The controversy comes as the online fast-fashion seller is set to open its first bricks and mortar store in the world in the prestigious BHV department store in central Paris.

“We will cooperate fully with the judicial authorities,” Shein’s spokesman in France, Quentin Ruffat, told RMC radio, adding the company was prepared to share names of those who have bought such dolls.

“We will be completely transparent with the authorities. If they ask us to do so, we will comply,” he said.

“We will put the necessary safeguards in place to ensure that this does not happen again,” Ruffat said.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said it had opened investigations against Shein, and also rival online retailers AliExpress, Temu and Wish, over the sale of sex dolls.

The probes were for distributing “messages that are violent, pornographic or improper, and accessible to minors”, the office told French news agency AFP.

The investigations were launched after France’s anti-fraud unit reported on Saturday that Shein was selling childlike sex dolls.

French media published a photo of one of the dolls sold on the platform, accompanied by an explicitly sexual caption.

The pictured doll measured around 80 centimetres (30 inches) in height and held a teddy bear.

Shein reported to French justice over sale of ‘childlike’ sex dolls

Ruffat described what had happened as “serious, unacceptable, intolerable.”

He chalked up the sale of the dolls to “an internal malfunction, a malfunction in our processes and governance”.

“We assessed the situation and responded quickly,” he added.

On Monday, Shein announced it was imposing a “total ban on sex-doll-type products” and had deleted all listings and images linked to them.

Outrage ahead of store opening

The uproar comes as Shein prepares on Wednesday to open its first physical store in the world, inside the BHV Marais department store in central Paris.

The move has sparked outrage in France.

“Shein in France. Who can stop it?” left-leaning French daily Liberation said on its front page.

French police dismantle widespread paedophilia network hidden on Telegram

Frederic Merlin, the 34-year-old director of the company that owns BHV, admitted on Tuesday that he considered pulling the plug on the partnership with Shein after the uproar.

“It’s despicable, it’s indecent, it’s abject,” he told broadcaster RTL on Tuesday, referring to the sale of the dolls.

“I find it sickening to know that we can freely sell this kind of stuff on the internet,” Merlin added.

But he said he had reconsidered, saying Shein’s stance and readiness to cooperate with the French authorities “convinced me to continue”.

Paedophile objects

On Monday, France’s high commissioner for childhood, Sarah El Haïry, denounced the dolls which she called “paedophile objects that predators unfortunately sometimes use to practise before moving on to abusing children.”

Ruffat said he and “the entire Shein brand” shared her concerns.

“We will be delighted to discuss these issues with her, these issues of paedophile crime, which are too serious to be ignored,” he said.

Finance Minister Roland Lescure had warned he would move to ban the company from the French market if the items returned online.

Shein, a Singapore-based company which was originally founded in China, has faced criticism over working conditions at its factories and the environmental impact of its ultra-fast fashion business model.

(with AFP)

The former congressman and defense secretary “died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease,” according to the family’s statement cited by US media.

“For decades, Dick Cheney served our nation, including as White House Chief of Staff, Wyoming’s Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President of the United States,” it added.

Cheney is considered to have been one of the most powerful vice presidents in US history, a Machiavellian figure who wielded considerable influence behind the scenes.

Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on January 30, 1941, Cheney grew up mostly in the sparsely populated western state of Wyoming.

He attended Yale University but dropped out of the prestigious East Coast school and ended up earning a degree in political science back home at the University of Wyoming.

A Republican stalwart, Cheney went into politics himself in 1978, winning Wyoming’s seat in the House of Representatives and holding on to it for the next decade.

Neo-conservative ideology

Cheney served father and son presidents, leading the armed forces as defense chief during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War under President George H.W. Bush before returning to public life as vice president under Bush’s son, George W. Bush.

Between the two Bush administrations, Cheney led Dallas-based Halliburton Corp., a large engineering and construction company for the oil industry.

As vice president, Cheney brought his neo-conservative ideology to the White House and played a greater role in making major policy decisions than most of his predecessors in the role.

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

Cheney is widely seen as one of the driving forces behind the decision to invade Iraq following the 11 September 2001 attacks by Al-Qaeda on New York and Washington.

His inaccurate claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction fueled the drumbeat for war ahead of the 2003 US invasion.

Years after leaving office, he became a target of President Donald Trump, especially after daughter Liz Cheney became the leading Republican critic and examiner of Trump’s desperate attempts to stay in power after his election defeat and his actions in the riot at the Capitol on 6 January, 2021.

“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in a television ad for his daughter. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward.”

In a twist the Democrats of his era could never have imagined, Dick Cheney said last year he was voting for their candidate, Kamala Harris, for president against Trump in 2024.

Cheney’s professional life was punctuated by a series of health scares, mostly heart problems – he suffered five heart attacks between 1978 and 2010 and had his first pacemaker fitted in 2001.

(with newswires)

“For the past few days, the situation has been worsening in Sudan with the fall of the city of El-Fasher in Darfur and with the fear, fuelled by a number of facts that seem to be established, of major abuses affecting tens of thousands of innocent people,” French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot told the press on Monday.

“Both belligerents must cease fire and comply with international humanitarian law to definitively end this tragedy,” he insisted.

After 18 months of siege, bombardment and starvation, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized control of the strategic city of El-Fasher on 26 October, dislodging the army’s last stronghold in Sudan’s western Darfur region.

Since then reports have emerged of executions, sexual violence, looting, attacks on aid workers and abductions in and around El-Fasher, where communications remain largely cut off.

The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) also expressed its “grave concern” on Monday about the abuses and atrocities committed in the city of El-Fasher, and warned that such acts “may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

UN warns of ethnically motivated ‘atrocities’ in Sudan’s El-Fasher

According to the United Nations, more than 65,000 people have fled the city, including around 5,000 to the nearby town of Tawila, but tens of thousands remain trapped.

“France strongly condemns the ethnic atrocities perpetrated by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in El-Facher, including summary executions, massacres, rapes, attacks on humanitarian workers, looting, abductions and forced displacement,” a French foreign ministry spokesman said.

‘Spiralling out of control’

This statement echoes that of UN chief Antonio Guterres, who on Tuesday also called for a halt to the violence in Sudan and warned the crisis in the country was rapidly worsening.

Warring parties need to “come to the negotiating table [and] bring an end to this nightmare of violence – now,” Guterres said, adding “the horrifying crisis in Sudan… is spiralling out of control”.

Barrot commended the efforts on the diplomatic front of the so-called Quad group – comprising the United States, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia – to secure a truce in the more than 30-month conflict in Sudan.

Sudan’s army-backed authorities said they would meet on Tuesday to discuss a new US proposal for a ceasefire.

In September, the four powers proposed a three-month humanitarian truce, followed by a permanent ceasefire and a nine-month transition to civilian rule, but the army-aligned government immediately rejected the plan at the time.

Sudan’s brutal war needs ‘more than battlefield wins’ after US peace push

US President Donald Trump sent an envoy to Africa for talks in Egypt on Sunday with Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and then on Monday with the Arab League.

During the talks, Abdelatty stressed “the importance of concerted efforts to reach a humanitarian truce and a ceasefire throughout Sudan, paving the way for a comprehensive political process in the country”, according to a foreign ministry statement.

According to the Arab League, Boulos met the regional body’s chief Ahmed Aboul-Gheit and briefed him on recent US efforts in Sudan to “halt the war, expedite aid delivery and initiate a political process”.

The latest discussions follow an escalation on the ground, with the RSF appearing to prepare an assault on the central Kordofan region, linking the vast western region of Darfur with Khartoum, the capital.

(with newswires)

The case, which opens on Tuesday at the Paris criminal court, marks the first time a French company has faced trial on terrorism financing charges.

Alongside the company, which was absorbed in 2015 by the Swiss group Holcim, stand ex-CEO Bruno Lafont, five former managers from the operations and security teams, and two Syrian intermediaries – one of whom remains at large under an international arrest warrant.

Prosecutors allege that between 2013 and 2014, Lafarge’s Syrian subsidiary – Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS) – funnelled several million euros to armed factions in northern Syria, including the Islamic State armed group and Jabhat al-Nusra, both classed as terrorist organisations.

The goal, investigators say, was to maintain operations at its €680 million (€584 million) cement plant in Jalabiya, completed just a few years earlier in 2010.

French judges order trial of Lafarge over terror financing at plant in Syria

Staying in Syria as others fled

While most multinationals pulled out of Syria by 2012 as violence escalated, Lafarge only evacuated its foreign staff that year – keeping hundreds of Syrian employees on the job until September 2014, when IS finally seized control of the plant.

During that perilous period, Lafarge’s local subsidiary allegedly paid middlemen to buy raw materials from jihadist groups and to secure safe passage for workers and goods through rebel checkpoints.

The affair first came to light in 2016 through media investigations and two formal complaints – one filed by the French economy ministry for breaching sanctions, and another by NGOs including Sherpa, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and eleven former Syrian employees. A full judicial inquiry was opened in 2017.

By then, Lafarge had merged with Holcim and the new group was quick to distance itself from the scandal, stressing it had “no connection” with events prior to the merger.

It even commissioned an internal probe by law firms Baker McKenzie and Darrois Villey, which in 2017 confirmed “serious breaches” of Lafarge’s own code of conduct.

Across the Atlantic, things moved faster. In October 2022, Lafarge SA pleaded guilty in a US court to conspiring to provide material support to terrorist organisations.

The company admitted paying nearly $6 million (€5.1 million) to IS and Jabhat al-Nusra, and agreed to a $778 million fine (€662 million) – a deal that angered several of the French defendants.

French court confirms Lafarge can be charged over Syria crimes

‘Shadows to be cleared up’

Former CEO Bruno Lafont, who denies ever knowing about the payments, has denounced the American plea deal as a “blatant attack on the presumption of innocence.” His lawyers argue that it unfairly scapegoats former executives to protect corporate interests, and say the Paris trial will finally help “clear up the shadows” – notably around what role, if any, French intelligence services might have played.

Investigating judges have acknowledged that information was shared between Lafarge’s security officers and French intelligence about the situation on the ground. However, they concluded this did not amount to any “approval by the French state” of Lafarge’s alleged financing of terrorist entities.

More than 240 civil parties have joined the case – among them former Syrian employees eager to tell their stories at last. “Over ten years later, they will finally be able to describe what they endured – the checkpoints, the kidnappings, and the constant threat to their lives,” said Anna Kiefer of Sherpa.

If convicted of financing terrorism, Lafarge could face a fine of around €1 billion, while the penalties for violating the international embargo are potentially far higher – up to ten times the value of the illicit transactions.

This comes as a separate investigation remains open into complicity in crimes against humanity, examining whether Lafarge’s actions indirectly supported atrocities committed by jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq.

(with newswires)

Since the RSF takeover, reports have emerged of executions, sexual violence, looting, attacks on aid workers and abductions in and around El-Fasher, where communications remain largely cut off.

The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court warned Monday that atrocities committed in El-Fasher could constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Sudan’s government accuses the United Arab Emirates of arming the RSF – a charge the Emirates denies.

However, Sudanese expert Professor Suliman Baldo, head of the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker, says the capture of El Fasher is no triumph. He calls it a “political and moral defeat” for the RSF. Speaking from Nairobi, he tells RFI’s Christophe Boisbouvier why.

RFI: How do you explain the RSF’s military victory in El Fasher, just six months after their defeat in Khartoum?

SB: The RSF had imposed a very strict siege on El Fasher for more than 18 months, blocking even basic food and medical supplies from reaching local hospitals. They bombarded the city throughout this time. They also used drones against El Fasher.

RFI: What role did these sophisticated Chinese-made drones play in their victory?

SB: The RSF obtained advanced Chinese drones several months ago, along with air defence systems that stopped the Sudanese Air Force from resupplying its garrison in El Fasher.

RFI: Did the United Arab Emirates and Chad play a part in this military success?

SB: The Emirates are the main supplier of all types of military equipment to the RSF, so they played a major role in the developments that led to this capture. Chad is merely an instrument in the hands of the Emirates, just as Haftar’s Libya is, especially when it comes to supporting the RSF.

African Union condemns atrocities, ‘war crimes’ in Sudan’s El-Fasher

RFI: For a week now, multiple reports have described atrocities committed by the RSF against civilians from non-Arab communities, especially the Zaghawa. Are we witnessing a repeat of the massacre in El Geneina, where 15,000 Masalit were killed in June 2023?

SB: I don’t believe all those killed in El Fasher were Zaghawa. The behaviour of the RSF is completely out of control. When they entered the city, the army and its allied joint forces had already withdrawn, leaving behind a quarter of a million civilians.

There was targeted violence against the Zaghawa, but it was also indiscriminate. Members of different ethnic groups were attacked as an act of revenge against residents who had resisted during the siege.

RFI: Some observers compare the situation to the early stages of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

SB: What happened was horrific – systematic atrocities and crimes. But I don’t believe there was an intention to eliminate a section of the population on ethnic grounds.

RFI: French researcher Marc Lavergne says the RSF are a band of rapists and looters who long did the Sudanese army’s dirty work.

SB: The RSF were created by the Sudanese army. It was the army that trained, armed and equipped them to fight as a counter-insurgency force, giving them free rein to attack civilians in Darfur and elsewhere, including the Nuba Mountains.

The two forces worked together when they staged the 2021 coup against Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s civilian government. They only turned on each other afterwards, driven by the personal ambitions of generals Burhan and Hemedti. So yes, the RSF are certainly a creation of the Sudanese army.

RFI: General Hemedti says he has arrested fighters suspected of atrocities and launched an investigation. Is he trying to avoid responsibility?

SB: This is a reaction to worldwide condemnation, and also to outrage among the local population over what happened in El Fasher. The RSF did not expect such a collective response. Announcing investigations is a way to contain the damage caused by these killings.

Of course, the capture of El Fasher is a military victory – but what followed is a total political and moral defeat for the RSF. Their growing record of war crimes and crimes against humanity has destroyed whatever legitimacy they may have claimed.

Investigation uncovers RSF military base hidden in Libyan desert

RFI: What about the former Darfuri rebel groups allied with the army – the Sudan Liberation Movement of Minni Minnawi and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) of Jibril Ibrahim?

SB: Both groups stayed neutral at the start of the war, from April to October 2023, before deciding to ally with the army against the RSF. That decision put their own communities at risk, given the ethnic polarisation between the Zaghawa – who make up most of these groups – and the Arab-origin majority within the RSF.

They’ve paid a heavy price, losing many fighters and senior commanders. Today they’re politically adrift.

RFI: Should we now expect fighting for control of Kordofan, the province halfway between El Fasher and Khartoum?

SB: Yes. The fall of El Fasher was followed quickly by the capture of Bara, near the capital of North Kordofan – a rich and strategic region. Fighting has already moved from Darfur into Kordofan.

For the RSF, the goal is to cut army supply lines and seize control of key roads. The battle there is fierce, and I expect the RSF will also try to take the route between El Obeid and the White Nile, targeting towns like Dilling.

UN urges action on Sudan’s ‘forgotten war’ as humanitarian crisis takes hold

RFI: So even though both sides control large parts of the country, you don’t see possible negotiations between Hemedti and Burhan?

SB: Both are under pressure from the so-called Quad – the United States and its regional allies Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates – to agree to an unconditional humanitarian ceasefire. They’ve even been invited to Washington for this. But I doubt they’ll sign, given their militaristic mindset and the humiliation each has suffered at the hands of the other. The desire for revenge is still strong.

RFI: After South Sudan’s secession in 2011, could we see a new partition – this time of Sudan between east and west?

SB: There will be a de facto partition, with two rival governments controlling different halves of the country. But I don’t think there’ll be a formal secession of Darfur or western Sudan. It’ll be more like Libya, with two administrations each holding territory and coexisting for a while to limit the damage to civilians and to their own interests. But not a separation of the west from the rest of Sudan.

RFI: So no independent “West Sudan” like South Sudan’s separation in 2011?

SB: I don’t believe the RSF or their political allies are seeking independence for the west. They’re demanding political rights, state reform and changes in the security sector and governance structure – not secession.

---

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

This week, the New York-based Human Rights Watch called on the Turkish government to drop a proposed law targeting the country’s LGBTQI+ community. Amnesty International has made a similar demand.

Rights groups sound the alarm

The proposed legislation, which was leaked to the media, criminalises attitudes and actions deemed contrary to biological sex, carrying sentences of up to three years in prison.

“It’s really one of the worst reforms, or proposed reforms, we’ve seen in many years,” warns Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey director of Human Rights Watch.

“Because it basically says that the government or the authorities can decide that certain behaviour and attitudes are contrary to biological sex and general morality, and are criminal on that basis.”

Turkey’s Pride struggling to survive amid LGBTQ+ crackdown

Widespread impact

Sinclair-Webb claims that with the proposed law criminalising the promotion of the LGBTQI+ community, its impact would be far-reaching.

“That could affect journalists reporting on matters connected with gender, sexuality and gender identity. It could mean NGOs working to defend the rights of LGBTQI+ people from stigmatisation and discrimination.”

Since the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, homosexuality has never been criminalised. But LGBTQI+ rights advocates warn that this could change, given the broadly written nature of the proposed law.

“It’s not even same-sex sexual acts that are criminalised. It’s just your appearance. Because the law says anything against biological sex. I mean, it could be very widely interpreted,” explains Öner Ceylan of Lambda a LGBTQI+ rights group in Turkey

“So, this could be a woman with short hair or wearing trousers,” adds Ceylan. “Let’s say I’m on the streets, I’m being myself, and I can go to jail for it for three months. Then I’m released, and what happens next? I can easily go back to jail according to that law. So it can be a perfect excuse to imprison an LGBTQI+ person.”

Turkey’s embattled civil society fears worst as foreign funding dries up

Decade of crackdowns

Under the proposed law, people could face between three months and three years in prison, opening the door to lengthy pre-trial detention and the risk of mass arrests  – a prospect that worries rights groups.

Since the early 2000s, Turkey’s LGBTQI+ community has become increasingly visible and vibrant, particularly in Istanbul, with gay clubs, cafés and bars. The city once hosted large Pride marches, with the 2015 event drawing over one hundred thousand people.

However, for the past decade, Turkey’s religiously conservative government has been cracking down on the community in the name of protecting the family. Pride marches have been banned since 2015.

“Now they’ve banned any kind of LGBTQI+ event in the public sphere,” explains Yıldız Tar of Kaos, an LGBTQI+ group. “We no longer share public venues or their addresses. So we are already living a kind of criminalised life, as if many queer people coming together is a criminal activity, which it is not.”

Tar warns that the proposed law represents the endgame in the government’s campaign. “It’s the result of a decade-long war against LGBTQI+ people, and if this law passes, this is the last step.”

Turkey’s embattled civil society fears worst as foreign funding dries up

Rising rhetoric and rising

In September, the Turkish Interior Ministry filed a criminal complaint against openly gay pop singer Mabel Matiz, alleging that one of his songs violated morals and obscenity laws.

Meanwhile, an all-women pop group, Manifest, was detained under the country’s morality laws for one of their performances, prompting the group to end their sell-out national tour.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been ramping up his rhetoric against the LGBTQI+ community, even equating it with terrorism. The proposed legislation also targets the country’s transgender community, banning gender-affirming healthcare for those under the age of 25.

The LGBTQI+ community has vowed to step up its protests against the law and has secured the support of Turkey’s two main opposition parties in opposing it. But Tar warns that if the law passes, many in the community will likely flee the country –  though he says he and others are ready to resist, whatever the cost.

“We will continue to do our work, to share the very basic knowledge that being LGBTQI+ is not a threat to society. It’s not a threat to the family,” declares Tar. “But it will be harder, and most of us will end up in jail.”

Incumbent leader Samia Suluhu Hassan played down days of bloody protests as she was inaugurated on Monday, at a ceremony in State House, without the public.

Hundreds of people are reported to have died in protests after the east African nation’s presidential and parliamentary polls on 29 October, with key candidates either jailed or barred from participating.

The main opposition party, Chadema, which was barred from running, has rejected the results, which saw Hassan win with 98 percent. It has called for fresh elections, saying last Wednesday’s vote was a “sham”.

In her speech, Hassan called for “unity and solidarity” but also alleged that some of the young protesters came from “outside Tanzania”.

“Our defence and security agencies continue to investigate and examine in detail what happened,” she said, promising a return to normalcy as she addressed officials and foreign dignitaries in the capital Dodoma.

Internet blackout continues

A total internet blackout has been in place since protests broke out on election day, meaning only a trickle of verifiable information has been getting out of the east African country.

A diplomatic source said there were credible reports of hundreds – perhaps even thousands – of deaths registered at hospitals and health clinics around Tanzania.

Chadema told French news agency AFP it had recorded “no less than 800” deaths by Saturday, but none of the figures could be independently verified.

UN ‘alarmed’ by reports of deadly election violence in Tanzania

The government has not commented on any deaths, except to reject accusations that “excessive force” was used.

Schools and colleges remained closed on Monday, with public transport halted and reports of some church services not taking place on Sunday.

The diplomatic source said there were “concerning reports” that police were using the internet blackout to buy time as they “hunt down opposition members and protesters who might have videos” of atrocities committed last week.

Meanwhile African observers on Monday filed their first report on the election.

In a statement, Richard Msowoya, the head of the Southern African Development Community Electoral Observation Mission (SEOM), said it was their “tentative conclusion that, in most areas, voters could not express their democratic will”.

Tanzanian opposition leader to represent himself in court over treason charges

The 66 observers came from 10 countries – Eswatini, Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe – and were deployed across 27 of 31 Tanzanian regions.

The report said stakeholders warned the election-day quiet “belies covert acts of general intimidation of the population and opposition”.

“They also described a tense and intimidating political atmosphere,” noting a rise in political abductions.

Heavy censorship

Tanzania’s Tanganyika Law Society said before the polls it had confirmed 83 abductions since Hassan came to power in 2021, with another 20 reported in recent weeks.

SEOM said turnout was “very low”, noting a visible security and police presence throughout the day.

“In some polling stations, they [police officers] were more than the number of voters,” they said.

Tanzania’s electoral commission claimed turnout was 87 percent.

Tanzania’s opposition rallies against ‘cosmetic’ electoral reforms

The report said in some polling stations, “there were multiple orderly stacked ballots in the ballot box during voting, which created a perception of ballot stuffing”.

It added there were impressions some people “cast more than one vote at a time with the intention to cheat the election system”.

It noted violence in Mbeya, Dodoma, Arusha, and in the largest city of Dar es Salaam.

SEOM also noted concern that there was “increasing covert and overt limitations on the right to freedom of expression”, and that there was “heavy censorship of online information platforms”.

(with AFP)

“Almost all Dutch parties agree on the severity of the Russian threat, and, increasingly, the risks stemming from China,” says Bart van den Berg, head of the security and defence programme at the Hague-based think tank, the Clingendael Institute.

On Friday, Dutch press agency ANP’s election service announced that D66 has become the largest party in the parliamentary elections.

Although not all votes have been counted yet, the news agency says that the party led by D66 leader Jetten can no longer be overtaken by the PVV. It is now up to D66 to form a cabinet, but it remains unclear what combination of parties will be part of it.

Van den Berg points out that only fringe parties advocate restoring ties with Moscow or minimising China as a security risk. Mainstream parties, he said, broadly favour tougher stances, continued support for Ukraine, and a strong commitment to NATO.

“The Netherlands will continue its current security policy – meeting NATO targets and backing Ukraine – but the real debate now is over how to reduce strategic dependency on the United States,” he said.

US military sales

Europe’s military reliance on Washington is intensifying more rapidly than political consensus can form. Defence spending across Europe has risen sharply, yet a significant share of this demand has shifted towards the US defence industrial base.

This helps to explain the steep increase in US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) to Europe over the past two years, according to Guntram Wolff, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank.

Recent data show that US FMS notifications to Europe have surged from an annual average of $11 billion (2017–2021) to $68 billion in 2024, particularly in the areas of fighter aircraft, missile systems and defence software.

“The US defence industrial base itself is quite strained,” Wolff noted. Delivery delays have lengthened for key products, and the US government retains the ability to reprioritise buyers according to strategic interest scoring underlining both the capacity and political risks faced by European partners.

Atlanticist tradition

The Netherlands, with its Atlanticist tradition, has largely leant on transatlantic defence, often favouring American hardware like F-35s over French Rafales.

Atlanticist tradition refers to a political and strategic worldview that emphasises the importance of close cooperation between North America (especially the United States and Canada) and Europe (especially Western Europe) – the countries bordering the Atlantic Ocean.

Currently, the Dutch Air Force remains dependent on the United States. “The F-35 is a superior fighter to the Rafale. But in the long term, these dependencies – and how our forces manage them—will be crucial,” says Van den Berg.

France and Germany weigh future of joint EU weapons projects

While the Dutch possess strong marine, naval and niche technological capabilities, they are less integrated than France in European defence industrial projects and remain sceptical about a fully independent EU army.

France, by contrast, has consistently championed European defence sovereignty. President Emmanuel Macron’s drive for a “European pillar within NATO” and even a European army distinguishes France as the leading advocate for EU strategic autonomy.

French-led joint fighter and naval programmes have generated momentum, but, as Wolff points out, “Germany still regards the US – not France – as its principal military ally, which limits how far such integration can go. The European defence market remains fragmented, and consensus is difficult to achieve,” according to Van den Berg.

NATO summit opens in The Hague amid unprecedented security and protests

Trump Era

Dependence on the United States carries both immediate and long-term risks. “The president of the US can, at any time, alter the allocation order under FMS programmes,” notes Wolff, observing that several allies have experienced delivery delays lasting years when priorities have shifted—as seen recently with Switzerland and previously with the UAE.

“Europe urgently needs a strategy to reduce its technological reliance on the United States. That requires clear incentives for European high-tech defence firms and a shift in procurement policy towards domestic suppliers,” he adds.

France’s advanced technology is frequently overlooked in favour of US systems—partly for the perceived security guarantees they offer, and partly as a legacy of longstanding alliances. Yet the Trump era demonstrated that such guarantees cannot be assumed simply through procurement choices.

France remains world’s second largest arms exporter behind US

Van den Berg is even more pragmatic. “Most Dutch parties support diversifying alliances – not only strengthening ties with the US but also making new friends among middle powers like Brazil, India, and Indonesia,” he says. “Reducing dependency means investing in domestic industries and forging European military innovation.”​

Tough choices

The path ahead demands difficult choices. As Europe’s threat perception intensifies – particularly following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a series of hybrid crises across the continent – politicians and strategists alike emphasise the urgent need to expand domestic defence production, integrate markets, and modernise procurement systems, lest Europe remain vulnerable to transatlantic unpredictability.

“Europe now has advanced high-tech defence companies, some of which are becoming unicorns. What is needed is a coherent strategy to channel demand towards these firms, scale up production, and restore technological leadership in critical domains,” says Wolff.

The idea that Artificial Intelligence might take our jobs once seemed like pure science fiction. Yet, less than three years after the emergence of ChatGPT, the speed at which these tools have infiltrated our professional lives is nothing short of dizzying.

Workforce reorganisation

AI is driving a profound reorganisation of the workforce and has accelerated the automation of administrative functions, according to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025.

Banking, insurance, communications, marketing, logistics and data analyst positions are among those most exposed to this transformation, according to the report, with repetitive and predictable tasks the most easily automated.

“I feel like I have a sword of Damocles hanging over my head,” Fanny tells RFI.

A freelance translator for fifteen years, lately she’s been thinking more than ever about changing careers. Around her, job postings for career changes are piling up. The reason: the rise of tools like DeepL and ChatGPT, capable of producing increasingly convincing texts.

“For now, I still have enough well-paid work, probably because I translate from German and do a lot of work for Switzerland, where quality is still valued,” she explains.

But some of her clients have simply disappeared. None of them have told her they preferred automated translation services, but she’s under no illusions. Her expert eye can recognise the typical turns of phrase in AI-generated translations.

‘By humans, for humans’: French dubbing industry speaks out against AI threat

New professions

Artificial intelligence hasn’t only transformed the way translations are done, it’s created a new profession – that of “post-editor”. In other words, someone needed to correct machine-generated translations. Obviously, Fanny points out, it’s much “less well-paid,” “not very interesting,” and “the deadlines are shorter”.

Underlining this significant shift, in 2024, the language learning app Duolingo terminated the contracts of 10 percent of its freelance translators, before parting ways with some of its authors.

Its CEO, Luis von Ahn, stated at the time that he wanted to “stop using contractors to do the work that AI can generate.”

While there are no studies on the number of translator jobs destroyed by AI, the sector has served as a laboratory for what some see as the equivalent of the industrial revolution for knowledge-based professions. 

Speedy innovation

In May, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, predicted that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and raise unemployment to 10-20 percent within five years.

At online retail and cloud computing giant Amazon, this fiction has become a reality.

On Tuesday it announced a reduction of its workforce by 14,000 posts to streamline operations as it invests in artificial intelligence, without saying where the cuts will be made. This represents four percent of its 350,000 administrative positions.

This announcement was presented as the first step in a wave that could affect 30,000 people.

The types of jobs affected include support functions, human resources, logistics, cloud computing, and advertising.

Nearly one in 10 jobs could be replaced by AI within decade, says OECD

Amazon’s Vice President of Human Resources Beth Galetti directly linked this decision to generative AI: “This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the internet, and it allows companies to innovate much faster than ever before,” she said in a statement on the group’s website.

Amazon is no longer an isolated case. IBM was one of the first to automate its HR functions. Accenture has laid off 12,000 employees, primarily in the United States, as part of an AI-driven plan, and the restructuring is set to continue. The firm has warned that employees unable to adopt these tools are likely to be the next to be laid off.

As for Salesforce, its CEO, who boasted that AI “performed 30 to 50 percent of the work” at the enterprise software company, has dismissed 4,000 employees.

In early September, Microsoft confirmed the reduction of 200 positions, or 10 percent of its workforce in France, as part of a global plan citing “improved operational efficiency” and massive investments in artificial intelligence.

However, some companies have backtracked. Earlier this year, the Swedish fintech company Klarna, a payment specialist, reduced its workforce by 40 percent, justifying it by the widespread adoption of AI in its marketing and customer service departments. Ultimately, faced with dissatisfied customers, it rehired staff.

Difficult to measure

While the United States is already facing AI-related restructuring, Europe is still proceeding cautiously.

In France, no large-scale social plan has yet been explicitly attributed to AI, and the effects remain “difficult to measure,” commented Antonin Bergeaud, associate professor at HEC and innovation specialist, in a written response.

“The American market has always been more responsive than the French market,” he says. “But we should expect the same consequences: companies slowing down recruitment in high-risk professions, while waiting to see how the technology evolves.”

The first signs are there, however. According to a study by the LHH group (a subsidiary of Adecco) published at the end of September, covering 2,000 senior executives in 13 countries, 46 percent of executives say they have already reduced their workforce because of AI, and 54 percent plan to employ fewer people in the next five years.

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However, notes Michaël Chambon, managing director of LHH France, only 12 percent of the employees concerned identify this technology as the reason for their departure. “There’s a disconnect here. Management acknowledges the impact, but employees aren’t aware of it.”

“We are in a process of transformation, not yet destruction,” he adds. “But this transformation is silent, because it involves not replacing employees or freezing hiring.”

The effects also appear contradictory. “We see that companies adopting AI have a slight increase in productivity and therefore recruit more, which represents an apparent paradox,” he notes.

The PwC AI Jobs Barometer 2025 supports this: the number of job offers in AI-related professions jumped by 273 percent in France between 2019 and 2024.

“The upheaval will only really be seen in the average company when a comprehensive AI strategy is put in place. This is currently only happening in large companies,” explains Antonin Bergeaud.

Junior positions at risk

According to the World Economic Forum, internships and entry-level jobs are likely to be replaced by automation.

Jean-Amiel Jourdan, executive director of HEC Talents, has already observed this: “The adoption of AI is reducing the number of traditional junior positions. Analysis, synthesis, and report-generating tasks are being automated” at a lower cost.

New recruits must now be able to “supervise and validate the content generated by AI.”

This shift could, he warns, place employers in “a dilemma”: how to build a pool of experienced talent if we reduce the recruitment of juniors?

A Stanford study in the United States confirms the trend: since the widespread adoption of generative AI, employment among 22-25 year olds in the most exposed professions has declined by 13 percent.

The impact is most visible in the most exposed jobs, such as developers, where the drop has reached 20 percent since the peak at the end of 2022.

AI development cannot be left to market whim, UN experts warn

“The market has slowed down in the tech sector over the past two years, and this is being felt enormously in the developer ecosystem, a population that had never experienced a crisis,” explains Greg Lhotellier, recruiter and founder of Dev with IA, for whom this situation stems primarily from a less favorable economic climate. “I haven’t yet seen any cases where hiring stops because AI is doing the job.”

In the medium term, he anticipates a shift in the profession towards “AI manager” positions. “AI will generate code, but a human will always be needed to control, arbitrate, and understand it.”

Constant evolution

One in four jobs presents a risk of exposure to generative AI, according to a study by the International Labour Organization. However, few jobs are fully automatable.

Lhotellier remains cautious: “The social fallout is likely to be real, but the impact of AI on employment remains, for the moment, out of step with the alarmist rhetoric.”

A divide is likely to emerge between employees “augmented” by AI and those whose tasks will be partially replaced by AI or who will be left behind by this technological innovation, he explains.

“There are jobs that could disappear, but most are jobs that are evolving,” continues Michaël Chambon, who emphasises the importance of anticipating and training. Even if, in the long run, it’s difficult not to imagine a net loss of jobs.”

This article is based on the original in French by Aurore Lartigue and slightly edited for clarity.

The opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), which has been more than twenty years in the making, had been slated to open its doors back in 2013.

After countless delays – from the Covid-19 pandemic to regional instability – the grand unveiling is now set for 1 November. 

Located just a stone’s throw from the pyramids of Giza, the museum will be the largest archaeological and antiquities museum in the world dedicated entirely to ancient Egypt.

In October 2024, GEM offered a sneak peek, opening its first 12 galleries to around 4,000 lucky visitors.

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Monumental design

The final phase, planned for 2025, will unveil the Tutankhamun treasure rooms. Some 5,000 objects from the boy king’s tomb – including his world-famous gold funerary mask – will go on show.

Designed by Irish architect Roisin Heneghan, the building features a facade of translucent alabaster.

Its north and south walls are precisely aligned with two of the Great Pyramids – those of Khufu and Menkaure – creating a direct visual link between past and present.

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100,000 artefacts

“This museum is the largest in the world dedicated to a single civilisation – in this case, ancient Egypt,” Ahmed Ghoneim, director of the Grand Egyptian Museum, told RFI.

“It’s a museum that embraces the latest scientific innovations, using state-of-the-art technology to restore and conserve artefacts.

“It also reflects the most modern museography, with carefully curated displays that bring history to life. We’re proud that Egypt can share this with the world.”

More than 100,000 artefacts from Egypt’s ancient past will be displayed across 22,000 square metres of exhibition space.

King Tut’s treasures come to Paris, record visitors expected

A billion-dollar wonder

Building the museum has cost more than one billion dollars, a investment covered in part by international touring exhibitions of Egypt’s most iconic treasures, including those of King Tutankhamun and Ramses II.

In 2019, the exhibition “Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh” drew nearly 1.5 million visitors to Paris’s Grande Halle de la Villette – a record-breaking success that helped raise funds for the GEM project.

With its grand opening finally approaching, the Grand Egyptian Museum aims to welcome up to five million visitors each year.

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This was adapted from an original article by RFI’s Spanish service and lightly edited for clarity.

The new Fondation Cartier is located in a striking glass building offering 6,500 square metres of exhibition space.

Housed within an historic Haussmann-era complex that once hosted an antiques market, the modern art centre faces the Louvre and hopes to benefit from footfall to the world’s most visited museum to reach a new audience.

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Established by luxury jeweller Cartier in 1984, the foundation previously housed its collection of more than 4,500 artworks at a much smaller site in southern Paris, also designed by Nouvel.

The new-look premises were conceived as “a journey into the future” and “a museum of the 21st century”, Nouvel said when he unveiled the plans last year.

With five mobile steel platforms allowing for the modulation of space and light, its design borrows as much from “aircraft carriers as it does from the theatre”, according to the award-winning architect.

The foundation’s new home – within a “mythical” cultural hub comprising the Louvre, the Comédie Française theatre, the Museum of Decorative Arts and the Bourse de Commerce, which houses the art collection of French businessman François Pinault – is “worthy of the scale of the collection and its history”, said its director, Chris Dercon.

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The institution plans to showcase some 600 works on rotation from its collection of works by 500 contemporary artists including Damien Hirst, David Lynch, Joan Mitchell, Patti Smith, Chéri Samba, Raymond Depardon and Malick Sidibé.

Its inaugural show, General Exhibition, highlights key works and moments from the foundation’s 41-year history.

The move cost an estimated €230 million in total, according to Fondation Cartier’s president, Alain Dominique Perrin.

(with AFP)

The robbery has also reignited the debate over museum security in France. Shortcomings have been previously pointed out on numerous occasions, and the Louvre heist, carried out in broad daylight at the world’s most visited museum, is just the latest in a series of incidents.

Among the stolen items were a tiara belonging to Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III, which features nearly 2,000 diamonds. The thieves also took a sapphire necklace belonging to Marie-Amélie, wife of Louis-Philippe I and the last queen of France, and Queen Hortense, the mother of Napoleon III which is composed of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, according to the Louvre’s website.

Experts have said it would be impossible to resell these jewels in their current state, as they are listed in royal and imperial inventories, as well as in museum inventories.

They say the most likely scenario is that the jewellery will be resold once it has been dismantled.

Louvre remains shut for a second day as police hunt jewel heist gang

Magali Teisseire, a jewellery expert for the auction house Sotheby’s said: “An old-cut diamond can be recut into another shape and resold. Unfortunately, if they are recut, it is impossible to determine their origin as they are no longer stones with recognisable cuts, facets and inclusions.”

For auctioneer Olivier Valmier, the investigation into the heists is also a race against time to prevent the destruction of the pieces, whose gold could be quickly melted down.

“This week, [gold] reached a record price of €120,000 per kilo. But the value of gold is less than that of precious stones per unit,” he added.

Experts capable of cutting diamonds of this size optimally are rare, and the work could take several months.

Missing works

Around 60 investigators from the Paris judicial police’s banditry squad (BRB) and the Central Office for the Fight against Trafficking in Cultural Property (OCBC) have been mobilised.

On Sunday evening, French President Emmanuel Macron promised: “We will recover the works and the perpetrators will be brought to justice. Everything is being done, everywhere, to achieve this.”

However, many priceless objects stolen from global cultural institutions have never been recovered.

In 1990, two men dressed in police uniforms robbed Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum by setting off the fire alarm in the middle of the night.

They removed 13 paintings and drawings by Rembrandt, Vermeer and Manet from their frames. The museum is still offering $10 million dollars for any information on their whereabouts.

In 2002, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam was targeted by the Neapolitan mafia. The thieves climbed on to the roof with a ladder, broke a window and descended into the exhibition hall using a rope.

The two Van Gogh paintings they took were discovered in 2016 during a raid on the home of one of the Camorra mafia bosses.

In 2018, a Berlin gang stole 21 pieces of jewellery from a museum in Dresden, Germany, three of which are still missing.

This is not the first time the Louvre has been targeted. In 1911 its most famous exhibit, The Mona Lisa, was stolen – by a glazier who worked for the museum. The painting was returned two years later.

The Paris museum was last targeted in 1998, when a painting by French painter Camille Corot was stolen and has still not been recovered.

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Questions over security

“We have failed,” said French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin on Monday, the day after the Louvre theft.

The museum “has failed to keep up in the deployment of equipment designed to protect the works”, according to a previous report by the Court of Auditors consulted by French news agency AFP.

The Court, which examined the period between 2019 and 2024, noted a “persistent delay” in this area.

It found that many rooms in the museum are not protected by video surveillance, and the that obsolescence of much of the equipment has accelerated “at a much faster rate than the pace of investment by the institution to remedy the situation”.

In January, the president of the Louvre, Laurence Des Cars, alerted Culture Minister Rachida Dati to flaws in the museum’s security.

Trade unions have denounced a lack of security staff at the museum. On 16 June, the Louvre was closed for several hours due to a strike by employees, carried out as a warning over the shortage of security personnel.

“The Louvre Museum is short of several hundred reception and security staff,” Alexis Fritche, secretary-general of the CFDT Culture union, told RFI’s Laurence Théault. “When the theft took place, there were four staff members on duty instead of the six scheduled. There was a glaring shortage of staff.”

“We believe that there needs to be an audit of security and prevention measures. It is often the staff who are best placed to talk about the difficulties and weaknesses that may exist, particularly in a security system,” Fritche added. 

Christian Galani, a representative of union CGT Culture, told AFP that the Louvre’s security team had seen “200 jobs cut in 15 years, while visitor numbers have increased 1.5 times”.

“You can walk through several areas without seeing a single security guard, and several rooms are systematically closed due to a lack of available staff,” he said.

Series of recent thefts

The theft at the Louvre is only the latest in a series of incidents. In September, a thief removed 6 kilograms of gold nuggets from the Natural History Museum in Paris.

The museum’s alarm and video surveillance systems had been “inoperative” since a cyberattack on 25 July, AFP learned from police sources – which the museum has neither confirmed nor denied.

Also in September, two Chinese platters and a vase – classified as “national treasures” and worth several million euros – were stolen from the Adrien Dubouché National Museum in Limoges.

Chinese woman arrested following September gold theft at Paris museum

“We are well aware that French museums are highly vulnerable,” Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez acknowledged on Sunday when asked about possible flaws in the Louvre’s security system.

On Monday, he sent instructions to all prefects to strengthen security measures around cultural institutions where necessary.

Des Cars is due to be heard by the Senate on Wednesday. Laurent Lafon, chairman of the Cultural Affairs Committee, told AFP that she must provide “her explanations following Sunday’s theft”.

A commission of inquiry into the security of museums across the country will also be proposed to the National Assembly.

The Louvre, which remained closed on Tuesday, is set to undergo major renovations. At the beginning of the year, Macron announced works estimated to cost up to €800 million over a period of 10 years.

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This article was adapted from this report and this report by RFI’s French service.

It began in Moldova. In late December 2023, a video purportedly showing President Maia Sandu disowning her government and mocking the country’s European ambitions went viral on Telegram.

The Moldovan government swiftly dismissed the clip as fake, but the damage was done.

According to Balkan Insight, an investigative news website, and Bot Blocker, a fake-news watchdog, the Kremlin-linked bot network “Matryoshka” generated the clip using the Luma AI video platform.

The footage, voiced in Russian, caricatured Sandu as ineffective and corrupt, recycling earlier disinformation tied to fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor.

French cybersecurity agency Viginum later described how AI-generated deepfake videos, including the one mimicking President Sandu, were distributed through Telegram and TikTok by a pro-Russian propaganda network affiliated with the Russian media outlet Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Viginum said websites like moldova-news.com were backed by what it called a “structured and coordinated pro-Russian propaganda network.”

Troll factories and cloning

Saman Nazari, a researcher with Alliance4Europe, a Europe-wide pro-democracy platform, told RFI the use of AI to influence elections is massively increasing.

In the past, he said people who wanted to influence elections would copy-paste the same text over and over again.

“They just have AI rewrite them, publish them across different accounts, different pages, with small variations aimed at specific target audiences,” Nazari said.

Nazari also said AI tools are now used to make disinformation operations look legitimate.

France’s Foreign Ministry said Storm 1516, a cyber-attack group, had launched 77 Russian disinformation campaigns targeting France, Ukraine and other Western countries since 2023.

According to Nazari, the operations were run by the successor to the Saint-Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency [founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2013 and dissolved in 2023], the Russian Foundation for Battling Injustice – which created websites that look exactly like well-known media outlets.

The groups running these websites clone news sites, fill them with stolen articles that are rewritten or translated and then re-publish them to appear credible, Nazari said.

Alliance4Europe has counted hundreds of such websites during European elections.

“In the past, it was quite a big job to create a website and fill it with content, but now it’s being done almost automatically,” Nazari said. 

Personal targets

The threat is spreading into Western Europe. Professor Dominique Frizon de Lamotte of CY Cergy Paris University was targeted by an AI-generated video that faked his image and voice and attempted to link him to pro-Russian groups in Moldova.

“I have no connection with Moldova; I don’t even use Telegram,” he told France 3 television. The video was flagged by EUvsDisinfo, an EU misinformation monitoring group, and French media as an attempt to undermine trust in academics.

The 2024 presidential election in Romania brought further evidence of AI-linked interference.

Officials said the interference, widely attributed by European governments to Russian-backed actors, led to the annulment of the election results by Romania’s Constitutional Court, an unprecedented move in Europe.

During the rerun in mid-2025, far-right narratives and fabricated content circulating on TikTok and Telegram sought to influence public opinion. Pro-European candidate Nicusor Dan ultimately won the repeat vote.

All eyes on Hungary

Hungary is preparing for a flood of AI-influenced content ahead of its 2026 elections.

Pro-government groups, including the National Resistance Movement, have already spent over €1.5 million promoting unlabelled AI videos attacking opposition leader Peter Magyar.

Some clips show fabricated scenes of Hungarian soldiers dying in Ukraine to provoke nationalist sentiment. Magyar has called the videos “pathetic” and “election fraud”.

Analysts say that even when viewers think content might be fake, emotional impact still shapes opinions.

Within a larger legal framework, the European Union has rules forcing platforms to show who is behind political adverts.

Within a wider framework, the European Union has already introduced the Digital Services Act in 2022 to strengthen platform rules on transparent political advertising.

The commission also operates a Rapid Alert System and an AI Integrity Taskforce to detect and counter manipulative content across languages and borders.

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

 

Voters at risk

Nazari said young people are used to seeing altered images and deepfakes online.

“Young people have grown up with memes, with people making deep fakes. Edited images and videos and so on. [They] are familiar with the concept.”

But older voters, he told RFI, are more likely to be misled.

“They might not be able to distinguish between a real video and a deep fake video,” Nazari said, adding they are especially vulnerable in countries where digital literacy is not very high.

On a dusty field in Sherikat, a suburb in the south-east of South Sudan’s capital Juba, children and teenagers practice dribbling balls and weaving between cones. They take turns playing against each other, different coloured jerseys dividing them into teams.

“This is Young Dream Football Academy,” says Alaak Akuei, who everyone calls Kuku. “We are working with young people. Most of them come from the street and some are in gangs.” 

Akuei, 24, used to belong to a gang himself. He joined when he was 13 and newly arrived in Juba from a smaller town in the south.

Five years later, after several stints in prison, he set up Young Dream. 

“The young men, they don’t have anything to do. That’s why many of them are on the streets and end up in gangs,” he says. “We need to offer them activities to keep them busy and so that they don’t drop out of school. Football can be very powerful to fight this issue of gangs.” 

‘Sense of belonging’

Gang crime has become a major concern in Juba and other cities in South Sudan. In one internal displacement camp in the capital alone, the NGO Nonviolent Peaceforce estimates that nearly 1,200 people belonged to gangs in 2021, more than 90 percent of them aged under 18.

Members were accused of crimes including theft, drug dealing, rape and assault.

While many victims are members of rival gangs, outside “civilians” can be caught up too: between 2018 and 2023, the charity says, gang violence reportedly killed 39 people in the camp – 11 of them non-members – and severely injured more than 600.

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Years of insecurity in the country have killed or displaced millions, breaking up communities and disrupting schooling and livelihoods.

Now, the peace deal that ended the 2013-18 civil war looks close to collapse, threatening to tip the country back into conflict. 

Meanwhile, widespread corruption and power struggles between political factions have left much of the country struggling to secure food, healthcare, education and other basic services, according to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.

In the absence of the state, gangs have stepped in. They offer not only a path to profits, but a community. 

“Children and youth are looking for a sense of belonging, to be loved. That is the main reason why they join gangs,” believes Sakaya Peter, who works for community empowerment NGO Gredo.

“In these groups, they don’t just fight or steal. They love each other deeply and care for one another.”

For the same reason, he says, initiatives such as the football academy can offer an effective alternative.

“By bringing them together regularly to do sports, we can offer them that same feeling that they have people they can get support from.”

South Sudan’s returnee farmers yearn for peace to revive food production

Second chances

Today Young Dream trains more than 900 young footballers, as well as running other sports programmes, academic support sessions and leadership workshops. 

Its six coaches are all former gang members. Emmanuel Aman Malual, 21, sees it as a second chance.

“Back when we were in the gang, we slept on the streets, drank, smoked. We did a lot of bad things. But it is possible to change,” he says. “I am a different person now, and I can’t imagine going back. Now all I want is to help these children, because they are the future of this nation.”

By the side of the pitch, a group of boys stand in the shade of a tin veranda. They were recruited from the streets by Akuei, who is also trying to get them back in touch with their families. 

John, 17, left home in 2017. His mother, an alcoholic, could be violent. His ambitions are simple: “I want to play football and go to school, and stay in a nice place where I can sleep, change my clothes and live normally.”

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This article was adapted from the original version in French by RFI’s Florence Miettaux.

While the damage caused by cattle ranching and soy farming is well known, coffee’s role in deforestation has gone largely unnoticed. Yet between 1990 and 2023, the area planted with coffee in Brazil more than doubled – from 600,000 to 1.23 million hectares.

Much of that expansion has eaten away at the once-rich Mata Atlantica, or Atlantic Forest, one of the world’s most endangered ecosystems. Once covering 1.2 million square kilometres, less than 10 percent of the dry forest now remains.

Brazil, the world’s biggest coffee producer, supplies nearly 40 percent of the global total. That success has come at a heavy ecological cost – especially in the coffee heartlands of Minas Gerais state, north of Rio de Janeiro, where the forest lies. 

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Massive losses

The NGO Coffee Watch, which tracks the industry’s impact, estimates that coffee farming has wiped out more than 11 million hectares of forest in high-density production areas since 2001.

“Between 2001 and 2023, coffee destroyed an area of forest equivalent to the size of Honduras,” Etelle Higonnet, founder and director of Coffee Watch, told RFI.

That figure reflects several overlapping trends. Direct forest loss from clearing land for coffee accounts for about 300,000 hectares, while wider deforestation across coffee farm properties adds roughly 740,000 more.

The rest comes indirectly: new roads that cut through forests, urban growth around coffee regions, and what campaigners call “deforestation laundering” – where coffee takes over land that was already cleared for other uses.

Coffee Watch used detailed satellite data to reach these estimates, finding the highest levels of destruction in Minas Gerais.

‘Cannibal commodity’

The loss is not only ecological but also a threat to the coffee crop itself. Forests such as the Amazon act as a “rain machine”, regulating water cycles through atmospheric rivers that carry moisture southwards to Brazil’s coffee belt.

“Scientifically, we can show very precisely how deforestation for coffee has destroyed the region’s hydrological cycle,” Higonnet said. “It has led to droughts, then to harvest crises. Coffee has become a cannibal commodity that destroys the system it needs.”

Since 2014, rainfall anomalies have become the norm across Brazil’s coffee-growing areas. Severe droughts in 2014-2017, 2019-2020 and again in 2023 slashed yields. In 2014, rainfall in key coffee regions like Minas Gerais fell as much as 50 percent below normal during the crucial bean-development months.

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Economic, climate pressures

That instability has pushed prices sharply higher.

Between 2023 and 2024, coffee prices rose more than 40 percent. And climate models suggest things could get far worse. Under moderate greenhouse gas scenarios, Brazil could lose up to two-thirds of its Arabica-suitable land by 2050.

Despite these warnings, there are few programmes to limit coffee-related deforestation.

“Coffee is the sixth-leading cause of global deforestation, yet it gets no attention,” Higonnet said, adding that palm oil, by contrast, is now covered by multiple zero-deforestation initiatives.

Coffee Watch estimates it is almost certain that most consumers’ morning coffee is linked to deforestation if it comes from Brazil.

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Only a few certification schemes exist. Coffee with the Smithsonian Bird-Friendly label is guaranteed to be free from deforestation, but it makes up just about 1 percent of global production. The Rainforest Alliance also certifies coffee under strict rules on the environment and working conditions, though its forest standards are less demanding than Smithsonian’s.

Brazil’s coffee industry also faces severe human rights issues.

“Farm inspections remain minimal,” Higonnet said. “Brazilian authorities checked only 0.1 percent of farms. Even with that tiny sample, they found 3,700 enslaved workers who were freed.”

Organic and fair-trade labels, she added, do not monitor deforestation either. And none of the current certifications guarantee farmers a living income, making it harder for them to stop clearing land.

Europe delays import rules

The European Union is developing a law to ban products linked to deforestation from entering its market, and coffee is on that list. Producers will have to prove their goods did not come from land cleared after 2020.

But enforcement has already been pushed back twice – first from December 2024 to 2025, then again to 2026 – after pressure from several exporting countries, including Brazil.

The European Commission has said it plans to “soften” the rules, as political support for environmental measures weakens across the EU.

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Some projects show there are better ways to grow coffee. One of them is agroforestry – planting coffee among trees instead of clearing the land.

The trees help keep the soil moist, lower temperatures and protect crops from heat. Indigenous communities have used this method for centuries, creating a kind of natural shield against climate shocks.

In regions like Brazil’s Zona da Mata, where agroforestry is more common, farms kept more soil moisture during the 2021 drought.

But the practice is still rare. In major coffee-producing areas such as Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo, it covers less than 1 percent of farmland.

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This story was adapted from the original version in French by RFI’s Simon Roze.

A quiet hero of French sport, Coste only found fame late in life when his Olympic story came full circle at the Paris 2024 Games.

France’s Sports Minister, Marina Ferrari, announced his passing on Sunday, calling him a man who left “an immense sporting legacy”.

For many, Coste only became a household name in France last summer. during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Games, the centenarian appeared in a wheelchair to pass the Olympic flame to judo champion Teddy Riner and track sprinter Marie-José Pérec – an emotional moment that resonated across the country.

The French Olympic Committee hailed it as “an image full of emotion that will remain forever in Olympic memory”.

Born on 8 February 1924 in Ollioules, near Toulon, Coste had been the doyen of Olympic champions since the death of Hungarian gymnast Ágnes Keleti earlier this year. He was also the last surviving member of the French team that won gold in the track cycling pursuit at the London Games of 1948 – the first Olympics held after the Second World War.

“I used to tell my mother when I was ten or twelve that I’d either be a general or an Olympic champion,” he recalled with a smile in a 2024 interview. “It turned out to be the latter.”

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A life shaped by war and wheels

Cycling entered Coste’s life almost by accident. As a boy, he would watch the greats of the 1930s Tour de France – Antonin Magne, Georges Speicher and André Leducq – whizz past the family vineyard in Ollioules.

He began racing in regional events as a teenager, showing promise before the Second World War interrupted everything.

During the war, his parents enrolled him as an apprentice fitter at the naval arsenal in Toulon. But once peace returned, Coste joined the famed Vélo Club de Levallois – a breeding ground for French cycling talent – and quickly found his stride on the track.

In 1947 he won his only national title, in the individual pursuit, and was made captain of the French pursuit team for the London Olympics a year later.

Crossing the Channel by ferry, Coste and his teammates Pierre Adam, Serge Blusson and Fernand Decanali – nicknamed the “ABCD” – stayed at a US Air Force camp in a bombed-out London suburb.

Against the odds, they beat the home favourites in the semi-finals and went on to defeat Italy in the final to claim gold.

“There was just a tiny podium back then,” he once laughed. “They gave us our medals in little boxes, not around the neck like today. And then they told us, ‘Sorry, no Marseillaise – we couldn’t find the record!’”

Olympic torch continues its final relay across France

From shadow to spotlight

After his Olympic triumph, Coste was received at the Élysée Palace by President Vincent Auriol along with the other French medallists. Yet for decades he slipped quietly into obscurity, his story largely forgotten as newer champions rose to fame.

He turned professional, winning the Grand Prix des Nations in 1949 – a now-defunct but once-prestigious time trial event – beating his friend and rival Fausto Coppi. “Unfortunately for him, he was tired that day,” Coste would say modestly.

He also claimed victory in Paris-Limoges in 1953, but never found success in the Grand Tours, retiring after several attempts at the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia.

Recognition came late. In 2022, at the age of 98, he finally received the Légion d’honneur from Tony Estanguet, the head of the Paris 2024 organising committee. “We are losing the doyen of French sport, a true gentleman,” Estanguet said in tribute. “It was an honour to present him with the Légion d’honneur and to invite him to carry the flame for Paris 2024.”

Olympic torch sets off on 78-day journey across France

A flame that kept burning

Even at 100, Coste remained remarkably spirited. Speaking in early 2024, he said he was “proud” to have been chosen to carry the Olympic flame.

“I’m hindered by my knees, but I’ll try to hold it for a few metres,” he said cheerfully.

He also confessed to still following the sport closely. “We have good riders in France – especially [Julien] Alaphilippe. He’s a fighter who always tries to be in the break.”

French judo star Riner paid tribute on Instagram, describing Coste as a man who embodied “commitment, respect and love of sport in all its forms”.

Pérec, more simply, posted a photo of their unforgettable handover at the Paris ceremony.

(with newswires)

On Friday, during negotiations over how to raise money, the so-called “Zucman tax” was rejected by 228 votes to 172.

Named after the French economist Gabriel Zucman who devised it, the scheme, which was championed by a bloc made up of the Socialist, Communist, Green parties and the hard-left France Unbowed, aimed for a minimum two-percent tax on wealth over €100 million.

MPs also voted down a “Zucman-light” proposal from the Socialists. This version called for a minimum three-percent levy on assets of €10 million and above, excluding family and “innovative” businesses.

“It seems highly likely that the lower house will not be able to complete its examination of the budget on time,” warned Philippe Juvin, one of the top politicians charged with ushering the bill through parliament.

“A vote on the revenue section may take place, but not on the expenditure section,” he told French broadcaster LCI.

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MPs have 40 days to give their first reading of the state budget, and parliament as a whole has 70 days to decide, according to constitutional deadlines.

The voting on raising revenue, scheduled for 4 November, appears unlikely to take place with more than 2,000 amendments still to be scrutinised.

On 5  November, MPs will start their deliberations on the ways to fund social security in the country.

The state budget will not return to the agenda in the Assembly until 12 November. That will leave MPs with 11 days before politicians in the Senate start looking at the proposals.

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Prime Minister Sébastian Lecornu does not have a majority in parliament and needs support from Socialist lawmakers to get the budget passed.

He also relies on the party’s MPs to survive potential votes of no confidence.

“We are not calling for dispossession or confiscation, we are demanding tax justice,” Socialist lawmaker Boris Vallaud said ahead of Friday’s vote.

France targets the rich with temporary tax hikes to bring down debt

After senators finish looking at the budget, MPs in the Assembly will have the final say.

The potential legislation will also face scrutiny from the constitutional court, which has struck down tax laws it deemed confiscatory.

“There’s no need for people to worry,” Juvin added. “There will be a text before 31 December. And that text will either be passed by both the National Assembly and the Senate, or it will be rejected by the assembly,” he said.

“In that case, the government will have in hand what is called a special budget law, as it did last year.”

The so-called “brake clause” could allow the European Union soften its 2040 climate target in future years – a move aimed at giving countries breathing room if Europe’s forests fail to soak up enough carbon dioxide to meet the goal.

According to a draft compromise proposal, EU countries are considering allowing an adjustment to the target if forest and land-use activities – which play a vital role in absorbing emissions – fall short.

The idea is to build in some flexibility, without derailing the bloc’s overall climate ambitions.

The EU’s environment ministers are expected to meet on 4 November in a bid to finalise the new 2040 target – just in time for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to take a fresh commitment to the Cop30 climate summit, which opens on 6 November.

Europe’s climate progress overshadowed by worsening loss of nature

France pushes for flexibility

The European Commission has said the bloc should aim for a 90 percent cut in planet-warming emissions by 2040 compared to 1990 levels. But some member states remain uneasy, particularly those with energy-intensive industries already struggling to stay competitive.

The newly added clause in the latest draft text would allow Brussels to propose “an adjustment of the 2040 intermediate target corresponding to and within the limits of the possible shortfalls” – in other words, a small recalibration if Europe’s forests and soils underperform.

At the same time, the Commission could also bring forward extra measures to get the land-use sector back on track, suggesting that any relaxation of the target might be temporary and carefully managed.

The idea mirrors a French proposal floated last week, which called for an “emergency brake” – a 3 percent reduction of the 90 percent target – should the land-use and forestry sectors fall behind.

France argues that the brake would act as a pragmatic safeguard, ensuring Europe’s climate ambitions remain realistic in light of natural and economic challenges.

And the challenges are real. Europe’s forests and land-use sector have seen their carbon absorption capacity fall by nearly a third over the past decade. The reasons range from worsening wildfires and pests to unsustainable logging practices – all of which make the continent’s natural carbon sinks less reliable than before.

Record surge in CO2 puts world on track for more long-term warming

Tough talks ahead

The debate over the “brake clause” comes on top of other contentious points. Some countries have pushed for the right to revise the 2040 goal every two years – a move critics say could weaken long-term climate certainty. Others want more leeway to use foreign carbon credits to meet their share of the 90 percent reduction.

However, negotiators will need the backing of at least 15 of the EU’s 27 member states for the deal to pass.

Still, there are signs of optimism. Denmark, which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency and drafted the latest compromise, believes the stars may finally be aligning.

“With COP30 about to start, this is the time to agree on the 2040 target,” a Danish spokesperson said. “All the necessary ingredients are now in place to land a deal.”

While environmental groups are likely to bristle at the idea of any dilution to the 2040 goal, the compromise could strike the political balance that gets all sides on board – ambitious enough to keep Europe’s climate leadership credentials intact, yet flexible enough to acknowledge the unpredictable role of nature in climate accounting.

(with newswires)

The 24-year-old triumphed 6-4, 7-6 in just under two hours to lift his fifth trophy of the season,

The 1000 points from the victory allows him to leapfrog Carlos Alcaraz and reclaim top spot in the ATP world rankings which are released on Monday.

“It’s been an incredible week and an incredible run in the past couple of months,” said Sinner after he received the winner’s trophy from the .french tennis legend Yannick Noah.

Addressing his team of coaches standing among the 17,500 fans, he added: “You’re always trying to improve as a player and seeing these results at this high level of tennis, I’m very happy to share them with you. 

“It’s a very, very, very special day. So thank you so much.”

Sinner broke Auger-Aliassime in the first game of the match and kept the 25-year-old Canadian at bay during his own service games to wrap up the first set after 44 minutes on centre court at the Paris La Défense Arena.

 

It was a case of déjà vu as Auger-Aliassime faced two seperate break points at the start of the second set.

But he fought them off and edged into the lead.

In the seventh game, he displayed commendable fortitude to fight off three more before moving 4-3 ahead.

Leading 5-4, Auger-Aliassime got to deuce on the Sinner serve. But his chance of sneaking off with the set flitted away following two more errors.

At 6-6, a sloppy forehand in the tiebreak handed Sinner the mini-break for a 3-2 lead and he finished off the encounter in style with a sumptuous backhand winner down the line.

As Sinner celebrated with his coaches, a forlorn Auger-Aliassime sat on his chair by the umpire staring into the distance.

It was his third consecutive defeat to the Italian.

Congrats to you and your team,” said Auger-Aliassime after receiving his runners-up shield from  Noah.

“Well done to keep pushing me and all the players to improve.”

After judges barred both ex-president Laurent Gbagbo and prominent financier Tidjane Thiam from running in the 25 October poll, the first for a criminal conviction and the second for questions over his French nationality, Ouattara could have used his presidential powers to overturn the rulings. He did not.

The president insisted he did not want to interfere in a matter for the courts, but his critics accuse him of using the law to edge out his opponents.

Ouattara went on to claim a crushing 89.77 percent of the vote.

Opposition parties including Thiam’s PDCI-RDA and Gbagbo’s PPA-CI have described Ivorian democracy as weakened. Voters too told RFI they felt they had no real choice.

Inside Côte d’Ivoire’s pivotal election: voices of hope and uncertainty

Divisions and weaknesses

Moquet César Flan, director of the Abidjan Centre for Political Research (CRPA) and a specialist on democratic governance and security, says there are two main reasons why Ouattara scored so highly: first, turnout was low at around 50 percent, and second, the main opposition candidates were not on the ballot. 

“Indirectly, the exclusion of Gbagbo and Thiam from the electoral list contributed to Ouattara’s victory – especially since these figures called for a boycott of the process, effectively urging voters not to go to the polls,” he told RFI. “This had the opposite effect in regions that are strongholds of [Ouattara’s ruling party] the RHDP, by boosting turnout there.”

Opponents were deeply divided, he added. “The large family of social democrats, which was embodied by the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) before 2010, has been fragmented, so the Ivorian left is completely archipelagic and entirely splintered.”

Founded by Laurent Gbagbo and his then wife Simone, the FPI has seen core figures desert it for other factions. Simone Gbagbo and former ally Ahoua Don Mello stood against each other in last weekend’s election, Flan noted.

Cote d’Ivoire goes to the polls: in pictures

Uncertain succession

The main worry now is what might happen from here. 

Protests or unrest could still emerge. The PPA-CI has called for a demonstration on 8 November, in order to denounce violence that took place during the presidential election in some parts of the country.

Longer term, there remains the question of who could succeed Ouattara if he were to become sick or worse. He has yet to name his political heir.

“Some people are worried that we might find ourselves in a situation similar to the time of the late [Félix] Houphouët-Boigny,” Flan said, referring to the first president of Côte d’Ivoire from 1960 until his death in 1993. 

Houphouët-Boigny delayed designating a successor, “to the point that Article 11, which set out the line of succession, was erased from the constitution and rewritten at least three times,” said Flan. “So there are concerns from that point of view.”

Ouattara, he points out, “is a strong personality and has great influence over his political party”.

“Ouattara is the guarantor, up to a certain point, of its functioning and its cohesion. There is also the risk of creating tensions or factions within the party by naming the person who will succeed him… But it will have to be done at some point, and in such a way as to preserve, as far as possible, the unity of the country.”

Ouattara picked his close ally Amadou Gon Coulibaly to replace him in the 2020 election, but Gon Coulibaly died three months before the vote, forcing a rethink.

The president has since insisted he has a half-dozen potential successors in mind, but that “no one ticks all the boxes”, a source close to Ouattara told the press.

The issue of his succession is more pressing than ever now his re-election is official.

His advanced age also clashes with the expectations of an overwhelmingly young country, where three-quarters of the population are under the age of 35.

A free-floating aquatic plant native to the Amazon River basin in South America, water hyacinth is renowned for its rapid growth and attractive lavender-blue flowers, often used to decorate garden ponds.

However, it is also regarded as one of the world’s most invasive species.

First reported in Ghana in 1984, water hyacinth found its way into the River Tano in the Western Region. From there, it spread to other water bodies – including Lake Volta, a vast reservoir behind a hydroelectric dam that generates much of the country’s power.

Forming a dense mat over the surface of the water, it depletes water bodies of oxygen, killing fish and other wildlife.

Ghana‘s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has raised concerns over the major environmental and economic threat posed by the rapid spread of the plant.

Jewel Kudjawu, director of the EPA’s Intersectoral Network Department, warned that the weed’s uncontrolled growth has dire consequences for aquatic life, fishing communities and hydropower production.

“Water hyacinth is not just a nuisance plant; it is an ecological threat. If we don’t act quickly, it will destroy fish habitats, block water transport routes and affect livelihoods,” she told RFI.

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Fishing boats blocked 

Thousands of fisherfolk living along the lake in Ghana’s Eastern and Volta regions are seeing their livelihoods gradually suffocate.

For lakeside communities such as Kpong, Atimpoku, Senchi, Akuse and Akrade, fishing is the backbone of the local economy. 

As water hyacinth spreads, nets are entangled, boat routes blocked and families who have relied on the lake for generations are facing dwindling incomes.

For Emmanuel Tetteh, a 52-year-old fisherman in Kpong, the impact is devastating.

“These weeds started small here some years ago, but now they are all over,” he says. “I can’t access parts of the lake and my income has dropped drastically. I used to make 3,000 cedis [€238] a month, but now even 1,000 [€79] is not easy.”

Tetteh says fishing is how he takes care of his family of five.

“Some of the fisherfolk have left the community to other parts of the country to continue their fishing.”

Far-reaching impacts

Meanwhile, the Kpong Hydroelectric Power Plant faces monthly losses of the equivalent of around €790,000 caused by aquatic weeds obstructing operations.

Akim Tijani, in charge of technical services at the Volta River Authority, says water hyacinth impedes water flow into turbines, thus reducing power generation.

“Beyond energy losses, the weeds obstruct canoe transport, reduce fish stocks and hurt livelihoods in fishing and ecotourism,” he explains.

Boat operator Charles Mawuko said the water hyacinth gets tangled up in the propeller of his outboard motor and takes time to clear. 

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Floating mowers

To combat the infestation, the Ghana Maritime Authority has deployed three aquatic weed harvester boats – two at Kpong and one at Ada, on the Atlantic coast.

“The overall result we are seeing is weeds being cleared in tonnes, allowing the generation of power,” said Kamal-Deen Ali, the authority’s director-general. “Without this, it could cripple the nation.”

As well as making way for fishing boats, the clearing measures also support tourism, he says. “If someone visits and the water is choked with weeds, it ruins the attraction. Finally, it opens safe passage for canoes and other watercraft,” he explains.

The EPA has stepped up its awareness campaign on water hyacinth in communities along Lake Volta. As well as monitoring affected areas, it is working with partners to develop long-term strategies to curb the menace.

“We urge community leaders, local assemblies, and relevant state agencies to collaborate on measures to control the spread of the plant,” the agency said. “Communities must be part of the solution. With the right education and stakeholder involvement, we can turn this challenge into an opportunity.”

Speaking to RFI from his workshop in Cocody, an upmarket suburb of Abidjan, Gbaou recalls that before he started his venture 10 years ago, “there wasn’t a single chocolate bar made in Côte d’Ivoire”.

Today, his brand Le Chocolatier Ivoirien sells its chocolates both abroad and, increasingly, at home.

From bean to bar

The former banker switched careers after noticing “this great absurdity” that the world’s leading cocoa producer sent the vast majority of its beans to be turned into chocolate abroad.

“We have two million farmers, 3,000 cooperatives and there was no chocolate brand in the supermarkets,” he told RFI.

Côte d’Ivoire’s cocoa industry lies at the heart of its economy, shaping both export revenues and rural livelihoods. The country supplies roughly 35 to 45 percent of global demand, with production hitting nearly 2.4 million tonnes in 2023.

Most of the beans are grown by smallholder farmers who harvest them, dry them and sell them to traders for export, in many cases earning less than a dollar a day. 

Cocoa processing, which adds value, mainly occurs once the beans have left the country. The most lucrative step – making chocolate products – typically happens in Europe, where the world’s biggest multinationals have their manufacturing hubs.

Chocolate and rice among key EU imports facing climate threats

Gbaou wants to help locals move higher up in the value chain. Since starting his company in 2015, he has trained more than 2,000 women farmers to meet organic and fair trade standards, process the raw beans or even make their own chocolate.

These planters supply him with sustainably grown beans. “And we have our own chocolate bars now, with our African fabric and packaging.”

Adapted to local market

At first, Gbaou sold mainly to corporate customers. “In the beginning, we were making chocolate for companies, like Air France, and after that I decided that I had to make our own chocolate bar,” he says.

But it wasn’t an obvious market. “People say that it was not in the habit of Ivorians to have chocolate, to eat chocolate,” says Gbaou. Price was also a barrier. 

Alongside his more expensive offerings, he came up with a chocolate bar, Kimbo, that retails for the equivalent of just under €1. “And people are now buying it here, but also in France, in other countries, in Congo, et cetera. People order it because it’s a good price,” Gbaou concludes.

Podcast: Inside Côte d’Ivoire’s pivotal election: voices of hope and uncertainty

He says the brand can sell one million chocolate bars each year in Côte d’Ivoire’s economic hub Abidjan, home to six million residents. “It is possible because the people buy them here now,” he adds. 

Gbaou now exports to countries in Africa, Europe and North America.

This weekend he’s showcasing his products at the Salon du Chocolat trade fair in Paris – where, in 2022, the International Agricultural Show named his chocolate “Best in the World”. This year, Gbaou received two Gourmet Medals at the fair, in the 75% Dark Chocolate with no additives except sugar category, and in the 85% Dark Chocolate one.

Akbar’s been treading these pavements since 1973. He started out selling Charlie Hebdo and Libération, then Le Monde – which he still pedals seven days a week from around 3pm to midnight.

Keeping up with Paris’s last paperboy is a feat in itself. “I walk between 12 and 15 kilometres a day. That’s why I’m so thin,” says the spindly 73-year-old as he darts from one café terrace to another, shouting “Ça y est!” – “That’s it!”

His route takes us through cobbled streets lined with art galleries and bookstores, past literary cafés like Les Deux Magots where Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Ernest Hemingway once debated, and the Brasserie Lipp, where waiters carrying silver trays give a respectful nod and move aside to let him in.

“Ça y est! France is saved,” he shouts, adding an ironic twist to the country’s worst political crisis in decades.

Some people smile, others remained glued to their smartphones. The odd person buys a paper.

Listen to Ali Akbar on the Spotlight on France podcast:

A dying trade

Times have changed since the 1970s and ’80s, when Akbar could sell around 200 copies a day. Now it’s “20 or 30” at best.

“It’s the internet,” he explains. “Young people don’t read papers anymore.” 

To keep the flame of this dying trade alive, Akbar has developed his own theatrical style, inventing humorous or exaggerated versions of the day’s headlines.

“When Bill Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, I started to announce: ‘Monica is pregnant by Bill, she’s got twins’. Or: ‘Nicolas Sarkozy’s [wife] Carla Bruni has run away with [singer] Benjamin Biolay‘… People laugh.”

He tries out the Lewinsky line in English at the Deux Magots – a popular haunt with Americans. It raises a smile or two but delivers no sales.

He pirouettes on one leg to check there isn’t a customer he may have missed before darting off to the next destination.

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France’s highest honour

Akbar bulk-buys Le Monde at half price at a regular kiosk and sells it full price at €3.80. It’s a miserable hourly rate if you only sell 20 copies a day, but a decent top up to his monthly pension of €1,000.

In any case, he claims his main motivation is not financial but “to keep busy and stay in shape”.

And to stay in contact with people. Everywhere he goes, people seem to recognise him – they smile, shout hello, pat him on the shoulder, lean out of car windows to shake his hand. 

“I’ve become a bit of a legend in the neighbourhood,” he says. And while St Germain has “lost its soul” as old residents gradually give way to tourists, he still clearly gets a kick out of his job.

“I bring joy for them. It’s not a question of money, I just want to bring something positive for the public.”

Akbar’s fame, if not fortune, has grown further since President Emmanuel Macron awarded him the Legion d’Honneur – one of France’s highest awards – earlier this year in recognition of services to the state. He’s still waiting for the medal but says he’s “very, very honoured” to be decorated.

“It’s good for my image,” he says, explaining that to many, people who work in the street are invisible.

“This will help to heal my wounds, my injuries. I’m an injured man.”

From rags to more rags

Over a coffee at the La Perle hotel, where he leaves his stack of newspapers and bicycle every afternoon, Akbar lets his cheery veneer drop to reflect on hard times.

The oldest of 11 children, born to illiterate parents, he was raised in poverty. He had limited, mainly religious, education until the age of 12, and like many schoolboys suffered abuse. 

In 1971, aged 18, he got a bus out of Pakistan, promising to earn enough money to build his mother a house.

He travelled through Afghanistan, Iran and on to Greece, where he began working on ships as a steward and cleaner. He was mocked for his Muslim habits and learned to soften their edges to get on.

After two years sailing the Mediterranean, he docked in the northern French port of Rouen. Unsure of where to go and not speaking a word of French, he decided to hitch a lift to Paris. 

The guy who picked him up drove him into a forest. “I knew I was in danger. I tried to open the door but the man had a revolver,” he recounts. Akbar was sexually assaulted at gunpoint.

“I was 20, I hadn’t even been with a woman. I was saving all my money for my mother,” he says. “I was traumatised.”

His one-month visa had run out, he was afraid the police would deport him. So he said nothing.

“For the next two months I didn’t feel well,” he adds, lowering his head and voice.

And then the jokey Akbar resurfaces to counter any trace of self-pity. “At least he didn’t kill me, he let me live,” he laughs.

The paper trail

When Akbar arrived in the capital he had “no intention” of staying, planning instead to get back to Greece and the high seas. But a chance meeting with a student from Argentina who was hawking copies of satirical magazines Hari-Kari and Charlie Hebdo in St Germain des Près changed his future.

“I was shocked, the magazine showed a picture of a woman with a bare bottom,” he says referring to the now-defunct Hara-Kiri, before admitting he was “curious” how this foreign student could make money shouting on the streets.

He was introduced to the magazine’s founder Georges Bernier, who also owned Charlie Hebdo. Before long he was selling Charlie Hebdo, then Libération.

When, in 1976, students from the nearby Sciences Po university started asking him for Le Monde, Akbar’s entrepreneurial spirit kicked in and he began selling mainly that daily, which comes out in the afternoon.

Some of his customers, like students Emmanuel Macron or Edouard Philippe, would become famous. Others, like François Mitterrand, already were.

Basement blues

Akbar was making money, but sent the lion’s share back to Pakistan. So for about six years he slept rough.

“I had money, but not sufficient money to afford the hotel and send money to my mother, so I used to sleep under the bridge,” he says. For five nights a week, he camped out in the basement where his boss stored the newspapers, “on a pile of curtains in a sleeping bag”.

That changed when he got married. He now has five children.

In 2021 he tried to branch out from newspapers and run a food truck near the Luxembourg Garden, helped on by friends and well-wishers who organised a crowdfunding operation.

It proved to be another “horrible” experience. One of Akbar’s sons – who was supposed to come into the business as a partner – walked out on him. The replacement partner swindled him.

“I lost everything,” Akbar says. “But it doesn’t matter, it’s only material things.”

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A life in print

In 2009, Akbar documented his eventful life in a book. The English version, titled “The Last Paperboy of Paris: I make people laugh. The world makes me cry”, is due out at the end of the year.

He describes the book as a form of therapy, and hopes it will serve as a lesson that “we can succeed by struggling and fighting every day”.

“If you have a goal, a vision, you can do so many things,” he believes.

Akbar achieved his goal. Not only did he build a proper house for his mother, he’s helped all the family back in Pakistan. “I’m not a politician, I’m not well educated, I didn’t do anything through words, I did all of this physically. I’ve been working hard, day and night, to [help] my family survive.”

Barring accidents, Akbar has no intention of retiring. “I love my freedom,” he says, and unlike in Pakistan, “no one is commanding me”.

He adds: “I won’t stop ’til I drop.”

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Hear this story on the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 133.

Pressure from Harkis’ descendants, backed by historians and journalists, has driven France to order excavations at two of the main internment camps since 2023.

Digging at Rivesaltes, a repurposed World War II concentration camp that around 21,000 Harkis and their families passed through between 1962 and 1965, revealed a makeshift graveyard – but no bodies.

Since the discovery in November 2024, local authorities have been scrambling to trace the remains once buried at the site between the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees. They belong mainly to infants and children who didn’t survive the cold, malnutrition and lack of medical care. 

Official archives recorded that, when the French state sold the site to the local council in the mid-1980s, the Defence Ministry authorised the town to move the remains into its municipal cemetery. It did so unannounced, without notifying the relatives or marking the new resting place. 

A search of the ossuary in February turned up four crates containing thousands of unidentified human bones, which were sent for analysis at a specialised laboratory in Marseille.

Earlier this week, forensic anthropologist Pascal Adalian met members of the families to give them the results: the bones belong to at least 49 different children aged less than three years old, as well as two adult women and one man, who died in the early 1960s. 

These findings are consistent with what is known about the Rivesaltes dead, according to Bruno Berthet, secretary-general of the regional prefecture: “None of this invalidates the hypothesis that these are indeed the remains of Harkis who died in the camp.”

Missing bones

For the families, there is still room for doubt. 

“Professor Adalian cannot say with 100 percent certainty,” said Marie Gougache, the spokesperson for people who lost relatives at the camp. “All the evidence suggests that these could be the bones of our late loved ones. But only DNA tests could confirm it 100 percent.”

The analysis also found that the three adult skeletons were incomplete, Gougache told RFI. That raises the possibility that some remains were overlooked when the Rivesaltes site was cleared – especially since experts from the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research found two hand or foot bones when they excavated the camp last year.

“Now, with Professor Adalian’s findings, we have confirmation that some bones are missing, and I wonder: are there still some left within the grounds of the old cemetery?” Gougache asks.

With so many remains jumbled together, including the fragile bones of babies, the chances of identifying each individual appear slim. 

After their removal came to light, five families filed a complaint with the public prosecutor for violation of a grave, damage to a corpse and concealment of remains. The way the bodies have been treated is, for some relatives, another indignity among many suffered by Harkis and their descendants.

French Senate formalises apology to Algerian Harkis and their families

Roughly 90,000 fled to France after Algeria’s independence in 1962, where many ended up in one of around 80 military-run camps designated to hold them. Some spent years in substandard accommodation, in some cases sleeping in tents or on bales of straw, and fenced off from the rest of the population.

It is not known how many died in the camps. Some estimates put the number of child fatalities in the first three years after the war at 300 to 400, alongside a much smaller number of adults. 

France to compensate more Harki families for mistreatment after Algerian War

‘Ghost graves’

Of 146 people known to have died while interned at the Rivesaltes camp, 101 were children. While French authorities kept records of the deaths, according to families, they did not always inform parents where their children were buried.

“When our parents arrived, they couldn’t read or write,” says Abdallah Krouk, the son of Harkis and now a campaigner for recognition of their rights. “When you get there, there are camp leaders who take your baby away and say, ‘Madam, don’t worry, we’ll take care of it…’ And 60 years later, you find out that they were in wasteland.

“That’s what we call ghost graves.”

Such practices were common to other internment camps, Krouk says. 

At Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise, a camp in southeastern France that held at least 6,000 Harkis, the military recorded 71 deaths between 1962 and 1964, 61 of them children aged two or less.

Excavations there in 2023 uncovered 27 child graves in an abandoned field. Archaeologists found evidence that the tombs were originally marked, but had fallen into such disrepair that they were no longer identifiable. 

That site is now a national burial ground maintained in perpetuity by the French state.  

At Rivesaltes, a museum commemorates the various groups interned throughout the camp’s history and a plaque lists the Harki children known to have died there.

Families face the choice of placing their relatives’ remains in a new, marked memorial within the town cemetery or moving them back to the camp. 

Krouk told RFI they deserved, finally, a dignified burial: “They are children of the Republic, they are French citizens.”

“My own personal experience of Gen Z Madagascar was very distressing and freeing at the same time,” said  26-year-old Rocks, one of the driving forces behind the movement.

“I felt like I was sending people to their deaths as we were being gassed, shot at, brutalised and arrested by the police. I cried so much until the military joined us,” he told RFI.

Young people began demonstrations in the capital Antananarivo and five major cities on 25 September. Angered by incessant power outages and chronic water shortages, they demanded that then president Andry Rajoelina step down.

The gendarmes intervened, at least 24 people were killed within a few days, according to the United Nations, including a baby who died after inhaling tear gas.

“I knew that things were going to change because we, the Malagasy people, seldom demonstrate and we never protest even when we feel that things have gone too far,” said Sariaka Senecal, one of Gen Z Madagascar’s spokespeople and a diplomatic relations officer.

She joined the movement from the outset, chatting on the group’s Instagram page with a handful of local and diaspora followers in the United States, France, Germany, Canada and Mauritius.

Her family doubted that her posts on social media could bring about change.

“Throughout the uprising, I was torn between hope and despair. I was scared of being thrown into jail, I was afraid for my life, for my family because I decided to speak out,” she told RFI.

“There was this all-powerful mafia of the former regime who could just do anything.

“The first time I finally agreed to speak on camera for an interview, it was for Brut, an online French media; that meant we could reach a wider audience. Afterwards, I locked myself at home because I was much too afraid to go out.”

Global generation

Gen Z Madagascar launched on 18 September on Instagram and on 21 September on Facebook.

Rocks’ journey started three years earlier, when a whistleblower friend of his started to write about what he called the corrupt activities of the Rajoelina regime on his Facebook page. When his friend was arrested in October 2022, Rocks promised to continue his fight.

The whistleblower was released on 15 October of this year after former president Rajoelina was ousted and the military took over.

Rocks said he knew it was the right time to strike when he saw Gen Z movements rising across the globe – in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, Timor-Leste, Peru, Morocco, Kenya and Nepal.

“There was this wind of change blowing, I realised this was our time to light up the fire and stand up for our rights. It pushed me to call on the young people to rise against corruption, dictatorship, human rights being trampled,” he added.

Around the world, members of Gen Z – people born between the late 1990s and early 2010s – rallied under the flag of Monkey D.

Luffy, the fearless pirate captain of manga series One Piece. They identify with his quest to fight corruption and the authoritarian “World Government”.

Gen Z Madagascar made the flag their own with the addition, designed by artist Paiso Be, of a traditional Malagasy worker’s straw hat.

The group in Madagascar said that Gen Z Nepal’s solidarity inspired them. Especially the viral speech by 16-year-old Avishkar Raut that urged young people to be the instrument of change.

“They managed to topple a corrupt government in 72 hours. They literally showed us how strong the people are when they stand united,” Rocks said.

How football mega tournaments became a lightning rod for Morocco protesters

How Gen Z is taking the fight for their rights from TikTok to the streets

‘Silence was unbearable’

Some members of Gen Z Madagascar were pulled in very young. Aïko Rakiry, a 17-year-old in her final year of high school in Antananarivo, said that the daily power cuts gradually became insufferable.

“We’d wake up in the dark, try to get ready for school with a flashlight, and come back home to the same darkness again,” she told RFI.

“One evening, while I was studying for an exam, the electricity cut off right in the middle of a practice test. I remember sitting there, staring at my dead laptop screen, and thinking: ‘How are we supposed to build a future like this?’

“That’s when something inside me snapped. It wasn’t just about electricity anymore; it was about dignity. About being young and feeling invisible in your own country.

“So I decided to join Gen Z Madagascar, not because I wanted to make noise, but because silence had become unbearable.”

Aïko joined the online communication and community management team. It was intense, she says: they were getting thousands of messages of people asking where to meet, how to stay safe, along with messages of support from all over the world.

“Even from behind a screen, I could feel the strength of everyone’s pain, anger and hope.”

She recalls a picture where a masked protestor held up a sign with the words, “We asked for light, they gave us death”.

Turning point

The protests were marred by violence, criminal gangs and looters took advantage of the chaos, especially in Antananarivo, where many shops were destroyed.

“It was heart-wrenching for me to see the looted places and knowing so many people lost so much. I was out of tears that day. I never wanted that,” said Rocks.

The balance of power shifted on 11 October – two weeks after the protests started – when Colonel Michael Randrianirina, commander of the Capsat military unit, openly defied orders from Rajoelina.

In a video, he said that the armed forces refused to open fire on “friends, brothers and sisters”.

Rocks recalled his reaction: “Free at last! These were the first words that I shouted when the army sided with us.” 

The next day, Rajoelina was evacuated from Madagascar on a French military aircraft. On 14 October, the national assembly voted to impeach him, and the Constitutional Court asked Randrianirina to step in as head of state.

He was sworn in on 17 October, pending elections in 18 to 24 months’ time. A transitional government was formed on 28 October, headed by a civilian prime minister.

On the day he became president, Randrianirina said: “We must take the opinion of the youth to the politicians and all the decision-making groups.”

How Madagascar’s new leader Randrianirina rose from prison to presidency

Sariaka is cautiously optimistic.

“From my discussions with the presidency, it appears that the current president is intent on including the youth in his political agenda and taking our proposals into consideration,” she said.

“Of course, I am not that naive – other factions in the government will resist our input, but this is where Randrianirina’s determination and our trust may be tested.”

Rocks warns that the new government should be aware that power is in the hands of the people and “we can take it back anytime”.

He wants to see independence of the justice system restored. “Root out the judges and magistrates who were influenced by power, by politicians. This is how we will be able to put corrupt people into prison,” he said.

A lawsuit filed by a member of Gen Z Madagascar in Mauritius on 14 October enabled the country’s Financial Crimes Commission to investigate powerful businessman Maminiaina “Mamy” Ravatomanga, a close ally of Rajoelina, for embezzlement, money laundering and illicit transfer of funds between Madagascar and Mauritius.

Around $180 million of his assets held in four Mauritian banks have been frozen. Mamy reached Mauritius on a private jet on 12 October and was arrested on 24 October.

The land of the young

In 2024, according to the World Bank, 8 percent of Madagascar’s 30 million people lived below the poverty line with a daily income of around €1.80.

Among other changes, Gen Z Madagascar wants “prohibitive internet rates” to be reviewed. “Access to internet should not be a privilege for a few but accessible to all,” the movement wrote on 30 October.

“In five years, I will be 31. I would like to live in a peaceful Madagascar, having a decent job and not have to worry about water or electricity. A country where it will be safe to go out at night, where I will be free to speak my mind,” Rocks said.

“The last seven years under Rajoelina were seven years of fear. We wouldn’t dare to openly discuss politics or criticise him and his cronies for fear of being arrested, or even disappear.”

Sariaka says Gen Z changed her life by giving her a purpose. She is far from the carefree 22-year-old student reading Middle Age literature.

“I also feel like I am walking in the footsteps of my grandfather. In 1972, he too was demonstrating in the streets for a better Madagascar.”

At that time, protestors demanded “Madagascar for the Malagasy people”. They argued that, despite its independence in 1960, Madagascar was still under the rule of France, its former colonial power.

The uprising culminated in the shooting of over 40 peaceful protesters and the resignation of the country’s first president.

“It is as if I am continuing the fight my grandfather never had the chance to see through,” she said. “As if I am the bridge between the Tanindrazana, land of the ancestors, and the Taninjanaka, land of the children.

“As if my legacy is to end this cycle so that my children, my grandchildren do not have to fight for a better Madagascar.”

“These are all elements that lend credibility to her account,” Paris public prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, told French broadcaster France Info.

“And they raise questions about the reality of consent when one considers that this woman was being held in a courthouse holding cell — deprived of her freedom of movement and therefore in a situation of physical constraint — which must be taken into account when assessing this alleged consent.”

The officers, aged 23 and 35, have been charged with rape and sexual assault by persons abusing the authority conferred on them by their positions. The men have admitted sexual relations but claim they were consensual.

The existence of the video was revealed by the newspaper Le Parisien. The four second-long film shows a sexual act, a source close to the case told the French news agency AFP.

French police officer jailed for 10 years for raping drunk prisoner

The woman who accused the two officers said the alleged assault took place on Tuesday night in Bobigny, prosecutor Eric Mathais said on Thursday.

She had been brought before the Bobigny public prosecutor’s office for “acts of parental neglect,” he added.

‘Serious and unacceptable’ actions

France’s internal police investigation service, the IGPN, is investigating the case.

The Interior Minister, Laurent Nunez, who is in charge of the country’s police forces, has described the officers’ actions as “extraordinarily serious and unacceptable” and promised the utmost firmness if they are proven. 

In a separate incident, a police officer is due to stand trial next year for raping a woman inside a police station in the Seine-et-Marne region, also near Paris.

The plaintiff, an undocumented woman of Angolan nationality, reported being raped twice by the officer in 2023.

She had gone to the station to file a complaint for domestic violence, French daily Libération reported.

France has been rocked by a series of high-profile rape cases in recent months, notably the case of Gisèle Pélicot, that have sparked a debate about consent.

On Wednesday France voted to change its criminal code to define rape as sex without consent – a vote hailed by supporters as a move from “a culture of rape to a culture of consent”.

(with AFP)

Police investigating the raid on 19 October said the woman from La Corneuve, northern Paris, faces charges of complicity in organised theft.

The man was charged with theft by an organised gang and criminal conspiracy. They both deny involvement.

The two, who were arrested on Wednesday along with three other suspects, were detained in custody, said Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau. They both deny involvement.

On Friday, police released a man who was among the four other people who were arrested along with the woman.

“In these serious criminal cases, we find that the waves of arrests are more like drift nets,” his lawyers Sofia Bougrine and Noémie Gorin, told the French news agency AFP.

DNA leads and video trail drive search for stolen Louvre crown jewels

Two men, aged 34 and 39, who were arrested on 25 October have partially admitted their part in the raid, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau revealed on Wednesday.

The younger man was detained at Roissy Airport as he was preparing to travel on a one-way ticket to Algeria. The other man was arrested in Aubervilliers, northern Paris.

Heist of the century

Four people took less than eight minutes to steal the jewels. They used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s façade and forced open a window.

Once inside the Galérie d’Apollon, they smashed display cases and made their way back out before speeding away on scooters.

“If such a spectacular theft took place, it’s a failure — a failure for everyone,” said Culture Minister Rachida Dati during a two-and-a-half hour session with the Senate’s culture committee on Tuesday night.

Security questions raised after Louvre heist of ‘unsaleable’ royal jewels

 

“There were indeed security breaches and we will have to address them. Such an event cannot go without consequences or immediate action. We cannot just say: ‘Move along, nothing to see here.’”

Beccuau ruled out help from inside the museum but admitted the possibility of “a wider network involving a mastermind or potential recipients”.

“The jewels are, as I speak to you, not yet in our possession,” she added. “I want to remain hopeful that they will be recovered.”

Louvre remains shut for a second day as police hunt jewel heist gang

 

Just before Beccuau outlined the developments in the investigation into the theft, Paris‘ top police officer Patrice Faure told French senators that ageing security systems and delays to upgrade them had compromised the gallery.

“A technological step has not been taken,” he said. He told senators that parts of the video network were still analog and produced lower-quality images that are slow to share in real time.

A long-promised revamp — a €90 million project requiring roughly 60km of new cabling – would not be finished before 2029–2030, he said.

Faure and his team said the first alert to police came not from the Louvre’s alarms but from a cyclist outside who dialled the emergency line after seeing helmeted men with a basket lift.

“Officers arrived extremely fast,” Faure said, but he added the lag occurred earlier in the chain — from first detection, to museum security, to the emergency line, to police command.

Search for solutions 

Faure pushed back on quick fixes. He rejected calls for a permanent police post inside the museum, warning it would set an unworkable precedent and do little against fast, mobile crews.

“I am firmly opposed,” he said. “The issue is not a guard at a door; it is speeding the chain of alert.”

He urged lawmakers to authorise tools currently off-limits: AI-based anomaly detection and object tracking to flag suspicious movements and follow scooters or gear across city cameras in real time.

On Friday, Dati said streetside anti-ramming and anti-intrusion devices would be installed around the museum within the next two months.

(With newsires)

This week, the New York-based Human Rights Watch called on the Turkish government to drop a proposed law targeting the country’s LGBTQI+ community. Amnesty International has made a similar demand.

Rights groups sound the alarm

The proposed legislation, which was leaked to the media, criminalises attitudes and actions deemed contrary to biological sex, carrying sentences of up to three years in prison.

“It’s really one of the worst reforms, or proposed reforms, we’ve seen in many years,” warns Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey director of Human Rights Watch.

“Because it basically says that the government or the authorities can decide that certain behaviour and attitudes are contrary to biological sex and general morality, and are criminal on that basis.”

Turkey’s Pride struggling to survive amid LGBTQ+ crackdown

Widespread impact

Sinclair-Webb claims that with the proposed law criminalising the promotion of the LGBTQI+ community, its impact would be far-reaching.

“That could affect journalists reporting on matters connected with gender, sexuality and gender identity. It could mean NGOs working to defend the rights of LGBTQI+ people from stigmatisation and discrimination.”

Since the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, homosexuality has never been criminalised. But LGBTQI+ rights advocates warn that this could change, given the broadly written nature of the proposed law.

“It’s not even same-sex sexual acts that are criminalised. It’s just your appearance. Because the law says anything against biological sex. I mean, it could be very widely interpreted,” explains Öner Ceylan of Lambda a LGBTQI+ rights group in Turkey

“So, this could be a woman with short hair or wearing trousers,” adds Ceylan. “Let’s say I’m on the streets, I’m being myself, and I can go to jail for it for three months. Then I’m released, and what happens next? I can easily go back to jail according to that law. So it can be a perfect excuse to imprison an LGBTQI+ person.”

Turkey’s embattled civil society fears worst as foreign funding dries up

Decade of crackdowns

Under the proposed law, people could face between three months and three years in prison, opening the door to lengthy pre-trial detention and the risk of mass arrests  – a prospect that worries rights groups.

Since the early 2000s, Turkey’s LGBTQI+ community has become increasingly visible and vibrant, particularly in Istanbul, with gay clubs, cafés and bars. The city once hosted large Pride marches, with the 2015 event drawing over one hundred thousand people.

However, for the past decade, Turkey’s religiously conservative government has been cracking down on the community in the name of protecting the family. Pride marches have been banned since 2015.

“Now they’ve banned any kind of LGBTQI+ event in the public sphere,” explains Yıldız Tar of Kaos, an LGBTQI+ group. “We no longer share public venues or their addresses. So we are already living a kind of criminalised life, as if many queer people coming together is a criminal activity, which it is not.”

Tar warns that the proposed law represents the endgame in the government’s campaign. “It’s the result of a decade-long war against LGBTQI+ people, and if this law passes, this is the last step.”

Turkey’s embattled civil society fears worst as foreign funding dries up

Rising rhetoric and rising

In September, the Turkish Interior Ministry filed a criminal complaint against openly gay pop singer Mabel Matiz, alleging that one of his songs violated morals and obscenity laws.

Meanwhile, an all-women pop group, Manifest, was detained under the country’s morality laws for one of their performances, prompting the group to end their sell-out national tour.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been ramping up his rhetoric against the LGBTQI+ community, even equating it with terrorism. The proposed legislation also targets the country’s transgender community, banning gender-affirming healthcare for those under the age of 25.

The LGBTQI+ community has vowed to step up its protests against the law and has secured the support of Turkey’s two main opposition parties in opposing it. But Tar warns that if the law passes, many in the community will likely flee the country –  though he says he and others are ready to resist, whatever the cost.

“We will continue to do our work, to share the very basic knowledge that being LGBTQI+ is not a threat to society. It’s not a threat to the family,” declares Tar. “But it will be harder, and most of us will end up in jail.”

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.

It sounds early, but it’s not. 2026 is right around the corner, and I know you want to be a part of our annual New Year celebration, where, with special guests, we read your New Year’s resolutions. So start thinking now, and get your resolutions to me by 15 December. You don’t want to miss out! Send your New Year’s resolutions to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

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 4 October, I asked you a question about Moldova’s legislative elections. The pro-EU ruling party, the Party of Action and Solidarity – the PAS – won the elections with more than 50 percent of the vote.

You were to re-read our article “Moldova’s pro-EU ruling party wins majority in parliamentary elections”, and send in the answer to these three questions: What is the name of the head of the PAS, what is the name of the party that is pro-Russian, and what was the voter turnout?

The answers are: Maia Sandu is the name of the head of the PAS. The name of the party that is pro-Russian is the Patriotic Electoral Bloc. Voter turnout was around 52 percent, similar to that of the last parliamentary elections in 2021. And just so you know, the population of Moldova is 2.4 million.

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question: What do you do when one of your best friends falls in love with someone you dislike?

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

The winners are: RFI Listeners Club member Alan Holder from the Isle of Wight, Britain. Alan is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations on your double win, Alan.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Sakirun Islam Mitu, a member of the RFI Amour Fan Club in Rajshahi, Bangladesh; Muhammad Muneeb Khan, a member of the RFI Listeners Club in Sheikhupura, Pakistan; RFI Listeners Club member Babby Noor al Haya Hussen from Odisha, India, and RFI English listener Ripa Binte Rafiq from Naogaon, Bangladesh.

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s program: The “Polovtsian Dances” from the opera Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan; the traditional Moldovian “Hora Boierească” performed by the Orchestra Fraților Advahov; “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 Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich, performed by the Steve Reich Ensemble.

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-listen to Melissa Chemam’s Spotlight on Africa podcast “Inside Côte d’Ivoire’s pivotal election: voices of hope and uncertainty”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 24 November to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 29 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

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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 Spotlight on Africa this week, you’ll hear from the people RFI met and interviewed in Abidjan – the main economic hub of Côte d’Ivoire and its administrative capital  – located in the south of the country on the Atlantic coast.

Although Yamoussoukro is the official capital, Abidjan remains home to most embassies, the National Assembly, and one of the presidential palaces. 

Côte d’Ivoire‘s recent economic growth depends heavily on its cocoa and coffee producers as well as on the mining sector. Abidjan is also recognised as a cultural hub for the whole of West Africa.

In this episode, you’ll hear from campaign supporters – particularly young people and women – about their expectations for the post-election period and its outcome.

We’ll then head to the Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny to hear from students and their lecturer, Wise Bogny.

In Cocody, we also take you to the shop of Axel Emmanuel Gbaou, Le Chocolatier Ivoirien, the first Ivorian chocolate maker.

We then head to the Maison de l’Art, in Grand Bassam, which opened in late September and which now hosts the first museum of African contemporary art in Côte d’Ivoire.

Finally, in the last part of this episode, you’ll hear from the AKAA, (Also Known As Africa) the African contemporary art fair in Paris, which closed on Sunday, with our arts journalist Ollia Horton. 

Paris fair celebrates modern African artists reinventing traditional crafts

 

---

Episode mixed by Melissa Chemam and Erwan Rome.

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

Securing 63 percent of the vote, Tufan Erhurman’s victory in last weekend’s election took Erdogan by surprise.

“The defeat was so big, 63 percent was such a landslide, Ankara was really shocked,” said former Erdogan advisor Ilnur Cevik.

Erhurman’s Republican Turkish Party backs a united island. Erdogan supported incumbent Ersin Tatar, whose National Unity Party wants two separate states.

“Ankara had amassed all its political clout on the island,” Cevik added. “It had sent its vice president five times to the island; it had sent numerous delegations led by deputies and mayors.”

It failed to win Turkish Cypriots over because “the essence of it was Turkey’s interference, which created huge resentment among the Turkish Cypriots”, Cevik said.

Cyprus has been split since Turkey invaded in 1974. Erdogan had pushed for international recognition of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognised only by Ankara.

Turkey ready to help rebuild Gaza, but tensions with Israel could be a barrier

Shift away from partition

Analysts say Erhurman’s win has dealt a final blow to Erdogan’s two state strategy for Cyprus.

“The two independent states idea was dead on arrival, and now it’s officially dead,” said Soli Ozel, of Kadir Has University’s International Relations Department.

He said Erdogan’s reaction to the election points to a change in approach.

“President Erdogan’s message of congratulations to [Erhurman] suggests at least for the moment he’s ready to turn the page on that.”

Erdogan’s stance is very different to that of his coalition partner Devlet Bahceli, who called for the result to be overturned and for the north of the island to be integrated with Turkey.

Former Turkish ambassador Selim Kuneralp said the election gives Erdogan a chance to drop a policy that has become a growing obstacle to improving EU defence relations.

Turkey and Egypt’s joint naval drill signals shifting Eastern Med alliances

EU ties on the line

Cyprus has long blocked Turkey’s hopes of deeper EU defence cooperation and access to a 150 billion euro arms programme known as SAFE.

“So far, everything has been blocked by the Cyprus problem,” said Kuneralp, adding that the election result offers a rare opening.

“Now you’ve got these election results that open a small window. So that’s why the present situation might not be so bad for Erdogan.”

European governments see Turkey as an important partner in defending themselves against Russia.

A shift to unification talks could suit both sides, analyst Soli Ozel said.

“Given Russia’s proclivities, it makes sense for [Turkey] to be part of SAFE. And it doesn’t make sense for the Europeans because of the Greek and Greek Cypriot opposition to leaving Turkey out,” he said.

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

Changing priorities

EU leaders have new priorities that could help clear a path.

“The European Union is no longer the European Union of our grandmothers; the issues of human rights and rule of law no longer count for anything,” Ozel said. 

“That’s a relation that is cleared of its thorns.”

Turkey’s backsliding on democracy has long held back cooperation with Brussels. Human rights is not expected to feature much during German Chancellor Frederick Mertz’s visit to Ankara later this month.

Deepening defence ties is set to top the agenda, but how far Erdogan supports unification could decide his next steps with the EU.

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.

It sounds early, but it’s not. 2026 is right around the corner, and I know you want to be a part of our annual New Year celebration, where, with special guests, we read your New Year’s resolutions. So start thinking now, and get your resolutions to me by 15 December. You don’t want to miss out! Send your New Year’s resolutions to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

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 27 September, I asked you a question about Paul Myers’ article “Dembélé and Bonmati win Ballon d’Or as PSG take team and coach prizes”. The French Ballon d’Or award is awarded every year to the top football players in Europe, both men and women.

You were to send in the answer to these three questions: What is the name of the football prize for strikers, who won the men’s, and for which teams does he play?

The answer is, to quote Paul’s article: “In other awards, Viktor Gyokeres received the Gerd Müller Trophy to honour the striker of the year. Playing for Sporting Lisbon and Sweden, he netted 54 goals in 52 matches to top the scoring charts across the continent.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question: “What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?”, which was suggested by Rafiq Khondaker, the chairman of the Source of Knowledge Club in Naogaon, Bangladesh.

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

The winners are: RFI English listener Rafiq Khondaker, the chairman of the Source of Knowledge Club in Naogaon, Bangladesh. Rafiq is also the winner of this week’s bonus question – and the listener who asked the question!

Congratulations on your double win, Rafiq, and thanks for all the bonus question ideas you regularly send to us.  

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Nafisa Khatun, the president of the RFI Mahila Shrota Sangha Club in West Bengal, India, and Ras Franz Manko Ngogo, the president of the Kemogemba RFI Club in Tarime, Mara, Tanzania.

There are RFI Listeners Club members Zenon Teles, who’s also the president of the Christian – Marxist – Leninist – Maoist Association of Listening DX-ers in Goa, India, and last but assuredly not least, Shaira Hosen Mo from Kishoreganj in Bangladesh.

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s program: “Mathar”, mixed by Brendan Lynch and performed by the Indian Vibes Ensemble; “Carnival De Paris” by Dario G, performed by the Dario G Ensemble; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “Hurt” by Trent Reznor, sung by Johnny Cash.

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 “Paris police hunt Louvre thieves after priceless jewels vanish in daring heist”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 17 November to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 22 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. 

Turkey responded to a call from Hamas for assistance with locating the bodies of Israeli hostages still unaccounted for in the ruins of Gaza, sending specialists to help in the search.

Ankara maintains close ties with Hamas, which some analysts say could make it a useful mediator – although strained relations with Israel could stand in the way of any peacekeeping or reconstruction mission, despite Turkey’s experience in these areas.

“Turkey does have expertise for this – it has a doctrine,” said Murat Aslan of the SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research, a pro-government think tank.

“In Afghanistan, Bosnia, some African countries like Somalia or Sudan, and in Kosovo, Turkey contributed either through its Tika aid agency, responsible for reconstruction, or through its armed forces.”

Aslan believes Turkey’s approach would be similar in Gaza. “Turkey will send soldiers for sure, for the protection of the civilian units,” he said.

Hamas says committed to Gaza truce and returning hostage remains

High risk

However, others warn the mission would not be easy.

“Turkey can become part of this protection force, but it will not be easy. At the moment it seems more problematic than many people assume,” said Huseyin Bagci, an international relations professor at Ankara’s Middle East Technical University.

Bagci fears Gaza could slide into chaos as rival groups fight for control.

“There are fights between Hamas and the clans,” he said. “It will not be easy because Hamas has to give up its weapons, which is the primary condition. Hamas is not 100 percent trusting Turkey – if not, Israel will probably act.”

Turkey and Egypt’s joint naval drill signals shifting Eastern Med alliances

Deep mistrust

Any Turkish deployment would also require Israel’s consent, which appears unlikely given the collapse in relations between the country’s leaders.

Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have regularly traded insults since the start of the current conflict in Gaza, and Ankara’s vocal support for Hamas has further deepened mistrust.

Israeli analysts say the government is hesitant to allow Turkish troops in Gaza, citing deep tensions and mistrust between the two countries.

Gallia Lindenstrauss of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv said there is little enthusiasm for involving a Muslim peacekeeping force, as any casualties could inflame anger across the Muslim world and worsen relations.

“This conflict in Gaza has heightened tensions between Turkey and Israel, particularly between the two leaders,” she added.

Counting on Washington

Any Turkish role in Gaza would likely need US backing to move forward, given Israel’s resistance, observers warn.

Aslan believes Washington could help bridge the divide. “Erdogan does have a charming power over Hamas,” he said.

“So it’s on Turkey to urge Hamas to accept some things, and it’s on the United States to push Israel to accept the terms of a long-term peace. I believe that Trump is well aware of it, because there is no trust of Israel. That’s a fact, not only for Gazans or Palestinians or Turks, but [across the world] overall.”

Aslan says trust would be essential to persuading Hamas to disarm. “I believe Hamas will lay down their arms when they feel safe, and they have to see friendly faces in Gaza to be persuaded.”

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

Road to normalisation

Turkish involvement in Gaza could also help pave the way for a reset in relations between Ankara and Tel Aviv.

Bagci believes Erdogan is hoping for political change in Israel to make that possible. “There will be elections,” he said. “Erdogan [is counting on] Netanyahu losing. But if he wins, then he has to deal with him because both sides have to be pragmatic and realistic.”

Bagci said much of the fiery rhetoric from both men is aimed at domestic audiences, with both having reputations as political survivors and pragmatists.

If peace efforts gain ground, observers say cooperation in Gaza could offer a path towards rebuilding trust – and serve both countries as they compete for regional influence.

(with AFP)

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.