Thousands of people lined the Rue Soufflot to applaud as officers carried a symbolic coffin draped in the French flag into the national mausoleum.

The casket contained Badinter’s lawyer’s robe, a copy of his speech against capital punishment and several books, his wife told TF1 television.

Inside the Pantheon, Macron said Badinter’s voice would continue to inspire France’s fight for equality and human rights.

“As he enters the Pantheon, we hear his voice advocating for these great, essential, and unfinished battles,” he said, citing “the universal abolition of the death penalty”, the fight against anti-Semitism and the defence of the rule of law.

“These are causes that transcend centuries,” he added.

Badinter’s remains will stay in the cemetery of Bagneux, south of Paris, where he was buried after his death in 2024 aged 95.

His legacy also includes a 1982 law to decriminalise homosexuality.

A life dedicated to justice

The son of Jewish parents, Badinter lost his father in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. He became one of France’s most respected lawyers, defending clients that others refused to represent.

His campaign against capital punishment began in 1972 after one of his clients, Roger Bontems, was executed for his role in murdering a nurse and a guard during a prison escape.

He was haunted by his failure to save Bontems when, five years later, he convinced a jury not to execute Patrick Henry for the murder of a seven-year-old boy – a verdict that made him widely hated at the time.

Robert Badinter, who ended France’s guillotine era, enters the Panthéon

“Guillotining is nothing less than taking a living man and cutting him in two,” Badinter argued.

He saved six men from execution during his career, earning both death threats and admiration.

When he became justice minister under President François Mitterrand in 1981, Badinter made abolition his first priority.

Parliament approved the bill on 9 October that year. Until then, capital punishment in France was carried out by beheading with the guillotine – a practice dating back to the French Revolution of 1789.

The last person executed in France was Hamida Djandoubi in 1977, a Tunisian immigrant convicted of murder.

After ending capital punishment, Badinter urged parliament to decriminalise homosexuality, a reform passed in 1982.

Tributes and condemnation

At the Pantheon, magistrates, musicians and several former prime ministers joined the tribute.

The facade of the building was lit up with a photo of Badinter and the words: “French justice will no longer be a justice that kills. The death penalty is abolished.”

Singer Julien Clerc performed “L’assassin assassiné” (Murderer Murdered), a song long linked to Badinter’s campaign against executions. Former president François Hollande and members of Badinter’s family attended the ceremony.

France pays tribute to Badinter, minister who won fight to end death penalty

Earlier in the day, local officials said Badinter’s tomb in Bagneux had been defaced with blue graffiti reading: “Eternal is their gratitude, the murderers, the paedophiles, the rapists.”

Macron condemned the act on social media, writing: “Shame on those who wanted to sully his memory. The republic is always stronger than hate.”

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said she had filed a complaint with prosecutors to find and punish those responsible.

Politicians across the spectrum also condemned the vandalism.

Badinter now joins other national heroes in the Pantheon, including writer Victor Hugo, Resistance fighter and singer Josephine Baker and Simone Veil, who led the fight to legalise abortion in France.

Husamettin Dogan was the only man still claiming innocence among 51 convicted of abusing Pelicot at the original trial last year. 

The court in Nîmes denied his appeal on Thursday after four days of hearings, rejecting his defence that he had not knowingly committed rape. 

The ex-construction worker, 44, saw his sentence increased to 10 years in prison, less than the 12 sought by the prosecution but more than the nine he received after the original trial.

‘Take responsibility’

Pelicot’s former husband, Dominique Pelicot, admitted to drugging her with sedatives and inviting dozens of strangers to abuse her over the course of nearly a decade.

Dogan acknowledged meeting Dominique Pelicot online and visiting his house in June 2019 with the intention of having sex with his wife. He claimed to believe she had consented, despite videos of the night showing her unconscious and snoring while he penetrated her.

Gisèle Pelicot addressed the court directly on Wednesday, saying Dogan must “take responsibility” for his actions and “stop hiding behind [his] cowardice”.

Gisèle Pelicot wins top human rights award for fight against rape culture

High-profile trial

The verdict against Dogan marks the end of one of France’s biggest ever rape trials. Sixteen other men convicted of raping Gisèle Pelicot said they planned to appeal after the original verdict in December 2024, before dropping out. 

The first trial, which lasted four months, made headlines around the world – many dedicated to the bravery of Gisèle Pelicot in facing her attackers daily in open court.

‘A very difficult ordeal’: Gisèle Pelicot’s statement after mass rape trial

The case also renewed debate about how sexual violence is prosecuted in France and led to a push to include consent in the legal definition of rape.

Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years in prison, where he is being held in solitary confinement. His 50 co-defendants received terms ranging from three to 15 years. 

Since 1985, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has been defending journalists and press freedom around the world.

For RSF director Thibaut Bruttin, who took over the reins of the Paris-based organisation in July 2024, press freedom has never been in greater peril, on an international scale.

This “tipping point” is the result of an “economic crackdown” on global media, coupled with “the biggest hate campaign against journalism, triggered by the Trump administration,” Bruttin told RFI.

‘Alarming deterioration’ of US press freedom under Trump, warns RSF

United States President Donald Trump has cut funding for public service media, cracked down on visas for journalists and filed legal complaints against news outlets.

Around the world, including in Ukraine, the Middle East and Latin America, the profession of field reporter has become more dangerous, and more deadly.

“If you look back, journalists back in the 1960s and 70s were privileged witnesses of history. They were welcomed, or at least tolerated, by most of the forces present in war zones. Then they became collateral victims, then they became hostages and persons of value, who are now being silenced,” Bruttin said.

‘Bloody pages of history’

On Thursday, Bruttin will represent RSF in the Normandy town of Bayeux for the annual war correspondents’ prize week (Prix Bayeux), an event that includes free public exhibitions, round tables, conferences and screenings.

It is also a time for mourning and remembering.  

At a ceremony in the war memorial park, Bruttin will unveil a stone engraved with the names of 73 journalists killed in the line of duty in the past year.

“It’s the only place, as far as I know, in the world where there is a list of all the journalists killed in action since the end of World War Two,” he said, adding that the families of journalists killed in Ukraine, Mexico and Syria will be present.

“It’s a deeply moving moment, and it’s very important to remind [people] that freedom of the press is not a given. It’s something that has been conquered. The history of the press is full of bloody pages,” he said.

“The primary safeguard for civilians is the action of the press. If there is no press on the ground, who is going to be giving the facts?”

The particularly heavy death toll of journalists between 2024 and 2025 is attributed to the Israeli operation against Hamas militants in Gaza, where foreign media is forbidden and only Palestinian journalists have been operating, at their peril.

RSF reported that Israel is responsible for the killing of more than 200 journalists in Gaza, and found evidence that in 56 cases those journalists were deliberately targeted.

New documentary shows life in Gaza for AFP journalists

This openly flouts article 2222 of the United Nations Security Council (signed in 2015), which explicitly outlines the importance of protecting journalists in conflict zones, and a mechanism for accountability in this regard.

“For the first time in history, we have the army of a democratic government [Israel] actively pursuing a smear campaign against journalists, plus targeting them and claiming that they target them,” Bruttin said.

‘Smear campaign’

For RSF, collective strength and international solidarity are instrumental in highlighting such situations.

The NGO launched a petition on 1 September in support of Palestinian journalists, which has been signed by more than 250 media organisations.

Following that, on 24 September RSF obtained the support of 21 UN member states who called for the opening of Gaza to foreign media and the evacuation of Palestinian journalists.

“If you use social media tools today, you will see that the smear campaign of the Israeli Defense Forces against Palestinian journalists has almost disappeared. It wasn’t easy to do, but we managed,” said Bruttin.

French photojournalist Antoni Lallican killed in Ukraine drone attack

Bruttin says RSF was also instrumental in getting the French prosecutor’s office to launch an investigation into war crimes over the death of French photojournalist Antoni Lallican, who was killed by a drone attack attributed to Russia in Donbas, Ukraine on 3 October.

RSF was able to present evidence to the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office to prove that Lallican was deliberately targeted.

The future of journalism

To mark their anniversary, RSF has teamed up with the Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli, also founded in 1985, to publish a special album of drawings and photos, which goes on sale in France on 6 November.

For Bruttin, Studio Ghibli shares many of RSF’s values, such as integrity and authenticity.

This includes a shared belief in the need for regulation when it comes to artificial intelligence – something Studio Ghibli has been vocal about after AI was used to copy and recreate their trademark drawing style.

RSF says the press cannot afford not to keep up with technological advances, and has been building an ethical charter for AI and the newsroom and conducting a pilot project to help journalists build their own tools.

French press take on digital databases to defend journalist copyright against AI

For Bruttin, RSF’s goal is to be “a driving force for change within the industry, to build a coalition between media professionals, policymakers and the general public”.

He said: “Our primary focus today is both the safety of journalists, but also the future of journalism, because sometimes you can save the individuals but fail to address the systemic problems of the media ecosystem.

“We are very keen on demonstrating that it’s not about journalists at the end of the day, it’s about the people’s relationship to facts.”

Israel and Hamas earlier agreed a Gaza ceasefire deal to free the remaining living Israeli hostages held by the Palestinian militant group. It is a major step towards ending a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe.

The deal brokered through indirect talks in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh came two years after the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel. That was followed by a relentless Israeli assault on Hamas-ruled Gaza.

While Europe has strongly supported the ceasefire efforts spearheaded by President Donald Trump, Washington and several European countries are at odds over whether it is the right moment to recognise a Palestinian state.

Macron, in a 22 September speech at the United Nations, recognised a Palestinian state on the heels of similar announcements by Canada, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

The Paris meeting brings together the top diplomats of five key Arab states – Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – with European counterparts from France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the UK. Turkey and the European Union will also be represented.

“This meeting will enable work on the implementation of the peace plan and the framework for the ‘day after’ by specifying the aspects of a collective commitment,” said a French foreign ministry statement.

It would focus on security, governance and reconstruction of the Palestinian territories after the war, it said.

Top US envoy Rubio in Paris as diplomats renew drive for peace deal in Gaza

‘Unnecessary and harmful’

Before the ceasefire deal was announced, the Paris meeting had angered Israel, further straining French-Israeli relations in the wake of President Emmanuel Macron’s recognition of a Palestinian state, which infuriated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar had in a message on X denounced the “unnecessary and harmful” meeting “concocted behind Israel’s back” at the sensitive moment of the negotiations in Sharm el-Sheikh.

The agenda includes the International Stabilisation Force evoked by Trump as part of his peace plan and support for the Palestinian Authority which runs the occupied West Bank, a French diplomatic source said this week, asking not to be named.

“It is essential to act together and get down to work,” said German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul.

Berlin has repeatedly said it disagrees with the move by France and other European countries to recognise a Palestinian state now.

The meeting is due to get underway at 5pm followed by a news conference by French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot.

It was not immediately clear if Macron, who on Wednesday met Jordanian Crown Prince Hussein and has hailed the ceasefire deal as providing “great hope” for the region, would attend.

The 27-year-old, who was born in France a few months before his father bagged a brace for France in the 1998 World Cup final win over Brazil, played for his native country at youth level.

But never having represented France at senior level, he was able to opt for Algeria via his paternal grandparents, who were born in North Africa.

“I’m very happy to be here with the Algeria team,” said Zidane as the 26-man squad went through its final paces in Oran for Thursday night’s Group G game against Somalia.

“It makes me proud and I will give everything at 100 percent to make the Algerian people proud.”

Algeria, who lead the pool with 19 points after eight games, will qualify for next year’s tournament in the United States, Mexico and Canada as long as they match the results of second-placed Uganda and third-placed Mozambique, who each have 15 points.

“All my family are proud of me and back my choice,” added Zidane, who turns out for the Spanish second-division side Granada.

“My grandfather is happy that I’m in Algeria and that I’ve made this decision.”

Mbappé and Kolo Muani sparkle as Deschamps hails Zidane as likely France coach

Son of a legend

Zinedine Zidane played 108 times for France, scoring 31 goals over 12 years. As a coach, he steered Real Madrid to 10 trophies between 2016 and 2021, including a hat trick of wins in the Champions League.

“My father had his journey, his career,” said Luca Zidane. “As for me I have my journey, my career.”

Though technically a “home” game for Somalia, Thursday’s fixture will be played in Oran due to security concerns over staging matches in the Somali capital Mogadishu.

On Wednesday night, Egypt became the third side from Africa to reach the World Cup after a 3-0 victory over Djibouti.

Mohammed Salah nabbed a pair after Ibrahim Adel opened the scoring in the eighth minute of the game, which was played at Morocco’s Stade Larbi Zaouli in Casablanca because Djibouti lacks a stadium that meets the technical requirements of World Cup organisers Fifa.

Ghana’s Black Stars get into the World Cup groove

Cape Verde on verge of historic qualification

Elsewhere in African qualifiers on Wednesday night, Group D pacesetters Cape Verde scored two late goals in Tripoli to salvage a 3-3 draw against Libya and maintain pole position in the pool.

On Monday, Cape Verde take on bottom-of-the-table Eswatini and need to match the result of second-placed Cameroon’s game against Angola to claim a place at the World Cup for the first time. 

In Group I, Ghana thrashed the Central African Republic 5-0 to inch closer to a fifth appearance at world football’s most prestigious national team tournament.

Ghana lead the pool with 22 points from their nine games. Madagascar, 2-1 winners on Wednesday night against Comoros, lie second on 19 points.  

On Sunday, Ghana entertain Comoros and Madagascar play in Mali.

The nine group winners in African qualifiers will progress to the first World Cup to feature 48 teams. 

The four best-ranked runners-up will enter African play-offs in November, from which the winners go to intercontinental play-offs in March.

The regional court ruled on Thursday that the decision by a lower court to keep the 44-year-old in custody was “legitimate and well-founded”, according to a statement released by the court’s press service.

Sehili’s lawyer, Alla Kouchner, said she plans to appeal the ruling in Russia’s final court of appeal, as reported by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Sehili, a celebrated figure in the world of ultra-cycling – a sport of extreme long-distance rides – had set out from Lisbon in early July, aiming to pedal across 17 countries and reach Vladivostok, near the borders with China and North Korea, by early September.

The journey was meant to crown a new record for the fastest human-powered crossing of Eurasia.

However, when seeking to enter Russia from China Sehili reportedly chose a border post that is only open to trains and buses, and not accessible to cyclists.

According to Vladimir Naïdin, a local prison observer, Sehili faced the choice of either taking public transport and forfeiting his record, or pressing on by bike. He chose the latter.

French cyclist arrested in Russia to be detained until October

From adventure to arrest

Convinced that border guards would show leniency, Sehili approached them openly, expecting to receive only a slap on the wrist.

Instead, he was arrested and charged with “illegal border crossing”, an offence which carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison.

“He only had his sporting achievement in mind,” his partner Fanny Bensussan told France 3 Occitanie last month, explaining that Sehili never intended to break the law.

Initially detained until 4 October, Sehili’s custody has since been extended to 3 November while investigations continue.

Relations between France and Russia have been frosty since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. A number of Western nationals have been detained in Russia since then, with diplomatic tensions heightened around such cases.

(with AFP)

As French politicians remain deeply divided over how to address the country’s growing deficit, one measure appears to unite public opinion across the political spectrum: the Zucman tax. Devised by 38-year-old economist Gabriel Zucman, the idea is to add a two percent tax on the ultra-rich, who often use holding companies to shield their wealth from income taxes. While the left sees it as fiscal justice, many on the right are concerned about additional taxes in a country that already has a lot, and maintain taxing the wealthiest will drive them abroad. (Listen @2′)

Ali Akbar left his native Pakistan aged 18, looking to make enough money to buy his mother a decent home. Since arriving in France in 1973, he’s managed to do just that – selling newspapers like Le Monde on the streets of Paris’s Left Bank district. A popular figure in the neighbourhood, Akbar – the capital’s last remaining hawker – was recently selected for the National Order of Merit by President Emmanuel Macron, a former customer. He talks about loving his work, the collapse of the newspaper culture and how recognition by France will help to “heal” the injuries of his past. (Listen @18’30”)

France abolished the death penalty on 9 October 1981. Forty-four years later, the justice minister who fought to change the law, Robert Badinter, is entering the Pantheon, the monument dedicated to French heroes. (Listen @11′)

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).

They call themselves “wowo” after the Chinese goods trucks that are a common sight here.

“I am able to move the cargo of an entire truck,” Alphonsine tells RFI, smiling, as she stands near the crowded pedestrian corridor at the border crossing.

“We are the ‘wowo’ mothers – like the trucks that carry big loads. We work as a team. If we have to unload the truck, we do it and then we carry the cargo to its destination in [DRC], according to the owner’s instructions.”

These women haul loads of up to 30 kilograms – flour, cooking oil, soft drinks and other everyday goods – for small traders who often dodge formal customs procedures. 

Many of the women, who are of all ages, work entirely in the informal sector, according to the Association of Women Active in Cross-Border Trade (AFACT), a local group that supports female traders.

The women carrying the burden of Kenya’s rural healthcare on their backs

Hard work, small returns

Each trip pays around 1,500 Congolese francs – less than one US dollar. To earn $5 a day, a woman needs to haul roughly a tonne of goods, in several runs. The work is exhausting, but many see no alternative.

“Each of us has a quantity we must carry,” Keren told RFI as she stacked packs of soft drinks. “I have 25 packs. The trader bought 100. That’s not much. OK, let’s go for the last trip.”

Many of the traders are small shopkeepers or market sellers who buy stock in Zambia and bring it back to the DRC. They often prefer to keep a low profile and let the porters handle the border crossing.

“The small trader comes to buy all sorts of items – juice, wheat flour, vegetable oil,” said Régine Mbuyi, one of the wowo women.

“He asks me to get these products across. If he is acting in good faith, he also gives me money to pay customs and other public services. But if he has nothing, I have to manage on my own.”

Illegal logging threatens livelihoods of hundreds of Ghanaian women

Customs authorities say this informal trade costs the state nearly $3,000 in lost revenue each day.

To tackle this, Malaxe Luhanga, head of a small cross-border transporters’ association that represents local porters, wants the work to be officially recognised and taxed.

“We can apply a grouping system according to the category of goods and have them officially taxed,” he told RFI. “We can adopt this system, which is accepted by member countries of Comesa, to make trade and taxation easier for public authorities.”

Comesa – the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa – is a regional trading bloc that includes both the DRC and Zambia.

Crossing the border often means paying a chain of bribes.

“There are three barriers,” says Anto, balancing a sack of flour on her head. “At the exit from Zambia, I pay 500 Congolese francs. In the corridor, I give 1,000, and a bit further on, I pay another 1,000. Once outside the corridor, other public agents are waiting. Sometimes I negotiate and they let me pass.”

The karate grannies of Korogocho, fighting back at any age

Sexual harassment

On top of having to pay bribes, many of the women also face verbal abuse while doing their work.

“They often insult me,” says Jacquie, a young widow waiting at the end of the corridor. “These agents say: ‘Why are you here? Where is your husband? Is he incapable of feeding you?’ I don’t care – we put up with it because they don’t know my situation.”

Some women have reported more serious harassment.

“When an agent stops me, sometimes he asks for sexual favours to let the goods through,” says Régine Mbuyi. “It also happens that during the search, these agents allow themselves to touch us, even on intimate parts. It’s humiliating.”

Amnesty International has reported on this harassment, exploitation and violence faced by women working as informal cross-border traders across southern Africa. The women have no social protection or legal recourse.

AFACT has repeatedly denounced these abuses of power.

“Some girls have been humiliated and stripped, and we have proof. We also have women who have been publicly whipped. When the association wants to intervene, we are told to leave the situation as it is. Why can’t a woman do work of her choice?” says AFACT president Solange Masengo. 

RFI was unable to get a response from the mayor of Kasumbalesa or the local deputy head of customs.

Despite the exhaustion, the abuse and the risks, the wowo women of Kasumbalesa keep going, shouldering their burdens day after day to support their families and keep local trade alive.

This story was adapted from a two-part series by RFI’s Denise Maheho published and broadcast in French.

A Zambian ritual mask, a pendant from the ancient Syrian site of Palmyra and a painting by Swedish artist Anders Zorn are among nearly 250 stolen objects displayed on Unesco’s new interactive platform.

But that’s just a fraction of the some 57,000 stolen items Interpol estimates are in circulation, in a criminal trade for which the international police organisation’s database is the sole reference point.

Unesco director general Audrey Azoulay said she hoped the Virtual Museum of Stolen Cultural Objects would draw attention to this vast illegal trade network.

The initiative will inform “as many people as possible” about “a trade that damages memories, breaks the chains of generations and hinders science,” Azoulay told French news agency AFP, describing the virtual museum as “unique”.

How an RFI investigation helped return an ancient treasure to Benin

‘Identity and memory’

The online space, designed by renowned Burkina Faso-born architect Diebedo Francis Kéré, allows visitors to explore the lost objects and trace their origins and purpose through accompanying stories, testimonies and photos.

“Each stolen object takes with it a part of the identity, memory and know-how of its communities of origin,” said Sunna Altnoder, head of Unesco’s unit for combating illicit trafficking.

The initial collection will grow as more stolen artefacts are 3D-modelled, using artificial intelligence.

Interpol says 11,000 stolen artefacts seized in Europe crackdown

But the goal, Altnoder said, is for it to one day close, as Unesco hopes the pieces will instead move to a Returns and Restitutions section showcasing items recovered or sent back to their countries or communities of origin.

The initiative also aims to bring together sectors involved in tackling the trafficking of cultural property, Altnoder added.

“We need a network – involving the police, the judiciary, the art market, member states, civil society and communities – to defeat another network, which is the criminal network.”

(with AFP)

Beginning in 1960, Goodall lived for long periods in what is now Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, watching wild chimpanzees at close range. She described how they used tools and hunted and their social behaviour, drawing into question the line people drew between humans and other animals.

Goodall went on to become a leading voice for conservation. She founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 to support science and protect great apes and their habitats, then launched Roots & Shoots, a youth programme now active in some 100 countries.

This interview with RFI was recorded around the release of Jane, a documentary directed by Brett Morgen. It shows the young researcher in the forest and reflects on a life built from a childhood dream.

RFI: There have been many documentaries about you. What do you think this one adds to what we know about your work with chimpanzees?

Jane Goodall: It’s completely different to any other documentary in that it’s much more honest. So it basically shows things as they were. I think that Brett Morgen, the director, the way that he’s interspersed interviews with me today with that early footage is amazing. And one of the things that strikes people again and again is there’s a whole long section of Jane on her own in the forest.

And most people don’t even think, well, obviously she wasn’t on her own, she’s being filmed. And yet there’s such an immediacy about it. And even I when I’m watching it, I think yes, that’s how it was. I was alone like that. That’s exactly how it was.

Jane Goodall, pioneering primatologist and voice for wildlife, dies aged 91

RFI: This was in 1960, in Gombe National Park in Tanzania, very close to the border with Burundi. Probably quite a dangerous place to be, so close to chimpanzees. You were a 26-year-old white female. Were you aware of the dangers?

JG: I don’t think it was dangerous at all. First of all, people have said, well, being a woman must have been a disadvantage. Well actually, no, because Tanzania was becoming independent. White males were considered a sort of threat. But a young girl – innocent, defenceless – they wanted to help.

So I had a lot of help from the local people and from the government as well, once it became independent. And the dangers in the field… not really, you know.

I could have been charged by buffalo. I was, in fact, once. Chimpanzees – they’re not dangerous out in the field. They could be, but they’re not. So I didn’t consider it dangerous. And looking back on it, I don’t think it was dangerous. It became more dangerous once the Congo erupted and we got the people escaping, all the Belgians coming over the lake.

Then things became different. Then you got the genocide in Burundi and Rwanda. It became politically much less stable.

RFI: Just remind us, what made you want to go to Africa in the first place?

JG: When I was eight years old I was reading Doctor Dolittle, and there’s a story where he rescues circus animals and takes them back to Africa. I loved that particular book. And then when I was 10, I read Tarzan and Tarzan of the Apes, and that was it.

So from 10 onwards, that’s all I wanted to do. Go to Africa, live with animals and write books about them.

RFI: In the film we see you saying it was like a dream come true, I felt that this is where I belonged. So really, you felt that was your natural habitat?

JG: Yes. Once I got used to it, it was like my backyard. I knew all the little shortcuts through the forest. I got to know the different animals and the sounds. It was just what I dreamed of all my life.

RFI: Do you prefer animals to humans?

JG: I prefer some animals to some humans, and some humans to some animals. We’re animals too, remember.

Zoologist Jane Goodall warns: ‘The world is a mess’ ahead of COP16

RFI: You’ve moved from being a primatologist to more of an animal activist. You founded an educational NGO, Roots & Shoots. It’s now present in around 100 countries.

JG: Roots & Shoots began in Tanzania in 1991 with high school students. The great thing was that these students weren’t animal rights people – they were worried about poaching in the national parks and asked why the government wasn’t doing anything about it.

They were also concerned about the treatment of animals in markets, about street children sniffing glue and about illegal dynamite fishing.

I sent them back to their schools to gather friends who cared about these problems. From the start, Roots & Shoots was different from other environmental organisations. Its message was that every one of us makes a difference every day – and we choose what sort of difference we make.

We knew from the rainforest that everything is interconnected and each species has a role. So groups often focused on three areas: improving life for people, for animals and for the environment. Sometimes one group worked on all three, sometimes they divided tasks but shared results.

The programme grew naturally. It broke down barriers between people of different nations, religions and cultures – and between us and the natural world. People sometimes say they don’t understand the name, but if you picture a seed sending out little white roots and a green shoot that can grow into a mighty tree, you understand why it’s called Roots & Shoots.

RFI: Can you give us an example of something that a Roots & Shoots project has achieved?

JG: In Tanzania, we’ve got Roots & Shoots in every single part of the country because it began there, and they’re proud of it. They’ve planted between them so many hundreds of thousands of trees. They’ve really worked to improve the lives of animals. They’ve taught their parents about what’s going on with the dynamite fishing. They’ve made a huge difference in clearing trash, beach clean-ups and so forth.

In China, it’s changed the attitude of a whole generation towards animals and the environment – and the number of Chinese adults who’ve come up to me and said, well, of course I care about the environment, I was in your Roots & Shoots programme in primary school, and they showed us the documentaries about the chimpanzees.

So I’ve seen the attitude in China change, and it’s only recently I’ve realised the major role that Roots & Shoots has played in creating this change.

RFI: You travel around 300 days a year. You’re still a very active woman, even in your eighties. And you travel with this little creature called Ratty. He’s a toy, I must add, a stuffed rat. Just tell me, why Ratty?

JG: Ratty was actually given to me. He’s the symbol for a wonderful group called Doctors Against Animal Experimentation, showing that we don’t need to use animals – the rat being the most commonly used.

But I use Ratty not only to talk about the amazing intelligence of the ordinary rat, but the giant forest rat of Africa has been taught to detect landmines from the scent, even if they’re deep buried under the ground.

And they’ve helped to defuse tens of thousands of landmines in Mozambique, Angola and different African countries, and now moving into the eastern world as well.

They can identify the very earliest stages of TB before the hospital instruments, but now some of them have been taught to sniff out ivory, some rhino horn, some leopard skin, some pangolin scales so they can go up among the crates where people and dogs can’t go. And they have managed to find a whole lot of illegally smuggled products of this sort.

RFI: Just another reminder of how intelligent animals can be. Thank you for talking to us, Jane Goodall.

“The ocean is changing rapidly, with record extremes and worsening impacts,” said Karina von Schuckmann, lead author of the programme’s latest Ocean State Report, which was released this week. 

“This knowledge is not just a warning signal – it is a roadmap for restoring balance between humanity and the ocean.”

The world’s oceans are facing numerous threats: warming waters, rising sea levels and pollution, all of which are contributing to a decline in marine biodiversity.

Surrounded by oceans on two sides, the African continent is particularly affected, explains Simon van Gennip, an oceanographer at French research centre Mercator Ocean International, which contributed to the Copernicus report.

“Like South America, Africa is exposed to different climatic stressors depending on its western and eastern fronts,” he told RFI.

To the north, the Mediterranean is overheating. Between May 2022 and January 2023, surface temperatures rose by up to 4.3 degrees Celsius.

It is experiencing an increase in marine heatwaves – periods of above-average temperatures lasting more than five days in a row.

Stronger, longer heatwaves

In the North Atlantic, which is warming twice as fast as the global average, the waters off Morocco and Mauritania accumulated 300 days of marine heatwaves in 2023.

Mercator counted 250 days of marine heatwaves off the coasts of Senegal and Nigeria.

“We have never seen heatwaves of such intensity, duration and extent,” said van Gennip. “There is no part of the North Atlantic that was not affected by a heatwave in 2023. It is truly extraordinary.”

The phenomenon continued in 2024 and 2025, he noted, adding that new monitoring tools had allowed scientists to form a clearer picture of warming waters.

“We looked beneath the surface and also observed this phenomenon at depths of 50 and 100 metres,” he said.

Warmest oceans in history drive mass bleaching of world’s corals

Researchers are still trying to understand the causes. One suggestion is a dip in vast dust clouds from the Sahara, which can help cool the ocean by reflecting the Sun’s radiation.

“What worries me most is that these marine heatwave episodes are becoming more and more recurrent, stronger and longer. This trend is unsustainable and there is an urgent need for action,” warned van Gennip.

For marine organisms, prolonged thermal stress can lead to problems with growth and reproduction, or even death, he explained.

“Ecosystems are declining or fragmenting as species migrate to more favourable waters. This has consequences for the maritime economy, tourism, fisheries and aquaculture.”

Shrinking habitats

Researchers also investigated changing conditions for micronekton – small organisms that are able to swim independently of ocean currents, such as crustaceans, squid and jellyfish.

These species, ranging in size from 2 to 20 centimetres, are an essential link in the food chain. They feed on smaller zooplankton and in turn form prey for larger predators including tuna, marlins and sharks.

Researchers studied micronekton habitats across the world’s oceans, dividing them into “provinces” with comparable temperature patterns and richness in phytoplankton, the microalgae that constitute the first link in the food chain.

French scientists map plankton, the ocean’s mysterious oxygen factories

Like the Pacific coast of South America, the west coast of Africa is rich in phytoplankton because it is subject to “upwelling”, the rise of cold water that brings nutrients to the surface.

As water temperatures increase, the concentration of phytoplankton decreases, scientists found. African coasts are among the most affected, along with parts of South America.

“We observed, across all oceans, that the most productive provinces – characterised by significant production of phytoplankton and micronekton, such as upwelling regions – decreased in size between 1998 and 2023,” said researcher Sarah Albernhe. 

The regions off the coast of Africa decreased by 20 to 25 percent.

Conversely, warmer habitats that are unfavourable to micronekton have expanded over the past 26 years, Albernhe said. Some have increased by more than 25 percent of their initial size.

At the same time, remaining productive zones are moving towards the poles, where cooler waters can still be found.

The province off the coast of Mauritania – which has shrunk by about 20 percent – has shifted about 2.5 degrees northward, or the equivalent of about 300 kilometres.

Carbon exporters

Over time, these trends could lead to “either the relocation of micronekton populations that follow their preferred habitat to new latitudes, or the extinction of species that can no longer find the habitat that suits them”, Albernhe warned.

“This will have consequences for the food chains that depend on this phytoplankton, and potentially for the structure of the ecosystem.”

Fishing would be affected as boats travel ever further to fish more intensively in smaller areas.

How Europe’s appetite for farmed fish is gutting Gambia’s coastal villages

Micronekton is also a powerful carbon pump. It stores at least 15 to 30 percent of the carbon captured by the ocean, making it the largest CO2 sink on the planet. 

It helps bury carbon deeper in the ocean as organisms swim from the surface, where they feed on smaller prey at night, down to the depths during the day to hide from predators.

As they descend, they deposit excrement, scales or other carbon-laden parts of themselves. “They are responsible for a very high export of carbon to the depths. They really help us regulate the climate,” said Albernhe.

Rising sea levels, acidic oceans

Global warming has also left Africa’s coasts buffeted by fast rising waters.

Due to the Earth’s rotation, “it’s the western edges of the oceans that are generally affected by rising sea levels”, explained oceanographer van Gennip.

“In the case of the African continent, it’s the east coast of Africa – Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique – that is experiencing a much faster-than-average rise in sea levels.

“The global increase is 3.7mm per year, and in these regions, we see values ​​around 5mm per year.”

The acidity level of oceans has also increased by 30 to 40 percent in the past 150 years, according to the Copernicus report.

In Africa, this trend is especially noticeable in the Indian Ocean, particularly the area south of Madagascar and South Africa, van Gennip said. But waters off Morocco and Mauritania are also registering significant declines in pH.

More acidic waters have direct consequences for corals, havens of vital biodiversity: all African reefs, located mainly around Madagascar and as far as South Africa, are in danger or vulnerable.

This article was adapted from the original in French by Géraud Bosman-Delzons.

An estimated 750,000 people over 60 are living out what French charity Petits Frères des Pauvres (Little Brothers of the Poor) calls a “social death” – rarely or never seeing a friend, relative, neighbour or community worker.

The figure has soared by 42 percent in the past four years. Previous surveys put it at 530,000 in 2021 and 300,000 in 2017.

The organisation’s president, Anne Géneau, says loneliness and isolation has become far more widespread, affecting all aspects of social life.

In its latest report, published on Tuesday, the charity found that 2.5 million older people feel lonely daily and nearly 6 million say they don’t have anyone to talk to about their feelings.

Beyond family and friends, interactions with local businesses and home professionals such as caregivers or cleaners have also broken down, with 30 percent of seniors reporting less than one exchange per month.

Lasting loneliness

“We thought the worsening observed in 2021 was an accident linked to Covid, which made people withdraw into themselves,” Géneau says, referring to social distancing and lockdowns during the pandemic.

“But that is not the case. We are not back to pre-crisis levels.”

The charity points to a number of other factors behind the figures. Poverty is the main one, affecting 9 percent of those interviewed for the 2025 poll.

There are also a growing number of seniors without children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren.

The impact of lockdown on young people in France, five years after Covid crisis

Augmented reality

Often overlooked, isolation is a striking theme at the Photoclimat Biennale in Paris, an open-air festival that brings together artists and NGOs working to address social issues.

French photographer Sacha Goldberger spent time interviewing seniors who receive help from Petits Frères des Pauvres for his exhibition “Augmented Solitude”. Some of them hadn’t left their apartments in months or even years, he says.

Based on their conversations, he used artificial intelligence to splice together portraits of his subjects with images of someone they’d like to meet or keep them company. Spectators use their smartphones to view the augmented-reality photographs and learn the backstory.

Goldberger says that while the series exploits AI, it also shows that retreating into a virtual universe can be dangerous. “It highlights the vital necessity of human relationships in the digital age to combat isolation,” he says.

Digital isolation

The internet can also be a powerful tool against solitude, for those who can access it.

Despite declining sharply during the Covid crisis, digital isolation – being cut off from online services – is contributing to the loss of social contact.

“While the pandemic may have encouraged and sometimes even ‘forced’ the use of digital tools among elders, the rate of elderly people who never use the internet has risen from 20 percent in 2021 to 27 percent today,” said Quentin Llewellyn of the CSA institute, which carried out the poll.

Some people are sacrificing their internet subscription for financial reasons or fears over cyber security, the CSA observed.

At Photoclimat, painter Bertrand de Miollis focuses on the internet’s power to bring people together.

In collaboration with the Afnic Foundation, which strives to expand access to the internet for all, he created works that celebrate examples of people using technology to find community, stay in touch, learn new skills or explore their creativity.

Zoom on optimism

People living at the intersection of poverty and isolation are particularly in need of help, according to French charity Entourage.

“For the 5 million people who are in precarious situations and the 330,000 people without homes, the chances of getting out of their situation are almost zero,” the NGO says. “These numbers are only increasing.”

It works to promote connections between people who might not necessarily cross paths, in a bid to change the way society sees poverty and social isolation.

Intergenerational living helps relieve isolation for seniors and students

The charity invited Dutch-Croatian photographer Sanja Marusic to take portraits of both volunteers and beneficiaries involved in its social outreach programmes.

She says it was important to inject a touch of fun and colour to the project – to draw out the optimism which can help people feel empowered to make a difference.

“The most important part for me is that there’s no hierarchy [in the photos],” she told RFI. “I love that you don’t really see who is helping who. It can go both ways.”

Photoclimat Biennale is a free, outdoor exhibition in Paris and surrounding suburbs that runs until 12 October.

In his report for the European Sentiment Compass 2025, Pawel Zerka, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, suggests Europe is living its own “Truman Show moment”.

The United States, he says, is no longer the ally Europeans had been accustomed to having. Instead, under Trump, Washington is not only pulling the strings in trade, defence and digital disputes – it is waging an outright “culture war” on Europe.

The big question is whether the EU has the courage to step off the set, reclaim its autonomy and begin writing its own story.

Europe’s uncertainty after Trump’s first 100 days

Trump 2.0

Transatlantic tensions are nothing new. Rows over trade, NATO spending and climate policy have flared under every president from Kennedy to Obama. But Zerka insists that Trump marks a rupture.

“There is a clear difference vis-à-vis previous presidents, and even vis-à-vis Donald Trump 1.0,” he told RFI. “Before, we had never seen a US president targeting Europe so clearly and aggressively.”

This time round, the barbs are sharper, the interventions more deliberate. Trump openly mocks Europe’s migration and climate policies, last week using the world stage of the United Nations to declare that Europeans are “going to hell” with their “crazy” ideas.

Such rhetoric, Zerka argues, is not just bluster. It is part of a deliberate strategy to humiliate Europe, a way of painting the European Union as weak, dependent and incapable of agency.

And this culture war is not confined to speeches, Zerka says – the Trump administration has moved from commentary to active interference.

In Germany, US Vice President JD Vance and former Trump advisor Elon Musk openly backed the far-right AfD party during the country’s legislative elections in February.

Similar interference was seen in Poland, Romania and Ireland, where Washington lent support to Conor McGregor, a former mixed martial arts champion who had thrown his “Make Ireland Great Again” hat in the ring for the country’s upcoming presidential election on 24 October, but withdrew from the race in September. 

McGregor’s political ambitions had been boosted by an invitation to the White House on St Patrick’s Day, with Trump calling him his “favourite” Irish person.

“We haven’t seen anything like this before,” Zerka stresses. “There’s such active involvement in domestic politics of European countries, supporting rivals of the governments in place – and very often those rivals are problematic political players.”

“There is a lot of appetite among the European public for an assertive Europe, but leaders keep finding themselves in situations where they look ridiculous and Europe gets humiliated” – Pawel Zerka

Europe’s new right: how the MAGA agenda crossed the Atlantic

A Truman moment

So what does it mean for Europe to “walk off the set”? In Truman Burbank’s case, it was about courage – daring to leave behind the artificial comfort of a staged life. For the EU, Zerka says, it is about dignity and identity.

“European leaders must be ready,” he argues. “Currently they are buying time with Trump, because they depend so much on America for security, especially with Russia’s war in Ukraine. But the danger is that by playing along, they risk repeated humiliation – whether at NATO summits or in trade negotiations – where Europe ends up looking ridiculous to its own public and to the wider world.”

The challenge, Zerka believes, is that many EU leaders still don’t grasp the true nature of the confrontation.

They treat disputes over tariffs or defence spending as technical haggles, missing the larger picture – that they are part of a cultural battle over values, sovereignty and the very meaning of the West.

Without that recognition, Europe risks stumbling from one Trump-scripted crisis to another, always reacting, never setting the agenda.

The role of the prophet

In The Truman Show, it was a character named Sylvia who first whispered the truth to Truman, that his life was staged. In today’s Europe, Zerka sees Denmark as playing that role.

Trump’s suggestion that the US might buy Greenland directly questioned Danish sovereignty, giving Copenhagen a unique impetus for defending European autonomy.

“Denmark is the one country really trying to show Europe the difference between reality and illusion,” Zerka says, adding though that Sweden and Finland, both scarred by the Russian threat and largely resistant to Trump’s personal appeal, could also be well placed to push for European autonomy.

Then there are what he calls the “door holders”, the heavyweight countries whose choices could swing the EU’s future one way or another: France, Germany and Poland.

Each stands at a crossroads. Elections in the coming years could see them drift towards the pro-Trump “director’s crew” – Hungary, Italy, Slovakia – or rally behind the prophets calling for strategic autonomy.

The outcome, Zerka warns, will determine whether Europe claims its agency or sinks deeper into dependency.

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

Walking the line

However, with Russian aggression on its doorstep, Europe cannot simply sever ties with Washington. Yet, Zerka argues, the notion that Europeans must appease Trump to preserve the transatlantic bond is a fallacy.

“It’s completely the other way around,” he says. “Only if Europe steps up in building its own capacities, and shows assertiveness, can it become a real partner rather than a subordinate.”

That means investment in defence, technology and energy resilience. It also means recognising the culture war for what it is, and refusing to be defined by Trump’s caricatures.

Trust in the EU is its strongest since 2007, with polls showing that citizens increasingly view the bloc not just as an economic club but as a community of shared values, and destiny.

Zerka believes European leaders must harness the public appetite for a more assertive Europe. The risk of inaction, he warns, is cultural subordination.

The reward of courage, by contrast, is the chance for Europe to write its own story, and participate in the transatlantic partnership as an equal.

Speaking outside Matignon, the prime minister’s office, shortly before he began a day of talks with rival parties, Lecornu said the possibility of a dissolution of parliament was “more remote” because parties across the spectrum had shown “a desire to have a budget for France before 31 December”.

President Emmanuel Macron, facing the worst domestic political crisis of his presidency, asked Lecornu to stay on as caretaker and try to forge a compromise that could stabilise the government and allow a 2025 budget to pass. Lecornu is expected to report back to Macron later on Wednesday.

He also said that all the parties he consulted shared a target of keeping France’s deficit “below 5 percent” in 2026, with a goal between 4.7 and 5 percent.

As Macronists turn their backs on the president, left and right struggle to unite

Race to a budget

After his morning remarks, Lecornu began meetings with left-wing leaders including the Socialists, Greens and Communists, seeking enough support – or at least enough abstentions – to get a budget through parliament by the end of the year.

Socialist leader Olivier Faure told France 2 television the time had come to “move to the left” after three centre-right prime ministers had failed to stabilise the country.

He welcomed former prime minister Élisabeth Borne’s statement that she would accept suspending the deeply unpopular 2023 pension reform she steered through parliament.

Borne, now caretaker education minister, told Le Parisien that suspending the reform should be considered “if it is the condition for the stability of the country”. The reform, which raised the retirement age, remains a flashpoint in the political crisis.

Acting finance minister Roland Lescure warned on France Inter radio that “modifying the pension reform will cost hundreds of millions in 2026, and billions in 2027”.

The Socialist Party has indicated it could accept a suspension rather than a full repeal.

France roiled by anti-austerity protests as unions demand budget rethink

Divided opposition

Lecornu’s effort has exposed deep splits among opposition parties.

While some on the centre-left signalled they could back a temporary suspension of the contested pension reform in exchange for a deal, hard-left leaders said they would reject any arrangement seen as prolonging Macron’s policies.

Parliament’s speaker Yaël Braun-Pivet warned that dissolving the National Assembly for a fresh election “must not happen because it would be costly and bring our country to a halt”.

Public money gesture

Seeking to show restraint on public money, Lecornu said on Wednesday that the ministers appointed on Sunday, who served only a few hours before his resignation, would not receive the standard three-month severance payments.

“We cannot talk about savings without applying rules of rigour and example,” he said.

Lecornu’s resignation on Monday unsettled investors, sending the Paris stock market lower. But he argued that the growing willingness among rival parties to reach a budget compromise reduces the risk of prolonged paralysis.

Lecornu is due to brief Macron on Wednesday evening and later present the outcome of the talks on national television.

Speaking to MEPs in Strasbourg, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has warned that the continent is facing a deliberate and escalating “hybrid warfare” campaign from Russia – airspace violations, drone overflights of military bases and critical sites, sabotage of undersea cables and a stream of cyber-attacks and malign influence operations.

“Two incidents are coincidence, but three, five, ten – this is a deliberate and targeted grey zone campaign against Europe, and Europe must respond,” she told the European parliament on Wednesday.

Von der Leyen has set out a plan for Europe to become more proactive in addressing emerging threats rather than simply reacting to them.

She said this would require practical, coordinated action across the bloc.

The European Commission will present a “road map” to EU leaders later this month, outlining concrete milestones and targets up to 2030.

“Only what gets measured gets really done,” she said, stressing the importance of turning plans into results.

Poland calls NATO talks after downing Russian drones in airspace breach

‘Drone wall’ defence

One flagship idea is the so-called “drone wall” – an affordable, high-tech network of sensors and counter-measures able to detect, intercept and, if necessary, neutralise hostile unmanned aircraft.

To date, the European Commission’s reasoning has been straightforward – using advanced fighter jets to counter inexpensive drones is neither practical nor cost-effective, so Europe needs defence systems that are better suited to current challenges and more affordable to operate.

Von der Leyen has remarked that Ukraine’s experience – where small drones are intercepted almost daily – offers useful lessons in developing efficient and cost-effective anti-drone technologies.

There is also an economic as well as a security argument, as the Commission wants EU-funded defence work to create jobs at home – at least 65 percent of any project financed with EU money must be sourced within the continent.

Too much procurement has gone to firms outside Europe, so redirecting orders internally would both strengthen supply chains and spread industrial benefits across member states.

Zelensky to urge EU leaders to speed up Europe’s drone shield plan

EU toughens stance in incursions

The recent spate of invasive incidents – reported over Poland, Estonia and Romania, with drone sightings in Denmark, Germany and Belgium, plus undersea cable damage and cyber intrusions – has hardened attitudes.

At a summit in Copenhagen last week, European leaders struck a tougher tone, with French President Emmanuel Macron urging decisive action, including shooting down drones when necessary and targeting shadow fleets that undermine sanctions.

This comes as EU member states have already lifted defence spending to post-Cold War highs, with the bloc now pushing for cooperation on capability projects that can be built at scale across the Union.

Von der Leyen underlined the choice Europe must make, stating: “We either can shy away and watch Russian threats escalate, or we meet them with unity, deterrence and resolve.”

(With newswires)

The plan, announced by the European Commission in Strasbourg, comes as Europe’s steelmakers face what officials call “crushing” competition from China.

It still needs approval from the 27 EU governments and the European Parliament – a process that could take several months.

At the Parliament, many lawmakers welcomed the move as overdue.

“It was time,” said Belgian socialist MEP Kathleen Van Brempt. “It is a good first step. It is essential that we have a plan. We want our own steel because we want reliable green steel. For that, we need a new, full recovery plan. So today is a first step, yes, but we need more.”

EU-US trade deal averts tariff hikes, but sparks unease in Europe

Push for fair trade

Some members of the European Parliament raised concerns that the plan could amount to protectionism and end up hurting European manufacturers that rely on imported steel.

That view was rejected by French centrist MEP Marie-Pierre Vedrenne of the Renew group, who told RFI the EU’s approach was different from the unilateral tariffs seen in the United States.

“Protectionism, in my view, is what Donald Trump can do and it is deadly,” she said. “So no, we are bringing everyone together to work on trade that is fair and that is win-win for everyone.”

Van Brempt said the plan also sends a long-awaited message to Washington that Europe is ready to defend itself.

“This is a political response, and I appreciate that the Commission is giving political answers,” she said. “But now we need to move forward. We are still only halfway.”

France leads EU fightback against Trump’s steel and aluminium tariffs

Concern in UK

The new EU measures will apply not just to steel from China or the United States but also to British exports – a serious blow to a sector that sends most of its output to the EU.

The EU buys about 80 percent of the UK’s steel exports, worth nearly €4.5 billion a year.

British steelworkers’ union Community called the EU plan an “existential threat” to the industry.

The head of UK Steel, the country’s main industry body, urged the British government to respond.

He said London should start talks with Brussels to avoid a global trade imbalance and warned that other producers such as China could redirect exports to other markets, undercutting British mills.

The industry is hoping for an exemption from the new EU tariffs. Without it, the sector warns that 37 000 jobs linked to British steelmaking could be wiped out.

Sonia Mejri, 36, will be the first French citizen ever tried for genocide and the first French returnee from Syria to face this charge in connection with the Islamic State (IS) group.

The crime carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Mejri, a former wife of an IS commander, also faces charges of complicity in crimes against humanity and other terrorist offences. She will appear in custody before the special assize court in Paris, which has a panel of professional judges instead of a jury, on a date still to be set.

“The innocence of my client will be recognised by the judges,” her lawyer Nabil Boudi said ahead of the trial.

Accusations of enslavement

An anti-terrorism investigating judge ordered the trial in September 2024 for Mejri and her then husband, Abdelnasser Benyoucef, accusing them of enslaving a 15-year-old Yazidi girl in Syria in the spring of 2015.

The magistrate said Benyoucef “knew that by acquiring” the teenager and subjecting her to confinement, repeated rapes and severe deprivation, “he was participating in the attack directed by IS against the Yazidi community”.

Mejri was described as the “guarantor of the confinement” of the girl. She reportedly held the apartment key and carried a weapon to prevent her from escaping.

Prosecutors accused her of “serious attacks on the physical and psychological integrity” of the teenager, who was forced to live under “conditions of existence likely to bring about the destruction” of her community.

Former wife of IS commander to stand trial in France on Yazidi genocide charges

‘Coordinated Plan’

In January the Paris Court of Appeal partly overturned the referral, saying there had to be multiple victims for the crime to qualify as genocide.

“The appeal judges could not agree on the charges, which demonstrates the fragility and weakness of the prosecution,” Boudi said.

But in May the Court of Cassation, France’s highest judicial authority, ruled that genocide charges can be brought even if only one person is targeted, provided the act forms part of “a coordinated plan aimed at the group’s total or partial destruction”.

The court approved the genocide proceedings on 1 October.

The lost childhood of traumatised Yazidi children abducted by IS

Victim’s testimony

Sexual violence was used by IS as a weapon to break Yazidi resistance and spread fear, including through the creation of slave markets.

The victim’s testimony is central to the case. Her lawyer, Romain Ruiz, declined to comment.

The young woman said she was held captive for more than a month in spring 2015 in Syria and could not drink, eat or bathe without Mejri’s permission. She accused Mejri of assaulting her and of knowing that her husband raped her daily.

Her account matches evidence gathered by human rights organisations that have documented IS’s use of sexual slavery and the creation of a “war booty department”.

Defence and civil parties

Mejri has denied wrongdoing in relation to the Yazidi girl, telling investigators that her ex-husband was the “owner” and that she had “no rights” over her.

“The defence lodged multiple appeals. Licra is pleased that this genocide trial… can finally take place,” said Ilana Soskin, lawyer for the French anti-racism group.

“The charges are neither weak nor fragile; they are well-founded, factual and legally sound,” added Inès Davau, lawyer for the NGO Free Yezidi Foundation. She said that given the “persistent impunity”, it was “time for justice to be served”.

Benyoucef, who has been the subject of an arrest warrant and is presumed dead since 2016, is expected to be tried in absentia for genocide, crimes against humanity and terrorist offences.

(with AFP)

Ten years after the jihadist attack that decimated the newsroom of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine and the family of its late cartoonist Charb are calling for him to be laid to rest among France’s national heroes in the Panthéon.

“Charb ticks all the boxes,” writes Riss, who succeeded him as Charlie Hebdo’s editor-in-chief, in an editorial due to be published on Wednesday. His “values,” Riss argues, were “exactly those of our democracy.”

Charb – whose real name was Stéphane Charbonnier – was one of 12 people killed when armed extremists stormed the paper’s Paris offices on 7 January 2015.

Riss himself was seriously wounded in the attack, which also claimed the lives of fellow cartoonists Cabu and Wolinski.

Calling him “a journalist executed for his opinions by terrorists on French soil,” Riss says the idea of enshrining Charb in the Panthéon is “not such a stupid one after all.”

French newspapers torn between tributes and defiance on Charlie Hebdo anniversary

‘A strong, unifying gesture’

Would Charb have approved? “No,” admits Riss, “but this isn’t about a reward or an honour – it’s about the values he embodied.”

Whatever the outcome of the request, he adds, the aim is also “to sustain and rekindle reflection on Charb’s values and those of the newspaper.”

A Panthéon induction, he argues, would “engrave in the marble of the Republic the French people’s deep attachment to freedom of expression.”

In a letter addressed to the President of the Republic and published by Charlie Hebdo, Charb’s parents and brother echo that sentiment. “We would like to anchor this event permanently in the country’s history through a strong, unifying gesture,” they wrote.

Beyond freedom of expression, they highlight other ideals that drove Charb’s life: “anti-racism, social justice and secularism” – values that, they say, “unite the great majority of French citizens of all opinions and faiths.”

Tributes honour victims a decade after Charlie Hebdo attack shook France

Satire targeted by jihadists

The request coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s publication of 12 cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, which triggered violent protests in several Muslim-majority countries. Charlie Hebdo’s decision to reprint the drawings in 2006 turned the magazine into a target for jihadists.

To mark the anniversary, the paper is republishing the cartoons in its Wednesday edition, describing the moment as “the anniversary of an international manipulation.”

“These publications [in 2005–2006] and the attack of 7 January 2015 were momentous events,” Riss writes. “Today they have become part of history,” with streets and squares now bearing the names of the victims.

Riss says he proposed the idea of Charb’s induction into the Panthéon to his friend’s family, noting that he and other staff members regularly visit schools to talk about freedom of expression. “It’s not absurd to bring someone from our generation, a contemporary, into the Panthéon,” he told reporters.

Charb was 47 when he was killed – a man who believed that laughter, equality and liberty were all worth defending.

(With AFP)

In a statement released this week, Foodwatch, a French consumer group organisation, slammed ten dairy products marketed to children.

Among the products are several popular names: Babybel Mini Rolls, Petits Filous, Smarties yoghurts, Kiri Goûter, P’tit Louis, Danonino, P’tite Danette, and Nesquik Petit, among others.

According to Foodwatch, all of them fail to meet the World Health Organization’s (WHO) nutritional standards.

“None of these unbalanced products pass the WHO’s nutrition criteria crash test,” Foodwatch explains.

The warning comes as public health experts continue to raise concerns about the impact of ultra-processed foods on children’s health.

According to Santé Publique France (French Public Health Agency), excessive consumption of those products contributes to childhood obesity and increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and some cancers.

More of the world’s children are obese than underweight, UN warns

‘Misleading marketing tactics’

Foodwatch is also calling out what it describes as “misleading marketing” tactics.

The packaging of these dairy products often features colorful designs, cartoon characters, games, and puzzles – clearly aimed at children.

But they also target parents, the group notes, with reassuring labelling like “contains calcium and vitamin D for bone growth” or “no artificial colors or flavors.”

“These products are not healthy, yet they’re marketed as if they are,” the organisation warns.

French consumer group sounds alarm on cadmium levels in chocolate

In late September, Foodwatch, along with over 100 other organisations, urged the French government to eventually release its long-overdue national strategy for food, nutrition and climate, which has been delayed for more than two years.

One of the expected measures was the ban on advertising unhealthy food to children.

But according to the watchdog, “the outgoing government has backtracked on the ban measure, relying instead on the self-regulation by the companies, which does not work as Santé Publique France has already pointed out.”

In response, Foodwatch launched an online petition, which had gathered nearly 68,000 signatures as of Tuesday morning.

The rise in renewable energy marks a key milestone in moving away from fossil fuels, which are responsible for most of the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change.

Renewables made up 34.3 percent of global electricity in the first half of 2025, overtaking coal’s 33.1 percent, while gas stayed at 23 percent, according to Ember, a UK-based energy think tank.

“We are seeing the first signs of a crucial turning point,” said Malgorzata Wiatros-Motyka, senior electricity analyst at Ember.

“Solar and wind are now growing fast enough to meet the world’s growing appetite for electricity. This marks the beginning of a shift where clean power is keeping pace with demand growth.”

While solar power surged 31 percent in early 2025, far outpacing wind, which grew  7.7 percent, coal and gas slightly declined.

Also over the past five years, solar panels have driven about 80 percent of global renewable energy growth, followed by wind, hydro, biomass, and geothermal power, according to a report published Tuesday by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Solar overtakes coal in EU’s energy mix as renewables continue to rise

UN climate summit objectives

At the 2023 UN climate summit in Dubai, countries pledged to phase out fossil fuels and triple renewable capacity by 2030.

However, the IEA said on Tuesday that the world will “fall short” of reaching this target.

Last year, the Paris-based agency had forecast that the world would come close to the Dubai target with the addition of 5,500 gigawatts of renewable power.

The IEA now sees only a 4,600 GW increase by 2030 due to “policy, regulatory and market changes since October 2024.”

Renewables on the rise in India and Europe

The IEA cut its forecast for the United States by nearly 50 percent due to the Trump administration’s early end to renewable tax credits and tighter regulations.

Trump called climate change “the greatest con job ever” at a UN speech last month and renewables an expensive “joke” that “don’t work.”

China’s shift from fixed tariffs to auctions “has shaken up the profitability of the projects” but China remains the biggest growth driver, on track to meet its 2035 wind and solar power target five years ahead of schedule.

Meanwhile, India is expected to become the second-largest market for renewable energy, with capacity expected to increase 2.5 times in five years.

The IEA also raised growth forecasts for the Middle East, North Africa, and several European countries including Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain.

(with AFP)

Emmanuel Macron appears to be more isolated than ever. The president of the Republic is no longer just under pressure from the opposition – he has been abandoned by the leaders within his own camp, among them two of his previous prime ministers.

Gabriel Attal was the first to draw his sword, distancing himself from Macron whose decisions he says he no longer understands.

On Tuesday morning, speaking on France Inter radio, he said: “Most of the time, the decisions have given the impression that, on the contrary, there is no desire to share power. Whereas everything about the results of the 2024 dissolution suggests that power should be shared.”

Édouard Philippe went further. The man who Macron appointed as his first prime minister in 2017 has called for the president’s early departure from the Élysée Palace, saying: “It seems to me that he would do himself credit if… he announced that he is organising an early presidential election.”

Both Attal and Philippe have their sights set on the 2027 presidential election and it would seem they believe that in order to survive politically, they must attack Macron now.

French PM Lecornu quits a day after naming cabinet

Divisions emerge among Republicans

The leader of the right-wing Republicans (LR) deputies, Laurent Wauquiez, lamented on Tuesday during a meeting that the fall of Lecornu’s government, caused by LR president Bruno Retailleau, had “damaged the image” of “stability and responsibility” that his party embodied, one participant in the meeting told French news agency AFP.

“I was in favour of not participating [in the executive] but that’s not the same as censuring or bringing down a government,” said Wauquiez.

Retailleau, the outgoing minister of the interior, sparked the crisis by threatening on Sunday evening to leave the government, in protest at Bruno Le Maire’s return to the cabinet, after initially appearing to approve his reappointment as minister of the interior

However, since the dissolution, LR has presented itself as the party of stability – an argument hard to take seriously given Retailleau’s hand in current events.

On Tuesday morning, he said on Europe 1: “We have been a stabilising factor. We joined the government for two reasons. The first was to avoid chaos, and the second was to prevent Mélenchon’s left wing from entering the Élysée Palace.”

Macron gives outgoing French PM final chance to salvage government

Retailleau added: “The main details of the reshuffle are being kept from me. There is a kind of breach of trust, an attempt by the president to subjugate the new government. Today, I say that there are two different things: there is a central bloc and there is the Republicans.”

The party is prepared to remain in power, said Retailleau, “on one condition: that it be a government I would call a cohabitation”.

This statement, however, further muddies the message of a party with just 50 MPs, which is not calling for dissolution or resignation, and a leader who has presidential ambitions.

Left struggles to agree on strategy

On the left, as is often the case, the parties’ strategies differ.

Macron has only three cards left to play: dissolution, cohabitation or resignation. The latter option is favoured by the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) and its coordinator Manuel Bompard.

“The solution to the impasse in which the country finds itself is not the appointment of another government, nor the dissolution of the National Assembly, but the departure of the president of the Republic,” he told Aurélien Devernoix of RFI’s political department.

However, this would be a mistake, according to the Socialist Party (PS), which advocates for the “cohabitation” option.

Macron as president, with a left-wing government, is the only way to reassure the French people, the party’s leader Olivier Faure told TF1, adding: “None of this makes any sense anymore. We need to regain the ability to lead the country, to unite it, around a simple goal: ecological social justice.”

Outgoing Prime Minister Lecornu prepares for talks to end political gridlock

The leader of the Green Party, Marine Tondelier, is alone in her desire to save the leftist union.

She said: “We know that the situation has been difficult between our partners. But it is our duty to overcome this, and we are proposing that we meet in a neutral location. Everyone will take responsibility by deciding whether or not to attend this meeting.”

This will take place without the Socialists, who prefer to take their chances with Macron rather than engage in another battle with LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

This article was adapted from the original version in French by political journalists Valérie Gas and Raphaël Delvolve, and this article, also from RFI’s French political service.

The trio, who all carry out their research at American universities, were honoured “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit,” the Nobel jury said.

Quantum mechanics describes how differently things work on incredibly small scales.

For example, when a normal ball hits a wall, it bounces back. But in the quantum world, a particle will pass straight through that same wall – a phenomenon called “tunnelling”.

The 2025 prize was awarded for experiments in the 1980s which showed that quantum tunnelling can also be observed on a macroscopic scale – involving multiple particles – by using superconductors.

In a series of experiments, the researchers demonstrated that “the bizarre properties of the quantum world can be made concrete in a system big enough to be held in the hand,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.

The jury noted that the discoveries had provided opportunities for developing the next generation of quantum technology, including quantum cryptography, quantum computers, and quantum sensors.

Olle Eriksson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said: “It is wonderful to be able to celebrate the way that century-old quantum mechanics continually offers new surprises.

“It is also enormously useful, as quantum mechanics is the foundation of all digital technology.”

French Scientist Serge Haroche and American David Wineland share Nobel Physics Prize

French achievement

Devoret, 72, a professor at University of California, Santa Barbara with 67-year-old Martinis, becomes the 18th French scientist to win the prize for physics since its inception in 1901.

He graduated from Télécom Paris engineering college in 1975 and continued his studies at the University of Orsay where he obtained a postgraduate diploma in quantum optics. A doctorate in condensed matter physics followed.

During a study fellowship at Berkeley in the United States between 1982 and 1984, he measured the macroscopic quantum levels of a Josephson junction for the first time with Martinis, then a PhD student.

Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to two climate experts and Italian theorist

Invention at home

On his return to France, Devoret founded the Quantronique group at the Orme des Merisiers laboratory with Daniel Estève and Cristian Urbina.

For the invention with Estève of the electron pump, they were awarded the 1991 Ampere Prize from the French Academy of Science.

Nearly 30 years after working with Martinis, he and the American as well as Robert Schoelkopf won the Fritz London Memorial Prize for pioneering experimental advances in quantum control, quantum information processing and quantum optics.

Quantum of solace: Frenchman in Nobel Physics Prize winning trio

‘Never occurred to me’

Clarke, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said: “To put it mildly, it was the surprise of my life.

“It never occurred to me in any way that this might be the basis of a Nobel Prize,” Clarke added.

The 83-year-old said that the scientists were focused on the physics of their experiments and that they did not realise the practical applications that could follow.

“It certainly had not occurred to us in any way that this discovery would have such a significant impact,” he added.

Last year, the Nobel Prize in Physics went to the British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton and the American John Hopfield for their pioneering work on the foundations of artificial intelligence.

The physics prize will be followed by the chemistry prize on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the literature prize will be announced and the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The economics prize wraps up the 2024 Nobel season on October 14.

The winners will receive their award – consisting of a diploma, a gold medal and a $1 million cheque – from Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December.

(With newswires)

Israel has established itself one recent years as a major player in technological innovation. The country is home to large companies in the sector and is a major exporter of software, medical devices and cybersecurity technology.

But since the start of the war in Gaza and amid rising tensions with Iran, the country has entered a new economic era – and the figures speak for themselves.

In the last quarter, Israel’s GDP contracted sharply. Household consumption is falling, private investment is slumping and production is slowing down.

The outlook is not encouraging. Growth is forecast to be no more than 1 percent in 2025, and was just 0.9 percent last year. This is in stark contrast to 2022, when the Israeli economy grew by 6.5 percent.

Inflation is around 3 percent and the budget deficit is skyrocketing. To support the Israeli currency, the shekel, the Central Bank has had to inject more than $30 billion into foreign exchange markets.

On a human level, nearly 170,000 people have left the country since 2023 – many of them young graduates representing a highly skilled workforce. This brain drain is exacerbating the sense of economic and financial instability.

Investor flight and diplomatic isolation

There has also been a notable loss of confidence among foreign partners. Foreign direct investment is falling, international financing is freezing up and several major contracts are being called into question.

The European Union, Israel’s largest trading partner, is considering reducing certain collaborations – a worrying sign for an economy that depends heavily on trade with the 27 member states.

NGOs call on EU to stop doing business with Israel’s ‘illegal’ settlements

The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund withdrew from several Israeli defence companies this summer.

In the United States, some tech giants such as Microsoft are reviewing their commitments in Israel under pressure from public opinion.

Even long-standing allies such as Colombia are seeking to do without Israeli equipment. Bogotá has just unveiled its first locally produced assault rifle, having put an end to its orders from Israel.

These withdrawals are creating a domino effect, with the loss of this support and capital weakening Israeli growth and threatening its position on the international stage.

France pays tribute to victims of Hamas attack, two years on

Beyond the figures, the effects are being felt in everyday life. The cost of living remains high, and taxation is likely to increase to finance military spending and fill the budget deficit.

In the medium and long term, the loss of attractiveness and talent could lead to business closures and rising unemployment.

For Israel, the challenge is now clear: to regain the trust of its partners and halt this spiral of isolation before it permanently undermines its economic model.

Israel still has undeniable assets – recognised technological expertise and a diversified economy – but its future depends more than ever on the political and diplomatic choices of its leaders.

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

At the end of the ICC’s first trial involving crimes committed during the conflict in the south of the country, the court found Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, also known by the nom de guerre Ali Kushayb, guilty of multiple crimes including rape, murder and torture carried out between August 2003 and at least April 2004.

 “The chamber is convinced that the accused is guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crimes with which he has been charged,” said ICC president judge Joanna Korner.

Ahead of next month’s sentencing, the United Nations’ rights chief Volker Turk saluted the verdict.

“It is an important acknowledgement of the enormous suffering endured by the victims of his heinous crimes, as well as a first measure of long overdue redress for them, and their loved ones,” said Turk.

Emergency Lawyers, a group which has been documenting atrocities in Sudan, said the court’s finding was a historic day in the path of Sudanese justice.

“With this decision, the court opens a door of hope for the victims of crimes in Darfur and throughout the country and affirms that … crimes against humanity will not go unaddressed,” added the group in a statement.

ICC to wrap up landmark trial of notorious Sudanese militia chief

 ‘Harrowing’ acts of violence

Abd-Al-Rahman followed proceedings impassively, occasionally taking notes as his vignettes from his reign of terror were outlined.

On one occasion, the court heard, Abd-Al-Rahman loaded around 50 civilians onto trucks, beating some with axes, before making them lie on the ground and ordering his troops to shoot them dead.

“The accused was not only giving orders … but was personally involved in the beatings and later was physically present and giving orders for the execution of those detained,” said Korner.

 Abd-Al-Rahman was a leading member of Sudan’s infamous Janjaweed militia, who participated actively in multiple war crimes, she said.

He had denied all the charges, telling the court they had got the wrong man.

“I am not Ali Kushayb. I do not know this person. I have nothing to do with the accusations against me,” he said at a hearing in December 2024.

But Korner said the court was satisfied that he was the person known … as Ali Kushayb.

Janjaweed militia leader denies atrocities in Darfur at start of ICC trial

Flight to Central African Republic

Abd-Al-Rahman fled to the Central African Republic in February 2020 when a new Sudanese government announced its intention to cooperate with the ICC’s investigation.

He said he then handed himself in because he was “desperate” and feared authorities would kill him.

Fighting broke out in Sudan’s Darfur region when non-Arab tribes, complaining of systematic discrimination, took up arms against the Arab-dominated government In Khartoum which responded by unleashing the Janjaweed, a force drawn from among the region’s nomadic tribes.

The United Nations says 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million displaced in the Darfur conflict in the 2000s.

ICC chief prosecutor visits Sudan, Bashir handover to war crimes court possible

During the trial, the ICC chief prosecutor said Abd-Al-Rahman and his forces rampaged across different parts of Darfur.

“He inflicted severe pain and suffering on women, children and men in the villages that he left in his wake”, said Karim Khan, who has since stepped down as he faces allegations of sexual misconduct.

Abd-Al-Rahman, who is believed to be 76, is also thought to be an ally of deposed Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the ICC on genocide charges.

Bashir, who ruled Sudan for nearly 30 years, was ousted and detained in April 2019 following months of protests in Sudan.

He has not, however, been handed over to the ICC where he also faces multiple charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Drone strike on Darfur hospital kills 30 as Sudan conflict persists

Arrest warrants

ICC prosecutors are hoping to issue fresh arrest warrants related to the current crisis in Sudan.

Tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced in a war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which grew out of the Janjaweed militia.

The conflict, marked by claims of atrocities on all sides, has left the country on the brink of famine, according to aid agencies.

Turk highlighted the continuing abuses in Darfur and other parts of Sudan.

“It is my earnest hope that the ICC’s verdict [against Abd-Al-Rahman] will serve as a fresh reminder to the perpetrators of today’s crimes that there can be no impunity for mass crimes against civilians,” Turk said.

“They too will be brought to justice one day for grave violations of the law.”

(With newswires)

Her case is unlike most that come before the board. Earlier last month, an Indian-Kenyan couple lodged a complaint against her clinic following the birth of their surrogate child. Their grievance was unsettling in its nature: the baby’s skin was “too dark.”

Disappointment soon turned into suspicion, and suspicion into a criminal allegation although the High Court dismissed the case in September. Instead of facing a prison dock, she must now answer to her professional peers.

The women carrying the burden of Kenya’s rural healthcare on their backs

What the board does

The medical board is Kenya’s watchdog for doctors. It holds the authority to summon witnesses, demand contracts, and cross-examine practitioners.

Unlike the courts, which pursue punishment, its mandate is professional accountability: to determine whether a doctor upheld the ethics of medicine.

Dr Michael Karanja, a retired board member, explains: “When such a case is before us, we are not deciding guilt or innocence in the criminal sense. We are asking: did the doctor act in the best interests of the patient? Did they protect vulnerable parties? Did they maintain the dignity of all concerned?”

The board’s questions for Dr Sukhija are likely to be blunt: Why did she refuse to provide the police with the surrogacy agreement?

Were the intended parents adequately counselled about the risks, including the possibility of physical differences in the child? Did the clinic ensure that the surrogate’s rights were fully safeguarded?

‘Hope is all I have’: the refugees searching for family from Kenya’s Kakuma camp

A grey area in black and white

Kenya’s legal vacuum on surrogacy means the board is often the last line of accountability. Parliament has yet to pass the Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill, leaving clinics to operate under private agreements.

“The board is not designed to regulate entire industries. Yet in the absence of law, it is being asked to decide questions of parenthood, contracts and even race. That is far too much to expect of a medical tribunal,” said health law specialist  Linda Musyoka

Without legislation, the board’s rulings carry considerable weight. It can suspend licences, impose fines, or require clinics to alter their procedures. For parents and surrogates alike, its decisions set informal precedents, shaping how fertility clinics across the country operate.

The human stakes

The matter is not simply a legal or procedural debate. At its core is a newborn child, only weeks old, caught between accusation and defence.

University of Nairobi sociologist Professor Anne Wanjiku warns:

“The medical board will speak in terms of ethics and protocol. But wider society must recognise the humanity. A baby is being used as evidence in a dispute over skin colour. That is a sobering reminder of how bias can seep into even the miracle of life.”

Surrogate mothers are watching closely. Many fear being left vulnerable when agreements collapse. Grace N., a former surrogate from Kiambu, voices her concern.

“If the board is serious, it must examine not only the conduct of the clinic but also the well-being of the surrogate. We give our bodies to help families, but we must have confidence that our dignity will be upheld,” she said.

Fake doctors run Kenya’s unregulated hospitals

A system on trial

When the board convenes, its hearings will not be open to the public. Witnesses will be called one by one, contracts examined, and ethical standards measured against practice.

Dr Sukhija will fight to protect her professional reputation; the intended parents may testify; the surrogate may also be asked to recount her experience.

Whatever ruling emerges will resonate beyond the boardroom. If Dr Sukhija is cleared, clinics may feel emboldened to continue operating in the legal grey. If she is censured, Parliament could be pushed to accelerate long-delayed legislation.

Dr Karanja is blunt in his assessment: “This case is not about one doctor. It is about whether Kenya can manage reproductive technology responsibly. If the board treats it as a routine disciplinary hearing, we will miss the bigger picture.”

Kenyan film explores the struggles of motherhood and mental health in Africa

The way forward

Outside the Nairobi headquarters, traffic hums along as files await review. Somewhere in the city, a new mother cradles an infant whose first weeks have already been overshadowed by controversy.

The board’s decision cannot erase the cultural anxieties about race and identity that this case has exposed. But it can set a tone: that medicine in Kenya must be guided by respect, transparency, and accountability.

Kenya now faces a choice. Will surrogacy continue to be governed by whispers, private deals, and courtroom battles? Or will it finally fall under clear laws that protect parents, surrogates, and, above all, children?

For the baby at the centre of this storm, the outcome will decide whether his story becomes a cautionary tale, or the catalyst that finally brings clarity to one of medicine’s most delicate frontiers.

Khaled El-Enany, 54, was up against Édouard Firmin Matoko, 69, of the Republic of Congo, who launched his campaign early in April 2023.

The vote took place as a secret ballot, for a four-year term.

Unesco‘s board, which represents 58 of the agency’s 194 member states, elected him with 55 votes. Matoko won two votes. The United States did not vote.

El-Enany was the favourite.

He had built strong regional backing and international alliances, and had been campaigning full-time for two years, receiving public support from the League of Arab Countries, the African Union and countries like Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey.

Matoko, for his part, entered the campaign late, only six months before the vote, and failed to overtake the favourite candidate at the finish line.

The selection will now be put forward for approval to Unesco members on 6 November, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, then the new director will take office on 14 November.

Just after leaving the plenary hall, El-Enany announced to the press that during the first 100 days, he would meet all representatives of the member states to develop a strategic plan for the future of the organisation.

Unesco’s virtual museum is a window on the world of artefact trafficking

End of an era

The outgoing chief, French diplomat Audrey Azoulay, has completed the maximum two four-year terms.

In eight years, the French woman has had a profound impact on Unesco. Its budget has doubled, increasing from $450 million to $900 million per year. She has increased the UN agency’s visibility and launched flagship projects, such as the reconstruction of Mosul in Iraq.

She has also highlighted African heritage: 19 sites have been inscribed on the World Heritage List since 2018, compared to only 11 under her predecessor.

Thirty-seven African intangible cultural heritage sites have also been added to Unesco’s list, representing nearly half of the world’s new entries.

The director-general’s governance style was however often deemed “Jupiterian” by some, and has been described too top-down, leaving little room for NGOs and member state delegates.

“She has prioritised action over consultation,” one diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told RFI.

The anthropologist Lynn Meskell agrees. She believes that Unesco has become “hostage to its member states,” reduced to a technocratic agency that now avoids sensitive issues.

In her book A Future in Ruins, she speaks of “management of the impasse” and takes the example of Gaza. “On Gaza, there is almost nothing, it’s really minimal,” she wrote. “Unesco used to have the courage to take on these issues, to find mechanisms to bring states to dialogue, to find solutions, to be accountable to each other. Today, there is nothing.”

US withdrawal

Though Azoulay worked to diversify funding sources, the UN culture and education agency still receives about 8 percent of its budget from Washington, while the US announced its withdrawal this year, to take effect at the end of 2026. Its funding will then be cut.

US poised to quit Unesco again, amid Trump’s push to scale back global ties

The White House described Unesco as supporting “woke, divisive cultural and social causes” when Trump decided to pull the US out in July, repeating a move he took in his first term that was reversed by Joe Biden.

The agency was founded after World War Two to promote peace through international cooperation in education, science, and culture. It is best known for designating and protecting archaeological and heritage sites, from the Galapagos Islands to the tombs of Timbuktu.

Unesco grants intangible heritage status to Syria’s Aleppo soap

“How come a country like Egypt, with its long history, with layers of Pharaonic, Greek, Roman, Coptic, Arab, Islamic civilisation, has not led this important organisation? This is not acceptable at all,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said in Paris last week.

But El-Enany has faced criticism at home from conservationists who accused his ministry of failing to shield sensitive heritage sites in Cairo and the Sinai Peninsula.

 (with Reuters)

The report, by the NGOs Oxfam and CARE, comes a month before the Cop30 UN climate summit in Brazil, where governments will debate how to raise 1.3 trillion dollars a year in climate finance by 2035.

France was singled out as one of the worst offenders.

It gave 7.2 billion dollars in climate funding in 2023, but 92 percent of it was in the form of loans rather than grants. The share of loans with ordinary market-level interest rates rose from 5 percent in 2021 to 15 percent a year later.

“That is not even better than what you would get from a commercial bank,” Selma Huart, a climate inequality specialist at Oxfam, told RFI. “We are not afraid to say that rich countries, especially France, are making money off the backs of vulnerable countries in the name of the climate crisis.”

Overall, the report found that wealthy countries – historically the biggest polluters – are delivering about 65 percent of their climate funding as loans.

“Climate finance is supposed to help poorer countries face floods, droughts and other climate disasters,” said Huart. “But for every 5 dollars they receive, they pay back 7.”

Rich nations promised back in 2009 to provide 100 billion dollars a year in climate funding by 2020. They only claimed to have met that goal in 2022, reporting 116 billion dollars. But the report said that after repayments and interest, developing countries received only about a quarter of that – far below what experts say they will need in the years ahead.

Europe’s climate progress overshadowed by worsening loss of nature

Repayment trap

The loan-heavy approach is deepening debt in many low-income countries, which already spend more on interest than on health or education.

“These countries are already heavily indebted, so giving them more loans cuts their room to invest in public services, adapt to climate disasters or pursue their energy transition,” Huart added.

Countries that have contributed least to global warming, the authors note, are being forced to pay the most to cope with its effects.

“Rich countries are treating the climate crisis as a business opportunity, not a moral obligation,” warned Nafkote Dabi, Oxfam’s climate policy lead. “They are lending money to the very people they have historically harmed, trapping vulnerable nations in a cycle of debt. This is a form of crisis profiteering.”

The world’s poorest countries, mostly in Africa, got less than one-fifth of the climate funding provided by rich governments in 2021-2022. Small island nations received barely 3 percent. More than half of what they got was money they have to repay.

“This is one of the most unjust actions that rich nations can take – they are profiting from the pain of others,” the NGOs said.

The focus on loans also means that projects likely to make a profit, such as renewable energy plants, are more likely to get support than essential but less profitable work like building irrigation systems in drought-prone areas.

“We would rather invest in a solar energy project in Kenya, for example, to sell electricity and generate revenue,” said Huart. “In contrast, irrigation projects to secure agriculture in the Sahel, even though they are important for improving drought resistance, get less funding because they are less profitable.”

Worldwide, only about one-third of climate funding goes to adaptation, even though this is a top priority for many countries in the global south.

Indigenous knowledge steers new protections for the high seas

Aid cuts compound crisis

Rich countries delivered their long-promised 100-billion-dollar climate pledge two years late. Now many are cutting aid even as climate impacts worsen. OECD figures show development aid fell by 9 percent in 2024 and could drop by another 9 to 17 percent in 2025.

Money to help countries recover from climate disasters is stilling falling critically short. The Loss and Damage Fund set up at Cop28 has received only about 800 million dollars in pledges, far short of the hundreds of billions experts say are needed.

Oxfam and CARE estimate that only about 1 percent of climate funding in 2022 went to this kind of support.

“Rich countries are failing on climate finance and they have nothing like a plan to live up to their commitments,” said John Norbo, senior climate adviser at CARE Denmark. “Cop30 must deliver justice, not another round of empty promises.”

As French politicians remain deeply divided over how to address the country’s growing deficit, one measure appears to unite public opinion across the political spectrum: the Zucman tax. Devised by 38-year-old economist Gabriel Zucman, the idea is to add a two percent tax on the ultra-rich, who often use holding companies to shield their wealth from income taxes. While the left sees it as fiscal justice, many on the right are concerned about additional taxes in a country that already has a lot, and maintain taxing the wealthiest will drive them abroad. (Listen @2′)

Ali Akbar left his native Pakistan aged 18, looking to make enough money to buy his mother a decent home. Since arriving in France in 1973, he’s managed to do just that – selling newspapers like Le Monde on the streets of Paris’s Left Bank district. A popular figure in the neighbourhood, Akbar – the capital’s last remaining hawker – was recently selected for the National Order of Merit by President Emmanuel Macron, a former customer. He talks about loving his work, the collapse of the newspaper culture and how recognition by France will help to “heal” the injuries of his past. (Listen @18’30”)

France abolished the death penalty on 9 October 1981. Forty-four years later, the justice minister who fought to change the law, Robert Badinter, is entering the Pantheon, the monument dedicated to French heroes. (Listen @11′)

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).

After a 13-year break, Turkish and Egyptian warships last week carried out a major naval drill in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The exercise is the latest step in repairing ties after years of tension that began when Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted Mohamed Morsi, a close ally of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“It marks the consolidation of the improvement in relations,” said Serhat Guvenc, professor of international relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, adding the drill sent “a powerful message to Israel of a new alignment”.

Guvenc said naval drills in the eastern Mediterranean have typically involved Cyprus, Greece and Israel, but this time Egypt broke with those countries, signalling it was no longer part of the anti-Turkey camp in the region.

Erdogan’s Washington visit exposes limits of his rapport with Trump

Shift in alliances

The Turkish-Egyptian exercise follows years in which Cairo built strong ties with Ankara’s rivals in the region. The shift has not gone unnoticed in Israel.

“Definitely, this is a major event that Turkey and Egypt have conducted a naval exercise after so many years,” said Gallia Lindenstrauss, an Israeli foreign policy specialist at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

The joint drill comes as Ankara has expanded and modernised its navy in recent years. Lindenstrauss said this has unsettled some of Turkey’s neighbours, giving Israel common ground with Greece and Cyprus.

“Some of them also have quite big disputes with Turkey, such as Cyprus and Greece,” she said. “Greece and Cyprus relations with Israel have been developing since 2010. We’ve seen a lot of military drills together. We saw weapons procurements between the three actors, and this has been going on for some time. So Israel is not alone.”

Turkey has long-standing territorial disputes with Greece and the Greek Cypriot government in the Aegean and the Mediterranean.

Guvenc said Israel has gained the upper hand over Turkey in their rivalry centred on Cyprus.

“The Greek Cypriots acquired a very important air defence system from Israel and activated it. They made life far more difficult for the Turkish military, in particular for the Turkish Air Force,” he said.

“This gives you an idea about the shifting balance of power in the Eastern Mediterranean as a result of Israel taking sides with Cyprus and Greece.”

Macron and Erdogan find fragile common ground amid battle for influence

Tensions over Gaza

Despite those rivalries, Turkey and Egypt are finding common ground in their opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza and in wider concerns over Israel’s growing regional power.

In September, Sisi reportedly called Israel an enemy.

“There is competition over who is the most dominant and important actor in the Middle East, in the Muslim world in general,” said Lindenstrauss.

“I really can’t imagine a unified Turkish and Egyptian action against Israel. I can imagine them cooperating to pressure Israel to change its position, which is what is happening now.”

Cairo and Ankara remain at odds over Libya, where they back rival governments. But analysts warn that the fallout from the Gaza conflict is increasingly shaping the region’s power calculations.

Guvenc said the outcome of peace efforts could determine the future balance in the Mediterranean.

“We see an alignment of Greece, Greek Cypriots and Israel. But once the Gaza issue is tackled, from an Israeli perspective, Turkey is strategically more important than these two countries,” he said.

“But if the strategic makeup of the region may not secure a solution, we may see deterioration in the general situation. Then outside actors will be invited by one side or the other, such as Russia, China or even India, to further complicate the issue.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This week’s quiz: On 26 July, I asked you a question about Paul Myers’ article “Petition seeking repeal of new French farming law passes one million signatures”.

It was about the Duplomb law, which was passed by the French parliament on 8 July. The law would allow the pesticide acetamiprid to be used, after a ban since 2018. French farmers protested the ban because it is allowed at the European level; they say it puts them at a disadvantage with their European counterparts.

But two weeks after the bill passed, Eléonore Pattery, a young student from Bordeaux, launched a petition calling for a recall.

And that was your question: you were to write in with the number of signatures on that petition as of 20 July, and also how many signatures French law requires before the lower house of Parliament, the Assemblée Nationale, has the right to hold a public debate on the contents of the petition.

The answer is, to quote Paul’s article: “Late on Sunday, the 20th of July, the number of signatures had risen to 1,159,000.

Under French rules, once a petition crosses that threshold and has verified signatures from throughout the country, the Assemblée Nationale has the right to hold a public debate on the contents of the petition.

The regulations also state that even if a petition gathers 500,000 names, it does not mean that the legislation will be reviewed or repealed.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, suggested by RFI Listeners Club member Jocelyne D’Errico from New Zealand. She wanted to know how you feel and what you think about soulmates.

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

The winners are: RFI English listener Kalyani Basak from West Bengal, India. Kalyani is also the winner of this week’s bonus quiz. Congratulations, Kalyani, on your double win.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Akbar Waseem, a member of the RFI Seven Stars Listeners Club in District Chiniot, Pakistan; RFI Listeners Club member Rasel Sikder from Madaripur, Bangladesh, and RFI English listeners Sadman Shihab Khondaker from Naogaon and Momo Jahan Moumita, the co-secretary of the Sonali Badhan Female Listeners Club in Bogura, both in Bangladesh.

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s program: España by Emmanuel Chabrier, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ataúlfo Argenta; “Hoe-Down” from the ballet Rodeo by Aaron Copland, performed by the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer; “Happy” by Pharrell Williams, and “Mama Used to Say” by Junior Giscomb and Bob Carter, sung by Junior Giscomb.

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

This week’s question … you must listen to the show to participate. After you’ve listened to the show, re-read our article “Moldova’s pro-EU ruling party wins majority in parliamentary elections“, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 27 October to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 4 November podcast. When you enter, be sure to send your postal address with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

Click here to find out how you can win a special Sound Kitchen prize.

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

In his report for the European Sentiment Compass 2025, Pawel Zerka, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, suggests Europe is living its own “Truman Show moment”.

The United States, he says, is no longer the ally Europeans had been accustomed to having. Instead, under Trump, Washington is not only pulling the strings in trade, defence and digital disputes – it is waging an outright “culture war” on Europe.

The big question is whether the EU has the courage to step off the set, reclaim its autonomy and begin writing its own story.

Europe’s uncertainty after Trump’s first 100 days

Trump 2.0

Transatlantic tensions are nothing new. Rows over trade, NATO spending and climate policy have flared under every president from Kennedy to Obama. But Zerka insists that Trump marks a rupture.

“There is a clear difference vis-à-vis previous presidents, and even vis-à-vis Donald Trump 1.0,” he told RFI. “Before, we had never seen a US president targeting Europe so clearly and aggressively.”

This time round, the barbs are sharper, the interventions more deliberate. Trump openly mocks Europe’s migration and climate policies, last week using the world stage of the United Nations to declare that Europeans are “going to hell” with their “crazy” ideas.

Such rhetoric, Zerka argues, is not just bluster. It is part of a deliberate strategy to humiliate Europe, a way of painting the European Union as weak, dependent and incapable of agency.

And this culture war is not confined to speeches, Zerka says – the Trump administration has moved from commentary to active interference.

In Germany, US Vice President JD Vance and former Trump advisor Elon Musk openly backed the far-right AfD party during the country’s legislative elections in February.

Similar interference was seen in Poland, Romania and Ireland, where Washington lent support to Conor McGregor, a former mixed martial arts champion who had thrown his “Make Ireland Great Again” hat in the ring for the country’s upcoming presidential election on 24 October, but withdrew from the race in September. 

McGregor’s political ambitions had been boosted by an invitation to the White House on St Patrick’s Day, with Trump calling him his “favourite” Irish person.

“We haven’t seen anything like this before,” Zerka stresses. “There’s such active involvement in domestic politics of European countries, supporting rivals of the governments in place – and very often those rivals are problematic political players.”

“There is a lot of appetite among the European public for an assertive Europe, but leaders keep finding themselves in situations where they look ridiculous and Europe gets humiliated” – Pawel Zerka

Europe’s new right: how the MAGA agenda crossed the Atlantic

A Truman moment

So what does it mean for Europe to “walk off the set”? In Truman Burbank’s case, it was about courage – daring to leave behind the artificial comfort of a staged life. For the EU, Zerka says, it is about dignity and identity.

“European leaders must be ready,” he argues. “Currently they are buying time with Trump, because they depend so much on America for security, especially with Russia’s war in Ukraine. But the danger is that by playing along, they risk repeated humiliation – whether at NATO summits or in trade negotiations – where Europe ends up looking ridiculous to its own public and to the wider world.”

The challenge, Zerka believes, is that many EU leaders still don’t grasp the true nature of the confrontation.

They treat disputes over tariffs or defence spending as technical haggles, missing the larger picture – that they are part of a cultural battle over values, sovereignty and the very meaning of the West.

Without that recognition, Europe risks stumbling from one Trump-scripted crisis to another, always reacting, never setting the agenda.

The role of the prophet

In The Truman Show, it was a character named Sylvia who first whispered the truth to Truman, that his life was staged. In today’s Europe, Zerka sees Denmark as playing that role.

Trump’s suggestion that the US might buy Greenland directly questioned Danish sovereignty, giving Copenhagen a unique impetus for defending European autonomy.

“Denmark is the one country really trying to show Europe the difference between reality and illusion,” Zerka says, adding though that Sweden and Finland, both scarred by the Russian threat and largely resistant to Trump’s personal appeal, could also be well placed to push for European autonomy.

Then there are what he calls the “door holders”, the heavyweight countries whose choices could swing the EU’s future one way or another: France, Germany and Poland.

Each stands at a crossroads. Elections in the coming years could see them drift towards the pro-Trump “director’s crew” – Hungary, Italy, Slovakia – or rally behind the prophets calling for strategic autonomy.

The outcome, Zerka warns, will determine whether Europe claims its agency or sinks deeper into dependency.

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

Walking the line

However, with Russian aggression on its doorstep, Europe cannot simply sever ties with Washington. Yet, Zerka argues, the notion that Europeans must appease Trump to preserve the transatlantic bond is a fallacy.

“It’s completely the other way around,” he says. “Only if Europe steps up in building its own capacities, and shows assertiveness, can it become a real partner rather than a subordinate.”

That means investment in defence, technology and energy resilience. It also means recognising the culture war for what it is, and refusing to be defined by Trump’s caricatures.

Trust in the EU is its strongest since 2007, with polls showing that citizens increasingly view the bloc not just as an economic club but as a community of shared values, and destiny.

Zerka believes European leaders must harness the public appetite for a more assertive Europe. The risk of inaction, he warns, is cultural subordination.

The reward of courage, by contrast, is the chance for Europe to write its own story, and participate in the transatlantic partnership as an equal.

DZ Fest is the only festival focused on Algerian culture outside the country. It has been run every year since 2022 in the United Kingdom.

This year the festival took place in the latter half of September with events in both London and Nottingham.

Spotlight on Africa travelled to London to talk to the organisers and guests of DZ Fest, and to some Algerians living in the UK

Founder and creative director Rachida Lamri – an artist, musician and member of the London-based Arabo-Andalusian orchestra – curated a programme showcasing Algerian music, traditions, and cuisine.

We also met:

• The Algerian chef Djamel Ait Idir, who runs couscous workshop in his restaurant, Khamsa, in Brixton, South London
• Fayssal Bensalah, an Algerian-born novelist and a lecturer teaching creative writing in Cardiff, Wales
• Comedian Mehdi Walker, also born in Algeria, who lives in France but performs his comedy sketches in English
• Artist and filmmaker Leila Gamaz, who lives between Bristol and Morocco. 

Episode mixed by Melissa Chemam and Nicolas Doreau.

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

Ankara is celebrating a diplomatic win after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was hosted by US President Donald Trump in Washington on Thursday.

In the Oval Office, Trump praised his guest in front of the world’s media.

“He’s a highly respected man,” Trump said. “He’s respected very much in his country and throughout Europe and throughout the world, where they know him.”

Erdogan smiled as he listened. The Turkish leader had been frozen out by President Joe Biden, who made clear his dislike for the Turkish leader.

Trump, by contrast, has long cultivated a friendship with him. But even that relationship has limits, with Israel’s war on Gaza still a source of strain.

Turkey walks a tightrope as Trump threatens sanctions over Russian trade

Restraint over Gaza

Erdogan is a strong supporter of Hamas, which he refuses to label a terrorist group, calling it instead a resistance movement. Yet he chose not to let the issue overshadow his visit.

Analysts say this restraint was deliberate.

“There’s been a concerted effort not to get into a spat about Gaza,” Asli Aydintasbas, of the Washington-based Brookings Institution, told RFI. “Uncharacteristically, he remains silent on the Gaza issue and that is by design.”

During his trip, Erdogan kept his criticism of Israel’s offensive in Gaza to remarks at the UN General Assembly, echoing broader international condemnation.

He also met French President Emmanuel Macron in New York and welcomed France’s recognition of a Palestinian state.

Erdogan is also seeking wider backing as concerns over Israel’s actions grow, an issue that also came up in his talks with Trump.

“Turkey’s concerns with Israel are not actually limited to Gaza,” said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara.

He said Ankara is also uneasy about Israel’s actions in neighbouring states, adding that the two countries’ policies towards Syria clash sharply.

“Turkey wants a stable Syria and one that’s centralised,” he said. “Whereas Israel wants a decentralised and less stable Syria.”

Turkey warns Kurdish-led fighters in Syria to join new regime or face attack

Energy and Russia

Turkey’s close ties with Russia risk becoming another flashpoint.

Sitting beside Erdogan at the Oval Office, Trump called for an end to Turkish purchases of Russian energy. He also criticised Erdogan’s long-standing policy of balancing relations between Washington and Moscow.

“Trump does not want a balancing Turkey, at least today,” said Aydintasbas. “That was more obvious than ever in his rhetoric and his dealings with Erdogan.”

She said Erdogan had assumed for the past decade that his balancing act between the West and Russia was acceptable. “It must come as a surprise,” she added.

Turkey is the third-largest importer of Russian oil and gas. But in a move seen as an attempt to placate Trump, Ankara this week signed a multibillion-dollar deal to buy US liquefied natural gas over 20 years.

The two leaders also signed a strategic agreement on civil nuclear cooperation, which could pave the way for Turkey to buy US-made nuclear reactors.

As Trump rails at UN and shifts Ukraine stance, Macron urges US to end Gaza war

Limited gains

Despite these gestures, analysts said Erdogan achieved little in return. He had hoped Trump would lift a US embargo on the sale of F-35 stealth fighter jets. Instead, Trump only gave a vague promise to address the issue.

For Erdogan, however, the White House meeting itself may have been the main prize.

US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack said before the meeting that Trump wanted to give Erdogan “legitimacy”.

“For Erdogan, this is a big win,” said Sinan Ciddi, of the Foundation for Defence of Democracies. The Turkish leader, he said, has long sought a White House photo-op to showcase at home.

“He gets to show that he has met the US president, has gravitas on the world stage and is signing deals with Washington,” Ciddi added.

“At a time when he is jailing leaders and dismantling democratic governance inside Turkey, he is being legitimised by the leader of the so-called free world.”

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.