Some 380,000 households were left without electricity on Friday, grid operator Enedis said, as the storm swept across the north of the country.

Most outages were reported in Normandy, especially in the northern part of the region, where conditions were at their worst.

Authorities reported extraordinary wind speeds overnight in the north-western Manche department, with gusts reaching 216 km/h and 213 km/h – among the strongest recorded during the storm. 

Across several regions, strong squalls brought down trees, including at least one that fell onto residential buildings in Seine-Maritime. No injuries had been reported so far.

Schools remained closed across northern France as weather alerts covered around 30 regions nationwide.

The Manche department urged residents to stay indoors, warned against unnecessary travel and advised households to prepare emergency lighting and drinking water.

Six people dead in road accidents as France manages heavy snow and ice

UK braces for wind and snow

Across the Channel, the United Kingdom also faces severe conditions. Britain’s Met Office issued a rare red wind warning for the Isles of Scilly and Cornwall in the south-west, urging people to stay inside.

Wind gusts of up to 160 km/h were forecast in parts of the country, while “very large waves” were expected to create dangerous coastal conditions.

An amber snow warning was also in place for Wales and central England, with forecasters predicting snowfall of up to 30 centimetres in some areas.

The disruption quickly reached transport networks, as National Rail warned that train services would be affected over the next two days and called on passengers to avoid travel unless absolutely necessary.

Snowfall to cause major flight cancellations at Paris airports

Extreme weather across Europe

Elsewhere in Europe, Storm Goretti formed part of a wider spell of harsh winter weather affecting several countries.

At least eight deaths across the continent have been linked to recent conditions. In Albania, police in the port city of Durres recovered a man’s body from floodwaters after days of heavy snow and torrential rain in parts of the Balkans.

In Germany, heavy snow and strong winds were forecast to disrupt daily life, particularly in the north. The German Weather Service warned that up to 15 centimetres of snow could fall in northern regions, while icy conditions posed risks further south.

Temperatures were expected to plunge sharply over the weekend, potentially dropping as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius in some areas.

Several cities announced school closures, including Hamburg and Bremen, where public transport had already suffered delays and cancellations on Thursday.

Germany’s national rail operator Deutsche Bahn warned of significant delays in the coming days.

More than 14,000 staff have been mobilised to clear snow from tracks and platforms.

Paris launches winter emergency plan as homeless man dies from cold

A reminder of a warming climate

German forecasters expect the storm to ease by Saturday, with snowfall tapering off by Monday. While the conditions feel particularly harsh, meteorologists caution against seeing them as a contradiction to long-term warming trends.

“This kind of storm is an exception compared with the milder winters of recent years, which are a consequence of climate change,” said German Weather Service meteorologist Andreas Walter.

Cold, snowy months remain possible even as average temperatures rise, he noted – but such events are likely to become rarer in the future.

(with newswires)

That they have even reached the last eight has brought tributes from the Mali boss Tom Saintfiet, who hailed his players as “heroes” following their comeback in adversity against Tunisia in the last 16.

Reduced to 10 men following the dismissal of defender Woyo Coulibaly in the 26th minute, they conceded a goal in the 88th minute but managed to level in second-half stoppage time.

They held off Tunisia during 30 minutes of extra time and then twice came from behind in the penalty shootout to win it and move into the last eight.

“Before the game against Tunisia, I said my team were already heroes,” said Saintfiet.

“And now there is no other word. Every player fought for their country and did everything to stay in this competition.”

Uganda coach Put urges squad to take heart from underdog status against Nigeria

Mali vs Senegal

Senegal, Mali’s opponents in the first quarter-final on Friday, are unlikely to be as munificent as Tunisia. They topped their group with composed displays.

They dismissed Botswana 3-0 to kick off their 2025 campaign and then went toe-to-toe with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in a rugged stalemate before pulverizing Benin to top the group on goal difference ahead of the DRC.

And Senegal downed a vibrant Sudan side in the last 16. They absorbed the pressure and took their chances clinically.

“The match against Mali requires a great deal of respect for a brother country,” said Senegal boss Pape Thiaw on the eve of the game.

“We will be facing a committed team that poses a strong physical challenge. It is a team that is hungry for victory.”

Since taking over from Aliou Cissé, the coach who led Senegal to the 2021 Cup of Nations crown in Cameroon, Thiaw has kept faith with Cissé’s spine of now thirtysomethings: goalkeeper Edouard Mendy, defender Kalidou Koulibaly, midfielder Idrissa Gueye and striker Sadio Mané. Collectively, they boast experience from playing for the likes of Napoli, Everton, Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea, Liverpool and Bayern Munich.

Thiaw, a former Senegal international, has also drafted in youngsters such as Paris Saint-Germain’s 17-year-old starlet Ibrahim Mbaye, who has introduced himself to football quiz geeks as the youngest player to score a goal at the Cup of Nations in the 21st century and the youngest Senegal player to score at the competition since its inception in 1957.

Egypt and Nigeria enter last-16 fray as favourites against Benin and Mozambique

Morocco vs Cameroon

Following Mali and Senegal’s encounter in Tangier, hosts Morocco will play Cameroon in front of nearly 70,000 fans at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat.

Despite Morocco’s status as Africa’s top team in the Fifa rankings, a 23-match winning streak and hosting the month-long football fest, Morocco boss Walid Regragui claimed the West Africans were under more pressure as they, unlike Morocco, had not qualified for the 2026 World Cup.

“If they go no further they will have to wait two or three more years for another major tournament,” said the former Morocco international. “We also have something to lose because we are at home, but in four months we have the World Cup so we have another competition to play.

“That is why Cameroon will be motivated, more than usual. There is pressure on us but on them too.”

In the English Premier League, in the days when Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United were serial trophy winners, such comments would have been categorised as “Fergie mind games”.

Regragui’s gambit, though, highlights his team’s struggles. They are into the last eight as expected but theirs has not been an imperious voyage.

A 1-0 win over Tanzania, a team 101 places beneath them in the world rankings, was not on the pre-tournament menu.

Nigeria vs Algeria

Instead, the Nigerians have been providing the pyrotechnics. Of the quarter-finalists, they have scored the most: 12. 

But the Super Eagles – as Nigeria are nicknamed – have been soaring away from their duties at the other end of the field. They possess the worst defensive record. They were breached four times as they racked up eight goals during the group stages before their 4-0 waltz past Mozambique in the last 16 in Fes.

“I’m happy with this game,” said Nigeria boss Eric Chelle. “A victory with four goals but in reality we did nothing. If we want to be ambitious we have to keep this quality and improve.”

Algeria will be a far sterner test on Saturday afternoon in Marrakesh.

Like the Nigerians, they won all three of their pool matches to advance to the knockout stages for the first time since they claimed the Cup of Nations trophy in Egypt in 2019 – the first Cup of Nations tournament to feature 24 teams.

Adil Boulbina’s screamer of a shot into the top right-hand corner in the dying seconds of extra time provided the last-16 game against DRC with a spectacular finale, but Algeria had been the more adventurous of the teams.

Côte d’Ivoire vs Egypt

Côte d’Ivoire’s run to the 2023 title went beyond adventure into psychedelia. A humiliating defeat, a coach sacked, a new man appointed, almost missing out on the knockout stages and then a series of teams failing to kill them off before the surge to glory.

Two years on, Emerse Faé, who replaced Jean-Louis Gasset, has enhanced his renown by steering his Cup of Nations-winning squad to the World Cup.

Egypt will be in the United States, Canada and Mexico too during the summer. 

And they will be the next opponents for Faé’s team. Egypt have not lifted the title since claiming an unprecedented hat trick in 2010 in Angola to take their tally up to seven.

The Egyptians will go into the clash in Agadir aiming to produce a more convincing performance than their 3-1 victory over Benin, who took them to extra time before they succumbed to strikes from Yasser Ibrahim and Mohamed Salah.

Côte d’Ivoire striker Amad Diallo, who scored one and set up another in his team’s 3-0 last-16 win over Burkina Faso on Tuesday, acknowledged that the Egyptians were unlikely to be as flaky against the Ivorians.

“We showed our quality and respected our opponent,” the 23-year-old told broadcaster beIN Sports.

“Next up it will be Egypt,” added Diallo, as he clutched his second man-of-the-match award of the 2025 tournament. “That will be a difficult match.”

Greenland is vast, and highly coveted. Covering some 2 million square kilometres, it is almost four times the size of France.

Above all, it is the second-largest body of ice on Earth after Antarctica, at the opposite pole.

The ice mass is beginning to melt and could ultimately trigger a dramatic rise in sea levels. Unlike sea ice, which floats, Greenland’s ice sheet lies on land. And that makes all the difference.

“In Greenland, we are dealing with extremely large masses, enormous volumes, covering the entire island,” says Glenn Yannic, a lecturer and researcher at Savoie Mont Blanc University. “We’re talking about an ice sheet that can be several hundred metres thick. It is estimated that the complete melting of Greenland could raise sea levels by five, six or seven metres.”

The melting of the ice sheet – rather than the summer thaw of Arctic sea ice – is what causes sea levels to rise, the Greenland specialist explains. “When sea ice melts, it’s like putting an ice cube into a glass filled to the brim: the ice cube melts, but the water level does not rise,” he tells RFI.

Greenland melted recently, says study that raises future sea level threat

Accelerating warming

According to Copernicus – the Earth observation component of the European Union’s Space programme – for every centimetre of sea level rise, around 6 million more people are exposed to coastal flooding.

A rise in sea levels of five to seven metres by the end of the century would lead to the disappearance of thousands of coastal cities worldwide, affecting millions of people.

Such a scenario is becoming increasingly plausible, because Greenland is one of the fastest-warming regions on the planet. Last spring, glaciers melted 17 times faster than average amid record temperatures.

New research, published by US scientists on 5 January in Nature Geoscience, has also alarmed the scientific community. Using ice core samples, researchers found that Greenland’s ice dome last melted around 7,000 years ago, during the early Holocene period, when “temperatures were three to five degrees C higher than those currently observed”, Yannic says. 

“They showed that part of northern Greenland was ice-free. That’s the whole significance of this study, and why it’s had such an impact. Three to five degrees C – we are almost there, we are on the brink. By the end of the century, we can predict that all the ice currently covering Greenland will have melted.”

Arctic sees unprecedented heat as climate impacts cascade

In Trump’s sights

A wealth of natural resources lies beneath Greenland’s ice, including rare earth elements and suspected fossil fuel reserves.

Trump has made no secret of his desire to exploit them.

And since the US ousting of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro, partly to secure Venezuelan oil, Trump has renewed calls for a US takeover of the Arctic territory.

On Sunday, he said that he needed Greenland “very badly” for reasons of “national security”, given its strategic position between the US and Russia. But Trump is also eyeing resources such as hydrocarbons, minerals and even water – so pure it is said to be worth its weight in gold.

Access to Greenland’s ice-capped resources has remained a challenge, but “the acceleration in the melting of the ice sheet will free up areas and make it easier to access certain mineral deposits”, says Yannic.

Trump weighs military option to acquire Greenland

If Trump were to succeed, the man who called climate change a “con job” could could end up benefitting from global warming.

“The issue of the search for minerals and hydrocarbons, and their exploitation, has already been put before the Greenland government, which decided several years ago to impose a moratorium on such activities,” Yannic says.

Prospecting was halted in order to protect the environment. For the moment, Greenland is holding firm – but for how long?

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This article, adapted from the original in French by RFI’s Florent Guinard, has been lightly edited for clarity.

The studies, which are based on the health data of more than 100,000 French adults, highlight risks related to specific additives, including nitrites, which are often used to cure ham, bacon and sausages.

The first study, published Wednesday in the journal BMJ, found “multiple associations between preservatives that are widely used in industrial foods and beverages on the European market… and higher incidences of overall, breast and prostate cancers”.

Notably, it found a link between high consumption of sodium nitrate and a 32 percent increased risk of prostate cancer. Potassium nitrate was associated with a higher risk of breast cancer (22 percent) and cancer overall (13 percent). 

Sorbates – commonly used to preserve wine, baked goods and cheeses – were linked to a 26 percent higher risk for breast cancer and a 14 percent increase in all types of cancers.

Ham and charcuterie linked to cancer, French food watchdog warns

Public health issue

A second study, published in Nature Communications, found that higher consumption of common food preservatives was linked to a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Potassium sorbate, in particular, is associated with roughly double the risk of the disease.

“These findings may have important public health implications given the ubiquitous use of preservatives in a wide range of foods and drinks,” the study authors wrote, recommending that consumers “favour fresh and minimally processed foods and limit superfluous additives whenever possible”.

The French government has encouraged ham and deli meat producers to reduce their use of nitrites, without calling for an outright ban, and is considering how to regulate so-called ultra-processed foods.

But researchers not involved in the studies cautioned it is too early for consumers to change their eating habits.

The studies are based on data from a broader ongoing research project in which more than 170,000 French people fill out regular questionnaires about their diet. Such observational studies cannot prove cause and effect.

“Consuming products with preservatives does not mean you will immediately develop cancer,” epidemiologist Mathilde Touvier, who supervised both studies, told the AFP news agency.

“But we need to limit how much we are exposed to these products.”

(with AFP)

Russia’s FSB security service said Vinatier, 49, had been pardoned by President Vladimir Putin, according to the RIA news agency.

The announcement came after France freed Russian basketball player Daniil Kasatkin from custody.

The FSB released footage on Thursday showing both men being freed.

Kasatkin’s lawyer Frédéric Belot said his client, who was detained last June at the request of the United States over alleged involvement in hacking attacks, flew back to Moscow on Thursday.

Four charged in Paris over suspected Russia-linked spy network

Foreign agent case

Vinatier, who works for a Swiss conflict mediation group, was arrested in June 2023 for allegedly gathering information on the Russian army.

He was sentenced in 2024 to three years in a penal colony for failing to register as a “foreign agent”, a charge for which he apologised.

While in prison, he was later placed under additional investigation for espionage and was facing a possible further trial in the coming months, with a potential sentence of up to 20 years.

Vinatier has rejected the accusations of spying. His family say he is a victim of tensions between Russia and France over the war in Ukraine.

In February, a Russian court rejected Vinatier’s appeal.

France condemned the sentence and demanded his immediate release, accusing Russia of taking Westerners hostage.

The Kremlin said in late December it had made a proposal ‍to France regarding Vinatier, after Putin said he would ‌look into his ​case.

(with newswires)

Macron delivered his annual speech to French ambassadors at the Elysee Palace as European powers are scrambling to come up with a coordinated response to US assertive foreign policy in the Western hemisphere following Washington’s capture of Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro and Donald Trump‘s designs on Greenland.

“The United States is an established power, but one that is gradually turning away from some of its allies and breaking free from international rules that it was still promoting recently,” Macron told ambassadors at the Elysée Palace.

“Multilateral institutions are functioning less and less effectively,” Macron added.

“We are living in a world of great powers with a real temptation to divide up the world.”

Macron spoke after US special forces snatched Maduro and his wife from Venezuela on Saturday in a lightning raid and whisked them to New York, sparking condemnation the United States was undermining international law.

In the wake of his military intervention in Venezuela, President Trump set off alarm bells in Europe by repeating his insistence that he wants to take control of Greenland.

Trump has repeatedly refused to rule out using force to seize the strategic Arctic island, prompting shock and anger from controlling power Denmark and other longstanding European allies.

Copenhagen has warned that any attack would spell the end of the NATO alliance.

UK armed forces helped US mission to seize Russian tanker, MoD says

‘Reinvest fully in the UN’

The French leader said “global governance” was key in a time when “every day people wonder whether Greenland is going to be invaded” as well as whether “Canada will face the threat of becoming the 51st state”.

He said it was the right moment to “reinvest fully in the United Nations, as we note its largest shareholder no longer believes in it”.

The White House on Wednesday flagged the US exit from 66 global organisations and treaties – roughly half affiliated with the United Nations – it identified as “contrary to the interests of the United States.”

Macron said Europe must protect its interests and urged the “consolidation” of European regulation of the tech sector.

He stressed the importance of safeguarding academic independence and hailed “the possibility of having a controlled information space where opinions can be exchanged completely freely, but where choices are not made by the algorithms of a few.”

Brussels has adopted a powerful legal arsenal aimed at reining in tech giants – namely through its Digital Markets Act (DMA) which covers competition and the Digital Services Act (DSA) on content moderation.

Washington has denounced the tech rules as an attempt to “coerce” American social media platforms into censoring viewpoints they oppose.

“The DSA and DMA are two regulations that must be defended,” Macron said.

The Antonov An-32B cargo plane was flying under the name of Air Africa, operated by Moscow Airways and leased to the private airline Scibe Airlift.

Dangerously overweight, according to investigators, it failed to take off from Ndolo airfield and careered into the nearby Type K street market.

While four of its six Russian crew survived the accident, at least 250 people on the ground were killed and several hundred injured.

The authorities put the official death toll at 237 people. Only 66 of the bodies could be identified – the others were burnt beyond recognition.

“I was 15 at the time and still at school, but my whole family was at the market that day,” remembers Didier Lumbu Sangwa, today president of the Type K market.

On 8 January 1996, dictator Mobutu Sese Seko was still in power, the country was called Zaire – now the Democratic Republic of Congo – and Didier was in class when he heard a huge explosion.

“It really went bang! We were told there had been a crash, so I got there very quickly. Thankfully, thanks to God, my family was alive.”

RFI series: Modernisation in the DRC

A place of pilgrimage

Ismaël, who is now in charge of security at the market, was just 12 years old and doing odd jobs on the site when the accident happened. “It was a normal day, as usual,” he tells RFI. “And then there was the crash. The plane was supposed to land on the emergency strip, but even in that area there were a lot of people.”

He describes scenes of chaos: “I saw the mums and dads who were there every day, that we saw all the time, they were dead. Many vendors and customers lost their lives that day.”

Sangwa remembers that the site of the crash and what remained of the market became a place of pilgrimage. “Every 8 January, pastors and priests came to pray for the victims. And when you came at night, people were saying prayers, holding ceremonies. Then a Chinese company, together with the Congolese government, came to rebuild the market.”

It took years for life to return to the market. But now there are stalls everywhere, crowds of people, women and men selling fruit and vegetables. There is music, the noise of construction work nearby and customers haggling.

Congolese entrepreneurs hope to clean up Kinshasa through recycling plastic

Continuing the family tradition

For 28-year-old Kalala, the Type K market is his second home. He sells tomatoes there every day, continuing a family tradition going back several generations.

“The disaster happened before I was born,” he explains, “but of course I heard about it in my family, at school. My grandmother sold tomatoes here and she was there that day. She died before I was born, so she couldn’t tell me her story, but my parents told me about it.”

As you leave the market, you can see the airport runway straight ahead. But while take-offs and landings can still be heard, planes leaving Ndolo now rarely fly over the market.

Since the crash, they head out in the opposite direction, towards the Congo River.

Following the investigation into the crash, operators Scibe Airlift and Air Africa were ordered to pay a total of around 1.4 million US dollars in compensation to people injured and families of victims. However, many say they’re still waiting for compensation, three decades after the tragedy.

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This article, adapted from the original in French by RFI correspondent Paulina Zidi, has been edited for clarity.

Mitterand died on 8 January 1996, yet he remains a presence in French politics.

The Socialist Party figurehead did not merely lead France from 1981 to 1995; he rearranged the country’s political map, then left his successors to argue over his legacy.

According to Mitterrand’s biographer, Philip Short, the misunderstandings surrounding Mitterrand begin not with his presidency, but much earlier – and they continue to shape how he is remembered today.

Collaborator and résistant

“One of the most discussed periods of his early career was the period at Vichy when he was working in the Pétain administration, and at the same time became a Resistance leader,” Short says, noting that this apparent contradiction has been “reproached to him again and again and again”.

Called up for military service shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Mitterrand was taken prisoner after the fall of France and sent to a German prisoner-of-war camp. He escaped in 1941 and returned to France, where he worked for the collaborationist Vichy government before switching allegiances to the Resistance.

For Short, the problem lies less in the facts than in the way they have been judged. “I think there is a complete misunderstanding still in France about this,” he argues. “People make judgments without any thought for the historical context.”

Mitterrand returned from a German POW camp to a country whose administrative centre was Vichy. “Where did he go? He went to Vichy. Well, there was nowhere else to go.”

Short points out that many Resistance figures passed through the Vichy administration in similar ways.

But Mitterrand’s personality worked against him. “Because of Mitterrand’s ambiguity, because he was so opaque, in many ways, he has been kind of tarred with that brush of ‘oh, he worked for Vichy’,” Short says. “So I think that is still something which is kind of smudging his legacy in many French people’s minds.”

France opens archives on wartime Vichy regime

Transformational figure

In Short’s view, Mitterrand stands alongside Charles de Gaulle as one of the two leaders who transformed post-war France. When he finally brought the left to power in 1981, it was after decades of polarisation in French politics.

“Mitterrand did it in two ways, essentially,” Short explains. “Social justice, which he brought to the fore. He made a real standard of political life that he pushed very hard. And also, of course, the European Union.”

As president, Mitterrand pushed for an enlarged and more integrated EU, encouraging Spain and Portugal to join and championing a single market.

Mitterrand helped reconcile the French with Europe at a time when ideological lines were sharply drawn and economic debates were deeply moralised. “If you look back to the 1970s, it was very, very polarised,” Short says. “The left absolutely regarded money, the making of money, as the ultimate evil.”

That attitude has not entirely disappeared, he notes, but it has softened. “On the whole, the French have become much more pragmatic and realistic about the way economies work, with certain exceptions.”

One of those exceptions, Short adds, is pensions – an issue that still convulses French politics decades later. What is often forgotten, he says, is that it was Mitterrand who lowered the retirement age from 65 to 60.

“Perhaps that was not such a clever thing to do in the long term,” Short observes. “Now everybody’s arguing furiously that it can’t possibly go back up to 64, that would be deeply unjust. Well, 40 years ago, before the left came to power, it was 65.”

Errors in Rwanda

If Mitterrand’s domestic legacy remains a subject of debate, his African policy is more openly contested – particularly in light of later assessments of France’s role during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Short’s judgement here is blunt. “He inherited it and he continued it,” Short says of France’s post-colonial Africa policy.

While Françafrique, the network of France’s influence in its former African colonies, is often associated with Mitterrand, Short is careful to place it in a longer tradition. “The Gaullist tradition is much more involved than Mitterrand ever was,” he argues, noting that former President Jacques Chirac – who served as prime minister under Mitterrand – was in particular, deeply embedded in those networks.

Rwanda, however, stands apart. “His attitude to Rwanda was very, very hard to understand,” Short says. He recalls Mitterrand asking German Chancellor Helmut Kohl: “Who is the aggressor and who is the victim?” To most observers, Short notes, the answer was obvious. “The extremist Hutus were the aggressors, and the Tutsi were the victim – and moderate Hutus as well.”

Yet Mitterrand “just did not want to see it”. Short describes a “complete block” that he still struggles to explain. “It was an error,” he says.

“He made many errors during his period in power, but he also had great successes, and one can’t expect any politician to get everything right. He certainly got that very badly wrong indeed.”

Yet Short is cautious about overstating how much the tragedy should define Mitterrand’s legacy. “He got it wrong, but it wasn’t Mitterrand who was responsible for what happened in Rwanda.”

New evidence puts France’s role in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide back in the spotlight

A man of beliefs

For Short, there are other elements of Mitterrand’s legacy that deserve greater attention – particularly his handling of succession within the Socialist Party. “There was an obvious candidate, Michel Rocard, who would have pushed the Socialist Party in a more social democratic direction,” he says. “And Mitterrand – very largely for personal reasons – absolutely didn’t want that to happen.”

The result, in Short’s view, was a kind of political vacuum. “It was ‘après moi, le déluge’,” he says. Asked what Mitterrand might make of today’s depleted Socialist Party, Short suspects “a certain masochistic pleasure”.

Yet he rejects the idea that Mitterrand simply sought power for its own sake. “No, I think his achievement was about ideology,” Short insists. “He was a man who believed very strongly in ideas.” Mitterrand could be “sinuous” and “Machiavellian”, he acknowledges, but always in the service of goals he believed in – even when those goals changed.

“When he first came to power, the first two years, he tried to put in very idealistic, almost utopian, socialist policies,” Short says. “And it didn’t work.” Economic reality forced a shift.

But demonstrating pragmatism does not mean Mitterrand abandoned his ideals, Short argues. “If you’re a politician and you have ideas, in order to put them into practice, you have to have power. So the two kind of go together.”

Thirty years after his death, that blend of ideas and power remains central to Mitterrand’s legacy.

Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen responded bluntly on Sunday after Trump said he “absolutely” needed Greenland for US national security.

Calling Denmark a “historically close ally”, she warned Washington against questioning the territorial integrity of a NATO partner and stressed that Greenland “is not for sale”.

“I have to say this very clearly to the United States: it is absolutely absurd to say that the United States should take control of Greenland,” Frederiksen said in a statement late Sunday.

She called on Washington to stop “threatening its historical ally”.

Greenland’s leaders went further, describing Trump’s language as disrespectful and disconnected from reality.

Meanwhile, France on Monday expressed its “solidarity” with Denmark with French foreign ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux saying that “borders cannot be changed by force. Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders and the Danes, and it is up to them to decide what to do with it.”

EU backs Denmark’s territorial integrity after Trump appoints Greenland envoy

It’s not the first time that the US has tried to take over Danish territory.

In March 1917, the United States purchased the Caribbean islands of Saint Thomas, Saint John and (formerly French colony) Saint Croix, known as the “Danish West Indies,” from Denmark for $25 million in gold. The territory is now known as the “US Virgin Islands.”

The deal was the product of half a century of failed negotiations, finally concluded under the pressure of the First World War.

With the Panama Canal opening in 1914, US officials were determined to secure Caribbean sea lanes. They feared that Germany might seize the Danish islands, located just east of Puerto Rico, and use them as naval bases, threatening American shipping and hemispheric security.

For Denmark, the colonies had long ceased to be profitable. The abolition of slavery in 1848 had undermined the sugar economy, and the islands had become a financial and administrative burden.

Previous attempts to sell them had failed – blocked first by the US Senate in 1867, then by the Danish parliament in 1902 – despite strong local support for American rule.

US recognised Danish sovereignty over Greenland

In 1916 the balance of power changed. As war engulfed Europe, US diplomats made it clear that not acquiring the Danish islands carried risks.

Secretary of State Robert Lansing warned that Washington might occupy the islands to prevent German use if Denmark did not agree to sell. Neutral and vulnerable, Copenhagen conceded.

Surprise win for Greenland’s opposition in election dominated by Trump threats

The transaction, finalised on 31 March 1917, is still marked as “Transfer Day” in the US Virgin Islands.

But there was a parallel diplomatic bargain: the United States formally “recognised Denmark’s right to extend its political and economic interests over the entirety of Greenland.”

This declaration, signed by then Secretary of State Robert Lansing, was part of the Convention between the US and Denmark for cession of the Danish West Indies and helped secure Denmark’s sovereignty over the Arctic island for more than a century.

But with the onset of the Cold War, policy makers in Washington realised the strategic importance of Greenland, and continued their attempts to acquire the island.

In 1946, then President Harry Truman’s administration made a secret offer to purchase Greenland from Denmark for $100 million in gold, plus rights to an Alaskan oil field. Secretary of State James Byrnes presented the offer to Danish Foreign Minister Gustav Rasmussen on 14 December 1946.

Truman’s advisers saw Greenland as an essential strategic defence position against Soviet bombers that might fly over the Arctic Circle toward North America.

The Danish foreign minister was shocked by the proposal and rejected it, but ultimately the US gained access to Greenland through NATO membership in 1949 and a bilateral defence agreement (that specifically stated the “full respect for the sovereignty of each Party”) without the need to purchase it.

The offer was revealed in 1991 when declassified documents were discovered.

In 1955, the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed to President Eisenhower that the nation try again to purchase Greenland, but the State Department responded that the time had passed for such a plan.

According to diplomatic documents preserved in the US National Archives, there were discussions about acquiring Greenland took place on multiple occasions: in 1867, 1910, 1946, 1955, 2019 (under Trump I), and now 2025.

But the political context has fundamentally changed since 1917. Denmark is no longer an exposed neutral state but a NATO member embedded in European security structures.

Greenland itself enjoys extensive self-rule, with control over domestic affairs and a growing sense of national identity rooted in a history of Danish colonial domination.

Public opinion reflects that shift. An Axios poll taken in June 2025 revealed that some 85 percent of Greenlanders “don’t want to join the US.” Other polls consistently show similar opposition to US avances. Greenland’s leaders have rejected Trump’s comments outright, insisting that the island’s future can only be decided by its own population.

Shot dead at the age of 20 while parking his car in Marseille, Mehdi Kessaci was not involved in trafficking. Investigators believe he was targeted because of his brother Amine’s outspoken anti-drugs activism – a warning, they fear, aimed at silencing opposition.

His murder, the 15th drug-related killing in the Marseille region in 2025, was described by Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez as a “turning point” and a “crime of intimidation”. It also reignited a debate about how France should respond to criminal networks whose annual turnover is estimated at between five and six billion euros.

New legislation adopted in June last year expands surveillance powers, makes it easier to seize criminal assets and has created a dedicated national prosecution service against organised crime, due to become operational in January.

But some campaigners argue that citizens themselves also have a role to play – and point to Italy’s long experience of fighting the mafia as a model.

“Italy is the country of mafia, but anti-mafia too,” says Fabrice Rizzoli, an academic specialising in geopolitics and organised crime. 

Repurposing criminal assets

A decade ago, Rizzoli co-founded Crim’HALT, an association that encourages civic engagement against organised crime. Inspired by an Italian law adopted in 1996 to allow property confiscated as part of prosecutions to be reallocated to social projects, it set out to develop a similar system in France.

Following sustained advocacy, a law adopted in France in 2021 made it possible to reuse confiscated assets for public good. Around eight buildings across the country have since been handed over to associations.

Rizzoli points to a house in Marseille, confiscated from a cocaine trafficker, that is now used by an organisation supporting women victims of violence. In the overseas territory of Guadeloupe, another confiscated building is being used to house male perpetrators of domestic violence, allowing women to remain in the family home.

“You can see that we are able to transform criminal power to public interest, to citizen power,” Rizzoli says. “We can say to people, ‘you see, change is possible’.”

Listen to a report on Crim’HALT on the Spotlight on France podcast:

France triples drug user fines during Marseille trafficking crackdown

More recognition for victims

Beyond material assets, campaigners argue that organised crime must also be challenged symbolically – by recognising and honouring its victims. Since 2017, Italy has officially marked 21 March as a Day of Remembrance and Commitment for Innocent Victims of Mafia, reading out the names of more than 1,000 victims nationwide.

“Violence is so efficient for organised crime,” Rizzoli says. “When they killed Mehdi Kessaci, of course, it was a message” – a warning that if people fought back against the traffickers, they would pay the price.

But defending the memory of innocent victims takes the focus away from the criminals, he argues, and strengthens civil society. It also provides much needed support to victims’ families who say they often feel abandoned.

Thanks to funding by the EU’s Erasmus+ programme, Crim’HALT takes groups of French citizens – including bereaved families – to southern Italy each year to witness this culture of remembrance. One of them is Hassna Arabi, whose cousin Sokayna Jean, 24, was killed by a stray bullet in Marseille in September 2023 while studying in her bedroom.

Arabi recalls strong official support in the immediate aftermath. “I remember thinking it was great that everyone is here two weeks after, but what about in a year?” A silent march organised a month later drew fewer than 200 people. “I wondered what we could do to make people feel that everyone was concerned.”

In Italy, she found a very different, and welcome, response. “What struck me is the way the entire society has been involved in standing up to drug trafficking,” she says. “Every day I would call Sokayna’s mum… I wanted her to see that we mustn’t lose hope, because in the end, that’s all we have left.”

Fight against drug crime top of the agenda as Macron visits Marseille

‘Silence kills too’

That sense of collective mobilisation is also what struck Jean-Toussaint Plasenzotti, whose nephew Massimu Susini, an environmental activist, was murdered in Corsica in 2019.

After Mehdi Kessaci’s killing, some in France have said they no longer dare speak out. Plasenzotti understands the fear – but rejects silence.

“You imagine that by keeping quiet you’ll ward off the danger,” he says. “But our analysis shows you don’t ward it off. You have to face the danger head on. You have to name it, understand it, and then find the tools to make it go away.”

In Corsica, the anti-mafia Massimu Susini collective he founded recently organised demonstrations under the slogan: “The mafia kills, silence kills too”. “We gathered 5,000 people in two demonstrations, it was a record,” he says.

Inspired by the trips to Italy, Plasenzotti lobbied alongside Rizzoli for tougher rules on asset confiscation. He’s also managed to get anti-mafia education introduced in high schools in Corsica.

“Education – teaching and informing young people about this criminal system – is essential,” Plasenzotti says, to counter the promises of “money, pleasure, impunity”.

‘Silence kills’: Thousands march against the mafia in Corsica protests

Changing the narrative

Rizzoli is calling for France to formally recognise innocent victims of organised crime, starting with an official commemoration on 21 March, like in Italy. “The police narrative is that [gang members] kill each other… while the public is saying ‘it’s not our problem’,” he says. “But the violence of organised crime can be against us all. It can impact anyone. We have to change the narrative.”

Naming child victims such as 10-year-old Fayed, killed in Nîmes in 2023 by a stray bullet while in the car with his uncle, or 14-year-old Rayanne Begue, shot dead in Marseille in August 2021 after going out to buy a sandwich, challenges that complacency. 

Rizzoli argues that naming a school after innocent victims like Socayna, Fayed or Rayanne would send out a message to drug traffickers that they cannot behave with impunity.

Crim’HALT also advocates for legal reforms, based on Italy’s tried and tested experience. They include extending asset confiscation to civil courts, which would allow authorities to seize assets from drug traffickers’ family members; extending witness protection to murderers so they could denounce their accomplices; and creating a specific legal status for innocent victims and their families, particularly siblings, to help them access education or work.

“We don’t have to be naive,” Rizzoli says. “It’s not only social anti-mafia citizen power that will reduce violence.”

But if politicians, public institutions and citizens work together more closely, “we’ll be our strongest against organised crime”. 

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Listen to a report on the work of Crim’HALT on the Spotlight on France podcast, episode #136.

Africa: power and protest

‘We come here to die’: African recruits sent to fight Russia’s war in Ukraine

Following the trail from Africa to the Ukrainian frontlines, this investigation asks who profits, who pays the price, and how distant wars pull in people with few choices and even fewer protections.

Madagascar’s Gen Z uprising, as told by three young protesters

Young activists trace the anger, frustration and hope driving a new generation of Madagascans into the streets – and challenging the political status quo.

How football mega tournaments became a lightning rod for Morocco protesters

From stadiums to the streets, football emerges as a proxy battleground for identity, power and politics, revealing how sport can amplify wider tensions.

Young voters in Côte d’Ivoire seeking jobs, change – but most of all peace

As Côte d’Ivoire went to the polls, young Ivorians told us about joblessness, political dead ends and memories of past violence – and why peace mattered most.

South Africa closes G20 year framed as ‘presidency for all of Africa’

As South Africa wrapped up its G20 presidency, this story follows Pretoria’s push to put African priorities on the global agenda – from debt relief to inequality – amid boycotts, diplomatic tensions and questions over how much influence the continent can really wield.

The karate grannies of Korogocho, fighting back at any age

In one of Nairobi’s toughest neighbourhoods, older women turn to karate not for sport, but for safety, confidence and control over their own space, finding strength – and joy – along the way.

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Ukraine and Russia: war, identity and closed worlds

How the Russian invasion has sparked a renaissance of Ukrainian culture

This piece explores how war has accelerated cultural change. It shows how language, art and identity can shift fast when a country is fighting to exist on its own terms.

Returning to Ukraine: ‘If everyone leaves, what will become of this country?’

For Ukrainians living abroad, the question of return is fraught. This story explores the pull of home, the fear of going back, and the emotional cost of waiting.

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Europe: democracy, disinformation and shifting ground

Europe’s ‘Truman Show’ moment: is it time to walk off Trump’s set?

As politics blurs into performance, this analysis probes a growing sense of democratic unease and the feeling that institutions are no longer speaking to voters.

How deepfakes and cloned voices are distorting Europe’s elections

With fake audio and video becoming harder to spot, voters face a new challenge – deciding what is real in an election landscape increasingly shaped by synthetic media.

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

A tour of political ideas crossing borders, tracing how US-style rhetoric and tactics are being adapted by movements across Europe.

Secret oaths and blacked-out windows: what happens inside the papal conclave?

Behind closed doors, rituals, rules and secrecy shape one of the world’s most watched decisions, offering a rare glimpse into a process designed to resist scrutiny.

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France: citizens, culture and disappearing worlds

Changing France’s approach to volunteering, one hour at a time

Can civic engagement fit into busy modern lives? This piece looks at efforts to lower the threshold for volunteering and bring more people into public life.

How 184 random citizens helped shape France’s debate on assisted dying

By handing a deeply sensitive issue to ordinary citizens, France tested a different model of democracy – and learned something about public trust along the way.

Did French media silence enable Brigitte Macron fake news story to go viral?

When mainstream outlets hold back, false claims can fill the gap. This story examines how hesitation may have helped a conspiracy theory gain traction.

Crying the news with Ali Akbar, the last paperboy of Paris

As habits change and print fades, one man keeps calling out the headlines, holding on to a disappearing rhythm of city life.

France Antarctique: the lost French outpost on the coast of Brazil

Before France became a global colonial power, it stumbled. This story uncovers a failed colonial experiment in Brazil, and the traces it quietly left behind.

France’s Republican calendar and the doomed battle to revolutionise time

Revolutionary France didn’t just try to overthrow a regime – it sought to reinvent time itself. This story revisits the radical calendar experiment, and why it ultimately failed.

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Environment and technology: new pressure, old knowledge

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

Niue, a small island nation in the South Pacific, is experimenting with a novel approach to conservation, selling sponsorships for pieces of ocean in order to fund long-term protection.

How Europe’s appetite for farmed fish is gutting Gambia’s coastline

What ends up on European plates is changing life on the West African coast, as industrial fishmeal plants drain local waters of fish.

Indigenous knowledge steers new protections for the high seas

Once sidelined in global policy, indigenous ocean knowledge is now reshaping how marine protection is designed and defended.

Is AI sexist? How artificial images are perpetuating gender bias in reality

The images produced by AI systems often reflect old stereotypes, raising uncomfortable questions about who designs these tools – and whose biases they carry.

How weird fossils created by human garbage may baffle future civilisations

What will today’s plastic bottles, smartphones and chicken bones leave behind for the distant future? Scientists say our rubbish may become “technofossils” – a distinctly human geological layer that could puzzle future explorers about the age of mass consumption and waste.

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Culture and memory: bearing witness

How exiled photographer Ernest Cole captured apartheid’s human toll

Through stark, unflinching images, Cole documented the everyday violence of South African apartheid, producing work that remains as unsettling as it is necessary.

‘Collective heroism’: French film recounts evacuation amid Taliban takeover

Set against the evacuation from Afghanistan, the French film foregrounds solidarity, capturing how ordinary people respond when institutions falter and danger closes in.

RFI: Is France emerging from a kind of collective denial around alcohol?

Mickaël Naassila: Yes, although it is not only denial. There is also a lack of knowledge. But something is happening. We are seeing more talk around not drinking and more and more people, particularly young people, are experimenting with not drinking.

We are much better informed today about the risks, and the message that any alcohol consumption carries a health risk is really starting to get through. We now hear young people saying ‘alcohol is not good for your health, you have to be careful’, which you did not hear as much before.

RFI: Is this cultural shift?

MN: Yes, clearly. The belief that alcohol is somehow ‘protective’ is receding. Even if refusing a drink can sometimes still be difficult, people are speaking out, including patients and public figures. There is a real awareness, and per capita consumption of pure alcohol is falling.

This is a trend that can be seen across Europe, but alcohol remains a special case in France. There is no “alcohol plan”, unlike for tobacco. And despite an overall decline, certain risky behaviours persist, such as binge drinking, particularly among women.

Binge drinking still a worry in France despite drop in daily consumption

RFI: Culturally, attitudes are changing. But how do you explain the different treatment of tobacco and alcohol, given that the harms of alcohol are well documented?

MN: Above all, it’s a political blockage. The President [Emmanuel Macron] has publicly said that he does not want to ‘annoy the French’ about their alcohol consumption, that the [alcohol and tobacco policy] Évin law should not be tightened, and that he sees no problem with drinking wine as long as you do not drive.

The message is clear, and we felt it very concretely, when the January Challenge was launched in 2020 there was a direct blockage from the presidency, and other campaigns were subsequently slowed down.

Political figures, such as the Minister for tourism, openly take on a lobbying role. This has fuelled a caricatured opposition between ‘health puritans’ and ‘Epicureans’, even though the issue is not prohibition but enabling normal prevention.

Even when alcohol is discussed with health authorities, there is a sense that consumption in general should not be targeted, only excess or dependency. But this hinders prevention, to prevent people from sliding into risky consumption in the first place.

Nevertheless, our work is starting to pay off. The January campaign works, and opponents are running out of arguments against it.

Dilemma for French winemakers as alcohol content rises while consumption falls

RFI:  Do you feel like public opinion is changing?

MN: Yes, something is happening. We see more discussion around not drinking, growing demand for alternatives, and young people partying differently. Since 2020, the January Challenge has played an important role: it prompts reflection and allows positive communication about what people gain by reducing their consumption.

The January Challenge helps people develop strategies to avoid drinking, feel more competent and more confident in refusing alcohol.

RFI: Is the association between alcohol, sociability and being ‘cool’ also starting to fade?

MN: As with tobacco, which has become unfashionable, I think we will get there with alcohol, too. People are more aware of the negative impact, that when you have drunk too much, you don’t really enjoy the evening, you can lose control or experience memory loss.

What has changed a lot, particularly among young women, is lower tolerance for this loss of control. Socially, drunkenness is less accepted, and more and more young people say they are fed up with having to deal with friends who have drunk too much.

We also hear more people saying: ‘I don’t drink and I still have fun’. People are speaking out.

We are also seeing new strategies emerge: planning ahead, setting limits, slowing down, alternating with water. These behaviours need to be promoted, because prevention also involves developing psychosocial skills, such as knowing how to say no or analyse a situation.

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This article has been adapted from an interview in French by RFI’s Aurore Lartigue and edited for length and clarity.

RFI: Bardot was very young when she started her film career. It was ultimately quite short but very intense, and left its mark. In what way do you think she embodied an era?

Antoine de Baecque: Brigitte Bardot represents a little piece of France that is disappearing. She embodied several moments in cinema, several eras – between her appearance in the late 1950s, which coincided with the emergence of a new style of cinema, the New Wave, and then on to films that were huge successes, both in the United States and in France. Then she said goodbye to it all very young – she ended her film career at the age of 40, in the early 1970s.

Bardot was always a kind of reflection, a mirror… that reflected the developments of the moment. And that’s what’s so powerful about Bardot in cinema, it’s that way she has of signifying something – like a phenomenon, like an apparition.

Remembering Bardot: ‘sex symbol’, ‘crazy cat lady’ and far-right supporter

RFI: Her appearance in Roger Vadim’s And God Created Woman in 1956 caused a sensation in the film industry and she was elevated to the status of a symbol, a sex symbol.

ADB: It’s a paradoxical story, that God created Roger Vadim’s woman, because for Vadim [this film] was first and foremost his way of creating a woman: here is the Nouvelle Vague girl. This young woman who is going to be a bit of a model for her era.

And it wasn’t necessarily very well received. And God Created Woman was not a huge success when it was first released in France. In fact, it was when it reached the United States that the Bardot phenomenon took off in 1958.

RFI: Two years later…

ADB: Exactly, the film is French and is received [in France] with very mixed reviews. It is considered very shocking for its nude scenes, for its very transgressive nature compared to the young leading ladies of French cinema in the 1950s, which was still a fairly restrictive, very moralistic cinema.

And then the film is released in the US where it became a real phenomenon, in the sense that American youth elected Bardot as the sex symbol of her time.

RFI: The British press said Bardot in the film was the biggest shock since the French Revolution in 1789. It immediately took on a global dimension, it wasn’t just France.

ADB: Of course, [this shock] was seen in the US and the UK and even Italy. And it was this international [reaction] that, in a sort of boomerang effect, came back [to France] and on its second French release, it was a huge success.

Bardot… was truly a new [type of woman] in cinema, with this very frank, very free way of showing her body, this completely new way of choosing her men, compared to the customs of the time. She was no longer the prey, she was the predator, in a way. And that was something completely new.

Bardot: the screen goddess who gave it all up

RFI: She became an international megastar. And yet it wasn’t until 1963 that she starred in a true masterpiece, Le Mépris (Contempt).

ADB: Bardot can only be herself. That’s her greatness – she can only play herself, she can only speak in her own way, she can only appear in her own way. And so she will always struggle with cinema which wants to give her characters to play.

In Le Mépris, Jean-Luc Godard really uses her as a plant, as he says – she is a beautiful plant and there is something almost objective about it. Particularly, of course, in the famous scene that opens the film, which was actually shot later on, when Godard, in response to his producers who wanted Bardot, said: “Well, here you go, I’ll give you Bardot.” So we get a nude scene that would become a legendary scene in world cinema.

RFI: Was she a great actress, in your opinion?

ADB: No, I don’t think she was an actress. She didn’t really like cinema herself. You know, she was there, but she didn’t consider herself an actress. What she liked was being with her friends, partying or relaxing at home, in her refuges at La Madrague, [her beach house] in Saint-Tropez or [her home in] Bazoches [near Paris].

But Bardot knew very well that cinema was necessary. It was the means to become famous, the means to conquer the world. And she did it. But not as an actress. She wasn’t an actress, she was a phenomenon.

She loved to sing. She had passions. She always loved animals. That was an instinctive [thing] she always had – that is, taking in animals and defending them, and attacking very vehemently those who mistreated animals. And singing was something she did a lot, with people who wrote songs for her. La Madrague is a song that was written for her in the early 1960s. And then, of course, there was the meeting with Serge Gainsbourg…

First and foremost, it’s a love story. A passionate story of three months of mad love in the autumn of 1967, which resulted in these masterpieces of French chanson: Harley Davidson, Comic Strip, Bonnie and Clyde. And then, of course, Je t’aime… moi non plus, the legendary song recorded on 10 December 1967 – which was about Bardot at a time when she was involved in a love affair [with Gainsbourg]. [The record was shelved because Bardot didn’t want her husband at the time, Gunter Sachs, to find out.] It [was then] covered by Jane Birkin [Gainsbourg’s subsequent love interest] before we even got to hear Bardot’s version.

Jane Birkin, an English chanteuse who left her mark on French pop

RFI: Bardot said that Initials BB, a song Gainsbourg wrote about her, was the most beautiful declaration of love she ever received.

ADB: Yes, that’s absolutely right. I think that between Bardot and Gainsbourg, it’s both mythology and at the same time something that they shared intimately. No one can ever take that away from them. It’s truly a love story that became songs.

And that’s something that is also Bardot’s strength: that she chooses. At one point, she wanted to choose Gainsbourg because she loved the way he looked at her, the way he desired her, and she chose Gainsbourg over everyone else, over everything – her husband, convention, social norms, what people might say.

And the song Je t’aime… moi non plus is the embodiment of this passion. Bardot may have had a passion for certain men but, in a way, passion itself her true love – this way of loving that was very shocking for the times she lived in, being free to love and then to throw that love away. I think that’s the very essence of Bardot, that choice.

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This article has been adapted from an interview in French by RFI’s Charlotte Idrac and edited for clarity.

The campaign for this month’s general elections began calmly enough, according to Kristof Titeca, an expert on governance in Uganda at the Institute of Development Policy at the University of Antwerp.

“But as soon as Bobi Wine and his political party, the NUP, really started campaigning, the repression escalated,” he told RFI.

The NUP has complained of arbitrary arrests at its rallies, saying that some 400 of its supporters have been detained. While analysts put the figure lower, closer to 200, it is evident that there has been “a real attempt to prevent Bobi Wine and the NUP from campaigning, from organising rallies”, Titeca said.

“The repression remains very clear.”

Tear gas, torture

The United Nations and other organisations have sounded the alarm over a crackdown that seems to be intensifying as Uganda’s elections near.

According to Amnesty International, Ugandan security forces have unlawfully targeted opposition rallies with excessive force as well as arrests, and subjected some attendees to torture.

The rights watchdog said this week it had documented incidents in which security officers fired tear gas and beat people at two separate NUP rallies in November where at least one person died. The organisation spoke to others who said they were hit with batons, pepper-sprayed in the mouth and tasered. 

While police claimed attendees had provoked the violence, eyewitnesses told Amnesty the crowds were peaceful.

The organisation says it has also received reports and verified digital evidence of similar incidents in other parts of the country.

“The authorities have launched a brutal campaign of repression against the opposition and its supporters, making it extremely difficult for them to exercise their rights to freedom of association and peaceful assembly,” said Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty’s regional director for East and Southern Africa.

Ugandan opposition MP abducted and tortured ahead of elections

Human rights lawyer arrested

Having reviewed court charge sheets, Amnesty says that in at least some cases, people have been arrested “solely for their perceived support for the NUP”. 

Those detained including Sarah Bireete, a prominent lawyer and human rights activist, who was arrested at home in Kampala on 30 December. She is accused of unlawfully obtaining or disclosing voters’ data, charges she denies.

Her arrest marks a new level of repression, according to Titeca. 

“This didn’t happen in previous elections,” he said. “This is the first time a figure like Sarah Bireete has been arrested on charges that were somewhat vague.”

Ugandan opposition denounces brutal crackdown ahead of 2026 elections

‘Hybrid regime’

Since Museveni came to power in January 1986, he has walked a fine line at the head of a “hybrid regime”, Titeca explained.

“It has authoritarian tendencies, but also democratic ones. That means the government and President Museveni still need the support of the international community, namely the European Union and the United States, the financial and political backing of these international actors.”

These conflicting demands explain why Wine has been allowed to stand, Titeca said, even as longtime opposition leader Kizza Besigye is in jail on charges of treason.

Ugandan court denies bail to veteran opposition leader in treason case

At 81, one way or another Museveni’s time in power is limited. For Ugandans, the most important question now is what comes after, Titeca said – whether the president is replaced by one or his opponents or by his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the head of the army who is being positioned as his successor. 

The Museveni clan will do everything it can to stop power changing sides, Titeca said, “and that is the greatest difficulty or danger for the country”. 

“How will this transition unfold? Will the army and the people accept that someone from Museveni’s clan stays in power once more?” That remains to be seen, the analyst concludes. 

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This article is based on an interview in French by RFI’s Christophe Boisbouvier.

A Russian Foreign Ministry statement said “militaristic declarations” by a coalition of pro-Ukraine Western governments were becoming increasingly dangerous.

Russia was responding for the first time to a meeting of the “coalition of the willing” in Paris on Tuesday at which Britain and France signed a declaration of intent on the future deployment.

French President Emmanuel Macron said it could involve sending thousands of French troops. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said it paved the way for a legal framework whereby “British, French and partner forces could operate on Ukrainian soil, securing Ukraine’s skies and seas and regenerating Ukraine’s armed forces for the future”.

‘Direct threat’

Russia “warns that the deployment of Western military units, military facilities, depots and other infrastructure on Ukrainian territory will be classified as foreign intervention, posing a direct threat to the security of not only Russia but also other European countries,” the statement from Moscow said.

“All such units and facilities will be considered legitimate combat targets of the Russian Armed Forces.”

It added: “The fresh militaristic declarations of the so-called coalition of the willing and the Kyiv regime constitute a veritable ‘axis of war’.

US backs security guarantees for Ukraine at summit of Kyiv’s allies in Paris

“The plans of these participants are becoming increasingly dangerous and destructive for the future of the European continent and its inhabitants, who are also being forced by Western politicians to finance these aspirations out of their own pockets.”

Russia, which staged a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, says it was forced to intervene in order to prevent Ukraine from being absorbed into NATO and used as a launchpad to threaten Russia. It has consistently said it will never accept the stationing of Western forces there.

Ukraine and its allies accuse Moscow of waging an imperial-style war aimed at seizing the territory of its neighbour, of which it now holds nearly 20%. They say Ukraine needs firm security guarantees as part of any peace settlement in order to prevent another Russian invasion in future.

The United States has ruled out sending its own troops to Ukraine, but its special envoy Steve Witkoff said at Tuesday’s meeting in Paris that President Donald Trump “strongly stands behind” security protocols aimed at deterring future attacks on Ukraine.

Around 100 tractors were positioned at several symbolic locations in the capital by 8am local time, including near the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, the Interior Ministry said.

Farmers overran police checkpoints to enter the city, driving along the Champs-Elysées and blocking roads around the Arc de Triomphe before dawn, while police surrounded them.

Dozens of tractors also blocked highways leading into Paris ahead of the morning rush hour, including the A13 from the western suburbs and Normandy. The transport minister said the disruption caused traffic jams stretching 150 kilometres.

“We are between resentment and despair. We have a feeling of abandonment, with Mercosur being an example,” Stephane Pelletier, a senior member of the right-wing Coordination Rurale union, told Reuters.

Banned protest

Farmers from several unions had called for protests in Paris, fearing the planned free trade agreement with the Mercosur bloc of four South American countries would flood the European Union with cheap food imports.

They are also angry over the government’s handling of an outbreak of cattle disease.

The farmers went ahead with the action despite a prefectural ban announced on Wednesday, which barred tractors from entering certain sensitive areas of the capital.

“What is happening this morning is illegal,” said government spokesperson Maud Bregeon on FranceInfo public radio.

Police sought to avoid clashes with the protesters. “Farmers are not our enemies,” said Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot.

What to know about the EU-Mercosur deal

Eve of Mercosur vote

The protest added pressure on President Emmanuel Macron and his government, a day before European Union member states are expected to vote on the trade accord.

France has long opposed the deal and, even after last-minute concessions, Macron’s final position remained unclear.

Earlier this week, the European Commission proposed bringing forward 45 billion euros in EU funding for farmers under the bloc’s next seven-year budget. It also agreed to cut import duties on some fertilisers to win over countries wavering on the Mercosur deal.

Germany and Spain back the agreement, and the Commission appears close to securing  Italy’s support. That would give the EU enough votes to approve the accord, with or without France.

EU offers farmers extra funds to quell anger over Mercosur deal

A vote on the accord is expected on Friday.

“This treaty is still not acceptable,” Bregeon said on France Info, declining to say whether Macron would vote for the deal, against it or abstain.

On Wednesday, Bruno Retailleau, leader of the conservative Republicans party, warned that Macron’s support for Mercosur could put the government at risk of censure.

Farmers are also demanding an end to a government policy of culling cows to contain the highly contagious lumpy skin disease. They argue vaccination should be used instead.

(with newswires)

The US Coast Guard stopped the tanker – which was being shadowed by a Russian submarine – on Wednesday, after pursuing it for more than two weeks across the Atlantic as part of Washington’s efforts to block Venezuelan oil exports.

Britain said its armed forces gave “pre-planned operational support, including basing” following a US request for assistance.

It said a military vessel provided support for the US forces pursuing the tanker, and the Royal Air Force provided surveillance support from the air.

In a post on X, the US military’s European Command thanked the MoD for its “unwavering support” during the operation.

Trump orders blockade of ‘sanctioned’ Venezuela oil tankers

Crackdown on ‘sanctions busting’

The Marinera, a Venezuelan-linked tanker formerly known as the Bella-1, was not carrying any oil.

But the ship is alleged to be part of the shadow or “ghost” fleets used by Russia, Iran and Venezuela to avoid western sanctions.

UK Defence Secretary John Healey said the operation targeted a vessel “with a nefarious history” linked to Russian and Iranian sanctions evasion networks.

“This action formed part of global efforts to crack down on sanctions busting,” he said in a statement.

France investigates Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tanker anchored off coast

He said British support was provided “in full compliance with international law”, adding that the UK “will not stand by as malign activity increases on the high seas”.

He added that the United States was the UK’s closest defence and security partner: “The depth of our defence relationship with the US is an essential part of our security, and today’s seamlessly executed operation shows just how well this works in practice.”

The Marinera has been under sanctions from the US treasury since June 2024.

The US accuses it of carrying illicit cargo for the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

(with newswires)

The decree, published on Wednesday, prohibits food imports containing traces of the fungicides mancozeb, thiophanate-methyl, carbendazim and benomyl, as well as the herbicide glufosinate.

These substances, used on crops ranging from avocados and mangos to wheat, soybeans and potatoes, are already banned for use within the EU because of health and environmental risks, but were previously tolerated at low residue levels on imported produce.

According to the agriculture ministry, France now considers those maximum residue levels too high and wants to ensure that foods entering its market respect the same safety standards as those applied to domestic production.

Enhanced border checks are expected to follow, with officials stressing that the measure is framed as a public-health and “fair competition” move rather than a targeted strike against any single region.

EU-Mercosur agreement

The announcement comes as EU agriculture ministers meet in Brussels for an extraordinary session where the long-delayed EU–Mercosur agreement is again on the agenda.

More than 25 years in the making, the accord would progressively create what officials describe as the world’s largest free-trade area between the 27-nation EU and Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.​

Mercosur meets in Brazil, EU eyes January 12 trade deal

French farming unions, already mobilised over concerns about income, environmental standards and foreign competition, are urging Paris to block the deal, fearing a surge of cheaper imports produced under looser rules.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has framed the pesticide move as a “first step” to protect consumers and farmers against what Paris sees as unfair competition from producers not bound by EU-level restrictions.​

EU Commission to scrutinise French move

Under EU law, unilateral restrictions on imports must be cleared by the European Commission, which will examine the French measure on 20 January.

Commission officials have signalled they are open to revisiting rules on trace residues of banned pesticides, although they note that such substances currently affect only a small fraction of the bloc’s overall food imports.​

If Brussels approves the French decree, it could set a precedent for other EU states seeking to align trade policy with stricter environmental and health standards at home.

But it may also complicate already fraught talks with Mercosur partners, who have warned against what they view as disguised protectionism dressed up as green or health-based conditionality.

(with newswires)

The animal rights activist and far-right supporter died on 28 December age 91 at her home in southern France. 

Her husband, Bernard d’Ormale, said in an interview with Paris Match magazine on Tuesday that she had died from cancer after undergoing two operations. “She was conscious and concerned about the fate of animals until the very end,” he said.

Residents and admirers applauded the funeral convoy as her coffin, covered in mostly orange and yellow flowers, was carried through the narrow streets of Saint-Tropez and into the town’s Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption church on Wednesday morning, at the start of the funeral service.

Inside the church, a black and white picture of Bardot hugging a baby seal was on display, ‍with the words “Merci Brigitte” (Thank you Brigitte). 

The ceremony was broadcast live on large screens set up at the port of Saint-Tropez and two plazas in the small town, allowing residents and admirers to follow the farewell. 

Bardot: the screen goddess who gave it all up

World’s ‘most beautiful woman’

Known affectionately as B.B. by many in France, Bardot’s roles made her not just a sex symbol, but a pop culture icon ​and a touchstone for changing social attitudes. She became the first celebrity to model for a bust ​of Marianne, the traditional symbol of the French Republic that adorns French town halls.

The service started to the sound of Maria Callas’ Ave Maria in the presence of Bardot’s husband, son and grandchildren, as well as guests invited by the family and the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the protection of animals. 

“Sadness is overwhelming, and pain too,” Max Guazzini, a friend and secretary general of the Foundation, said in a speech.

“For me, Brigitte Bardot is France,” said singer Mireille Mathieu, 79, who was to sing at the funeral. “She was the most beautiful woman in the world,” ‍Mathieu told reporters before walking into the church, praising “that freedom [Bardot] had, that boldness to say what she thought”.

After the church service, Bardot is to be buried in strict privacy in the so-called marine cemetery in Saint-Tropez, where her parents are also interred.

The cemetery is also the final resting place of several cultural figures, including filmmaker Roger Vadim, Bardot’s first husband, who directed her breakout film And God Created Woman – a role that made her a worldwide star.

Controversial public figure

Bardot settled decades ago in her seaside villa, La Madrague, and retired from filmmaking in 1973 at age 39, after making more than two dozen films. 

She later emerged as an animal rights activist, founding and sustaining the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the protection of animals. 

While she withdrew from the film industry, she remained a highly visible and often controversial public figure through her militant animal rights activism and links with far-right politics.

She was convicted multiple times for inciting racial hatred after making incendiary remarks on immigration, Islam and homosexuality.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen was among those attending Wednesday’s funeral. Aurore Berge, President Macron’s minister for equality and a defender of animal rights, was there to represent the government.

Bardot: from defending sheep to flirting with the far right

Bardot had publicly endorsed the late Jean-Marie Le Pen – co-founder of the far-right, xenophobic National Front – and his daughter Marine, ‍whom she once referred to as “the Joan of Arc of the 21st century”.

A tribute open to locals and fans will take ‌place later in the old town quarter called La Ponche, the historic centre of the former fishing village.

(with newswires)

French President Emmanuel Macron, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed a declaration of intent on Tuesday in Paris at the “coalition of the willing” summit of mainly European nations.

The declaration foresees Britain, France and other European allies deploying troops on Ukrainian territory after any ceasefire with Russia.

The allies also agreed to participate in a proposed US-led ceasefire monitoring and vertification mechanism.

Macron said that Paris could deploy “several thousand” French troops to Ukraine after the war.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff said that President Donald Trump “strongly stands behind security protocols”.

“Those security protocols are meant to … deter any attacks, any further attacks in Ukraine, and … if there are any attacks, they’re meant to defend, and they will do both. They are as strong as anyone has ever seen.”

But a promise that Washington would commit to “support” the European-led multinational force “in case of a new attack” by Russia, which was present in the draft statement, was not in the communique released on Tuesday evening.

US and Ukrainian officials are to continue talks over security guarantees for Kyiv on Wednesday.

 

EU greenlights €90bn loan for Ukraine, without frozen Russian assets

Peace with guarantees

Talks to bring the almost four-year conflict to an end have accelerated since November. However, Moscow has yet to signal willingness to make concessions after Kyiv pushed for changes to a US proposal that initially backed Russia’s main demands.

Until recently, much of the focus was on pledges of military aid for Ukraine’s forces and possible contributions to an international reassurance force.

Attention has now shifted to legally binding guarantees to come to Kyiv’s aid in the event of another attack by Moscow. The possibility of a military response is likely to trigger debate in many European countries, diplomats say.

“These commitments may include the use of military capabilities, intelligence and logistical support, diplomatic initiatives, adoption of additional sanctions,” the leaders’ statement said, adding that they would now “finalise binding commitments”.

“We all want … peace (in Ukraine) to be fair, lasting and clear-eyed… we want this peace to have its guarantees,” Macron told a news conference after the summit.

Macron demands ‘robust security guarantees’ before any Ukraine territorial talks

Renewed unity

European leaders present at the meeting, including Macron, Starmer, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stressed that the statement showed renewed unity between Europe and the United States on helping Ukraine.

The leaders’ statement also pledged a European-led “Multinational Force for Ukraine … to support the rebuilding of Ukraine’s armed forces and support deterrence” with “the proposed support of the US”.

Kyiv has long said it cannot be safe without guarantees that are comparable to the Nato alliance’s mutual defence agreement, to deter Russia from attacking again.

Moscow wants any peace deal to bar Ukraine from military alliances.

(with newswires)

The White House said on Tuesday that Trump was discussing options for acquiring Greenland, ​including potential use of the US military, in a revival of his ambition to control the strategic island, despite European objections.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot ‍said the subject would be raised at a meeting with the foreign ministers of Germany and Poland later on Wednesday.

“We want ​to take action, but we want to do so together with our European partners,” ​he said on France Inter radio on Wednesday morning.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, have requested the meeting with Rubio in the near future, according to a statement posted Tuesday to Greenland’s government website. Previous requests for a sit-down were not successful, the statement said.

However, Barrot suggested a US military operation had been ruled out by a ‌top US official.

“I myself was on the phone yesterday with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (…) who confirmed that this was not the approach taken … he ‍ruled out the possibility of an invasion (of Greenland),” he said.

Trump weighs military option to acquire Greenland

Trump renews Greenland ambitions

Trump has in recent days repeated that he wants to gain control of Greenland – an idea first voiced in 2019 during his first presidency. He has argued it is key for the US military and ‍that Denmark has not done enough to protect it.

A US military seizure of Greenland from a longtime ally, Denmark, would send shock waves through the ​Nato alliance and deepen the divide between Trump and European leaders.

Leaders from major European powers and Canada have rallied behind Greenland, saying the Arctic island belongs to its people.

A US military operation over the weekend that seized the leader of Venezuela had already rekindled concerns that Greenland might face a similar scenario. It has repeatedly said it does not want to be part of the United States.

‘That’s enough’: Greenland PM reacts to Trump threats

The world’s largest island but with a population of just 57,000 people, Greenland is not an independent member of NATO but is covered by Denmark’s ‍membership of the Western alliance.

Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, warned on Monday that any US attack on a NATO ally would be the end of both the military alliance and “post-second world war security“.

Strategically located between Europe and North America, the US has an early warning air base in northwestern Greenland.

The island’s mineral wealth also aligns with Washington’s ambition to reduce reliance on China.

(with newswires)

The European Commission said Tuesday it plans to tweak its budget proposal for 2028-2034, which has come under fire from agricultural groups, to allow farmers early access to around 45 billion euros.

The move comes amid a push to ease the qualms of some countries over the Mercosur deal that Brussels hopes to ink on 12 January in Paraguay.

It was welcomed by Italy, which holds the deciding vote on the accord.

“This is a positive and significant step forward in the negotiations that will lead to the new EU budget,” said Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

More than 25 years in the making, the Mercosur deal would create the world’s biggest free-trade area, boosting trade between the 27-nation EU and the bloc comprising Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay.

But it has alarmed many European farmers who fear they will be undercut by a flow of cheaper goods from agricultural giant Brazil and its neighbours.

Thousands protested in Brussels last month, venting their anger also at EU plans to overhaul its system of farm subsidies, which critics say would result in farmers receiving less money.

Farmers descend on Brussels to protest EU Mercosur trade deal

Extraordinary meeting

In a letter Tuesday, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen unveiled budget changes she said would “provide the farmers and rural communities with an unprecedented level of support”.

The letter was released as EU agriculture ministers are due to gather in Brussels on Wednesday for an extraordinary meeting to try to get the Mercosur deal over the line.

Member states are expected to then vote on the text on Friday, which the commission hopes will clear the way for its signature.

Plans to seal the accord in December ran into a late roadblock as heavyweights Italy and France demanded a postponement over concerns for the farming sector.

Germany and Spain are strongly in favour of the agreement, believing it will provide a welcome boost to their industries, hampered by Chinese competition and tariffs in the United States.

Trump’s tariffs come into force, upending economic ties with Europe

The deal would help the EU export more vehicles, machinery, wines and spirits to Latin America at a time of global trade tensions.

In return, it would facilitate the entry into Europe of South American meat, sugar, rice, honey and soybeans.

(with AFP)

The announcement from Berlin underscores accelerating ocean warming driven by climate change, as confirmed by Tim Kruschke, head of the BSH’s climate team.

The Baltic Sea, meanwhile, came close to its own record, averaging 9.7°C last year – 1.1°C above the 1997-2021 long-term mean and second only to 2020 since monitoring started in 1990.​

Throughout 2025, the North Sea shattered seasonal benchmarks. Spring saw averages of 8.7°C, 0.9°C above normal and the hottest since 1997, with peaks up to 2°C higher off Norway and Denmark.

Summer was even more extreme, reaching 15.7°C on average – edging out 2003 and 2014 for the top spot since 1969, with vast swathes exceeding long-term averages by over 2°C.

The BSH noted prolonged marine heatwaves, including a 55-day event at Kiel Lighthouse from late March to May – the longest on record there since 1989. These events stemmed from reduced cloud cover, enhanced solar heating, and inflows of warm Atlantic water.​

Anomalies

Such anomalies align with global patterns outlined by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC.) Oceans have absorbed over 90 percent of excess atmospheric heat since 1970, with warming rates more than doubling since 1993 – from about 3-4 Zetajoules (ZJ) per year (0-2000m depth) pre-1993 to over 6 ZJ annually thereafter. One Zetajoule equals the energy from exploding 239 million Hiroshima bombs or powering the world for a year at current rates.

Marine heatwaves have doubled in frequency since 1982 and grown more intense worldwide. UNESCO’s 2024 State of the Ocean report echoes this, noting ocean warming doubled over 20 years, fuelling deoxygenation (2 percent loss since 1960s), acidification (up 30 percent since pre-industrial times), and 40 percent of recent sea-level rise from thermal expansion.​

UN Summit advances ocean protection, vows to defend seabed

Warmer seas also threaten North Sea biodiversity, a key European fishery. Heatwaves disrupt plankton, fish distributions, and oxygen levels, creating “dead zones” and stressing cold-adapted species. Zooplankton collapses during 2018-2022 events signal worse ahead, while species shifts could boost some sharks or oysters but risk invasives and ecosystem imbalance.

The Baltic, warming faster long-term (nearly 2°C since 1990), faces amplified risks like seabed hypoxia. Coastal communities brace for fiercer storms and erosion as seas expand and weather intensifies.​

(WIth agencies)

The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs has so far confirmed the deaths of nine French nationals, including several minors, while 23 French nationals have been injured.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau on Monday expressed her “deepest compassion to them and their families”.

While she said “Swiss authorities remain competent to investigate the sequence of events and determine any liability”, a separate inviestigation is being opened up by the “mass casualty incidents” unit of the Paris prosecutor’s office.

This would “allow the French victims and their families to have a common point of contact in France and to facilitate, if necessary, their communication with the Swiss authorities,” she explained.

The association France Victimes has also been mobilised by the public prosecutor’s office to offer psychological and legal support to victims and their families, she indicated.

All 40 victims of Swiss New Year ski resort blaze identified, including 9 French

The fire in the basement of the “Le Constellation” bar on New Year’s Eve claimed 40 lives, ranging in age from 14 to 39, half of them minors. Among the victims were 22 Swiss citizens, one of whom also held French nationality, and 18 foreign nationals, according to the Valais cantonal police.

The tragedy also left 116 people injured, 83 of whom remain hospitalised. These include 69 Swiss, 23 French, and 12 Italians, some of whom hold dual nationality.

Negligence

The authorities have said they believe the fire started when people celebrating New Year raised champagne bottles with sparklers attached, setting light to sound insulating foam on the ceiling of the bar’s basement.

The bar’s patrons, primarily teenagers and young adults, were trapped by the flames.

The bar belongs to two French nationals, Jacques and Jessica Moretti, who have been under investigation since Saturday for “manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence, and arson by negligence.”

Jacques Moretti, who was imprisoned in Savoie in 2005, is known for pimping cases dating back some twenty years, a source close to the case confirmed to French news agency AFP, corroborating information published by Le Parisien on Monday.

Swiss launch probe of bar managers after deadly fire in ski resort

Meanwhile, Swiss local authorities admitted Tuesday that fire safety inspections had not been carried out for the past five years at the bar.

“Periodic inspections were not conducted between 2020 and 2025. We bitterly regret this,” Crans-Montana mayor Nicolas Feraud told a press conference.

In a statement issued at the press conference, the Municipality of Crans-Montana said it had gone through all the documents in the file submitted to the Wallis canton public prosecutor’s office following the fire.

It said the documents detail “administrative procedures relating to the establishment’s compliance”.

Memorial ceremony

“Although more than 1,400 fire inspections were carried out in the municipality in 2025 alone, the municipal council deeply regrets discovering that this establishment had failed to undergo periodic inspections between 2020 and 2025.”

The council said it would commission a specialist external agency to inspect all public establishments and would ban pyrotechnic devices indoors.

“The Municipality of Crans-Montana remains fully committed to supporting the victims of this tragedy and their families and loved ones, who are constantly in its thoughts,” the statement said.

“It will continue to do everything in its power to ensure that such a tragedy never happens again.”

A memorial ceremony is planned for Friday in Switzerland. The French government spokesperson announced that President Emmanuel Macron would attend in person.

(with newswires)

Public weather forecaster Metéo-France has placed 38 French departments on orange alert for Wednesday.

Although followed by a thaw, the phenomenon “will bring snow and, locally, freezing rain to a large part of the north of the country,” it said.

At Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport – the main airport for long-haul services – 40 percent of scheduled flights between 9.00 am (08.00 GMT) and 2:00 pm will be cancelled to allow staff time to remove snow from runways and de-ice planes, France’s transport minister Philippe Tabarot said Tuesday in a press conference.

At Orly airport, 25 percent of flights will be cancelled between 6:00 am and 1:00 pm for similar reasons, he added.

Road travel

Tabarot “strongly” advised avoiding all road travel Wednesday in the Ile-de-France region due to this heavy snowfall forecast.

Heavy goods vehicles will be banned in western France and the Paris region, where the speed limit for light vehicles will be reduced to 70 km/h.

Six people dead in road accidents as France manages heavy snow and ice

On Tuesday, five airports were closed in western and northern France: Nantes, Vatry, La Rochelle, Albert-Bray (near Amiens), and Saint-Nazaire.

And heavy snowfall and icy conditions have killed at least six people on roads across France and caused major disruptions.

(with newswires)

Three people died in two separate accidents caused by black ice in southwestern France, while a rideshare driver died after falling into the Marne River near Paris.

The two tragedies come after the deaths on Monday of a van driver in a collision with a truck, also in the Paris region and a motorcyclist in the western region of Brittany.

Snow caused over 1,000 km of traffic jams in the Île-de-France region on Monday evening, a record level, according to the traffic information website Sytadin.

French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said that the scale of the weather event was “somewhat underestimated” by the national weather bureau Météo-France, particularly around the French capital, adding that “the response plan had to be revised.”

He nevertheless judged that Monday night had “gone rather well” in the Paris region, where measures had been taken, such as the early sanding of roads, to allow people to return home and avoid “stranded motorists” like in 2018.

A total of 26 departments in western France had been placed under an orange alert for snow and ice by Météo-France. This alert was lifted at 10:00 AM on Tuesday.

Six airports have been closed in the west and north, but no flights have been cancelled at Parisian airports, where some 250 snowploughs were on standby, the Transport ministry said on Tuesday.

An ice rink

“It’s like an ice rink,” Christophe Canut, a 43-year-old caregiver, told French news agency AFP after being completely stranded since 6:40 a.m. GMT on the a motorway in southwestern France.

Temperatures went down to -3 and -8°C and in some case below -10°C, which caused black ice, the weather service stated.

For Wednesday, a new disturbance is expected to bring “snow and locally freezing rain over a large part of the northern part of the country”, according to Météo-France, which said a further increase in the level of vigilance could be issued on Wednesday.

Paris launches winter emergency plan as homeless man dies from cold

School transport was disrupted on Tuesday in several regions, including Brittany, which is unaccustomed to such conditions, and Vendée, where the snowfall was also exceptional.

Traffic restrictions for heavy goods vehicles remain in force in several departments.

The SNCF rail services reported Tuesday morning service disruptions on several lines in western France due to snow, as well as speed restrictions on certain sections of high-speed rail lines (TGV). 

It recommended that its customers “postpone their travel as much as possible”.

Electricity provider Enedis said around 8,000 homes were still without electricity in the central Pays de la Loire region (mainly in Loire-Atlantique and Vendée) and 5,000 in the Charente-Maritime area.

In Paris, the situation was improving Tuesday morning. Around thirty bus lines were restored after being disrupted on Monday due to snowfall in the capital.

(with newswires)

The summit of the group of Ukraine supporters is the latest of several meetings planned for the new year as diplomatic efforts to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II have gained pace in recent weeks.

It comes as overnight Russian strikes triggered a fire at a private medical clinic in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, killing one person and wounding three others, the authorities said.

The pre-dawn attack also killed one man in his 70s in the neighbouring city of Fastiv, the Kyiv regional governor said.

Representatives of 35 countries, including 27 heads of state, will gather in Paris, with the French presidency saying the meeting aims to show the “alignment” between Washington, Kyiv and European allies on security guarantees for Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner will attend the meeting of the coalition, launched in the spring by France and the United Kingdom.

Macron demands ‘robust security guarantees’ before any Ukraine territorial talks

An adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron said the new meeting is the culmination of efforts launched after Donald Trump’s arrival at the White House to prevent “the United States from abandoning Ukraine”.

“We have succeeded in this exercise of realignment between Ukraine, Europe and America,” the adviser told journalists on Monday.

According to diplomatic sources, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is also expected to attend, along with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Canada’s Mark Carney.

Reassurance

The leaders are set to commit in particular to their shared vision of what a ceasefire would look like between Ukraine and Russia, and their response in case of violations.

They will also discuss the deployment of a multinational force to “reassure Ukraine” as part of a possible political agreement, the French presidency said, with decisions still being “finalised” on Monday.

To lay the groundwork, security advisers from 15 countries, including Britain, France and Germany as well as representatives from NATO and the European Union, gathered in Kyiv over the weekend, with Witkoff joining virtually.

Zelensky in Berlin as Ukraine weighs NATO compromise and EU funding fight

Kyiv said in recent days a deal was “90 percent” ready, though both Moscow and Kyiv remain at odds over the key issue of territory in any post-war settlement.

Russia, which occupies around 20 percent of Ukraine, is pushing for full control of the country’s eastern Donbas region as part of a deal.

But Kyiv has warned ceding ground will embolden Moscow and said it will not sign a peace deal that fails to deter Russia from invading again.

(with AFP)

“We’re thinking about it very seriously,” Trump said when asked by a reporter about the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey during a visit this week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The sale has been blocked for years due to Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missile system. A recent Bloomberg report suggested Ankara may be prepared to return the missiles, though Turkish officials have denied this.

Political commentator Asli Aydintasbas, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, says that the strengthening relationship between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan means both sides are working to resolve the impasse.

“He [Trump] himself is working with Turkey through his very effective ambassador, Tom Barrack, to find a solution,” said Aydintasbas. “There will be stiff opposition from the Greek lobby, Israelis and other regional players. But we’ve seen Trump skirt such opposition when it came to the Saudi Arabia F-35 sale.”

Military edge

Israeli security experts warn that Turkey’s acquisition of F-35 jets poses a greater security risk to Israel than the Saudi deal due to the Turkish military’s expertise, which threatens to challenge Israel’s technological advantage.

Currently, Israel maintains a significant edge as the Turkish air force operates decade-old jets, a factor that is increasingly important amid rising regional tensions.

“There was definitely a concern in the spring that there might be a confrontation in the skies of Syria between Israel and Turkey,” said Gallia Lindenstrauss of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

Syria in crossfire as Turkish-Israeli rivalry heats up over Assad’s successors

She stresses the risk of confrontation has significantly diminished thanks to “de-confliction talks”, brokered by Azerbaijan. A Syria “hotline” now exists between Israel and Turkey to prevent what Lindenstrauss describes as “accidents between the Israeli Air Force and the Turkish Air Force”.

Yet the need for such measures underscores how strained ties are. “The fact that it exists, of course, does point to the fact that things are not necessarily calm,” Lindenstrauss acknowledged.

Provocative alliances

Israel’s conflict in Gaza has heightened tensions with Turkey. On New Year’s Day, hundreds of thousands protested in Istanbul in support of Palestinians.

Tensions escalated further as Israel increased military cooperation last month with Greece and Cyprus. Both Greece and Cyprus have unresolved territorial disputes with Turkey in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas.

“Israelis are provoking especially Greeks and Greek Cypriots,” said Murat Aslan of Seta, a Turkish pro-government think tank. “The Israeli pilots are educating and training Greek pilots. They are operating [drones] across the Aegean Sea. And they sold many complex missile systems. So that means Israelis are provoking Greece just to challenge Turkey here in the Aegean Sea.”

In his New Year’s address, Erdogan said he was closely monitoring what he describes as threats and provocations against Turkey and Turkish Cypriots. Aslan predicts Ankara will not remain passive. “If there is a pattern in the west of Turkey that Greeks and Israelis are cooperating, for the sake of Turkish security interests, for sure there will be a reaction,” he warned.

Israel talks defence with Greece and Cyprus, as Turkey issues Netanyahu warrant

Greece, which is also acquiring the F-35, has joined Israel in opposing Turkey’s purchase of the jet, warning it would alter the balance of power.

While Trump has expressed support for the Turkish sale, analyst Aydintasbas notes the US president is learning the limitations of his power when it comes to Israel.

“Trump is going through what a lot of US presidents have experienced: frustration, and a question – ‘wait a minute, who’s the superpower here?’” she said. “Because of the power dynamic in the US-Israeli relationship, it sometimes does point to a situation in which Israelis, though the weaker side technically, end up having the upper hand because of their enormous influence in the public space.”

Aydintasbas predicts that, despite Trump’s friendship with and admiration for Erdogan, the US president will be unwilling to pay the political price of securing the Turkish jet sale. “This is an issue on which Trump is not willing to fight the US Congress… and essentially ignore the US law,” she said.

For the self-described master dealmaker, it may prove a deal too far.

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 and bonus questions, 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.

There’s no quiz this week – check in next week, 10 January, for the answer to the question about the gallery in the Louvre Museum that had to be closed.

Thanks to everyone who sent in their Resolutions – may you make good progress in keeping them! And many thanks to this week’s co-host, my daughter Mathilde Daguzan-Owensby, and for the contributions to the show from Olivia Morrow and Evan Coffey. And of course, hats off to the Magic Mixer Erwan Rome, who made this show sing! 

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: “Be Our Guest” by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman; the traditional “Auld Lang Syne” performed by the Glenn Miller Orchestra; “A House with Love in It” by Sid Lippman and Sylvia Dee, sung by Nat King Cole; “Winter Wonderland” by Felix Smith, performed by the Chet Baker Quartet; “Let it Snow” by Sammy Cahn, sung by Leon Redbone; “Sleigh Ride” by Leroy Anderson, performed by the Sam Bush Ensemble, and “We Wish you the Merriest” by Les Brown, sung by June Christie.

From the entire RFI English service, we wish you a Happy 2026!

Hello everyone!

This week on The Sound Kitchen, you’ll hear a “My Ordinary Hero” essay by listener Rasheed Naz from Faisal Abad, Pakistan.  I hope you’ll be inspired to write an essay for us, too!

If your essay goes on the air, you’ll find a package in the mail from The Sound Kitchen. Write in about your “ordinary” heroes – the people in your community who are doing extraordinarily good work, quietly working to make the world a better place, in whatever way they can. As listener Pramod Maheshwari said: “Just as small drops of water can fill a pitcher, small drops of kindness can change the world.”

I am still looking for your “This I Believe” essays, too. Tell us about the principles that guide your life … what you have found to be true from your very own personal experience. Or write about a book that changed your perspective on life, a person who you admire, festivals in your community, your most memorable moment, and/or your proudest achievement. If your essay is chosen to go on-the-air – read by you – you’ll win a special prize!

Send your essays to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

Or by postal mail, to:

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Here’s Rashid Naz’s essay:

Heroes are not always found in stories or movies. Sometimes they live among us, quietly working to make our world a better place. My “ordinary” hero is a community leader in our town, someone who has taught me that real heroism comes from serving others with kindness and courage.

Our community leader, Mr. Ahmed, is not rich or powerful, but he has a heart full of compassion. He organizes clean up drives, helps poor families, and encourages young people to stay in school. Whenever there is a problem – a sick neighbor, a broken road, or a family in need – he is the first to step forward. His actions remind us that small efforts can bring big changes.

What I admire most about him is his humility. He never seeks fame or reward. When people thank him, he simply says, “We are all responsible for our community.” Those words inspire me. He believes that leadership means service, not authority, and he proves it every day through his actions.

To many people, he might seem like an ordinary man. But to me, he is a true hero – a symbol of dedication, honesty, and hope. Because of him, I’ve learned that anyone can be a hero, not by wearing a cape, but by using their heart to make a difference.

That is why my “ordinary” hero is our community leader Mr Ahmed, a man whose quiet strength and selfless service continue to inspire us all.

 

 

Be sure and tune in next week for our annual New Year’s Resolutions program! Talk to you then!

Trump is due to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 29 December in Florida.

The meeting is the latest attempt to revive the Gaza plan, which aims to move from a ceasefire towards the creation of a new governing arrangement in Gaza, the deployment of an international force and the disarmament of Hamas.

On Friday, Turkish and Egyptian officials met their US counterparts in Miami.

With a ceasefire in place in Gaza, Washington is pushing the next phase of its plan, which would include Turkish troops in an International Stabilisation Force.

From Washington’s perspective, Turkey’s involvement is considered essential to the plan, said Asli Aydintasbas of the Brookings Institution.

Turkey and Iran unite against Israel as regional power dynamics shift

Israeli objections

Hamas disarmament depends on the creation of a new Palestinian governing entity and the presence of international peacekeepers, with Turkey acting as a guarantor, Aydintasbas said.

“Without Turkey in this process, decommissioning Hamas weapons would not occur. That is implicit in the agreement.”

Turkey’s close ties with Hamas are well known, with senior Hamas figures reportedly hosted in Turkey. While Turkey’s Western allies label Hamas a terrorist group, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said its members are liberation fighters.

Trump has publicly thanked Ankara for using its influence to encourage Hamas to accept the peace plan.

Israel opposes any Turkish military presence in Gaza, fearing Turkey would support Hamas rather than disarm it.

Israel is also concerned about cyber attacks attributed to Hamas operating from Turkish territory and doubts Turkey would act in Israel’s interests, said Gallia Lindenstrauss, a Turkey analyst at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

“There’s a risk of an accident between Israeli and Turkish forces, given the already high tensions and suspicions. It’s hard to see a positive outcome,” she said.

Israel has struggled to persuade Trump to back its position. “The US has its own priorities, and is receptive to Ankara due to strong Trump-Erdogan relations,” Lindenstrauss added.

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

Turkey’s position

Erdogan, who has cultivated close ties with Trump, has said Turkey is ready to send soldiers to Gaza. Reports have claimed Turkey has a brigade on standby for deployment.

Turkey’s relationship with Hamas is a “double-edged sword”, said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, head of the German Marshall Fund office in Ankara. From Israel’s point of view, Turkey is too close to Hamas, but “if you want to contribute to disarming them, dialogue is needed”.

Any Gaza mission would be risky, but the Turkish army has decades of experience, Unluhisarcikli said. “It has a proven track record in terms of post-conflict stabilisation from the Balkans to Afghanistan. They have proven they can operate in such environments.”

Despite strained diplomatic ties, the Turkish and Israeli militaries still maintain open communication. The two countries operate a hotline to avoid clashes between their air forces over Syria, demonstrating continued military coordination despite political tensions.

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

Regional doubts

Egypt and Saudi Arabia distrust Turkey’s ties with Hamas and question its intentions in Gaza, Unluhisarcikli said, with concerns that echo memories of Ottoman-era rule.

On Monday, US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack met Netanyahu in an effort to ease Israeli concerns. However, prospects for a breakthrough are likely to depend on this month’s meeting between Netanyahu and Trump.

Incentives may be offered to encourage Israel to accept Turkey’s role, but the issue is unlikely to be resolved that way, said Asli Aydintasbas of the Brookings Institution.

“Because this is such a fundamental and existential issue for Israel, I don’t think incentives will work,” she said.

“As to whether or not Trump would go so far as to withhold military or financial aid, it would be very unlikely. Rather, it may just let this situation sort of fester. I don’t think the Americans have a clear plan to push forward if the answer from Netanyahu is to say no.”

Hello everyone! Merry Christmas!

This is Alberto Rios’ poem, which you heard him read on the programme.

Christmas on the Border, 1929

1929, the early days of the Great Depression.

The desert air was biting, but the spirit of the season was alive.

Despite hard times, the town of Nogales, Arizona, determined

They would host a grand Christmas party

For the children in the area—a celebration that would defy

The gloom of the year, the headlines in the paper, and winter itself.

In the heart of town, a towering Christmas tree stood,

A pine in the desert.

Its branches, they promised, would be adorned

With over 3,000 gifts. 3,000.

The thought at first was to illuminate the tree like at home,

With candles, but it was already a little dry.

Needles were beginning to contemplate jumping.

A finger along a branch made them all fall off.

People brought candles anyway. The church sent over

Some used ones, too. The grocery store sent

Some paper bags, which settled things.

Everyone knew what to do.

They filled the bags with sand from the fire station,

Put the candles in them, making a big pool of lighted luminarias.

From a distance the tree was floating in a lake of light—

Fire so normally a terror in the desert, but here so close to miracle.

For the tree itself, people brought garlands from home, garlands

Made of everything, walnuts and small gourds and flowers,

Chilies, too—the chilies themselves looking

A little like flames.

The townspeople strung them all over the beast—

It kept getting bigger, after all, with each new addition,

This curious donkey whose burden was joy.

At the end, the final touch was tinsel, tinsel everywhere, more tinsel.

Children from nearby communities were invited, and so were those

From across the border, in Nogales, Sonora, a stone’s throw away.

But there was a problem. The border.

As the festive day approached, it became painfully clear—

The children in Nogales, Sonora, would not be able to cross over.

They were, quite literally, on the wrong side of Christmas.

Determined to find a solution, the people of Nogales, Arizona,

Collaborated with Mexican authorities on the other side.

In a gesture as generous as it was bold, as happy as it was cold:

On Christmas Eve, 1929,

For a few transcendent hours,

The border moved.

Officials shifted it north, past city hall, in this way bringing

The Christmas tree within reach of children from both towns.

On Christmas Day, thousands of children—

American and Mexican, Indigenous and orphaned—

Gathered around the tree, hands outstretched,

Eyes wide, with shouting and singing both.

Gifts were passed out, candy canes were licked,

And for one day, there was no border.

When the last present had been handed out,

When the last child returned home,

The border resumed its usual place,

Separating the two towns once again.

For those few hours, however, the line in the sand disappeared.

The only thing that mattered was Christmas.

Newspapers reported no incidents that day, nothing beyond

The running of children, their pockets stuffed with candy and toys,

Milling people on both sides,

The music of so many peppermint candies being unwrapped.

On that chilly December day, the people of Nogales

Gathered and did what seemed impossible:

However quietly regarding the outside world,

They simply redrew the border.

In doing so, they brought a little more warmth to the desert winter.

On the border, on this day, they had a problem and they solved it.

 

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: The traditional “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” sung by the Gracias Choir conducted by Eunsook Park, and “Santa Claus Llego A La Ciudad” by J.Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie, sung by Luis Miguel.

Be sure and tune in next week, 27 December, for a “My Ordinary Hero” essay by your fellow listener Rasheed Naz.     

As France marks 200 years since Louis Braille invented his system of raised dots allowing blind people to read by touch, we visit the country’s only remaining Braille printing house. At the CTEB in Toulouse, a team of 12 staff and mainly blind volunteers transcribe more than 200 books each year for both adults and children, along with bank statements, brochures and other documents. Despite extremely high production costs, the centre sells its books at the same price as the originals to ensure equal access. Now deeply in debt, it’s calling for state aid to survive – arguing that, even in the age of digital Braille and audio books, turning a page is important in learning to read. (Listen @3’15”)

Scientists are increasingly convinced that the trillions of bacteria living in the human digestive system also contribute to health and wellbeing. Le French Gut is a large-scale study intended to track the connection between the microbiome and disease. Launched in 2023, it aims to recruit 100,000 French participants, to contribute samples and fill out health and diet questionnaires. Now the scientists are looking to get more children on board. Project director Patrick Veiga shows the lab and biobank where the bacteria are being analysed, and talks about the discoveries in the gut that could help predict or even cure diseases. (Listen @21’20”)

Seventeenth-century French midwife Louise Bourgeois, the first woman in Europe to publish a medical book, was a pioneer in women’s health at a time when only men were allowed to be doctors and women delivered babies according to tradition, not science. (Listen @14’45”)

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.