The 17-year-old French-born athlete took the title ahead of China’s Qiu Qiyuan with American Sunisa Lee snatching bronze. Defending champion Nina Derwael of Belgium finished fourth.

“I’m so shocked, it’s the dream of all my life. I can’t believe it has happened, I’m speechless,” said Nemour.

“It was my ultimate dream, years of hard work, details. I’m honoured to have been able to win this medal, first of all for me and for Algeria too.”

Nemour’s stunning high-flying acrobatic performance earned 15.700 points to push world champion Qiu, 17, into the silver medal position with 15.500.

“In qualifying I had 15.600, when I saw her 15.500 I said, I really had to fight and gave the performance of my life,” said the Algerian.

A relief

“It’s crazy, I’m honoured to have this medal after all that has happened, it’s a relief.”

Nemour switched to represent her father’s country after the French federation blocked her from competing on medical grounds after a dispute.

 A growth spurt of 14 centimetres in a year just after she turned 13 caused a bone problem which required surgery on both knees.

 After a legal battle lasting several months Nemour was excluded from the France team and switched to competing for Algeria at worlds last October, and the Olympic Games in Paris.

“I am very happy to have won this medal for Algeria. I hope I made them proud,” she said.

“It has been an intensive road. But right now I am glad I performed well and have the gold.”

Who are the African athletes to watch out for at Paris Olympics?

Nemour was the favourite in the absence of US gymnastics great Simone Biles who failed to qualify for the uneven bars final.

But competing last, teammate Lee grabbed bronze ahead of Derwael, a former two-time world champion who was returning after surgery.

Smooth movements

“Having seen the others doing so well kind of put the pressure on me to do a good routine,” said Lee, 21.

“That’s exactly what I did.”

Her routine earned 14.800 points and her third medal in Paris after team gold and bronze in the all-around.

For Qui there were “regrets” at missing out on gold.

“(Kaylia) did amazing today,” she said. “All the movements were so smooth. Her routine was perfect. She did even better than her previous routines.”

(with AFP)

All training was cancelled in the river last week and the men’s individual race had to be delayed by 24 hours because of pollution problems.

It finally took place after the women’s event on Wednesday.

A heavy rainstorm on Thursday night is believed to have again dirtied the river’s waters, with downpours known to cause discharges from the sewers into the waterway.

Paris 2024 spokeswoman Anne Descamps told reporters that athletes were informed on Saturday evening that training had been cancelled for Sunday.

“It follows the rain that occurred in the last days,” she said. “We are expecting improvements regarding the weather forecast… we are hopeful that we can organise the competition tomorrow and we will take the decision as planned tomorrow morning.”

She declined to share the latest water quality readings.

UK’s Yee reins in Wilde to claim Olympic men’s triathlon

Beaugrand claims Olympic women’s triathlon title for France

Strong currents

The mixed relay triathlon features two men and two women per team in a sprint format, meaning a 300-metre swim, a seven-kilometre (4.3-mile) bike ride and a 1.8km run.

It was introduced at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, where Britain won gold.

The Seine is also set to be used for marathon swimming – a 10-kilometre race – on 8 August for women and 9 August for men.

Many triathletes were surprised by the strength of the Seine’s currents last week, while some also complained about the water and delays for training and the men’s competition.

“While swimming under the bridge, I felt things and saw things that you shouldn’t think about too much,” Belgian competitor Jolien Vermeylen told the Parisien newspaper afterwards, without saying more.

Paris organisers said that the water quality was “very good” based on criteria used by World Triathlon.

The levels of E.Coli bacteria – a key indicator of faecal matter – were clocked at 192-308 colony-forming units per 100 millilitres (cfu/ml) on the day of the races, well below the upper limit of 1,000 cfu/ml.

(with AFP)

The sprinters were left looking up at the official scoreboard after the dash for around 15 seconds as judges tried to decrypt the mass of bodies on the finishing line.

Lyles was deemed the victor in a personal best time of 9.784. Thompson was clocked at 9.789 seconds.

The victory – his first Olympic gold – comes a year after he won the 100m world championship title in Budapest last year.

He will compete in the 200m as he attempts to become the first man since Usain Bolt in 2016 to win the sprint double at an Olympic Games.

Akani Simbine, who finished fourth and Letsile Tebogo from Botswana who finished sixth set new records for South Africa and Botswana with times of  9.82 and 9.86 seconds respectively.

In the athletics field events at the Stade de France, world champion Ethan Katzberg from Canada won the men’s hammer throw and Yaroslava Mahuchikh took the women’s high jump with a leap of 2.02 metres.

Djokovic claimed the prize with an intense 7-6, 7-6 victory over Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz, the man who beat him in straight sets on 14 July to win the Wimbledon title for a second time at his expense.

But that was on grass in south-west London. On Court Philippe Chatrier at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris, Djokovic had the psychological advantage of a success last year in the semi-final of the French Open. 

Billed as a clash of generations, that match fizzled out into a Djokovic stroll as the then 20-year-old Alcaraz suffered with cramps due to the pressure of entering a tournament as world number one and playing a crunch tie against legend of the sport.

Alcaraz vowed to learn from his four-set defeat. Two Wimbledon titles and a French Open crown suggest an upward curve.

Change

Fourteen months on from that French Open meeting, Djokovic and Alcaraz engaged in the gladitoral combat predicted for that sultry afternoon in June 2023.

The augurs came early. It took them 25 minutes to reach 2-2 in the first set.

Just over an hour later, they were in a tiebreak after Alcaraz saved a set point on his way to levelling at 6-6.

They changed ends at 3-3 in the shoot-out. But Djokovic was steadier. He  clocked up the next four points to pocket the first set after one hour and 33 minutes.

“I had a hungry Novak in front of me,” said Alcaraz. “He played at an impressive level. He did not let me take the chances I had. I gave everything I had on the court.”

Predictably the match wended its way to another shoot-out. And Djokovic started it with a thunderous forehand cross court winner. 

Djokovic unloaded a similar bludgeon to lead 3-2. And Alcaraz had no more answers.

Record

Djokovic, who has won a record 24 Grand Slam tournaments, moved inexorably towards his grail and concluded the quest with a forehand winner down the line.

“When I saw  that last forehand pass him, the intensity of the emotions that I felt at that moment was just something I never felt on the tennis court before,” said Djokovic.

“The fact that I’m 37, I don’t know how many more chances I would have had to win gold,” he added.

“I’m super thrilled that I managed to do it here in a way that I did it against a guy who is the best in the world at the moment.”

It was Serbia’s second gold medal of the Paris Games after their win in the mixed team air pistol.

“Representing my country has been always the greatest priority, an honour for me, whether it’s Olympic Games or Davis Cup or anywhere that I can carry proudly the Serbian flag,” added Djokovic.

“This is something that really drives me and motivates me like nothing else.”

Thousands of demonstrators began taking to the streets last week to protest government policies and the high cost of living.

Rights group Amnesty International has accused security forces of killing at least 13 protesters, while police say seven people died and deny responsibility.

In a televised address, Tinubu urged the demonstrators “to suspend any further protest and create room for dialogue,” his first public comments on the rallies since they started on Thursday.

“I have heard you loud and clear. I understand the pain and the frustration that drive these protests, and I want to assure you that our government is committed to listening and addressing the concerns of our citizens,” he said.

“But we must not let violence and destruction tear our nation apart,” he warned. “We must stop further bloodshed, violence and destruction.”

Online protest campaign

Tinubu also used the speech to defend his record and outline measures he said would benefit young Nigerians and the economy.

Africa’s most populous country is battling high inflation and a tumbling naira after Tinubu ended a fuel subsidy and liberalised the currency more than a year ago in reforms the government says will improve the economy in the long term.

Dubbed #EndbadGovernanceinNigeria, the protest movement won support with an online campaign.

But officials have warned against attempts to copy recent anti-government protests in Kenya, where demonstrators forced the president to abandon new taxes.

Police in Nigeria said they had arrested nearly 700 people in the first two days of the protests, accusing them of “armed robbery, arson, mischief” and destroying property.

Amnesty has urged police to release demonstrators and refrain from firing live rounds to break up crowds.

On Friday, it said “security personnel at the locations where lives were lost deliberately used tactics designed to kill while dealing with gatherings of people protesting hunger and deep poverty.”

Tear gas, live bullets

In his address, Tinubu said “security operatives should continue to maintain peace, law, and order in our country following the necessary conventions on human rights, to which Nigeria is a signatory.”

The protests eased in many places on Saturday, but security forces again fired teargas at demonstrators in Abuja and residents told French news agency AFP that police killed three people at a rally in the northern city Kano.

The city has seen intense clashes in recent days and residents said police in the Rijiyar Lemo district fired shots and tear gas at a crowd throwing stones on Saturday afternoon.

Resident Sanusi Usman said the police used “live bullets to disperse the crowd.”

“Three people were killed, including two minors and a pregnant woman who was hit as she was crossing the road,” he said.

“Three people were hit and killed, two boys and a pregnant woman who was crossing the highway,” resident Awwalu Ibrahim also told AFP. “One of the boys was nine years old. He was the son of my neighbour.”

Police have not responded to requests for comment.

(with AFP)

“In a highly volatile security context, we once again call the attention of French nationals, particularly those passing through, to the fact that direct commercial flights and ones with stopovers to France are still available, and we invite them to make their arrangements now to leave Lebanon as soon as possible,” the French Foreign Ministry said in its travel advice notice for Lebanon.

With its call, Paris is following the example of Washington and London, which had recommended their own nationals to leave from Saturday.

France estimates that some 23,000 of its citizens live in Lebanon, and last month around 10,000 French citizens were visiting to the country.

Sweden also announced the closure of its embassy in Beirut and called on its nationals to leave.

On Thursday, the French Foreign Ministry had updated an information sheet by highlighting the continued availability of commercial flights to France while stopping short of calling on nationals to leave Lebanon.

Travel warning

On Sunday, the Ministry stressed French nationals were being “urgently asked” not to travel to Lebanon as fears of a regional conflagration after Iran and its allies threatened to respond to the assassination of Hamas‘s political leader, blamed on Israel.

Tehran, along with Hamas and Lebanese-based, Iranian-backed ally Hezbollah, accused Israel of Wednesday killing Ismail Haniyeh.

France calls on Iran for restraint in regional crises as new leader sworn in

Haniyeh was killed a day after a strike claimed by Israel killed Hezbollah military chief Fouad Chokr near Beirut.

Hezbollah said Saturday it had launched dozens of Katyusha rockets at Israel, saying the attack was in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his country is at “a very high level” of preparedness for any scenario – “defensive and offensive.”

Flights suspended

Meanwhile, flights to Beirut by Air France and low-cost carrier Transavia France will remain suspended until at least Tuesday due to “security” concerns in the region, parent company Air France-KLM said.

The two French airlines first stopped servicing the route on Monday, a day after Israel vowed to retaliate following rocket fire from Lebanon that killed 12 people in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

“Any resumption of operation will be subject to a renewed evaluation on the ground,” a spokesman said Saturday, adding that passengers with reservations could rebook at no extra cost.

Flights to Tel Aviv will continue as normal, he added.

German carrier Lufthansa has suspended flights until 12 August.

(with AFP)

Bad day 

Just goes to show that having the gold and silver medallist in your ranks doesn’t necessarily mean success. Manon Apithy-Brunet and Sara Balzer couldn’t inspire the France team to top spot in the sabre team event. They were foiled by the South Koreans in the semis and then by the Japanese in the bronze medal match. 

Good day

So it’s the Olympics final in the team sabre and the other outfit leads 40-37 in the race to 45. What do you do? If you are Olha Kharlan you chill. “I don’t know how to explain it,” said the 33-year-old who outfought the South Korean Hayoung Jeon to lead Ukraine to a 45-42 victory. “It’s it seems weird because it’s the Olympic Games final and everything but at the some time I’m going to enjoy this moment. And I enjoyed all the fencing and just went for it.” Kharlan, who a few years back had a Barbie doll replete with sword in hand modelled on her, will be able to savour a second Olympic gold and her sixth Olympic medal in her fifth trip to the Games.

Look here

St Lucia. Population of nearly 200,000 is on the Olympic map after Julien Alfred brought the eqstern Carribean nation its first medal. And what a medal – the women’s 100m title. The 23-year-old got the better of the much fancied Sha’carri Richardson from the United States.

Alfred the great: sprinter’s 100m victory gives St Lucia first Olympic medal

Boy, Teddy

Not content with individual gold in the men’s +100kg, Teddy Riner celebrated another gold at the games in the mixed team judo event. Japan seemed as if they were about to run away with the final but Riner came in and beat Tatsuru Saito to halve the deficit to 2-1. And the 35-year-old veteran later gained the winning point. Not a bad Olympics, lighting the flame at the opening ceremony and two gold medals. 

France defends Olympic title in mixed team judo against Japan

So farewell Hervé

Hervé Renard, head coach of France’s women’s football team, is off to pastures new following the elimination of the side in the quarter-finals. Brazil got past the French 1-0 to set up a semi-final against Spain. The United States face Germany in the other semi. Renard, 55, left his job as boss of Saudi Arabia to take up the France job. As a man who has led Zambia and Cote d’Ivoire to the Africa Cup of Nations, he is unlikely to be out of work for too long.

Teddy Riner earned the decisive victory as France defended its Olympic title in mixed team judo on Saturday night, beating Japan in the final for the second straight Games.

After Riner secured his record-tying third individual gold medal one night earlier in dramatic fashion, he finished the team competition by beating Tatsuru Saito by ippon 6:26 into golden score competition. The teams had split the first six fights at the Champ-de-Mars Arena.

Earlier in the final, Joan-Benjamin Gaba delighted the crowd when he defeated double gold medalist Hifumi Abe, who had not lost a bout since 2019. Gaba won with a hand throw 4:52 into golden score.

After joining Japan’s Tadahiro Nomura as the only judokas to win three individual gold medals, Riner added his second gold from the mixed team competition to complete a spectacular two-day run for one of France’s most beloved athletes.

Ippon! France’s Teddy Riner lands record fourth Olympic judo gold

Moment of pride

“It feels good, especially when it happens this way, with such a crowd, with my family that was there to cheer me on,” Riner said after winning his individual gold. “We understand why, all those years we travel abroad, we train hard, why there are moments of doubt. I know why I did it, and I have a lot of pride to have done it here.”

The Olympic version of the team event began three years ago at the Tokyo Games with France upsetting the home Japanese team 4-1 at the Budokan. Japan has won the last seven world championships in mixed team competition, but France has the only two Olympic golds.

Japan and France also dominated the individual portion of the Olympic judo tournament once again in Paris.

Japan won a Games-best three gold medals and seven total medals in Paris, while France won nine total individual medals – but just one gold, dramatically claimed by Riner in one of the most exciting moments of the Olympics for the home team.

(with newswires)

Two and a half years of fierce fighting between factions has displaced an estimated 5.7 million people across the provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri. 

Brokered by Angola, the 4 August ceasefire came as a two-week humanitarian truce between M23 and Congolese forces in North Kivu expired the night before. 

It was not specified which parties had agreed to the deal, nor how long it would last.  

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said he hoped the move would help to bring about a “de-escalation of tensions between the DRC and Rwanda”, and to enable the safe return of internally displaced people. 

France, Belgium, the European Union and the United States also welcomed the news. 

But given previous truces have never lasted more than a few weeks, observers say clashes are likely to continue. 

Locals fear that negotiated pauses in fighting are offering armed factions the chance to regroup. 

“Agreements are often violated by the parties to the conflict because … the M23 and Rwandan army are continuing to strengthen their positions,” Georges Katsongo, president of a civil society group in North Kivu’s Lubero region, told French news agency AFP. 

• Macron urges Rwanda to end support for DRC M23 rebels, withdraw troops
• Rwanda-backed M23 rebels seize key town in east DRC

Historical rivalries 

The violence in North Kivu is being driven by complex rivalries along ethnic, religious and political lines – with neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda accused of backing rebel groups to expand their influence and gain access to valuable resources in the region. 

Historical animosities dating back to the Rwandan genocide and earlier regional disputes continues to fuel mutual distrust. 

About six million people have been killed by fighting in the region since 1996, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in global history. 

A report commissioned by the UN Security Council found that between 3,000 to 4,000 Rwandan soldiers were fighting alongside the M23 rebels in North Kivu, with Kigali exercising “de facto” control over the group’s operations. 

Until the end of 2023, Rwandan authorities had denied their troops were supporting the mainly Tutsi M23, but since then Kigali has stopped commenting directly on such accusations.   

Another prominent rebel group, the ADF or Allied Democratic Forces, is affiliated with the Islamic State. More than a hundred other rebel factions, vying for competing interests, operate in the region. 

Conflagration fears

Analysts warn that failure to adequately address the conflict may cause massive instability in central and East Africa that could pave the way for Chinese or Russian involvement and further expansion of Islamist terrorists. 

The UN has warned of alarming levels of violence against civilians, and particularly against women and girls. 

“We are witnessing in the DRC one of the most severe, complex and neglected humanitarian crises of our times,” Bintou Keita, head of the UN Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the DRC (Monusco), told the Security Council last month. 

“The rapidly escalating M23 crisis carries the very real risk of provoking a wider regional conflict.”

(with newswires)

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said British nationals should depart the Middle Eastern country “now while commercial options remain available”.

“Tensions are high, and the situation could deteriorate rapidly,” said Foreign Minister David Lammy.

“While we are working round the clock to strengthen our consular presence in Lebanon, my message to British nationals there is clear – leave now.”

Fears of a regional Middle East war grew on Saturday after the assassination of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh, blamed on Israel, triggered vows of vengeance from Iran-backed Middle East groups.

Israel, which has declined to comment on Haniyeh’s killing, had on Tuesday struck a Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut.

That strike killed senior commander Fuad Shukr of the Lebanese militant group, blamed for a deadly rocket strike on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights last Saturday.

The killings are the latest of several major incidents that have inflamed regional tensions during the Gaza war, which has drawn in Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

France ‘committed’ to de-escalation of regional conflict after Golan attack

Grab ‘any ticket available’

The British Foreign Office said it was “strengthening” its support for Britons in Lebanon by deploying “border force, consular officials and military personnel to the region”.

The officials will offer “additional support” to embassy staff while the military personnel will provide embassies with “operational support to help British nationals”, the ministry said.

“With the potential for exit routes out of Lebanon – including roads – being affected, limited, or closed, due to events escalating with little warning, teams will continue to urge British nationals to leave while commercial options remain available.”

The US embassy in Lebanon also urged its citizens Saturday to leave Lebanon on “any ticket available”. 

Despite flight suspensions and cancellations, “commercial transportation options to leave Lebanon remain available”, the embassy statement said.

“We encourage those who wish to depart Lebanon to book any ticket available to them, even if that flight does not depart immediately or does not follow their first-choice route.”

Axis of resistance

The United States said it would move additional warships and fighter jets to the region as the Iran-aligned “Axis of Resistance” readied its response to the killing of Ismail Haniyeh.

The groups from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria have already been drawn into the nearly 10-month war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas.

Iran on Saturday said it expects one of those groups, Hezbollah, to hit deeper inside Israel and to no longer be confined to military targets.

With such talk growing, the Pentagon said it was bolstering its military presence in the Middle East to protect US personnel and defend Israel.

Flights grounded

Meanwhile, flights to Beirut by Air France and low-cost carrier Transavia France will remain suspended until at least Tuesday due to “security” concerns in the region, parent company Air France-KLM said.

The two French airlines first stopped servicing the route on Monday, a day after Israel vowed to retaliate following rocket fire from Lebanon that killed 12 people in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

“Any resumption of operation will be subject to a renewed evaluation on the ground,” a spokesman said Saturday, adding that passengers with reservations could rebook at no extra cost.

Flights to Tel Aviv will continue as normal, he added.

German carrier Lufthansa has suspended flights until 12 August.

(with AFP)

The 23-year-old claimed the dash in 10.72 seconds – setting a national record. Sha’carri Richardson from the United States was second and her compatriot Melissa Jefferson finished third in 10.92 seconds.

“It means a lot to me,” said Alfred. “It means a lot to my coach. It means a lot to my country. I’m sure they’re celebrating right now.”

Alfred, who trains in the United States, left the eastern Caribbean island during her early teens first to go to Jamaica before moving to the University of Texas.

Bolt of inspiration

She said she started the day watching highlights of the legendary Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt to inspire her.

In 2008 in Beijing, he famously attributed his gold medal-winning run in the 100m to capacious helpings of chicken nuggets and catnaps.

After her historic feat, she dedicated the medal to her late father.

“He believed that I could do it. He passed away in 2013 – now he couldn’t get to see me on the biggest stage of my career. He believed that I could be an Olympian.

“Growing up I used to be on the field, struggling with no shoes, running barefoot, running in my school uniform.

“We barely had facilities. I’m really hoping this gold medal helps the youth and helps St Lucian government to also build the new stadium to just keep the sport growing.”

Pedigree

Alfred was the only sprinter at the Paris Olympics besides Richardson to break 10.8 seconds this year.

When they lined up next to each other in the semi-finals, it was billed as part of the psychological warfare.

Alfred won that race by .05 of a second. In the final on a rain-soaked track, she tripled that margin.

• Follow all the Paris Olympic action with RFI here

The result meant the United States’ 28-year gold medal drought in the event goes on.

Gail Devers was their last winner in 1996. Marion Jones was stripped of her 2000 Olympic gold for doping.

Elsewhere on the track, Norway’s Markus Rooth won the prize as the best all round athlete.

The 21-year-old claimed the decathlon with 8796. Leo Neugebauer from Germany was second with 8748 points and Lindon Victor from Grenada was third.

It was a final fit for the splendour of the surroundings in the nave of the Grand Palais. And a personal performance that will further enhance Kharlan’s legend at home and sing down the ages to the country’s fencers.

Kharlan, the most decorated member of the team with multiple world championships and Olympic medals, gave her side a 5-3 advantage after the first relay against Eunhye Jeon.

By the time Kharlan came out for the fifth relay, South Korea were leading 20-14. At the end of her next intervention, South Korea were ahead 25-23.

Thus inspired, Yuliia Bakastova and Alina Komashchuk managed to prevent another huge deficit.

But even when Kharlan went into the final relay, South Korea led 40-37.

Everything is possible

Kharlan reined in Hayoung Jeon to 40-40 but Jeon nosed in front again to lead 42-41.

But that was as good as it got for Jeon and South Korea. Kharlan scored the next four points to take her personal tally in the final up to 22, Ukraine to 45 points and glory.

“When I went in I was thinking everything is possible,” said Kharlan. “And I just fenced. I told myself that I was going to enjoy this moment and went for it.”

It was her sixth medal at her fifth Olympic Games.

In 2008 in Beijing, she won gold in the sabre team event.

Haul

Four years later in London, she won bronze in the individual event and has picked up bronze in Rio where she won silver in the team event.

And she almost didn’t make it to the Olympics. After her victory over the Russian fencer Anna Smirnova at the world championships in July 2023, Kharlan refused to acknowledge Smirnova because of the war between the two countries.

Paris mayor honours Ukraine’s Olympic team in solidarity over Russian invasion

Kharlan was disqualified from the competition and faced a ban from the Olympic Games. The threat was eventually lifted.

“She knows what she can do,” said Bakastova of Kharlan’s performance.

“It helps alot when she says something because she knows a lot and I know that it’s important.”

Disappointment

The triumph brought a geopolitically charged ending to a session that started with disappointment for the partisans.

On Saturday afternoon, Manon Apithy-Brunet, Sara Balzer who won gold and silver respectively in the individual event and Cecilia Berder came through their first match easily against Algeria 45-28 to set up a semi- final against South Korea who had disposed of the United States 45-35.

The South Koreans were just as methodical against the French who did not lead at any point during the 39-minute tie which ended 45-40.

• All the action of the Paris Olympics with RFI here

While the victors advanced to a showdown against Ukraine, defeat at least led to the possibility of redemption in the bronze medal match against Japan.

A rousing rendition of the French national anthem La Marseillaise accompanied the arrival of the France team comprising Sarah Noutcha along with Apithy-Brunet and Balzer.

Chance

Apithy-Brunet edged the first relay 5-4 against Misaki Emura and Balzer consolidated to set up France up with a 10-7 advantage.

Seri Ozaki crushed Noutcha to overturn the deficit and give Japan the lead 15-13 after the third relay.

A few minutes later in the fifth relay, Noutcha atoned for her sins to offer France a 25-23 lead.

Balzer kept the French ahead by one following the sixth relay at 30-29. But in the seventh, Noutcha collapsed. 

Risa Takashima scored six unanswered points to make it 35-30 to Japan.

Not even the ballast of raucous screaming nor another lusty rendition of La Marseillaise could push Apithy-Brunet or Balzer to recovery.

“It’s a disappointment,” said Balzer. “The fact that I got gold and Sara got silver doesn’t mean anything,” added Apithy-Brunet.

“We wanted to get another medal for ourselves and for the other girls and we haven’t done that. We were fourth.”

The 24-year-old Belgian completed the 273km trek around Paris and along the Seine to Versailles in six hours, 19 minutes and 34 seconds.

The road race saw cyclists speed through some of the most picturesque streets of the capital, including the famous Montmartre hill, while the start and finish line was in front of the Eiffel Tower.

French duo Valentin Madouas and Christophe Laporte took silver and bronze respectively in front of thousands of screaming partisans.

The two medals for France were the country’s first in the men’s Olympic road race in 68 years.

The win capped a spectacular few weeks for Evenepoel who finished third in the Tour de France.

“I don’t know if it is an Olympic record but there were 500,000 people along the route,” Paris 2024 spokeswoman Anne Descamps told reporters at a daily briefing on Sunday, citing figures from the Paris police department.

Biles’ third gold

Elsewhere, the American gymnast Simon Biles collected her third gold medal of the games.

Following successes in the women’s team gold and the all-around title, the 27-year-old won the vault.

• Catch all the Olympic action with RFI here

Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, who claimed gold in the vault at the Tokyo Games in 2021, took silver and Biles’ compatriot Jade Carey got bronze.

In tennis, Australia won the men’s doubles. Matthew Ebden and John Peers beat the American pair Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram 6-7, 7-6, 10-8.

Qinwen Zheng claimed the gold medal for China in the women’s singles. The 21-year-old who ousted top seed Iga Swiatek in the semi-final dispatched Donna Vekic 6-2, 6-3.

Zheng is the first player from China to win a medal in tennis at the Olympics.

Sacerdote dressed the likes of the Empress of Japan, silent-picture actress Mary Pickford and French tennis ace Suzanne Lenglen. In the US, where she was known simply as “Jenny”, her little grey suit became as famous as Chanel’s little black dress.

“She was really famous in her time, she had an amazing career, but nobody ever wrote about her,” says stylist Anne Vogt, who spent five years ploughing through family and historical archives to publish the first biography of Sacerdote.

And what a story there is to tell.

Born Jeanne Adele Bernard in 1868, she was 39 before she turned her head to fashion, following in the humble footsteps of her single mum and her grandmother – both of whom were dressmakers.

She left rural Dordogne for Paris and studied under famed designer Jeanne Paquin. After just two years, in 1909, she opened her own House of Jenny on rue Castiglione in the heart of the capital.

By 1914 she had 22 workshops on the Champs-Elysées, employing a staff of 1,000.

Listen to an interview with Anne Vogt on the Spotlight on France podcast:

An innovative look

“She famously said: ‘clothes should be worn, not kept in a glass display case’,” notes Vogt, who highlights her simplified, asymmetric lines.

In fact, Jenny was one of the first couturiers to design comfortable but elegant clothes for women, years before Chanel got in on the game.

“Her clothes helped women to be free and to feel free because they could move how they wanted,” says Vogt. “She shaped them to fit her clients’ bodies. Every piece was unique. One client, one dress.”

She became known for her boat necks (“Jenny’s neckline”), coat dresses, gauntlet cuffs and loosely knotted scarves. Silk was her preferred fabric, for its elegance and comfort.

Her designs won the Parisian fashion industry’s coveted Grand Prize for Elegance in both 1927 and 1928.

Entrepreneurial spirit

Building up a fashion empire at the outbreak of World War I seems like a tall order. But Jenny had a flair for business.

While the economy in France nosedived, she looked abroad, sending her drawings to dealers in Spain, Japan, Australia and the US – countries that were not at war – “so they could recreate the garments exactly as she wanted”, says Vogt.

“In the US she could sell one drawing to 16 different dealers,” she says admiringly. 

She showed similar creativity in dealing with fabric shortages, “making dresses entirely out of ribbon or using just strips”, or adapting her designs to incorporate offcuts.

Easy to reproduce, “Jenny” became the most imported Parisian label in the US during WWI.

Independent woman

While Jenny’s marriage to businessman Achille Sacerdote helped grow her haute couture house, Vogt says she was very much her own woman.

“Society was managed by the Napoleonic Code at the time, which meant, roughly speaking, that women couldn’t do anything,” Vogt notes. “But she put up the money, negotiated the bank loan, et cetera. She wanted to manage and decide things.”

When, in 1917, young female garment workers known as “midinettes” went on strike over threatened cuts to wages and weekend work, Jenny’s house could have fallen.

But she deployed her skills as a manager and, after negotiating with the Ministry of Industry and the Paris Fashion Federation, secured a good deal for the women.

She also showed an interest in defending workers’ and especially women’s rights, creating a canteen for all her employees – “the first in the fashion industry”, Vogt points out.

In 1926, Jenny was made a knight of the Legion of Honour for services to fashion, becoming only the second woman to receive the award, after her mentor Paquin in 1913.

Asked about the honours, she said: “I was not even born in the business. And I have never been a working girl. In fact I studied to become a history professor. I was utterly bored by it all, so I just let it drop and entered a big dressmaker’s to learn the trade.

“One day I set myself up in business, and that’s all.”

Refusal to collaborate

But the House of Jenny did not survive World War II.

Unlike her contemporary Coco Chanel, whose alleged connections to the occupying Nazi regime allowed her business not only to weather the storm but thrive, Jenny could not bring herself to collaborate.

Her husband Achille was Jewish.

“In 1941 they got divorced because he loved her so much and wanted to save her, but it wasn’t enough,” says Vogt.

“She was also very patriotic, she represented France all over the world, during the 1915 San Francisco exhibition, the Zurich exhibition, the New York fashion festival. She wasn’t into collaborating with the occupiers.”

She closed her business in 1940, left Paris for Nice on the Cote d’Azur, and published a fake death certificate.

When the war ended, she tried to make a comeback with an assistant and associate but it didn’t work out. In 1948, the House of Jenny closed its shutters for good.

Jenny died in Nice in 1962, aged 94.

Without children, there were no heirs to carry on her legacy.

Strong whiff of wartime scandal clings to Coco Chanel

Jenny, the sequel

No heirs, but a torchbearer.

Not only has Vogt brought Jenny’s story to the fore, she’s giving new life to those 1920s and ’30s garments through her label “La Suite Jenny Sacerdote” – slightly adjusting the original designs for the 21st-century woman.

Like Jenny, Vogt uses mainly silk (from Lyon), but also cotton and denim upcycled in Paris. All the fabrics come from the ends of rolls to keep costs down and encourage a more sustainable approach to fashion.

The spirit of fluid, simple lines allowing women a maximum of freedom remains intact.

Vogt points to a dress that can equally be worn with trainers, to give it a more contemporary feel.

“Jenny was ahead of her time and she’s still modern today. It’s remarkable how her styles haven’t aged a bit.”

This story was produced as part of the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 113.

The foundations of France’s relationship with holidays were laid 88 years ago, over a few heady months.

It began in May, when parliamentary elections swept left-wing parties to power. United in an alliance called the Popular Front, they promised bold reform amid economic depression and rising fascism. 

French workers, who had been battling for better conditions for several years, took it as a signal that the time was ripe to make demands.

Throughout that month, as they waited for the new government to take office, they occupied factories, shops and workplaces across the country in what came to be known as “the joyful strike”: not just defiant but optimistic, even celebratory. 

There was music, dancing, picnics and card games on the picket lines – almost as if a holiday had already begun.

By the time France’s new socialist prime minister, Léon Blum, took office in early June, more than two million workers had downed tools.

Paid leave hadn’t originally been part of his programme, and several attempts to introduce it in the previous decade had stalled.

But now trade unions dared to ask for more. Within days, Blum’s government had added paid holidays to the list of new rights they would enshrine in labour law, alongside the freedom to strike, collective bargaining and a cap on standard working hours at 40 per week. 

A bill entitling every employee to two weeks off after a year’s work – with no halt in wages – passed almost unanimously in parliament and became law on 20 June 1936. 

France’s holidays had officially started.

Learning to take a break

Vacation wasn’t new to everyone in France. Civil servants had enjoyed it since 1854, when Napoléon III made France the first country in the world to mandate paid time off, albeit for a tiny fraction of the workforce. 

Some public-sector employees, white-collar workers and artisans also secured it in the first decades of the 20th century, but the gains were piecemeal.

The 1936 law was the first to roll out paid leave to every employee as standard – including those who’d never had a chance to holiday before. 

The government saw its role as helping workers make the most of their new leisure time, but not – unlike fascist regimes of the time – dictating how they spent it.

Blum named a young lawyer, Léo Lagrange, France’s first ever undersecretary of state for sports and leisure. “Our aim is to restore a sense of joy and dignity,” Lagrange declared that June.

“The masses must have all kinds of leisure activities at their disposal. Let everyone choose. We must open all the roads so that everyone can participate in the free and fair game of democracy.”

In that spirit, Lagrange negotiated with the state rail company to offer discounted train fares for working-class holidaymakers. 

Reserved for people travelling in third class, covering at least 200km and spending five days or more away, his “people’s annual leave tickets” were 40 percent cheaper than standard.

They went on sale on 3 August 1936; some 300,000 were snapped up that month alone.

“Getting away is the first joy that holidays bring to city dwellers trapped all year in their tasks, their worries and conventions,” gushed one 1936 newsreel. 

“At the beach, parents and children share an equal footing, with children enjoying almost complete independence and parents feeling their youth restored.”

A legacy of leisure

The enthusiasm wasn’t universal. France’s reactionary press published disdainful caricatures of uncouth labourers overrunning resorts once reserved for wealthier sorts, and nicknamed Lagrange the “minister of laziness”.

Nor could everyone afford to get away, even with discounts. And the new law left plenty of people out: employees who’d been in their job less than 12 months weren’t entitled to the full two weeks’ leave, while workers not contracted to an employer weren’t guaranteed anything at all. 

But the summer of 1936 would ultimately change France’s habits, its economy and its landscape. 

Over 1.5 million “Lagrange tickets” would be sold the following year; a version of the rail pass still exists today.

New youth hostels and campgrounds sprang up around the country, while bicycle sales soared.

The seeds of a mass tourism industry were sown, from more affordable resorts to guidebooks leading people into new corners of the country, or the roadside restaurants that would come to line motorways running from cities to the coast. 

It also the beginning of an idea that gradually took hold in France: that holidays are both “a right and a duty”, according to anthropologist Saskia Cousin Kouton, who studies tourism habits.

They’re perceived as a labour right earned through industrial action, she told RFI. “But they’re also seen by families as a parental duty – in other words, not taking your children on holiday is felt as a failure.”

It comes down to the same notion Lagrange articulated: that holidaying, like going to school or voting, is part of life in a democracy.

Following in his footsteps, French employers continue to sponsor trips for workers and their families, while every summer and winter, subsidised holiday camps offer children chances to swim and ski that their parents couldn’t otherwise afford.

It’s a legacy that would make Blum proud. As the former prime minister looked back in 1942, when the joyful summer of ’36 seemed long gone, he placed France’s free time among his finest achievements. 

“When I travelled through the suburbs around Paris and saw the roads covered with all kinds of rickety old cars, motorbikes, tandems ridden by working couples dressed in matching pullovers […] I got the sense that I had, in spite of everything, brought a ray of sunshine, a respite, into difficult and dark lives,” he told the collaborationists who had by then put him on trial.

“We hadn’t just got them out of the pub; we hadn’t just made family life easier; we had opened up a view of the future for them, we had created hope.”

Hailing from the Pilbara region of Western Australia, Lockyer has taken three flights and a train to get to La Gacilly and is excited to discover the layout of her first formal exhibition in France.

Large-scale portraits of indigenous Australian faces both young and old emerge from the greenery of a quiet garden overlooking the Aff river.

“I’m a Kariyarra, Ngarluma, Nyul Nyul and Yawuru woman. That means I’m an Aboriginal woman from the saltwater country,” Lockyer tells RFI, by way of introduction.

Lockyer grew up in the coastal town of Port Hedland, known in local languages as Marrapikarinya, and is raising her four young sons there. It is a natural haven for seabirds, turtles and dolphins, among other species.

She goes on to explain indigenous cultures’ complex system of totems, symbols inspired by nature and attributed to each person according to their family lineage. Represented by the pelican, her responsibility is to take care of the ocean and its creatures.

Lockyer’s exhibition in La Gacilly is called “Origins” and it brings together themes close to her heart: family, motherhood and protecting Mother Earth.

Reconnecting with the land

Several photographs are from her series “Birthing on Country”. She documented young families who chose to return to the land of their indigenous ancestors to have their children following traditional customs.

Pregnant women stare proudly at the camera, fathers with body paint cradle their newborns, babies lie peacefully asleep in birds’ nests. Two of Lockyer’s own sons peek out from leafy frames.

“It’s about connecting our young ones with their country and taking care of the land and sharing our stories,” she says, explaining that because of their homes in remote communities, many Aboriginal women end up moving to big towns to have their babies in modern hospitals and as a result, lose vital contact with their land and their families.

Australia has always had a fraught relationship with its indigenous people, who since the colonisation by Britain in the 1780s have been victims of massacres, followed by various abusive and racist assimilation policies.

Children were often separated from their parents and grandparents to be educated into European ways. As a result, they often grew up unaware of their links to indigenous heritage and missed out on hearing the oral histories that died out with their elders.

However, a lucky few, like Lockyer, have been able to maintain these links, even if the transmission of stories has evolved over time.

Australians vote no in historic referendum on expanding indigenous rights

As a painter and fashion designer as well as a photographer, Lockyer understands the power of image and colour to convey messages beyond linguistic and cultural divides.

“Photography is always able to open up conversations and create awareness,” she smiles.

“I’m a very visual person. A lot of people don’t learn from just reading but they will learn from seeing the images and seeing what exactly we’re trying to tell.”

‘Harmony imbalance’

That makes photography a powerful tool for drawing attention to environmental issues, too.

Port Hedland is Australia’s largest shipping harbour for iron ore and other mining activities that, besides boosting the economy, have created health issues due to toxic dust released into the atmosphere.

“It’s heartbreaking to see the damage the mining industry has done on our land and even the sea country with the port there and seeing how it’s displaced our people,” Lockyer says. Sadly, she adds, a “harmony imbalance will always be there”.

But Lockyer is adamant that photographing and recording her people’s strong connection to the landscape despite these challenges is a way of strengthening their links. The more pride people take in their natural and cultural heritage, she believes, the more likely they are to work towards protecting it.

“It’s hard to describe but for me, it’s always about making that connection back to our country, making that connection back to our stories.”

La Gacilly Photo Festival runs until 3 November 2024.

Paris 2024’s organising committee aimed to cut the event’s carbon footprint by half and stage the greenest Games to date.

But that ambition has run into a problem: the huge appetites of meat-loving athletes.

At a trial run at the Olympic Village restaurant in June, Games supremo Tony Estanguet stressed that Paris 2024 was aiming to cut the average carbon emissions per meal in half compared to previous Olympics by offering more vegetarian food.

Promising not to disappoint visitors to a country famed for its gastronomy, the organising committee also took on several Michelin-starred chefs as advisors to work alongside its food contractor, French multinational Sodexo.

But the first few days in the village, located in the suburb of Saint-Denis north of Paris, saw demands for more meat, eggs and bigger helpings as athletes looked to refuel.

“The only issue would be the food shortages,” swimmer Julio Horrego from Honduras told French news agency AFP when asked about life in the village. “It’s a bit surprising.”

Horrego, who says he eats up to 5,000 calories per day, said he turned up for breakfast at 10.30am last Sunday only to find there were no eggs left.

“If you arrive a bit late, then there aren’t enough,” he said at the entrance to the village, which can house 10,500 athletes in its roughly 40 blocks.

More meat

Romanian rower Iulian Chelaru gave a clear answer when asked if there was anything missing: meat.

“We didn’t have enough meat, but now it’s solved,” he added.

Meanwhile, German swimmer Lucas Matzerath said that the size of helpings was also increasing. “At the start there were not very big portions for people, but it’s improved now,” he said.

The food hall includes six different dining areas offering meals from around the globe, with half of the 50 dishes available each day 100 percent vegetarian.

“We enjoy our greens, so it’s not a problem,” Canadian beach volleyball player Sophie Bukovec said as she left the complex.

“Some of the athletes are big meat-eaters. They’re trying to sort it out. There is protein, you just have to know where to find it.”

Sodexo said on Wednesday that it had adjusted its menus.

“Eggs and grilled meat dishes have been in high demand, so volumes have been increased significantly,” a spokesperson for the group said. “For several days now the quantities offered are in line with demand.”

Hot air

The vegetarian-heavy food offering is not the only difference in the Paris village compared with previous editions.

The housing complex, which will be converted into apartments after the Games, was built without air-conditioning and instead has an underfloor cooling system.

But faced with forecasts for a heatwave, the organisers compromised and allowed teams to order portable air-conditioning units at their own expense.

Climate group criticises Paris claim that 2024 Olympics will reduce emissions

Teams including the US, Great Britain, the Netherlands and France have opted to install the temporary coolers for their athletes, but others are having to do without, amid temperatures that climbed above 30°C midweek with high humidity.

“I suffer in the hot weather, but up until now I’ve slept well with just a fan,” said Italian beach volleyball player Marta Menegatti. “AC would be better for recovery, though.”

Cardboard beds

Other athletes have found the innovative Japanese-made beds in the village tricky to adjust to.

Their bases are made from cardboard and the mattresses from recycled plastic including fish nets, leading some to joke in the past that they were “anti-sex” and designed to stop athletes jumping between the sheets.

“My bed is too hard, it’s not the best,” said Spanish handballer Lysa Tchaptchet.

Others were enthusiastic about the efforts made by Paris 2024 organising committee to be more sustainable, including by cutting emisions and making sure all of the equipment – including the beds – can be recycled or reused afterwards.

“I really enjoy it and like what they’ve done in the village,” said Signe Bro, a Danish swimmer.

“It does the job now but it’s great to know for us athletes how it will be used in the future, and that it has been built in a sustainable way.

“You can laugh about the beds, but it’s good to know you don’t have 10,000 beds left over at the end.”

Paris prepares for Olympic romance with 220,000 free condoms

(with AFP)

“Due to the increased risk of a military escalation in the region, visiting French nationals still in Iran are invited to leave as soon as possible,” the French Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

The killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in a pre-dawn attack on Wednesday in Tehran has deepened fears of a regional war.

Tehran, as well as the Iran-backed Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah movements, have blamed Israel, which has not commented.

It has however claimed responsibility for the killing just hours earlier of senior Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Hundreds of people gathered at a mosque in Qatar on Friday to bid farewell to the slain leader.

Haniyeh’s killing comes almost 10 months into an Israeli military offensive that has ravaged the Gaza Strip, sparked by an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel.

His death triggered calls for revenge, and raised questions about the continued viability of any mediated talks aimed at ending the war between Hamas and Israel. Hamas called for a “day of furious rage”.

Iran calls for revenge at funeral of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh

France steps up protection of Jewish sites

Meanwhile, France on Friday ordered additional security measures at Jewish sites across the country, saying there was danger of revenge attacks after the killing of Haniyeh in Iran.

In a message sent to regional prefects, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said an “immediate strengthening” of protection was required.

“The risk of acts being committed is real,” he said in the message seen by French news agency AFP, especially since “many Israeli nationals are on our territory because of the Olympic Games”.

France’s Jewish population is the largest in Europe, and the third-largest in the world after Israel and the United States.

France is also home to Europe’s biggest Muslim population.

Darmanin ordered police, gendarmes and the military protection force Sentinelle to be mobilised “without delay” to guarantee the protection of “strategic locations frequented by our Jewish fellow citizens, especially during religious services”.

US on the alert

In a separate development, the United States is set to bolster its military presence in the Middle East, deploying additional warships and fighter jets to protect US personnel and defend Israel amid soaring tensions in the region, the Pentagon said Friday.

“The Department of Defense continues to take steps to mitigate the possibility of regional escalation by Iran or Iran’s partners and proxies,” deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said in a statement.

The aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln will replace one helmed by the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the region, Singh said.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has also ordered additional ballistic missile defense-capable cruisers and destroyers to the Middle East and areas under US European Command, as well as a new fighter squadron to the Middle East.

(with AFP)

July saw major military drills in Armenia between Armenian and United States forces.

“Politically, it is exceptionally relevant; they are four or five times larger than last year,” explains Eric Hacopian, a political analyst in Armenia, who notes the range of US divisions mobilised for the drills. “It’s not about peacekeeping.”

The military exercise, dubbed “Eagle Partner“, is part of Yerevan’s wider efforts to escape its Russian neighbour’s sphere of influence, Hacopian believes.

“These are serious exercises, and they were followed up with the news that there is going to be US permanent representation in the Ministry of Defence of Armenia as advisors to join the French who are already there,” he noted.

“Essentially, there is no other play but to join the West.”

France, Russia stand on opposite sides of Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict

Armenia is also seeking to reduce its economic dependence on Russia, pressing Turkey to open its border and providing a new gateway to Western markets for the landlocked country.

Ankara closed the frontier in 1993 after ethnic Armenian forces seized the contested Azerbaijani enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. However, with Azerbaijani forces recapturing the enclave last year, analysts say the opening of the border could now align with Turkey’s goals to expand its regional influence.

“The normalisation of the relationship with Armenia would allow Turkish policy in the Cacasus to acquire a more comprehensive dimension today. That’s the missing element,” said Sinan Ulgen, an analyst with the Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, a think tank in Istanbul.

“Turkey obviously has very strong links to Azerbaijan and very good relations with Georgia, but not with Armenia,” he explained. “And that’s a predicament, as we look at Turkey’s overall policy in the Caucasus.”

Leverage

Washington is working hard to broker a permanent peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. “A deal is close,” declared US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines of July’s NATO summit in Washington.

Last week, Turkish and Armenian envoys held their fifth meeting aimed at normalising relations. However, with critical issues between Armenia and Azerbaijan unresolved, Baku sees Turkey’s reopening of the Armenian border as important leverage.

In principle, both Azerbaijan and Turkey are in favour, claims Farid Shafiyev, an Azeri former diplomat and now chair of the Centre of Analysis of International Relations in Baku.

“However, we believe at this stage, as we have not signed a peace agreement, it might send a wrong signal to Yerevan and Armenia that we don’t need to come to an agreement about the core issues – the mutual recognition of territorial integrity,” he said.

Can Turkey tip the balance of power in the Caucasus conflict?

Meanwhile Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has developed close ties with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, and is ruling out opening the border until Baku’s demands are met.

Turkish arms were key to Azerbaijan’s recent military successes against Armenian-backed forces. “Azerbaijan is where it is, in good part because of Turkey’s military assistance, intelligence assistance and all that,” argues Soli Ozel, who teaches international relations at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.

But Ozel says Baku is dictating Ankara’s Caucasus policy. “It is befuddling to me that Turkey cannot open the borders with Armenia, which Armenia both needs and wants, because of Azerbaijan’s veto,” he said. “Especially if indeed Azerbaijan, for one reason or another, believes that its interests are once more in turning toward Russia.”

With Azerbaijan’s Socar energy company Turkey’s biggest foreign investor, Baku retains powerful economic leverage over Ankara – meaning any hope of reopening the Turkish-Armenian border appears dependent on the wishes of Azerbaijan’s leadership.

Cannabis sativa Linn, commonly known as hemp, is a hardy plant going back to medieval times.

Production in France boomed during the 17th and 18th century when its tough fibres were used to make canvas and ropes for sailing ships. In around 1830, at the industry’s peak, some 173,000 hectares were farmed.

But the rise of synthetic materials in the mid-20th century made the fibre less attractive.

As did the United States. As part of its war on drugs – and efforts to protect its cotton industry from competition – hemp farming in the US got caught up in anti-marijuana legislation and was effectively banned. An infamous propaganda campaign assimilating hemp with drugs referred to “the burning weed with its roots in hell“.  

In fact hemp is low in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) – the substance that gives you a high – and THC levels for industrially farmed hemp cannot exceed 0.3 percent.

By the 1970s, hemp farming had been banned in most countries around the world.

While production in France slumped to just 300 hectares, for use in paper making in the Aube region, it managed to hang onto its savoir-faire.

Listen to a report on hemp farming in Aulnoy on the Spotlight on France podcast:

The return

The French always knew that hemp was feisty. And its ability to resist big changes in temperature and handle drought has spurred its return as a crop well adapted to global warming.

Hemp production has tripled here over the last decade to reach 24,000 hectares, making France the world’s third-largest producer after the US and China, and leader in Europe, where it accounts for more than a third of the EU’s production.

“We now have 1,550 farmers nationwide and it’s a fast-growing sector,” says Franck Barbier, head of the professional body InterChanvre that represents hemp growers.

Barbier had a background in agro-business but moved into hemp a decade ago, convinced it was a good crop for agriculture, the environment and the economy.

For a start it’s one of the world’s fastest-growing plants. “It can grow up to three metres in just five months, and around 10 centimetres a day in the month of June,” Barbier explains as he strides through a 10-hectare field in Aulnoy, 60km east of Paris.

The plant’s dense canopy deprives weeds of light, thereby reducing reliance on pesticides.

“It doesn’t need any products to control disease or pests – no weedkillers, fungicides or insecticides. So it’s good for farmers to no longer have to use such products,” he says.

And thanks to the plant’s powerful root system, it can delve two metres underground to fetch water, allowing it to grow throughout drier summer months without the need for irrigation.

Crucially, hemp is a good carbon sink – one hectare of hemp can sequester up to 15 tonnes of CO2 in its stems, Barbier says. 

Eighty percent of French worried about climate change: report

No waste

Everything in the hemp plant is useful. The protein-rich seeds are hulled to produce foodstuffs and oil for cosmetics, while whole seeds can be used in animal feed.

The tough stalks are processed in hemp mills where the fibrous outer layer is separated from the inner core, known as hurds.

Hemp fibre is used to make paper and textiles. And as a lightweight, durable substitute for plastic, it’s increasingly used in car manufacturing.

But it’s perhaps in the construction industry that “green gold” – as it’s sometimes called in France – is making the biggest strides.

With the construction sector responsible for some 40 percent of energy consumption worldwide and 36 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming, hemp’s ability to lock in CO2 makes it a key player in the fight against climate change.

Both fibre and hurds are used in the construction industry, whether in “hempcrete” – a mixture of lime, hemp hurds and water – hemp wool, or fibre-board insulation.

French farmers need ‘billions’ to compensate for catastrophic drought

Greener buildings

When the mayor of Trilport, Jean-Michel Morer, began looking for ways of making more sustainable social housing in his town a decade ago, he turned to the nearby PlaneteChanvre hemp mill.

“The carbon footprint is remarkably low because the hemp is grown locally, just 13 kilometres away, it hasn’t been transformed, just rendered on the walls with water and lime,” he says, pointing to a block of flats insulated with a layer of hempcrete on the outside.

“It’s a first in terms of bio-sourced materials for a three-story building. And it’s energy-saving,” he explains. “Some residents haven’t turned on the heating since they moved in nearly two years ago.

“But the real difference is in the summer – when it’s hot, the buildings stay cool,” he says, reducing the need for energy-guzzling air conditioning.

For the primary school’s new 1,000-metre square canteen and recreation area, Morer called on local firm Wall’Up Préfa, which makes prefabricated walls entirely from hempcrete.

The new gas-fired boiler room also has walls made of hemp. “We obtained certification to show that it can resist fire for more than four hours,” the mayor says proudly.

Morer’s promotion of hemp in public utilities has put Trilport on the map. “Using local businesses, local employees and locally sourced products has allowed us to really build a circular economy.”

And that’s key to more sustainable development.

“Lots of people talk about the environment but we’re taking concrete measures,” says the mayor. “Using hemp makes farming more respectful of the ecosystem, it’s less polluting of our water supply and farmland, it uses less water and allows us to insulate buildings more easily and with fewer risks to health.” 

Tap water undrinkable in a quarter of French towns and cities

Getting more farmers on board

Only 0.3 percent of farmers in France grow hemp today but faced with the mounting demand for hemp in textiles, plastics and insulation, Barbier says the industry plans to “double production over the next five years”.

InterChanvre is working hard to try and get more farmers on board.

The sector has invested nearly €100 million over the past five years to increase the number of hemp mills from just seven at present to make sure farmers’ crops can be processed as locally as possible.

Barbier says hemp is of interest as a rotational crop since its ability to regenerate the soil means it can increase yields of winter wheat “by around 8 percent”.

While the machinery needed for harvesting involves a hefty investment and revenues are lower than for wheat and other cereals, companies like Wall’Up Prépa, convinced of hemp’s bright future, are paying more to farmers to secure supplies. 

Under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), hemp farmers can claim subsidies of around 80 euros per hectare – a measure currently available in France, Romania and Poland.

Meanwhile, InterChanvre is pushing for hemp to fall under the Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programme, which would allow farmers to benefit from EU subsidies of  “at least €200 per hectare”, Barbier says. 

In the meantime, he points to foreign interest in tapping in to France’s know-how.

“Given hemp’s environmental benefits, Germany, Spain and several Eastern European countries are already seeking France’s expertise in transforming hemp to develop their own industries.”

This story was produced as part of the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 114.

Hello everyone!

This week on The Sound Kitchen, you’ll hear a “My Hero” essay by listener Bidhan Chandra Sanyal from West Bengal, India.  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 Bidhan Chandra Sanyal’s essay: 

Hello, I am Bidhan Chandra Sanyal from West Bengal, India. Today I would like to share with you the story of a man whom I greatly admire, Kailash Sharma.

Kailash Sharma was born on January 11, 1954, in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, India.  He is an electrical engineer by profession, but he did not work as an engineer – instead, he engaged in social service work.

Appalled by the plight of child slavery across South Asia, in 1980 Sharma founded Bachpan Bachao Andolan – the Save Childhood Movement – to fight against the evil of child labor and slavery which has been socially accepted and widely practised in the region for generations.

As the saying goes: “The farmer’s child or the king’s potter all have work in this world.”  But a child’s work should be tailored to children, in the home.

Far too often, harsh reality takes them on another path. Disrespect, neglect or severe rule towards children are not right. When a child is forced to take the lead in financial hardship, to meet the family’s food needs, he frequently endures inhuman torture through child labor. They become the victims of malnutrition, illiteracy, and poor education. They cannot enjoy what should be a normal childhood – instead, childhood is a burden.

The goal of Kailash Sharma’s Bachpan Bachao Andolan movement is to create a child-friendly society, where all children are free from exploitation and receive a free and quality education. It aims to identify, liberate, rehabilitate and educate children in servitude through direct intervention, child and community participation, coalition building, consumer action, promoting ethical trade practices and mass mobilisation.

It has so far freed close to 100,000 children from servitude, including bonded labourers, and helped in their re-integration, rehabilitation and education.

Due to Sharma’s hard work, the Child Protection Act came into effect in India in 2012.  India’s Supreme Court ordered that any complaint of torture against child laborers be registered immediately.  Kailash Sharma has received many awards in recognition of his work: the Achina National Peace Prize, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Prize, the Alfonso Comin National Prize and a medal from the Italian Senate.

And then, in 2014, he received the world’s highest award: The Nobel Peace Prize.

There is hope: Light can come from darkness. A total of 365 villages in our 11 states in India are now child labor free.  Kailash Sharma’s work has inspired and created change not just in India, but all across the globe. 

Kailash Sharma is my true hero.

Thank you for listening.

The music chosen by Bidhan is “Brishtir Gaan”, written and performed by Aditi Chakraborty.

Be sure and tune in next week for a special “Music in the Kitchen”, featuring your musical requests. Talk to you then!

July saw major military drills in Armenia between Armenian and United States forces.

“Politically, it is exceptionally relevant; they are four or five times larger than last year,” explains Eric Hacopian, a political analyst in Armenia, who notes the range of US divisions mobilised for the drills. “It’s not about peacekeeping.”

The military exercise, dubbed “Eagle Partner“, is part of Yerevan’s wider efforts to escape its Russian neighbour’s sphere of influence, Hacopian believes.

“These are serious exercises, and they were followed up with the news that there is going to be US permanent representation in the Ministry of Defence of Armenia as advisors to join the French who are already there,” he noted.

“Essentially, there is no other play but to join the West.”

France, Russia stand on opposite sides of Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict

Armenia is also seeking to reduce its economic dependence on Russia, pressing Turkey to open its border and providing a new gateway to Western markets for the landlocked country.

Ankara closed the frontier in 1993 after ethnic Armenian forces seized the contested Azerbaijani enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. However, with Azerbaijani forces recapturing the enclave last year, analysts say the opening of the border could now align with Turkey’s goals to expand its regional influence.

“The normalisation of the relationship with Armenia would allow Turkish policy in the Cacasus to acquire a more comprehensive dimension today. That’s the missing element,” said Sinan Ulgen, an analyst with the Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, a think tank in Istanbul.

“Turkey obviously has very strong links to Azerbaijan and very good relations with Georgia, but not with Armenia,” he explained. “And that’s a predicament, as we look at Turkey’s overall policy in the Caucasus.”

Leverage

Washington is working hard to broker a permanent peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. “A deal is close,” declared US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines of July’s NATO summit in Washington.

Last week, Turkish and Armenian envoys held their fifth meeting aimed at normalising relations. However, with critical issues between Armenia and Azerbaijan unresolved, Baku sees Turkey’s reopening of the Armenian border as important leverage.

In principle, both Azerbaijan and Turkey are in favour, claims Farid Shafiyev, an Azeri former diplomat and now chair of the Centre of Analysis of International Relations in Baku.

“However, we believe at this stage, as we have not signed a peace agreement, it might send a wrong signal to Yerevan and Armenia that we don’t need to come to an agreement about the core issues – the mutual recognition of territorial integrity,” he said.

Can Turkey tip the balance of power in the Caucasus conflict?

Meanwhile Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has developed close ties with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, and is ruling out opening the border until Baku’s demands are met.

Turkish arms were key to Azerbaijan’s recent military successes against Armenian-backed forces. “Azerbaijan is where it is, in good part because of Turkey’s military assistance, intelligence assistance and all that,” argues Soli Ozel, who teaches international relations at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.

But Ozel says Baku is dictating Ankara’s Caucasus policy. “It is befuddling to me that Turkey cannot open the borders with Armenia, which Armenia both needs and wants, because of Azerbaijan’s veto,” he said. “Especially if indeed Azerbaijan, for one reason or another, believes that its interests are once more in turning toward Russia.”

With Azerbaijan’s Socar energy company Turkey’s biggest foreign investor, Baku retains powerful economic leverage over Ankara – meaning any hope of reopening the Turkish-Armenian border appears dependent on the wishes of Azerbaijan’s leadership.

Hello everyone!

This week on The Sound Kitchen, you’ll hear a “My Hero” essay by listener Bidhan Chandra Sanyal from West Bengal, India.  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 Bidhan Chandra Sanyal’s essay: 

Hello, I am Bidhan Chandra Sanyal from West Bengal, India. Today I would like to share with you the story of a man whom I greatly admire, Kailash Sharma.

Kailash Sharma was born on January 11, 1954, in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, India.  He is an electrical engineer by profession, but he did not work as an engineer – instead, he engaged in social service work.

Appalled by the plight of child slavery across South Asia, in 1980 Sharma founded Bachpan Bachao Andolan – the Save Childhood Movement – to fight against the evil of child labor and slavery which has been socially accepted and widely practised in the region for generations.

As the saying goes: “The farmer’s child or the king’s potter all have work in this world.”  But a child’s work should be tailored to children, in the home.

Far too often, harsh reality takes them on another path. Disrespect, neglect or severe rule towards children are not right. When a child is forced to take the lead in financial hardship, to meet the family’s food needs, he frequently endures inhuman torture through child labor. They become the victims of malnutrition, illiteracy, and poor education. They cannot enjoy what should be a normal childhood – instead, childhood is a burden.

The goal of Kailash Sharma’s Bachpan Bachao Andolan movement is to create a child-friendly society, where all children are free from exploitation and receive a free and quality education. It aims to identify, liberate, rehabilitate and educate children in servitude through direct intervention, child and community participation, coalition building, consumer action, promoting ethical trade practices and mass mobilisation.

It has so far freed close to 100,000 children from servitude, including bonded labourers, and helped in their re-integration, rehabilitation and education.

Due to Sharma’s hard work, the Child Protection Act came into effect in India in 2012.  India’s Supreme Court ordered that any complaint of torture against child laborers be registered immediately.  Kailash Sharma has received many awards in recognition of his work: the Achina National Peace Prize, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Prize, the Alfonso Comin National Prize and a medal from the Italian Senate.

And then, in 2014, he received the world’s highest award: The Nobel Peace Prize.

There is hope: Light can come from darkness. A total of 365 villages in our 11 states in India are now child labor free.  Kailash Sharma’s work has inspired and created change not just in India, but all across the globe. 

Kailash Sharma is my true hero.

Thank you for listening.

The music chosen by Bidhan is “Brishtir Gaan”, written and performed by Aditi Chakraborty.

Be sure and tune in next week for a special “Music in the Kitchen”, featuring your musical requests. Talk to you then!

Under controversial legislation currently passing through parliament, local authorities would be responsible for rounding up stray dogs, which would be killed after 30 days if an owner can not be found for them.

Opponents claim as many as eight million street dogs could be at risk.

“They are planning to round them up into shelters, which we call death camps,” said Zulal Kalkandelen, one of the animals rights activists taking part in a recent protest against the plan in Istanbul.

“For some time, there has been a campaign to fuel stray animal hatred,” she declared.

“Our people, who have been living with street dogs for many years, in fact for centuries, are now being brought to the point where all these animals will be erased.”

Street dogs have been a part of Istanbul life for centuries. The proposed legislation evokes memories of a dark chapter in the city’s past when, in 1910, street dogs were rounded up and left on a nearby island to starve.

It has provoked emotive arguments in parliament, with MPs jostling one another and exchanging insults – opening another deep divide in an already fractured political landscape.

But President Erdogan insists something must be done to control stray animals that, he argues, have become a menace to society, causing traffic accidents and spreading disease.

Humane alternatives

Addressing parliament, Erdogan claimed he was answering the call of the “silent majority”.

“The truth is that a very large part of society wants this issue to be resolved as soon as possible and our streets to become safe for everyone, especially our children,” he declared.

“It is unthinkable for us to remain indifferent to this demand, this call, even this cry. Our proposals are no different from those of other countries in Europe.”

Mixed reactions as France prepares to simplify wolf culling rules

Lawyer Elcin Cemre Sencan, who has helped organise protests against the proposed legislation, argues there are more humane ways to address people’s concerns.

“There is a group of people who are disturbed by these stray animals or who are afraid even to touch them,” she acknowledges. “But even if there are these concerns, the solution is not to put the dogs to sleep.

“Scientific studies have shown that sterilising animals, especially dogs, reduces not only their numbers but also attacks on people.”

Veterinary organisations have also pointed out that the cost of euthanising a dog is many times higher than sterilisation and vaccination.

Diversion tactic?

Some critics suggest politics could be behind the move.

With Erdogan’s conservative AK Party suffering heavy defeats in local elections this spring and Turkey grappling with near 100 percent inflation, opponents claim the Turkish president could be calculating that objections to his street dog legislation comes mainly from the secular opposition and hoping the issue will consolidate his religious base.

“We know our problems in this country; the world knows our problems. There is an economic crisis, and we have human rights problems everywhere. But they want to change the main topics to these animals,” said Eyup Cicerali, a professor at Istanbul’s Nisantasi University, at a recent protest against the legislation.  

“They want to kill them all,” he claimed. “We are here to protect our values, values of respect and dignity for human and animal rights. Life is an issue for all groups.”

According to one recent opinion poll, less than 3 percent of the Turkish public support the culling of street dogs.

Some of Erdogan’s MPs have even started speaking out against the law in the media, albeit anonymously. “This law makes us dog killers,” one unnamed deputy was quoted as saying.

Despite such misgivings, the legislation is expected to pass parliament later this month.

But with the protests drawing together secular and religious animal lovers, and opposition-controlled local authorities declaring they won’t impose the law, the stray dog legislation could prove a risky move for Erdogan.

Where will Gaza stray dogs find shelter?

In total, more than 200 delegations and 10,000 athletes are participating in 36 sports at the Paris Games. 

RFI’s sport editor Paul Myers discusses how African athletes from all over the continent are likely to perform.

Who are the African athletes to watch out for at Paris Olympics?

Episode mixed by Erwan Rome. 

Spotlight on Africa is a podcast from Radio France Internationale. 

Hello everyone!

This week on The Sound Kitchen, you’ll hear an essay by listener Ashik Eqbal Tokon from Rajshahi, Bangladesh. 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 Ashik Eqbal Tokon’s essay:

The Transformative Journey, Inspired by Pather Panchali 

As a child growing up in the bustling megacity of the 1980s, I was accustomed to the constant hum of trains, the clanging of trams, the honking of buses, and the rhythmic peddling of rickshaws. My world was a mosaic of concrete, electricity, radio broadcasts, and black-and-white television screens. It was a life saturated with modern conveniences and rapid movement, where nature seemed distant, relegated to small parks and occasional glimpses of the sky between towering buildings. However, this perception shifted dramatically when I encountered a short story extracted from the novel Pather Panchali by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay. The tale of Apu and Durga’s discovery of the train in their remote Bengali village captured my imagination with its vivid descriptions and emotional depth. The scene where they run through lush fields, their eyes widening in awe at the sight of the train, resonated deeply within me. This moment became etched in my mind, igniting a spark of curiosity and longing for a world beyond the urban sprawl.

My First Journey to the Village

Shortly after reading the story, I had the opportunity to visit my ancestral village, a place starkly different from my city life. The journey began with a train ride that mirrored Apu’s wonder and excitement. As the train chugged through the countryside, I gazed out of the window, mesmerised by the passing landscapes. Rivers snaked through the green fields, and orchards of mangoes, lychees, and jackfruits painted the scenery with vibrant colours. It was as if I had stepped into Apu’s world, experiencing the same unmeasurable happiness he felt. The bus journey that followed took me deeper into the heart of nature. The scent of fresh earth and blooming flowers filled the air. The sight of villagers working in the fields, children playing under the shade of trees, and the serene flow of rivers created a permanent visual in my mind. This experience was a revelation, a tactile encounter with the natural world that Apu had introduced me to.

Discovering Pather Panchali in My Teenage Years

As a teenager, I read the full novel Pather Panchali and felt an even stronger connection to Apu’s journey. The book opened my eyes to the beauty of nature, the simplicity of rural life, and the profound emotions tied to family and survival. It made me realise that true happiness and fulfilment could be found in the simplest of experiences and the purest of surroundings. This realisation shaped my life’s journey and passions. I developed a deep love for travel, seeking out places where I could immerse myself in nature’s embrace. The novel’s influence led me to explore diverse landscapes, from the golden deserts of Rajasthan, India, to the lush hills of Bhutan. I found joy in the contrasting environments—the tranquil charm of Thailand’s beaches, the cultural richness of Bali, the waves of the Bay of Bengal, and the expansive horizons of the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Thailand, and Java Sea.

Embracing My Home Country, Bangladesh

One of the most profound impacts of Pather Panchali was how it deepened my appreciation for my own beautiful country, Bangladesh. After my teenage years, I have had the privilege to explore all 64 districts of Bangladesh, each with its unique natural beauty and cultural heritage. From the verdant hills of Sylhet to the serene beaches of Cox’s Bazar, the majestic Sundarbans mangrove forest to the vibrant cultural tapestry of Dhaka, every corner of Bangladesh offered a new discovery and a deeper connection to my roots. The green landscapes, the winding rivers, and the warmth of the people in Bangladesh constantly reminded me of Apu’s world. This profound connection to my homeland enriched my life and reinforced my love for travel and exploration. Bangladesh, with its rich history and diverse natural beauty, continues to be a source of inspiration and joy.

Embracing Nature and the Love of Travel

Pather Panchali taught me to appreciate the feather-light touch of nature, to find beauty and peace in its presence, even in the most unexpected places. Whether it was the arid sands of Rajasthan, where the desert winds whispered ancient tales, or the verdant hills of Jalpaiguri, where the air was thick with the scent of tea leaves, nature became my sanctuary. The novel instilled in me a sense of wonder and a desire to explore, to experience the world through the lens of its natural splendour. In Thailand and Bali, I found a different kind of charm, where the azure waters and golden sunsets painted the skies with hues of tranquility and adventure. Swimming in the waves of the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, I felt a connection to the vastness of the world, a reminder of Apu’s endless curiosity and love for discovery. The icy expanse of Mongolia, though harsh, revealed the serene and stark beauty of a world wrapped in snow and silence, expanding my understanding of nature’s extremes.

Final Word

The transformative power of Pather Panchali by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay lies in its ability to transport readers into a world where nature and simplicity hold profound meaning. For me, the novel was not just a story but a catalyst for a lifelong passion for travel and an enduring love for the natural world. It taught me to seek out the beauty in every corner of the earth, to cherish the moments of awe and wonder, and to find joy in the journey itself. This timeless tale of Apu’s adventures has forever changed my perspective, making every travel experience a homage to the spirit of discovery and the beauty of nature, from the warm beaches of Bali to the freezing steppes of Mongolia, and the verdant beauty of Bangladesh, my beloved homeland.

The music chosen by Ashik is “Janmo Amar Dhonno Holo Mago” by Azad Rahman, sung by Sabina Yeasmin.

Be sure and tune in next week for an essay written by Bidhan Chandar Sanyal. Talk to you then!

Hello everyone!

This week on The Sound Kitchen, you’ll hear an essay by listener Ashik Eqbal Tokon from Rajshahi, Bangladesh.  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 yourvery own personalexperience. 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 Ashik Eqbal Tokon’s essay:

The Transformative Journey, Inspired by Pather Panchali 

As a child growing up in the bustling megacity of the 1980s, I was accustomed to the constant hum of trains, the clanging of trams, the honking of buses, and the rhythmic peddling of rickshaws. My world was a mosaic of concrete, electricity, radio broadcasts, and black-and-white television screens. It was a life saturated with modern conveniences and rapid movement, where nature seemed distant, relegated to small parks and occasional glimpses of the sky between towering buildings. However, this perception shifted dramatically when I encountered a short story extracted from the novel Pather Panchali by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay. The tale of Apu and Durga’s discovery of the train in their remote Bengali village captured my imagination with its vivid descriptions and emotional depth. The scene where they run through lush fields, their eyes widening in awe at the sight of the train, resonated deeply within me. This moment became etched in my mind, igniting a spark of curiosity and longing for a world beyond the urban sprawl.

My First Journey to the Village

Shortly after reading the story, I had the opportunity to visit my ancestral village, a place starkly different from my city life. The journey began with a train ride that mirrored Apu’s wonder and excitement. As the train chugged through the countryside, I gazed out of the window, mesmerized by the passing landscapes. Rivers snaked through the green fields, and orchards of mangoes, lychees, and jackfruits painted the scenery with vibrant colors. It was as if I had stepped into Apu’s world, experiencing the same unmeasurable happiness he felt. The bus journey that followed took me deeper into the heart of nature. The scent of fresh earth and blooming flowers filled the air. The sight of villagers working in the fields, children playing under the shade of trees, and the serene flow of rivers created a permanent visual in my mind. This experience was a revelation, a tactile encounter with the natural world that Apu had introduced me to.

Discovering Pather Panchali in My Teenage Years

As a teenager, I read the full novel Pather Panchali and felt an even stronger connection to Apu’s journey. The book opened my eyes to the beauty of nature, the simplicity of rural life, and the profound emotions tied to family and survival. It made me realize that true happiness and fulfillment could be found in the simplest of experiences and the purest of surroundings. This realization shaped my life’s journey and passions. I developed a deep love for travel, seeking out places where I could immerse myself in nature’s embrace. The novel’s influence led me to explore diverse landscapes, from the golden deserts of Rajasthan, India, to the lush hills of Bhutan. I found joy in the contrasting environments—the tranquil charm of Thailand’s beaches, the cultural richness of Bali, the waves of the Bay of Bengal, and the expansive horizons of the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Thailand, and Java Sea.

Embracing My Home Country, Bangladesh

One of the most profound impacts of Pather Panchali was how it deepened my appreciation for my own beautiful country, Bangladesh. After my teenage years, I have had the privilege to explore all 64 districts of Bangladesh, each with its unique natural beauty and cultural heritage. From the verdant hills of Sylhet to the serene beaches of Cox’s Bazar, the majestic Sundarbans mangrove forest to the vibrant cultural tapestry of Dhaka, every corner of Bangladesh offered a new discovery and a deeper connection to my roots. The green landscapes, the winding rivers, and the warmth of the people in Bangladesh constantly reminded me of Apu’s world. This profound connection to my homeland enriched my life and reinforced my love for travel and exploration. Bangladesh, with its rich history and diverse natural beauty, continues to be a source of inspiration and joy.

Embracing Nature and the Love of Travel

Pather Panchali taught me to appreciate the feather-light touch of nature, to find beauty and peace in its presence, even in the most unexpected places. Whether it was the arid sands of Rajasthan, where the desert winds whispered ancient tales, or the verdant hills of Jalpaiguri, where the air was thick with the scent of tea leaves, nature became my sanctuary. The novel instilled in me a sense of wonder and a desire to explore, to experience the world through the lens of its natural splendor. In Thailand and Bali, I found a different kind of charm, where the azure waters and golden sunsets painted the skies with hues of tranquility and adventure. Swimming in the waves of the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, I felt a connection to the vastness of the world, a reminder of Apu’s endless curiosity and love for discovery. The icy expanse of Mongolia, though harsh, revealed the serene and stark beauty of a world wrapped in snow and silence, expanding my understanding of nature’s extremes.

Final Word

The transformative power of Pather Panchali by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay lies in its ability to transport readers into a world where nature and simplicity hold profound meaning. For me, the novel was not just a story but a catalyst for a lifelong passion for travel and an enduring love for the natural world. It taught me to seek out the beauty in every corner of the earth, to cherish the moments of awe and wonder, and to find joy in the journey itself. This timeless tale of Apu’s adventures has forever changed my perspective, making every travel experience a homage to the spirit of discovery and the beauty of nature, from the warm beaches of Bali to the freezing steppes of Mongolia, and the verdant beauty of Bangladesh, my beloved homeland.

The music chosen by Ashik is “Janmo Amar Dhonno Holo Mago” by Azad Rahman, sung by Sabina Yeasmin.

Be sure and tune in next week for an essay written by Bidhan Chandar Sanyal.  Talk to you then!

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.