Governments, civil society, the private sector and academics will jointly assess progress over the last few years and put forward new solutions at a Global Refugee Forum review meeting from Monday to Wednesday.

Donor commitments are also expected, with the UN refugee agency facing a massive crisis.

The number of people forcibly displaced worldwide has almost doubled in the last decade to 117.3 million but funding for international aid has slumped, not least after the return of Donald Trump to the White House.

The United States previously provided more than 40 percent of the UNHCR budget but cuts by Washington since January, combined with belt-tightening from other major donor countries, have forced the organisation to shed nearly 5,000 jobs — more than a quarter of its workforce.

“Now is not the moment to step back — it is the moment to reinforce partnerships and send a clear message to refugees and host countries: you are not alone,” said UNHCR’s chief of the global compact on refugees section, Nicolas Brass.

The number of people forced to flee persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and serious unrest increased in 2024 to a record 123.2 million refugees, internally displaced and asylum-seekers.

Refugee numbers reach record high as global aid funding drops

At the end of last year, just over a third were from Sudan (14.3 million), Syria (13.5 million), Afghanistan (10.3 million) or Ukraine (8.8 million).

“Across countries and communities, support for refugees continues,” said Brass, adding that two-thirds of the pledges made at the last Global Refugee Forum were “fulfilled or in progress”.

‘Serious risk’

According to the UNHCR, 10 countries have adopted new labour laws authorising refugees to work since 2019, which has helped more than 500,000 people.

Ten countries have strengthened their asylum system, including Chad, which adopted its very first asylum law.

EU tightens asylum rules listing seven ‘safe’ countries of origin

But in a recent report, UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said the “sharp decline” in funding this year and that “available solutions fall far short of global needs”.

“Hard-won improvements are at serious risk,” he added. “Without renewed political will, sustained financing and coherent multilateral cooperation, these pressures threaten to erode the very systems we have worked tirelessly to build.”

Grandi is due to step down after 10 years at the helm and is expected to be succeeded by Iraq’s former president Barham Salih.

“The global context is deteriorating amid continued conflict, record civilian deaths… and deepening political divides, which are driving displacement and straining the system,” said Brass.

The UNHCR said burden-sharing remained unequal. Countries with only 27 percent of global wealth are hosting 80 percent of the world’s refugees.

The agency recently highlighted that three-quarters of displaced people live in countries at high or even extreme risk from climate change.

From Monday, discussions among the 1,800 delegates and 200 refugees will centre around five themes: innovative financing; inclusion; safe pathways to third countries; transforming refugee camps into “humane settlements”; and long-term solutions.

Parallel events dedicated to major displacement situations will also be held, notably on Syria, Sudan and the Rohingya refugee crisis.

(With newswires)

“I respectfully ask you to consider granting Christophe a pardon, so that he may regain his freedom and his family,” Sylvie Godard wrote in the letter to President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, dated 10 December.

Gleizes’s lawyers are also seeking a new trial with the country’s highest court.

A contributor to the French magazines So Foot and Society, Gleizes was convicted of “glorifying terrorism” in June.

An Algerian appeals court upheld his sentence this month, a decision his mother called “incomprehensible”.

Gleizes is currently France’s only journalist imprisoned abroad, according to French NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to work towards his release.

Macron joins family’s push to free jailed French journalist in Algeria

He was arrested in May 2024 while travelling to northeastern Algeria‘s Kabylia region to write about the country’s most decorated football club, Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie.

In 2021, he met the head of the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK), a foreign-based group designated a terrorist organisation by Algiers.

At this month’s appeal hearing, Gleizes said he did not know the MAK had been listed as a terrorist organisation, and asked the court’s forgiveness for his “journalistic mistakes”.

Algerian court increases jail time for French journalist convicted of ‘terrorism’

“Nowhere in any of his writings will you find any trace of statements hostile to Algeria and its people,” she wrote in her letter.

Diplomatic crisis

At the time of his arrest, Gleizes found himself caught in the midst of a diplomatic crisis between France and its former colony, marked in particular by the withdrawal of the two ambassadors and the reciprocal expulsions of diplomats. 

Tensions escalated with France’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in July 2024, where Algeria backs the pro-independence Polisario Front.

French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal was arrested in Algiers and sentenced in March to five years in prison for making comments about Western Sahara that Algerian authorities said undermined the country’s territorial integrity. 

He was freed last month after intense negotiations with Algeria by France and Germany.

(with AFP)

Police said one attacker was shot dead at the scene and the second was arrested in critical condition. Among the injured were two police officers.

Hundreds had gathered for Chanukah by the Sea, marking the first night of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, when the attackers struck shortly after 6:45 pm local time.

New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said the shooting was “targeted at Sydney’s Jewish community” and confirmed that an improvised explosive device had been found in one of the suspects’ vehicles. “The death toll remains fluid,” he said, as emergency crews continued to treat victims at nearby hospitals.

One of those killed was identified as Rabbi Eli Schlanger, assistant rabbi at Chabad of Bondi and a key organiser of the Hanukkah event. Chabad, an Orthodox Jewish outreach movement, said he had worked in the coastal suburb for more than 18 years.

Videos broadcast on Australian television appeared to show a bystander tackling and disarming one of the gunmen before police intervened.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the massacre as “an act of evil antisemitism and terrorism that has struck the heart of our nation.” Speaking in Canberra, he said the country “must stand united against hate and violence” and pledged that authorities would “eradicate” such extremism.

President Emmanuel Macron that France would fight “relentlessly against antisemitic hatred” as he extended his condolences.

“France extends its thoughts to the victims, the injured and their loved ones,” Macron said in English on X. “We share the pain of the Australian people and will continue to fight relentlessly against antisemitic hatred, which hurts us all, wherever it strikes.” Among the victims was one French citizen, Dan Elkayam, who lived in Australia since two years, according to French daily Le Parisien. 

Security threats

Australia’s Jewish population, estimated at about 117,000, is concentrated largely in Sydney and Melbourne. In recent months, synagogues, Jewish schools and businesses in both cities have faced security threats and acts of vandalism.

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said the country’s “heart misses a beat” in solidarity with the victims, urging Australia to “fight against the enormous wave of antisemitism” affecting its Jewish communities.

Gun violence remains rare in Australia following sweeping firearm controls introduced after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, which killed 35 people. Sunday’s mass shooting is the country’s deadliest in nearly three decades.

(With newswires)

It was September 1985, and creative partners Christo and Jeanne-Claude had been trying to realise their vision of wrapping the bridge for 10 years. 

The longtime mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, had finally given the green light a year earlier, but public safety concerns threatened to overturn the authorisation. It was three weeks after a crew of 300 had begun wrapping the Pont Neuf in champagne-coloured fabric that the final permit arrived. 

Forty years later, Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo says she couldn’t be happier to revive that “unforgettable moment of poetry and beauty”.

She has signed off on another major installation, set for next June, on the Pont Neuf – which, as well as a working road and foot bridge, is a protected historic monument.

It’s a measure of how much attitudes to public art have changed since Christo and Jeanne-Claude put years of work and millions of dollars into convincing Paris that its heritage shouldn’t be off limit to creators.

The perfect pont

When Bulgarian-born Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and his French partner Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon started work on the Pont Neuf project in 1975, they hadn’t yet staged any large-scale installations in France. 

Although the couple met in Paris, until then their most ambitious projects – bundling up a portion of the Australian coastline, stringing a curtain across a valley in Colorado, ringing islands off Miami with a squiggle of bright pink fabric – had taken place outside Europe. 

While cities in Germany and Italy had allowed them to wrap castles and Roman walls, Paris was less amenable. In 1969 the pair explored the idea of wrapping nearly 400 trees along the Champs-Elysées, but were unable to secure a permit.

Drawn to the bridges that span the River Seine, they first thought of the Pont Alexandre III, a grand steel structure built at the turn of the 20th century. They decided, however, that wrapping its single arch wouldn’t have the impact they wanted.

“The first consideration was aesthetic,” Jeanne-Claude later told an interviewer, explaining their ultimate choice: “The Pont Neuf has those 12 fingers in the water.”

Lobbying campaign

While the bridge’s history wasn’t foremost in their minds, it made the project more complicated. Completed in the early 1600s, the Pont Neuf crosses the ancient heart of Paris at the Ile de la Cité and has been a listed monument since 1889. 

As the artists studied how they might wrap the bridge without drilling into its protected stone, they pitched the project to city officials.

Chirac, elected mayor for the first time in 1977, was reluctant to risk a backlash. As months and then years passed, the artists hired a project director, Johannes Schaub, who encouraged them to get the public on side first. 

Schaub approached the challenge like an election campaign, sending envoys door to door in the neighbourhood around the bridge to convince locals. He booked Christo on a lecture tour and media blitz, and had the artist make a huge model of the wrapped Pont Neuf to display in La Samaritaine, the department store that faces the bridge on the Right Bank.

Key to the messaging was the promise that the installation wouldn’t cost taxpayers a centime; Christo and Jeanne-Claude would cover the cost from sales of their other work, as they did with all their projects. 

Meanwhile, the Socialist government France had elected in 1981 was beginning to champion ambitious cultural events, such as the Fête de la Musique, which shifted art out of museums and opera houses and into public spaces.

As momentum built in the art world and among the wider public – and after Chirac secured re-election – the mayor eventually agreed in August 1984.

France’s Fête de la Musique celebrates its 40th anniversary

Technical feat

It took two test runs on a smaller bridge in Grez-sur-Loing, a small town outside Paris, to perfect the technique that would be used to wrap the Pont Neuf.

Engineers designed a frame that would sit on top of the bridge, resting on rubber buffers. Thousands of metres of thin fabric, the colour of Parisian sandstone, would then be draped over it, tied by ropes and held taut by steel chains wrapped round the bridge’s base, a metre under water.

The process of installation – which took several weeks, from August to September 1985 – was a spectacle in itself. French media relayed every step, from the climbers who abseiled down the bridge pleating the fabric, to the divers who fixed the chains beneath the surface of the river.

In a final flourish, Christo personally wrapped the 44 street lamps that line the bridge.

By 22 September, the work was complete and the Pont Neuf reopened to the public.

‘The biggest sculpture in the world’

Journalists from around the world covered the event. A beneficent Chirac was filmed strolling across the bridge with Christo and Jeanne-Claude, congratulating the artists on meeting the conditions he claimed to have set: that the project didn’t cost Paris a penny, that it didn’t disrupt traffic and that it wouldn’t damage the Pont Neuf.

“It’s no longer a bridge, it’s the biggest sculpture in the world. But it’s also a bridge, where people pass over, under – they’re within the sculpture,” enthused one newscaster.

“It’s wonderful,” Christo told the reporter, “they’re all here, everyone.”

Transformed by the silky fabric, the bridge’s curved stone benches invited spectators to sit.

The artists were especially happy with the way the Paris light played on the material. “We didn’t expect that the fabric’s colour would take on so many nuances,” Jeanne-Claude later said. 

“The colours were incredible. In the morning, the fabric looked like straw, and by late afternoon it had turned into a rich golden tone.”

In total, an estimated 3 million people came to see The Pont Neuf Wrapped.

French TV talked about it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, something Parisians would tell their grandchildren about in years to come. 

Fifteen days later, it was over. The installation was dismantled on 5 October, 1985. 

But it had shown that modern art could capture a mass audience’s imagination – even, or perhaps especially, when it was on a huge scale, challenging to create and in the middle of a busy urban space.

‘Rethinking the familiar’

In the decades since, Parisian authorities have welcomed contemporary creations at monuments from the Palais-Royal to the Pantheon and the Grand Palais.

In 2021, the city paid its ultimate tribute to Christo and Jeanne-Claude. After both their deaths, it allowed their representatives to wrap the Arc de Triomphe – a feat they had dreamed of in their early days in the capital but never pursued, assuming it was too much of a long shot. 

Paris crowds flock to see Arc de Triomphe, dressed to impress

Next year, they will be remembered again, in a work that artist JR says is inspired by their example. “I share their idea that the mission of art is to make the public think – or rethink about the familiar,” he said.

Originally planned to mark the 40th anniversary of the wrapping of the bridge but postponed to allow for more planning time, his installation – entitled The Cave of Pont Neuf – will now be on show from 6 to 28 June, 2026.

It’s a chance for the monument to live up to its name once again: Pont Neuf, the 400-year-old “new bridge”.

“14 December 2025 marks a key step: the Flamanville 3 reactor reached 100% nuclear power at 11:37am and generated 1,669 MW of gross electrical power,” EDF said in a statement, a few days after receiving clearance from the Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Authority (ASNR).

Flamanville 3, the first new nuclear reactor to start up in France in 25 years, was connected to the national grid on 21 December 2024 — 12 years later than originally planned. Its costs have soared from an initial estimate of €3.3 billion to as much as €23.7 billion in 2023 prices, according to France’s Court of Auditors.

Nuclear energy, which makes up a major share of France’s electricity production, remains central to the country’s efforts to maintain a low-carbon power mix. But its implementation continues to face technical and political challenges, from waste management to costs.

President Emmanuel Macron announced an ambitious nuclear revival in 2022, including plans to build six new-generation EPR2 reactors, with an option for eight more. However, the government has yet to finalise its long-term energy roadmap, known as the third Multiannual Energy Programme (PPE), amid sharp political divisions over the balance between nuclear and renewables. The far-right National Rally (RN) has opposed further development of renewable energy projects.

Macron takes stock of France’s nuclear projects with focus on energy transition

Testing phase

EDF said reaching full power would allow operators “to test equipment at maximum output, take measurements and verify proper operation.” In the coming weeks, as part of the reactor’s commissioning programme, power levels will fluctuate to support tests at different stages, with maintenance also planned on an internal electrical substation.

Specifically, teams will “completely replace a 400kV feedthrough connecting overhead lines to underground cables running down the cliff to the auxiliary transformer of Flamanville 3,” an EDF spokeswoman told French press agency AFP. The procedure will be carried out while the reactor remains synchronised to the grid, she added.

The ASNR on Friday authorised EDF to raise the reactor’s power output beyond 80%. EDF said at the time that teams were “mobilised to bring the reactor to 100% power by the end of autumn,” in line with previous commitments.

The gross output cited on Sunday differs from the net power delivered to the national grid, as part of the energy generated is used by the reactor itself.

Built on the Normandy coast next to two older reactors, Flamanville 3 is now the most powerful unit in France’s nuclear fleet, capable of supplying electricity to two million households.

Other EPR reactors are already operating in China (Taishan 1 and 2) and Finland (Olkiluoto 3), while two more are under construction at Hinkley Point in south-west England.

(With newswires)

The schooner departs from Lorient in Brittany on Sunday on an 18-month mission dubbed Tara Coral. 

The expedition will take it to the tropical waters of the Coral Triangle – a region encompassing 5.7 million square kilometres of ocean between Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste.

Nicknamed “the Amazon of the seas”, the zone contains some 600 different species of coral and is a hotspot of marine biodiversity.

Coral reefs provide precious habitats for underwater life, supporting an estimated one million other species. Yet as oceans warm, marine scientists have reported coral bleaching and death on a scale never seen before.

World’s coral reefs crossing survival limit, global experts warn

Secrets of endurance

“In the Coral Triangle over the last few decades, the decline of these coral reefs is less pronounced than in other parts of the world,” Paola Furla, a researcher at Côte d’Azur University and scientific director of Tara Coral, told RFI.

“The idea is to try to understand what kind of factors have influenced this endurance.

“Is it the environment, the quality of the water? Is it the biodiversity found in the reef that is the strength of the corals, or is it their genetics?”

The Tara Ocean Foundation and more than 40 scientific partners have gathered a transdisciplinary team to study this “thermotolerance”.

From 2026 to 2028, eight scientists, six sailors, one artist and a journalist will compose the crew on board Tara.

Scientists will test several hypotheses as to why corals are surviving, looking into whether it could be down to the wide diversity of species in the area, the presence of more resistant species or individual corals that are pre-adapted to global warming, or the upwelling of cooler waters that limit ocean warming.

The big blue blindspot: why the ocean floor is still an unmapped mystery

Heat test

One of the tests conducted by the researchers will consist of briefly subjecting pieces of coral to acute heat stress and identifying colonies that do not bleach. 

“According to how they react, you will have an idea of how far they are resilient,” explained Serge Planes, director of research at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

The scientists will also use DNA analysis and genetics to try to make corals more resilient.

Genetic engineering is now beginning to be applied to coral reefs, said Planes, giving some examples: “How can you inject different microbiomes, different bacteria or nutrients which would provide the coral with more resilience?”

The aim is for these coral reefs to “be healthy in the future” and “to maintain biodiversity”, he said.

After leaving Lorient, Tara will head for Tokyo in early April and then Papua New Guinea in May 2026.

It is the latest environmental expedition for the sailing ship, which has previously been used to study Arctic ice, marine microorganisms and plastic pollution.

“When I look at old photos of myself wearing the hijab, I find it quite strange,” she told RFI, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I no longer recognise myself.”

Today, she leads most of her daily life without a headscarf. While she walks in the street or visits cafés bareheaded, she still covers up to visit government offices, where women are denied entry unless they comply with Iran’s religious dress code. 

She is not alone. A growing number of women are daring to defy the rules since Amini’s death in police custody provoked protests across Iran and the wider world. 

“At first, it was mainly young people,” the woman said. “Now it’s more and more women, not all young.” 

Uneasy freedoms

Wearing a hijab remains the law in Iran, as it has been since the Islamic revolution of 1979. Some police forces are reportedly enforcing this law less rigorously in the aftermath of the protests, although observers say this varies from town to town. 

Iran’s parliament last year passed a law – drafted some eight months after Amini’s death – that increased surveillance and imposed even harsher penalties for women and girls who refuse to entirely cover their hair, forearms or lower legs. 

Yet the government postponed its implementation, originally planned for December 2024, and called for the text to be revised. The legislation remains pending.

President Massoud Pezeshkian, elected last July, has publicly expressed reservations about the mandatory hijab, telling American broadcaster NBC News: “Human beings have a right to choose.” 

His position is at odds with hardline lawmakers, who earlier this month wrote to Iran’s chief justice to complain about lax enforcement of the dress code. Conservative protesters have also turned out repeatedly to call for stricter punishment, including staging a sit-in outside parliament that lasted around six weeks.

Caught between the two are the women who test the rules, a choice that still exposes them to considerable risk. 

“I don’t feel safe, and I don’t think any woman feels safe if she doesn’t wear a hijab, because at the moment, there are no rules to fall back on,” RFI’s interviewee said.

“It’s a kind of limbo: you don’t know if you’re breaking the rules, you don’t know if someone will feel entitled to attack you or arrest you.”

How a regional reset has left isolated Iran fighting to stay relevant

‘More than a piece of cloth’

Women’s dress remains a lightning rod in Iran, nearly 50 years into its theocracy.

“The veil is more than a just a piece of cloth,” explained Azadeh Kian, professor of sociology and director of the Centre for Gender and Feminist Studies at Paris Cité University. “It is an ideology that has been imposed on women since the beginning of the Islamic Republic.”

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other ultra-conservatives want the wearing of the hijab to be respected “at all costs”, Kian said.

But she says the public’s views are shifting. “Polls conducted by the government itself indicate that 80 percent of Iranian women are in favour of freedom of choice.”

At least 1,000 people executed in Iran in 2025, says human rights NGO

Pezeshkian’s administration is hardly liberal; it has notably stepped up executions in recent months, including for moral and religious offences. Yet circumstances may force it to be pragmatic.

“The government knows very well that returning to the veil would mean more tension in society at a time when the population is already up in arms against the regime because of an unprecedented economic crisis,” said Kian. 

The situation will only become more volatile as international sanctions, reinstated in September after Iran suspended inspections of its nuclear facilities, begin to bite, she believes.

While a crackdown on dress would no doubt provoke further criticism from Western countries, the woman who spoke to RFI said it could never be ruled out. 

“There is always, always, always a backlash with the Islamic Republic, and it’s always something frightening,” she said. “We don’t know when, we don’t know how. But there will be a backlash when it suits them.”

For now, she continues to risk going out without a hijab.

“It’s everyday resistance we’re expressing,” she said. “We are fighting a daily battle.”

This article was adapted from the original in French by Nicolas Falez.

Nearly a year after Cyclone Chido devastated Mayotte, large parts of the Indian Ocean archipelago remain visibly battered, with reconstruction advancing far more slowly than promised.

While emergency work on secondary schools allowed them to reopen to pupils in August, most public buildings and homes still bear deep scars.

In the capital Mamoudzou’s Hauts-Vallons neighbourhood – a residential district popular with civil servants – mounds of rubble lie untouched.

According to the Housing Foundation: “Sixty percent of the island’s buildings were damaged or destroyed and more than two-thirds of collective housing suffered damage.”

Ahmed Ali Mondroha, managing director of Mayotte’s main social housing provider, said the scale of destruction has proven overwhelming.

“It took us a long time to start the work,” he said, estimating the total cost of the damage at €72 million. “Of the 1,600 homes affected, 500 have been restored to use and around 600 are currently undergoing repairs.”

But even with crews on site, he says progress has been hampered by a succession of obstacles

“Construction companies do not always have the necessary materials, prices have skyrocketed since the cyclone hit – sheet metal, for example, has increased by 40 percent – and delivery times have lengthened.”

Schools in Mayotte set to reopen as unions warn cyclone recovery still lags

Supply delays

Julian Champiat, president of the Mayotte Federation of Building and Public Works (FMBTP), also spoke of the pressure on logistics, saying it now takes four months to receive an order of materials, compared with two months previously.

These delays are largely attributed to clogged customs procedures at Longoni’s commercial port, where a surge in containers has created bottlenecks.

Adding to the strain, many companies are struggling financially, with cash flow weakened by a slow restart in activity and a wave of payment defaults, causing further delays across the construction sector.

“The economic fabric is greatly weakened,” said Fahardine Mohamed, president of the Medef employers union in Mayotte.

Public sector finances – which underpin around 70 percent of the local economy – are, he said, “at an all-time low”.

After the cyclone, local authorities “committed to spending to deal with the emergency, and they are at the end of their term of office,” he noted, leaving budgets severely depleted.

Macron unveils €3bn package to rebuild cyclone-hit Mayotte

Exposed to the elements

Authorities too have been hit hard. In central Mamoudzou, part of the town hall roof was torn off and several offices remain unusable.

Higher up the hillside, the headquarters of the Dembéni-Mamoudzou urban community – Cadema – is still covered with tarpaulin rather than tiles.

“We’ve been working from home since the cyclone hit,” said one local authority employee, who asked not to be named. “My office is unusable, there are water leaks everywhere and when it rains, the electricity cuts out. Nothing has been done. The local authorities have no money left.”

Insurance payouts, too, are lagging. “We’re waiting for around €20 million,” said Mondroha.

At the Camion Blanc restaurant on Mamoudzou’s seafront, Melie Razafindrasoa prepares a papaya juice and notes one small sign of normality returning.

“We’re seeing [people] again at the market,” she said cheerfully. But her smile fades when she talks about her own home, saying she has still not received any insurance money.

“We lost the windows and a door of the house during the cyclone. We repaired them ourselves, but every time it rains, the rooms are flooded,” she explained, adding that she remains “very afraid of another cyclone coming”.

The rainy season has just begun, bringing more frequent storms. “Last time, there was a lot of wind and rain. My children were very scared, they are still traumatised.”

(with AFP)

RFI: What led you to making your first documentary? 

Sammy Baloji: In my practice I do make short films, experimental films, and I also did a few collaborative documentaries. For this project, I was doing a lot of research around the town of Yangambi [northern DRC], starting from an article in The Guardian [about trees and climate change] given to me by one of the curators of the Lubumbashi Biennial, a contemporary art platform that I co-created with a few artists in [DRC].

I was quite interested in looking at the forest and producing a [piece] of work compiling the research. And I thought that a film could be a good way, as I had already discovered all the archives related to Congolese agriculturalist Paul Panda Farnana and beyond.

So it was really interesting to think of a format that could help [us] to understand the complexity of human activity in the area. And I thought that film was kind of a great format for that.

Congolese filmmaker Baloji mixes magic with biting social commentary

You’ve centred the story around real people – Congolese agriculturalist Paul Panda Farnana and the Belgian colonial official Abiron Beirnaert. And you also wrote powerful voices for the narration, including one for a tree, through a mix of sounds and images. How did you go about this?

By doing research, I had a lot of different examples for Farnana. There were letters written by him to his mother, colonial administrative reports on him, articles published by Belgian magazines and so on.

As for Abiron Beirnaert, he didn’t write himself, and he died while he was on a mission in [what was then the Belgian Congo]. But the story of his accident and his visit to the Congo were reported by his colleagues, who wrote about his final activities.

For the voice of the tree, the text that comes with the sound of the tree, comes from all the research done by Thomas Hendricks, who’s an anthropologist who was interested in understanding international activities within the Congolese forest.

I work a lot with installations, and I have this approach to combine different sources and different elements such as sound archives, photographs or excerpts from films. And then there’s the soundscape, which I did with two sound artists. The idea was to create this kind of immersive soundscape… an immersive experience bringing together images, sounds and voices.

Why the Congo plays a critical role in saving the world’s biodiversity

Would you say the film is a work of activism?

I’m from a country – but also a province – that has been under extractivism since the end of the 19th century, for its mineral resources. This is the first time I’ve been able to provide information about how the climate has been a subject of colonial control, even the forest.

The place that I’m from is the place that served as an extraction site for uranium that was used for the atomic bomb. And there’s lithium there, which is really important for green energy. 

But there’s a continuous injustice in the ignoring of the people impacted by the extraction of these different raw materials, that serve the international economy.

I don’t just address this with the film, it’s also why we created the Lubumbashi Biennial, to bring attention to what is happening within the country from Congolese perspectives and local voices.

I wanted to look at it from a very long perspective, starting from the colonial presence in DRC, and looking at the way that all these processes are connected. It’s not coming from a place of anger – I tried to go beyond this binary way of thinking, between north and south, looking at the environment, at nature and at the relationship we have with the Earth.

This is why the tree appears. For me, it’s really about local knowledge: the tree has been in that forest for more than three centuries.

The question I’m raising is how do we rethink our connection with the environment?

The film was shown at Film Africa in London and can be viewed on the Franco-German channel Arte. Do you have plans to show it in Africa? 

It’s already been shown in South Africa at a festival, and we are thinking of having it shown in Kinshasa. And of course, the next edition of the Lubumbashi Biennial will show it next year. I can’t wait to have this moment on the continent where I can present it.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

In a bid to improve literacy levels in the country, Mutharika has announced that tuition fees, examination fees, school development fees and fees for identity cards used during examinations have all been abolished.

“I also want to direct that no public school should be requesting learners to make contributions towards the School Development Fund and any other fees, except boarding fees,” Mutharika added.

Secondary school pupils in boarding schools will still need to pay boarding fees, which remain substantial.

The move is expected to increase enrolment and lower the drop-out rate.

Although the latter has improved significantly for primary education – from 11.7 percent in 2009 to 3.2 percent in 2018, according to the national education sector investment plan – retention remains a challenge. The country has a primary school completion rate of 52 percent and a repetition rate of 24.5 percent.

In 2024, 24,371 learners dropped out of primary schools and 24,371 of secondary school. Overall, only 33 percent of children complete primary school and 4 percent upper secondary school, according to figures quoted by Malawi’s Nation newspaper.

Malawians face food insecurity and soaring unemployment as they head to polls

‘The only way out of poverty’

The country is in economic crisis, and has seen the price of goods and services soar. According to the World Bank, it is the fourth poorest in the world, with the majority of people living on less than $2.15 a day, according to 2019 estimates.

“The [previous] government has not been able to mobilise enough revenue to implement its programmes. Overall growth projection remains weak, with GDP projected to grow at 2.8 percent in 2025 from 1.7 percent in 2024, mainly attributed to low agricultural productivity, supply chain constraints and limited industrial capacity,” said Mutharika.

He added that his administration has already started taking steps to address the gaps.

Meet the Kenyan man shaping a francophone future in East Africa

Dr Foster Lungu, an education expert at Mzuzu University, said that the school fees announcement “gives hope”, but questioned how it will be implemented financially.

“Come January [when the policy is set to take effect], you may find that the schools are not well resourced, and this line of income to the schools was helping to resource those schools. Then it will be a pinch – more or less back to square one.”

Commenting on the development, Zimbabwean journalist Hopewell Chin’ono said that abolishing school fees is an “excellent start” and “a progressive move, because national education remains the only real way out of poverty for the African child”.

Chin’ono also noted, however, that around 30 percent of Malawi’s national budget is lost through corruption, quoting organisations including Transparency International.

“If [Mutharika] successfully stops this 30 percent looting, he could fund free primary and secondary education using the recovered resources… Africa has enough money to fund public services such as education.”

They are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles. All have lost a loved one in the armed conflict in Colombia. All are still searching for the truth about their disappearances.

So when Spanish-Argentinian photographer Zahara Gomez Lucini asked them to take part in a project in memory of the disappeared, they all agreed. 

The artist and activist’s book Recetario para la Memoria (“Recipe Book for Remembrance”) is an act of resistance.

Families contribute the recipe for the favourite dish of the person they have lost. In this way, Lucini makes those who are absent visible again, and conveys the pain of the families while inviting dialogue.

“I wanted to bring the subject of disappearances back to the table by approaching it in a different way. Not in an academic or technical way,” she explains.

“The aim was to extend the debate beyond the circle of experts and journalists. Colombia has a lot to teach us on this subject, whether through its transitional justice for peace or its theatrical and musical works.”

The book is the third she has made of its kind, with the first two created with the families of disappeared people in Mexico.

Turkish artist draws attention to the disappeared

Forty-four Colombian families joined the project, which is now on display at La Casa de la Memoria museum in Medellin.

The museum has installed a typical Colombian kitchen in the centre of its exhibition space. There’s a refrigerator, kitchen utensils and a wood-burning stove, and a table of ingredients, plates and bowls.

On the walls, panels display recipes accompanied by two photos: one of the dish and the other of the person who cooked it, a relative of a victim of enforced disappearance.   

Patricia Zapata took part in the project for her nephew Jorge, who disappeared in 2017.

“He was a rap singer. He had gone out to shoot the video for his latest song. And since then, there has been no news. I prepared red beans from Antioquia. They are served with plantains, rice, an egg and chicharrons – fried pork rinds.”

Patricia is part of a collective which organises regular demonstrations in memory of those who have disappeared. “It’s hard. Very hard. And there are moments, like this exhibition, that break our hearts, but it’s necessary.”

Families desperate for news of Ukraine’s disappeared

‘Restoring humanity’

After the exhibition’s opening, the public were invited to share a meal with the victims’ families.

A cooking workshop was also organised for students at the Universidad National of Medellin.

Valery Giraldo, a history student who took part, said: “It was a very good initiative. It’s another way of telling these stories of disappearance that we tend to forget. Above all, I listened to their stories. I am really very moved.”

Among the cooks that day was Maria Eugenia Naranjo. She lost her son in 2019.

“We made three dishes: soup, pasta and beans. At first, the project seemed strange to me. But I quickly realised that it was important. It reminds society of our need to discover the truth about the disappearance of our loved ones. It’s hard to live with uncertainty about their fate.”

Alongside the Colombian families is Viviana Mendoza, a Mexican buscadora (a “searcher”) who was part of Gomez Lucini’s first recipe book. She is participating in the Colombian project to show that the fight for the truth crosses borders.   

“My brother Manuel disappeared in 2018. Armed men came to his home and took him away. I continue to search for him myself in the mass graves. Here, I have prepared a caldo de espinazo [a pork soup] to restore my brother’s humanity. Because we quickly forget that they are human beings, not just names or numbers. We have normalised violence and horror too much.”  

In Colombia, according to the latest report from the Search Unit for Missing Persons in 2025, 132,877 people have been reported missing due to the armed conflict.   

After the signing of the peace agreement between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group in 2016, the International Committee of the Red Cross documented more than 2,000 additional cases.

This article was adapted from the original version in French by Najet Benrabaa, RFI’s correspondent in Bogota.

Nam, owner of Hanoi Corner in the bustling Marais neighbourhood, remembers the puzzled looks of his French customers as they discovered not just Vietnamese coffee, but the art of drinking it.

“It’s truly Vietnamese-style coffee, where we take our time,” he tells RFI. “And not everyone has 20 minutes to spare. The Vietnamese filter is the opposite of espresso.”

In Vietnam, coffee is traditionally made using a phin filter – a small metal device that slow-brews coffee drop by drop. 

At Hoa Cà Phê coffee shop in eastern Paris, Diane explains: “What we always tell customers who don’t know Vietnamese coffee at all is that they should try it in its most classic form: phin coffee, black or with condensed milk, hot or cold.”

But French customers are often most intrigued by cà phê trứng – coffee mixed with whisked egg yolks, a Hanoi delicacy.

“We have a high demand for egg coffee,” she says.

A taste of history

French colonisers first brought coffee plants to Vietnam in the 19th century, but it was only after independence that the country truly transformed coffee into an art of its own. 

A century later, it’s the Vietnamese taste that is coming to France.

“For us, coffee is linked to the history between Vietnam and France,” Nam explains. “As I am French of Vietnamese origin, I try to convey a culture that is somewhere between the two countries.

“We are happy because it allows us to showcase another side of Vietnamese culture that is a little less well known.”

The movement is growing fast. “Eight years ago, we were the only Vietnamese café in Paris. Today, I think there are about 15,” Nam says.

And new cafes are opening in the capital and beyond.

Waiters race for glory as Paris revives century-old tradition

‘Vietnamese spirit’

Vietnam’s well-known Cộng Cà Phê chain opened its first French branch in Paris in August this year.

The brand’s distinctive retro decor, evoking Vietnam of the 1970s and 80s, sets it apart from other cafes, according to customer Duyên.

“And its coconut cream coffee is truly original,” she adds.

“When coming to Paris, Cộng didn’t just want to open several coffee shops, but also to convey a Vietnamese spirit, a history of Vietnamese coffee,” says Uyên Trần, the chain’s partnership manager.

The target was firstly the Vietnamese diaspora, she says, then the international public.

‘Invisible’ origins

Vietnam is the world’s second-largest coffee exporter, right behind Brazil. It sent more than 380,000 tonnes to the European Union in 2024, making Europe its largest market.

France is the third-largest importer of Vietnamese coffee in Europe, after Germany and Italy.

Most Vietnamese coffee that reaches Europe is raw robusta, however, which is most often processed or blended into instant coffee or capsules – leaving drinkers unaware of its Vietnamese origin or signature aroma.

“For all Westerners, not just French people, Asia does not exist in terms of coffee,” says Frédéric Fortunel, a food researcher at the University of Le Mans.

“Our perception has been shaped by brands. They have constructed our image of it. And that is the paradox.

“The consequence is that Asian coffee, in general, cannot be promoted as a coffee of origin.”

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Coffee street-style

Vietnamese coffee is distinguished as much by the way it is enjoyed as by its flavour.

For Mai Phuong, co-owner of Vỉahè Càphê near the Place de la Bastille, nothing reflects the essence of Vietnam’s coffee culture quite like small sidewalk cafes.

“For me, the best Vietnamese coffee is the kind you find in small cafes on the pavement, like in the old days,” she says.

Her co-owner and partner, Van Phu, agrees: “That was the idea, to really recreate the experience of how coffee is drunk on the streets of Vietnam.”

It wasn’t an easy concept to sell to Parisians. “It was quite daring,” Mai recalls. “No one understood why they had to sit on these low plastic chairs, like children.

“But little by little, curiosity got the better of them.”

More than 50 people died in the floods, thousands more were displaced – and an agricultural landscape a generation in the making was washed away in a single night.

Eighteen months later, the pain and uncertainty have not receded.

Forty minutes away in Naivasha, Grace, a small-scale farmer, mother of three and lifelong resident, stands on what remains of her farmland.

Where vegetables once grew, stagnant brown pools shimmer as the returning rains pour down. The foundations of her house lie broken, like a shattered clay pot. She wraps a torn shawl around her shoulders and looks to the sky as if for an answer.

“The flood took our goats, our seeds, even our soil,” she said, exhausted. “We are starting from nothing again.”

She is not alone in this. Across the Naivasha basin, families returned to plots that are no longer viable. Their wells are contaminated. Their cattle have died. Their savings were spent trying to survive. And now, as the rains return, the nightmare threatens to repeat itself.

‘Seasons are breaking down’

It is here that Dr Kamau, a climate scientist based in Naivasha, spends his days tracking shifting weather patterns.

His office is cluttered with satellite printouts and rainfall charts, and his boots still caked in mud. When he explains the changes he’s seeing, he barely looks at the papers – he knows the numbers by heart.

“We are witnessing climate whiplash,” he says. “Drought one year, floods the next. The seasons that once defined East African life are breaking down. Communities can’t adapt fast enough.”

For farmers like Grace, adaptation requires more than patience – it takes money, government support and time, and none are in ready supply.

Africa Climate Summit puts financing and resilience under the spotlight

Climate refugees

Whilst Kenya is drowning, across the border Somalia is cracking under the pressure of drought.

In Dadaab, dusty winds whip across a refugee settlement that has grown into a city in its own right. Thousands of Somali families have arrived here, fleeing not conflict but the effects of the drought.

Among them is 53-year-old Fadumo, a mother of eight from central Somalia who once owned 20 goats and a small sorghum plot.

Rich nations pledge $250bn for climate aid, but Africa demands more

But year after year, the rains didn’t come. Crops failed. Wells dried up. When her children were surviving on a single cup of tea a day, Grace did the only thing she could – she left.

“I walked for days to find water,” she says, sitting outside the temporary shelter that is now her home. “We hoped the rain would come back. But it never did.”

Her story is echoed across the Horn of Africa. Somalia has experienced its longest and most intense drought in 40 years. Humanitarian agencies also report that millions go hungry, and hundreds of thousands are displaced.

‘Paying the price’

In Kenya, Dr Kamau shakes his head when asked whether these crises can be considered natural disasters.

“Floods and droughts have always existed,” he says. “But the scale, frequency and erratic swings we’re seeing now are climate-driven. And the people paying the price are the ones who did almost nothing to cause this problem.”

East Africa accounts for less than 3 percent of global emissions, but its communities are losing livelihoods, homes and sometimes their lives.

As world leaders prepare to gather in Nairobi from 8-12 December for the seventh United Nations Environment Assembly, many in the region are asking the same question: what does climate justice look like when those who so the least to cause it suffer the most?

In a report published on Monday, the UK research programme Xcept said that while some of the women say they “support” the armed group, they believe such testimonies are “more often a survival strategy than radicalisation”.

The al-Qaeda linked armed Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims controls larges parts of Mali and Burkina Faso. The researchers interviewed 77 women from the Fulani ethnic group – who are predominantly Muslim and historically associated with nomadic pastoralism – living in these areas.

Some were the wives, mothers or grandmothers of the jihadists, while others had no direct connection to them. More than half have lived for at least five years “under JNIM’s effective control”.

The researchers found a mixed reaction to the jihadists, with a mix of criticism and support, but said that most of the women have adopted “a survival strategy” rather than a full adherence to the group’s ideology.

Mali’s economy near standstill amid JNIM fuel attacks

State failings

“Women universally characterised JNIM’s ascendance as precipitating profound and overwhelmingly negative changes,” the report says.

These changes related to dress codes – an insistence on women wearing the veil and abaya – along with bans on women working and driving, the abolition of traditional ceremonies, and restricted access to healthcare and education, as jihadists have closed state schools and health centres.

“Respondents describe JNIM regulations as economically devastating and deeply detrimental to their physical and mental health,” the study says.

Hostage video shows abducted Malian journalists asking for help

However there was also “longstanding dissatisfaction” with state corruption, in both Mali and Burkina Faso, and the governments’ inability to protect communities.

The researchers highlighted that human rights violations and “real or perceived collective punishment of the [Fulani] community” by soldiers and affiliated militias and foreign military partners – including volunteers for the Defence of the homeland, Dozo hunters or Wagner Russian mercenaries – “weakens state legitimacy”.

Around three-quarters of the women interviewed reported acts of violence committed during counter-terrorism military operations which are “exploited” by JNIM – which presents itself as “more reliable protectors of women”, helping them recruit new members.

Increasing acceptance

The research found that some JNIM policies were popular, such as direct material aid – generally obtained through looting – and access to justice.

The group’s Sharia-based justice system was described as “faster, cheaper and more accessible than the state equivalent”.

Overall, the women’s perceptions of the JNIM tended to improve over time in areas where the jihadists are most entrenched and organised. However, the researchers note that “most women who said they appreciated the group’s provision of services did not equate this with support for its vision”.

There are accounts of women being beaten or whipped by jihadists enforcing Sharia law, followed by a gradual acceptance of these corporal punishments over the years.

Mali faces record number of kidnappings of foreigners by jihadist group

A few of the women admitted to helping JNIM by providing intelligence and logistical support.

According to the researchers, overall women’s perceptions of JNIM were “primarily negative”. Many had simply resigned themselves to the group’s presence and control, which, the study says, shows “an adaptation to life under the group’s dictates, rather than genuine radicalisation”.

However, researchers highlighted that their children, many of whom are growing up “without having lived under the state”, may have a different perspective.

“JNIM governance is altering social, generational, religious, behavioural and governance norms,” the authors wrote – presenting a challenge for future generations.

This article was adapted from the original version in French by David Baché.

The farm union Coordination Rurale has vowed to maintain the blockades until authorities halt the slaughter of entire herds where cases of the disease have been detected.

“This is a challenge we will take up with farmers: to vaccinate one million head of cattle as quickly as possible because that is the way to fight the disease, and this vaccination is crucial,” Genevard told Europe 1 radio. “I will go there tomorrow, as I did in Savoie, Haute-Savoie and the Jura, to attend the start of the vaccination campaign. It is a path of hope to avoid the culling of herds,” she added.

According to Vinci Autoroutes, traffic in the south-west remains heavily disrupted between Toulouse and Bayonne. The A64 motorway is partially closed, with farmers blocking lanes in the Basque Country and near Carbonne, the birthplace of the January 2024 farmers’ protest. Disruptions have also been reported on the A75 and national roads.

In the Gironde département, a convoy set off on Sunday morning from the south of Bordeaux towards the city. “The blockade is up; the motorway is littered with debris, and trailers are full of anything that can burn,” said Léon Thierry, co-president of Coordination Rurale in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, speaking to French press agency AFP by phone from the A64 between Briscous and Urt. “There were 400 to 500 people here on Saturday night, tractors are still arriving – we’re not ready to give up.”

Farmers clash with police in southwest France over mass cattle culls and trade fears

In the Rhône Valley, a blockade north of Montélimar was lifted shortly before 1 a.m. on Sunday, according to Louis Petiton Saint Mard, co-president of Coordination Rurale 26.

Since lumpy skin disease appeared in France in June, the government’s containment strategy has included the slaughter of affected herds, movement restrictions, and emergency vaccination within a 50-kilometre radius around outbreak sites.

An additional one million cattle will now be vaccinated across eight south-western départements designated as regulated zones, on top of the million already treated – at a cost of €20 million, according to the agriculture ministry.

(With newswires)

Faced with an increasingly threatening Russia, the continuing risk of terrorism and a United States administration that wants to pull back military support from Europe, France is looking to expand its military capacity, and recruiting more soldiers has become a necessity.

“Scale matters, and scale means equipment and munitions, but it also means people,” said Olivier Kempf, an army colonel and military analyst.

France has one of the best-equipped armies in the EU and the second-largest number of troops, after Poland, with 200,000 active duty personnel and around 45,000 reservists.

But Kempf said the three branches of the military have struggled to meet their full recruitment targets in recent years.

Legacy of conscription

To reach and top those targets, French President Emmanuel Macron last month announced a new, opt-in military service. Due to launch by mid-2026, it aims to recruit 3,000 18- and 19-year-olds in 2026, with the goal getting 50,000 participants by 2035.

Volunteers would serve in the army for 10 months in France and its overseas territories, but not in overseas combat zones. At the end of their service, they would have the option of joining the reserves, which France hopes to double to about 80,000 by 2030.

The programme would be paid – €800 to €1,000 a month, plus room and board – and could offer university credit.

It is the latest iteration of various military and civic programmes put in place since the end of France’s mandatory 10 months of national service in 1997.

Under a scheme begun in 1998, all French citizens aged 16 to 25 must complete a “day of defence and citizenship”, where they learn about the military and civic duties.

“The day is useful, both for the armies and for the young people, as it allows for a bit of discovery – but honestly, in one day you do not get trained. It’s just a meeting, like speed dating, if you will,” Kempf told RFI.

Military service: what does conscription look like across Europe?

Serving society or defence?

Even before France’s military needs became more urgent, there were calls to reinstate mandatory service in order to instill a sense of duty or discipline in young people.

“There is a bit of nostalgia from a generation that has not done its military service, and it is amazing – or scary, depending how you see it – to have politicians see military service as a kind of panacea that will solve all of society’s problems,” said Guillaume Lasconjarias, an associate professor of history at the Sorbonne University in Paris and head of research at France’s Institute for Advanced Studies in National Defence.

While national service may have helped create a common goal and structure for generations of young people, these were “byproducts” of a system intended to create soldiers, says Lascojarias, who has served as a reserve officer for over two decades after being part of the last generation to go through France’s mandatory military service.

“The use of a military service was first and foremost to provide capacity to fight back an enemy,” he explained.

“The discipline, the cohesion, the sense of purpose – all the ideas that we portray when we are talking about national conscription – was never the point of conscription.”

Listen to an interview with Guillaume Lasconjarias on the Spotlight on France podcast: 

France already has a limited voluntary military service scheme, introduced in 2015, that aims to teach rigour and professional skills to young people struggling to find work – though most participants do not go on to careers in the military.

Shorter programmes like the Civic Service, introduced in 2010, and the Universal National Service, created in 2019, also aim to promote social engagement among youngsters.

Young people are aware of the geopolitical shifts that are leading France to bolster its defences, and according to Lasconjarias, they are interested in contributing – perhaps more than their parents’ generation.

“Being a professor, I work with these young people quite a lot, and I observe that they are frightened about the status of the world, and they want to do something for their country – if not serve, they want to give back,” he said.

He noted that terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015 and Nice in 2016 prompted interest in the military reserves and in the army in general, which became more visible with the anti-terrorist Operation Sentinel patrolling French streets.

‘Elite’ service

For the new voluntary service to succeed, it must be presented as an elite opportunity, suggests Lasconjarias.

The pay and educational benefits could make it attractive in a way that mandatory service was not. “During the time of conscription, there was always the sense that when you were doing your military duty, you were losing time,” he said.

Incorporating a selection process also makes being picked for the new voluntary service a way for young people to distinguish themselves as they look to enter the job market.

“Because there will be a selection process, it might work as it does in the Nordic countries – where it is very competitive – and that might be an incentive, to have something to include on a CV later,” said Laconjarias.

“In a nutshell, we are enlarging the possibility of recruitment.”

Listen to an interview with Guillaume Lasconjarias on the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 136.

Authorities inaugurated the C1 line in the suburb of Limeil-Brevannes in the presence of Valerie Pecresse, the head of the Ile-de-France region, and the mayors of the towns served by the cable car.

The 4.5-kilometre route connects Creteil to Villeneuve-Saint-Georges and passes through Limeil-Brevannes and Valenton.

Historically used to cross rugged mountain terrain, such systems are increasingly being used to link up isolated neighbourhoods.

“It’s like skiing!” joked Ibrahim Bamba, a 20-year-old student who lives in Limeil-Brevannes which is not served by the Paris metro or any rail network.

“It’s the Alps on the Marne!” said Pecresse, referring to the department of Val-de-Marne located in the Grand Paris metropolis.

The cable car will carry some 11,000 passengers per day in its 105 gondolas, each able to accommodate ten passengers.

The total journey will take 18 minutes, including stops along the way, compared to around 40 minutes by bus or car, connecting the isolated neighbourhoods to the Paris metro’s line 8. A ride requires a bus ticket or travel pass used for the Paris metro.

“This is a great step forward in terms of transportation. The roads are often congested in the morning,” said Salimatou Bah, 52, who has lived in Limeil-Brevannes for thirteen years.

“We wondered if people would be hesitant, but I think it just takes a little time to adapt.”

‘Urban divides’

Pecresse said the project was the result of “a 10-year obstacle course.”

“We had to find the funding, convince local residents,” she said. “For the inhabitants of Val-de-Marne, it’s a sign of consideration.”

The 138-million-euro project was cheaper to build than a subway, officials said.

“An underground metro would never have seen the light of day because the budget of more than billion euros could never have been financed,” said Gregoire de Lasteyrie, vice-president of the Ile-de-France regional council in charge of transport.

Greater Paris region claims Olympic boost as tourist figures continue to rise

Each cabin can accommodate ten seated passengers as well as wheelchairs, bicycles, and strollers. Inside, video surveillance and emergency call buttons have been installed to ensure passenger safety in addition to staff at each station.

The cable car is a response to “urban divides” in neighbourhoods that were “lacking in terms of public transport,” said Metin Yavuz, mayor of Valenton, a town of 16,000 inhabitants.

It is France’s seventh urban cable car, with aerial tramways already operating in cities including Brest, Saint-Denis de La Reunion and Toulouse.

France’s first urban cable car was built in Grenoble, nestled at the foot of the Alps, in 1934. The iconic “bubbles” have become one of the symbols of the southeastern city.

Cable cars are considered one of the safest means of transport in the world.

In France, the last fatal accident occurred in 1999 in the Hautes-Alpes, when 20 people lost their lives.

(With newswires)

The Paris Saint-Germain star was injured on 4 November when Bayern Munich striker Luis Diaz tackled him during the Champions League clash between the sides.

Hakimi was helped off the pitch at the Parc des Princes in Paris, with tests then showing he had suffered a severe sprain to his left ankle.

Speaking after the 2026 World Cup draw in Washington on 5 December, Regragui said: “We hope Hakimi will be available for our first match against the Comoros. He’s working as hard as he possibly can to be ready. He wants to be there in Morocco.”

Revealing the squad and Hakimi’s inclusion, Regragui added: “The choices I’ve made are the results of 18 months of hard work and reflection. There’s never total agreement about who should be in or out of the squad.”

Morocco bosses lodge complaint over officiating in World Cup semi against France

Hakimi, along with fellow defenders Nayef Aguerd and Noussair Mazraoui, goalkeeper Yassine Bounou, midfielder Sofyan Amrabat and striker Youssef En-Nesyri form the backbone of a team that has been tipped for victory at the 35th Africa Cup of Nations.

The biennial competition kicks off with Morocco’s game on 21 December at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat against Comores.

The hosts will take on Mali five days later and Zambia on 29 December in the pool stages.

Semi-finalists at the 2022 World Cup, Morocco were surprisingly knocked out by South Africa in the last 16 at the 2023 Cup of Nations in Cote d’Ivoire.

But since that disappointment they have regrouped, and are entering the tournament on the back of a world record 18-game unbeaten streak.

The tournament comes a few months after the under-20 side swept past the likes of France and Argentina to claim the World Cup in Chile.

Regragui, who played in the Morocco side that lost in the 2004 Cup of Nations final against Tunisia, has resisted the temptation to promote several stars from the World Cup-winning squad.

“The group I’ve named knows each other well,” Regragui told the Moroccan football federation website. “The players know the system and how they’re supposed to operate and behave in a competition setting. There are youngsters in the squad and there’s a good balance between youth and experience.”

On Friday, Mali unveiled its list of players for the tournament, where coach Tom Saintfiet will attempt to take the side to its first title at the Cup of Nations.

In 2023, under Eric Chelle, Mali’s campaign ended in the last eight. They played more than 60 minutes of their quarter final against Cote d’Ivoire with an extra man following the dismissal of Odilon Kossounou.

But the hosts scored an equaliser in the dying seconds of regulation time and, as a penalty shootout loomed, claimed the winner with virtually the last kick of extra time to steal a place in the semi-finals.

PSG and Morocco defender Achraf Hakimi claims 2025 Prix Marc-Vivien Foé

Nearly two years on, Chelle oversees Nigeria’s footballing fortunes. The 48-year-old failed to steer the squad to the 2026 World Cup and will be seeking redemption at the Cup of Nations.

Nigeria, who are in Group C with Tunisia, Tanzania and Uganda, will play all of their first round matches in Fez in northern Morocco.

“Our players are suffering and we must find a cure,” said Chelle. “Instead of hurting, we must hurt our opponents.”

Striker Victor Osimhen added: “Nigerians keep telling us we are a golden generation. But we have now failed twice in succession to qualify for the World Cup. If we are that good, how come we keep failing? Our squad is packed with great Nigerians playing for some of the best clubs in Europe. The time has come to translate that greatness into trophies.”

Under the monarchy, the Catholic Church held major privileges and played a central role in society. The French Revolution of 1789 upended this order. Revolutionaries nationalised church property and required priests to swear allegiance to the new republic. Those who refused were persecuted.

Napoleon later tried to ease tensions by signing the Concordat of 1801 with Pope Pius VII. The state recognised Catholicism as the faith of most French people, but also recognised Reformed Protestant, Lutheran and Jewish communities. It appointed bishops and paid the clergy.

This system lasted throughout the 1800s but kept tensions high – particularly under the Third Republic, when republicans viewed the church as blocking modern reforms and supporting conservative forces.

French court orders town to remove statue of Virgin Mary

The scandal that paved the path

In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery officer from Alsace, was wrongly convicted of treason and sent to a penal colony in French Guiana. This miscarriage of justice split the country. On one side stood Dreyfusards, who defended his innocence in the name of justice and truth. On the other, the anti-Dreyfusards refused to question military authority.

The Catholic Church strongly backed nationalist, anti-Dreyfusard groups and relayed anti-Semitic arguments in the press. This shocked republicans, who questioned how the church could oppose the values of justice, equality and truth.

Many concluded that as long as it held influence over institutions and political life, it posed a danger to democracy.

Aristide Briand gained prominence during this period. A lawyer, journalist and moderate socialist, he was elected as an MP in 1902 after a campaign dominated by religious questions.

Prime minister Émile Combes initially avoided any reform, despite pressure from the republican majority. But rising tensions with the Vatican changed his stance. He created a commission on separation, with Briand as rapporteur.

From March 1905, Briand orchestrated one of the longest and most passionate debates in French parliamentary history. Two visions of France faced each other: one monarchist and Catholic, the other republican and secular.

Briand chose the middle way and pushed for compromise, rather than confrontation.

“We are not making a law against religious worship, we are making a law of freedom,” he said. His aim was to guarantee freedom of conscience and equality before the state without persecuting religions.

The word laïcité, or secularism, does not appear in the 1905 text, which uses only the term separation.

However, the first two articles set out the founding principles of today’s laïcité: the state must stay neutral towards all religions, favour none, finance none and prohibit religious expression in public institutions. The term secularism entered the constitution in 1946.

‘Growing number’ of French schoolgirls flouting secularism rules

Violence over inventories

Many Catholics saw the 1905 law as a tragedy and refused to accept it. Church property had to be transferred to new religious associations, which required a full inventory of buildings and objects. State agents entered churches and presbyteries to draw up reports, and many faithful viewed the inventories as a desecration of sacred places.

Prefects were told to enforce the law while avoiding clashes, but violence still broke out. Bloody incidents occurred in Haute-Loire and in the Nord region near the Belgian border.

Géry Ghysel, a 35-year-old butcher and father of three, died in the village church of Boeschèpe, in the Nord department, during an inventory that turned violent.

On 11 February, 1906, less than two months after the law’s adoption, Pope Pius X issued a fierce response. In his encyclical Vehementer Nos, he condemned the separation of church and state.

“That the state must be separated from the church is an absolutely false thesis, a most pernicious error,” he said, adding that it was “gravely insulting to God, for the creator of man is also the founder of human societies and he preserves them in existence as he sustains us”.

Diplomatic relations remained broken until 1921.

Top French court upholds ban on Muslim abaya robes in schools

Exceptions in Alsace-Moselle

The 1905 law was not applied in Alsace-Moselle, which was then under German rule, having been annexed after France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871.

When the region was returned to France in 1918, the 1905 law still did not apply there, and still today the Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin and Moselle departments have retained local rules inherited from the 1801 Concordat, which had defined the relationship between the French State and the Catholic Church.

Priests, pastors and rabbis are paid by the state through the interior ministry, and religious education remains compulsory in public schools in the region.

The 1905 law devotes very few articles to public education, since secularisation of schools had already begun with the Jules Ferry laws of 1882, which removed religious teaching and replaced it with moral instruction.

By 1886, teaching posts were held only by lay staff. The Ligue de l’Enseignement, created in 1866, became a major supporter of a free, secular and compulsory school system and built a wide network of cultural and educational activities as an alternative to Catholic youth groups.

Modern battles

With social change, debate over religion in public spaces – especially in schools – has remained intense.

In 1989, several Muslim pupils were suspended from a school in Creil, north of Paris, for refusing to remove their headscarves. More such cases followed.

On 17 December, 2003, then president Jacques Chirac called for a stronger defence of secularism amid rising demands from religious and community groups.

A law adopted in March 2004 and applied from the following school year banned conspicuous religious signs in public schools, including headscarves, kippas and large crosses.

French court issues severe sentences to those linked to beheading of teacher Samuel Paty

After the January 2015 terrorist attacks at the office of Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Cacher supermarket, then education minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem reaffirmed the importance of secularism. She established national Secularism Day on 9 December and introduced new moral and civic education guidelines.

The murder of history and geography teacher Samuel Paty on 16 October, 2020, after he used Charlie Hebdo satirical cartoons in a class on laïcité and press freedom, marked a turning point. Schools had become targets for extremists because of the secular values they defend.

In August 2021, the 1905 law was amended with the tightening of controls on organisations and places of worship, particularly with regards to foreign funding – presented as a way to combat radical Islamism and other forms of separatism.

This article was adapted from the original version in French by Patricia Blettery.

Poland, a strong supporter of Ukraine in its fight against Moscow, announced plans in May last year to bolster a long stretch of its border that includes Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

The main task of the German soldiers in Poland will be “engineering activities,” a spokesman for the defence ministry in Berlin said late Friday.

This could include “constructing fortifications, digging trenches, laying barbed wire, or erecting tank barriers,” he said.

“The support provided by German soldiers as part of (the operation) is limited to these engineering activities.”

The spokesman did not specify the exact number of troops involved, saying only it would be a “mid-range two-digit number”.

Failing economy, rising far right and Ukraine war define Germany’s divisive elections

They are expected to participate in the project from the second quarter of 2026 until the end of 2027.

The spokesman stressed that parliamentary approval was not needed for the deployment as “there is no immediate danger to the soldiers from military conflicts”.

Except for certain exceptional cases, the German parliament has to approve the deployment of the country’s armed forces overseas.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Warsaw has staunchly backed Kyiv and been a transit route for arms being supplied by Ukraine’s Western allies.

Warsaw has also modernised its army and hiked defence spending.

Germany is Ukraine’s second-biggest supplier of military aid after the United States and has sent Kyiv a huge quantity of equipment ranging from air defence systems to armoured vehicles.

（With newswires)

Emmanuelle Pouedras’s son, Clément, was 15 when he died in 2024 after jumping from a bridge.

His mother, a 55-year-old shopkeeper from in Brittany, north-western France, and her husband Sébastien are now seeking to reopen the investigation into his death and to hold social media companies to account.

In September, they filed a complaint against TikTok, Meta (the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) and other platforms, alleging offences including incitement to suicide.

“The vast majority of the videos on his TikTok ‘For You’ page [where the platform’s algorithm recommends content] were inciting him to death, telling him he doesn’t matter to anyone,” Pouedras told reporters at her home in the coastal town of Lorient.

EU accuses Meta and TikTok of breaching social media transparency rules

She said this content, some of which dealt with self-harm, “exacerbated” her son’s distress and fuelled a “downward spiral”.

“Tiktok knew he wasn’t doing well, TikTok did nothing and TikTok is not helping us find the truth,” she said, accusing the platform of failing to act despite warning signs.

Pouedras also said her son was cyberbullied on WhatsApp right up until the final hours before his death.

This week, she was among a group who met with French President Emmanuel Macron in Saint-Malo to discuss the challenges social media poses to democracy and society, as France considers tightening restrictions on young people’s access to social media.

This could include a ban for under-15s, similar to a landmark move which came into force in Australia on Wednesday.

Macron told the crowd that a bill could be debated in parliament as early as January to ban social media for anyone under “15 or 16 years old”.

Pouedras pressed the president on what immediate measures prosecutors and platforms could take “to support bereaved families”.

Macron pushes for new legislation to rapidly block digital disinformation

‘Incitement’ to death

Even before Clément’s death, Pouedras said she was cautious about the risks of unrestricted smartphone use, and had a rule that her two children had to leave their phones outside their bedrooms at night.

During the investigation into Clément’s death, police did not examine his phone. She later discovered messages indicating sustained cyberbullying.

“Have you finished your shitty suicide?” read one message sent in a WhatsApp group chat, she said.

Pouedras spent months trying to contact platforms including Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok to access her son’s data and understand what led to his death.

She said she received only partial responses, despite platforms being required to grant access under French law, according to the country’s data protection authority, the CNIL.

The family filed a formal complaint on 19 September. Their lawyer, Pierre Debuisson, accused the platforms of “deliberate obstruction”, arguing that social media sites had become the scene of “multiple incitements to suicide, accessible to minors without any protective filter”.

The regional public prosecutor’s office has not said what action it will take in response.

TikTok told French news agency AFP that it “strictly prohibits content that depicts or promotes suicide or self-harm” and said it removes 98 percent of such content before it is reported.

Searches containing terms such as “suicide” are redirected to a page offering dedicated support resources, it added.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

TikTok under scrutiny as toxic videos reach young users within minutes

‘Take back control’

The case comes amid growing international concern over the impact of social media on young people’s mental health.

In September, a French parliamentary commission investigating the psychological effects of TikTok recommended banning social media for children under 15 and introducing a “digital curfew” for 15 to 18-year-olds.

The commission was launched in March after seven families sued TikTok in late 2024, accusing the platform of exposing their children to content that could encourage suicide.

This week, Australia became the first country to ban under-16s from social media altogether, saying it was time to “take back control” from powerful technology companies – a move that has been condemned by YouTube, Meta and other industry giants.

For Pouedras, the debate is painfully personal.

“I don’t want other families to go through what we’re living through,” she said. “If this fight can save even one child, then it matters.”

(with AFP)

Earth has warmed by about 0.46C since the deal was signed and the past decade has been the hottest on record. Scientists say governments have not moved fast enough to break dependence on coal, oil and gas, even though the accord has helped lower long-term temperature forecasts.

Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, warned that the gap between action and impacts has grown as temperatures continue to rise and extreme weather intensifies.

“I think it’s important that we’re honest with the world and we declare failure,” he said, adding that climate harms are arriving faster and more severely than expected.

Other voices point to progress the agreement has helped drive. Former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said momentum has exceeded expectations.

“We’re actually in the direction that we established in Paris at a speed that none of us could have predicted,” Figueres said. The pace of worsening weather, she added, now outstrips efforts to cut emissions.

UN agencies have also warned that the world is not keeping up. UN Environment Programme head Inger Andersen said the world is “obviously falling behind”.

“We’re sort of sawing the branch on which we are sitting,” Andersen said.

Indigenous knowledge steers new protections for the high seas

Rising heat, rising losses

Each year since the Paris deal has been hotter than 2015.

Deadly heat waves have struck India, the Middle East, the Pacific Northwest and Siberia. Wildfires have burned across Hawaii, California, Europe and Australia. Severe floods have hit Pakistan, China and the American South.

Researchers say many of these disasters show signs of human-driven warming.

More than 7 trillion tonnes of ice have melted from glaciers and the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets since 2015. Sea levels have risen by 40 millimetres over the decade.

Research in medical journal The Lancet warns global economic losses tied to extreme weather reached about $304 billion last year.

Global greenhouse gas emissions reached a record 53.2 gigatons last year. Two-thirds came from China, the United States, the European Union, India, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil and Japan. Only the EU and Japan cut their annual totals.

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

Green power

The past decade has seen progress in other respects, notably renewable energy.

Renewables now supply 40 percent of global electricity and overtook coal in the first half of the year, with wind and solar covering all new demand.

According to UN assessments cited in expert analyses, solar is now 41 percent cheaper than fossil fuels and onshore wind is 53 percent cheaper. Clean-energy investment surpassed $2 trillion in 2024, double fossil-fuel spending.

Electric vehicle sales have climbed from about 1 percent of global car sales in 2015 to nearly a quarter.

“There’s no stopping it,” said Todd Stern, a former US special climate envoy who helped negotiate the Paris deal. “You cannot hold back the tides.”

Yet fossil fuels still supply about 80 percent of global energy, the same share as in 2015.

Niue, the tiny island selling the sea to save it from destruction

A narrowing window

Without the Paris deal, scientists say the world may have headed for about 4C of warming by 2100.

Existing national plans point to roughly 2.3C to 2.5C if fully delivered. Current pledges would cut emissions by about 10 percent between 2019 and 2035.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s climate science body, says they need to fall by 60 percent by 2035 to keep the 1.5C limit in reach.

Developed countries pledged $300 billion a year by 2035 at Cop29 in Baku last year, far below what developing nations say they need.

“The Paris Agreement itself has underperformed,” said Joanna Depledge, a climate negotiations historian at the University of Cambridge.

“Unfortunately, it is one of those half-full, half-empty situations where you can’t say it’s failed. But then nor can you say it’s dramatically succeeded.”

(with newswires)

RFI: The 1.5C threshold has divided governments. Some say it is unattainable, while others see it as political. Small island states defend it strongly. As a scientist and an islander, how do you see it?

Adelle Thomas: The 1.5C threshold is critical for small islands. The special IPCC report showed clearly and unequivocally that risks rise sharply as we pass 1.5C, especially for small islands and least developed countries. Going beyond 1.5C could even make some islands unable to exist in the future, particularly because of sea level rise.

RFI: Can you give an example for the Bahamas?

AT: We rely heavily on coral reefs. They protect our shores from erosion and storms. At 1.5C, about 90 percent of coral reefs may die. At 2C, that rises to 99 percent. It is serious at 1.5C and becomes existential at 2C.

For sea level rise, going past 1.5C means several metres of rise over the coming centuries. In the far future, the sea could be high enough to cover our islands.

In 2019 Hurricane Dorian was the most intense storm ever to hit the Bahamas. It completely destroyed my grandparents’ house. Only a toilet was left standing. The mangroves on their property were destroyed and have not recovered. Their settlement has still not recovered six years later.

It shows how destructive these hurricanes have become and how long recovery takes. Some communities never recover. This is why 1.5C matters so much for underserved communities.

You also see the effects in everyday life: stronger hurricanes, severe coastal erosion, beaches that have vanished, and homes that are repeatedly flooded and losing value. The impacts are already clear.

RFI: At the latest climate talks, the role of science became a point of tension. What happened?

AT: This Cop was very contentious about the role of science. Some countries questioned whether the IPCC should continue to be referred to as the best available science. Others tried to undermine the science altogether.

It reflects what we see in places where leaders discount science and climate change. These attacks often aim to weaken the pressure to cut emissions. Countries that know the science is real, that see the impacts and know they must act, need to push back.

RFI: The US administration has also blocked federal agencies from contributing to the next report. Does that affect your work?

AT: Yes. The US National Climate Assessment, which normally informs the North America chapter, has been cancelled. Without it, we have fewer studies to assess and a less complete picture of what is happening in the United States and in places where the US funds research. If the report were being written today, it would be a major gap, though other publications may eventually fill it.

‘Climate whiplash’: East Africa caught between floods and drought

RFI: Should carbon capture and storage be deployed at scale to keep the 1.5C goal alive?

AT: Carbon capture and storage is complicated. There are negative effects. In the report we will identify the trade-offs and benefits and assess whether it does more harm than good. I cannot say whether we should or should not deploy it, but it is essential that if we overshoot 1.5C we come back below it.

RFI: So technology will be essential?

AT: It may be, but there are other pathways that do not rely on it. These are political choices. Do we want to get rid of fossil fuels? Do we want electric vehicles? Do we want better energy efficiency? There are many things we can do to change behaviour and how we use and produce energy rather than relying on new technologies alone.

RFI: Is capitalism compatible with fighting global warming?

AT: I do not think it is. Our economic models and our way of interacting with nature have brought us to this crisis. If we do not rethink how we behave, we will keep going in the same direction. That is why this IPCC cycle is bringing in indigenous and local knowledge, which offers different ways of seeing the world beyond consume and discard.

Experts come from everywhere, so there is no single view. This is my personal view. The IPCC assesses what is in the literature, and there is a lot of research on this.

Cameroon’s indigenous Baka sing to save their vanishing forest home

RFI: Has the Paris Agreement failed or should we see the glass as half full?

AT: As a small islander, it is hard to see the glass as half full when water is drowning our communities. We have known for decades that global warming would hit those who contributed least to the crisis.

The Paris Agreement has bent the curve but it is not enough. We need to put our actions behind the political and flowery statements in the Agreement. We need political will to meet 1.5C.

RFI: Cop30 was meant to put adaptation at the centre. Did it meet your expectations?

AT: Personally, no. I am glad there is a new goal on adaptation finance, but developing countries wanted it by 2030. It will only be in place by 2035, which delays funding. It is a compromise.

And the basis for tripling adaptation finance is vague. Negotiations changed the language of indicators that experts had spent two years developing, making some of them unusable. Now we have another two-year process to try to make them useful. It is one step forward and half a step back.

RFI: You work in US political life. What is the atmosphere like in Congress under an administration at war with climate science?

AT: It is very sombre and very uncertain. Environmental protections that help people and nature are being rolled back in favour of oil and gas. It is disheartening to see safeguards that NGOs spent decades building being dismantled. The silver lining is at state and local level. Cities and states still have powers, and we focus on helping them push climate action.

This administration is temporary. I would not say I am optimistic, but I am neutral. Everything is temporary, including this administration.

International climate experts gather in Paris to begin 7th UN report

RFI: Some said at Cop30 that multilateralism has won. Do you agree?

AT: We did reach an agreement. It was not very ambitious, but it was an agreement.

Multilateralism has highs and lows. If we keep moving in a generally positive direction, even with small steps, that is progress.

RFI: Could you explain tipping points and what overshooting 1.5C might mean?

AT: We need more research on tipping points, when they might occur and whether they can be avoided if we go over 1.5C and come back. A major concern is tipping points in the cryosphere that could lead to multi-metre sea level rise in the far future.

The sixth assessment report showed this is an area of high uncertainty because there is not enough literature to say exactly when a tipping point is reached. There is so much money put into researching these questions. If we put as much money and attention into not exceeding 1.5C or coming back down, that would be even more useful.

This interview by RFI’s Géraud Bosman-Delzons has been lightly edited for clarity.

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

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

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

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

Go to our website and get started! At the top of the page, click on “Test level”, and you’ll be counselled 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.  

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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 8 November, I asked you a question about an article sent to us by RFI English correspondent Michael Sarpong Mfum, who reports for us from Ghana. His article, “Invasive water hyacinths choke wildlife and livelihoods in southern Ghana”, is about the water hyacinth, a free-floating aquatic plant native to the Amazon River basin in South America. It’s also one of the world’s most invasive species.

The water hyacinth has found its way to Ghana, notably Lake Volta, a vast reservoir behind a hydroelectric dam that generates much of the country’s power.

Your question was: What are the consequences for Ghana’s Eastern and Volta regions from this hyacinth invasion? What did Jewel Kudjawu, the director of the EPA’s Intersectoral Network Department, warn about?

The answer is, to quote Michael’s article: “Jewel Kudjawu, director of the EPA’s Intersectoral Network Department, warned that the weed’s uncontrolled growth has dire consequences for aquatic life, fishing communities and hydropower production.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question: What was the best week of your life?

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

The winners are: RFI Listeners Club member Radhakrishna Pillai from Kerala State, India. Radhakrishna is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations on your double win, Radhakrishna.

Be sure and look at The Sound Kitchen and the RFI English Listeners Forum Facebook pages to see the stamps from Bhutan with Radhakrishna’s picture!

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Debjani Biswas, a member of the RFI Pariwar Bandhu SWL Club in Chhattisgarh, India, and RFI Listeners Club member Mahfuzur Rahman from Cumilla, Bangladesh. Rounding out the list are RFI English listeners Shihabur Rahaman Sadman from Naogaon, Bangladesh, and Bashir Ahmad, a member of the International Radio Fan and Youth Club in Khanewal, Pakistan.

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: Music for the Royal Fireworks by George Frederick Handel, performed by Le Concert des Nations conducted by Jordi Savall; “Igbo Highlife”, produced by Mr. Zion; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “Lança Perfume” by Roberto de Carvalho and Rita Lee, sung by Rita Lee.

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 Jan van der Made’s article “EU Council president rejects political influence in US security plan”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 26 January to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 31 January 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.

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Accepting the top award on an LA stage on Thursday, Sandfall Interactive founder Guillaume Broche appeared both delighted and stunned.

“What a weird timeline for us,” he quipped, before thanking his team and paying tribute to what he called the industry’s “unsung heroes”.

“And also I want to extend thanks to the unsung heroes of this industry – the people who make tutorials on YouTube on how to make a game – because we had no idea how to make a game before,” Broche said, drawing laughter and applause from the audience.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – the first game from the French studio – tells the story of a small group of characters fighting seemingly impossible odds in a post-apocalyptic world rendered in a distinctly French visual style.

The game was nominated in more categories than any other title this year and emerged victorious in many of them, despite stiff competition from major releases such as Death Stranding 2 by industry legend Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear Solid fame, and Nintendo’s Donkey Kong Bananza.

The project began life in 2020 as a personal idea from Broche, who was then working as a developer at French gaming giant Ubisoft.

That same year, he teamed up with former colleague Tom Guillermin to form Sandfall Interactive in the southern French city of Montpellier.

Digital purrfection: how French-developed video game ‘Stray’ has cats transfixed

‘Thank you to the players’

A turning point came in 2022, when the fledgling studio struck a publishing deal with UK-based Kepler Interactive, securing the funding needed to bring the ambitious project to life.

Since its release in April this year, around 5 million copies of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 have been sold worldwide.

“This is a passion project into which we poured our heart and soul,” Broche said in a video, standing alongside members of his team. “To be rewarded like this is just wonderful.”

Broche also gave a “massive thank you” to players, whose enthusiasm has helped propel the game from indie debut to global success.

This grassroots popularity has been visible at conventions and game fairs, where fans have turned up dressed in a striped Breton shirt and red beret – one of the most stereotypically French outfits available for characters in the game.

‘Twitching’, live streaming and video games – the future of French entertainment?

From Belle Époque Paris to global success

Set in the city of Lumière – which bears a striking resemblance to Belle Époque Paris – the action-packed story follows a group of heroes determined to defeat a powerful entity threatening their home.

While unmistakably French in tone and aesthetics, the game also draws clear inspiration from Japanese titles such as the long-running Final Fantasy franchise.

Clair Obscur is a role-playing game built around turn-based combat, pitting players against monsters inhabiting its richly imagined world.

Its popularity has been driven by a blend of emotional storytelling, endearing characters and inventive gameplay, notably the introduction of reactive rhythm-based elements that allow players to parry enemy attacks in time with the action.

Sandfall’s achievement did not go unnoticed within the industry. “Sandfall managed to present something really polished and go toe to toe with major titles,” industry specialist Benoit Reinier told reporters at the time of the game’s release.

France’s international Vivatech fair shows off world pioneers of Web3 frontier

Their success has already attracted attention beyond the gaming world. French President Emmanuel Macron hailed the team in May, thanking them for “putting the spotlight on French-style boldness and creativity”.

There are plans in the works to adapt the Expedition 33 story for the big screen.

The awards ceremony itself reflected the growing global reach of the games industry. Streamed across 30 platforms – including Amazon Prime for the first time – the show was packed with trailers for upcoming titles such as Star Wars and Tomb Raider, alongside celebrity appearances including Jason Momoa, who is set to appear in a Street Fighter film due for release next year.

(with AFP)

According to authorities, two police officers were slightly injured when law enforcement used tear gas to disperse demonstrators occupying sections of the A64 motorway near Lescar and Carbonne.

The motorway was partially closed as dozens of tractors formed barricades and farmers said they would maintain the blockade through the weekend.

The protests mark a surge of anger across France’s farming sector, already under pressure from successive animal health crises and mounting economic strain.

Earlier this week, veterinary teams, accompanied by police, culled 207 cows in the département of Ariège after a new outbreak was detected.

French farmers protest over compulsory cattle culls amid disease outbreak

Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard defended the measures as “the only way to save the entire livestock sector.”

But the Confédération paysanne union condemned the government’s approach as “more frightening than the disease itself,” calling for nationwide blockades and widespread vaccination instead of mass slaughter.

The crisis coincides with renewed cases of avian flu in the Landes region, a key poultry‑producing area. Farmers are also warning of the potential impact of the pending EU‑Mercosur trade agreement, which they fear would open the door to unfair competition from South American producers operating under looser standards.

With possible cuts to EU farm subsidies under discussion and France facing a trade deficit for the first time in half a century, rural discontent is showing no sign of abating.

(With newswires)

RFI: What is your impression of Diary of a Prisoner?

Philippe Moreau-Chevrolet: Nicolas Sarkozy leans heavily on emotion and this fits with his wider media defence strategy, which aims to strengthen his legal defence. He starts talking about his conviction almost straight away, so there is clearly a wish to protect his image for the future – since this is the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic that a president has been sent to prison.

The book focuses on injustice, but it is not a self-pitying story. By bringing in The Count of Monte Cristo – the Alexandre Dumas novel about a man seeking revenge after an unjust conviction, one of the two books he took to La Santé prison in Paris – he shapes the story as one of vengeance.

Former French president Sarkozy released from prison, pending appeal

He places himself in a future where he has won his legal battles and taken revenge for this humiliation.

From the start he also repeatedly invokes a comparison with Christ. Firstly, that speaks to right-wing voters. But it is also a way of saying he has sacrificed himself. It is a story of trial, suffering, sacrifice and revenge. It is not about redemption. This matches his legal defence, because he cannot say anything else without incriminating himself.

At the end, he even writes: “I started my life again.” The idea is he has been reborn stronger, more mature, more serious. This also has a therapeutic role for him – letting go of this episode and showing where he stands today. It is a story of rebirth.

He also says he already knew he would be released at his appeal hearing, so he went jogging and stayed active straight away. For him, the key is to show he is still in fighting mode.

RFI: Can the release of the book be seen as a well-orchestrated communication exercise?

PMC: For him, this is a long-term fight. The aim is to make himself heard as much as possible, with every tool available. He appeals to public opinion through dramatic moments – the people who accompanied him to prison, the gathering of his supporters, his many statements in the press.

It creates an emotional build-up around him to maximise attention and cast the accused in a favourable light. In the end this is a frontal attack on the judiciary and on those who accuse Nicolas Sarkozy, using the most forceful approach possible because of how serious the situation is.

RFI: The book was published by Fayard, a publishing house owned by conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré…

PMC: Yes, there are opportunistic strategies at work. On the far-right side there is clearly an attempt to capture this Sarkozy moment and his electorate. That is what is at stake for 2027. The strategy for Marine Le Pen and for Bolloré’s media is to take up the defence of the former head of state and pull those voters towards them.

The National Rally is increasingly aligned, under Jordan Bardella, with the communication and campaign methods of the American far right – judges are enemies, adversaries, elites to bring down, and a conviction can make you look like a hero.

For the far-right electorate, Nicolas Sarkozy’s conviction is not a negative thing. It can even attract support.

Sarkozy is also trying to win over that electorate for future elections. In his book he even calls for a “rally” with the National Rally. This could become a point of convergence between the two forces, assuming Nicolas Sarkozy still carries real weight, which is hard to judge today.

The fall of France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, from palace to prison

RFI: Could the memoir’s release influence Sarkozy’s political agenda and his return to public life?

PMC: The book gives him a platform to communicate, appear in the media and get people talking again. It should give him some room to manoeuvre and a bit of airtime to influence the 2027 election. It puts him back in the political debate, because when he talks about the National Rally he pushes an agenda about recovering far-right voters and uniting the right.

He cannot do anything other than step back into his role as a political figure. Stopping now would look like admitting defeat. He is not ready for that. He does not want to lose his reputation or his influence. This is also typical of Sarkozy-style communication.

I am thinking of Rachida Dati, who gave a speech on the steps of the Élysée in heels five days after giving birth. It is a staged image of resilience, comeback and invincibility that is part of their communication code.

RFI: The book was published in record time, and Sarkozy posted on social media: “The end of the story remains to be written.” Is this an attempt to divert attention from his conviction?

PMC: It is mostly a way to frame the debate and shape how the public sees this episode. That is his whole aim.

He is releasing the book quickly to try to control the story before others define it. Speed matters – not letting others talk first and taking part in building the narrative rather than suffering it.

As with all media defence strategies in legal cases, the goal is to make sure the public hears the accused’s version first and identifies with it as much as possible. The reasons for the charges and the trial fade into the background.

This is a classic defence strategy: victimisation, challenging the media and the judges, and presenting his own truth. Repetition is key. He will repeat the same message in the media, in the book, everywhere, so that his version becomes dominant.

The reasons for the conviction are very complex – the investigation file is 400 pages long. Faced with a very simple and emotional message – the book – the competition [between the two narratives] is inevitably unequal.

This interview was adpated from the original version in French by Caroline Renaux.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Go to our website and get started! At the top of the page, click on “Test level”, and you’ll be counselled 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 8 November, I asked you a question about an article sent to us by RFI English correspondent Michael Sarpong Mfum, who reports for us from Ghana. His article, “Invasive water hyacinths choke wildlife and livelihoods in southern Ghana”, is about the water hyacinth, a free-floating aquatic plant native to the Amazon River basin in South America. It’s also one of the world’s most invasive species.

The water hyacinth has found its way to Ghana, notably Lake Volta, a vast reservoir behind a hydroelectric dam that generates much of the country’s power.

Your question was: What are the consequences for Ghana’s Eastern and Volta regions from this hyacinth invasion? What did Jewel Kudjawu, the director of the EPA’s Intersectoral Network Department, warn about?

The answer is, to quote Michael’s article: “Jewel Kudjawu, director of the EPA’s Intersectoral Network Department, warned that the weed’s uncontrolled growth has dire consequences for aquatic life, fishing communities and hydropower production.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question: What was the best week of your life?

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

The winners are: RFI Listeners Club member Radhakrishna Pillai from Kerala State, India. Radhakrishna is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations on your double win, Radhakrishna.

Be sure and look at The Sound Kitchen and the RFI English Listeners Forum Facebook pages to see the stamps from Bhutan with Radhakrishna’s picture!

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Debjani Biswas, a member of the RFI Pariwar Bandhu SWL Club in Chhattisgarh, India, and RFI Listeners Club member Mahfuzur Rahman from Cumilla, Bangladesh. Rounding out the list are RFI English listeners Shihabur Rahaman Sadman from Naogaon, Bangladesh, and Bashir Ahmad, a member of the International Radio Fan and Youth Club in Khanewal, Pakistan.

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: Music for the Royal Fireworks by George Frederick Handel, performed by Le Concert des Nations conducted by Jordi Savall; “Igbo Highlife”, produced by Mr. Zion; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “Lança Perfume” by Roberto de Carvalho and Rita Lee, sung by Rita Lee.

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 Jan van der Made’s article “EU Council president rejects political influence in US security plan”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 26 January to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 31 January 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. 

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has warned that journalists are facing increasing dangers worldwide, with Israel emerging as the most lethal country for media workers for the third year running.

In its annual report, the Paris-based watchdog says 67 journalists were killed over the past 12 months – and almost half of them died in Gaza at the hands of Israeli forces.

Twenty-nine Palestinian journalists were killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the reporting period, alongside what RSF calls “a whole strategy” by Israeli authorities that has severely restricted reporting on the conflict.

The NGO’s director Thibaud Bruttin told RFI that the pattern of deaths in Gaza cannot be dismissed as the tragic fallout of war.

“There has been a whole strategy that has been put in place since October 2023,” he explained.

“First, there has been the decision to block the entry of Gaza to international journalists. Second, there has been a unit set up within the Israel Defence Forces to smear Palestinian journalists… and then we’ve seen massive strikes against journalists, which have been actually claimed as targeted strikes by the IDF.”

RSF says nearly 220 journalists have been killed since the Gaza war began in late 2023. Of those, the organisation believes 56 have been deliberately targeted.

Bruttin stressed that RSF is not including people loosely associated with Hamas in that count, as some Israeli officials have claimed.

“We’re talking about journalists – reporters who have been working, some of them for years, with respected international outlets – and these independent reporters have been deliberately targeted by the IDF.”

The report also highlights one of the deadliest attacks on media workers this year – a so-called ‘double-tap’ strike on a hospital in south Gaza on 25 August, which killed five journalists, including contributors to news agencies Reuters and the Associated Press.

French unions take Israel to court for restricting media access to Gaza

Information blackout

A key concern for RSF is the ongoing block on independent media access to Gaza. Foreign reporters can only enter on tightly controlled military tours, despite sustained calls from media groups and press freedom organisations.

The Foreign Press Association in Israel has taken the matter to court, challenging the IDF’s decision to deny access.

Bruttin said the case has reached a critical point. “There has been an intermediary decision by the Supreme Court… and we’re expecting any time in the coming weeks a decision which should, we hope, enable the press to enter.”

He added that a combination of the restrictions and IDF smear campaigns has cooled global solidarity with Palestinian journalists.

“The smear campaign … has had an impact on the solidarity among the profession,” he said. “It has been very hard to attract the attention of news media globally, and these news media outlets have been very timid in voicing concern over the fate of Palestinian journalists.”

But the scale of the recent strikes appears to have shifted sentiment. According to Bruttin, the deadly attacks of 10 and 25 August prompted “an uptick in the interest of media around this”, allowing RSF to launch a major drive on 1 September that “blew away the smear campaign of the IDF”.

With a fragile ceasefire now in place, he hopes momentum will grow around reopening access to Gaza and restoring independent reporting.

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

Beyond the Middle East

While Gaza dominates the headlines, RSF’s report shows that the risks for journalists are a global concern.

Mexico remains one of the world’s most perilous environments for reporters, despite government pledges of greater protection. Nine journalists were killed there in 2025 – the deadliest year in at least three years.

Bruttin warns that the danger is spreading across Latin America. “The phenomenon has extended beyond the borders of Mexico,” he said. “We’ve seen journalists killed in Honduras, in Guatemala, in Peru, in Ecuador, in Colombia.”

Around a quarter of all journalists killed this year were in Latin America, with many targeted by cartels, narco-traffickers and armed groups. This trend, he said, is “very concerning” and presents a serious challenge for governments attempting to safeguard reporters.

Sudan and Ukraine also continue to be among the most dangerous places from which to report, with conflict making journalists prime targets on all sides.

Global press freedom at ‘tipping point’, media watchdog RSF warns

Journalists detained

Alongside killings, RSF’s report documents a surge in the number of journalists imprisoned for their work.

As of early December, 503 journalists were behind bars in 47 countries. China tops the list with 121 detained, followed by Russia with 48 and Myanmar with 47.

Bruttin believes the international community can do far more to secure the release of detained reporters.

“We need to effectively, deliberately campaign for the release of journalists,” he said. He pointed to the case of Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, who was released as part of a prisoner swap with Russia. “If governments prioritise the release of journalists, they can meet success.”

He expressed particular concern for the 26 Ukrainian journalists detained by Russia, many “outside of any legal framework”.

He told RFI that Ukraine has the ability to prioritise their release through prisoner exchanges, citing a recent precedent in which RSF helped confirm proof of life for a detained Ukrainian reporter, forcing Russia to acknowledge holding him. “He was part of one of the latest prisoner swaps,” Bruttin noted.

Although the overall number of journalist deaths remains below the highs of the early 2010s, RSF says the deliberate targeting of reporters and the erosion of access to information are becoming worryingly entrenched.

For this final episode of 2025, we look back at the full sweep of the African continent’s history.

Sixty years after launching its ambitious project to recover, document and narrate Africa’s past from prehistory to the present day, Unesco has announced the completion of the last three volumes of the General History of Africa.

Relaunched in 2018, the project seeks to translate this body of knowledge into educational resources for teaching the continent’s history. Three new volumes – IX, X and XI – have now been published, introducing fresh material and innovative approaches.

Our special guest reflects on the project and on African history more broadly: UNESCO’s assistant director-general for social and human sciences, Lidia Brito, who discusses these three new volumes.

In the second part of this episode, we also welcome the Congolese artist and filmmaker Sammy Baloji, who discusses his new film The Tree of Authenticity, recently screened at Film Africa in London and now available on the website of the Franco-German television channel ARTE.

Rapper and sorcerer-poet, Baloji, works his magic on new album

The documentary begins in Yangambi, in the Congo, in search of the remnants of a former research centre for tropical agriculture, bearing witness to the country’s colonial past at the heart of the continent.

In doing so, it highlights the links between colonisation and the climate crisis, adopting an unusual perspective: that of the “tree of authenticity”, which plays a decisive role in regulating the climate.

Congolese filmmaker Baloji mixes magic with biting social commentary

Episode edited and mixed by Melissa Chemam and Erwan Rome.

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

The Turkish government on Thursday summoned both Russian and Ukrainian envoys, warning them to desist from escalating the conflict in the Black Sea.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the past week’s attacks on three Russian tankers as “unjustifiable”. Kyiv said its drones targeted two of the vessels, and Moscow has warned it may consider striking the ships of countries supporting Ukraine if such attacks continue.

“This escalation is very dangerous; no one can estimate what will happen,” warns international relations expert and former Turkish presidential advisor Mesut Casin.

“Putin says he will use reciprocity rights. This means some of the [Russian] submarines could attack not only Ukraine but also some of the Western NATO allies’ tanker ships,” he explains, a possibility that raises the threat of “a very big environmental disaster”.

Shadow fleet

Kyiv has claimed responsibility for the drone attacks on two empty Russian-flagged tankers but denied involvement in the strike on a ship carrying sunflower oil to Georgia.

The Russian tankers belong to Moscow’s so-called “shadow fleet“, which is used to circumvent international sanctions by carrying oil and other exports aboard ships not officially registered to the government. 

Given Turkey’s long Black Sea coast, fears of an environmental catastrophe are foremost for Ankara.

“These shadow fleet tankers are not modern and are not in good condition,” observes former Turkish diplomat Selim Kuneralp.

“The Russians provide their own domestic insurance for these ships,” he says. “But how useful and how valid these insurances will be […] remains a question mark.”

How one man’s ship-spotting hobby is helping thwart Russian sanction-busting

Trade implications

With Ukrainian forces destroying much of Russia’s navy in the Black Sea, Moscow has limited capacities to protect its tankers.

Ukraine has so far targeted only empty Russian tankers, but alarm bells are ringing on the potential implications for global trade.

“Both Ukraine and Russia are leading exporters of basic food and agricultural commodities,” notes analyst Atilla Yesilada of GlobalSource Partners.

“Despite massive bombing, Ukraine’s grain export capacity is largely intact and is taking the coastal route. So any impairment of that is bad for the world at a time when we are not certain of crop yields because of the ongoing drought elsewhere.”

Insurance premiums for cargo ships using the Black Sea have already spiked amidst the escalating conflict.

Ankara wary of escalation

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met with his NATO counterparts this week, broaching the topic of ensuring safe navigation of the vital sea trade route.

Turkey is already cooperating with its partners in the alliance that share the Black Sea coast, Romania and Bulgaria, to clear sea mines. Fidan said that cooperation could be expanded to enhance shipping security. 

However, any increased NATO involvement in the Black Sea would be borne mainly by the Turkish navy, given that the Romanian and Bulgarian navies are largely coastal forces.

Ships belonging to navies outside the Black Sea have been shut out by Ankara since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, along with Russian warships. Turkey, under the 1936 Montreux Convention, regulates access to the sea and is only allowing warships to enter to return to their home ports.

Turkey’s mediator role in the Ukraine war faces growing US pressure

Former diplomat Kuneralp claims Ankara will be cautious of getting drawn into any conflict in the Black Sea.

“It would put all the burden on Turkey alone. What would it do? Would it try to intervene in a dispute between Russia and Ukraine? That’s unlikely. I would not want that to happen because it would be too risky,” he says.

“And that’s perhaps why there have not been any concrete actions since the start of the war other than talk.”

For now, Turkey – one of the few countries with good relations with both Kyiv and Moscow – is relying on diplomacy, and hoping that Washington’s ongoing peace efforts will succeed.

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.

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. You must get your resolutions to me by 15 December to be included in the show. 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 counselled 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 1 November, I asked you to listen to RFI English journalist Melissa Chemam’s podcast Spotlight on Africa: “Inside Côte d’Ivoire’s pivotal election: voices of hope and uncertainty”. Melissa had traveled to Côte d’Ivoire to cover their presidential election and talked to a wide variety of people about their hopes, their fears, and their desires for their country. Near the beginning of the show, Melissa talks about women who, she says, were very involved in the campaigns – as event organizers, supporters, and mothers. Melissa enumerates the main concerns of the Ivorian women – and that was your question. What are the four main concerns the women of Côte d’Ivoire voiced during the presidential campaign?

The answers are, as Melissa noted in her podcast, work, school for kids, childcare, and healthcare.

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question: How do you make friends as an adult?

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

The winners are: RFI Listeners Club member Father Stephen Wara. Father Stephen is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations on your double win, Father Steve!

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are RFI Listeners Club members Zenon Teles, the president of the Christian – Marxist – Leninist – Maoist Association of Listening DX-ers in Goa, India; Radhakrishna Pillai from Kerala State in India; Helmut Matt from Herzbolheim, Germany, and last but not least, Dipita Chakrabarty from New Delhi, India.

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: “Tapez fort” produced by DJ Tevecinq; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer; “Happy” by Pharrell Williams;  “Little Toot” by Allie Wrubel, sung by the Andrews Sisters, and “Little Rootie Tootie” by Thelonious Monk, performed by Monk and the Thelonius Monk Trio. 

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 Jan van der Made’s article “On NATO’s eastern flank, Romania finds itself at the crux of European security”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 19 January to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 24 January 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. 

The recent murder in Marseille of 20-year-old Mehdi Kessaci, the younger brother of a well-known anti-drugs campaigner, has highlighted the growing problem of drug-related organised crime in France. The government has promised tougher repressive measures, but what if civil society also had a role to play? Inspired by the example of Italy, the Crim’HALT association campaigns for the official recognition of victims of organised crime. Its co-founder, Fabrice Rizzoli, talks about taking ordinary citizens to see firsthand how Italian anti-mafia initiatives work. Jean-Toussaint Plasenzotti, who founded the anti-mafia collective Massimu Susini following the murder of his nephew in 2019 in Corsica, and Hassna Arabi, whose relative Socayna was killed by a stray bullet in 2023, explain how travelling to Italy with Crim-HALT has helped their work back home. (Listen @0′)

As Europe looks to increase its defence capacity in the face of war in Ukraine and threats from Russia, French President Emmanuel Macron has announced a special military service aimed at recruiting a new generation of soldiers. Unlike the mandatory military service that was suspended in 1997, the new format would be voluntary – and paid. Historian and army reservist Guillaume Lasconjarias says that in providing a way for young people to be of service, the scheme responds to something they want. (Listen @17’30”)

Forty years after Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped Paris’s Pont Neuf in September 1985, opening the door to monumental public art displays, the city has approved a new project on the bridge by artist JR. (Listen @11’45”)

Episode mixed by Cecile Pompeani.

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

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.