Macron announced the deployment on Thursday, saying the jets would help defend Europe’s eastern flank alongside NATO allies.

“Following Russian drone incursions into Poland, I have decided to deploy three Rafale fighter jets to help protect Polish airspace and Europe’s eastern flank alongside our NATO allies,” Macron said on social media platform X.

“I made this commitment yesterday to the Polish prime minister. I also discussed this matter with the NATO secretary general and the British prime minister, who is also involved in protecting the eastern flank. We will not give in to Russia’s increasing intimidation.”

Poland calls NATO talks after downing Russian drones in airspace breach

France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot on Friday said that Russia’s firing of drones over Poland was “absolutely unacceptable”, adding that the Russian ambassador would be summoned over the incident.

“We will tell him that we will not be intimidated… Whether intentional or not, whether accidental or not, this is very serious, this is absolutely unacceptable,” Barrot told France Inter radio.

‘Unprecedented’ attack

On Wednesday, Poland called urgent NATO talks after saying Russian drones crossed its airspace during an attack on Ukraine.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Polish airspace had been violated 19 times and at least three drones were shot down after jets were scrambled. He described the breach as an “unprecedented” attack on Poland, NATO and the European Union.

Moscow denied responsibility and said there was no evidence the drones were Russian.

US President Donald Trump, who has sought to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine, told reporters on Thursday the incident may have been a “mistake”.

NATO countries raise spending as Germany expands weapons output

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer earlier Thursday discussed the drone incident with Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, his office said.

“In both calls, the leaders condemned the shocking Russian violation of NATO and Poland’s airspace,” a Downing Street spokesperson said.

“Discussing how the UK and France could bolster Poland’s defences, the prime minister said the UK stood ready to support any further NATO deployments to the region.”

Germany said it would “extend and expand” its participation in NATO’s Air Policing programme. The defence ministry said it would double the number of Eurofighter jets deployed to four and keep them in place until the end of the year.

The UN Security Council will meet on Friday after Slovenia, Denmark, Greece, France and Britain requested talks on the drone incident.

(with newswires)

The five-day Zapad 2025 manoeuvres begin on Friday across Belarusian territory. They are officially described as defensive drills to safeguard the Russia-Belarus Union State.

Belarus insists the exercises are routine and preventative. Defence official Valery Revenko said Zapad 2025 is designed to “check the readiness of both states to repel potential aggression” and stressed that Minsk is pursuing “a peaceful policy”.

But NATO countries are unconvinced.

With Russian and Belarusian troops training close to Poland and Lithuania – both NATO members – officials fear a miscalculation on Europe’s fault line.

Germany has been particularly outspoken. General Carsten Breuer, the German Armed Forces chief, confirmed NATO units would stay on heightened alert during Zapad.

While he admitted there was no intelligence pointing to an imminent attack disguised within the drills, he stressed caution.

“We want deterrence, not escalation,” Breuer told journalists in Berlin. “But we would be naïve to assume President Putin’s ambitions stop at Ukraine.”

Airspace breach

Those concerns were sharpened this week after at least 19 drones believed to be Russian entered Polish airspace, some via Belarus. One drone strike caused minor damage to a house in the Lublin region.

Poland scrambled fighter jets and closed parts of its civilian airspace. The government also invoked Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, triggering consultations with allies.

Analysts said the incursion may have been a test of NATO’s readiness ahead of Zapad 2025.

Poland calls NATO talks after downing Russian drones in airspace breach

At the same time, Berlin launched its own NATO exercise, Northern Coasts, which began on 29 August and ended on Thursday.

Around 8,000 troops from 14 nations, backed by 40 warships, 30 aircraft and 1,800 vehicles, are training across the Baltic Sea region.

Military planners concede that parallel exercises always carry some risk, especially so close to NATO’s eastern frontier. But Northern Coasts and Zapad 2025 are not scheduled at the same time.

NATO headquarters said this week it would “closely monitor” Zapad 2025 and has deployed additional surveillance planes and drones to Poland and the Baltic states.

Lithuania’s president Gitanas Nauseda called the drills “a deliberate show of intimidation” and confirmed his country had stepped up border patrols.

Poland also announced that extra units had been deployed along its Belarus frontier.

Moscow dismissed the concerns as “hysteria” and insisted the exercises were routine.

NATO backs defence hike as Trump claims victory, but doubts linger

French hospitals on alert

France has taken a different approach.

Documents uncovered by Le Canard Enchaîné on 26 August show Paris has ordered hospitals nationwide to prepare for the arrival of thousands of wounded soldiers by March 2026.

The Ministry of Health directive, issued in July, sets out plans for France to serve as Europe’s medical rear base. Hospitals must be ready to treat large numbers of casualties if conflict spreads.

The instructions call for new military-dedicated hospital wings near ports and airports, stockpiling of supplies, and training of staff in war medicine and trauma psychology.

Officials estimate between 10,000 and 50,000 casualties could need treatment within weeks of a conflict, requiring rapid medical evacuation through French infrastructure.

Health Minister Catherine Vautrin told BFMTV the preparations are about foresight, not panic. “Hospitals prepare for epidemics and natural disasters,” she said. “In the current climate, preparing for conflict is part of our responsibility.”

The same unease is felt at NATO headquarters. Secretary-General Mark Rutte has warned of the danger of simultaneous crises – a Russian attack on NATO and Chinese aggression against Taiwan.

He said such a scenario could bring the world to the brink of global war and urged allies to boost defence spending and weapons production.

French President Emmanuel Macron is pushing for the creation of a military force to secure any peace deal made between Russia and Ukraine.

Turkey, which boasts NATO’s second-largest army, is seen as a key player in any such move – especially given that Washington has ruled out sending US troops.

For its part, Ankara has said it is open to joining a peacekeeping mission.

“Macron finally came to terms [with the fact] that Turkey is an important player, with or without the peace deal. Turkey will have an important role to play in the Black Sea and in the Caucasus,” said Serhat Guvenc, professor of international relations at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.

Macron last month held a lengthy phone call with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, focused on the Ukraine conflict, and thanked him for his diplomatic efforts to end the war.

Turkey eyes Ukraine peacekeeping role but mistrust clouds Western ties

Turning point

For Professor Federico Donelli of Trieste University, this marks a dramatic turnaround. Previously, the two leaders have frequently exchanged sharp words, especially over Turkey’s rising influence in West Africa and the Sahel.

“In Paris, public opinion and the press criticised this move by Turkey a lot,” said Donelli. “At the same time, the rhetoric of some Turkish officers, including President Erdogan, was strongly anti-French. They were talking a lot about the neocolonialism of France and so on.”

Donelli added that cooperation over Ukraine has pushed France to reconsider its Africa stance.

“As a consequence of Ukraine, the position of France has changed, and they are now more open to cooperating with Turkey. And they [understand] that in some areas, like the Western Sahel, Turkey is better than Russia, better than China,” he said.

Analysts also see new openings in the Caucasus. A peace agreement signed in August between Azerbaijan, which was backed by Turkey, and Armenia, which was supported by France, could provide further common ground.

Macron last month reportedly pressed Erdogan to reopen Turkey’s border with Armenia, which has been closed since 1993. Turkish and Armenian officials met on the countries’ border on Thursday to discuss the normalisation of relations.

Turkey walks a tightrope as Trump threatens sanctions over Russian trade

‘Pragmatic cooperation’

But clear differences remain, especially when it comes to Syria. The rise to power of Turkish-backed President Ahmed al-Sharaa is seen as undermining any French role there.

“For Erdogan, the victory of al-Sharaa in Damascus on 24 December is the revenge of the Ottoman Empire, and Ankara doesn’t want to see the French come back to Syria,” said Fabrice Balanche, a professor of international relations at Lyon University.

Balanche argued that France is losing ground to Turkey across the region.

“It’s not just in Syria, but also in Lebanon – the Turks are very involved, and in Iraq, too. We [the French] are in competition with the Turks. They want to expel France from the Near East,” he said.

Despite this rivalry, Guvenc predicted cooperation will continue where interests align.

“In functional terms, Turkey’s contributions are discussed, and they will do business, but it’s going to be transactional and pragmatic cooperation, nothing beyond that,” he said.

One such area could be the Palestinian territories. Both Macron and Erdogan support recognition of a Palestinian state and are expected to raise the issue at this month’s United Nations General Assembly.

For now, shared interests are likely to outweigh differences – even if only temporarily.

A fragile power-sharing agreement between President Salva Kiir and Machar has been unravelling for months in the world’s youngest country.

In early March, a militia from Machar’s ethnic Nuer community known as the White Army attacked a military base in Nasir County, Upper Nile State in the northeast of the country.

The government says Machar was responsible and has now charged him and 20 others with murder, conspiracy, terrorism, treason, destruction of public property and crimes against humanity.

“These crimes were marked by gross violations of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, including the desecration of corpses, persecution of civilians, and attacks on humanitarian workers,” Justice Minister Joseph Geng Akech said, according to a read-out provided to reporters in Juba.

South Sudan risks return to war after opposition leader’s arrest, UN warns

Kiir soon after issued a presidential decree stripping Machar of his government position, along with another co-accused, petroleum minister Puot Kang Choi, according to a statement on state television.

The military base in Nasir was overrun by the White Army between 3 – 7 March.

Several senior officers including a general died and a United Nations helicopter came under fire while attempting to rescue soldiers at the base, leading to the death of a pilot.

‘Alarming regression’

“This case sends a clear message: those who commit atrocities against the people of South Sudan, against our armed forces, and against humanitarian personnel will be held accountable, no matter their position or political influence,” the minister said in the statement.

The UN, which operates a major peace-building mission in South Sudan, said at the time that the country was “witnessing an alarming regression that could erase years of hard-won progress”.

Kiir had already been moving for months to consolidate power and sideline Machar, who was placed under house arrest a few weeks after the attack, while many of his allies have also been detained.

UN Security Council extends South Sudan arms embargo

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 but was quickly plunged into a devastating five-year civil war between Kiir and Machar that left some 400,000 dead.

The war ended with a power-sharing agreement in 2018 but attempts by the international community to ensure a democratic transition have failed.

Elections that were due to take place in December 2024 were once again postponed for two years.

South Sudan has also made headlines after the United States deported eight convicted criminals to the country in July, only one of whom was South Sudanese.

(with AFP)

Mahama said 14 deportees – among them Nigerians and one Gambian – had arrived in Ghana before being sent on to their home countries.

“We were approached by the US to accept third-party nationals who were being removed from the US and we agreed with them that West African nationals were acceptable because all our fellow West Africans don’t need a visa to come to our country,” Mahama told journalists at a press conference.

He did not say how many people Ghana would ultimately agree to take in.

The deal comes as Washington raised tariffs on Ghanaian goods from 10 to 15 percent and limited visas for Ghanaians to single-entry permits valid for three months.

Ghana is now the fifth African nation to reach such an agreement with the US.

In August, Uganda’s foreign ministry said it would take deported migrants as long as they had no criminal records and were not unaccompanied minors. Rwanda also confirmed a deal with Washington in August.

Last week, South Sudan said it had repatriated a Mexican man who was deported from the US in July.

In July, men from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen and Cuba were flown to Eswatini.

Uganda strikes deal with Washington over migrants deported from the US

Deportation from US

US President Donald Trump has said he wants to step up removals of illegal immigrants and increase deportations to third countries.

At a rally in Arizona before the US presidential elections in November, Trump attacked the immigration record of his predecessor Joe Biden.

“We’re a dumping ground,” Trump told Republican supporters. “We’re like a garbage can for the world. That’s what’s happened.

“Every time I come up and talk about what they’ve [Biden] done to our country I get angry and angrier. First time I’ve ever said garbage can. But you know what? It’s a very accurate description.”

In February, hundreds of people were deported from the US to Panama, including some removed before their asylum claims could be heard.

Hundreds more were sent to El Salvador after the US government invoked an 18th century law to expel people it accused of being Venezuelan gang members. Some were deported despite judges in the US ordering planes to turn back.

(with newswires)

The recommendations follow a six-month inquiry into the psychological effects of TikTok on minors.

Laure Miller, who led the investigation, said the app’s addictive design and algorithm “has been copied by other social media”.

“Of course, banning children under 15 from social media should not be the tree that hides the forest,” Miller told fellow MPs before the report’s publication. “This is one measure among many, not a panacea.”

The committee was set up in March to examine TikTok’s effects on young people after a 2024 lawsuit against the platform. Seven families accused it of exposing their children to content encouraging suicide.

One of those parents, Géraldine, whose 18-year-old daughter took her own life last year, spoke to the French news agency AFP. After her daughter’s death, she discovered self-harm videos her daughter had shared and watched on TikTok.

“TikTok didn’t kill our little girl, because she wasn’t well in any case,” said the 52-year-old, who declined to give her last name.

But she accused the company of failing to moderate harmful content and pushing her daughter further into her struggles.

TikTok said the safety of young users was its “top priority”.

French parliament passes law regulating ‘jungle’ of social media influencers

TikTok testimony

Executives for TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDace, told the parliamentary committee that the app used AI-enhanced moderation that last year caught 98 percent of content infringing its terms of service in France.

But lawmakers deemed those efforts insufficient, and concluded TikTok’s rules were “very easy to circumvent”.

It also found that harmful content continued to proliferate on the app, and TikTok’s algorithm was effective in drawing young users into loops reinforcing such content.

The committee’s report suggested that the ban on under-15s using social media could be broadened to everyone under 18 if, within the next three years, the platforms did not respect European laws.

Its recommendation for a “digital curfew” for users aged 15 to 18 was for social media to be made unavailable to them between the hours of 10pm and 8am.

President Emmanuel Macron’s office has already indicated it wants to see a ban for children and young adolescents, after Australia last year started drafting its own law with a ban for those under 16.

France to sue Australian platform for ‘negligence’ after livestream death

‘Dopamine slot machine’

The move to set up the commission received cross-party support.

“TikTok is a dopamine slot machine,” said Socialist lawmaker Arthur Delaporte when the inquiry was established.

Although the commission was unable to investigate ongoing cases, it looked at whether or not the application proposed more dangerous content to vulnerable groups.

In 2022, a US study suggested that young users who expressed distress on the platform were shown, on average, 12 times more videos related to suicide and self-harm.

Last February, the European Union opened an investigation into whether TikTok does enough to protect minors.

(with newswires)

For many critics of French President Emmanuel Macron, his nomination of close ally Sebastien Lecornu to replace François Bayrou as prime minister is a slap in the face, and further proof that the government is ignoring people’s wishes.  Participants in a movement to shut down the country on Wednesday talk about feeling unheard, and draw comparisons with the anti-government Yellow Vest movement from 2018-2019. (Listen @0′)

Tourists have long been drawn to the “village” of Montmartre, with its famed Sacre Cœur basilica, artists’ square, winding cobbled streets, vineyards and pastel-shaded houses. But the rise of influencers and instagrammers who post picture-postcard decors, as featured in hit films and Netflix series, have turned it into a must-see destination. With tourists now outnumbering residents by around 430 to one, the cohabitation is under strain. Béatrice Dunner, of the Association for the Defence of Montmartre, is calling on local authorities to follow the example of Amsterdam and tackle overtourism before it’s too late. (Listen @13′)

On 15 September 1635, a group of French colonists claimed the Caribbean island of Martinique, establishing a plantation economy reliant on slavery. Its economic and cultural legacy continues to shape the island today as an overseas department. (Listen @6’35”)

Episode mixed by Cécile Pompeani

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

The bombing was attributed by Russian and Hungarian officials to Ukrainian drone forces, with Ukraine justifying the strike as part of its broader campaign against Russia following the latter’s invasion in 2022.

The strike resulted in oil flows to Hungary and Slovakia being cut off, and also exposed political divides at the heart of Central Europe’s energy security, sparking a diplomatic fallout between Kyiv, Budapest and Bratislava.

“The bombing drives home the point that Russian energy supplies remain a point of contest, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, which remains dependent on [oil] coming from the east,” said Andreas Goldthau, director of the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy at the University of Erfurt in Germany.

Pipeline dispute shows Central Europe’s struggle to cut ties with Russian oil

‘Not a matter of supply’

Despite EU-wide efforts to reduce reliance on Russian energy – which Goldthau acknowledges is “no longer a big issue for Europe as a whole” – Hungary and Slovakia stand as outliers, locked into long-term contracts and dependent on the Druzhba line.

When the pipeline was struck multiple times in August and September, forcing a halt to crude deliveries, both governments were forced to draw on strategic reserves.

But how Hungary and Slovakia are coping, is “more a political choice than anything else,” Goldthau told RFI.

“It is not a matter of supply, but a matter of price and transport logistics, because it could eat into the margins of refineries if you have to source it from other parts and other geographies.”

Central Europe, he added, “could source through ports in Croatia, and they could have done this already by now, but they chose not to”.

‘A political decision’

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government responded to the strike angrily, calling it “an attack on Hungary’s sovereignty”.

The country’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, said: “Ukraine knows very well that the Druzhba pipeline is vital for Hungary’s and Slovakia’s energy supply, and that such strikes harm us far more than Russia.”

Both Budapest and Bratislava have demanded EU intervention and accused Kyiv of jeopardising their security, just as reserves were being tapped to keep refineries running.

From Washington to Warsaw: how MAGA influence is reshaping Europe’s far right

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested the attacks might hinge on Hungary lifting its EU accession veto, warning: “The existence of the friendship depends on what Hungary’s position is.”

Ukrainian officials also say that Hungary and Slovakia have failed to diversify away from Russian oil, despite ample opportunity and EU support.

According to Goldthau, Russian leverage over the EU “is gone, by and large”. He explained: “The EU’s main suppliers are now the United States and Norway. Kazakhstan comes into play, but Russia no longer plays a role.”

Ukraine, he noted, “no longer gets any Russian oil or any Russian gas, it merely functions as a transit country”.

The attack and subsequent diplomatic spat might have provided Hungary and Slovakia “a perfect occasion to pivot and seek alternative supplies, but it’s a purely political decision to do that or not,” Goldthau said. “Whatever changes that [decision] lies at home, and not abroad.”

Lecornu has been a constant, if discreet, presence in the French government since Macron came to power in 2017. 

He joined the president’s first cabinet as a secretary of state in the ministry of ecology, before being promoted to minister – initially in charge of local authorities (2018-2020), then of overseas territories (2020-2022), and for the past three years, of France’s defence.

Few other figures have survived as long, a testament to Lecornu’s knack for building tactical alliances. RFI’s defence correspondent Franck Alexandre calls him “a political animal” through and through.

Political prodigy

Lecornu, 39, has two decades of political experience behind him.

The grandson of a French Resistance fighter, he grew up in a modest working family in Normandy and studied law at university.

After flirting with a career in the army – or even, according to Le Monde, life as a Benedictine monk – Lecornu was soon drawn to rightwing politics.

An activist for the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) in his teens, by 20 he was a parliamentary assistant to one of the party’s MPs.

Within two years he was advising a junior minister for European affairs, before taking office himself as mayor of his hometown Vernon and then president of the surrounding department of Eure – at 29, younger than anyone else before him.

‘Practical approach’

Lecornu’s first national post came two years later, when he joined other conservatives in switching allegiance from traditional rightwing parties to Macron’s new centrist movement and was handed the ecology portfolio.

He cemented his position in 2019 when, with the “Yellow Vest” protests at their height, he helped Macron organise a series of town hall debates around France aimed at defusing demonstrators’ anger at out-of-touch politicians.

The president promptly praised Lecornu for his “practical approach”.  

Where did France’s culture of political compromise go, and is it coming back?

Lecornu reached across the divide again as defence minister, when he succeeded in convincing parliament to massively boost the military budget.

Appointed a few months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he also oversaw France’s support for Kyiv – something that has remained relatively constant despite more than a year of political upheaval. 

Man in the background

Throughout his rise, Lecornu has kept a low public profile. He rarely speaks about his personal life and maintains a sober presence on social media.

For Macron, that might be part of the appeal.

Unlike other recent PMs Gabriel Attal and François Bayrou, who have both been tipped as potential candidates to replace Macron as president, Lecornu is seen as unlikely to seek the top job.

As one unnamed ministerial adviser told news agency AFP, Lecornu is “a loyal soldier who doesn’t have too much charisma or presidential potential”.

‘Macron’s shield’

Now Macron is relying on Lecornu’s reputation as a dealmaker to establish a working government despite deep divisions in parliament. 

The president has instructed him to hold talks with different factions with a view to agreeing on a 2026 budget, the task that proved impossible for Lecornu’s predecessors.

France’s debt: how did we get here, and how dangerous is it?

But as a member of the president’s inner circle – Lecornu is rumoured to have frequent lunches with First Lady Brigitte Macron – he may struggle to convince his opponents to work with him.

Figures from the far right and left have denounced his appointment, calling him a stooge and accusing Macron of seeking to cling on to power. 

Meanwhile after the “Block Everything” protests on Wednesday,  and a strike planned for next week it is likely voters, too, want a more radical break with the status quo. 

According to RFI’s chief political correspondent Valérie Gas, Lecornu now finds himself acting as “Macron’s shield” – a loyalist tasked with preventing a dissolution and shoring up the president against pressure from both parliament and the public.

National Rally (RN) – France’s largest opposition party, with 123 seats in parliament – threw its weight behind Bayrou when he was nominated in December 2024, following the ousting of Michel Barnier.

In January, its decision to abstain in a vote of no confidence brought against Bayrou by left-wing parties allowed him to fight another day.

But after nine months of entente cordiale, RN leaders Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella have thrown Bayrou under the bus.

“We don’t have confidence [in Bayrou],” Le Pen told reporters following a meeting with the prime minister last Tuesday, and announced that all RN MPs would vote against him in Monday’s confidence vote.

Defeated by 364 votes to 194, the veteran centrist politician had no choice but to tender his resignation, which he did on Tuesday.

Former defence minister Sébastien Lecornu has been named as his successor.

What’s behind France’s current political crisis?

Disagreements over budget

Behind this change of heart is disagreement over how to rein in France’s ballooning deficit – almost €169 billion, or 5.8 percent of its GDP.

Bayrou’s proposed budget for 2026 aimed to save €44 billion, largely through cuts to public spending and slashing two public holidays.

The RN, whose support base is largely working class, says cutting back on public holidays is one example of France’s elites making workers pay.

“The abolition of two public holidays,… is a direct attack on our history, our roots and working-class France,” said party president Bardella on 15 July. “No RN MP will accept this measure, which is nothing short of provocation.”

In August, Le Pen addressed an open letter to Bayrou laying out the party’s proposed budget priorities, amounting to up to €100 billion in savings. These included capping contributions to the European Union, disinvesting in renewable energy, limiting welfare payments to migrants and massive cuts in state bureaucracy.

“We’ve always been ready to improve the proposals made when it came to supporting purchasing power, measures in favour of security or controlling our migratory flows,” said party spokesperson Gaëtan Dussausaye.

“But when Marine Le Pen sent a letter telling Bayrou his plan was a bad one and that she was at his disposal, the prime minister ignored her. That’s not respectful,” he told RFI.

France’s debt: how did we get here, and how dangerous is it?

Growing unpopularity

The tide of public opinion too has turned against Bayrou. A recent poll put his satisfaction rate at 20 percent – an all-time low.

Anger is mounting, and one out of two people in France supports the “block everything” movement and its call to bring France to a standstill on Wednesday, 10 September, according to Matthieu Gallard of pollsters Ipsos France.

He cited social issues, the feeling that purchasing power is declining, issues of social protection and public services and anger over Bayrou’s plan to tackle the deficit as fuelling the growing discontent.

“There’s very strong anger against the outgoing prime minister and the president of the Republic,” he told RFI.

France hit by ‘Block Everything’ protests as new PM Lecornu takes office

For political scientist Erwan Lecoeur, Le Pen was eager to distance herself and her party from an unpopular leader.

“She saw that her electorate was becoming very angry with the government and was no longer in line with the idea of supporting François Bayrou,” he said. “It was dangerous and out of the question to appear too close to Bayrou and to Macronism. She had to regain her independence.”

Lecoeur, an expert on the far right, also argues that Le Pen’s support for Bayrou waned after it became obvious she wouldn’t receive any leniency over her five-year ban from running for public office, handed down in March for misuse of EU funds, and which she will appeal at the beginning of next year.

“Marine Le Pen wanted to negotiate her support for François Bayrou in exchange for greater, I would say, indulgence on the part of judges and the political system for the next presidential election,” he says. “But she saw over the last few months that there was nothing to be done on that front.”

Does ‘politically dead’ Marine Le Pen still have a path to power?

Back to the ballot box

The hard-left France Unbowed party is calling for the president to resign, while the Socialists want Macron to choose a left-leaning prime minister. The RN, however, is pushing for Macron to dissolve parliament and call new elections. 

“We call for an ultra-quick dissolution [of parliament], so that the new majority that will come out of these elections can build a budget,” said Le Pen ahead of Monday’s vote.

On Tuesday, Macron ignored them all and chose his close ally, former defence minister Lecornu, as prime minister.

Le Pen said the president was firing “the final cartridge of Macronism, from his bunker along with his little circle of loyalists”.

The president needs to get a budget drafted before 7 October and reportedly acted quickly to avoid further instability ahead of the 10 September day of action and trade union calls for strike action on 18 September.

Pollster Gallard said a “clear majority” of the public wanted the president to dissolve the government, with the latest survey showing 61 percent in favour. 

“While they didn’t understand last year’s dissolution – because even if there wasn’t a solid majority in the National Assembly, there was a feeling that government could work and hold – the situation is obviously very different now,” he noted.

However, despite RN voters hoping that snap polls could usher in a far-right government, he doubts any such elections would give the party an outright majority.

“A new dissolution would probably not radically change the political balance in the National Assembly. We would still have three blocs, none of which would be close to obtaining an absolute majority.”

Lecoeur, however, is more sceptical. “In many constituencies, more than 50, the RN came within a few points of 50 percent in the second round [of the 2024 legislatives]. The RN is hoping – and they have good reason to hope – that they will do better this time.”

Legal battle

Le Pen also has personal reasons to push for early elections.

Her bar on standing for public office means she’s unable to run in the 2027 presidential or any other elections.

She has appealed the verdict, claiming it was “politically motivated” and on Monday a Paris court confirmed the appeal would take place from 13 January to 12 February, 2026.

Paris court sets January appeal date that could decide Le Pen’s political future

Dussausaye says Le Pen, as an MP for the Pas de Calais region, would be a candidate in such snap elections.

“Of course she will be a candidate because she is innocent. She will submit her candidacy to the Pas de Calais prefecture and if it’s not accepted we will use all the administrative and legal remedies available.”

These include appealing to the constitutional council – which Lecoeur argues would be a way of rallying her camp against France’s institutions and fuelling the idea that she has been wronged.

“Her objective is to wage a political battle within the political-legal arena,” he explains. “There had to be a campaign in which she could run in order to force the courts to take a position on whether or not she has the right to run.

“The judges will prevent her from standing. It will show once again how ‘politically unfair’ it is for Marine Le Pen not to be able to stand for election. It’s important to show this in order to influence public opinion and politicians before her appeal trial.”

France has not run a budget surplus in over fifty years. The last time was before the 1973 oil crisis.

“Since then, our deficit has not stopped increasing, and so our debt has not stopped increasing,” François Ecalle, a former member of France’s high council on public finance and an honorary senior adviser to the Cour des Comptes public auditors, told RFI.

France’s debt at the end of the first semester of 2025 was €3,345 billion, according to the Insee statistics institute, and it has grown over the last two decades to reach 113.9 percent of GDP this year.

“Each year the public debt goes up because we have a deficit: overall, the state and local authorities and the social security system have revenue that is less than what they spend,” Ecalle says.

Crises feed the debt

That deficit – the difference between revenue and spending – comes from yearly spending, but has also gone up with various crises, most recently the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid pandemic, when the government spent money to bail out businesses and support the healthcare system and other public services.

Like many states, France borrows money to cover the deficit, which costs more money, as there is interest to pay – the cost of servicing the debt.

Retirement benefits – which continue to rise, with an ageing population – are the largest item in the 2026 budget, but they are followed by the cost of servicing the debt, which Bayrou said is expected to cost €75 billion – more than the cost of healthcare or education.

Servicing the debt

Because interest rates have been on the rise, Bayrou said the cost of servicing the debt could become the single largest line item in the budget by 2029, which he says represents a serious and immediate danger.

“An immediate danger weighs on us, which we need to face, not tomorrow or after tomorrow, but today, without any sort of delay, without which our future will be denied us and the present will be made severely worse,” the Prime Minister said during the press conference on 25 August in which he announced the confidence vote he would put to parliament on 8 September.

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The Cour des comptes public auditor agrees that reducing the debt is necessary. In July last year, the head of the institution, Pierre Moscovici, called it a “burning obligation”.

Keeping France’s yearly deficit within the European Union’s limit of 3 percent of GDP is “imperative to the sustainability of the debt”, the auditor wrote this July – if the deficit goes up, lenders will no longer trust France to pay back its loans.

Debate over how to reduce the debt

The debate – and subsequent vote in parliament – will focus on “the overall plan, its necessity and usefulness,” Bayrou said, even as the political disagreements are more on the substance of Bayrou’s particular proposals, rather than the concept of the deficit itself.

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“There is a growing consensus among experts, politicians, and the French people, particularly around the idea that something must be done to reduce deficits and regain control of the debt,” said Ecalle.

“But there is no consensus on how to get there. And when one government starts saying how to do it, the response is to look elsewhere.”

What to tax, what to cut?

Bayrou’s draft budget has €21 billion in spending cuts, plus a pension freeze and a cap to all social benefits to 2025 levels.

Taxation is a red herring – French President Emmanuel Macron’s governments have promised no new taxes on households.

Ecalle says at some point the government needs to find new sources of revenue, through taxes – on inherited property or high pensions – but he recognises the difficulty in getting people to support such measures: taxes, like budget cuts, are never popular.

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“The debates we are having today over how to balance the books – whether they involve spending cuts or tax increases – are debates that we have been having for decades. When I was at finance ministry 30 years ago, these were the same debates,” he says, adding that his not optimistic that the current period will be any different.

“We put off these the conflicts over taxes and public spending that we are unable to resolve today, to some point in the future.”

From 8 to 10 September, 45 heads of state and government, alongside more than 25,000 campaigners, business leaders and institutional representatives, are gathering at the African Union’s international conference centre in Addis Ababa.

The meeting is seen as a vital moment for Africa to set its priorities ahead of major international milestones later this year – including the UN General Assembly, the G20, and the upcoming Cop 30 climate negotiations in Brazil.

Climate change is already hitting Africa hard. The World Meteorological Organization estimates that the crisis costs African economies between 2 and 5 percent of GDP annually.

By 2030, as many as 118 million of the continent’s poorest people could face severe droughts, flooding, and extreme heat.

Yet leaders and thinkers are keen to underline that Africa is not simply a victim. The continent holds 60 percent of the world’s solar potential and nearly 40 percent of global renewable energy resources. Its soils are rich in critical minerals essential for the green transition.

“Africa could benefit enormously and even become a global leader in the transition,” argues Iskander Erzini Vernoit, director of the Moroccan think tank, the IMAL Initiative for Climate and Development, speaking to RFI. “But Africa cannot remain passive. It must act in a coordinated way – and that is one of the goals here in Addis Ababa.”

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A fairer financial system

Despite this promise, Africa currently attracts only 2 percent of international green investment. High interest rates and the crushing burden of debt remain major barriers.

For Vernoit, this summit offers a chance to demand change, telling RFI: “Africa will continue to press for reform of the international financial architecture. This meeting is a moment to call for a fairer, more equitable system that supports the continent’s climate action efforts.”

African leaders are expected to conclude the summit with a joint declaration, signalling unity and ambition to investors and the international community.

At the first Africa Climate Summit in 2023, leaders committed to scaling up renewable energy capacity from 56 to 300 gigawatts by 2030, and pledges of more than $23 billion in renewable energy investments were announced.

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Challenge of resilient infrastructure

But climate change is also eroding progress. A new report from the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), released during the summit, highlights the costs of climate damage to African infrastructure – estimated at nearly $13 billion each year.

“Most of these losses come from damage to housing, municipal facilities, schools and hospitals, with flooding accounting for 70 percent of the destruction,” Ramesh Subramaniam, CDRI’s director, explained to RFI. Earthquakes account for a further 28 percent.

The solution, he argues, is not to prevent disasters – which is impossible – but to build smarter and stronger. “If a road is built to the right quality standards, it will resist when disaster strikes. The embankments, the protections – all of it will remain in place,” he says.

According to CDRI, adapting infrastructure to withstand climate impacts typically adds only 5 to 15 percent to a project’s cost.

Yet many African countries face infrastructure funding gaps of up to 50 percent, leaving them unable to invest sufficiently in resilience.

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Stronger voice for Africa

Against this backdrop, the Addis Ababa summit is more than a technical discussion – it is a statement of intent.

Africa’s leaders want to showcase the continent’s potential as a clean energy powerhouse, a hub for innovation, and a driver of global solutions – provided that the international community steps up with fair financing and real partnerships.

By the close of the meeting, a united African position is expected to emerge, sending a message ahead of the world’s next big climate gathering: Africa is ready to lead, but it needs the means to do so.

A “record” 37.5 tonnes of cocaine were seized in France in the first six months of this year, compared to 47 tonnes in the whole of 2024 – an increase of 45 percent.

These figures – revealed in a confidential note from late July from the national anti-drug trafficking agency (Ofast) – prompted Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau to describe the proliferation of cocaine in France as a “white tsunami”.

More than half of those 47 tonnes came from, or was intercepted in, the French Caribbean territories of Guadeloupe and Martinique – whose combined population is little more than 750,000. 

“It’s easy to imagine the impact this has on the local population,” says investigative journalist Jerome Pierrat, an expert on organised crime. “An explosion in violence, in the use of firearms and in local drug use… it’s a major destabilisation of society.”

According to a recent report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Martinique and Guadeloupe have become major gateways for cocaine and marijuana entering mainland France.

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From South America to Europe

The reasons for the French Caribbean becoming a key entry and transit point for South American cocaine en route to Europe are largely geographical.

The French Antilles are on the doorstep of South America’s cocaine-producing countries of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, and close to Venezuela – one of the two exit countries for cocaine, along with Brazil.

Global production continues to increase, with the Andean countries producing 2,700 tonnes in 2022, more than double the amount produced in 2010.

Yet the traditional North American market has plateaued, Peirrat explains, with some users there turning to synthetic drugs such as fentanyl. The United States’ anti-drug trafficking measures have also forced cartels to look elsewhere – notably further south.

“Traffickers are looking for people with money to sell cocaine to, so they tend to turn to Europe, Australia, Asia, Japan and a part of China. The second biggest market in terms of purchasing power is Europe,” explains Pierrat.

In addition, because they are part of France the Antilles are not subject to extra customs checks when transporting goods to the mainland. And Guadeloupe, with its 700 kilometres of coastline and small islands, is particularly difficult to monitor.

More than 2 tonnes of cocaine washes up on shores of northern France

Record seizures

In late February, the French Navy seized 8.3 tonnes of cocaine from a cargo ship off the coast of Martinique. In March, 1.2 tonnes were seized near Martinique.

In June, 2.4 tonnes were seized on a “go-fast vessel” – a type of a small, fast powerboat favoured by smugglers – near the US Virgin Islands, while in July, French Armed Forces intercepted close to five tonnes on two ships in the Caribbean.

On the French mainland, authorities made a major haul in January – two tonnes of cocaine, valued at €130 million – in the northern port of Le Havre, France’s main maritime gateway.

Further along the chain, Pierrat highlights a recent haul on the Balzac housing estate in Vitry-sur-Seine, a working class suburb of Paris: “160kg of pure cocaine that had come over from Guadeloupe in a fake removals vehicle.”

While some drugs are still transported by plane, the cartels prefer to use sea routes for ever-larger quantities. Shipments are dispatched from Colombia’s and Venezuela’s Caribbean coasts and routed via islands such as Dominica, before landing on the many beaches of the French Antilles aboard fast boats.

Once in the Antilles, cocaine is stored locally and then shipped on to ports in northern Europe such as Rotterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg, and Le Havre.

Belgian port of Antwerp says record volume of cocaine seized in 2022

Surge in violence

In the fight against trafficking, French authorities are facing criminal networks capable of changing their strategies regularly.

“They are now highly structured, no longer work with intermediaries, deal directly with South American drug producers and are capable of exporting cocaine to Europe,” Guadeloupe’s Attorney General Eric Maurel recently told France Info. 

He has also warned that criminal gangs in Guadeloupe “seem to be evolving towards mafia-style structures”.

Pierrat says local officials in the Antilles have been “sounding the alarm for two or three years now,” – but to little effect.

In June this year, Maurel, alongside another judge, Michael Janas, gave a press conference warning that drug trafficking and the proliferation of firearms was driving an unprecedented surge in violence in Guadeloupe.

“All warning lights are flashing red. We are facing a wall of crime,” they told reporters. “We are at a tipping point. It’s now or never.”

The judges said that between January and June this year, Guadeloupe recorded 28 violent homicides, along with 111 attempted murders and 300 armed robberies.

Neighbouring Martinique has also seen a rise in violence, with 16 homicides since January, 13 involving firearms.

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“This is no longer a series of isolated incidents; it is a spiral of death taking root in our daily lives. And yet, the State looks the other way,” wrote Serge Letchimy, president of the executive council of Martinique, in an op-ed published in Le Monde in June. 

According to Letchimy’s figures, only 1,400 of the 188,000 containers passing through Martinique’s port in Fort-de-France in 2024 were inspected by customs – the result of chronic understaffing.

On 19 August, four MPs from Guadeloupe published a letter to the Interior and Economy ministers, demanding immediate reinforcement to fight the growing instability fuelled by drug trafficking.

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New measures

The French government appears to have heard their call. On a recent visit to the Antilles, Retailleau announced a raft of measures, including 13 additional investigators to bolster the ranks of Ofast.

A local ballistics lab will be opened, meaning forensic samples will no longer have to be sent to the mainland, and two mobile gendarmerie squads and two marine units are to be deployed.

Paris will also provide radar systems to monitor the strategic Dominica and Les Saintes channels and a drone to survey Guadeloupe’s coastline. Checks at ports and airports are to be reinforced.

While acknowledging that France’s planned budget cuts meant it was limited in what it could provide, Retailleau insisted: “The Republic will not give an inch on public order. We will not let these territories become a lawless zone.”

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‘No quick fix’

Guadeloupe MPs Olivier Serva and Max Mathiasin, two of the authors of the open letter, expressed their “relative satisfaction” after months of lobbying for reinforcements.

“I heard announcements, not empty words,” Serva told local radio. “I’m satisfied. But we expect more on regional cooperation and faster implementation.”

Mathiasin called the measures “a step in the right direction” but warned they’d have to see them in action.

In Pierrat’s opinion, given the size of the territory and its waters, 13 more investigators may not make much difference. He added that there is no quick fix for the situation, and suggesting otherwise is political posturing.

“The problem is Retailleau doesn’t have time. Elections are fast approaching, all this stuff has to be visible, talked about, it has to look like they’re doing something. But if you really want to curb trafficking you’d lay on 200 more investigators, 200 drones, you’d throw in a billion euros. And it will still take time,” he says.

Another concern is the expansion of the main ports in Guadeloupe and Martinique as part of the “Antilles Hub” project, which aims to transform them into a major regional logistics and maritime centre. 

An additional 300,000 containers are expected to transit through the ports each year. While this is intended to give the region a much needed economic boost, Pierrat fears it will also boost trafficking.

“Traffickers are very happy,” he says “It’ll be very hard to monitor all the extra containers, even with a couple of extra radars or mobile scanners. And even if you could afford to install loads more scanners that would slow traffic down, [which] makes no commercial sense when you’re trying to attract new business.”

Acknowledging these concerns, Retailleau said a mission from the General Secretariat of the Sea will be conducted within the coming weeks to “audit all port processes” both in Guadeloupe and Martinique.

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Forgotten territories

With unemployment in the Antilles more than double that on the French mainland – 15.7 percent in Guadeloupe and 12.8 percent in Martinique, compared to the national average of 7.4 percent – plus a far higher cost of living and lower wages, the economic conditions are ripe for spreading corruption.

“The French overseas departments have the highest corruption rates in France, including civil servants,” says Pierrat. “But that’s the corollary of drug-trafficking – corruption and violence.”

He also points out that the French Antilles are no longer just a transit hub for cocaine, but indeed a growing local market for it – spurred on by the fact local traffickers are paid in cocaine. 

“I’ve been writing and making documentaries about drug trafficking for 30 years now,” he says. “It’s been growing for decades. We saw it coming. And yet all of a sudden you get the impression it sprung up over the last couple of years.

“For years it was a forgotten corner of France. The guys in French Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe… nobody really gives a damn. So I’m not very hopeful or optimistic that the situation in the French Antilles will change any time soon, unfortunately for them.”

The African Union (AU) gathered all 54 member states at its headquarters in Ethiopia’s capital. The aim was to agree a common position ahead of Cop30 in Brazil this November.

The summit closed with the Addis Ababa Declaration – a plan that AU leaders say should reframe Africa not as a victim of climate change, but as a source of solutions.

Three pillars

Ethiopia’s President Taye Atske Selassie outlined the three main pillars of the Addis Ababa Declaration – with the first being to accelerate the development of renewable energy to make Africa “a green industrial power”.

“First, we will put our future into motion. We are committed to accelerating the development of renewable energy and infrastructure. This will not only make energy accessible, but it will also position Africa as a green industrial power,” he said.

The second pillar is the forming of a coalition of countries possessing key minerals, in order to ensure greater transparency and a fair share of the benefits, while the third is the protection of natural heritage.

Debates at the summit focused on reforming global climate finance to better serve African needs. Panelists spoke about the urgency of moving from a system driven by the priorities of donors, to one that addresses the needs of those impacted by climate change.

The AU’s Bankoye Adeoye told RFI he felt proud of the outcomes of the summit, saying: “We did not shy away from difficult conversations.” According to him, the goal is to open a new chapter in climate negotiations at COP30 in Brazil.

Africa Climate Summit puts financing and resilience under the spotlight

$50 billion a year

Africa emits just 4 percent of greenhouse gases but suffers disproportionately from the impact of global warming, so is calling for more funding towards climate change adaptation – in the name of what Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, chair of the AU Commission, called “climate justice”.

According to the Addis Ababa Declaration, Africa is aiming to secure $50 billion a year “to champion climate solutions”, with the establishment of the Africa Climate Innovation Compact and the African Climate Facility, sponsored by Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Abiy said the initiative should aim to deliver 1,000 solutions to tackle climate challenges by 2030.

But according to Professor Carlos Lopes, the African continent’s representative at COP30, these plans lack focus.

“In my opinion, it’s too broad. It covers too many topics that don’t have the same importance, and therefore it loses some of the will to influence and create the opportunity for a unified African voice,” he told RFI.

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‘Rich nations set the planet on fire’

According to a 2024 report by the World Meteorological Organisation, 48 of Africa’s 54 countries are at risk of flooding and 40 are at risk of drought, worsened by climate change. These hazards caused a loss of 2 to 5 percent of GDP each year. 

Given that industrialised nations have polluted the planet for more than 150 years, the promised funds to help Africa adapt to the effects of this fall far short of the required amount, said AU Commission chair Youssouf in his opening remarks.

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“Today, the link between climate and underdevelopment is no longer in doubt,” he added. “Climate, rural exodus, migration and instability in all its forms are intertwined. The vulnerability of our member countries caused by climate change… must be redressed through climate justice… by providing financial resources, technology and expertise.”

“Rich polluting nations set the planet on fire, then sit back and send water droppers” to the developing world, Oxfam’s Africa director Fati N’Zi-Hassane echoed in a statement.

“They must take responsibility for the damage they are causing and adequately fund climate action in countries where climate change is wreaking havoc on communities that are least responsible for the crisis.”

(with newswires)

European Commission President von der Leyen used her annual speech to argue that the EU must “fight” for its position and defend “every inch” of its territory, after more than ten Russian drones violated Polish airspace overnight.

“Battlelines for a new world order based on power are being drawn right now,” she told MEPs at the European Parliament in Strasbourg in a crisp address.

“This must be Europe’s independence moment,” she said – a shift for the EU from market superpower to a strategic actor that can protect its borders, project stability and set rules others follow.

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Russian reparations

The incursion over Poland underscores that Russia’s war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year, is not contained neatly at the EU’s edge. 

Von der Leyen’s answer was blunt: bolster the bloc’s eastern flank “from the Baltic to the Black Sea”, invest in air defence and munitions, and treat territorial integrity as the bedrock of European security.

“We must invest in real-time space surveillance so that no movement of forces goes unnoticed. We must heed our Baltic friends and build a drone wall,” von der Leyen said, referring to the idea of deploying aerial vehicles along borders to monitor threats from Russia.

Von der Leyen pledged that EU support for Kyiv would endure and that Moscow should ultimately foot the bill. Brussels, she said, aims to channel frozen Russian assets into a new “reparations loan” to help rebuild Ukraine.

She also announced an international summit in Brussels focused on returning abducted Ukrainian children.

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Tougher sanctions for Gaza

Meanwhile on Gaza, the EU has struggled to define a common line even as public anger has surged.

Here von der Leyen signalled tougher action, in the form of proposed sanctions on “extremist” Israeli ministers and “violent settlers”.

The European Commission will also put bilateral support to the Israeli state on hold – while continuing to work with civil society and the Yad Vashem Holocaust remembrance centre.

“Man-made famine can never be a weapon of war. For the sake of the children, for the sake of humanity – this must stop,” von der Leyen said.

Free from unanimity

The measures on Israel will require the backing of member states, and von der Leyen acknowledged it would be “difficult to find majorities”.

More broadly, she called for the EU to “break free from the shackles of unanimity” in areas such as foreign policy, moving instead to “qualified majority”.

“We need to make sure our Union is faster and can deliver for Europeans,” she said.

Under fire from some quarters for a trade deal with US President Donald Trump, von der Leyen argued the agreement helped avert the “chaos” of a transatlantic trade war.

“The deal provides crucial stability in our relations with the US at a time of grave global insecurity,” she insisted.

(with newswires)

At the official handover ceremony in Paris, Lecornu, 39, promised a “profound break” in substance “and not just in form” as he took office from outgoing prime minister François Bayrou.

“There is a gap between real life and the political situation,” he said, adding that his government “will succeed” because “nothing is impossible”.

Bayrou, who resigned after losing a confidence vote in parliament, told the ceremony his team would “do everything to help the new government” as he left office.

Protests overshadow ceremony

Clashes broke out in several cities as police moved in to clear road blockades and sites occupied by demonstrators.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said 80,000 police and gendarmes had been deployed nationwide, including 6,000 in Paris, with orders of zero tolerance.

In the early hours, Retailleau told reporters that nearly 200 people had been detained. By mid-afternoon, the Interior Ministry reported nearly 300 arrests nationwide, including 183 in the Paris region.

Authorities said 430 protest actions had been recorded across France, ranging from roadblocks and demonstrations to attempts to occupy schools and transport hubs.

Later in the day, Paris police ordered the closure of the Châtelet-Les Halles complex after calls for looting circulated on social media. Metro and RER services there were suspended.

Thousands of protesters gathered at Place du Châtelet and Place de la République, joined by far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon and several of his deputies.

School blockades

Other blockades were carried out at several secondary schools, including Henri-IV and Lavoisier in the 5th arrondissement, Lamartine in the 9th, Voltaire in the 11th, Claude-Monet in the 13th and Hélène-Boucher in the 20th.

Around a hundred young people, some wearing hoods, gathered in front of Lavoisier with placards reading “We are blocking because we care about our mental health” and “To fill their coffers, Bayrou is picking our pockets”.

“We’re fed up because we feel like we’re the sacrificed generation,” Yonah, 17, a final-year student, told the French news agency AFP.

Bus depots and parts of the ring road were briefly occupied before being cleared by police using tear gas. An attempted intrusion at Gare du Nord was also stopped by police.

The RATP said metro and bus traffic was running nearly normally, though regional trains and RER services were heavily disrupted.

Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said forces “will not tolerate any damage or blockades” and “will intervene systematically”.

Protesters accused Lecornu of being too close to President Emmanuel Macron and of planning to continue what they called the same austerity policies of previous governments.

“Block Everything” actions were organised via social media and included strikes, roadblocks and boycotts.

“This is a citizens’ initiative,” CGT secretary general Sophie Binet told RFI. She explained that union-led protests planned for 18 September would add to Wednesday’s mobilisation.

Will France’s ‘block everything’ movement jump from social media to the streets?

Elsewhere in France

In Lyon, Montpellier and Nantes, police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse crowds. At Nantes prefecture, projectiles were thrown at officers.

In Marseille, thousands marched, with turnout estimates ranging from 8,000 by police to 30,000 by organisers and 80,000 claimed by the CGT. Police reported minor damage and used tear gas after a group tried to enter a shopping centre. A handful of arrests were also reported.

SNCF reported track occupations in Cherbourg and Valence Ville, along with overnight cable damage in the Bordeaux–Toulouse area that caused disruption before repairs were made.

Authorities also reported roadblocks around Rennes, Nantes, Poitiers, Aix-en-Provence and Toulouse.

Opposition support

Mélenchon, leader of the far-left party La France Insoumise, urged supporters to take part. “On the 10th, we will block everything to bring down Mr Macron himself, because he is responsible for the crisis,” he said.

Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure called for restraint, warning the movement risked sliding into chaos. On the right, National Rally spokesman Gaëtan Dussausaye said the protests had been “hijacked by the far left”.

Martin Garagnon, a national adviser for Macron’s Renaissance party, also voiced concern, saying: “Jean-Luc Mélenchon wants the convergence of struggles. The French will get the convergence of destruction.”

What’s behind France’s current political crisis?

Budget woes

Lecornu, a close ally of Macron who has served as defence minister since 2022, must now steer a national budget through a divided parliament. France has until 31 December to adopt its 2026 budget.

His team has promised “a change of method” in politics, though details have not been given.

But the balance of power in the National Assembly remains unchanged. Macron’s party lacks a majority, leaving Lecornu reliant on opposition support to pass legislation.

Socialist deputy Hervé Saulignac said Macron was sticking to “a path that no socialist will join”. Jordan Bardella, leader of the National Rally, wrote on X that Macron’s choice showed he was unwilling to change course, adding that his party would judge Lecornu “on results”.

Mathilde Panot, parliamentary leader of La France Insoumise, called the appointment “a provocation” and vowed: “We will censure him.”

‘Discreet’ new PM

Lecornu has held ministerial posts since 2017, including at the environment ministry, local government and overseas territories before becoming defence minister. He is viewed as loyal to Macron and not a political rival.

“He is discreet, loyal and measured. He will do things differently and has already started his consultations,” said a member of his team, quoted by FranceInfo.

The national health agency, Santé Publique France, reported this week that 382 infections had been confirmed across 38 clusters by 8 September, including 81 new cases in the previous seven days.

The mosquito-borne virus, which causes fever and severe joint pain, has been reported in southern regions for several years.

But this summer marks the first time a locally acquired case has been detected in Paris, where health officials have launched an overnight spraying campaign in the 11th arrondissement to contain the spread.

While several earlier clusters have now been declared over, the scale of this year’s outbreak is without precedent.

The largest hotspots remain in the south, with 71 cases in Antibes on the French Riviera, 54 in the Dordogne region and 97 across the Var and Bouches-du-Rhône departments.

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Imported cases and climate links

Experts say the surge in infections is partly linked to a major chikungunya epidemic earlier this year in Réunion and the Indian Ocean region.

Travellers brought the virus back to mainland France, where the presence of the tiger mosquito – Aedes albopictus – allowed local transmission to take off.

Since May, authorities have logged 966 imported cases of chikungunya, alongside nearly 900 cases of dengue and seven of zika.

The spread also reflects a longer-term trend. Once absent from Europe, the tiger mosquito is now established in 81 French departments.

Its advance has been fuelled by warmer summers, urbanisation and increased international travel, which together create ideal conditions for both the insect and the viruses it can transmit.

Measuring the cost of mosquito bites

Other viruses in play

Chikungunya is not the only concern, as dengue, which is carried by the same mosquito, has caused 11 local clusters totalling 21 cases so far this season – well below the record 66 cases recorded last year.

The West Nile virus – transmitted by Culex mosquitoes – has been detected in 23 locally acquired cases, with infections beginning to appear beyond the traditional Mediterranean belt.

Chikungunya typically begins with sudden fever, intense joint pain, headache and fatigue.

Most patients recover fully, though symptoms can persist for weeks. Officials urge anyone who develops these symptoms within two weeks of a mosquito bite to seek medical advice and, crucially, to protect themselves from further bites to halt onward transmission.

Although a study published in The Lancet Planetary Health in May warned that chikungunya and dengue could become endemic in Europe, health authorities in France are keen to stress that swift intervention can keep outbreaks limited.

“This summer shows that rapid detection and targeted vector control remain highly effective tools,” an official at Santé Publique France noted.

(with newswires)

“On 28 September 2025, Moldova will hold the most consequential election in its history,” Sandu said in a speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

“Today we face an unlimited hybrid war on a scale unseen before the full invasion of Ukraine – the Kremlin’s goal is clear, to capture Moldova through the ballot box, to use it against Ukraine and to turn us into a launch pad for hybrid attacks in the European Union.”

Sandu and her European allies have repeatedly accused Moscow of attempting to destabilise the former Soviet republic of 2.6 million people that lies between war-torn Ukraine and EU and NATO member Romania.

A vocal critic of Russia, in particular since the start of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Sandu has steered Moldova to official EU accession talks that started in June 2024.

“Our European path is not just a matter of values, it is a matter of survival, and precisely because we have advanced greatly on this path, Russia has unleashed its arsenal of hybrid attacks against us,” Sandu said.

‘Unprecedented interference’: how Russia is attempting to shape Moldova’s future

“The battlefield is our elections.”

The Moldovan leader detailed a raft of alleged Russian tactics from illicit cryptocurrency financing, through disinformation campaigns on social media to direct vote buying.

“Moldova is not alone in protecting its democracy. The European Union has stood with us financially, technically and politically, and we are deeply grateful,” she said.

The EU has thrown its weight behind Moldova ahead of the election, with the leaders of Germany, France and Poland making a highly symbolic joint visit last month.

(with newswires)

The agency said obesity has become the most common form of malnutrition among those aged five to 19, affecting nearly one in 10 worldwide. That amounts to 188 million children. In total, one in five – some 391 million – are overweight.

“When we talk about malnutrition, we are no longer just talking about underweight children,” Unicef executive director Catherine Russell said. “Obesity is a growing concern that can impact the health and development of children.”

The report said the share of five to 19-year-olds who are underweight has dropped from nearly 13 percent in 2000 to 9.2 percent, based on data from over 190 countries. But over the same period obesity has more than tripled, from 3 percent to 9.4 percent.

Child homelessness soars in France as aid groups denounce political inaction

Several Pacific Island countries now record the highest levels globally, including Niue at 38 percent, the Cook Islands at 37 percent and Nauru at 33 percent.

These rates have at least doubled since 2000, driven by a shift from traditional diets to cheap, imported foods.

Many wealthy countries also see high levels of obesity. They include Chile at 27 percent, the United States at 21 percent and the United Arab Emirates at 21 percent.

Marketing blamed

Unicef said the surge is not the result of poor individual choices but of unhealthy food environments.

“Ultra-processed food is increasingly replacing fruits, vegetables and protein at a time when nutrition plays a critical role in children’s growth, cognitive development and mental health,” Russell said.

The agency warned that fast food and sugary products dominate shops and schools, while digital marketing gives companies powerful access to young audiences.

It cited a 2024 poll of 64,000 young people in more than 170 countries which found 75 percent had seen advertisements for soft drinks, snacks or fast foods in the previous week.

EU countries push for stricter rules to keep children off social media

Katherine Shats, a Unicef legal expert in nutrition, told the French news agency AFP that children are “being bombarded by unhealthy food marketing of junk foods, especially at school where they are exposed to sugary drinks and salty snacks”.

She said families often buy such products because they are cheaper than fresh foods.

Unicef said the health impact is severe, with obesity linked to insulin resistance, high blood pressure and later-life diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some cancers.

Call for urgent action

The agency urged governments to act quickly to improve children’s food environments.

Its proposals include clearer labelling, advertising restrictions, taxes on sugary drinks and bans on ultra-processed foods in schools. It also called for stronger social protection schemes to help families afford healthier diets.

“In many countries we are seeing the double burden of malnutrition – the existence of stunting and obesity. This requires targeted interventions,” Russell said.

“Nutritious and affordable food must be available to every child to support their growth and development.”

Unicef warned that without action, the global economic impact of overweight and obesity could exceed 4 trillion US dollars annually by 2035.

The Constitutional Council, tasked with drawing up the final list of candidates, retained five bids to contest the 25 October ballot, including current President Alassane Ouattara, who is seeking a fourth mandate.

The bids of Tidjane Thiam and Laurent Gbagbo were rejected.

“The Constitutional Council has consistently required voter eligibility as a condition of eligibility,” Constitutional Council President Chantal Nanaba Camara said, declaring the two men’s candidacies “inadmissible”.

Five candidates, two women

Alassane Ouattara, 83, in power since 2011, will face four candidates: former ministers Jean-Louis Billon; Ahoua Don Mello; former first lady Simone Ehivet Gbagbo; and Henriette Lagou, who was a candidate in 2015.

Billon is a dissident from Thiam’s Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI), while Ahoua Don Mello is a former member of Gbagbo’s African Peoples’ Party – Côte d’Ivoire (PPA-CI).

Both politicians were recently disavowed by their parties, which removed them from office.

Lack of choice

At this point, there is no further recourse for either Gbagbo or Thiam.

This means that the two main opposition parties, the PDCI and the PPA-CI, find themselves without a candidate for the 25 October presidential election.

“Ivorians hoped the council would defend their fundamental right to choose their president through the ballot box. Instead, they find themselves facing a veritable plebiscite organised by the incumbent president, for an unconstitutional fourth term,” Thiam said in a statement sent to news agencies.

He added that the election next month risked becoming a “coronation” for Ouattara.

Ouattara confirms fourth term run as Ivorian opposition cries foul

The political climate has been tense in Côte d’Ivoire for several weeks. The opposition, which expected the exclusion of its leaders, denounces a less than inclusive election and opposes Ouattara’s fourth term, which it considers unconstitutional.

According to a recent report published by the International Crisis Group (ICG), President Ouattara’s controversial bid for a fourth term, the exclusion of key opponents and a non-consensual electoral framework are raising fears about the smooth running of the vote.

Since 1995, no presidential election has resulted in a peaceful change of power, the report points out.

 (with AFP) 

The GERD, located along the Blue Nile, in Guba, Benishangul-Gumuz region, is expected to produce more than 5,000 megawatts of electricity, doubling Ethiopia’s current output, part of which will be exported to neighbouring countries.

Construction of the dam began in 2011 and has raised concerns in neighbouring Egypt and Sudan about a potential reduction in downstream water levels.

Tensions remain high with Egypt describing the development as a security risk, arguing that it could lead to drought downstream. A joint panel to discuss the sharing of the Blue Nile water has been set up.

Ethiopia’s controversial mega dam on the Blue Nile ‘now complete’

Ethiopia’s pride

However, Ethiopia insists that the towering dam will not only benefit its more than 100 million people, but also its neighbours, and describes it as an opportunity for the country to become Africa’s leading electricity exporter.

Ethiopian Water Minister Habtamu Itefa said his country has no intention of harming any of the neighbouring countries.

“So the way forward is to work together for more investment. Let’s join hands to propose more projects that can benefit all of us, wherever they may be. This can be scaled up to Nile Basin countries – to Uganda, to Tanzania, to Rwanda, to DRC, to South Sudan, to Kenya, to Ethiopia, to Egypt as well,” he said.

Public effort

The project has created strong regional tensions, “raising fears in Sudan and Egypt about its impact” on the Blue Nile’s course,” Tsegay Tekleselassie, an economist at Wellesley College in the United States, told RFI. “However, there is no doubt that this is a very important moment for Ethiopians.”

The Renaissance Dam was built with national resources, Tekleselassie added, as many international organisations did not want to finance it. As a result for Ethiopians, it represents a strong symbol of the country’s independence and sovereignty.

“The dam was financed from the national budget, but also through the purchase of bonds by individuals,” he said. “So everyone, every worker, bought their bonds. There was also the contribution of public companies and loans from local banks. Because of its symbolic importance, people are very proud and enthusiastic about it.”

The dam is also seen as a unifying force in Ethiopia, as there are many ethnic divisions.

“So the government is using it as a unifying symbol, but also to gain credibility with the people. There will certainly be a lot of emotion among Ethiopians during this inauguration.”

Providing electricity

Nearly half of Ethiopians currently lack access to electricity.

“The country has a very large population, with 130 million inhabitants,” Sonia Le Gouriellec, lecturer in political science at the Catholic University of Lille, France, told RFI.

“There is a real challenge in providing electricity and achieving the country’s economic ambitions. Numerous special economic zones have been opened with the aim of providing electricity to everyone.”

Water experts in downstream Egypt say the dam has reduced the amount of water the country receives, however, and the government has had to come up with short-term solutions such as reducing annual consumption and recycling irrigation water.

“Egypt was able to overcome this shortage through Egypt’s High Dam, which has a water reserve that is used to replace what was lost due to the GERD. But we can’t always rely on this reserve for water supply,” said Abbas Sharaky, a professor of geology and water resources at Cairo University.

Ethiopia resumes filling Nile mega-dam reservoir angering downstream nations

For Sudan, experts say seasonal flooding has decreased during the dam’s filling, but they warn that uncoordinated water releases could lead to sudden flooding or extended dry periods.

“What is currently under discussion is the absence of clear and binding rules for its management in times of water stress,” Le Gouriellec told RFI.

“Egypt has always had a consistent position on this issue: all possible upstream exploitations should have a legally binding written agreement, with clear rules of operation, on how these waters will be managed over time, particularly in times of drought. And that, for the moment, is absent.”

So, although the Ethiopian Prime Minister invited Sudan and Egypt to come to the inauguration, the invitation is  diplomacy and nothing concrete has been signed off.

“That bothers them a lot. And what we fear is that the conflict could be exported to other areas, for example to Somalia,” Le Gourielle said.

Egypt and Sudan’s greatest fear is that in the case of a drought, the Ethiopians will not release the necessary volume of water stored by this dam.

“There is a lack of clear, binding rules on the management of the Nile’s waters,” Le Gouriellec added.

Reassurance

Ethiopian Water Minister Habtamu Itefa has pointed out that so far, the water levels recorded downstream during the dry season were “three to four-fold what they used to get before the dam.”

“This means, at the expense of the dam we built, they can have their irrigation land. Three to four-fold, they can increase that, because we are providing more water during the dry months. It is a blessing for them,” said the Ethiopian minister.

Yacob Arsano, who teaches hydro politics in the Nile Basin at Addis Ababa University, said Ethiopia was “very careful” with the design and planning of the dam to ensure water flows downstream throughout the year.

“Egypt continues to receive the water. Ethiopia continues to send water. So that is the remaining fact and for which how to organise such a shared use of water resources depends on the two sides. All of the upstream and downstream countries need to sit down properly and soberly,” he said.

 (with newswires)

EU lawmakers have given the final go-ahead to a sweeping new law designed to cut back Europe’s towering piles of wasted food and rein in the environmental footprint of fast fashion.

Brussels estimates that each person in the 27-nation bloc generates around 130 kilogrammes of food waste annually – that’s a staggering 60 million tonnes – along with some 15 kilos of discarded textiles.

By slashing food waste, the EU hopes to also reduce the water, fertiliser and energy used to produce, process and store food that too often ends up in the bin.

A similar rationale underpins the textile provisions: producing a single cotton t-shirt, the EU points out, requires around 2,700 litres of fresh water – the amount an average person drinks over two and a half years.

French consumers have bad habits when it comes to food waste, data shows

Binding targets for food

Under the law passed on Tuesday, member states will face binding food waste reduction targets, though they will have the freedom to decide how best to reach them.

By 2030, households, retailers and restaurants must cut their waste by 30 percent compared with 2021-23 levels, while the food industry must trim its losses by 10 per cent.

Rapporteur Anna Zalewska said “targeted solutions” could include encouraging sales of “ugly” fruit and vegetables, clarifying confusing date labels and boosting donations of unsold but still edible food.

Parliament initially pushed for even steeper reductions of 40 and 20 percent, but the final compromise was hammered out with the European Commission and EU capitals.

The hospitality industry lobbied against binding targets, arguing instead for a stronger focus on consumer education.

“The key is raising awareness – especially among consumers,” said Marine Thizon of the European hotel, restaurant and café association Hotrec, noting that households account for more than half of Europe’s food waste.

Donated clothes an environmental disaster in disguise for developing world

Textiles brought into the fold

The law also updates a 2008 directive on waste, for the first time extending its reach to textiles.

Producers will be made responsible for the cost of collecting, sorting and recycling clothing, carpets, mattresses and more.

With less than one per cent of textiles recycled worldwide, and over 12 million tonnes thrown out annually in the EU alone, lawmakers hope the measures will stem the tide of ultra-cheap fashion imports – many from China – sold by platforms such as Shein.

Brussels is already investigating the online giant over concerns about illegal products.

Separately, the EU has proposed a €2 flat import fee on small parcels, aiming to curb the flood of low-cost packages driven by fast-fashion sales.

Last year, 4.6 billion parcels entered the bloc – more than 145 every second – with nine in ten arriving from China.

Disappointment and anger after world fails to agree plastic pollution treaty

Farm sector spared

One major gap remains, as the new law sets no waste-reduction targets for farmers, to the disappointment of environmental groups such as WWF.

“Losses before, during and after harvesting or livestock rearing make up a considerable amount of food waste across the value chain,” the organisation warned, saying it was “concerned” about the exemption.

Even so, the new law marks a significant step forward, with the potential to make Europeans more mindful of what they eat, wear and throw away – and to send a clear signal that wasteful habits can no longer be the norm.

(with newswires)

Marine Le Pen’s political future will hang in the balance early next year, after a Paris court confirmed that her appeal trial in the so-called “parliamentary assistants” affair will take place from 13 January to 12 February 2026.

The decision on dates was, announced by the Paris Court of Appeal on Monday.

In March 2025, the three-time presidential candidate was handed a heavy sentence: five years of ineligibility, enforceable immediately, and four years in prison, two of them to be served under electronic tagging.

Unless overturned, the ruling would bar her from standing in the 2027 presidential race – a devastating blow to the far-right leader who had been preparing another run for the Elysée.

Her lawyer, Rodolphe Bosselut, had argued that the appeal should be scheduled after the municipal elections of March 2026, warning that political and judicial calendars risked colliding.

Prosecutors, however, pushed for an earlier hearing, determined to keep the case well clear of the presidential contest.

In the end, the court opted for January, promising a verdict well before the summer of 2026.

French court hands Le Pen five-year election ban in fake jobs case

Fraud convictions

At the heart of the case lies allegations of a long-running fraud scheme said to have operated between 2004 and 2016, in which party staff were paid with European Parliament funds.

In the first trial, Le Pen, her National Rally, and two dozen allies were found guilty of siphoning off an estimated €3.2 million.

While some co-defendants have accepted their convictions, twelve figures – including Perpignan’s mayor Louis Aliot, MP Julien Odoul and veteran party members Bruno Gollnisch and Wallerand de Saint-Just – have joined Le Pen in appealing the decision.

That narrower line-up means the retrial is expected to be shorter than the original, which ran for two months in late 2024.

The consequences of her conviction have already sent ripples through French politics.

Prime Minister François Bayrou admitted to being “troubled” by the severity of the sentence, while within the far right, the prospect of a “Plan B” candidate, such as party president Jordan Bardella, has been openly discussed.

French police raid far-right National Rally HQ in campaign financing probe

Legal battles

For Le Pen herself, the appeal represents not only a legal battle but also a race against time to preserve her long-nurtured presidential ambitions.

However, the National Rally is facing a separate investigation, launched in July 2024, into allegations of fraud and illicit campaign financing.

The probe centres on loans from private individuals used to bankroll campaigns in 2022 and 2024, leading to a police raid at party headquarters last summer.

Yet despite these mounting troubles, Le Pen remains determined.

Her legal team insists she will fight to clear her name, banking on the appeal to overturn or at least soften the first-instance verdict.

France’s homegrown artificial intelligence champion Mistral has cemented its place among Europe’s tech leaders, announcing on Tuesday that it has raised €1.7 billion in fresh capital – a record for a French start-up.

The fundraising drive has brought the value of the company to €11.7 billion, almost double its worth just over a year ago.

The deal also brings in a heavyweight new ally – Dutch technology giant ASML, the world’s most important supplier of advanced semiconductor equipment, which is directly investing €1.3 billion in Mistral.

ASML emerged from the round as Mistral’s leading shareholder, in a move set to link Europe’s most prominent AI developer with the linchpin of global chip production.

Could European AI create a more unified European identity?

European tech alliance

The partnership is being hailed as a milestone for European technological sovereignty at a time when the EU is seeking to reduce its reliance on US firms, especially under the renewed presidency of Donald Trump.

By joining forces, ASML and Mistral are positioning themselves to explore joint research and innovative solutions at the intersection of AI and advanced chipmaking.

ASML said its investment was designed to “generate clear benefits for ASML customers through innovative products and solutions enabled by AI”, while also holding out the prospect of deeper collaboration in research.

Arthur Mensch, Mistral’s co-founder and chief executive, struck an equally confident note.

He said Mistral’s technology could help ASML tackle “current and future engineering challenges”, boosting both the hardware that underpins semiconductors and the AI systems that rely on them.

ASML will take between an 11 to 15 percent stake in Mistral and secure a seat on its board, although neither company has confirmed the details.

France’s Mistral AI teams up with UAE-backed developers as Le Chat app launches

From start-up to heavyweight contender

Mistral was founded in 2023 by Mensch, a former researcher at Google’s DeepMind, alongside Guillaume Lample and Timothée Lacroix, who both cut their teeth at Meta’s AI division.

In just two years, the Paris-based company has carved out a reputation as Europe’s most promising AI start-up.

Its flagship product, Le Chat, is a large language model chatbot pitched as a rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Beyond text, Mistral has also rolled out generative models capable of creating images and computer code.

The company has expanded quickly, with offices now open in Paris, London, Luxembourg, New York, Palo Alto and Singapore.

Along the way, it has struck a string of headline-grabbing partnerships – from teaming up with Nvidia to develop a cloud computing platform, to joining forces with Saudi investment fund MGX on an AI campus outside Paris.

Mistral has also signed a deal with Agence France-Presse, allowing Le Chat to draw on AFP’s extensive multilingual news archives to answer users’ queries on current and historical events.

AFP strikes deal for France’s Mistral AI to use news articles

Playing catch-up with US rivals

Despite its rapid rise, Mistral remains a relative lightweight compared with American competitors.

Earlier this month, US firm Anthropic secured fresh funding at a staggering $183 billion valuation, underscoring the scale of investment flooding into AI across the Atlantic.

Yet Tuesday’s announcement marks a clear statement of intent.

For France and Europe more broadly, Mistral’s success is being held up as evidence that the continent can nurture its own champions in a sector increasingly seen as strategic.

With ASML now on board, Mistral has secured both deep pockets and a powerful partner at the heart of global chipmaking.

For Europe’s bid to assert itself in the AI race, that combination may prove invaluable.

French President Emmanuel Macron is pushing for the creation of a military force to secure any peace deal made between Russia and Ukraine.

Turkey, which boasts NATO’s second-largest army, is seen as a key player in any such move – especially given that Washington has ruled out sending US troops.

For its part, Ankara has said it is open to joining a peacekeeping mission.

“Macron finally came to terms [with the fact] that Turkey is an important player, with or without the peace deal. Turkey will have an important role to play in the Black Sea and in the Caucasus,” said Serhat Guvenc, professor of international relations at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.

Macron last month held a lengthy phone call with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, focused on the Ukraine conflict, and thanked him for his diplomatic efforts to end the war.

Turkey eyes Ukraine peacekeeping role but mistrust clouds Western ties

Turning point

For Professor Federico Donelli of Trieste University, this marks a dramatic turnaround. Previously, the two leaders have frequently exchanged sharp words, especially over Turkey’s rising influence in West Africa and the Sahel.

“In Paris, public opinion and the press criticised this move by Turkey a lot,” said Donelli. “At the same time, the rhetoric of some Turkish officers, including President Erdogan, was strongly anti-French. They were talking a lot about the neocolonialism of France and so on.”

Donelli added that cooperation over Ukraine has pushed France to reconsider its Africa stance.

“As a consequence of Ukraine, the position of France has changed, and they are now more open to cooperating with Turkey. And they [understand] that in some areas, like the Western Sahel, Turkey is better than Russia, better than China,” he said.

Analysts also see new openings in the Caucasus. A peace agreement signed in August between Azerbaijan, which was backed by Turkey, and Armenia, which was supported by France, could provide further common ground.

Macron last month reportedly pressed Erdogan to reopen Turkey’s border with Armenia, which has been closed since 1993. Turkish and Armenian officials met on the countries’ border on Thursday to discuss the normalisation of relations.

Turkey walks a tightrope as Trump threatens sanctions over Russian trade

‘Pragmatic cooperation’

But clear differences remain, especially when it comes to Syria. The rise to power of Turkish-backed President Ahmed al-Sharaa is seen as undermining any French role there.

“For Erdogan, the victory of al-Sharaa in Damascus on 24 December is the revenge of the Ottoman Empire, and Ankara doesn’t want to see the French come back to Syria,” said Fabrice Balanche, a professor of international relations at Lyon University.

Balanche argued that France is losing ground to Turkey across the region.

“It’s not just in Syria, but also in Lebanon – the Turks are very involved, and in Iraq, too. We [the French] are in competition with the Turks. They want to expel France from the Near East,” he said.

Despite this rivalry, Guvenc predicted cooperation will continue where interests align.

“In functional terms, Turkey’s contributions are discussed, and they will do business, but it’s going to be transactional and pragmatic cooperation, nothing beyond that,” he said.

One such area could be the Palestinian territories. Both Macron and Erdogan support recognition of a Palestinian state and are expected to raise the issue at this month’s United Nations General Assembly.

For now, shared interests are likely to outweigh differences – even if only temporarily.

For many critics of French President Emmanuel Macron, his nomination of close ally Sebastien Lecornu to replace François Bayrou as prime minister is a slap in the face, and further proof that the government is ignoring people’s wishes.  Participants in a movement to shut down the country on Wednesday talk about feeling unheard, and draw comparisons with the anti-government Yellow Vest movement from 2018-2019. (Listen @0′)

Tourists have long been drawn to the “village” of Montmartre, with its famed Sacre Cœur basilica, artists’ square, winding cobbled streets, vineyards and pastel-shaded houses. But the rise of influencers and instagrammers who post picture-postcard decors, as featured in hit films and Netflix series, have turned it into a must-see destination. With tourists now outnumbering residents by around 430 to one, the cohabitation is under strain. Béatrice Dunner, of the Association for the Defence of Montmartre, is calling on local authorities to follow the example of Amsterdam and tackle overtourism before it’s too late. (Listen @13′)

On 15 September 1635, a group of French colonists claimed the Caribbean island of Martinique, establishing a plantation economy reliant on slavery. Its economic and cultural legacy continues to shape the island today as an overseas department. (Listen @6’35”)

Episode mixed by Cécile Pompeani

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

The bombing was attributed by Russian and Hungarian officials to Ukrainian drone forces, with Ukraine justifying the strike as part of its broader campaign against Russia following the latter’s invasion in 2022.

The strike resulted in oil flows to Hungary and Slovakia being cut off, and also exposed political divides at the heart of Central Europe’s energy security, sparking a diplomatic fallout between Kyiv, Budapest and Bratislava.

“The bombing drives home the point that Russian energy supplies remain a point of contest, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, which remains dependent on [oil] coming from the east,” said Andreas Goldthau, director of the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy at the University of Erfurt in Germany.

Pipeline dispute shows Central Europe’s struggle to cut ties with Russian oil

‘Not a matter of supply’

Despite EU-wide efforts to reduce reliance on Russian energy – which Goldthau acknowledges is “no longer a big issue for Europe as a whole” – Hungary and Slovakia stand as outliers, locked into long-term contracts and dependent on the Druzhba line.

When the pipeline was struck multiple times in August and September, forcing a halt to crude deliveries, both governments were forced to draw on strategic reserves.

But how Hungary and Slovakia are coping, is “more a political choice than anything else,” Goldthau told RFI.

“It is not a matter of supply, but a matter of price and transport logistics, because it could eat into the margins of refineries if you have to source it from other parts and other geographies.”

Central Europe, he added, “could source through ports in Croatia, and they could have done this already by now, but they chose not to”.

‘A political decision’

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government responded to the strike angrily, calling it “an attack on Hungary’s sovereignty”.

The country’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, said: “Ukraine knows very well that the Druzhba pipeline is vital for Hungary’s and Slovakia’s energy supply, and that such strikes harm us far more than Russia.”

Both Budapest and Bratislava have demanded EU intervention and accused Kyiv of jeopardising their security, just as reserves were being tapped to keep refineries running.

From Washington to Warsaw: how MAGA influence is reshaping Europe’s far right

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested the attacks might hinge on Hungary lifting its EU accession veto, warning: “The existence of the friendship depends on what Hungary’s position is.”

Ukrainian officials also say that Hungary and Slovakia have failed to diversify away from Russian oil, despite ample opportunity and EU support.

According to Goldthau, Russian leverage over the EU “is gone, by and large”. He explained: “The EU’s main suppliers are now the United States and Norway. Kazakhstan comes into play, but Russia no longer plays a role.”

Ukraine, he noted, “no longer gets any Russian oil or any Russian gas, it merely functions as a transit country”.

The attack and subsequent diplomatic spat might have provided Hungary and Slovakia “a perfect occasion to pivot and seek alternative supplies, but it’s a purely political decision to do that or not,” Goldthau said. “Whatever changes that [decision] lies at home, and not abroad.”

Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday. This week, you’ll hear musical requests from your fellow listeners Eric Mbotji, Hossen Abed Ali, and Jayanta Chakrabarty. 

Be sure you send in your music requests! Write to me at thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s program: “Seven Seconds” by Youssou N’Dour, Neneh Cherry, Cameron McVey, and Jonathan Sharp, performed by Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry; “Babe” by Gary Barlow, played by Take That, and “Never Let You Go” written and performed by Klaus Waldeck and Patrizia Ferrara.

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 a 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!

In a move steeped in symbolism, Turkey’s leader chose recent celebrations marking the Ottoman Turks’ defeat of the Byzantine Christians at the Battle of Malazgirt in 1071 to issue an ultimatum to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

“Those who turn to Ankara and Damascus will win,” Erdogan bellowed to thousands of supporters on 26 August. “If the sword is unsheathed, there will be no room left for pens and words.”

Turkey, a strong ally of Syria, has a military presence in the country and the two governments recently signed a defence training agreement.

But Turkey is unhappy with the presence of the SDF, a coalition of Kurdish and Arab forces, which controls a large swathe of Syria bordering Turkey’s own predominantly Kurdish region.

Peace or politics? Turkey’s fragile path to ending a decades-long conflict

Buying time

The SDF is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has for years been fighting Turkey for greater Kurdish minority rights.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States. But Ankara is engaged in a peace process with the Kurdish militants, who have committed to disbanding.

However, Kurdish analyst Mesut Yegen, of the TIM think tank in Istanbul, says the disarmament process would be limited to Kurds from Turkey, and doesn’t include SDF forces in Syria.

Erdogan is now ramping up pressure on the SDF to honour an agreement its leader Mazloum Abdi signed in March with Syria’s new President, Ahmed Al Sharaa, to merge his military forces with the new regime in Damascus.

The deal is backed by the US, which has a military force in the SDF-controlled region as part of its war against the Islamic State.

But, according to Fabrice Balanche from Lyon University: “The SDF has no intention of implementing the agreement made in March. Mazloum just wanted to gain time.”

Balanche points out that Abdi’s SDF is a staunchly secular organisation and remains deeply suspicious of Sharaa’s jihadist connections.

Recent attacks on Syria’s Druze minority by forces linked to Sharaa appear to confirm the SDF’s fears over merging with the Damascus regime, says Balanche.

Syria’s interim president vows justice for Druze after deadly clashes

‘Israel would like a weak Syria’

At the same time, Erdogan is aware that the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish state on its border could be exploited by its rival Israel, which is looking for non-Arab allies in the region.

Aydin Selcen, a former senior Turkish diplomat and an analyst for Turkey’s Mediyascope news outlet, said: “Strategically, Israel would like a weak Syria, a weak Damascus, a weak Beirut and a weak Tehran.”

Turkey has carried out military incursions against the SDF, and its forces remain massed on the border.

But Balanche says American presence there will likely deter any new Turkish military action. However, he warns that Ankara could seek to fuel Kurdish Arab rivalries within the SDF, with the fall of former ruler Bashar al-Assad last December.

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

“It is different now, you have a Sunni leader in Damascus, and many [Arab] tribes, many people, prefer to join Damascus,” he explained.

“So the risk is a proxy war. Of course, for the new regime, it would be a disaster. If you have no peace, you have no investment, you have no trust.”

The dilemma facing Ankara is that any new conflict against the SDF would likely weaken the Sharaa regime – a key ally.

Rwanda received seven people from the United States in the last week of August, as part of a deportation deal with the Trump administration, which has sought to send foreigners to third countries including Eswatini, South Sudan, Uganda and Rwanda.

Authorities in Kigali announced at the beginning of August that they had reached an agreement with the United States to take in up to 250 migrants.

The move has raised fresh concerns over human rights, legality, and the growing trend of wealthier nations paying others to accept deportees.

To understand the implications for migrants, for Africa, and for human rights, we spoke to Phil Clark, Professor of International Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. A specialist on Rwanda, the Great Lakes region, and conflict and post-conflict issues in Africa, he has conducted field research in Rwanda and beyond every year for the past 20 years

Rwanda agrees to take migrants from US in deal that includes cash grant

Kasakula: The first solar-powered village in Malawi

Meanwhile, in southern Africa, a community of nearly 9,000 households in rural Malawi became the country’s first village to achieve universal access to solar power at the end of August.

Kasakula town, where off-grid families have until now relied on lamps and candles, has reached this milestone, according to Brave Mhonie, general manager of the charity SolarAid Malawi and president of the Renewable Energy Industries Association of Malawi.

SolarAid is a small international charity, and chose the remote and low-income village of Kasakula to pilot its model called Energy-as-a-Service. 

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Episode mixed by Melissa Chemam and Erwan Rome.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In partnership with Madhya Pradesh’s tourism board.

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

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

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

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

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

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