the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 130

Increasing production

The CNPO aims to meet the rising demand through domestic production rather than imports and has hatched a €300 million plan to build 300 new henhouses by 2030. 

Richard says demanding norms in France means it takes an average of two years to set up a farm. To facilitate the process and encourage more young farmers, the industry is pushing for regulations to be eased, including raising the environmental review threshold from 40,000 to 60,000 hens and streamlining red tape.

“All we’re asking is that the same threshold applies across Europe,” Richard argues. “It doesn’t make sense that France is the only one with this strict limit, especially when we have to import eggs from countries that aren’t following the same rules.”

The proposed new hen houses would average around 30,000 hens each – the minimum size the industry considers economically viable for farmers to make a living solely from egg production. Importantly, all new facilities are to be cage-free, in line with the latest French legislation.

“Farmers are ready to meet this growing demand, but they are coming up against clearly identified obstacles,” MP Nicole Le Peih, herself a farmer, recently told France’s Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard in parliament.

“Building projects, even those that comply with standards and are open-air, are slowed down, contested or even blocked,” Le Peih said, referring to animal rights groups that have succeeded in blocking the expansion or construction of huge egg farms.

Genevard praised the CNPO project, saying it was an “ambition within reach, as long as we allow the construction of poultry houses”. She underlined the government’s commitment to simplifying procedures, as shown in recently approved legislation on food and farming sovereignty.

Which came first? French biologists crack an entirely chicken-free egg

Animal welfare concerns

The easing of red tape is already under way, much to the concern of animal rights groups.

An egg farm in the Oise region recently got the green light to expand from 900,000 to 1.2 million hens, despite strong opposition from locals and the L214 animal rights association, which described it as “not a farm but a factory” and vowed to take legal action.

Another project in Sergines, south-east of Paris, to build a brand new 38,000-strong hen farm finally got the go ahead in March after a six-year battle, supported by L214.

Hens on such huge farms are kept in the dark, with little space to roam, animal welfare groups say. And while French law stipulates that any new farms must be cage-free, that doesn’t apply to extensions.  

Cages can still be used for eggs produced for the food industry – which accounts for roughly half of French production. EU-wide legislation passed in 2012 banned battery cages in favour of “enriched” ones which provide a little more space and allow for natural behaviours, including elements such as a nesting area and perch.

“They’re still cages,” says Cyril Ernst from Anima, an organisation focused on accelerating the movement towards cage-free egg production.

“Some 12 million hens are still in cages in France … hens are probably the most mistreated animals on earth and in cage systems they suffer horribly because they are deprived of everything that matters for them.”

While he understands the need for farmers to make a profit, he says this must not come at the expense of animal wellbeing. “Price is important, and that’s why we’re not against funding this transition, maybe new farms need to be built, but the question is what type of farms are we heading towards and investing in?

“We need higher-welfare farms. Building farms on very large scales, with 1 million hens for example, is not a solution,” he insists.

Global egg industry investigation reveals widespread abuse of caged hens amid bird-flu pandemic

Interests aligned

Under the 2018 EGAlim law, France’s egg farmers have had to transition away from cages – 81.7 percent of French eggs are now produced in alternative systems, either free-range, organic or on the ground in barns. The vast majority of cage eggs are used in catering, he explains, with around 20 percent still sold in shops.

Meanwhile on the European level, the move towards a total ban on cages, while slow, is gaining ground, Ernst notes, so it makes long-term economic sense for French farmers not to roll back their efforts.

“New farms should meet high welfare standards, or else they will just be obsolete again in 15 years or so because norms will progress again.”

Despite their different priorities, Anima and the CNPO are working together and both sides are counting on changes at the European level.

“I think our interests are uniquely aligned in this case,” the campaigner notes, “because French farmers are making the transition to cage-free.”

He calls on France to join Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Slovenia and Sweden in backing the proposed EU-wide ban on cages. “French farmers wouldn’t have to compete with cage eggs from other EU countries [such as Poland and Spain] if a ban were to be taken up by the European Commission.”

In light of increasing imports from Ukraine, Richard echoes a similar sentiment. “Ukrainian eggs are so cheap to produce that even with tariffs, they’re still very competitive,” she says. “So we’re asking the EU to rethink how these imports are managed. To us, it’s unfair competition.”

The brainchild of the Paris Colors Ourq association, the work is one of several murals in the neighbourhood to promote community spirit and celebrate diverse cultural figures.

Born in St Louis, Missouri, on 3 June 1906, Baker eschewed conventions from an early age and rose to become a star singer and dancer in the 1930s, especially in France.

She later deployed that aura and her itinerant lifestyle as a cover to spy on the Nazis for the French Resistance during World War II.

She was later a fervent advocate for the civil rights movement in her homeland marching alongside Martin Luther King Jr in his campaigns for equality.

Baker an iconic figure

“Josephine Baker has always been, for me, a somewhat iconic figure of that era,” said urban artist FKDL who created the mural.

“She was both wild and free-spirited, but also deeply connected to music, musicals, and dance,″ he added. ’’She was an extraordinary character, an incredible woman. The mural is also about bringing women back into the urban landscape.”

Baker’s zest for the alternative took her to a chateau in southern France where she raised 12 adopted children from around the world.

‘’I feel moved and I feel happy, because this is part of a memory of my mother,” her son Brian Baker told the Associated Press news agency at the unveiling of the mural.

In November 2021, Baker became the first black woman to be inducted into the Panthéon, joining luminaries as philosopher and writer Voltaire, scientist Marie Curie and the writer Victor Hugo.

’’My mother wouldn’t have liked words like iconic, star, or celebrity,” said Brian Baker. “She would have said: ‘No, no let’s keep it simple.'”

Two years ago in Colombes on the western fringes of Paris, artists unveiled a mural of Baker. Spanning more than 200 square meters, the mural salutes various scenes from her life.

Baker died on 12 April, 1975, a few days after starring in a retrospective revue at the Bobino in Paris to celebrate her 50 years in show business.

Germany were reduced to 10 players only 13 minutes into the game at St Jakob Park in Basel.

Kathrin Hendrich pulled Griedge Mbock’s hair in the penalty area and referee Tess Olofsson awarded a spot kick and dismissed Hendrich for her foul play.

Grace Geyoro thrashed her shot past the Germany goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger. 

The French, who scored 11 goals in their three games in Group D, failed to exploit their early advantage.

And within a quarter of an hour, Germany were level at 1-1.

From Klara Bühl’s corner, Sjoeke Nüsken guided a header over the France goalkeeper Pauline Peyraud-Magnin.

Delphine Cascarino thought she restored France’s lead just before half-time but it was ruled out for offside.

France had another strike chalked off after the break following a lengthy review by the video assistant referees.

Both sets of players were waiting to restart proceedings when Olofsson ruled out Geyoro’s strike for an offside in the build-up.

Germany miss penalty

Nüsken could have given Germany the lead midway through the second half but the 24-year-old Chelsea striker saw Peyraud-Magnin fly to her left to parry the effort.

In extra-time, it was Berger’s turn for heroics.

The 34-year-old appeared to have been caught out by Janina Minge’s misdirected header but she back-pedalled and leaped to scoop away the ball off the goal-line.

The acrobatics kept the score level and saved Minge’s blushes.

Both players converted their spot kicks during a shoot-out that went to sudden death after both teams missed one of the regulation five penalties.

After Buhl and Melween Ndongala converted for Germany and France respectively, Nüsken atoned for her earlier miss with an emphatic finish to give Germany a 6-5 lead.

Fittingly, Berger saved Alice Sombath’s shot to launch the German celebrations.

They will take on the world champions Spain on Wednesday night in Zurich for a place in the final on 27 July.

.

The looting of Ukrainian cultural property by Russia is “systematic, widespread and organised,” the association Pour l’Ukraine, pour leur liberté et la nôtre (“For Ukraine, for their freedom and ours”) said in its complaint to the ICC.

It is calling for arrest warrants to be issued for Russian President Vladimir Putin and eight high-ranking Russian officials, alleging that this mass plundering is “planned at the highest level of the Russian state” and has been enabled “by a well-oiled Russian organisation”.

According to Sylvie Rollet, president of the association and professor emeritus at the University of Poitiers: “Everything was in place at the time of the large-scale invasion [in February 2022].”

Ukrainian officials have also claimed that Russian forces looted the “largest and most valuable” collections of Scythian artefacts in Ukraine, in Melitopol.

Cultural establishments in the city of Mariupol, where a siege took place at the start of the war, have also been emptied of their works of art.

At the Kherson art museum, which had one of the richest collections in Ukraine, more than 10,000 works were stolen by the Russians during their occupation of the city.

According to the Ukrainian Minister of Culture, Mykola Tochytskyi, Russia has stolen more than 1.7 million works of art and cultural properties from the occupied territories of Ukraine since the start of the war.

How the Russian invasion has sparked a renaissance of Ukrainian culture

A legislative arsenal

Russia has created a legal framework allowing it to carry out these thefts. The federal law of 18 March, 2023 allowed it to incorporate “the collections of 77 Ukrainian museums into the country’s catalogue of museums”.

In December 2023, another new law extended the concept of a “museum collection” and stipulated that “any collection, until it is included in the Museum Fund of the Russian Federation, will be recognised as a valuable asset and thus placed under the protection of the Russian State” – “thus enshrining the systematic appropriation of the aforementioned assets by the Russian Federation,” notes the complaint.

Such acts of looting are considered war crimes under international conventions.

According to the Pour l’Ukraine association, Putin bears “full and primary responsibility for the adoption of legislation aimed at facilitating Russia’s appropriation of Ukraine’s cultural heritage”.

Russia sees France as its ‘chief enemy’ in Europe, says head of French army

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova is also accused of having actively participated in “drafting the federal law governing the registration of museum collections from the annexed Ukrainian territories”.

Olga Lyubimova, the Russian Minister of Culture, is also suspected of being “directly involved in implementing the policy of despoiling the cultural heritage of the annexed Ukrainian territories,” as is her deputy Sergei Obryvalin.

“All of these individuals were kept informed of the planning, organisation and implementation of the joint plan to despoil Ukraine’s cultural heritage,” the complaint states.

Gaza’s ancient past revealed as artefacts survive destruction and exile

‘A new line in Russian history’

As for the fate of the looted art and artefacts, Rollet says: “Most of the works were sent to Russia. The aim is to show that this land has always been Russian, that Ukrainian artists are Russian, that the people are Russian, and so on.”

She added: “The historical societies, the directors of the major museums and the Inter-musées working group were also mobilised for the looting of museums in the occupied zones and for the transfer of these works either to annexed Crimea or to Russia, in order to ‘Russify’ them.”

“It’s about appropriating Ukrainian cultural heritage to turn it into a new line in Russian history, in the great Russia. This is a war crime,” Emmanuel Daoud, the association’s lawyer, told FranceInfo.

This operation was made all the more feasible because “Crimea served as a laboratory,” Rollet believes. According to data from the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture, by July 2024 there were fewer than 1.2 million museum pieces left in Crimea, compared with 12 million before the Russian annexation.

Thirty-eight paintings from the collection of the I.K. Aïvazovsky National Art Gallery, located in Feodossia, Crimea were transferred to Russia to be shown at an exhibition organised at the Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow in 2016.

Russian journalist exiled in Paris has ‘no regrets’ over criticising Ukraine war

Similarly, several works from museums in the Luhansk region were exhibited as part of the major Novorossiya exhibition held at the Russian Historical Museum in Moscow in autumn 2023 – and have never been returned to Ukraine.

Sergei Naryshkin, who holds the dual roles of director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service and head of the Russian Historical Society, has organised exhibitions “justifying the annexation of Ukrainian territories by Russia and conveying a falsified narrative about the ‘inextricable historical link’ between the Donbas and Russia,” according to Rollet. “It’s really a project to rewrite history.”

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

The 24-year-old man has been sentenced to surgical castration and life imprisonment with hard labour – the first time the law will be applied since it was voted through in parliament more than a year ago.

“Today’s decision is a strong and significant response from the justice system, intended also to serve as a warning to anyone with similar malicious intentions,” said Didier Razafindralambo, attorney general at the Court of Appeal.

According to Madagascar’s justice ministry, 133 cases of the rape of a minor were reported in January 2024 alone – more than four per day.

The offender in this case took the six-year-old girl to his home in March 2024, where he beat, raped and strangled her and burnt her with cigarette butts.

Permanent punishment

Surgical castration is a permanent procedure involving the removal of the testicles, or ovaries, to stop the production of sex hormones.

It is a rare form of punishment, only used in Germany, the Czech Republic, the state of Louisiana in the United States and that of Kaduna in Nigeria – and now Madagascar.

Chemical castration involves the use of drugs to stop the production of sex hormones. The punishment has been introduced in several US states, and several countries.

Lone migrant children face ‘care gap’ in France, with some left on streets

Madagascar’s Justice Minister Landy Mbolatiana Randriamanantenasoa said that the introduction of the law enabling surgical castration was necessary due to increasing cases of child rape.

Surgical castration will be the default punishment for those found guilty of raping a child under the age of 10, according to the new law. Cases of rape against children between the ages of 10 and 13 will be punished by either surgical or chemical castration. The rape of minors between the age of 14 and 17 will be punished by chemical castration.

‘Cruel and inhuman’

The country’s Catholic bishops have condemned the law, saying it goes against ethics and morality. They described castration as an act of “torture”, contrary to human rights and the principles of the Church.

“The human body, as the work of God, is sacred,” they said in a statement. “So nothing and no one has authority over it, not even the law.”

The law has also drawn criticism from several rights groups. At the time of the law’s proposal, Amnesty International called castration a “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” and said it was “inconsistent with Malagasy constitutional provisions against torture and other ill-treatment, as well as regional and international human rights standards”.

France among EU states to test age-check app to protect children online

However, Jessica Lolonirina Nivoseheno of Women Break the Silence – a movement against rape culture in Madagascar – told RFI that the punishment will act as a deterrent.

“Rape culture is so present in Madagascar. Sexual violence is normalised. The punishment is a way of telling potential offenders that there are consequences for their crime.”

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.

The ePOP video competition is open!

The ePOP video competition is sponsored by the RFI department “Planète Radio”, whose mission is to give a voice to the voiceless. ePOP focuses on the environment and how climate change has affected “ordinary” people.

The ePOP contest is your space to ensure these voices are heard. 

How do you do it?

With a three-minute ePOP video. It should be pure testimony, captured by your lens: the spoken word reigns supreme. No tricks, no music, no text on the screen. Just the raw authenticity of an encounter, in horizontal format (16:9). An ePOP film is a razor-sharp look at humanity that challenges, moves, and enlightens.

From June 12 to September 12, 2025, ePOP invites you to reach out, open your eyes, and create that unique bridge between a person and the world.

Join the ePOP community and make reality vibrate!

Click here for all the information you need. 

We expect to be overwhelmed with entries from the English speakers!

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. 

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 21 June, I asked you a question about our article “Togo suspends French broadcasters RFI, France 24 for three months”. We were informed on June 16th.

Togo has accused us of biased and inaccurate reporting.

The shutdown followed protests in the country’s capital, Lomé, in early June.

You were to send in the answers to these two questions: What is the name of Togo’s president, and what is the reason for the protests?

The answers are: The name of Togo’s president is Faure Gnassingbé. The reason for the protests is due to, to quote the RFI English article:  “… increasing pressure from critics over recent changes in the constitution that could effectively keep Gnassingbé in power indefinitely. Critics have called the changes a constitutional coup.”

Faure Gnassingbé was elected in 2005. He’s the son of Gnassingbé Eyadéma, who was president for 38 years. At the time of his death, Gnassingbé Eyadéma was the longest-serving leader in modern African history.

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question: “Have you ever made a mistake that ended up saving you?” It was suggested by Jayanta Chakrabarty from New Delhi, India.

Do you have a bonus question idea? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

The winners are: Sultan Mahmud Sarker, the president of the Shetu RFI Fan Club in Naogaon, Bangladesh. Sultan is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations, Sultan, on your double win.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Ferhat Bezazel, the president of the RFI Butterflies Club Ain Kechara in West Skikda, Algeria, and RFI Listeners Club members Rubi Saikia from Assam, India, as well as Nasyr Muhammad from Katsina State, Nigeria. Last but not least, there’s RFI English listener Kalyani Basak from Kerala State, India.

Congratulations, winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: “Raga Charu Keshi” played by Ravi Shankar; traditional music from Togo performed by the Flutistes Kotokoli; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and the Quartet in F major by Maurice Ravel, performed by the  Alban Berg Quartet.  

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, watch the video and re-read Dhananjay Khadilikar’s article “Swiss exoplanet pioneer reflects on Earth’s place in the cosmos”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 22 September to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 27 September 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.   

One morning on Marseille’s main shopping street, Rue Saint-Ferréol, a group of around 20 people gathered around the artist Mariam Benbakkar for what she calls a “colonial downtown walk”.

This neighbourhood, with its grand, imposing buildings, was constructed in 1848, when, after 20 years of war, Algeria was divided into three French departments.

“All the resources exploited in Algeria, but also in other colonies, arrived through the port of Marseille. This neighbourhood became a showcase for ship owners,” explains Benbakkar.

She passes around a photo book … Marseille, the first city to organise a colonial exhibition in 1906 … Marseille and its colonial museum … Marseille, the “gateway to the Orient”.

The night of rebellion that changed France and Algeria forever

‘History made invisible’

Colonial history remains almost hidden in the city of Marseille. A small stained-glass window with a ship here, a faded pediment there – but no plaques or explanations.

Benbakkar leads the small group into the flamboyant Uniqlo store, whose dome is as high as that of the prefecture.

The reason for the building’s grandeur? It used to be a branch of the Compagnie Algérienne, a French investment bank with operations in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon.

The letters C and A embedded in the wrought iron railings, and a heavy armoured door in the fitting rooms provide clues to the building’s past, but this isn’t explicitly acknowledged.

“There used to be a magnificent painted ceiling, showing the colonised cities, but it was covered up by Uniqlo’s air conditioning,” Benbakkar told RFI.

“This is knowledge that has been made completely invisible,” notes Anne, one of the participants on the tour. Despite having grown up in these streets, she admits: “I know little about the hidden stories behind these buildings.”

For Pauline, another young woman in the group, the tour is an opportunity to reflect on France’s colonial past. “I’m not from an immigrant background, but I still feel it concerns me,” she says.

For Benbakkar, everyone has, in one way or another, a personal history with the French colonies.

With Franco-Algerian relations at an all-time low, can they get back on track?

She reminds people that she is neither a sociologist nor a historian, but she chooses to talk about the history of her city. 

“For me, the best way of changing people’s mentality is to pass it on through speaking about it, in the streets,” she says.

She has been working with post-colonial imagery for several years, through her feminist collective Filles de Blédards (“Daughters of North African Immigrants”) and her Instagram account Marseille Coloniale.

She says she iis fascinated by public spaces, architecture, land registries and private construction.

‘These images affect us today’

“Marseille is a key city when it comes to France and migration. It has an extremely rich culture, but it’s not represented in cultural institutions,” explains Benbakkar.

She mentions the names of forgotten industrialists and politicians: Jules Charles-Roux, a wealthy ship owner whose granddaughter married Marseille’s mayor, Gaston Defferre; Édouard Marie Heckel, the founder of the colonial museum; Paulin Talabot, founder of the Paris-Lyon-Marseille railway and a lobbyist for the creation of the Suez Canal.

“There was a working bourgeoisie that made fortunes from the colonial empire. To this day, the redistribution of looted wealth is still not being done properly,” she points out, referring to private enclaves in the city’s wealthy neighbourhoods.

Equatorial Guinea accuses France of ‘neo-colonialism’ in Paris mansion row

Another stop on the tour is the C&A store – formerly the Grand Hotel du Louvre et de la Paix. It features four massive statues representing four continents.

The figures representing Europe and the Americas, draped in togas, carry a winged machine symbolising progress, while Asia and Africa, bare-chested, carry an elephant and a camel.

“These images, which were installed in the 19th century, still affect us today. It’s as if the urban space has a subconscious – eventually, we internalise those images,” says Benbakkar.

“We need reparations for the damage caused by 19th-century capitalism and imperialism, which still impacts the banking, economic and private property systems today. And for that, we need to recognise that we have been robbed of our common property and demand our fundamental rights: access to the sea, to nature, to decent housing, to streets for all.”

This article was adapted from the original version in French.

“I feel as though I need to take deeper breaths, even though I’m not making much of an effort,” says Martin Estivals, after a few minutes of walking on a treadmill in the Climate Sense heat chamber.

The chamber is a container on a lorry that has been travelling around France for the past few months. Inside it looks like a doctor’s office, with treadmills at one end. The ambient temperature is a steady 50C.

The highest temperature recorded to date in France is 45.9C – in the southern village of Gallargues-le-Montueux, during a heatwave in 2019. Europe’s highest temperature was recorded in Sicily in 2021 – 48.8C. 

Estivals, 26, and his friend Emma Louise Robeyns, 21, wanted to try out the chamber when it was in Marseille in the spring, after hearing about it from a friend.

A report on the climate chamber, in the Spotlight on France podcast

Cognitive effects

The pair spend 30 minutes inside, walking on a treadmill, attempting a few fine motor tasks and completing cognitive tests.

On the treadmills, they are asked to walk normally, as if they were going to work or out shopping. After 10 minutes, Robeyns says her head feels hot.

She and Estivals move on to the next task: moving loops around, to avoid them touching each other – manual tasks that are made harder by their sweating.

Wildfires in southern France mark start of season spurred by high temperatures

Ten minutes later, they are having real trouble with the cognitive tasks. “I can’t even read the first line of the instructions,” Robeyns says, incredulously.

She tries to recall words or find differences between images – simple tasks that would be no problem in normal temperatures, but after 20 minutes in 50C she feels her brain slowing down.

“They all look alike,” she says, looking at two images in which she is asked to find the differences. “Usually I’m pretty good at this kind of exercise. But I must admit that this is difficult. I think my body is focused on the basics, and it’s forgetting about the rest.”

Impact on the body

Robeyns is more than ready to leave as soon as the 30 minutes are up. On the way out, she and Estivals test their body temperatures and heart rates, to compare them with the readings from the way in. Robeyns’ temperature has risen by 2C.

Christian Clot of the Human Adaptation Institute, which runs the climate chamber, says high heat has real physiological impacts.

As the body struggles to stay within its normal range of approximately 36–37C, organs work harder and the brain slows down to save energy.

Wake-up call for France as climate experts push for new action on emissions

“You lose certain cognitive capacities – of concentration, decision-making and calculation,” he explains, adding that social skills are impacted too. “Being social takes a lot of energy, and the heat makes you become more irritable or you just want to spend less time with others. And bit by bit, your social skills break down.”

‘An abstract concept’

He believes that putting people through this kind of heat stress is key to raising awareness of climate change and how human behaviour affects it, saying that global warming is an abstract concept until the physical repercussions feel real.

“For a person to change their behaviour, they must be affected sensorially and emotionally. To understand the climate of the future, you need to have an experience that allows you to feel it emotionally. It helps people make decisions on how they act today.”

The institute’s follow-up surveys have shown that more than 60 percent of visitors to the climate chamber say they will change their behaviours, to be more conscious of CO2 emissions.

For Robeyns, who is originally from Paris but now lives in Aix-en-Provence, where temperatures are regularly extremely high in summer, the experience in the chamber has driven home the impact of global warming on daily life.

“No matter how aware you are, it’s good to be confronted with the real repercussions of our daily actions,” she said.

Estivals is not sure whether he will change anything in particular, but the experience has made him realise what an increase of just a few degrees feels like.

“It’s hard to imagine 50C, and this allows us to test it,” he said. “What is more difficult is to imagine that it could be like this all day. It is not the same as just a few moments.”

France brings in new protective measures for outdoor workers in heatwaves

Speed is key

Clot says that if the world fails to keep carbon emissions down, France could see 50C by the middle of the century – a scenario he hopes can still be avoided, but one he insists people need to be prepared for. 

While he says that speed is of the essence when it comes to tackling climate change, he also believes we need to slow down when it comes to certain aspects of daily life. 

“We have a tendency to want to go faster all the time. For example, when you order something you want it to arrive in 24 hours. If we just accepted deliveries in three to four days, we would already hugely reduce our carbon footprint. Every time we accelerate we emit more CO2.”

However, when it comes to taking action to lessen global warming, he says there is not a moment to lose. “Today we have the freedom to choose to reduce the risks to avoid extreme temperatures in the future. In the future, we will not have that freedom.”

Listen to a version of this story, which was first reported by Jeanne Richard, in the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 130, here.

A key figure in local French life, there are more than three times the number of mayors in France as there are in neighbouring Germany, despite its far larger population, and more than four times more than in Italy.  

France’s mayors, as the head of each commune’s local council, have signifiant powers and responsibilities – including managing the budget and municipal staff and resources, enforcing local laws and regulations, and representing the state at a local level. 

The findings of the study, published last week and conducted jointly by the university and the Association of Mayors of France, reiterated their importance to voters, and the level of trust they enjoy – which far outstrips that bestowed on other elected representatives.

RFI spoke to its author Martial Foucault, a professor of politics at Sciences Po Paris.

RFI: At a time when mistrust of national institutions is very high in France, the local mayor remains a trusted figure for citizens. How do you explain this?

Martial Foucault: This is something we’ve been observing for more than 15 years. The mayor is the democratic personality in whom the French have the most confidence, far ahead of other representatives such as deputies, senators, regional or departmental councillors – and I’m not even talking about the national executive.

Not only is this level of trust high – around 70 percent – but it can withstand any crisis, including national ones, the local repercussions of which can complicate the work of mayors and their ability to find solutions.

We saw this during the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy crisis. Mayors try as best they can to respond to requests, even those for which they are not necessarily equipped, and local people are grateful because they feel that this action is visible. The fact that mayors are seen to take action gives them this capital of trust.

Far-right French mayor imposes curfew on children to tackle ‘violence’

What are the criteria on which citizens base their trust in their mayor?

The survey highlights two important factors. Firstly, honesty. Dishonest elected officials or those tainted by scandal destroy this capital of trust. The second important criterion is the mayor’s ability to keep his promises. An elected official who is willing to listen during an election but just does as he pleases once elected would generate mistrust.

Public trust is based on these two criteria, and much less on a demand for knowledge of the technicalities, for highly competent elected officials who really know their stuff. That matters, but it’s not essential in the eyes of the French – and that’s one of the surprises of the study.

Your survey also shows that citizens are making ever-increasing demands of their local elected representatives. What type of demands are these?

Expectations remain high, and that’s good news for the democratic imperative. We live in a society where unforeseen events are numerous, be they climatic, financial, energy-related…

I remember that two terms ago, the key issue was employment. People thought that mayors had a magic wand to transform their territory into a beacon of attractiveness for employers in order to solve the unemployment issue. This is no longer the case.

The survey I conducted in 2019, during the previous municipal election campaign, highlighted voters’ expectations around environmental issues and safety issues. In the study [we published last week], the primary demand is for greater protection, and peace and quiet. At the local and municipal level, what counts in the minds of citizens is the improvement of their living environment. 

Strasbourg city mayor sues French state for failure to accommodate the homeless

Do these demands also include democratic concerns?

Indeed, the survey underlines that French citizens want greater transparency in the decision-making process. They expect their mayors to be more concerned with seeking consensus before making decisions, and that’s something new.

The French also say they expect their mayors to act as mediators in the event of conflict, and this is also new. There has been much discussion about the rise in violence towards local elected representatives. Mayors are discovering the importance of mediation. And yet, depending on their background, not everyone is an innate mediator. So that should be a priority for mayoral associations: training mayors in mediation issues, to prevent situations from flaring up or degenerating.

On the one hand, citizens are demanding more democracy at a local level, but on the other, they are still reluctant to get involved in the life of their community. Why is this?

One can be demanding of one’s representatives without committing oneself. Our survey shows that 24 percent of French people would be prepared to get involved in the life of the local council. This figure may sound very low, but to me it’s considerable. Because 24 percent of French people registered on electoral lists represents 12 to 13 million citizens. In reality, however, the number of those actually involved is barely 1 million. But this percentage does indicate real potential for commitment.

The question now is how to turn potential into reality. This involves understanding why so few people get involved. The main reason is that certain categories of French people are under-represented, and this doesn’t encourage their peers to take the plunge. Young people under 40 are under-involved, for example. The same applies to women.

Ex-mayor of Normandy village acquitted of complicity in drug trafficking

Does this report give cause for optimism ahead of the local elections in March 2026?

Yes. In a highly polarised society, where majorities are hard to obtain in parliament, the simple fact of knowing that, at a local level, the mayor has the ability to [have an impact] is a source of optimism.

In fact, when the French are asked about their vision for the future in the area where they live and work, the majority are optimistic, whereas the same question at a national level gives more pessimistic answers.

Even if it’s not the answer to all problems, the local level perhaps provides a democratic – and personal – breathing space that helps create a little more happiness than when we look at things on a bigger scale.

This interview was adapted from the original version in French and has been lightly edited for clarity.

“From now on, there will be a commemoration ceremony every 12 July for Dreyfus, for the victory of justice and the truth against hatred and antisemitism,” Macron said in a statement published by his office, 90 years after Dreyfus’ death.

The first such day would be celebrated in 2026, the 120th anniversary of France’s highest appeals court recognising Dreyfus’s innocence, Macron said.

France needed to remain vigilant in the face of the “ancient spectre” of antisemitism, he said.

The scandal began in 1894 when Dreyfus, a Jewish army captain from Alsace, was accused of passing military secrets to Germany. The evidence was flimsy, the investigation tainted by prejudice and the trial a public spectacle, fuelled by a virulently anti-Semitic press.

Despite the lack of proof, Dreyfus was convicted of treason, publicly stripped of his rank and sentenced to life on the notorious Devil’s Island penal colony, off the coast of French Guiana.

The injustice of the Dreyfus Affair did not go unchallenged.

Dreyfus’s family, notably his brother Mathieu, launched a tireless campaign for his exoneration, enlisting the support of journalists and intellectuals.

The most famous intervention came from novelist Émile Zola, whose open letter “J’Accuse” in the 13 January, 1898 edition of newspaper l’Aurore accused the French military and government of a deliberate miscarriage of justice.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, the head of military intelligence, uncovered evidence that another officer, Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, was the real traitor.

But instead of righting the wrong, the military doubled down – even jailing Picquart and acquitting Esterhazy.

Public outrage grew and the Dreyfus Affair became a national crisis, splitting France into “Dreyfusards”and “anti-Dreyfusards”. The case exposed the dangers of institutional anti-Semitism and the fragility of justice in the face of prejudice and political expediency.

After years of struggle, Dreyfus was pardoned in 1899 and finally exonerated in 1906. He was re-instated to the army and later served in the First World War. He died on 12 July, 1935 at the age of 75.

Global impact

The impact of the Dreyfus Affair was immense, and it remains a touchstone for debates about justice, minority rights and the responsibilities of the state – and is now seen as a foundational episode in the modern fight against anti-Semitism.

In France, it led to reforms in military and judicial procedures. But the Dreyfus Affair also had global consequences, particularly for the Jewish people.

Macron opens museum dedicated to the the ‘Dreyfus affair’ and anti-Semitism

Among those covering the trial in Paris was Theodor Herzl, a Viennese journalist writing for the Neue Freie Presse of Vienna.

Witnessing the depth of anti-Semitic hatred and the failure of assimilation as a safeguard, Herzl was galvanised to write Der Judenstaat (“The Jewish State”) in 1896. This foundational text of modern political Zionism argued that Jews could only have safety and dignity in a state of their own.

Herzl’s activism, including his lobbying through the nascent Zionist movement and later at the Jewish World Congress, helped set in motion the international efforts that would eventually lead to the Balfour Declaration in 1917 – a key step towards the creation of the State of Israel.

Posthumous promotion

Meanwhile, France’s National Assembly Defence Committee on 25 May unanimously approved a bill to posthumously promote Dreyfus to the rank of brigadier general – a highly symbolic gesture intended to correct a historic injustice and honour his memory. 

The law is the culmination of a long process, originally initiated by the Dreyfus family as early as 1906 and revived following a speech by President Jacques Chirac at the École Militaire on 12 July 2006.

This act could pave the way for further recognition – even inclusion in the Panthéon, France’s national mausoleum for distinguished citizens.

French MPs back promoting Jewish army captain 130 years after treason scandal

(with newswires)

These ancient monuments, erected over more than two thousand years during the Neolithic period, cover an area of 1,000 square kilometres. The site includes more than 550 monuments across 28 towns and villages in Morbihan.

Among the most famous are the Carnac alignments, with their long, straight rows of menhirs (meaning ‘long stones’ in Breton) of all sizes. The origins and purpose of these stones remain a mystery, but they attract nearly 300,000 visitors each year.

Unesco described the megaliths as “an exceptional testimony to the technical sophistication and skill of Neolithic communities.” The organisation highlighted the ability of these ancient people to extract, transport and position huge stones and earth to create a complex symbolic landscape. This, Unesco said, reveals a unique relationship between the population and their environment.

This is the first site in Brittany to be fully inscribed on the World Heritage list. The Vauban Tower in Finistère is already listed, but as part of a group of 12 Vauban fortifications across France.

France now has 54 sites on the World Heritage list. Spain and China each have 60, and Germany has 55.

This year, the World Heritage Committee, meeting in Paris until Sunday, is considering 30 nominations. These include King Ludwig II’s castles in Bavaria, genocide memorial sites in Cambodia, and cultural landscapes in Cameroon and Malawi.

France pushes for Unesco status for D-Day beaches and Carcassonne fortresses

The inscription not only acknowledges the cultural and historical significance of these ancient monuments, but also seeks to ensure their preservation and protection for future generations.

A management plan for the site, developed in partnership with local authorities and stakeholders, will guide conservation efforts in the coming years.

(With newswires)

RFI: What did the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior mean for you personally?

MC: It’s something I remember very clearly. In 1985, I was in my sixth grade at school, I was 13 years old. This was a moment that inspired me. It symbolised the courage of a few individuals trying to stop nuclear testing that, even at that young age, I knew was dangerous and an existential threat during the Cold War.

Here was a group of people who crossed the world’s biggest ocean to put a stop to that threat on behalf of all of us. The French nuclear testing in the Mururoa Atoll symbolised that threat. I found it courageous – and unfair and evil to stop that with a bomb that cost the life of a photographer.

RFI: How did the bombing inspire you?

MC: It meant I joined Greenpeace as a supporter at that time. Like many others, I think Greenpeace grew its supporter and donor numbers substantially then. It showed in practice that the French government’s strategy was wrong. It blew wind into the sails of an organisation and a movement instead of silencing it.

RFI: At the time of the Rainbow Warrior bombing, Greenpeace was just 14 years old. What did it mean for the organisation?

MC: It proved what many in Greenpeace said then and still say – first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. That kind of resistance does not work.

It has the opposite effect. It builds strength. “You can’t sink a rainbow” was the slogan that came out of the bombing. That’s true. It was much more than just a ship that was bombed – they tried to silence a movement and an opposition to nuclear testing in the Pacific. The aftermath showed Greenpeace only grew stronger, as did the wider movement.

RFI: When it became known that the order to bomb the Rainbow Warrior went up to the highest authorities in France, what effect did that have?

MC: When it became known who was behind it, how high it went, when the court looked at it and accountability was finally awarded against the French government, we saw some justice and a backlash against their actions. Hopefully it deterred similar acts in the future.

Forty years after the Rainbow Warrior bombing, activists still under attack

RFI: How did this incident shape Greenpeace’s identity and mission in the years afterwards?

MC: Greenpeace’s mission and identity were there before the bombing too. But it showed that Greenpeace was an effective organisation taken seriously by governments.

As we remember the bombing and the murder of Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira 40 years ago, it’s important to remind ourselves why the French government committed such an extreme act of violence. They targeted our ship and the campaign to stop nuclear testing because it was effective. We posed a threat to the French government’s military programme and its colonial power in the Pacific – and they failed to silence us.

They failed to intimidate us. They confirmed that you can’t sink a rainbow. We showed that courage is contagious and Greenpeace only grew stronger as a movement and an organisation afterwards. Our continued success in stopping nuclear testing in the Pacific is proof of that.

That lesson is important now because 40 years on, we are just as effective. Now it’s the fossil fuel industry and billionaires using legal attacks – legal bullying that could threaten Greenpeace’s very existence in the US and beyond. But just like in 1985, we cannot be intimidated and we will not back down.

RFI: How did the incident affect your relationship with governments, especially France?

MC: We saw accountability delivered in the bombing. It was clear this was not a good move by the French government – it backfired massively and damaged France’s reputation. It sent a clear message not only to the French government but to other governments too – that’s not how you fight movements or ideas.

Right now we’ve seen the French government take responsibility for the environment and oceans in the global political arena. For example, their work on the Global Oceans Treaty is remarkable. But like so many other countries they are still failing to take all the steps needed for a sustainable future for all of us.

French Rainbow Warrior bomber breaks 30-year silence

RFI: A North Dakota jury found Greenpeace liable for defamation, ordering it to pay more than 660 million dollars to Energy Transfer for its role in anti-fossil fuel protests. How does this legal attack compare to the bomb attack?

MC: The lesson from 1985 is important now because 40 years later we are just as effective. This time they do not use bombs but armies of lawyers and legal attacks that could threaten Greenpeace’s existence in the US.

Energy Transfer, a multi-billion dollar oil pipeline company, has brought two back-to-back SLAPP suits against Greenpeace International and Greenpeace US after Greenpeace US showed solidarity with the 2016 peaceful indigenous-led protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline. The first case was dismissed in court. Greenpeace organisations continue to defend against the second one, which is ongoing in North Dakota, where a jury awarded 660 million in damages.

This is just one example of many SLAPP suits that organisations, individuals and journalists face as the fossil fuel industry fights to silence dissent.

RFI: Where are you now with this case?

MC: We are fighting it in court. We are appealing it and we’ll see what the appeal court says. We’re also challenging Energy Transfer in a Dutch court, using the strong European anti-SLAPP legislation that exists in the EU, to show this was a clear SLAPP suit. We’re seeking compensation for the costs and harm we’ve suffered due to this completely unfounded case in the US.

Of course we hope to win in the legal sphere, but in the public and moral sense this is a crystal clear example of fossil fuel giants trying to silence opposition.

RFI: Forty years after the incident, what message do you have for young activists fighting climate change?

MC: Keep fighting. The bombing in 1985 showed exactly that – first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. Be mindful these fights can take a long time. This was a fight we won in 1996 when France stopped all nuclear testing and has not resumed since. So we can win the difficult fights too.

Barabash still finds it hard to believe she’s living in Paris. “I ask my son sometimes, do you really think that now I live in Paris?” she says, speaking from the offices of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) – the press freedom NGO that helped organise her extradition from Moscow. “For me it still feels a bit unreal. It’s something like a dream.”

The knock on the door came on 25 February, shortly after the 64-year-old Russian journalist returned from reporting at the Berlin Film Festival. Detained for a day and stripped of her electronic devices, she was then placed under house arrest on 21 April, and was facing up to 10 years in prison for criticising Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Her crime was writing “the truth about this war” on Facebook, she says. After Russia introduced its draconian “fake news” law in 2022, making it effectively illegal to criticise the military, authorities began monitoring Barabash’s posts. One, written in March 2022, described how Russia had “bombed the country” and “razed whole cities to the ground”.

Hijacking news: Fake media sites sow Ukraine disinformation

Ties to Ukraine

For Barabash, a film critic who has spent decades writing about cinema, speaking out wasn’t just her professional duty – it was deeply personal. Born in Kharkiv when it was part of the Soviet Union, she has strong family ties to Ukraine. Her son has lived there for 17 years, and her late father was a renowned Ukrainian literature expert who wrote openly against the war before his death last November.

“If there were not my personal links with Ukraine, if I didn’t imagine each night how the missiles are attacking my son’s house, maybe I would have been quieter,” she said.

Her transformation from culture journalist to wanted dissident began long before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. As Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine escalated, she found herself unable to separate art from politics.

“When the war began – not this invasion in February 2022 but before that, after Crimea and the first attacks on the east of Ukraine, [that] was the beginning of the war – that’s the moment I understood that it wasn’t possible to write only about culture. Culture is very tightly connected with politics.”

She cites a Russian saying: “If you don’t [take an] interest in politics, politics will [take an interest] in you.”

After her lawyers gave her an estimated 50-80 percent chance of imprisonment, Barabash made the decision to flee. She was approached by a network of volunteers – “some Russian people in exile and some Russian people in Russia” – who had helped others, including TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, to escape.

“They found a way to me and proposed to help me escape. They said that if I agree, they’ll prepare all the operation,” she said.

The escape began with a car ride from Moscow to Belarus, driven by a volunteer who then returned to Russia, leaving her alone to follow encrypted instructions. For the most dangerous part of her journey, she went completely offline. “I turned off all the equipment and I was without any connection for almost 10 days. I didn’t know if my mother, my family, my friends, knew where I was,” she recalls.

Reporters Without Borders launches news platform to counter Russian propaganda

‘It’s difficult to scare me’

Her route to freedom took her through the forests of Belarus, sleeping rough for nights on end, guided only by encrypted messages from anonymous volunteers. At times, she admits, the journey felt more dangerous than staying in Russia to face trial.

“I had to sleep in the forest, in the fields,” she recalls. “I understood only afterwards that it was very dangerous. But at the time I didn’t think about it. I had my freedom, that’s all.”

Sleeping rough in forests was challenging for a woman in her sixties, but Barabash had forged a lot of inner strength. “I’m a strong Russian woman. I’m a former sportswoman,” she says, referring to her background in gymnastics. “So it’s very, very difficult to scare me. It’s my character.”

The journey took two and a half weeks, with RSF coordinating the final stages. The NGO’s director Thibaut Bruttin later admitted the organisation had feared the worst several times: “Once, we thought she was dead.”

Barabash crossed into European Union territory on 26 April, her 64th birthday. “I crossed the border illegally. But there were people who helped me on the other side of the border. And then people from RSF came and took me to Paris.”

‘A symbol of hope’

The transition hasn’t been easy. “I came with this, with my backpack,” she says, pointing to a small bag on the floor. “And so for a few days after my arrival here, I was wearing my friends’ clothes.”

The separation from her family, too, is hard. Her 96-year-old mother remains in Moscow, while her son and grandson are trapped in Ukraine. “I left everything – my property, my family, my mother. I see the pictures of my previous life and I try to close them in my mind. It’s very dramatic, but I am trying to be involved in this life, in France.”

RSF is helping her claim political asylum and she lives with a good Russian-born friend. Unable to work legally in France, she writes a little for Russian-language media based elsewhere in Europe.

RSF has described her as a “symbol of hope” but she shakes her head at this. For her, proper Russian journalists are now either in jail or living in exile, while the others consider her “as a symbol of stupidity”.

“They say, why? You have such an old mother, you have property, you should be silent. We are against the war, but we are keeping silent. You’ll end up in prison.”

As a journalist she felt obliged to break that silence. “The journalist profession is… for those who have to say the truth. And especially in such dark times as now in Russia.”

Does she have any regrets?

“Je ne regrette rien,” she says, quoting Edith Piaf. “I was saving my dignity. The dignity of my profession.” She adds that if even one person read her articles and it helped them to change their mind about the war, then it was worth it.

The horde descended on the RN141 on the outskirts of Limoges city centre and tried to block the road during a battle with police in which nine officers were injured

“They’re organised, structured, there’s a plan, weapons,” said Limoges mayor Émile Roger Lombertie.

“This was not a spontaneous protest to complain about something. No pretext, nothing. It’s about destroying things and showing the territory belongs to you.

“They’re an urban guerrilla group,” Lombertie added.

The clashes came during one of the busiest weekends on roads throughout France as holidaymakers set off for their summer breaks or make the journey back home to resume work.

“None of the motorists were physically assaulted. However, several are particularly shocked,” Limoges prosecutors said in a statement.

“The investigation is continuing into armed participation in an assembly, violence against national police officers and organised gang damage to other people’s property,” the prosecutors office added.

On the night of 14 July, France’s national holiday to celebrate one of the most significant events during the French Revolution in 1789, clashes erupted in the Val de l’Aurence district of Limoges between gangs of youths and police that left two officers injured.

“Val de l’Aurence has become a lawless zone,” added Lombertie.

After the match ended goalless at the Honneur Stadium in Oujda, South Africa triumphed 4–1 in the shoot-out to set up a semi-final date with Nigeria at the Stade Larbi Zaouli in Casablanca.

Following crucial saves towards the end of the encounter, South Africa’s goalkeeper Andile Dlamini emerged as the heroine.

The 32-year-old dived to her left to palm away Senegal’s second penalty taken by Nguenar Ndiaye and she sprang to the right to block Méta Kandé’s next effort.

Those feats left Bambanani Mbane with the chance to secure a place in the semi-final and the 35-year-old defender thrashed high into the top left hand corner to spark South African celebrations.

“I said the game was not going to be easy,” South Africa boss Desiree Ellis told reporters after the match.

“I said it was going to be a difficult game because of the group Senegal were in and how they got out – and we didn’t expect anything less.

“I don’t have enough words to describe my team – the resilience, the courage, the never-say-die attitude, the willingness to fight for each other. No matter what they threw at us we were able to withstand that.”

Ghana continue surge

Ghana’s game against Algeria in Berkane also finished goalless after extra-time and the west Africans set up their semi-final showdown with hosts Morocco after seeing off Algeria 4-2 in the shoot-out.

Goalkeeper Cynthia Konlan saved efforts from Marine Dafeur and Inès Belloumou to give her side the advantage and a place in the last four for the first time since 2016.

“Obviously a lot of emotions for me,” said Ghana boss Kim Lars Björkegren who took over in January.

“But most of all I’m happy for the players and for the other coaches, the staff, everybody that works so hard around the team.

“They’re doing a great job. It’s so many that deserve this victory. So I’m really happy for them and proud of their girls. I really like the hard work that they’re putting in.”

Ghana will take on Morocco at the Stade Olympique on Tuesday evening attempting to reach the final for the first time since 2006.

“People now prefer smaller families, and fertility will probably continue to fall,” Milan Bouchet-Valat, a sociologist and co-author of the study, told French news agency AFP.

Using data from two major national surveys carried out in 2005 and 2024, the study reveals a fundamental trend: younger generations want fewer children than their elders.

Among women under 30, the average number of children desired has fallen from 2.5 to 1.9 in 20 years.

Global fertility rate to plunge by end of century, study says

Two-child maximum

Large families too are losing ground, with just 29 percent of French people thinking that having three or more children is the ideal number – compared with half in 1998.

The ideal number of children per family is now 2.3 on average, compared with 2.7 in 1998. The two-child family is still the norm, with 65 percent of 18-49 year olds now considering two the ideal number, but this is now seen as a maximum, rather than a minimum.

Among young adults aged 18 to 29, the intention to have just one child, or none at all, outstrips that of having three or more. Only 10 percent of young men and 16 percent of young women want three children, while 20 percent and 14 percent respectively want to have just one.

This decline in the desire to have children is reflected in the country’s birth rate, which last year was at its lowest since 1945 – with 663,000 births recorded. 

Between 2014 and 2024 the fertility rate fell from two to 1.6 children per woman – still above the European Union average of 1.4. 

France’s ageing population is having fewer babies and living longer than ever

Fears for the future

This falling desire to have children is seen in people of all backgrounds, regardless of gender, level of education, occupation, country of birth or income.

The factors that influence this desire – or lack of – include fears over climate change and future prospects, and views on gender equality. 

Egalitarian concepts of the roles of men and women are associated with a lower desire to have children, particularly among men – a link that didn’t exist in the 2005 survey results. Men with more traditional views want more children, and are less likely to anticipate that parenthood will have an impact on their careers.

France’s Macron seeks to carry baby-making plan to term

“The price of professional inequality between women and men accentuates the fear of having children,” Minister for Equality Aurore Bergé told TV channel France 2 last Wednesday, in reaction to the results. “What we need to do is guarantee women total freedom: to have or not to have children, and to be able to welcome them in the best possible conditions.”

Meanwhile, 35 percent of those surveyed who said they were “very worried about future generations” in terms of the climate crisis, the future of democracy and economic prospects want fewer children than other respondents – and almost half of respondents aged 25–39 reported being “very” worried.

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

On 26 May, the Heritage Foundation, the influential United States conservative think tank, chose Paris as its platform to speak to Europe.

Kevin Roberts, the foundation’s president, delivered a keynote address at a closed-door gathering of European nationalists and conservatives, stressing unity against “globalist institutions” and a desire for “sovereign cooperation” over centralised governance.

One day later, the US State Department’s Substack channel published an article by Samuel D. Samson, “Senior Advisor for the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor”, entitled The Need for Civilizational Allies in Europe. 

The article argues that the US–Europe alliance must be rooted in shared Western values such as natural law and national sovereignty. It warns that “rising censorship and political repression” in Europe risk “eroding democracy,” thus weakening this vital partnership.

For those tracking transatlantic conservative networks, this was just the latest sign of a deepening alliance.

In February, in Madrid, key members of the European Parliament’s far-right Patriots for Europe coalition, including Spain’s Vox party, the Netherlands’ PVV, France’s National Rally, and Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party, met to consolidate their agenda.

Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, took centre stage, urging “true Europeans” to reject the “Brussels elite” in favour of a new, sovereign-focused Union.

National Rally host far-right leaders at ‘Patriots for Europe’ event

Behind the scenes of these gatherings lie two quietly influential institutions: the Ordi Iuris Institute for Legal Culture in Poland, and the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) in Budapest.

Both are close collaborators of the Heritage Foundation, sharing strategy, ideology and, according to critics, a vision for dismantling liberal democratic safeguards in favour of nationalist governance.

These institutions are strongly inspired by Heritage’s “Presidential Transition Project 2025, a Mandate for Leadership” – a comprehensive blueprint for a second Trump presidency.

Can Europe withstand the ripple effect of the MAGA political wave?

The European outlets followed their own policy manifestos aimed at reshaping the European Union. They argue not for reform, but for a structural reinvention of the EU, one that re-empowers nation-states and neuters the authority of central bodies such as the European Commission.

“We diagnosed the European Union as a failed organisation,” said Zbigniew Przybylowski, development director at Ordo Iuris.

“It has promised to deliver number one status in economics … and it failed. This is not by accident, it is because of how the European Union functions, and we want to fix it,” he told RFI. 

That “fix” takes the form of a sweeping plan: eliminate the Commission, empower the European Council, and reframe Europe as a consortium of sovereign, competitive states – “a new beginning” according to Rodrigo Ballester of the MCC.

“You may say we want to create a ‘tabula rasa’,” he says. “We’ve presented this report in Washington, Madrid, Budapest and Brussels. And it hit a nerve, because it’s the first coherent alternative to the European consensus since Maastricht.

But critics see more than just policy realignments.

US Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, argues that Trump’s ideological ties to European strongmen reveal a deeper ambition: to emulate Orban’s “quasi-autocratic” model at home.

“It’s an open secret that Trump’s political infrastructure has been working with Viktor Orban’s political infrastructure and other enemies of democracy in and around Europe,” Murphy warned. “He’s copying what they have done.”

US – Europe partnership must remain strong, says visiting US Senator

And that influence goes both ways. According to Kenneth Haar, a campaigner with Corporate Europe Observatory: “The Heritage Foundation spearheaded Project 2025 to prepare the first 100 days of a Trump presidency. What we’re seeing in Europe now – joint reports, lobbying efforts in Brussels, an anti-centralisation crusade – you can trace it back to the same playbook.”

Indeed, Ordo Iuris organised a major international summit in Warsaw last autumn, bringing together conservative figures from across Europe and the United States. Heritage took a prominent seat.

“They have a choice of calling us Putin agents or Trump agents,” Przybylowski says. “But these carry no meaning. What we want is a discussion about our countries falling… We want to restore healthy competition and dismantle technocratic over-reach.”

While the goals may seem rooted in ideology, the tactics reveal a pragmatic, coalitionist approach.

MCC and Ordo Iuris both emphasise their preference for national sovereignty, democratic mandates, and “bottom-up” governance – and their hostility to what Przybylowski of Ordo Iuris describes as a “Soviet Union II”, referring to what they perceive as EU centralisation.

Trump says EU, Mexico to face 30 percent tariff from 1 August

Great Reset

In 2024, MCC and Ordo Iuris jointly published “The Great Reset“, a 41-page report calling for sweeping EU reforms to restore national sovereignty and curb Brussels’ power.

Alarmed by 267 proposed treaty amendments, the report advocates limiting EU competences, reinstating unanimity voting, elevating national leaders over supranational bodies and allowing member states greater autonomy through “à la carte integration”.

It proposes either a major institutional rebalancing or, failing that, the replacement of the EU with a looser alliance of nations. Critics argue the plan threatens democracy, minority rights and the stability of European integration. 

This overlapping of American and European radical-right networks raises concerns. “They are active players in everyday politics,” Haar told RFI. “They push anti-LGBT and anti-abortion sentiment not only in their own countries, but at the European level too.”

He added that Ordo Iuris was instrumental in limiting the right to abortion in Poland a few years ago. “They do that through work in the courts and they do that through political connections,” he said. 

Critics such as Haar fear that for these organisations, democracy is a means to power, not necessarily a principle.

As Murphy puts it: “Trump doesn’t want American democracy to persevere. He wants to transition America … and he’s learned from people like Viktor Orban and Erdogan who have engaged in that transition.”

Poland’s border clampdown highlights EU tensions as leaders gather in London

Yet MCC’s Ballester counters that his project is neither anti-European nor anti-democratic, but rather corrective. He sees Brussels as dominated by a “dogmatic” culture, resistant to criticism.

“Too many see the EU as a cult,” he said. “Any criticism is treated like blasphemy.”

Whether one views these initiatives as a long-overdue radical rethink or as a Trojan horse for democratic backsliding, it is clear that the MAGA movement’s nationalist template is being eagerly adopted and adapted across Europe.

The result could be a continent less interested in integration and more committed to divergence – one where the language of sovereignty increasingly trumps solidarity.

“I would like to praise the efforts of the US Department of State for helping to secure his freedom,” said Barrot on social media.

Hunter, 37, who works in finance in London, was taken into custody in January by Venezuelan security services while travelling along the border with Colombia.

He was freed as part of a deal which brought the release of 10 jailed US citizens and permanent residents in exchange for the return of scores of migrants deported by the US to El Salvador under the American administration’s immigration crackdown.

During her campaign to secure her brother’s release, Sophie Hunter told the French news agency AFP: “He hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s not a political activist and he has no military affiliations. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Three way deal

The three-country arrangement represents a diplomatic achievement for the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and helps President Donald Trump in his goal of bringing home Americans jailed abroad and lands Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele a swap that he proposed in April.

“Every wrongfully detained American in Venezuela is now free and back in our homeland,” said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Bukele said El Salvador had handed over all the Venezuelan nationals in its custody.

Venezuela has a history of detaining American citizens as apparent bargaining chips. Under the administration of Joe Biden, the US negotiated prisoner swaps to bring home a number of Americans who had been wrongfully held in Venezuela. US Special Envoy Ric Grenell travelled to Caracas in January to meet Maduro and secured the release of six Americans who were detained there.

India now has more than 600,000 French speakers, according to the International Organisation of Francophonie (OIF) and French is the most widely studied foreign language in the country. 

For Kannan, her love of the French language began at the Alliance Française of Madras in India, from the moment she had her first lesson at the age of 19.

“French is my love. It changed my life. It gave me my career,” she told RFI. 

She teaches masters students at the University of Madras who aspire to become French teachers or translators. like her.

“It’s often said in language learning that when you’re multilingual, with each language you speak you gain a new personality. And it’s true for me, in my mother tongue I’m not the same person. I’m more confident in French,” she says.

“And sharing this language and the culture that comes with it with my students, that’s my greatest joy.”

Will young people be the saviours of France’s endangered Breton language?

Use of AI

Kannan teaches literature, translation and theory and tries to make her classes as interactive as possible. 

“We use new technologies to create interactive exercises like crosswords or quizzes, or even an activity where you can match a word with its definition or with a sound.”

She also deploys artificial intelligence (AI) in her classes, saying: “It’s kind of like my teaching assistant.”

She uses it to create exercises, and also utilises AI-generated content – for example, a podcast that analyses the classic French novel The Red and the Black by Stendhal. 

“The question is whether AI can create a teaching guide as well as I can. Will I even have a job in the future?” she wonders, but concludes: “The teacher won’t be replaced by AI, but by a teacher who knows how to use AI. I’m still the one leading the class.”

The French-American duo reviving Louisiana’s francophone heritage

This report was adapted from the podcast Reportage France produced by Lucie Bouteloup.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was told Europe would reactivate UN sanctions if Tehran does not make progress on a deal by the end of August.

A “snapback” mechanism – which allows for the reimposition of all international sanctions against Iran – could be deployed, said the French Foreign Ministry.

“It could be used In the absence of concrete progress towards a deal on the nuclear programme by the end of the summer,” said a French Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

“Pressure is being applied to convince Iran of the urgency of returning to the diplomatic path without delay, in order to reach a robust, verifiable, and durable agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme.” the spokesperson added.

The state of Iran’s nuclear programme has come under intense scrutiny since Israeli and US strikes on Iranian military and nuclear facilities in June.

 A clause in Iran’s 2015 nuclear agreement says UN sanctions against Tehran can come back if the country fails to comply with the terms of the deal.

European diplomats want to make headway during the summer as the agreement is due to expire in October.

Rounds of negotiations

Since April, Iranian and American officials have held several rounds of negotiations through Omani mediators. On 13 June, Israel launched an attack on Iran. American forces also carried out  strikes on Iran.

Since the end of the hostilities on 24 June, both Iran and the US have signalled that they are willing to return to the negotiating able.

However, a sticking point remains. Tehran says it will not renounce its right to the peaceful use of nuclear power.

The American administration is opposed to Iran possessing the means to build a nuclear bomb.

Nigeria, who are seeking a 10th title since the competition moved into its present format in 1998, walloped Zambia 5-0.

Osinachi Ohale opened the scoring two minutes into the game at the Stade Larbi Zaouli in Casablanca. The 33-year-old defender rose over the Zambian defenders to head home Esther Okoronkwo’s free-kick.

Half an hour later, the provider finished off a flowing move with a composed strike.

Nigeria added a third just before the pause. Chinwendu Ihezuo pounced on a loose ball in the box to slot home.

Oluwatosin Demehin made it 4-0 mid way through the second-half and in stoppage-time, substitute Folashade Ijamilusi stabbed in the fifth.

Moroccans return to semi-finals

Morocco saw off Mali 3-1 in Rabat to reach the semis for the second consecutive tournament.

Ibtissam Jraidi struck Morocco’s first after seven minutes of play at the Stade Olympique in Rabat.

But the raucous partisans had to wait until late in the second-half before the game was secured. Jraidi scored her second goal of the night from the penalty spot after 79 minutes and 10 minutes later Kenza Chapelle added Morocco’s third.

With virtually the last kick of the game, Aissata Traoré converted a penalty to offer some consolation to the Malians who were appearing in the knockout stages for the first time since their run to the semis in 2018.

On Tuesday, Nigeria will play the winners of the game on Saturday night between the defending champions South Africa and Senegal.

Morocco will face either Algeria or Ghana who play on Saturday afternoon in Berkane.

One billion Africans are making their meals on open fires or with fuels that are jeopardising their health due to the pollution given off by the smoke.

Lifestyles are compromised too, says the report Universal Access to Clean Cooking in Africa, 

Gathering fuel for cooking

Across the continent women and girls spend on average four hours a day gathering fuel and cooking.

It often means missing out on school lessons or jobs. The lack of clean cooking facilities is also linked to the loss of 1.3 million hectares of forest each year.

“As geopolitical uncertainties dominate headlines and international cooperation is severely tested, lack of clean cooking access remains one of the great injustices in the world and a clear example of a cause all countries agree must be addressed,” said IEA boss Fatih Birol.

“Nowhere is it more visible than in Africa where one billion people still rely on open fires or basic stoves.”

The IEA’s report sets out via a country-by-country analysis on how 80 million people can gain clean cooking solutions each year.

It says LPG can provide access to clean cooking for more than 60 percent of newly connected households, with the rest gaining the chance for better standards through growing shares of electricity, bioethanol, biogas and advanced biomass cookstoves.

“Urban areas reach near-complete access by 2035 while rural access expands steadily through the 2030s,” says the report.

Using easily accessible materials such as wood, charcoal or dung contribute to more than 800,000 premature deaths each year.

As households clean up their cooking methods, fewer deaths would occur, says the report.

“The IEA’s new roadmap shows the far-reaching benefits of reaching universal access. Over 4.7 million premature deaths could be avoided cumulatively between now and 2040 in Africa. Women and girls could recover roughly two hours a day, freeing time for education and work.”

Energy-related emissions

The report acknowledges that the proposals will mean additional energy-related emissions from greater use of LPG and electricity.

“But these are dramatically outweighed by reductions in emissions from forest degradation and the incomplete combustion of wood-based fuels,” the report adds.

“As a result, 540 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions are avoided annually in 2040.”

Last year in Paris, the IEA hosted a summit on clean cooking in Africa. More than 2 billion euros was pledged from public and private sector organisations during the one-day meeting.

How the Tunisian sun is turning red algae into food industry gold

According to the report, more than 400 million euros of those grants have been used and 10 of the 12 African governments that took part in the summit have implemented new clean cooking policies.

“Tanzania was proud to co-host the IEA summit on clean cooking,” said Tanzania’s president Samia Suluhu Hassan.

“And we are already seeing the impact of our shared commitments. Clean cooking is not a luxury. It’s an issue that touches every family, every day. From rural villages to growing cities, Tanzania is introducing new policies that will support the most vulnerable in society.”

The IEA report says 31 billion euros will be needed in investment for Africa to have universal access to clean cooking by 2040.

The spending would include helping households to buy stoves, fuel cylinders and canisters. The cash would also establish viable fuel distribution networks, storage terminals and electricity grids.

French farmers contend with drop in demand for organic food

“Clean cooking is a fundamental need and a foundation for health, equality, and economic empowerment especially for women and girls across the continent,” said Lerato Mataboge, the African Union’s commissioner for infrastructure and energy.

“The African Union is proud to see growing momentum behind this issue, and we urge all partners to sustain their efforts.”

The agreement deepens law enforcement and defence ties, reflecting a shared resolve to confront pressing challenges, most notably organised crime and rising strategic threats.

A top priority for Starmer’s government is tackling the criminal gangs behind the dangerous small-boat crossings from France.

In 2024, authorities recorded approximately 37,000 people making the perilous journey across the English Channel, with more than 20,000 more in the first half of 2025.

Cross-Channel migrant crossings top 25,000 as UK government vows to ‘smash the gangs’

The new treaty builds on Germany’s pledge to criminalise the facilitation of such smuggling. Chancellor Merz has committed to enacting this legislation by year’s end, strengthening British and German efforts to disrupt criminal supply lines and save lives.

The treaty evolves from last year’s defence pact and marks a significant UK-German commitment to mutual defence, including a mutual assistance clause: should either nation face a direct threat, the other will provide support.

The agreement also paves the way for joint export campaigns for defence equipment such as Boxer armoured vehicles and Typhoon jets, alongside joint development of a next-generation precision strike missile. Bilateral investment deals are expected to further bind Europe’s two largest economies and major supporters of Ukraine.

France’s role

As the UK and Germany renew their partnership, France continues to assert an influential role in European defence. President Emmanuel Macron has consistently championed both French and European strategic autonomy—investing in independent intelligence, procurement, and operational capabilities.

France leads several ambitious multinational defence initiatives, emphasising the need for Europe to act independently where necessary and striving to reduce dependency on external powers.

France’s Macron calls for major hike in defence spending, citing Russia threat

Recently, Macron has called on partners to develop a “credible strategic concept” for Europe’s security, aligned with NATO but enabling Europeans to take the lead in their defence when required. Notably, France’s nuclear deterrent forms a crucial cornerstone of the continent’s security architecture.

In response to rapidly evolving threats, Macron has unveiled an unprecedented acceleration in French defence spending.

The French military budget is set to double compared to 2017 levels, reaching €64 billion by 2027 – three years ahead of schedule.

This “historic and proportionate” effort positions France as a leading European military power, underlining its commitment to robust, modernised armed forces and domestic defence industry growth.

Macron has promised the rearmament will not be financed by increasing national debt, highlighting both the necessity and sustainability of the investment.

(with newswires)

Israel authorities said a stray missile struck the Holy Family Church on Thursday during a raid.

The Catholic charity Caritas Jerusalem said the parish’s 60-year-old janitor and an 84-year-old woman were killed in the attack. The parish priest Gabriel Romanelli was slightly wounded.

“I firmly condemn the strike,” said Macron. “I pledge France’s solidarity with all the Christians in Palestine who, from Gaza to Taybeh, are under threat today.”

Giorgia Meloni, the Italian premier, said: “The attacks on the civilian population that Israel has been demonstrating for months are unacceptable.”

Pope Leo XIV expressed his deep sadness and called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

In a telegram of condolences for the victims, Leo expressed his profound hope for dialogue, reconciliation and enduring peace in the region.

The pope said he was deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life and injury caused by the military attack.

The American president, Donald Trump, called the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express his frustration over the strike on the church, the White House said.

Netanyahu later released a statement admitted a mistake. 

“Israel deeply regrets that a stray shot hit the Church of the Holy Family in Gaza. Every innocent life lost is a tragedy,” said Netanyahu. “We share the pain of the families and the faithful.”

Earlier, Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. described the bombing as unacceptable. “I expressed our country’s emotion and solidarity to the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem,” Barrot said. “These attacks are intolerable, and it is time for the carnage in Gaza to stop.

Mgr Pascal Gollnisch, director general of Œuvre d’Orient, a French association working with Christians in the East, told the French news agency AFP: “One wonders whether Israel has a grudge against Christian communities. The bombing of a place of worship is totally unacceptable.”

Displaced seeking refuge in church

More than 600 people displaced by the war had taken refuge in the only Catholic parish in the Gaza Strip.

Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, used to call Romanelli regularly to be kept informed of the situation in the city.

Israel, which has been at war with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas since 7 October 2023, initially stated that it would never target religious sites in the Gaza Strip.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which also has a church in Gaza that has been hit during Israeli strikes, said in a statement: “Targeting a holy site is a blatant affront to human dignity and a grave violation of the sanctity of life and the inviolability of religious sites, which are meant to serve as safe havens during times of war.”

Amsterdam-based street artist Judith de Leeuw described her giant work in the northern French town of Roubaix, which has a large immigrant community, as “a quiet reminder of what freedom should be.”

She said “freedom feels out of reach” for migrants and “those pushed to the margins, silenced, or unseen.”

Explaining what she was aiming to achieve, she wrote on a post on Facebook on 4 Jul on Facebook: “I painted her covering her eyes because the weight of the world has become too heavy to witness. What was once a shining symbol of liberty now carries the sorrow of lost meaning.”

Her depiction of the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the French people in the late 1800s, has inspired some sharp criticism.

How Gustave Eiffel’s Statue of Liberty contribution cemented France-US relations

Tim Burchett, a Republican lawmaker from Tennessee, wrote in an angry post on X that the work “disgusts me.” He said he had an uncle who fought and died in France, where US forces saw combat in both World War I and World War II.

“I’m not offended to be hated by the Donald Trump movement. I am not sorry. This is the right thing to do,” she said.

‘Political message’

The town stood by the work, with its deputy mayor in charge of cultural affairs, Frédéric Lefebvre, telling broadcaster France 3 that “it’s a very strong and powerful political message.”

Since returning to the White House amid anti-immigration sentiment, Trump has launched an unprecedented campaign that has pushed the limits of executive power and clashed with federal judges trying to restrain him.

People from various countries have been deported to remote and unrelated places like South Sudan and the small African nation of Eswatini.

Polling by Gallup released last week showed an increasing number of Americans who said immigration is a “good thing” and decreasing support for the type of mass deportations Trump has championed since before he was elected.

Fear in US border city as Trump launches immigration overhaul

The mural in Roubaix is part of an urban street culture event – the URBX festival – backed by the town. Roubaix is one of the poorest towns in France. It was economically devastated by the collapse since the 1970s of its once-flourishing textile industry that used to attract migrant workers from elsewhere in Europe, north Africa and beyond.

(with newswires, AP)

Abdallah, aged 74, is one of the longest-serving inmates in the French penal system, where the majority of life-sentenced prisoners are typically released after serving fewer than 30 years.

He has been eligible for release for a quarter of a century, yet the United States – recognised as a civil party in the case—has persistently objected to his release.

Abdallah was arrested in 1984 and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for his role in the assassinations of US military attaché Charles Robert Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov in Paris.

A Lebanese national of Maronite Christian background, Abdallah has always maintained that he is a “resistance fighter” who campaigned for Palestinian rights, rather than a “criminal”.

Georges Abdallah: The Lebanese activist France has held for over 40 years

 Release and deportation

On Thursday, the Paris Court of Appeal ruled that Abdallah is to be released from a prison facility in southern France on Friday, 25 July, under the condition that he be deported from French territory and never permitted to return.

The court deemed the length of his imprisonment “disproportionate” and stated that Abdallah no longer posed a threat to public safety.

According to several sources, plans are in place to transport Abdallah to Paris and subsequently to Beirut following his release.

Although prosecutors may appeal to the Court of Cassation, France’s highest court, it is considered unlikely that such an appeal would be processed in time to delay his departure next week.

French court rules Lebanese left-winger Abdallah must stay in jail

Long-awaited decision

Speaking to AFP from Lebanon, Abdallah’s brother, Robert Abdallah, expressed profound relief.

“We are absolutely delighted. I never thought the French judiciary would take such a step or that he would ever be released, particularly after so many unsuccessful requests,” he said.

“For once, the French authorities have resisted Israeli and American pressure,” he added.

The Lebanese government has consistently advocated for Abdallah’s release and formally assured the appeals court of its readiness to facilitate his repatriation.

Abdallah’s solicitor, Jean-Louis Chalanset, also welcomed the ruling, describing it as “a political scandal that he was not released sooner”.

Symbol of a bygone era

In November of last year, a French court had already ruled in favour of his conditional release, requiring Abdallah to leave French soil.

However, this decision was suspended after the anti-terror prosecution appealed, citing concerns that Abdallah had not renounced his political beliefs.

A ruling was initially expected in February, but the court deferred its decision, citing uncertainty over whether Abdallah had provided proof of compensation payments to the plaintiffs—a point he has repeatedly declined to address.

Last month, the Paris appeals court re-examined the matter during a closed hearing.

According to multiple sources cited by French news agency AFP, Abdallah’s legal team informed the court that €16,000 had been deposited in his prison bank account, and those funds were available to the civil parties involved, including the United States.

Trial of 1980 Paris synagogue bombing opens without sole suspect

Abdallah, who is originally from northern Lebanon, was injured as a teenager during the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in 1978, during the early years of the country’s civil war.

He later founded the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF), a Marxist, pro-Syrian and anti-Israeli group that has since disbanded.

Following his arrest in 1984, French authorities discovered submachine guns and communication equipment in one of his Paris residences.

Nevertheless, in February, the appeals court noted that the LARF had not been linked to any violent activity since 1984, and that Abdallah “today represents a historical symbol of the Palestinian cause”.

Lebanon is host to tens of thousands of Palestinians, according to United Nations figures—many of whom are descendants of those displaced during the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

Family and friends of Lennart Monterlos said in a statement sent to French news agency AFP they had not received any explanation for his arrest since he disappeared in Iran on June 16, several days into unprecedented Israeli air strikes on Iran.

A month later, “we have no official information about either the place of his detention or the reasons for his arrest in Bandar-Abbas, Iran, during the war”, they said.

“We count on the efforts of French diplomats, who we know to be mobilised, for the swift release of our very young son, who is innocent of everything,” they added.

“We ask the Iranian authorities who are holding him for a sign of life and to be able to get in touch with him as soon as possible.”

Iran confirms arrest of missing French-German teenage cyclist

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told French newspaper Le Monde last week that Tehran had detained the young man.

Charges of spying

The French foreign ministry has told AFP it was in contact with Iranian authorities about the case.

Two other French nationals, academics Cecile Kohler, 40, and Jacques Paris, 72, are also being held on charges of spying for Israel and could face the death penalty.

They were detained on May 7, 2022.

Iran is believed to hold about 20 Europeans in detention.

Along with other European countries, France suspects Iran of taking Western citizens hostage to trade their freedom for concessions, notably on its nuclear plans and the lifting of economic sanctions on the Islamic republic.

France and a number of other countries have urged their nationals not to go to Iran because of the risk of detention.

A ceasefire between Iran and Israel has been in place since June 24.

(With newswires)

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.

The ePOP video competition is open!

The ePOP video competition is sponsored by the RFI department “Planète Radio”, whose mission is to give a voice to the voiceless. ePOP focuses on the environment and how climate change has affected “ordinary” people.

The ePOP contest is your space to ensure these voices are heard. 

How do you do it?

With a three-minute ePOP video. It should be pure testimony, captured by your lens: the spoken word reigns supreme. No tricks, no music, no text on the screen. Just the raw authenticity of an encounter, in horizontal format (16:9). An ePOP film is a razor-sharp look at humanity that challenges, moves, and enlightens.

From June 12 to September 12, 2025, ePOP invites you to reach out, open your eyes, and create that unique bridge between a person and the world.

Join the ePOP community and make reality vibrate!

Click here for all the information you need. 

We expect to be overwhelmed with entries from the English speakers!

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. 

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 21 June, I asked you a question about our article “Togo suspends French broadcasters RFI, France 24 for three months”. We were informed on June 16th.

Togo has accused us of biased and inaccurate reporting.

The shutdown followed protests in the country’s capital, Lomé, in early June.

You were to send in the answers to these two questions: What is the name of Togo’s president, and what is the reason for the protests?

The answers are: The name of Togo’s president is Faure Gnassingbé. The reason for the protests is due to, to quote the RFI English article:  “… increasing pressure from critics over recent changes in the constitution that could effectively keep Gnassingbé in power indefinitely. Critics have called the changes a constitutional coup.”

Faure Gnassingbé was elected in 2005. He’s the son of Gnassingbé Eyadéma, who was president for 38 years. At the time of his death, Gnassingbé Eyadéma was the longest-serving leader in modern African history.

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question: “Have you ever made a mistake that ended up saving you?” It was suggested by Jayanta Chakrabarty from New Delhi, India.

Do you have a bonus question idea? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

The winners are: Sultan Mahmud Sarker, the president of the Shetu RFI Fan Club in Naogaon, Bangladesh. Sultan is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations, Sultan, on your double win.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Ferhat Bezazel, the president of the RFI Butterflies Club Ain Kechara in West Skikda, Algeria, and RFI Listeners Club members Rubi Saikia from Assam, India, as well as Nasyr Muhammad from Katsina State, Nigeria. Last but not least, there’s RFI English listener Kalyani Basak from Kerala State, India.

Congratulations, winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: “Raga Charu Keshi” played by Ravi Shankar; traditional music from Togo performed by the Flutistes Kotokoli; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and the Quartet in F major by Maurice Ravel, performed by the  Alban Berg Quartet.  

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, watch the video and re-read Dhananjay Khadilikar’s article “Swiss exoplanet pioneer reflects on Earth’s place in the cosmos”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 22 September to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 27 September 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.   

Christensen, who was 13 years old at the time of the sinking, remembers being inspired by the courage of the crew, who sailed into danger to protest French nuclear testing in the Pacific.

The bombing, which killed photographer Fernando Pereira, revealed the extreme lengths to which governments were willing to go to protect their interests – and the power of peaceful resistance in the face of aggression.

You still can’t sink a rainbow, Greenpeace boss says 40 years after bombing

The slogan “you can’t sink a rainbow” became a symbol of defiance and resilience for Greenpeace.

Christensen argues that the bombing ultimately gave the movement greater momentum and visibility, proving that when governments attempt to crush protest they often strengthen it instead.

Today, Greenpeace faces new threats – from SLAPP suits to fossil fuel giants using legal action to intimidate activists. But just as in 1985, Christensen says Greenpeace will not be silenced.

The Rainbow Warrior’s legacy lives on in every campaign, every act of mobilisation and every young activist who refuses to look the other way.

Forty years after the Rainbow Warrior bombing, activists still under attack

Thousands marched through the streets of the Mediterranean city of Adana in protest at the arrest of its mayor on alleged corruption charges. The mayors of Antalya and Adiyaman have also been detained on similar charges. More than a dozen mayors of Turkey’s main opposition CHP have now been jailed.

The legal crackdown began in March with the jailing of Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, and on Wednesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed there would be no letting up.

“We launched an investigation into the largest theft ring in the history of the Republic, the most reckless organised crime organisation ever,” Erdogan told his parliamentary deputies.

“Those who took bribes, those who practically held cities under extortion, those who put people in a difficult situation and then robbed them were all CHP people,” he continued.

A battle for survival 

Erdogan further ratcheted up the pressure on the CHP with a presidential motion calling for the lifting of parliamentary immunity from 61 out of CHP’s 121 deputies.

CHP leader Ozgur Ozel is also under investigation for allegedly inciting public hatred and insulting the president.

Ozel is at the forefront of leading anti-government protests across the country, which continue to attract large crowds as the party builds a significant lead in opinion polls over Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The CHP claims their growing success is what is motivating the recent prosecutions, rather than corruption. “These are politically driven arrests and investigations,” declared party spokesman Ilhan Uzgel. “Not a single government party mayor is even investigated.”

Uzgel admits that with more than 500 of its officials having been arrested, the party is facing a battle for survival. “The government has all the instruments of the state. They control the judiciary, they control the police force etc etc. So it’s very difficult to stop it.”

Despite mounting pressure, however, Uzgel insists they will not back down.

“We are organising rallies twice a week, our leader is very energetic. He [Ozel]… said we are not going to back down. The government, they don’t want the opposition party to challenge Erdogan’s authority. This is the core of the issue right now.”

Turkey walks a fine line as conflict between Israel and Iran cools

Broadcasting bans

However, the political noose around the neck of the CHP continues to tighten. This week, the opposition Sozcu TV station was banned for 10 days by regulatory authorities for “inciting public hatred” after broadcasting protests against the jailing of the Istanbul mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu.

Another opposition TV station, Halk, is facing a similar ban. The two are among the few media outlets that continue to report on the ongoing CHP protests against the waves of arrests.

The broadcast bans are being seen as a sign that the days of critical media could be numbered.

“I believe by the end of this year we might be hearing of the start of the liquidation of critical TV channels,” claims Erol Onderoglu, Istanbul representative of the Paris-based NGO Reporters Without Borders.

Fears are growing too that the threat against independent media is part of a much more worrying process of the dismantling of the pillars of democracy.

Turkey steps into EU defence plans as bloc eyes independence from US

Opinion polls

However, the government appears to be losing the battle for people’s minds, with several opinion polls reporting that more than 60 percent of people polled believe the legal crackdown on CHP is politically motivated.

Anger against the government also continues to grow over 40 percent inflation.

Sezin Oney, an analyst for the independent Poltiyol news outlet, fears a political showdown is looming. “Turkish democracy is on its deathbed, actually. Erdogan envisions a political stage where we don’t have a really challenging opposition. [Arrests] will escalate and escalate. They will go as far as they can until they reach their target.”

While Erdogan remains in a strong position, the opposition is still a threat to the president. “He does have most of the cards,” said Oney, “but he doesn’t have the support of the public in general. So, at the end of the day, at one point it will be the people versus Erdogan.”

“What matters is where the security forces stand,” he added, “When it comes to a point when the people take to the streets en masse, will the security bureaucracy go against their own people?”

Neither the CHP nor Erdogan are showing any signs of capitulating, with protests expected to continue and likely to intensify in September, coinciding with the reopening of universities and the return of people from summer holidays. Court cases against the CHP are also scheduled to resume then.

With both sides insisting they are fighting for the future of their country, it could well be a fight that leaves only one side standing.

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.

The ePOP video competition is open!

The ePOP video competition is sponsored by the RFI department “Planète Radio”, whose mission is to give a voice to the voiceless. ePOP focuses on the environment and how climate change has affected “ordinary” people.

The ePOP contest is your space to ensure these voices are heard. 

How do you do it?

With a three-minute ePOP video. It should be pure testimony, captured by your lens: the spoken word reigns supreme. No tricks, no music, no text on the screen. Just the raw authenticity of an encounter, in horizontal format (16:9). An ePOP film is a razor-sharp look at humanity that challenges, moves, and enlightens.

From June 12 to September 12, 2025, ePOP invites you to reach out, open your eyes, and create that unique bridge between a person and the world.

Join the ePOP community and make reality vibrate!

Click here for all the information you need. 

We expect to be bombarded with entries from the English speakers!

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. 

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 14 June, I asked you a question about the 2025 One Ocean Summit, which was held in the French city of Nice. There was very good news on the opening day: French Polynesia’s President Moetai Brotherson announced that his country is on track to create the world’s largest marine protected area.

You were to re-read our article “French Polynesia unveils world’s largest marine protected zone”, and send in the answer to this question: What is the size of France’s maritime domain?

The answer is: 11 million square kilometers. As noted in our article: “Polynesia’s announcement alone allows France, whose maritime domain covers 11 million square kilometers, to increase the proportion of its waters under protection to 78 percent, a broad term that includes areas where activity restrictions are minimal.

Of this area, 14.8 percent is now considered highly protected, compared to 4.8 percent before Polynesia’s announcement.

Just eight percent of global oceans are designated for marine conservation, despite a globally agreed target to achieve 30 percent coverage by 2030.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question: “Which season of the year do you like the most, and why?” The question was suggested by Rafiq Khondaker.

Do you have a bonus question idea? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

The winners are: Saleem Akhtar, the president of the RFI Seven Stars Radio Club in District Chiniot, Pakistan. Saleem is also this week’s bonus question winner. Congratulations, Saleem, on your double win.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week is RFI Listeners Club member Sahadot Hossain, who, as an Assistant Professor of Geography and Environment at the Gurudayal Government College in Kishoreganj, Bangladesh, can probably recite every country’s maritime domain in his sleep! There are two more RFI Club members on the list this week, and they’re both from Assam, India: Deekay Dimple and Karobi Hazarika. Last but assuredly not least, there’s RFI English listener Lata Yeasmin Jahan, the co-chairwoman of the Sonali Badhan Female Listeners Club in Bogura, Bangladesh.

Congratulations, winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: “Dawganova”  by David Grisman, played by the David Grisman Quintet; “Le coucou” by Louis-Claude Daquin, performed by Ruth Laredo; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “Scar Tissue”, written by Anthony Kiedis, Flea, John Frusciante, and Chad Smith, and performed by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.  

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 “Seven Nobel laureates urge France to adopt tax on ‘ultra-rich’”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 25 AUGUST (yep, summer vacation is coming up!) to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 30 August 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.   

This week, we begin in Harlem, New York City, USA, with Rico Speight, a film and theatre director.

His film, Rediscovering Fanon, was screened in Paris on 5 July in partnership with the Frantz-Fanon Foundation, as this year marks the centenary of one of the inspirational figures of the anti-colonial movement. The film will also be screened acorss France and in Martinque later in the year.

According to Speight, Frantz Omar Fanon (1925–1961), whose ideas have stirred the hearts of progressives since the 1950s, continues to inspire even decades after his death.

With Speight’s latest documentary, the filmmaker said he “aims to reveal the man behind the legend and analyse the relevance of his prolific theories in a globalised, post-racial millennium.”

Biopic explores the life and legacy of Frantz Fanon, a century after his birth

We also head to Unesco in Paris, where Spotlight on Africa spoke to Caroline Munier about the UN agency’s new report on the state of the publishing industry on the African continent. 

Episode mixed by Melissa Chemam and Erwan Rome.

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

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s hosting of Pashinyan in Istanbul last month represents a notable diplomatic effort to normalise relations. Ankara had severed diplomatic ties and closed its border with Armenia in 1993 following the war between Armenia and Turkey’s close ally, Azerbaijan, over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.

However, Pashinyan’s Istanbul visit is being hailed as groundbreaking. “I believe it was very significant for several reasons. It was the first bilateral diplomatic summit between the Turkish and Armenian leaders,” explains Richard Giragosian, Director of the Regional Studies Centre, a Yerevan-based think tank.

Until now, interactions between the two leaders had been limited to multilateral engagements—such as Erdoğan’s inauguration and meetings on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. But Giragosian argues that the Istanbul meeting carries deeper significance.

“This is the first bilateral invitation from Turkey to the Armenian leader. That reflects a second important development: Turkey is seeking to regain its options with Armenia,” observes Giragosian.

Armenia looks to reopen border with Turkey as potential gateway to the West

Zangezur corridor at centre

One of the key issues discussed was the creation of a land bridge through Armenia to connect Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan exclave, which borders Turkey. Known as the Zangezur Corridor, this project is a strategic priority for Ankara. It would not only link Turkey directly to its key ally and vital trade partner Azerbaijan, but also open a new route for Turkish goods to Central Asia.

“It is especially important now from an economic standpoint,” notes international relations professor Hüseyin Bağcı of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University.

Pashinyan’s visit is seen as part of a broader Turkish diplomatic push to secure regional support for the Zangezur Corridor. “This is why Prime Minister Pashinyan came to Turkey,” says Bağcı, who suggests Erdoğan is attempting to counter Iranian resistance. “The Zangezur Corridor should not be held hostage by Iranian opposition. It shouldn’t be conditional on Iran’s stance,” he adds.

Iran, Armenia’s powerful neighbour, strongly opposes the corridor. Currently, Turkish goods must transit through Iran to reach Central Asia—giving Tehran significant leverage. Iran has often restricted this trade during periods of diplomatic tension with Ankara. More critically, Tehran fears the proposed 40-kilometre corridor would cut off a vital route it uses to bypass international sanctions.

Despite Turkish diplomatic efforts, Iran remains firmly opposed. “Nothing has changed in Tehran’s position regarding the Zangezur Corridor. Iran is still against the project,” warns Prof Dr Zaur Gasimov of the German Academic Exchange Service.

Growing military buildup in Azerbaijan and Armenia a concern for peace talks

Gasimov notes, however, that recent geopolitical developments—particularly Israel’s ongoing conflict with Iran—have shifted the regional balance in Ankara’s favour. “As of July 2025, Iran’s diplomatic, political, and military capabilities are far more constrained than they were just a few years ago, due to Israel-led and US-led operations,” says Gasimov. “In both military and political terms, Iran is now significantly limited.”

Yet Azerbaijan’s insistence that the Zangezur Corridor operate independently of Armenian control remains a major sticking point for Yerevan, says Giragosian. Still, he believes the broader aim of establishing a new trade route—combined with Turkey’s willingness to reopen its border—offers the region both economic incentives and a path towards stability through mutual dependence.

“The reopening of closed borders, and the creation of trade and transport links, reshapes strategic thinking. It makes any renewal of hostilities far more costly,” says Giragosian.

“In this context, it lifts all boats. It’s a win-win for everyone,” he continues. “And I do think the real sticking point now will be Russia’s reaction, more than any resistance from Turkey, Armenia, or Azerbaijan.”

Russia and Iran push back

Initially, Moscow supported the Zangezur Corridor, particularly since Russian personnel were envisioned to administer it under the original proposals. But Gasimov notes that Russia’s enthusiasm has cooled as it grows increasingly wary of Turkey’s expanding influence in a region it still considers part of its traditional sphere.

“Moscow is very concerned about Ankara–Yerevan relations. Turkey, after all, is a NATO member—even if Russia cooperates with it in several areas,” says Gasimov.

France pushes for peace in the Caucasus amid heat over Iran detainees

Despite being heavily engaged in its war in Ukraine, Gasimov suggests Russia still has leverage in the South Caucasus

“After three years of war and sweeping sanctions, Russia’s capabilities in the region are diminished. But it continues to try to assert itself—by intimidating vulnerable regional economies and exploiting internal political instability, as it did in Armenia just two weeks ago,” says Gasimov.

Last month, Armenian security forces arrested several opposition figures, claiming to have foiled a coup attempt.

As Moscow remains bogged down in Ukraine, Yerevan may have only a limited window of opportunity to capitalise on Russia’s distraction and weakness. “We do see a storm on the horizon,” warns Giragosian. “With an angry and vengeful Putin lashing out at Russia’s neighbours, he’s seeking to reassert Russian power and influence across the near abroad—from Central Asia to the South Caucasus.”

Armenia reconsiders alliances

Giragosian argues that such threats could be the catalyst for historic diplomatic realignments. “From an Armenian perspective, it’s deeply ironic. For decades, Armenia feared Turkey and turned to Russia for protection. Now, Armenia is looking to Turkey for a greater role—and seeking to distance itself from the Russian orbit.”

Pashinyan has made no secret of his intent to pivot Armenia away from Russia and towards Europe. But with neighbouring Georgia increasingly under Moscow’s sway, and with Iran and Azerbaijan offering few viable alternatives, Turkey may now represent Armenia’s best chance to achieve that strategic realignment.

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.