Some 200 corporations, small and medium enterprises and start-ups, professional federations as well as labour and employer organisations gathered in Paris on Monday for the government-organised “Choose France” summit.

The event is modelled on President Emmanuel Macron’s annual meeting with international corporate leaders, held in May.

The €9.2 billion announced Monday adds to €21.2 billion flagged over the past year, bringing the total to €30.4 billion for 150 projects, the Economy Ministry said.

Ahead of the summit, Opcore, a subsidiary of the Iliad (Free) group co-owned by the Infravia fund, announced it will invest nearly €4 billion in a data centre in Seine-et-Marne region just outside Paris on the site of a former EDF power plant.

With a capacity of “several hundred megawatts,” the new data centre will be expected to provide the computing power required for the development of artificial intelligence.

Economy Minister Roland Lescure also cited the example of Thésée, a data centre in the Yvelines region, to the south-west of Paris  that will add €60 million to increase capacity.

Before attending the event, Lescure and the Industry Minister Sébastien Martin visited a L’Oréal site in Gauchy, 170km north of Paris where bosses at the beauty products company announced on Monday a €60 million-investment in its luxury perfume factory.

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Political tension

In the lead up to the event, business leaders condemned lower-house votes to hike business taxes in the 2026 budget to plug France’s gaping deficit rather than cutting spending – the highest among developed economies.

They also criticised the suspension of a controversial pension reform which Patrick Martin, head of the bosses’ union, Medef, described in an interview with Le Figaro newspaper as a “fatal mistake.”

He added: “This postponement is the original sin. It is heresy – not only in terms of public finances – but also economically.

“The suspension will further worsen the employment rate in France, which is one of our main problems.

“It is also a social mistake because inevitably it will weigh on taxpayers,” added Martin. 

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Despite such misgivings about the state of the economy, executives from firms in the energy sector, agrifood, health, chemicals and aerospace were in attendance.

“Strategic” sectors were present, including the ecological and energy transition, artificial intelligence, and digital technology.

Event organisers made a point of highlighting signifcant announcements from pharmaceutical giant Sanofi and the aerospace and defence supplier Safran.

Pharmaceutical push

Sanofi plan a €700-million investment package over 2025 – 2026 for ongoing and future projects.

Meanwhile Safran said it will invest around €450 million in the construction of a carbon-brake factory in the Ain department of south-eastern France.

Lescure also said that Opella, which produces paracetamol medicine Doliprane, will significantly increase production.

“We currently produce 450 million boxes of Doliprane in France,” he told journalists. Following expanded production in Lisieux and Compiègne in northern France, the figure will rise to 600 million boxes.

Despite recurring turmoil, France’s economy grew a faster-than-expected 0.5 percent in the third quarter, outpacing Germany and Italy thanks to surging exports and stronger investment.

(with newswires)

The accord was signed at the Vélizy-Villacoublay airbase some 30 km south-west of Paris.

It sets out possible future contracts for Ukraine to get the jets and their weapons as well as the new generation SAMP-T air defence system under development, radar systems and drones.

The letter of intent, which is not a purchase and sales contract, is projected to be realised “over a timeframe of about 10 years”, although the production of drones and interceptors would start by the end of this year, Macron said.

Macron acknowledged that this was currently a “difficult moment” in the conflict, which was sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The aim of the accord is to “put French excellence in the arms industry at the service of Ukraine’s defence” and to “enable it (Kyiv) to acquire the systems it needs to respond to Russian aggression”, said the French president’s office.

“Russia alone is making the choice to continue this war and to intensify it,” he told reporters alongside Zelensky, accusing Russia of having an “addiction for war”.

Dissuasion

But the French leader said he hoped “peace will be obtained before 2027” when his own mandate expires, adding that there needed to be then a “regeneration” of the Ukrainian army so that it is “capable of dissuading any new incursion” by Russia.

Zelensky, who has suffered setbacks over the last week due to a corruption scandal at home and Russian forces closing in on the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, described it a “historic deal”.

During his visit to the air base, Zelensky inspected Rafale fighter jets as well as air defence systems.

EU to boost security independence and Ukraine ties with €1.5bn defence plan

The Ukrainian president has already signed a letter of intent to acquire 100 to 150 Swedish Gripen fighter jets.

France has delivered Mirage fighter jets to Kyiv but this is the first time Rafale planes have been promised.

Financial details were not disclosed but France intends dip into its own budget contribution and use joint EU borrowing mechanisms, despite the risk of potential German resistance, to help Kyiv finance the deal.

Macron and Zelensky also visited the headquarters of a Ukraine multinational force that France and Britain are preparing in the event an international force is deployed in Ukraine after any ceasefire.

The headquarters, at Mont Valerien, west of Paris, is where countries from the “coalition of the willing” organised by France and Britain have sent officers to prepare the force.

France says that 34 countries and Ukraine have already offered to take part.

Visit to Spain

Zelensky’s visit to France is his ninth since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

He is also due to hold talks with the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and King Felipe VI on Tuesday.

Sanchez’ office said he and Zelensky will discuss matters of common interest. “The trip will reaffirm Spain’s commitment to Ukraine in all areas,” said a spokesperson for Sanchez’ office.

‘Coalition of the willing’ meets in London as Kyiv presses for more missiles

Zelensky will also meet lawmakers from both chambers of the Spanish parliament in what will be his third visit to Spain.

On Sunday, Zelensky announced that he had signed a gas deal with Greece as Ukraine’s energy supply faces another gruelling winter under attack from Russian missiles.

Zelensky said on Friday that Russia had launched around 430 drones and 18 missiles in overnight attacks, primarily targeting the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Four people were killed and dozens wounded. 

“This was a deliberately calculated attack aimed at causing maximum harm to people and civilian infrastructure,” Zelensky said.

He also said that the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk had suspended oil exports, after what local authorities described as a major Ukrainian drone attack.

Some 1,400 delegates representing governments, international organisations and civil society will converge in Switzerland for the 11th conference of the parties to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) from 17 to 22 November.

To date a total of 183 parties have joined the convention since it came into force 20 years ago, representing more than 90 percent of the world’s population.

The landmark treaty has brought in a package of tobacco control measures, including picture warnings on cigarette packets, smoke-free laws and increased taxes.

This week’s conference will take decisions that will set the trajectory of the global tobacco epidemic for future generations, said Andrew Black, acting head of the secretariat of the FCTC. He said more than seven million deaths a year were down to tobacco – an “entirely preventable” body count.

One of the key concerns is addressing the pollution caused by huge quantities of cigarette butts discarded around the globe.

A ban on butts?

Plastic cigarette filters are the world’s most littered item, leaching toxic chemicals into the environment and breaking down into microplastics – while doing very little for the smoker, health experts say.

Black believes “the best thing that we could see for the environment is getting rid of filters altogether”.

“An estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are littered each year worldwide, making them the most common form of litter on the planet,” he told reporters last week.

The US-based non-profit Ocean Conservancy says it had collected more than 63 million cigarette butts worldwide since 1986, a huge number of them in Europe.

Rudiger Krech, the WHO’s environment and climate change chief, said it was “high time to ban those plastics”, which commonly end up in water systems and are contaminated with nicotine, chemicals and heavy metals.

Ultimately, it will be down to individual countries whether to declare a ban or any other measures.

Ocean campaigners hail French move to snuff out cigarette butt pollution

Millions of teen vapers

Another major agenda item is the “aggressive marketing” of tobacco products, as well as widespread concerns about the numbers of children being lured into addiction via new tobacco products.

The WHO wants comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, including for electronic cigarettes and nicotine pouches.

According to the organisation’s first global estimate of e-cigarette use, more than 100 million people are vaping, including at least 15 million teens aged 13 to 15.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned: “Although e-cigarettes are often promoted as safer alternatives to conventional tobacco products, there is no evidence of their net benefit for public health – but mounting evidence of their harm.”

Benn McGrady, head of the WHO’s public health law and policies unit, said the tobacco industry was “lobbying like crazy” and “trying to sow division”.

He said their new products were being marketed as consumer products of harm reduction, but in fact bore characteristics that are “specifically attractive to children”, such as bright colours, sweet flavours and social media campaigns.

In February this year, France became the second European country – after Belgium – to ban the sale of disposable e-cigarettes known as “puffs”. 

Health authorities in France and Belgium say that chronic nicotine consumption is especially harmful to the adolescent brain and could encourage use of other drugs.

France becomes second European country to ban disposable e-cigarettes

Tobacco-free generation?

France also decided to ban nicotine pouches, sachets, balls and gum. Denounced for their toxicity and addictive nature, particularly for children and adolescents, they will be banned in France from March 2026.

The European Union aims to achieve a tobacco-free generation by 2040, reducing the 27-country bloc’s smoking population from around 25 percent now to less than five percent of the total.

According to the WHO, tobacco use in the EU is gradually declining, but every year it continues to kill more than half a million people. Of these, almost 80,000 die from exposure to secondhand smoke.

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A second meeting will take place in Geneva from 24 to 26 November, to examine a range of measures aimed at eliminating the illicit trade in tobacco products. 

This trade accounts for an estimated 11 percent of the global tobacco market, and costs governments over $47 billion in lost tax revenues annually. It has also been linked to corruption and organised crime.

Armed with thermal-imaging binoculars, beekeepers in Alsace have taken to tracking insects with forensic zeal.

Their target is the Asian hornet, an invasive predator whose numbers have surged across the region over the past two years, wreaking havoc on local bee populations.

“For me, nest-hunting has become part of the job. If I want to keep beekeeping, I don’t have a choice,” says Mathieu Diffort, who runs around 100 hives in the rural Sundgau, near the Swiss border.

Diffort and his business partner, Philippe Sieffert of the Api&Co bee and enviromantal protection company, spend much of their season in the painstaking business of locating and destroying hornet nests.

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Public reports

The yellow-legged hornet first arrived in France in 2004, but only reached the Haut-Rhin in 2023. It is now firmly entrenched, warns Sean Durkin, the local representative of the Bee Health Defence Group (GDSA), which is scrambling to contain the spread.

Between 15 and 20 nests were reported in the department in 2023, then around 100 the following year, and “this year we will exceed 400,” he said. The number of hives attacked or decimated has soared.

GDSA volunteers are stepping up their communication efforts, urging the public to report any nests they spot in the wild via the website lefrelon.com.

When a nest is reported, a specialist is dispatched to destroy it using a drone, a basket or a pole.

On a November morning, Diffort’s target is perched at the top of an oak tree, 25 metres above the ground. Dressed in thick protective clothing, he uses a telescopic pole to inject organic insecticide powder into the enormous oval concretion.

‘Bees starving’ in disastrous year for French honey

Public health issue

Local authorities “must set aside a budget” for this kind of intervention, because “the phenomenon is set to grow,” says Olivier Pflieger, deputy mayor of Hirtzbach.

“It’s a problem for beekeeping, but also for public health,” he added. His sister died last year from allergic shock after being stung by a hornet.

In Hirtzbach, a nest was spotted by a former forest ranger. “I had walked past it 20 times and hadn’t seen it,” says Marion Federspiel. One of her six hives, located around 200 metres away, was completely destroyed.

Some colonies can settle in abandoned barns, where she worries no one will notice them.

Diffort first tries to time the insects’ movements, then after being captured with bait, a hornet is marked with a coloured pen and released. The time it takes to return allows him to estimate the distance to its nest. Repeated at least three times, the method can yield a fairly precise location.

Another tactic is to scan the treetops with thermal-imaging binoculars, which help him spot nests from afar thanks to the heat – of around 30 degrees – they emit.

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‘We have to live with it’

He is also testing a high-tech approach: attaching a tiny transmitter to the back of a hornet, anaesthetised with CO², so he can track its movements using a rake antenna connected to a smartphone.

The challenge is to find the nest in under three hours, before the transmitter’s battery runs out.

For now, the method is still unreliable and, crucially, expensive – especially as the transmitter can’t always be retrieved.

In this costly and time-consuming endeavour, Diffort admits he feels “a little lonely” and would welcome more funding for research. He stresses that the future of beekeeping and biodiversity is at stake, as well as food security, since bees are vital for pollination.

“We’re working with bits of string, with derisory resources,” Durkin says. The Asian hornet “can’t be eradicated now, so we have to live with it – and try to limit its proliferation as much as possible”.

(with newswires)

The row is the latest controversy over the legacy of Petain, a World War I hero disgraced for his collaboration with the Nazis.

Xavier Delarue, the government prefect of Meuse department in eastern France, said he would take action over comments made following a mass for Petain organised by an association dedicated to restoring his reputation.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez also condemned the comments.

The Association to Defend the Memory of Marshal Petain (ADMP) organised a mass Saturday at the church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Verdun, where Petain won a famous WWI battle in 1916.

Around 20 association members attended, while outside about 100 people, watched by police, gathered to protest the ceremony.

After the mass ADMP president Jacques Boncompain told journalists that Petain had been “the first resistant of France”.

Boncompain also said Petain’s post-war conviction for treason by a High Court of Justice had not been a fair one.

Delarue, announcing his legal action, said the comments had been “clearly revisionist”.

Nunez, in a post on X, said: “The remarks made today on the sidelines of a mass in ‘tribute’ to Philippe Petain in Verdun go against our collective memory.”

The minister condemned any attempt to rehabilitate someone linked to WWII collaboration and oppression.

‘Deeply hurt’

The ceremony in tribute to Petain came just days after France’s Armistice Day on November 11, the day WWI ended, when the nation remembers those who fought and died in the conflict.

Verdun’s mayor, Samuel Hazard, had tried to ban the pro-Petain ceremony, but was overruled by an administrative court ruling on Friday.

“I’m deeply hurt, because I think of all the victims of Nazi barbarism and… Marshal Petain’s ideology,” he said after Saturday’s ceremony.

Petain’s admirers stress the role he played as a general in World War I. He is widely seen as the architect of France’s victory over German forces at Verdun, the longest battle of the war.

But he only avoided the death penalty after being convicted at the end of WWII for leading France’s collaborationist Vichy government because of his advanced age.

Petain died in 1951, six years into his life sentence in exile on the Atlantic island of Yeu.

(With newswires)

Unlike most outdoor markets in France, which are held once or twice a week, the Marché d’Aligre in the west of Paris takes place every day.

Inside the central market hall – one of 15 in the city – and in the streets surrounding it, shoppers can stock up on fruits and vegetables as well as meat, fish, flowers and clothing.

“The quality varies. This seller here is making noise to attract clients,” says Olivier Razemon, passing a stall where a man shouts out: “Three mangoes for a euro!”

“His main argument is price. Others do not shout as much, because their main argument is not the price but the quality of their products. Some clients come for local food, others come for the deals.”

Take a visit to the Marché d’Aligre with Olivier Razemon in the Spotlight on France podcast:

There is something for everyone at the French capital’s 200 weekly markets – and the almost 8,000 across the country, one for every town of 1,000 inhabitants or more.

“In every big village, in every mid-sized city, there is a market and people gather there. It really defines the city, because people come together and talk and things happen,” says Razemon, who recently published a book extolling these virtues.

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Big supermarkets

In his research, he found that France has the largest number – and the largest – markets in Europe, which he attributes in part to the country’s love for gastronomy.

“People do like good food, and they spend more time at the table than their neighbours,” he said.

But he found another, less romantic reason for the ubiquity of outdoor markets: the rise of big supermarkets on the outskirts of towns.

Some of the first large-scale supermarkets were French, with chains including Leclerc and Carrefour appearing in the 1960s, drawing people away from local businesses in town centres such as fishmongers and butchers.

“In many small cities, local shops disappeared,” Razemon says. “The only place you can find fresh food now is the market.”

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The national imagination

The percentage of food purchases in France made at outdoor markets is low, yet they have an outsized place in the national imagination.

For Razemon they are a symbol of conviviality and part of the French psyche, and yet he says they are largely overlooked by policy makers and city planners trying to revitalise downtowns.

One problem for city planners is that markets are ephemeral; they are set up once or twice a week on a city square or a few sidewalks, and then they disappear.

Some cities are looking to phase out their outdoor markets and instead put in place more permanent food courts or food halls, which would be open every day.

While this could be seen as a more efficient use of public space, Razemon warns it would be loss for French life.

“Markets answer a lot of [the concerns that preoccupy us] today,” he says. “They offer food direct from producers. You can get recipes from the merchants, people talk to each other.”

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At the Marché d’Aligre, Razemon passes a stand selling pierogies, Polish dumplings.

“You talk with people in line and ask what things are, and they explain that these are pierogi, Polish raviolis. They give you recipes, and the sellers who are listening give you some extra. It happens every time,” he says.

He also believes the very fact that markets are only held once or twice a week is part of their charm, and their power.

“The probability of meeting someone at the market is very high because it is only once a week,” he explains. “If something is open every day, the probability – it is just mathematics – is quite low to run into someone.”

“Markets remind us that we need human interaction,” concludes Razemon. “We need more humanity.”

Listen to more from Olivier Razemon and the Marché d’Aligre in the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 134.

Castro, 41, arrived on Sunday at Orly airport just outside Paris several hours after President Emmanuel Macron revealed on social media that he would be freed.

“Long live liberty, long live equality, and long live fraternity!” Castro told reporters at the airport.

“May all beings on this earth live free from all suffering, live in peace, in love. May all beings live in peace, joy, and abundance.”

Castro disappeared on 26 June at the Paraguachon border crossing, which separates Venezuela from Colombia, where he lives.

The yoga teacher had gone to renew his expired Colombian residency visa, his family said in August.

France’s foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot was at the airport to greet Castro.

“He expressed his gratitude toward the President of the Republic and the government for creating the conditions for his release,” Barrot said.

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“The Venezuela authorities had unjustly accused him of being a CIA agent, which he absolutely is not,” Barrot added.

Hélène Boursier, Castro’s mother, told the French news agency AFP: “You cannot imagine the emotion it represents compared with all the joys we experience in life, all the good surprises, all the relief.”

After his release on Saturday morning, Castro went to the French embassy in Venezuela.

“He was extremely happy to be out, a bit overexcited and at the same time still somewhat anxious as long as he had not yet left Venezuelan territory,” said his step-father Yves Guibert.

“You don’t leave prison on the day you’re released,” Guibert added. “It takes time to readjust to the world, time to reconnect with normal life.

“And it will now be our task to protect him and create the conditions that will allow him to start life again on the right foot.” 

Campaign group Amnesty International has denounced what it said was a policy of “enforced disappearances” of opponents and foreign nationals since the electoral authorities declared President Nicolas Maduro winner of a disputed vote in July 2024.

 “The Venezuelan authorities appear to be using this practice to justify their narratives about ‘foreign conspiracies’ and as a bargaining chip for use in negotiations with other countries,” it wrote in a report published in July.

(With newswires)

Launching on 10 November, “Lire les vitraux” (Read the Windows) will decipher the legends and narratives in 60 of the 172 windows that adorn the 13th-century gothic masterpiece.

Initially available only in French, explanations on the app will be offered in English and German from spring 2026 – when developers also hope to expand the technology to cover the cathedral’s entire 2,500 square-metre expanse of stained glass.

“You just take a picture of a window, and instantly, you get all the information to understand what’s in front of you,” said Jean-François Lagier, who coordinated the team of engineers, technicians and historians behind the app.

“So instead of just being amazed without context, your admiration is now enriched by knowledge which deepens appreciation for the stained glass itself.”

A mere 15 years ago, he said, such a tool would have been impossible to imagine. “Back then, the only option was to print heavy books, which limits access because they’re expensive and cumbersome.”

It was during a meeting about those weighty tomes eight years ago that new technology was first mentioned.

“We realised our previous books were out of print,” Lagier explained. “So we had to decide: reprint them, or find something more powerful, broader and more accessible. During those discussions, someone suggested exploring artificial intelligence and new algorithms.

“We then found an engineering team willing to take on the challenge. It had never been done and still hasn’t been done elsewhere – using AI to recognise scenes in a huge building like Chartres Cathedral.”

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Technical feat

Two types of algorithms drive the app. The first gives it the ability to recognise objects in variable conditions, with different angles or lighting situations.

“That one is very useful for stained glass, since light changes constantly from sunny to cloudy and it affects what you see,” said Lagier. “Once the system has identified an object, it moves to facial recognition and those algorithms identify the exact design or figure on each stained glass panel.”

The cathedral’s windows are typically made up of around 30 panels, each displaying characters, symbols and colours – the iconography of medieval stained glass.

“Beyond recognising an object, you need to interpret its forms,” added Lagier. “So we’ve combined these technologies with our own custom code, written by our developers, to create a recognition tool that works inside the cathedral.”

Hidden history

Notre-Dame de Chartres, some 80 km south-west of Paris, was constructed between 1194 and 1220 on the site of at least five earlier cathedrals that have dominated the land since the 4th century.

The present majesty was arguably saved from destruction during World War II by the actions of an American colonel, Welborn Barton Griffith Jr.

In August 1944, as Allied forces battled the Germans, who they suspected had set up positions in the cathedral, the order came to blitz it. Dubious, the officer took it upon himself to brave enemy lines with his driver to check.

After searching the cathedral and finding it empty, he raised the American flag in the bell tower and rang the bells. The order to bombard was cancelled.

Beneath those same spires, 80 years on, visitor Corentin Rouault said the cathedral had left him amazed.

“It’s magnificent, beautifully restored,” beamed the 31-year-old engineer, who had stopped off in Chartres after completing a section of the Paris to Mont St-Michel cycle path. “It was my first visit and it was stunning.”

On the prospect of an app to assist his next visit, he added: “That would be absolutely fantastic… I looked at the stained glass windows. They’re beautiful but it’s true that I don’t really know the stories behind them.”

Félicité Schuler does. A leading specialist in medieval iconography, she has worked for the best part of 30 years at the International Centre for Stained Glass, situated an inadvisable stone’s throw away from the cherished windows.

French stained glass museum reflects past and present art

For the past two years, as well as her duties as a guide and lecturer on the windows and their meanings, she has been sifting through her cornucopia of knowledge for use in the application.

“The most difficult problem has been to do a resume of a window in a specific amount of words,” she admitted. “We didn’t want to put too much text. So if somebody wants to read it very rapidly, they just take the headline. If they want to learn more, they can read the whole text.”

Even the smallest details can be revealing, she explained. A short tunic, for example, indicates that its wearer is a pagan. “But kings will never be shown with a short robe, even if they are pagans. Because they’re kings, they must be clothed correctly.”

‘Duty of memory’

The €270,000 cost of producing the app came from private sponsorship and donations in France and the United States. It will be available for free on all iOS and Android platforms.

“Having seen the stained glass windows a few years ago, I wanted to see how they had been cared for and enhanced to get them back to their former glory,” said another visitor Soraya Saidi, after her moment in the cathedral.

“I spent time in front of the windows and also at the centre of the nave, to meditate and pray in silence, as one can do here.”

The 47-year-old careers assistant from Clermont-Ferrand, central France, added: “I found the light, the gentleness and the energy flowing through the place quite extraordinary. The colours coming from the sunlight streaming in through the stained glass was beautiful.

“There’s such richness in the windows that hasn’t been passed on. There’s a duty of history and memory. We must honour what was created by our ancestors.”

RFI: The potential terror threat is now coming from increasingly younger individuals in France. What are the typical profiles of radicalised young people you have observed?

Laurène Renaut: Since 2023, 70 percent of those arrested for planning jihadist attacks have been under the age of 21. But there is no typical profile because radicalisation is a multi-faceted phenomenon.

The common denominator is a search for identity and a sense of injustice that drives them to consume violent online content, sometimes frantically. Some also look at more theoretical material that claims to show them how to be, according to jihadist propaganda, “a true Muslim”.

In recent years, propagandists have adapted to this younger audience. Their videos place great emphasis on feelings of isolation in society, at school or within their families. They use these feelings and tell them that if they feel different or marginalised, it may be because Allah has called them to fight. They exploit pre-existing vulnerabilities.

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RFI: How can we explain this resurgence of the terror threat in France?

LR: This resurgence is not a new phenomenon. Among the first generations of jihadists, we saw profiles with average ages ranging from 30 to 35. Then, with the Islamic State organisation from 2014-2015 onwards, the average age dropped to between 25 and 27. By the end of 2023, we were seeing a very sharp decline in the average age of radicalised profiles.

I would explain this by the adaptation of jihadist propaganda to new social media platforms that appeal to younger people, such as TikTok. These platforms have accelerated the phenomenon of self-radicalisation – a phenomenon that did not exist, or existed only to a very limited extent, less than 10 years ago.

Previously, radicalisation was a slower process. People became radicalised through offline encounters, and certain factors related to the family environment could also play a role. Online exchanges were ultimately a minority factor in the radicalisation process.

TikTok under scrutiny as toxic videos reach young users within minutes

With platforms such as TikTok equipped with increasingly powerful algorithmic recommendation systems, some young people are more easily isolated than before. If you view jihadist content, within a few hours you may find that you are only receiving that type of content.

The consequence is that, since the end of 2023, we have observed that the time it takes for young people to become radicalised is getting shorter and shorter. In other words, the gap between the moment a young person consumes jihadist propaganda online and the moment they express a desire to take action is getting shorter and shorter. Some young people, upon coming into contact with jihadist propaganda, switch sides immediately.

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RFI: You mentioned that propagandists are adapting to these new methods of delivery. How are they doing this?

LR: The techniques used are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Phishing tactics are being observed in video games, which I refer to as the “gamification” of radicalisation. On certain video game platforms such as Roblox, some propagandists recreate battles won by jihadists on the Iraqi-Syrian front. They can get young people to take on the roles of mujahideen, or Islamic State fighters.

But the fun aspect is just a pretext for then getting in touch with them via the messaging services on these gaming platforms. We then see a narrative similar to the one we talked about earlier. Propagandists offer them violent content to watch, and then try to raise their awareness of certain injustices suffered by Muslims around the world. These platforms are the new vectors for the radicalisation of young people.

This article was adapted from the original version in French by Baptiste Coulon.

“They took each of us one by one, surrounded us, they asked us to lay down, we were handcuffed. They beat us with everything they had: clubs, batons, iron pipes, wooden sticks.”

A Cameroonian national identified as Hakim describes how Tunisian officers drove him and others to the Algerian border in January 2025 and abandoned them there.

“They made us chant ‘Tunisia no more, we will never come back’, again and again. They punched us and kicked us, everywhere on our body,” he said.

Hakim’s testimony is one of 120 recorded by human rights NGO Amnesty International in a recent report on human rights abuses and racist attacks on migrants – particularly black people – in Tunisia.

Amnesty interviewed refugees from nearly 20 countries in Tunis, Sfax, and Zarzis between February 2023 and June 2025.

“The numerous violations recorded – rape, torture, unlawful detention – are racially motivated,” Safia Ryan, a North Africa researcher at Amnesty International, told RFI.

Driven from camp to camp, Tunisia’s migrants still dream of Europe

Tunisia is a major departure point for tens of thousands of migrants, many from sub-Saharan Africa, attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea each year in hopes of a better life in Europe.

“The Tunisian authorities have presided over horrific human rights violations, stoking xenophobia, while dealing blow after blow to refugee protection,” said Heba Morayef, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

Legitimised violence

According to author Hatem Nafti, a member of the Tunisian Observatory on Populism, Tunisia’s President Kais Saied quickly adopted “conspiracy theory” as his mode of governing after a power grab in 2021 in which he dissolved parliament, ruled by decree and stepped away from the constitution.

On 21 February, 2023, President Saied accused “hordes of illegal migrants” from sub-Saharan Africa of “violence, crime and unacceptable practices”.

Saied outlined a replacement theory in which sub-Saharan migrants were part of a “criminal plan to change the demographic landscape of Tunisia” and turn it into “just another African country that doesn’t belong to Arab and Islamic nations anymore”.

This speech sparked violence against black people by both police and the public, who felt legitimised in carrying out racist acts: profiling, arrests, a hate campaign on social media, intimidation, eviction, attacks…

Supporters of Tunisia’s Saied celebrate his landslide election win

The African Union condemned what it called “racialised hate speech” by the Tunisian authorities.

Since then, the Tunisian government has suspended a number of rights groups in the country, and arrested journalists and activists.

On 5 October, the authorities suspended the activities of the World Organisation Against Torture in Tunisia for a month. At the end of October, the activities of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women (ATFD) and the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) were also suspended for 30 days.

Many of the organisations whose activities have been suspended were helping migrants.

“This has had horrific humanitarian consequences and led to an enormous gap in protection,” reported Amnesty.

Dumped in the desert

From June 2023 onwards, Tunisian authorities have been expelling tens of thousands of refugees and migrants, most of whom are black.

Tunisian security forces have been routinely dumping migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, including children and pregnant women, in remote and desert areas at the country’s borders with Libya and Algeria.

They are abandoned without food or water and usually after having their phones, identification documents and money confiscated.

Tunisian Foreign Minister Mohamed Ali Nafti said on 5 October that all migrants who entered Tunisian territory illegally would be repatriated “with human dignity”.

“We documented 14 cases of rape on women and minors by Tunisian security forces,” said Amnesty International’s Ryan.

EU migration deal

In a move to tackle illegal migration from Tunisia, in 2023 the European Union committed €100 million to border management – with the right of asylum, the rights of refugees and the protection of vulnerable migrants in Tunisia as part of the deal.

Additionally, Tunisia received around €1 billion in loans and financial support for various sectors, including renewable energy, education and economic development.

According to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the EU-Tunisia deal on migration has been a clear success, with 80 percent fewer irregular arrivals in Italy from Tunisia.

Under pressure? EU states on edge over migrant redistribution plan

However, the European Ombudsman in 2024 questioned the European Commission’s monitoring of the human rights impact of the deal, “especially in the light of deeply disturbing reports regarding how the Tunisian authorities deal with migrants”.

Amnesty has criticised the EU’s silence over what it describes as “horrific abuses”.

“Each day the EU persists in recklessly supporting Tunisia’s dangerous assault on the rights of migrants and refugees and those defending them, while failing to meaningfully review its migration cooperation, European leaders risk becoming complicit,” said Morayef.

The voyage began in 1555, 63 years after Europeans had learned that the Americas existed – or 67, if you believe some French accounts that the first explorer to reach the continent wasn’t Christopher Columbus, but a sailor from Normandy named Jean Cousin.

The Catholic Church had decreed that the new territory would be divided between the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. But that hadn’t stopped French traders venturing to South America to look for valuable commodities to bring back – notably brazilwood, the trees that lined the Atlantic coast and yielded a prized red dye.

They had established contact with indigenous people and some had even settled there. Under King Henri II, France decided it was time to set up a formal outpost in an area the Portuguese were yet to occupy: Guanabara Bay, a natural harbour on the southeastern coast. 

Mistakenly believing the area to lie further south than it did, they dubbed it France Antarctique.

Laying foundations

Two warships and a supply boat set sail from the port of Le Havre in mid-1555, carrying some 600 colonists. Commanding them was Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon, a swashbuckling vice-admiral who had distinguished himself fighting France’s wars against the English and the Ottomans.

He landed on 10 November and was met by members of the indigenous Tupinambá people. Hostile to the Portuguese settlers, they saw a strategic opportunity to ally with their European rivals.

Villegagnon’s first task was to build a fort. He and his men chose a rocky island within firing distance of the mainland, where they soon completed Fort Coligny – named for Gaspard de Coligny, the admiral of France’s navy and a driving force behind their mission.

Later they would add a settlement on the mainland, Henriville, named after the king. 

Listen to this story on the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 134:

Tensions soon flared between Villegagnon and the settlers, who resented his ban on relations with indigenous women outside Christian marriage. Some even made an abortive attempt to overthrow their commander.

Resentment was also building among Tupinambá workers, exhausted by relentless labour and an epidemic.

In early 1556, Villegagnon sent to France for reinforcements: soldiers, craftsmen and marriageable women. 

Faith wars

He issued another invitation that would prove fateful. With the Wars of Religion brewing between Catholics and Protestants in France, Villegagnon – who by some accounts had converted to the reformed faith – opened the colony to Huguenots facing persecution.

The supply mission arrived in March 1557. It comprised nearly 300 settlers, including a handful of women and a dozen Calvinists.

Villegagnon quickly fell out with the Protestants, getting into impassioned arguments over matters of doctrine. By October he had banished them to the mainland, where some settled among the locals and others sailed home. 

A few ill advisedly returned to the island, where Villegagnon suspected them of plotting an ambush. He had three of them executed by drowning.

By late 1559, with stories of his excesses reaching France, Villegagnon returned home to defend himself and drum up resources. It was the last he’d see of France Antarctique.

Paris commemorates St Bartholomew massacre, 450 years later

Portuguese attack

At the same moment, four years after the French colonists landed, the Portuguese decided it was high time that they left. Not only were they competing for land and trade, the French had brought Protestants to challenge Portugal’s strictly Catholic mission.

On royal orders, the governor-general of the Portuguese colony in Brazil, Mem de Sá, gathered a fleet of warships. He surrounded Fort Coligny in March 1560 and, when the French refused to surrender, fired the cannon. 

His forces stormed the fort as the French and their Tupinambá allies fled. 

Some of the survivors resettled among indigenous communities on the mainland, where they continued to fight for several more years with the Tupinambá against the Portuguese – who by now were determined to claim Guanabara Bay for themselves. 

Finally, in January 1567, the Portuguese declared victory and expelled the last remaining French for good. 

How Portugal’s Carnation Revolution changed the fate of its colonies in Africa

Legacy in Western imaginations

For a project that lasted barely 12 years, France Antarctique left a considerable legacy.

It spurred Portugal to found a settlement in its place: Rio de Janiero, the city that overlooks Guanabara Bay.

It also set a precedent for other French land grabs. In 1612, France tried to establish another foothold further up the Brazilian coast, this time to be known as France Equinoxiale. The Portuguese once more sent them packing, but subsequent expeditions eventually resulted in the establishment of French Guiana, which remains part of France to this day.

Villegagnon’s expedition also generated some of the most detailed accounts Europe had ever seen of indigenous people and customs in the Americas. Scholars say those descriptions helped define the picture that Europeans had of the New World.

Some 25 years after Villegagnon landed, philosopher Michel de Montaigne wrote his essay “Of Cannibals“. Based on accounts of the Tupinambá from France Antarctique, it describes their practice of ritual cannibalism – and asks whether this makes them any more “savage” than warmongering Europeans. 

“I find that there is nothing barbarous and savage in this nation, by anything that I can gather, excepting, that every one gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country,” Montaigne wrote. 

It marked a rethink of mental maps that made Europe the centre of civilisation and a step towards a more nuanced, if romanticised, understanding of other cultures.

As for the French colony itself, no physical traces remain. But travel to Rio and, opposite one of the city’s airports, you’ll spot a small island. 

Now home to the Brazilian naval academy, it’s what the Tupinambá called Serigipe, “crab water island”, and the Portuguese Ilha das Palmeiras, “palm tree island”. 

Today, it goes by “the island of Villegagnon”.

RFI: Before Brigitte Macron, former United States First Lady Michelle Obama and former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, as well as numerous female athletes, have been the target of rumours questioning their “true femininity” and claiming they are in fact transgender. Why do these types of allegations come up again and again in relation to women with a certain amount of power?

Christine Bard: We have inherited centuries of patriarchal history. Women who have attained a certain degree of power, however relative, have always been portrayed as unnatural, masculine women – masculinised by the power that they desired or that was attributed to them.

This is a way of reminding everyone at all times that in a patriarchal system, the roles assigned to each sex must be respected and that any deviation will be punished by public condemnation.

The beginning of the 21st century is no exception to this historical burden, and the conservative camp has stuck with this view. Despite progress in equal rights, we are still far from effective equality.

Judges adjourn Brigitte Macron cyberbullying case until January

If, even today, questioning “femininity” remains such an effective way of disempowering women in public life, what does this reveal about society’s relationship with the female body?

The devaluation of women who are perceived as powerful takes the form of attacks targeting their bodies. People look for signs of masculinity in them and if they cannot find any, they invent them.

In addition, the masculinity that people believe they can see in these women in turn diminishes the masculinity of their partners. Isn’t this the aim of the attacks on Brigitte Macron? They are targeting a woman, but also a couple – and not just any couple, the head of state and his partner. 

What does this type of attack tell us about sexism and transphobia? Why is the mere suggestion that a woman is transgender enough to discredit her?

The rumour that Brigitte Macron is a transgender person comes at a time when transphobia is on the rise. The attack is sexist, transphobic and homophobic.

It is sexist because it uses a woman to target a man and calls into question the criteria for assessing “true femininity” through physical characteristics, gestures and dress. It reinforces a normative definition of femininity.

In the logic of transphobia, trans identity does not exist, cannot exist – for transphobes, “Brigitte” will always be “Jean-Michel” [Macron’s brother, who American YouTubers Natacha Rey and Amandine Roy accused of having changed gender and assumed the identity “Brigitte”].

Thousands rally for trans rights in France over bill on gender transition

This is a way of insinuating that the president of France is married to a man and is therefore homosexual – and therefore, by the logic of homophobia, cannot offer the same guarantee of virility.

The fact that people are receptive to this fake news provides a measure of the persistence, and even intensification, of sexist, homophobic and transphobic hate speech – which is a real cause for concern.

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

As bilateral relations deteriorate, Israel is stepping up defence cooperation with Turkey’s rivals, Greece and the Republic of Cyprus. Turkey has ongoing territorial disputes with both – over maritime and airspace rights in the Aegean Sea, and the division of Cyprus following Turkey’s 1974 invasion of the island. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the north of the island is recognised only by Turkey.

Israeli Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli claims Israel’s deepening partnerships with Athens and Nicosia is aimed at countering the growing threat posed by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“The doctrine of Erdogan is extremely dangerous. It’s extremely dangerous for Israel, and we see Erdogan’s Turkey as the new Iran, nothing less. It’s very dangerous for Cyprus and it’s very dangerous for Greece,” said Chikli.

This month, Israeli and Greek warships held joint military exercises in the Eastern Mediterranean. The drill followed similar exercises by the country’s air forces.

While Ankara played a key role in bringing about a ceasefire in the Gaza war, tensions have continued.

“We saw Turkey issuing arrest warrants against 37 high-level Israelis, but I think it also relates to the fact that the ceasefire is fragile. We are not entirely sure we are moving in a positive direction,” said Gallia Lindenstrauss, an Israeli foreign policy specialist at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

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

Defence talks

However, Lindenstrauss claims the Gaza ceasefire has opened the door to an acceleration in deepening cooperation with Greece.

“We see the ceasefire is definitely seen as the green light to proceed in cooperation. We see defence deals… serious defence deals are being discussed,” she added.

Israeli ministers visited Athens this month for defence talks. Israel has already sold Greece and Cyprus some of its most sophisticated weapons systems, causing alarm in Ankara.

“We see an alignment of the Greek, Greek Cypriot [sic] and Israeli navies. One cannot deny the risk that this will embolden them [Greece and Cyprus]… with Israeli support,” said international relations professor Serhat Guvenc, of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.

Cyprus could become an increasingly focal point for Turkish-Israeli rivalries, given its strategic location. The United Kingdom has two military bases on the island, with the United States having a presence on these. Turkey, meanwhile, has an air base in the soi-disant Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

“The island is like a static aircraft carrier; it can dominate the whole of the Middle East and Turkey as well,” warns former Erdogan advisor Ilnur Cevik, who is now a journalist.

“A fighter plane that lifts off from Cyprus can get to Ankara in 15 minutes maximum. Turkey wants the island to be a security zone for itself. Plus, the Turks have even thought about setting up a new naval and airbase.”

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

Turkey’s recent purchases of Eurofighter jets, along with a missile development programme encompassing hypersonic and ballistic capabilities, are also fuelling Israeli concerns.

“It’s not clear why a status quo actor should have such a missile programme,” said Israeli analyst Lindenstrauss.

“For example, Israel doesn’t have a missile programme despite the many threats it faces. I think middle and long-range missiles do suggest this is something more related to offensive intentions… I think all actors that have tense relations with Turkey are watching these developments,” she added. 

Turkish Cypriot vote could force shift in Erdogan’s approach to divided island

US influence

US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack sought to downplay tensions, dismissing any threat of conflict between Turkey and Israel.

“Turkey and Israel will not be at war with each other. In my opinion, it’s not going to happen. And you are going to get alignment from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean,” he said, speaking at the International Institute for Strategic Studies Manama Dialogue, a Middle East security forum, on 1 November. 

US President Donald Trump, who retains powerful influence over both governments, regional analysts suggest, could play a key role in managing, if not resolving tensions, given his goal of bringing peace and stability to the region.

“[Washington] are very concerned. This is a topic that gets a lot of people’s attention. The United States has certainly been trying to mediate and sort of bring tensions down,” said Asli Aydintasbas of the Washington-based Brookings Institution think tank.

Guvenc doesn’t rule out a reset in regional relations, but warns that for now the region remains in the grip of an escalating arms race, fuelilng further mistrust and the risky strategy of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”.

“We have partnerships – alliances of convenience, pragmatic, tactically motivated alliances – but you never know. I mean, Turkey and Israel may mend fences, and this may create a totally different strategic, regional geopolitics than the one we are talking about today. So everything is in flux, and the balances and the alliances may shift in a very short time.”

The Marburg virus is one of the deadliest known pathogens. Like Ebola, it causes severe bleeding, fever, vomiting and diarrhoea and has a 21-day incubation period.

Also like Ebola, it is transmitted via contact with bodily fluids and has a fatality rate of between 25 and 80 percent.

The head of the World Health Organization, Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, confirmed on Friday that at least nine cases had been detected in southern Ethiopia, two days after Africa CDC was alerted to a suspected haemorrhagic virus in the region.

“Marburg virus disease (MVD) has been confirmed by the National Reference Laboratory (in Ethiopia),” Africa CDC said.

“Further epidemiological investigations and laboratory analyses are underway and the virus strain detected shows similarities to those previously identified in East Africa.”

It said Ethiopian health authorities had acted swiftly to confirm and contain the outbreak in the Jinka area.

It said it would work with Ethiopia to ensure an effective response and to reduce the risk of the virus spreading to other parts of east Africa.

Eight dead in Rwanda as Marburg virus outbreak declared

An epidemic of Marburg virus killed 10 people in Tanzania in January before being terminated in March.

Rwanda said in December 2024 it had managed to stamp out its first known Marburg epidemic, which caused 15 deaths.

There is no approved vaccine or antiviral treatment for the Marburg virus, but oral or intravenous rehydration and treatment of specific symptoms increases patients’ chances of survival.

Last year, Rwanda trialled an experimental vaccine from the US-based Sabin Vaccine Institute. 

(With newswires)

The Amhayrich camel market, in the desert just outside the town of Guelmim in southern Morocco, is the largest and most popular in the country.

“This market is known all over Morocco, people come from everywhere in the country to buy camels all year round,” said 33-year-old Mohammed. He is a camel breeder, a job passed down from generation to generation.

He told RFI’s correspondent that camels are essential to life in the desert. “Your camels are like your children. It is a cultural heritage. In our part of the Sahara, the best gift you can offer someone is a camel.”

Saudi camel-whisperers use ‘special language’ to train herd

Climate change

In the past 10 years, severe and more frequent droughts brought on by global warming have considerably reduced the vegetation available for grazing.

Mouloud, a 39-year-old breeder, said that the current conditions have contributed to reducing the camel livestock.

“It’s worrying. Costs have exploded because of the droughts. We now need to buy fodder to feed the camels. The prices of camels shot up too, especially the stallions.

“The salary of herders takes a big chunk of costs. We pay them between €300 and €400 per month. We can’t even find herders in Morocco, we have to recruit them from Mauritania. They will work for a year or two, but the Moroccans will not stay more than two months,” he told RFI.

In Tunisia’s arid south, camel milk offers hope for economic gain

The vast, open grazing land camels have traditionally roamed is also shrinking, as it is used more and more for agriculture, with farming made possible thanks to the groundwater beneath the land’s surface.

Morocco’s camel husbandry is mainly for meat production. In 2023, it averaged four thousand tonnes while cattle meat production amounted to 257 thousand tonnes in 2022.

Agriculture Show opens in Paris with Morocco as guest of honour

Replacing Kenya’s cattle

While Mohammed and Mouloud find camel breeding increasingly tough in Morocco, in northern Kenya recurrent drought is actually driving farmers to replacing their cattle with camels.

There, camels are viewed as a viable option when it comes to withstanding the effects of climate change. They can graze on dry grasses, go more than a week without water and produce up to six times more milk than cattle.

Samburu county officials launched a camel programme in 2015 following several droughts, which killed off at least 70 percent of the cattle in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid regions.

As camels can be milked even during the dry season, they have helped to reduce malnutrition in northern Kenya. Kenya is now considered the leading camel milk producer in the world, producing around 1.165 million litres annually.

Kenya’s northern and southern pastoral counties are home to approximately 80 percent of the country’s camel population – roughly 4,722 million camels.

This article was adapted from the original version in French by Matthias Raynal.

Qatar, along with the United States and the African Union, has been engaged in months of back-and-forth talks aimed at ending the conflict in DRC’s mineral-rich east, where the M23 has captured key cities.

DRC and M23 signed a ceasefire deal and an earlier framework in the Gulf emirate in July but, despite the agreement, reports emerged of violations and both sides stand accused of breaking the truce.

The signing of the new deal, the Doha Framework for a Comprehensive Peace Agreement, was completed at a ceremony attended by officials from the warring parties, as well as the US and Qatar.

In a statement to French press agency AFP, Benjamin Mbonimpa, representing the M23 delegation in Doha said the agreement contained “no binding clauses” and would not change “the situation on the ground”.

The text contains eight chapters devoted to the “root causes of the conflict”, to be negotiated “before reaching a comprehensive peace agreement,” he said, in the statement.

“Major milestone”

US President Donald Trump’s envoy to Africa, Massad Boulos, told AFP implementing the deal was “the most important aspect” and this was why “so many mechanisms have been put in place to address different elements of the implementation”.

“We discussed eight areas of concern, and eight topics the two parties have agreed upon,” Boulos said.

“They’ve signed it today, and this is a major milestone, but you can look at it as a launching pad for the entire process,” he added.

The eight protocols, two of which have already been signed and cover a ceasefire-monitoring mechanism, also address humanitarian access, the return of displaced people and protection of the judiciary.

Since taking up arms again at the end of 2021, the M23 armed group has seized swathes of land in eastern DRC with Rwanda’s backing, triggering a spiralling humanitarian crisis.

International NGOs report mass killings and sexual violence in eastern DRC

Thousands were killed in a lightning offensive by the M23 in January and February, in which the group seized the key provincial capitals of Goma and Bukavu.

The July deal signed in Doha followed an earlier, separate peace agreement between the Congolese and Rwandan governments inked in Washington in June.

Kinshasa has demanded the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from its soil.

But Kigali says withdrawal is conditional on the neutralisation of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an armed group formed by former Rwandan genocide leaders who have taken refuge in the DRC.

At the ceremony, Qatar’s chief negotiator Mohammed Al-Khulaifi called the agreement “historic”, adding that mediators would continue efforts to achieve peace on the ground.

(With newswires)

The burglars reportedly broke into a jewellery boutique in central Roubaix, near Lille, on Wednesday, and briefly took the jeweller and his wife hostage before making off with the valuables.

The jewels were worth “between €500,000 and €1 million, police said.

They have launched an investigation into kidnapping, organised crime and armed extorsion.

In a separate incident earlier on Wednesday, several individuals blew up a cash transfer safe belonging to Roubaix’s main post office and escaped with the bag that was inside it.

It later transpired that the bag contained nothing other than more empty bags. Six people were arrested that evening.

The heists come after a gang raided the Louvre museum in Paris in broad daylight last month, stealing jewellery worth an estimated €100 million.

(With newswires)

Under a baking sun, Indigenous people mixed with activists gathered in a festive atmosphere, blasting music from speakers, carrying a giant beach ball of Earth and holding a flag of Brazil emblazoned with the words “Protected Amazon.”

It was the first major protest outside the annual climate talks since COP26 four years ago in Glasgow, as the last three gatherings were held in locations with little tolerance for demonstrations — Egypt, Dubai and Azerbaijan.

Branded the “Great People’s March” by organizers, the Belem rally comes at the halfway point of contentious negotiations and follows two Indigenous-led protests that disrupted proceedings earlier in the week.

“Today we are witnessing a massacre as our forest is being destroyed,” Benedito Huni Kuin, a 50-year-old member of the Huni Kuin Indigenous group from western Brazil, told French press agency AFP.

“We want to make our voices heard from the Amazon and demand results,” he said. “We need more Indigenous representatives at COP to defend our rights.”

Brazil climate summit hosts highest ever share of fossil fuel lobbyists

Tyrone Scott, a 31-year-old Briton from the anti-poverty group War on Want, said it was an “Indigenous-led, movement-led, people-powered march.”

“It’s just really exciting and a little bit of a nice antidote to the staleness and sterileness of the inside of the COP,” Scott told AFP.

Their demands include “reparations” for damage caused by corporations and governments, especially to marginalized communities.

Some also held a giant Palestinian flag and “free Palestine” banner. One protester on stilts dressed as Uncle Sam denounced “imperialism.”

After a 4.5-kilometer (2.8-mile) march through the city, the demonstration was due to stop a flew blocks from the COP30 venue, where authorities have deployed soldiers to protect the site.

On Tuesday, Indigenous protesters forced their way into the Parque da Cidade — the COP30 compound built on the site of a former airport — clashing with security personnel, some of whom sustained minor injuries.

Then on Friday, dozens of Indigenous protesters blocked the entrance for roughly two hours to spotlight their struggles in the Amazon, prompting high-level interventions to defuse the situation.

Love letters and therapy

Inside the venue, talks are delicately poised.

At the close of the first week of negotiations, the Brazilian presidency of COP30 is expected to unveil its strategy on Saturday for reconciling countries’ demands.

The top issues include how to address weak climate goals and how to improve financial flows from rich to poor countries to build resilience against a warming world and transition to low-emission economies.

So-called trade barriers, such as Europe’s carbon border tax, have emerged as a key contention, as has the issue of whether to set timelines and targets for the transition away from fossil fuels.

Several participants believe that negotiators are holding firm to their positions while awaiting the arrival next week of government ministers, who must reach an agreement by the conference’s end on November 21.

An African negotiator hoped the presidency would take the lead, “otherwise this could turn out to be an empty COP,” he said, contrasting with the optimism expressed by others.

The “parties are here to get a positive outcome,” German State Secretary Jochen Flasbarth said.

Brazil tries to avoid climate bust up at COP30 summit

Another Western diplomat said the Brazilian presidency had urged countries to treat their consultations as “therapy sessions” — a safe space to air concerns.

Delegations were also encouraged to send private submissions describing how they felt the talks were progressing, which the Brazilians referred to as “love letters.”

“These negotiations, they are like a roller coaster sometimes, you know, they are up, sometimes they are down,” summarized Brazil’s chief negotiator, Liliam Chagas.

(With newswires)

“It was an amazing experience. It was really great,” head coach Simon Madol told RFI from the Ugandan capital Kampala, where South Sudan’s blind football team defeated the hosts on 29 October to secure the African Championship Division 2 trophy.

“Coming from far and this being the first championship we’re participating in, and the first championship for blind football in South Sudan, it was amazing. And we won in our first try.”

South Sudan’s “Bright Stars” won the final against Uganda 3-0, with captain Martin Ladu Paul scoring twice and striker Yona Sabri Ellon adding another goal.

“I’m very happy because this is our first day and we won the championship in the Horn of Africa,” said defender Allison Christopher. “From the beginning, it was not all that easy. But by the grace of God, we were able to overcome the challenges and we have won the trophy.”

The team will now progress to Division 1 next year and move one step closer to a dream that once seemed impossible: qualifying for the 2028 Paralympic Games in Los Angeles.

Learning curve

Blind football arrived in South Sudan in 2020 with just two players, supported by the UEFA Foundation and non-profit Light for the World. Played with a ball containing a bell, the sport requires players to communicate constantly to let each other know where they are.

“From the beginning it was really hard,” says Madol, who is sighted.

Soon after the team started playing came the coronavirus. “At the time, Covid-19 was really active,” the coach remembers. “So it was really hard from the beginning to do continuous practice.

“And I was also learning coaching myself, having an instructor from Germany, assigned to me by Light for the World, to train me on blind football, and I was also doing my own research.”

The players, too, had to master the rules – which was sometimes a source of frustration. “They could hit each other, but they love the sport, so they kept coming until they got used to the rules,” says Madol. “And now everything is perfect.”

But with the team’s promotion, the coach knows the coming matches will be more serious, and he expects the players to up their game.

“We used to train once a week and I think now it’s time to at least train maybe four times a week to get ready for 2026.”

Pastures green: Cape Verde show no fear to reach World Cup for the first time

Lack of facilities

With few suitable pitches available, the players travel to a private ground that the team has to hire.

“This has only been possible thanks to Light for the World and this initiative, supported by partners like the Adidas Foundation and South Sudan Association of the Visually Impaired,” Madol added. “With their support, we are able to practice in the ground even though we have to pay for it.

“All the other places are really not that accessible for football, especially blind football, because we need a place that is level, a place that has side boards. Currently in South Sudan, there is no ground meant for blind football.”

The Bright Stars’ coach hopes their win will increase awareness of inclusive sport.

“I love sports so much. I love football so much. I use this opportunity to be able to exercise what I love and support others who really love it too,” he told RFI.

“I’m so proud that it is contributing to developing blind football in South Sudan and changing the negative perception of people who are thinking that, having visual impairment, players cannot participate in sport, especially football. So we are changing the negative attitudes of people toward disability and people with disabilities.”

‘We’ve become role models’: French para athletes hail legacy of Paris Games

Ellon, the team’s number 7, scored a total of five goals in last month’s tournament and has his sights set on the next challenge.

“We know that next year we are going to participate in Division 1 of the African blind football championship, so we know that it is going to be more competitive,” he told RFI.

“So that means we need to make sure that next year we pick up from where we have ended with the same spirit, the teamwork and the winning mentality. We need to carry it from this year to next year.”

Listen to this story on the Spotlight on Africa podcast.

Thousands of winegrowers in southern France’s Occitanie region are set to march in the city of Béziers to highlight the plight of the wine industry in the face of climate change.

“It’s seen as a last-ditch protest. We’re not far from despair,” said Jean-Pascal Pelagatti, a winegrower near Béziers and a local secretary-general of the FDSEA farmers union, who added he was hoping for turnout of between 5,000 and 6,000 growers.

Fabien Mariscal, who cultivates 45 hectares of vines in the Aude region, said he would be among them.

“On 15 August, temperatures rose to 45 or 46 degrees Celsius, accompanied by a hot north wind. Everything was burned, the grapes dried up and remained glued to the vines during the harvest. I lost 50 percent of my production on this plot,” he told French news agency AFP.

The winegrower, who took over his vines from his father, says he has seen costs skyrocket while price of wine stagnates. “We lose money as soon as we get up in the morning, without even going to work,” Mariscal said.

Heatwaves prompt early harvest across France’s vineyards

Record fires decimate vineyards

In August, a few kilometres from his village of Douzens, a fire swept through 17,000 hectares, affecting some 200 farms, mainly vineyards. According to the government’s forest fire database, it was the worst fire in at least 50 years in the French Mediterranean region.

“Occitanie, France’s leading wine-growing region with 257,000 hectares, is bearing the brunt of climate change: repeated droughts and water shortages are causing yields to fall by 30 to 40 percent. Our winegrowers have some of the lowest incomes in the country,” said Denis Carretier, president of the Occitanie Regional Chamber of Agriculture. 

This year, he warned, is shaping up to be the smallest wine harvest since a severe frost wiped out grapes in 2021.

“Without water, there is no agriculture, and without agriculture, the whole region collapses,” Carretier said.

French wildfire ‘under control’, but wine region faces long road to recovery

Lack of political will

Several unions and other organisations representing farmers have put forward some 20 joint demands ahead of Saturday’s march, including resisting “abusively low wine prices”, cutting red tape, ensuring access to water and the reform of a law prohibiting wine advertising.

The location of the protest is symbolic, as Béziers was where the great wine revolt of 1907 began – one of the largest social movements of the 20th century in France, which began when southern growers protested against competition from cheap imports and adulterated wines.

Farmers’ protests in France: a long and sometimes deadly history

“There is growing anger. We are feeling the same unrest as in 1907, in that winegrowers are no longer able to make ends meet,” said Fabien Castelbou, a winegrower and vice-president of a cooperative near Montpellier.

Some union leaders are hoping that a major wine fair coming up in Montpellier at the end of the month will see officials announce a new policies for the industry – though political decisions have been stalled amid the leadership crisis that has already toppled three governments in one year.

“We don’t feel there is any political will to promote wine, respond to Trump’s attacks, help us return to the Chinese market, or establish an ecosystem that is favourable to the economy and people,” said Ludovic Roux, president of the Aude chamber of agriculture, pointing to a proposal to stop selling wine at the national parliament’s bar as a symbol of government disinterest.

(with AFP)

The ruling military junta, which came to power in back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, has suspended several media outlets — particularly foreign ones — and silenced or imprisoned journalists and other critical voices.

“The services of the television channels LCI and TF1 are removed from the packages of all sound or television broadcasting service distributors in Mali, until further notice, starting from the date of signature of this decision,” said the HAC statement issued Thursday.

The LC1 report in question was a 12.24-minute segment aired last Sunday, according to the HAC, which were about “jihadists at the gates of Bamako” and the country becoming “Al-Qaeda’s new stronghold”.

The segment was reposted by TF1’s website the same day, said the authority.

The broadcast contained “unverified statements and falsehoods” particularly concerning allegations that “the junta has banned fuel sales” and “terrorists are now close to taking over the capital Bamako”, said the media regulator.

The regulator condemned the report as “a blatant violation of the journalist’s code of ethics in Mali, which requires adherence to the truth”.

It presented “an alarmist tone that predicts an ‘imminent collapse of the Malian state’, all of which causes panic or distrust towards institutions and harms social cohesion,” the HAC said.

The two channels, LCI and TF1, have not been accessible in Mali since Thursday evening, an AFP journalist observed.

(With newswires)

“In this beautiful cinema, for 10 days we will discuss cinema – that is to say, imagination, experiences and perspectives on the world,” said the festival’s head of programming Mathilde Rouxel, opening the event on 7 November. 

“For 10 days, our eyes will be riveted by images and sounds from Arab countries and diaspora communities, allowing us to dream and travel together from the comfort of our seats in this darkened room.”

She went on to tell the audience that, as news reports tell of massacres perpetrated by paramilitaries in Sudan or the GenZ protests in Morocco, the festival aims to offer fresh perspectives on the realities of North African and Arab countries behind the headlines.

Tunisian stories

For this 14th edition, which runs until Sunday, the festival’s focus is on Tunisian films.

Rouxel told RFI: “This year we have this focus about Tunisia because they have a huge cinematic [industry], and it was also very interesting for us to move from the east to the west of the region.”

In countries where journalists often struggle to address social and political issues, filmmakers can step in, she explained. “Topics like exile, and the need for the youth to find a better future and for some trying to move to Europe.”

“We have, for instance, this new film by Ala Eddine Slim… We present his film Agora, which is talking about the post-revolutionary era and the atmosphere now in Tunisia – outside of the capital especially, in the countryside of Tunis. It is, I think, a very important film.”

The festival also features short films, as well as those made by directors who have not studied at film school.

Palestine, Sudan, Egypt and beyond

The guest of honour at this year’s event is Franco-Tunisian journalist and documentary filmmaker Hind Meddeb.

“I’m French-Arab, like the festival,” she said at the festival’s opening ceremony. “I grew up in France, so I’m culturally French, but at the same time, my mother is Algerian and Moroccan, and my father is Tunisian, so I always spent my holidays with my family in North Africa.”

She added: “And then my mother lived in Egypt, she lived in Syria. So I visited her and I was between these two worlds, between France and Africa, between France and the Arab world.”

She said she is continually surprised by the way the Arab and Muslim worlds are represented in Europe and especially in Western media, compared to her own experience of them.

“So, I thought to myself, I’m going to make films to tell stories differently, to show a youth that we don’t know here. And so all my films tell the story of young people fighting for freedom,” she said

Her latest film Sudan, Remember Us follows young Sudanese activists in Khartoum after the overthrow of the dictatorship of Omar Al-Bashir in 2019, and chronicles the military crackdown that followed. 

“Thousands upon thousands of people have been killed in just a few days recently in El Fasher, Darfur,” Meddeb reflected, “and the deep causes of the war are often not addressed in the media. All these films I make, I make them for the same reason this festival exists, to tell the stories in a different way.”

The festival has also shown Palestinian films, including Palestine 36, directed by Annemarie Jacir, to be released in France in January, and the Iraqi masterpiece The President’s Cake, by Hasan Hadi, which chronicles the lives of Iraqis during the United States embargo of 1990-91 following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.

The event also showed films from Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

“We chose a film on Syria under and after Bashar Al Assad, I think it’s something that we need to see,” Rouxel told RFI. “We chose two beautiful films coming from Egypt as well, The Settlement by Mohamed Rashad and Spring Came On Laughing, by Noha Abel, films that are showing contemporary Egypt in many different ways.”

Part of a bid to slash red tape for European businesses struggling against US and Chinese rivals, the move is drawing accusations that Brussels is putting competitiveness ahead of citizens’ privacy and protection.

Brussels denies that pressure from the US administration influenced its push to “simplify” the bloc’s digital rules, which have drawn the wrath of President Donald Trump and American tech giants.

But the European Commission says it has heard the concerns of EU firms and wants to make it easier for them to access users’ data for AI development — a move critics attack as a threat to privacy.

EU begins rollout of new AI rules with tech giants split on compliance

One planned change could unite many Europeans in relief however: the EU wants to get rid of those pesky cookie banners seeking users’ consent for tracking on websites.

According to EU officials and draft documents seen by French press agency AFP, which could change before the November 19 announcement, the European Commission will propose:

• a one-year pause in the implementation of parts of its AI law
• overhauling its flagship data protection rules, which privacy defenders say will make it easier for US Big Tech to “suck up Europeans’ personal data”.

The bloc’s cornerstone General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enshrined users’ privacy from 2018 and influenced standards around the world.

The EU says it is only proposing technical changes to streamline the rules, but rights activists and EU lawmakers paint a different picture.

‘Biggest rollback’

The EU executive proposes to narrow the definition of personal data, and allow companies to process such data to train AI models “for purposes of a legitimate interest”, a draft document shows.

Reaction to the leaks has been swift — and strong.

“Unless the European Commission changes course, this would be the biggest rollback of digital fundamental rights in EU history,” 127 groups, including civil society organisations and trade unions, wrote in a letter on Thursday.

Online privacy activist Max Schrems warned the proposals “would be a massive downgrading of Europeans’ privacy” if they stay the same.

An EU official told AFP that Brussels is also expected to propose a one-year delay on implementing many provisions on high-risk AI, for example, models that can pose dangers to safety, health or citizens’ fundamental rights.

Instead of taking effect next year, they would apply from 2027.

This move comes after heavy pressure from European businesses and US Big Tech.

Dozens of Europe’s biggest companies, including France’s Airbus and Germany’s Lufthansa and Mercedes-Benz, called for a pause in July on the AI law which they warn risks stifling innovation.

 (With newswires)

“Apocalyptic” and “cataclysmic” are the words Lord, head of emergencies at the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), uses to describe Gaza.

Speaking during an extensive visit to the territory, she told RFI that “nobody is untouched by the conflict”, with widespread displacement meaning “most people are not able to be living in their homes because of the extent of damage”.

Instead, countless families have found themselves in makeshift shelters and tents, or in partially destroyed buildings.

The scale of need is “incredibly high and vast”, Lord says, ranging from clean water and food to medical supplies and even basic items like clothing.

“One woman, a single mother trying to provide for her three children, told me today they have been displaced 12 times during the military offensive,” Lord said. “Her children have no safe place to play, and they’re still wearing the same clothes for the last two years.”

Unexploded ordnance

Delivering help into Gaza has proven extremely difficult for organisations like the DRC. “We cannot get enough aid into the Gaza Strip,” says Lord.

“There’s millions of dollars worth of aid sitting, waiting to come into Gaza, and not enough trucks are being allowed in.”

While the ceasefire that came into effect on 10 October has allowed some goods to flow, access remains tightly restricted, compounded by the destruction of infrastructure and the looming threat of unexploded ordnance hidden under the rubble.

Providing information about those risks is now part of the DRC’s daily work, but Lord stresses that it is imperative that unexploded devices be cleared.

Winter risks intensifying the crisis, leaving the displaced especially vulnerable. “The ground that people are currently living on in tents and in makeshift shelters will become waterlogged, wet and cold,” she warns, warning of possible outbreaks of disease causing “worsening conditions in the coming weeks”.

The logistical challenges also extend to staff, with humanitarian personnel also living in provisional shelters. 

Europe seeks role in Gaza as pressure grows on Israel over fragile ceasefire

Limits of resilience

Despite the suffering, Lord sees striking resilience among Gaza’s people. “People were telling me today how they just remember the happier times… celebrating with food and parties with their families.”

Memories of homes and gardens serve as a lifeline, even when many cannot return. “They know a lot of their belongings and their homes are gone, but they just wish to return back to their land to be able to start again in a safe environment,” she says.

But trauma pervades daily life, and negative “coping mechanisms” have emerged. “Many people here have no hope left and no energy left to continue to keep trying to be resilient,” Lord says, highlighting vast unmet mental health needs.

‘Nowhere in Gaza is safe’ says RFI correspondent amid call for global media access

The DRC provides psychosocial support, but scaling up urgently depends on funding and access. “There are opportunities for us, but we need the international community now to help provide resources,” says Lord.

In the meantime, the outlook is grim. “Gaza is a post-apocalyptic wasteland,” Lord says. “Even with this ceasefire in place, people are still on the move.”

The text also called on the investigative team to identify suspected perpetrators where possible in a bid to ensure they are held accountable.

The decision came at the end of a special session of the UN Human Rights Council on Sudan, called amid mounting warnings of crimes against humanity and the risk of genocide.

In an opening address to delegates in Geneva, the UN human rights chief Volker Turk urged the international community to act.

“There has been too much pretence and performance, and too little action. It must stand up against these atrocities – a display of naked cruelty used to subjugate and control an entire population,” Turk said.

Since breaking out in April 2023, the war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced nearly 12 million more and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

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

The violence has escalated dramatically in recent weeks, with the RSF seizing control of the key town of El Fasher in Sudan‘s western Darfur region after an 18-month siege.

Reports have emerged of executions, sexual violence, looting, attacks on aid workers and abductions in and around the city, where communications remain largely cut off.

The RSF has denied targeting civilians or blocking aid, saying any such actions are the work of rogue actors.

Cycle of impunity

British ambassador Kumar Iyer, whose country requested the special session along with Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Norway, insisted that “the scale and severity of the crisis in Sudan can no longer be met with silence”.

“The violence in El-Fasher bears the hallmarks of a coordinated campaign against civilians by the Rapid Support Forces,” he said, pointing to “credible reports of actively targeted killings, systematic sexual violence, and the deliberate use of starvation”.

Before Friday’s resolution was adopted, he urged countries to green-light an investigation: “Without it, accountability will remain out of reach and the cycle of impunity will continue.”

Social media videos, satellite images capture snapshot of atrocities in Sudan

The text was adopted by consensus without a vote, although several countries, including Sudan, distanced themselves from sections broadening the scope of the fact-finding mission’s investigation.

The UN estimates that nearly 100,000 have fled El Fasher in the past two weeks, many going to the town of Tawila, about 50 kilometres away, or even across the border to Chad.

“Information gathered indicates that hundreds of women and girls were raped and gang-raped along escape routes, including in public, without fear of repercussions or accountability,” Mona Rishmawi, from the UN’s independent fact-finding mission on Sudan, told Friday’s session.

Adama Dieng, the African Union’s special envoy and the UN special adviser for the prevention of genocide, warned that “the risk of genocide exists in Sudan. It is real and it is growing every single day.”

‘Existential war’

Sudanese ambassador Hassan Hamid Hassan cautioned that his country was caught up in “an existential war”.

He accused the United Arab Emirates of “supporting [the RSF] with military and strategic equipment”, something the UAE denies.

UAE ambassador Jamal Jama Al Musharakh criticised both the paramilitaries and the Sudanese army, accusing the latter of “indiscriminate attacks on markets, villages and hospitals, amid famine, while ignoring international calls for a truce”.

Seizure of Sudan’s El Fasher a ‘political and moral defeat’ for RSF militia: expert

Much of Friday’s discussion revolved around the need to ensure accountability. Turk warned that the International Criminal Court had indicated it wasfollowing the situation closely.

He also said that “despicable disregard for civilian lives” was becoming apparent in the Kordofan region that borders Darfur.

Kordofan is comprised of three states that serves as a buffer between the RSF’s western Darfur strongholds and the army-held states in the east.

“Kordofan must not suffer the same fate as Darfur,” Turk said.

(with newswires)

As bilateral relations deteriorate, Israel is stepping up defence cooperation with Turkey’s rivals, Greece and the Republic of Cyprus. Turkey has ongoing territorial disputes with both – over maritime and airspace rights in the Aegean Sea, and the division of Cyprus following Turkey’s 1974 invasion of the island. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the north of the island is recognised only by Turkey.

Israeli Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli claims Israel’s deepening partnerships with Athens and Nicosia is aimed at countering the growing threat posed by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“The doctrine of Erdogan is extremely dangerous. It’s extremely dangerous for Israel, and we see Erdogan’s Turkey as the new Iran, nothing less. It’s very dangerous for Cyprus and it’s very dangerous for Greece,” said Chikli.

This month, Israeli and Greek warships held joint military exercises in the Eastern Mediterranean. The drill followed similar exercises by the country’s air forces.

While Ankara played a key role in bringing about a ceasefire in the Gaza war, tensions have continued.

“We saw Turkey issuing arrest warrants against 37 high-level Israelis, but I think it also relates to the fact that the ceasefire is fragile. We are not entirely sure we are moving in a positive direction,” said Gallia Lindenstrauss, an Israeli foreign policy specialist at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

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

Defence talks

However, Lindenstrauss claims the Gaza ceasefire has opened the door to an acceleration in deepening cooperation with Greece.

“We see the ceasefire is definitely seen as the green light to proceed in cooperation. We see defence deals… serious defence deals are being discussed,” she added.

Israeli ministers visited Athens this month for defence talks. Israel has already sold Greece and Cyprus some of its most sophisticated weapons systems, causing alarm in Ankara.

“We see an alignment of the Greek, Greek Cypriot [sic] and Israeli navies. One cannot deny the risk that this will embolden them [Greece and Cyprus]… with Israeli support,” said international relations professor Serhat Guvenc, of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.

Cyprus could become an increasingly focal point for Turkish-Israeli rivalries, given its strategic location. The United Kingdom has two military bases on the island, with the United States having a presence on these. Turkey, meanwhile, has an air base in the soi-disant Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

“The island is like a static aircraft carrier; it can dominate the whole of the Middle East and Turkey as well,” warns former Erdogan advisor Ilnur Cevik, who is now a journalist.

“A fighter plane that lifts off from Cyprus can get to Ankara in 15 minutes maximum. Turkey wants the island to be a security zone for itself. Plus, the Turks have even thought about setting up a new naval and airbase.”

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

Turkey’s recent purchases of Eurofighter jets, along with a missile development programme encompassing hypersonic and ballistic capabilities, are also fuelling Israeli concerns.

“It’s not clear why a status quo actor should have such a missile programme,” said Israeli analyst Lindenstrauss.

“For example, Israel doesn’t have a missile programme despite the many threats it faces. I think middle and long-range missiles do suggest this is something more related to offensive intentions… I think all actors that have tense relations with Turkey are watching these developments,” she added. 

Turkish Cypriot vote could force shift in Erdogan’s approach to divided island

US influence

US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack sought to downplay tensions, dismissing any threat of conflict between Turkey and Israel.

“Turkey and Israel will not be at war with each other. In my opinion, it’s not going to happen. And you are going to get alignment from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean,” he said, speaking at the International Institute for Strategic Studies Manama Dialogue, a Middle East security forum, on 1 November. 

US President Donald Trump, who retains powerful influence over both governments, regional analysts suggest, could play a key role in managing, if not resolving tensions, given his goal of bringing peace and stability to the region.

“[Washington] are very concerned. This is a topic that gets a lot of people’s attention. The United States has certainly been trying to mediate and sort of bring tensions down,” said Asli Aydintasbas of the Washington-based Brookings Institution think tank.

Guvenc doesn’t rule out a reset in regional relations, but warns that for now the region remains in the grip of an escalating arms race, fuelilng further mistrust and the risky strategy of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”.

“We have partnerships – alliances of convenience, pragmatic, tactically motivated alliances – but you never know. I mean, Turkey and Israel may mend fences, and this may create a totally different strategic, regional geopolitics than the one we are talking about today. So everything is in flux, and the balances and the alliances may shift in a very short time.”

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.

Historian Lisa Waller Rogers, whom you’ll hear from today, has just published a book about the long fight to end slavery in the United States. Called When People Were Things: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln and The Emancipation Proclamation, it is published by Barrel Cactus Press. I hope you can find it where you live. You might also look for Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, the novel that put the spotlight on what slavery really was. 

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!

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. 

Tanzanians were called to the polls on 29 October, but instead of a free and fair election, they were met with severe repression. Demonstrations have been banned, protesters arrested, and members of the opposition detained.

Tanzania’s authorities have also charged more than 200 people with treason — an offence that carries the death penalty.

The incumbent president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, was eventually declared the winner of the election with 98 percent of the vote. However, the opposition – which had been barred from participating – condemned the results as fraudulent.

To explore the deep-rooted causes of this repression, and to consider how the situation could shape the political future not only of Tanzania but of the entire East African region, we are joined by a special guest: Prince Charles Dickson, a Nigerian peace and policy analyst with a PhD from Georgetown University and decades of experience in public policy and development practice.

Films from Africa

The cinema festival Film Africa 2025 (14–23 November 2025) opens in London, UK. To mark the event we have Stella Okuzu, interim director of the festival, with us to explain what’s happening.

Meanwhile in France, the Festival du Cinéma Franco-Arabe de Noisy-le-Sec is coming to an end just outside Paris (7–13 November). The festival has placed a special focus on Tunisian cinema. Mathilde Rouxel, its cultural director and programmer, tells us more.

Sudan’s blind football team success

Also this week we take a look at South Sudan’s blind football team which recently played its first major match in Kampala, Uganda, thanks to the help and support of the charity Light For The World. And they won! 

We have their coach and players on the line to tell us how football changed their life and why it is so important for people with visual impairment.

Angélique Kidjo and La Chica de Favela

Finally, “La Chica de Favela” is an initiative from ‘Beyond Music’, a song featuring a Congolese man, a Latin American, a Swiss citizen, and a Beninese woman, Angélique Kidjo.

“The African continent is predominant on this song”, Angélique told Spotlight on Africa, “and it tells a story through this song.”

It tells the story of a young girl in a favela “who doesn’t want to be defined by her gender”. She is free and independent. “In a patriarchal world that doesn’t necessarily give women much space,” Angélique told us. “And that’s what made the subject interesting to me.”

Episode mixed by Melissa Chemam and Erwan Rome.

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

“Turks out!” shouted protesters as they marched through Podgorica, the Montenegrin capital. Several Turkish-owned businesses, among the country’s largest investors, were ransacked during last month’s violence.

The clashes were sparked by a knife attack on a Montenegrin citizen by Turkish nationals.

After the unrest, Montenegro imposed visa requirements on Turkish visitors. Some opposition parties accused Serbia of stoking the protests, pointing to rising friction between Belgrade and Ankara over the arms sale to Kosovo.

“There are those accusing the Serbian region of being behind it,” Vuk Vuksanovic, of the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, told RFI. “Although I have seen no material evidence.”

Widening rift

While Serbia has not commented on the accusations, it has the capacity to incite such unrest given its strong influence in Montenegro, Vuksanovic said. “The drama involving Montenegro has built up to this difficult atmosphere in Serbian-Turkish relations,” he said.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic last month accused Turkey of trying to resurrect the Ottoman Empire through the sale of sophisticated drones to Kosovo, which broke away from Serbia in 1999.

Analysts say the weapons deal could shift the balance of power in the region.

“There are the kamikaze drones, which are posing a threat, and there are also strategic drones likely to be used to secure the border itself and more as a show of force,” said Zoran Ivanov, a security expert from the Institute of National History in Skopje, North Macedonia.

“So it poses a direct security threat to Serbia and Serbia has to react to this.”

Criminalising identity: Turkey’s LGBTQI+ community under threat

Changing alliances

The tension marks a sharp turnaround. In recent years, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had built a close relationship with his Serbian counterpart, and Turkish companies became major investors in Serbia.

However the arms sale to Kosovo reveals a shift in Turkey’s relations with Belgrade, explained international relations professor Huseyin Bagci, of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University.

“Turkey has more leverage than Serbia,” Bagci said. “The relations between Turkey and Serbia, we understand each other, but it is not as happy as before.”

Analysts say the shift reflects Ankara’s wider ambitions in the Balkans.

“Ankara is trying to increase its influence and will do it,” said Bagci, adding that Turkey’s historical and cultural ties to the region run deep – with millions of families tracing their roots back to the former Ottoman territories.

“The Ottoman Empire was a Balkan empire. The Turkish influence is getting bigger, and of course, they don’t like it. But Turkey is the big brother in the Balkans.”

Turkish Cypriot vote could force shift in Erdogan’s approach to divided island

Turkish expansion

Last month, Turkish forces took command of NATO’s KFOR peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. At the same time, Turkish businesses continued expanding across the region.

“They’re expanding their markets; they’re expanding their capabilities; they’re expanding their influence,” Ivanov said.

Turkey’s renewed focus on the Balkans was unsurprising given historical ties, he added. “That’s natural for the Turks to come to invest in the region and now looking for their old roots.”

However its expanding presence might feel like history repeating itself, Ivanov warned.

As “a man who is coming from the Balkans,” he said, he sees “the Turks coming as they were in history” – a reminder of a past many in the region have not forgotten.

The European Union has praised Ankara for supporting peacekeeping operations and economic aid in Kosovo. But analysts caution that Turkey must avoid alienating its Balkan neighbours.

“Ankara also has to be mindful of its own limitations of its own Balkan ambitions,” Vuksanovic. said. “Because otherwise it can push majority Christian Orthodox nations like the Serbs, Greeks and Bulgarians to work against the Turks if the Turks are perceived to be too provocative or aggressive.”

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 11 October, I asked you to send in the answer to these two questions: Who won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, and why was she chosen?

The answers are: The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize went to the Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, because she is, as Nobel Committee chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes said, “One of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, suggested by RFI Listeners Club member Jocelyne D’Errico, who lives in New Zealand. Her question was: “What is the hardest problem you had to resolve in your work or school life?” 

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

The winners are: RFI English listener Shahanoaz Parvin Ripa, the chairwoman of the Sonali Badhan Female Listeners Club in Bogura, Bangladesh. Shahanoaz is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations on your double win, Shahanoaz.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Ras Franz Manko Ngogo, the president of the Kemogemba RFI Club in Tarime, Mara, Tanzania. There’s Rubi Saikia, a member of the United RFI Listeners Club in Assam, India; RFI Listeners Club member Helmut Matt from Herbolzheim, Germany, and last but not least, RFI English listener H. M. Tarek from Narayanganj, Bangladesh. 

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s program: “Le matin d´un jour de féte” from Claude Debussy’s Iberia, performed by the Czech Philhamonic conducted by Jean Fournet; “Give Peace a Chance” by John Lennon, performed by John Lennon & Friends; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “Nine Over Reggae” by Jack DeJohnette, performed by DeJohnette, Pat Metheny, and Herbie Hancock.

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 Michael Sarpong Mfum’s article  “Invasive water hyacinths choke wildlife and livelihoods in southern Ghana”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 1 December to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 6 December 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. 

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.