Speaking during a day-long visit focused on security Tuesday, Macron said France would not back down in its fight against narcotics.

He inaugurated a new police station in Marseille, met police officers and paid tribute to families of young people killed in drug-related violence.

Macron spent nearly two hours at the newly opened station, where officers questioned him about the anti-drug trafficking law adopted several months ago but still only partly applied because some decrees have not yet been published.

“We are waiting for the law to be fully implemented,” a police officer told the president, saying the missing measures were needed to target the highest levels of organised crime.

“I am fully aware of that. We are not going to let go,” Macron replied.

The president defended his record, saying extra resources were already being deployed.

“We have added 300 police officers net to Marseille and a new national prosecutor’s office will be in place from 5 January,” he said.

Earlier in the day, during a public discussion with readers of the regional daily La Provence, Macron promised to take on drug networks that “kill innocent young people to intimidate and spread fear.”

He said there was “no chance” the criminal networks would win.

France urges EU to ‘wake up’ as drug crime spreads across Europe

A city scarred by violence

Macron also visited the grave of Mehdi Kessaci, who was killed on 13 November at the age of 20. His brother, Amine Kessaci, is known as an anti-drug trafficking activist.

“We are all thinking of the Kessaci family, his mother, his brothers and his sisters,” Macron said.

The killing shocked Marseille, a city long marked by violence linked to the drug trade. The number of people killed has fallen over the past two years, with 17 deaths recorded in the department this year, compared with 24 last year and 50 in 2023.

Macron also met the mother of Socayna, a young student who was killed by a stray bullet in 2023 while studying in her room, a case that deeply affected the city.

During his visit, Macron also said France would strengthen cooperation with countries where the leaders of drug trafficking networks operate, with the aim of seizing their assets and arresting them.

He said this cooperation was needed to target those directing operations from abroad.

Ministers vow tough response as Marseille reels from gangland murder

Higher fines for users

As part of the crackdown, Macron announced that the fixed fine for drug use would rise to €500 euros, up from 200. He has repeatedly criticised drug users for their role in sustaining the trade.

“I am sick of mourning young people and, in the same neighbourhoods, seeing others who think it is festive to go and buy drugs,” he said.

Marseille’s mayor, Benoit Payan, said the measure would not be enough on its own. The increase “will not put an end to trafficking”, he said, adding that his main enemies were traffickers “with blood on their hands”.

He also called for more resources to restore public services in deprived neighbourhoods affected by drug dealing.

A specialist in public drug policy, Yann Bisiou, warned that the higher fine risked being ineffective against the booming cocaine trade.

“It is a fine that targets a particular category of the population and consumers,” Bisiou told RFI.

Macron ended the day by inaugurating the expansion of Marseille’s Baumettes prison, keeping security at the centre of his visit.

France has drawn a red line in the latest push to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, saying there can be no discussion of Kyiv ceding territory until “robust security guarantees” are firmly in place.

That’s how President Emmanuel Macron’s team framed two days of intensive talks in Berlin, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met United States envoys and European leaders to try to reshape a US-brokered peace plan that many in Europe saw as too generous to Moscow.

“We want robust security guarantees first before any discussions on territory,” a senior adviser to Macron said, underlining Paris’s view that Ukraine must be protected against any future Russian aggression before being asked to make political concessions.

The adviser added that progress had been made on guarantees, particularly after greater clarity emerged on the form US backing would take.

The Berlin talks were part of a broader diplomatic effort led by Washington. While Us President Donald Trump has said a deal is closer than ever, European leaders – led by France and Germany – have been determined to strengthen the security pillar of any agreement before it progresses.

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

Credible guarantees

At the heart of the European position is the belief that a ceasefire without strong enforcement mechanisms would simply invite renewed conflict.

To that end, leaders in Berlin proposed a European-led multinational force – backed by the US – as part of a package of security guarantees aimed at ensuring Russia does not violate any deal.

Zelensky acknowledged that negotiations with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were difficult but said they had delivered “real progress” on security guarantees – an issue he has repeatedly described as existential for Ukraine.

“These conversations are always not easy,” Zelensky said on Monday, but added that they had been productive.

He also confirmed that disagreements remained over territory, making it clear that Kyiv’s position on land would not change without firm guarantees in place.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz echoed this emphasis on security, describing the talks as opening “the chance for a real peace process”.

He praised the US for putting “substantial” legal and material guarantees on the table, calling the move “truly remarkable”.

US officials briefed on the talks said Washington was offering NATO-style assurances, even while ruling out Ukraine’s formal membership of the alliance.

One official described the guarantees as “Article Five-like” with a strong deterrent effect based both on commitments from Western powers and on maintaining a large Ukrainian military.

The tone from Washington, however, carried a sense of urgency. US officials warned that such guarantees would not remain available indefinitely and pressed Kyiv to move towards accepting the broader deal.

France says Ukraine peace plan can only be ‘finalised’ with Kyiv, European input

Territory on the table

For Macron and other European leaders, that pressure reinforces the need to lock in guarantees first. Trump has repeatedly argued that Ukraine will inevitably have to surrender territory, a stance that remains unacceptable to Zelensky and deeply sensitive in European capitals.

Behind closed doors, US negotiators continue to push for Ukraine to cede control of the eastern Donbas region, comprising Donetsk and Lugansk. Russia occupies almost all of Lugansk and around 80 percent of Donetsk, but Kyiv has refused to withdraw from the areas it still controls.

Russia, meanwhile, is sticking to its core demands. The Kremlin has said it expects the US to brief it on the Berlin discussions and has reiterated its opposition to any European-led force operating in Ukraine.

Moscow also insists that Ukraine must abandon its ambition to join NATO as part of any settlement.

However, US officials said Moscow has indicated it would be open to Ukraine joining the European Union as part of a peace deal – a position Russia has previously tolerated, but which would still represent a notable concession.

According to US officials, negotiators now agree on around 90 percent of the US-drafted plan.

Further talks are already planned, with another round of negotiations potentially following this weekend in the US.

Zelensky has also sought to underline Ukraine’s flexibility, saying Kyiv could drop its NATO bid if it received legally binding security guarantees backed by the US Congress.

Even so, he stressed that NATO membership remains Ukraine’s preferred long-term safeguard.

Wider security issues were also underlined in London, where the new head of the UK’s foreign intelligence service MI6 warned that Russia’s actions in Ukraine were reshaping the global threat landscape.

In her first public speech, Blaise Metreweli said President Vladimir Putin’s determination to export instability was creating increasingly unpredictable and interconnected security challenges for Europe and beyond.

(with newswires)

Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan, hosted in Tehran by his Iranian counterpart Abbad Aragchi, declared that both countries see “Israel as the biggest threat to stability in the Middle East”, because of its “expansionist policies”.

Ankara is increasingly angry over Israel’s military operations in Syria, which it considers a threat to security. Syria‘s new regime is a close Turkish ally.

With the Iranian-backed Syrian regime overthrown and Iran’s diminishing influence in the Caucasus, another region of competition with Turkey, Tehran is viewed by Ankara as less of a threat

“Ankara sees that Tehran’s wings are clipped, and I’m sure that it is also very happy that Tehran’s wings are clipped”, international relations expert Soli Ozel told RFI.

Ozel predicts that diminished Iranian power is opening the door for more cooperation with Turkey.

Cooperation

“Competition and cooperation really define the relations. Now that Iran is weaker, the relationship is more balanced. But there are limits, driven by America’s approach to Iran”, said Ozel.

Murat Aslan of SETA, the Foundation for Political, Economic, and Social Research, a Turkish pro-government think tank, points out that changing dynamics inside Iran also give an impetus to Turkish diplomatic efforts towards Tehran.

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

“Iran is trying to build a new landscape in which they can communicate with the West, but under the conditions they have identified”, observes Aslan.

“In this sense, Turkey may contribute. So that’s why Turkey is negotiating or communicating with Iran just to find the terms of a probable common consensus.”

However, warming relations between Turkey and Iran are not viewed in a favourable light by Israel, whose ministers have in turn accused Turkey of being Israel’s biggest threat.

Tensions are rising over Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strong support of Hamas, which Ankara’s Western allies have designated as a terrorist organisation.

“Obviously, Israel does not want to see Iranian and Turkish relations warm as Israel sees Iran as an existential threat and hence anything that helps Iran is problematic from Israel’s perspective”, warns Turkey analyst Gallia Lindenstrauss at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

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

This month, Israeli security forces accused Hamas of operating a major financial operation in Turkey under Iranian supervision. Many of Hamas’ senior members are believed to reside in Istanbul.

American ally

Israeli concerns over Turkey’s improving Iranian ties will likely be exacerbated with Turkish officials confirming that a visit by President Erdogan to Iran has been “agreed in principle”.

Ankara also has a delicate balancing act to make sure its Iranian dealings don’t risk antagonising its American ally, given ongoing tensions between Tehran and Washington.

Good relations with Washington are vital to Ankara as it looks to US President Donald Trump to help ease tensions with Israel. “For Israel, the United States shapes the environment right now”, observes Aslan.

“The Turkish preference is to have an intelligence diplomacy with Israelis, not to have an emerging conflict, but rely on the American mediation and facilitation to calm down the situation”, added Aslan.

The investigation, which will run parallel with their Australian counterparts, was opened for “murder in connection with a terrorist undertaking” and “attempted murder in connection with a terrorist undertaking”, the French National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) said.

“The main objective of this investigation is to enable the victims and their relatives living in France to have access to information about the progress of the investigations being conducted by the French and Australian judicial authorities,” said a Pnat spokesperson.

“It’s also to provide support, assistance or technical expertise to the Australian judicial authorities.” 

Jewish festival of lights

Dan Elkayam, a 27-year-old computer engineer, was killed when Sajid Akram and his son, Naveed, opened fire on around 1,000 people gathered on Bondi Beach for the Jewish festival of lights.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the national broadcaster ABC that the men were driven by “Islamic State ideology”.

“With the rise of Isis more than a decade ago now, the world has been grappling with extremism and this hateful ideology,” he said in a separate interview, using another name for the Islamic State group.

The pair travelled to the Philippines before the shootings and authorities are investigating whether they met Islamist extremists during the trip, Australian media reported.

Manila’s immigration department told the French news agency AFP that the pair spent most of November in the Philippines, with their final destination listed as Davao. Immigration records listed Sajid as an Indian national and his son as an Australian citizen, spokeswoman Dana Sandoval said.

After the assault, police found a car registered to Naveed Akram parked near the beach. Improvised bombs and two homemade Isis flags were discovered in teh vehicle, said New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon.

France says Australia defence ties repaired after submarine row

Authorities are also facing questions over whether they could have acted earlier to foil the attack.

Australia’s intelligence agency

Albanese said Naveed Akram had come to the attention of Australia‘s intelligence agency in 2019 but was not considered an imminent threat at the time.

“They interviewed him, they interviewed his family members, they interviewed people around him,” Albanese said. “He was not seen at that time to be a person of interest.”

Police are still piecing together the duo’s movements before the shooting. Naveed reportedly told his mother on the day of the attack that he was heading out of the city on a fishing trip.

Instead, authorities believe that he was holed up in a rental apartment with his father plotting the assault.

Carrying long-barrelled guns, they peppered the beach and a nearby park with bullets for 10 minutes before police shot and killed 50-year-old Sajid.

 Naveed, 24, remains in a coma in hospital under police guard.

UK, Australia, and Canada recognise Palestinian state, angering Israel

A 10-year-old girl and two Holocaust survivors were among those killed, while 42 others were rushed to hospital with gunshot wounds and other injuries.

Gun laws under scrutiny

Australia’s leaders agreed on Monday to toughen laws that allowed father Sajid to own six guns.

Mass shootings have been rare in Australia since a lone gunman killed 35 people in the tourist town of Port Arthur in 1996. The Port Arthur Massacre sparked a world-leading crackdown that included a gun buyback scheme and limits on semi-automatic weapons.

However, many Australians are now questioning whether those laws are equipped to deal with online sales and a steady rise in privately owned guns.

“This horrific situation now, it does make me personally feel that they need to be stricter,” David Sovyer, 43, told AFP at Bondi Beach.

 Retiree Allan McRae, 75, said that “not a lot of people need a gun”. “It would’ve reduced the possibility of it happening if more people had reduced access to a gun,” he told AFP.

France to sue Australian platform for ‘negligence’ after livestream death

The attack has also revived allegations that Australia is dragging its feet in the fight against antisemitism.

“The last four years, I was very clear. And I was very clear about the dangers of the rise in antisemitism,” Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, said while visiting a memorial to the victims on Tuesday.

Desperate to help, Australians have lined up in their thousands to donate blood to the wounded. Red Cross Australia said more than 7,000 people gave blood on Monday..

A makeshift flower memorial next to Bondi Beach has grown as mourners gathered to pay tribute to the victims.

Hundreds, including members of the Jewish community, sang songs, clapped and held each other.

Leading a ceremony to light a menorah, a rabbi told the crowd: “The only strength we have is if we bring light into the world.”

The European Commission is expected to propose easing the European Union’s effective ban on sales of new combustion-engine cars from 2035 this Tuesday, as Brussels weighs how best to balance climate ambitions with growing pressure from governments and an auto industry facing fierce global competition.

The move, still being finalised ahead of its unveiling, could see the ban pushed back by up to five years or softened indefinitely, according to EU officials and industry sources.

The 2023 law requires all new cars and vans sold in the bloc from 2035 to be CO2-emission-free.

Any revision would mark the EU’s most significant rethink of its green transport policies in recent years, reflecting concerns from major member states such as Germany and Italy, and from automakers struggling to keep pace with lower-cost Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers and US rivals.

Threat to transition

“The European Commission will be putting forward a clear proposal to abolish the ban on combustion engines,” Manfred Weber, president of the European Parliament’s largest group, the European People’s Party (EPP), said on Friday. “It was a serious industrial policy mistake.”

Not all governments agree, however, as Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has urged the Commission to hold firm, warning that weakening the policy could undermine Europe’s efforts to build a globally competitive EV industry.

In a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Sanchez said further watering down of the rules risked delaying investment and threatening jobs by slowing the transition to electric mobility.

“We therefore reject that combustion vehicles or other technologies without proven viability could continue to be marketed beyond 2035,” the letter said.

European carmakers clash over emission targets ahead of Brussels meeting

Industry split

The debate has highlighted sharp divisions within Europe’s car industry itself.

Traditional manufacturers such as Volkswagen and Fiat-owner Stellantis have lobbied for greater flexibility, arguing that EV demand has fallen short of expectations as consumers remain wary of higher prices and patchy charging infrastructure.

EU tariffs on Chinese-built EVs have only marginally eased the pressure.

“It’s not a sustainable reality today in Europe,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said last week, as he announced a partnership with Renault aimed at cutting EV costs.

EU lawmakers vote to support ban on fossil fuel vehicles by 2035

By contrast, EV makers and charging companies say the technology is ready and that any rollback risks sending the wrong signal to investors.

“The technology is ready, charging infrastructure is ready, and consumers are ready,” said Polestar CEO Michael Lohscheller. “So what are we waiting for?”

Possible compromise

Automakers are pushing to continue selling combustion-engine vehicles alongside plug-in hybrids, range-extender EVs and cars running on so-called CO2-neutral fuels, including e-fuels and advanced biofuels made from waste products. Von der Leyen said in October she was open to such alternatives.

“We recommend a multi-technology approach,” said Todd Anderson, chief technology officer at fuel-systems supplier Phinia, adding that the internal combustion engine would “be around for the rest of the century.”

Weber has suggested the commission could propose replacing the zero-emissions requirement with a 90 percent reduction in fleet CO2 emissions by 2035. Automakers also want the 2030 target of a 55 percent reduction in car emissions to be phased-in over several years, and to drop the 50 percent reduction target for vans.

European carmakers clash over emission targets ahead of Brussels meeting

Germany has argued that sustainable practices such as using low-carbon steel should count towards emissions reductions – an idea echoed by Spain, which called for a “green steel label” and a mandatory minimum share of EU-manufactured content in vehicles.

The commission is also expected to outline measures to boost EV uptake in corporate fleets, which account for around 60 percent of new car sales in Europe. The industry favours incentives rather than mandatory quotas, pointing to Belgium as an example where subsidies have helped accelerate adoption.

Environmental groups, however, say the EU should stay the course.

“Europe needs to stay the course on electric,” said William Todts, executive director of clean transport advocacy group T&E. “It’s clear electric is the future.”

(with newswires)

Last month, both Mbappé and PSG launched a series of claims and counterclaims.

PSG told a labour tribunal in Paris that they wanted €180 million from Mbappé for his refusal to go to the Saudi Arabian club Al Hilal, which had offered €300 million for the forward in July 2023.

Mbappé, 26, claims PSG owe him €240 million for the reclassification of his short-term contracts into a permanent contract, and in compensation for the poor manner in which the club treated him when he said he wanted to leave as a free agent at the end of his deal.

The four-person panel rejected Mbppé’s move to reclassify his fixed-term contracts as permanent contracts. They also dismissed PSG’s demands for money.

Mbappé’s legal team hailed the decision. “This ruling confirms that commitments made must be honoured. It restores a simple truth: even in the professional football industry, labour law applies to everyone.’

Kylian machine: Mbappé fires Madrid’s Champions League rout of Manchester City

The Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP)  – which runs the top two divisions in France – ordered PSG in September 2024 to pay Mbappé €55 million in salary and bonuses he said he should have received when he quit the French capital for Real Madrid in July 2024.

PSG said they did not owe him that sum. They say that Mbappé verbally agreed to renounce the payments owed to him at the end of his contract when he was drafted back into the first team at the start of the 2023-24 season. Mbappé has rejected that claim.

He had been excluded from the squad after announcing he did not want to sign an extension and intended to see out his contract in the summer of 2024. 

Mbappé was eventually reinstated after the start of the season 2023/2024 season and his goals helped new boss Luis Enrique win the treble of Ligue 1 title, French Super Cup and Coupe de France.

Mbappé joined PSG in July 2017 and seemed poised to join Madrid during the summer of 2022 as a free agent.

But French President Emmanuel Macron encouraged him to stay at PSG and Mbappé stunned the Madrid hierarchy by signing a two-year deal in May 2022 with the option of a third year.

“I’m going to remain in my hometown and do what I like doing … playing football and winning more trophies,” said Mbappé, as his contract extension was announced to PSG fans before the game against Metz at the Parc des Princes. 

New kit brightens up PSG’s Champions League woes and Mbappé’s farewell

However, PSG failed to make inroads in the 2023/2024 Champions League and the call of Madrid resurfaced. In August 2023, Mbappé said he would not take up his contract with PSG’s option of a further year and would leave as a free agent in June 2024.

Outraged, the PSG hierarchy told Enrique to head off on a pre-season tour of Japan and South Korea without their star.

During his seven years at the Parisian club, Mbappé harvested 15 medals including six Ligue 1 titles. He became PSG’s record scorer with 256 goals in 308 games and was named Ligue 1 Player of the Season a record five consecutive times. He also claimed the Ligue 1 Golden Boot from 2019 to 2024.

Following Mbappé’s move, Enrique retained all three domestic trophies and PSG humiliated Inter Milan 5-0 to brandish the Champions League trophy for the first time.

PSG and Enrique took team of the year and coach of the year awards respectively at the Ballon d’Or ceremony in Paris in September, with PSG striker Ousmane Dembélé winning the individual prize for his performances.

French President Emmanuel Macron has announced he will meet New Caledonian elected officials on 16 January in a bid to “continue the dialogue” on the Pacific archipelago’s institutional future and to “provide clarification on the Bougival agreement” signed last July.

In a letter to local elected representatives, President Macron said the meeting would build on talks held earlier this year and aim to reopen political discussion at a time when the agreement’s future looks increasingly uncertain.

“Following the discussions initiated at the Summit for the Future of New Caledonia held on 2 July at the Élysée Palace, in order to clarify the 12 July agreement, I have decided to organize a new forum for exchange to continue the dialogue,” the president wrote.

He added that this “progress report, aimed at opening up new political perspectives in which I would like you to participate,” would take place on 16 January with “New Caledonian elected officials”.

France’s new overseas minister due in New Caledonia to revive dialogue

Fragile timetable and mounting scepticism

The announcement comes as momentum around the Bougival agreement appears to be faltering.

A bill to organise an early consultation of New Caledonians on the text will not, after all, be presented to the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, as had initially been planned. The government spokesperson confirmed the delay on Monday, underlining how fragile the timetable has become.

At the same time, questions remain about the precise format and objectives of the meeting proposed by the president – and about whether it could reopen hard-fought compromises.

“Everyone understands that they are going to try to get us to renegotiate, to reopen the Bougival agreement to allow the FLNKS to come forward with its demands,” said New Caledonian MP Nicolas Metzdorf on the NC La 1ère channel. He also regretted that “the fear of possible new violence in New Caledonia … is guiding political action” in Paris.

From the loyalist camp, scepticism is equally pronounced. The Loyalists – a centrist and anti-independence right-wing alliance – have reportedly “made all the concessions they could” and would refuse any attempt to call into question the political balance struck by the agreement.

New Caledonia independence bloc rejects deal giving powers but no referendum

Searching for consensus

Signed in July between the French government, the independence movement and the anti-independence movement, the draft Bougival agreement sets out plans for the creation of a New Caledonian state within the French Constitution.

However, the text suffered a major setback in August when it was rejected by the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), the main pro-independence coalition.

Despite this rejection, a majority of New Caledonia’s political forces continue to support the agreement in principle.

Several of them argue, however, that amendments are necessary in order to secure the broad consensus they see as essential for the deal to be implemented.

Against this backdrop, the French government has been searching for ways to revive a stalled process in an archipelago still scarred by deadly violence in the spring of 2024. Those unrests left 14 people dead and severely weakened New Caledonia’s economy.

In that context, Overseas Minister Naïma Moutchou floated the idea of organising an “early citizen consultation” in March 2026, ahead of the adoption of the constitutional law required to bring the agreement into force. The proposal was intended to re-engage the population and restore political momentum.

Yet even this prospect has drawn reservations, including from some supporters of Bougival. The National Union for Independence (UNI) made its backing conditional on amendments to the text.

Meanwhile, the Caledonian Congress, asked for its opinion on 8 December, confirmed that the bill was deadlocked, with 19 votes in favour, 14 against and 19 abstentions.

The doubts also reached Paris by early December, when the Socialist Party urged Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to “suspend” the early consultation, arguing that it exposed a “lack of real consensus” around the agreement and made adoption of the bill unlikely.

(with newswires)

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

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

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

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

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

Secrets of endurance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Heat test

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Former French president Sarkozy released from prison, pending appeal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mali’s economy near standstill amid JNIM fuel attacks

State failings

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

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

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

Hostage video shows abducted Malian journalists asking for help

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

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

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

Increasing acceptance

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

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

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

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

Mali faces record number of kidnappings of foreigners by jihadist group

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The perfect pont

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

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

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

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

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

Lobbying campaign

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Technical feat

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

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

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

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

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

‘The biggest sculpture in the world’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Rethinking the familiar’

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s been almost a year since Dominique Pelicot and his 50 co-defendants were found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting Gisèle Pelicot in her family home after she’d been drugged.

The verdict came after a three-month trial, the disturbing details of which were followed by millions around the world. In France, tens of thousands followed the daily Instagram posts of freelance photojournalist Anna Margueritat. 

Armed with her phone, laptop and notebook, she left Paris for the southern city of Avignon after hearing Gisèle Pelicot say she wanted the trial to be public “pour que la honte change de camp” – “so that the shame changes sides”.

Her recently published book chronicling the trial takes this phrase as its title.

“I felt very moved by this sentence… We’ve been hearing it at feminist demonstrations for a long time,” Margueritat recalls. “As a victim of rape and sexual assault, as a woman, as a feminist journalist, I wanted to be at the trial to try to understand.”

‘Shame must change sides’: France’s mass rape plaintiff becomes feminist icon

The trial was extraordinary in its scale, both for the number of defendants and for the length of time – more than a decade – over which the abuse took place. And yet Margueritat says it highlighted an everyday reality in France, where “a woman is raped or is a victim of attempted rape every two and a half minutes“.

While the trial ended with convictions for all 51 men, with sentences ranging from three to 20 years, she says it’s not just about the verdicts.

“I understood, deeply, why we refer to ‘systemic’ violence when talking about sexual violence. I understood just how far the feeling of impunity of men who are accused of sexual violence can go.”

Listen to a conversation with Anna Margueritat on the Spotlight on France podcast:

‘I wanted to disappear’

What struck Margueritat first when entering the packed courtroom was the sheer number of defendants. 

“They were everywhere. Their behaviour really shocked me, very sexist for some of them. Many of them were not ashamed,” she says. 

She describes watching them occupy the space, “like men who have the freedom to be men and to dominate women”.

During one hearing, she noticed a defendant in his glass box “staring” right at her. 

“Then he gave me the middle finger. It was like he was telling me, I have the power, even if I’m here accused of one of the worst crimes, I can still have power over you with just two eyes.”

It was, she says, a reminder that she was “a woman before being a journalist”, adding: “That was the hardest part of the trial for me.”

She reported the incident to a court official. But the response – “don’t worry… stay focused on your work” – left her feeling even more exposed. “I wanted to disappear,” she remembers.

She put aside the cropped T-shirt she’d been wearing that day and went back to her usual head-to-toe black look, tying back her long, red hair. She also instinctively wore less makeup.

Deadly attacks on women rise in France amid growing partner violence

Female solidarity

There was, however, a sense of sorority among the largely female press corps, she recalls.

“We shared the experience of being a woman inside the courthouse and outside.” It gave her the strength, she says, “to talk about this and to feel understood”.

The limited contact she had with her male colleagues was quite different. Some made “very bad jokes, sexual jokes”.

She remembers conversations with one male reporter who admitted that walking back to his hotel at night, he found himself wondering whether the men he passed “could be rapists”.

“It made us laugh,” she says. “We were like, that’s what it’s like every day for us.”

Yet she also believes these conversations were important. That male journalist, she notes, “has a daughter, he has ways to be empathetic to women’s experiences”.

‘A very difficult ordeal’: Gisèle Pelicot’s statement after mass rape trial

‘Fifty shades of rape’

As a feminist activist, Margueritat already had a strong Instagram following, but she said she was surprised to find some 50,000 people viewing her daily posts from the trial.

She believes she offered something different from mainstream courtroom reporting. “I can say that I’m a feminist journalist,” she noted. “And I don’t have a media company telling me, ‘no, you have to stay neutral’.”

While she claims no expertise in psychology or sociology, she says she could speak about what she knew: “What I see in my everyday life with other victims, with other feminist activists.”

Despite the courtroom viewing the footage of Gisèle Pelicot being raped and sexually assaulted, drugged to the point of being comatose, Margueritat says the defendants refused to see themselves as rapists or accept responsibility for their actions.

In her book, she catalogues what she calls “50 shades of rape”, chronicling the range of “ever more absurd justifications” the defendants came up with.

One man insisted that it was “my body, but not my brain”. Others claimed ignorance or fear of Dominique Pelicot, or even that Gisèle had somehow given consent “through her husband”.

Margueritat observed little remorse. “At the end of the trial only two defendants looked Gisèle Pelicot in the eyes and said: ‘I’m sorry because I’m a rapist’.”

Gisele Pelicot: French rape survivor and global icon

Signs of progress

One year on, Margueritat says the shame has “not yet” shifted to the perpetrator.

“It will take a long, long time because every time there’s a big case of sexual violence in France, it’s like we are discovering it all over again.”

And yet, she says, sexual violence is systemic: “It’s not just a succession of cases, but a very big problem in all institutions.”

However, she believes there are signs of progress. She points to the introduction of consent into the definition of rape, which MPs voted for in the wake of the Pelicot trial, and to the conviction of French film giant Gérard Depardieu for sexual assault, which shows that “no one is above the law”.

Depardieu was also ordered to pay damages to his victims for secondary victimisation – when the victim suffers further harm from how they are treated after the criminal act – caused by “outrageous and humiliating” remarks made by his lawyer, Jérémie Assous, during the trial. 

Assous called the two women “hysterical” and said they were working for the cause of “rabid feminism”.

“These remarks, by their very nature, amount to secondary victimisation,” the presiding judge said, ordering Depardieu to pay each woman €1,000 in compensation for this offence specifically.

Rallies across France in support of woman who was drugged, raped

The trial had an impact on Margueritat’s own life too. Three months ago, she finally filed a police complaint against a man she accuses of raping her.

According to the latest official figures, only 6 percent of victims of sexual violence lodge a complaint. In 2023, just 3.3 percent of rape complaints filed resulted in convictions.

Margueritat describes a weight being lifted, and says this will free her to work more on bringing other victims’ voices to the fore.

“Even if I don’t put too much hope in justice, it was important to do it.”

This article is based on a report on the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 135. Listen to other episodes here. Subscribe here. 

RFI: What led you to making your first documentary? 

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

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

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

Congolese filmmaker Baloji mixes magic with biting social commentary

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

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

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

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

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

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

Would you say the film is a work of activism?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This interview has been edited for clarity.

The figure is “considerably reduced” from the 6.6 billion euros announced by the national audit body in September with the adjustment reflecting the estimated impact on employment and infrastructure.

“By factoring in certain benefits, the climate dimension and legacy value — still measured only partially — the total cost of the Games decreases considerably: it would be more than halved, to under 3 billion euros,” the high commission for planning (HCP) said in a “summary note” obtained by AFP on Monday.

‘Long-term benefits’

This “net cost” of 2.76 billion euros “would even drop to 1.5 billion euros, a reduction by more than a factor of four,” when “less conservative assumptions” are taken into account, the HCP said.

As France’s sports budget faces cuts, are Olympic promises being broken?

The body led a “cost-benefit analysis” of the Paris Games “aimed at covering all economic, social, and environmental effects for France,” the note details.

The study was conducted by the Research Centre for the Study and Observation of Living Conditions (Credoc) and overseen by a scientific board.

The HCP said the infrastructures built would have “long-term” benefits.

“Under certain assumptions, which may be refined over time, their legacy value would amount to nearly 3 billion euros,” the body said.

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

Jobs creation

Job creation was another important factor in bringing down the bill with its value to society estimated at 200 million euros.

Employee bonuses produced “a net benefit of around 500 million euros” while increased participation in sports and the associated health benefits is estimated at 250 million euros.

The HCP also claimed the “well-being derived by French spectators” can be valued at 300 million euros.

“This is a snapshot estimate; several of these benefits may materialise or increase over time,” said the HCP.

(with newswires)

The militia captured most of the town last week, in a move Burundi called a “middle finger” to the US after the signing of a peace deal in Washington.

The group “will unilaterally withdraw its forces from the city of Uvira, as requested by the US mediators”, the M23 said in a statement signed by coordinator Corneil Nangaa.

The M23 called for adequate measures to be put in place to manage the city, including “demilitarisation, protecting its population and infrastructure, and monitoring the ceasefire with a neutral force”.

It said it also wanted a framework ceasefire deal reached in a parallel peace process to be implemented. The accord was negotiated in the Qatari capital Doha in November but never respected on the ground.

The M23 added that it was pulling out its forces as a gesture “to instil trust in order to give the Doha peace process every chance to succeed”.

Washington summit on DRC-Rwanda relations aims for peace despite deep mistrust

After the capture of Uvira, the US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, told the Security Council that Kigali was leading the region towards greater instability and war.

Last weekend, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also highlighted the American administration’s displeasure. “Rwanda’s actions in eastern DRC are a clear violation of the Washington Accords signed by President Trump, and the United States will take action to ensure promises made to the President are kept,” Rubio said in an X post.

Burundi, which neighbours both the DRC and Rwanda, views the prospect of Uvira in the hands of Rwanda-backed forces as an existential threat.

Uvira sits across Lake Tanganyika from the Burundian economic capital Bujumbura, with only around 20 kilometres between the two cities.

More than 40,000 Congolese have fled the fighting and arrived in Burundi in the space of a week, the Burundian foreign minister told AFP.

According to an initial estimate by United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA, more than 200,000 people have been displaced within South Kivu province since December 2.

DRC and Rwanda hold fresh talks in Washington to revive fragile peace deal

According to several European diplomatic sources, the DRC fears the M23 pushing on towards the copper- and cobalt-rich Katanga province in the southeast, the vast country’s mining hub — which the state relies on to fill its coffers thanks to mining companies’ taxes.

The M23 is supported by up to 7,000 Rwandan troops in the Congolese east, according to UN experts, who accuse Rwanda of seeking to extract the DRC’s mineral wealth.

Burundi, which has thorny relations with Rwanda and fears a wider conflict in Africa’s Great Lakes region, has deployed around 18,000 men to eastern DRC

While denying giving the M23 military support, Rwanda argues it faces an existential threat from the presence across the Congolese border of ethnic Hutu militants with links to the 1994 Rwandan genocide of the Tutsis.

Zelensky spent more than five hours on Sunday in talks with US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, meeting under heavy security at the German chancellery.

The discussions are continuing this Monday, with Witkoff saying on social media that “a lot of progress was made” and that the sides would meet again the following morning.

Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz – who has emerged as a central figure in European efforts to support Kyiv alongside France’s Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer – is due to host a dinner bringing together Zelensky, European leaders and the heads of NATO and the EU.

This comes as US President Donald Trump has stepped up pressure on Ukraine to reach a settlement to end the almost four-year-old war, unveiling a plan last month that Kyiv and its European allies criticised as echoing Moscow’s demands.

Key sticking points remain territorial concessions, future security guarantees for Ukraine and whether Russia would accept any proposal hammered out by the Americans and Europeans.

NATO trade-off

As he travelled to Germany, Zelensky made clear he was pushing for a freeze along the current front line, rather than conceding territory outright.

“The fairest possible option is to stay where we are,” he told reporters. “This is true because it is a ceasefire … I know that Russia does not view this positively, and I would like the Americans to support us on this issue.”

More controversially, Zelensky signalled a readiness to drop Ukraine’s long-standing bid to join the NATO alliance – a key Russian demand – if the West offered binding security guarantees in return.

Speaking to journalists before the talks, he said that since the US and some European countries had rejected Ukraine’s NATO aspirations, Kyiv now expected assurances comparable to those enjoyed by alliance members.

“These security guarantees are an opportunity to prevent another wave of Russian aggression,” he said. “And this is already a compromise on our part.”

Germany to send soldiers to fortify Poland border

Zelensky stressed that any guarantees would need to be legally binding and backed by the US Congress.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly framed NATO enlargement as a threat to Moscow’s security and cited Ukraine’s ambitions as a justification for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

What Zelensky has rejected is the idea of ceding territory as part of a deal. He said the US had floated a proposal for Ukraine to withdraw from parts of the eastern Donetsk region to create a demilitarised free economic zone – an idea he dismissed as unworkable and unfair.

“If Ukrainian troops withdraw 5 to10 kilometres, for example, then why do Russian troops not withdraw deeper into the occupied territories by the same distance?” he asked.

Moscow’s response has been sceptical, with Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov saying Russia had not yet seen the latest documents but warned that “the contribution of Ukrainians and Europeans to these documents is unlikely to be constructive.”

Speaking on Russian state TV, he added that if amendments altered Moscow’s stated position, “we will have very strong objections.”

EU funding crunch

The diplomacy in Berlin is unfolding against an intense debate within the European Union over how to sustain financial support for Ukraine.

EU leaders will gather in Brussels on Thursday for what foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called a “very important” summit aimed at agreeing long-term funding.

One contentious proposal would use frozen Russian central bank assets to provide a €90 billion “reparations loan” to Kyiv.

Belgium, which hosts most of the assets via the clearing house Euroclear, has so far opposed the move, citing fears of legal and financial retaliation from Russia and demanding watertight guarantees that the risks would be shared.

EU plan to tap Russian assets for Ukraine meets opposition from Belgium

“We are not there yet, and it is increasingly difficult,” Kallas said. “But we’re doing the work and we still have some days … We will not leave the meeting before we get a result.”

European officials are also wary that Washington could seek to free up the frozen assets as part of any US-brokered peace deal.

Speaking on Monday, Kallas alsoi warned that taking over the Donbas region will “not be Putin’s end game“.

“We have to understand that if he gets Donbas, then the fortress is down and then they definitely move on with taking the whole of Ukraine,” Kallas told reporters.

“If Ukraine goes, then other regions are also in danger,” she said.

(with newswires)

Paris said that the conditions were not yet right for EU member states to approve the agreement, urging the bloc to postpone upcoming deadlines to allow more work on safeguards for European farmers.

In a statement from the French government issued on Sunday, France stressed that “legitimate measures of protection for our European agriculture” still needed to be secured.

The intervention comes as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is preparing to travel to Brazil later this week to finalise the accord with Mercosur – a bloc made up of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.

The agreement, nearly 20 years in the making, would create a free-trade area covering around 722 million people, the largest of its kind in the world.

Before any signing can take place, however, the commission must win the backing of EU member states.

European nations are expected to consider the deal between Tuesday and Friday, although France argues that timetable is premature, particularly with a Mercosur summit scheduled for 20 December.

French lawmakers unanimously opposed to EU-Mercosur trade deal

Call for safeguards

Finance Minister Roland Lescure underlined France’s opposition in an interview with Germany’s Handelsblatt business newspaper, saying the treaty was “simply not acceptable” in its current form.

He said Paris had set three conditions for its approval – robust safeguard clauses, equal production standards for EU and Mercosur farmers, and tighter import controls. “Until we have obtained assurances on these three points, France will not accept the agreement,” he said.

President Emmanuel Macron has also personally appealed to von der Leyen to delay the process.

The European Commission, however, has rejected calls for a postponement and reiterated its determination to see the deal signed by the end of the year.

French farmers petition Macron to block Mercosur trade agreement

“Signing the deal now is a matter of crucial importance – economically, diplomatically and geopolitically,” a commission spokesperson said, reflecting concerns about Europe’s competitiveness, as it faces pressure from Chinese exports and US tariffs.

Meanwhile, Berlin – one of the agreement’s strongest backers – has also weighed in, calling for the deal to be signed this week. Germany hopes the pact will help revive its industrial exports and bolster Europe’s position in an increasingly competitive global trade environment.

Supporters of the agreement – including Germany, Spain and several Nordic countries – see it as a timely boost for EU exporters. The deal would make it easier for European firms to sell cars, machinery, wines and spirits in Latin America, while opening the EU market further to South American products such as beef, sugar, rice, honey and soybeans.

Brussels showdown

For many farmers in France, Poland and elsewhere, the deal raises fears of unfair competition from imports produced under less stringent environmental and animal welfare standards.

That concern is expected to spill onto the streets of Brussels this week, with up to 10,000 farmers planning protests during an EU leaders’ summit on Thursday and Friday.

In an effort to ease tensions, the European Parliament is due to vote on Tuesday on safeguard measures designed to reassure farmers.

Is France misguided to keep rejecting the EU-Mercosur trade deal?

While EU states have already approved the relevant clause, MEPs could seek to strengthen it further. The commission has also announced tighter checks on agricultural imports and promised to update rules on pesticide residues to prevent banned substances entering the EU via trade.

France still faces an uphill battle to block the treaty outright, as it only requires a weighted majority of member states to pass. Even so, diplomats warn that failure to find a compromise this week could have wider consequences.

Von der Leyen is expected to join Mercosur leaders in Foz do Iguaçu – home to the famous Iguaçu waterfalls – for the signing ceremony if the deal clears its latest hurdles.

Even then, the process will not be finished, as the European Parliament must still give its final approval – likely in early 2026.

(with newswires)

Around 400 employees voted unanimously to continue their strike at a general meeting, the CGT and CFDT unions said.

Workers at the Louvre are demanding extra staff and measures to tackle overcrowding, adding to the woes of the world’s most visited museum just as France is gearing up for the Christmas holidays.

The strike comes nearly two months after the museum was victim of a daylight heist that saw crown jewels worth €88 million stolen.

“I’m very disappointed, because the Louvre was the main reason for our visit in Paris, because we wanted to see the ‘Mona Lisa’,” said 37-year-old Minsoo Kim, who travelled from Seoul to Paris with his wife for their honeymoon.

Natalia Brown, a 28-year-old tourist from London, said she was also disappointed.

“At the same time, I understand why they’re doing it, it’s just unfortunate timing for us.”

‘More strikers than usual’

Speaking on the eve of the action, Christian Galani, from the CGT union, said the strike would have broad support across the Louvre museum’s 2,200-strong workforce.

“We’re going to have a lot more strikers than usual,” Galani said. “Normally, it’s front-of-house and security staff. This time, there are scientists, documentarians, collections managers, even curators and colleagues in the workshops telling us they plan to go on strike.”

Louvre staff called to strike as museum reels from water leak and heist

All have different grievances, adding up to a picture of staff discontent inside the institution, just as it finds itself in a harsh public spotlight following the shocking robbery on 19 October.

Reception and security staff complain they are understaffed and required to manage vast flows of people, with the home of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa welcoming several million people beyond its planned capacity each year.

A spontaneous walk-out protest on 16 June this year led the museum to temporarily close.

‘Over- tourism’

The Louvre has become a symbol of so-called “over-tourism”, with the 30,000 daily visitors facing what unions call an “obstacle course” of hazards, long queues, and sub-standard toilets and catering.

Documentarians and curators are increasingly horrified by the state of disrepair inside the former royal palace, with a recent water leak and the closure of a gallery due to structural problems underlining the difficulties.

French auditors slam Louvre bosses over lavish spending, weak security

“The building is not in a good state,” chief Louvre architect François Chatillon admitted in front of lawmakers last month during a parliamentary hearing.

Under-fire Louvre boss Laurence des Cars, who faces persistent calls to resign, warned the government in January in a widely publicised memo about leaks, overheating and the declining visitor experience.

After the memo, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a massive renovation plan for the museum, expected to cost 700 million to 800 million euros.

Security failures

Questions continue to swirl since the break-in over whether it was avoidable and why a national treasure such as the Louvre appeared to be so poorly protected.

Two intruders used a portable extendable ladder to access the gallery containing the crown jewels, cutting through a glass door with angle grinders in front of startled visitors before stealing eight priceless items.

Fourth suspected Louvre thief remanded as €88m jewels remain missing

Investigations have since revealed that only one security camera was working outside when they struck, that guards in the control room did not have enough screens to watch the coverage in real time, and that police were initially misdirected.

Major security vulnerabilities were highlighted in several studies seen by management of the Louvre over the last decade, including a 2019 audit by experts at the jewellery company Van Cleef & Arpels.

Their findings stressed that the riverside balcony targeted by the thieves was a weak point and could be easily reached with an extendable ladder – exactly what transpired in the heist.

(with AFP)

Six staff members of the Tunisian branch of the France Terre d’Asile aid group, along with 17 municipal workers from the eastern city of Sousse, face charges of sheltering migrants and facilitating their “illegal entry and residence”.

If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison.

Migration is a sensitive issue in Tunisia, a key transit point for tens of thousands of people seeking to reach Europe each year.

A former head of Terre d’Asile Tunisie, Sherifa Riahi, is among the accused and has been detained for more than 19 months, according to her lawyer Abdellah Ben Meftah.

Two years on from EU deal, violence against migrants in Tunisia remains rife

‘Bogus criminal trial’

“The only thing I’m sure of is that Sherifa and the other members of the association did nothing wrong. I’m certain they’ll be released sooner or later. Will it be this Monday or at another hearing? I don’t know, it’s 50-50,” Ben Meftah told RFI.

He also told French news agency AFP that the accused had carried out their work as part of a project approved by the state and in “direct coordination” with the government.

Amnesty denounced what it described as a “bogus criminal trial” and called on Tunisian authorities to drop the charges.

“They are being prosecuted simply for their legitimate work providing vital assistance and protection to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in precarious situations,” Sara Hashash, Amnesty’s deputy MENA (Middle East North Africa) chief, said in the statement.

The defendants were arrested in May 2024 along with about a dozen humanitarian workers, including anti-racism pioneer Saadia Mosbah, whose trial is set to start later this month.

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

Illegal migrants

In February 2023, President Kais Saied said “hordes of illegal migrants”, many from sub-Saharan Africa, posed a demographic threat to the Arab-majority country.

His speech triggered a series of racially motivated attacks as thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia were pushed out of their homes and jobs.

Thousands were repatriated or attempted to cross the Mediterranean, while others were expelled to the desert borders with Algeria and Libya, where at least a hundred died that summer.

This came as the European Union boosted efforts to curb arrivals on its southern shores, including a 255-million-euro deal with Tunis.

(with newswires)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diplomatic crisis

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

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

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

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

(with AFP)

The Horn of Africa country has been ruled with an iron fist by President Isaias Afwerki, 79, since independence from Ethiopia in 1993, and ranks near the bottom of every rights indicator.

“The recent release of 13 Eritreans from nearly 18 years of arbitrary detention is an encouraging development,” UN human rights office spokesman Seif Magango said in a statement.

“We call on the authorities to unconditionally release all individuals still arbitrarily detained across the country, including the G11 former senior government officials who were detained in 2001 after calling for governance reforms.”

The UK-based NGO Human Rights Concern-Eritrea last week welcomed the release earlier this month of 13 people, including an ex-Olympian and former police officers, who had been imprisoned without charge, trial, or access to a lawyer.

International obligations

It said during their detention in Mai Serwa prison, near the capital Asmara, some had been confined to metal containers where temperatures fluctuated between extreme heat and bitter cold.

Dissenting voices in the country, home to around 3.5 million people, disappear into prison camps, and civilians face military conscription or forced labour.

“There are estimated to be more than 10,000 people in arbitrary detention in Eritrea, among them politicians, journalists, priests and students,” said Magango.

“Our office stands ready to continue its engagement with the Eritrean authorities to ensure Eritrea fully complies with its international human rights obligations.”

(with AFP)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Refugee numbers reach record high as global aid funding drops

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

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

‘Serious risk’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(With newswires)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Security threats

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

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

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

(With newswires)

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

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

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

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

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

The perfect pont

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

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

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

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

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

Lobbying campaign

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Technical feat

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

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

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

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

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

‘The biggest sculpture in the world’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Rethinking the familiar’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Testing phase

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

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

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

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

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

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

(With newswires)

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

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

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

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

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

Secrets of endurance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Heat test

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uneasy freedoms

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘More than a piece of cloth’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan, hosted in Tehran by his Iranian counterpart Abbad Aragchi, declared that both countries see “Israel as the biggest threat to stability in the Middle East”, because of its “expansionist policies”.

Ankara is increasingly angry over Israel’s military operations in Syria, which it considers a threat to security. Syria‘s new regime is a close Turkish ally.

With the Iranian-backed Syrian regime overthrown and Iran’s diminishing influence in the Caucasus, another region of competition with Turkey, Tehran is viewed by Ankara as less of a threat

“Ankara sees that Tehran’s wings are clipped, and I’m sure that it is also very happy that Tehran’s wings are clipped”, international relations expert Soli Ozel told RFI.

Ozel predicts that diminished Iranian power is opening the door for more cooperation with Turkey.

Cooperation

“Competition and cooperation really define the relations. Now that Iran is weaker, the relationship is more balanced. But there are limits, driven by America’s approach to Iran”, said Ozel.

Murat Aslan of SETA, the Foundation for Political, Economic, and Social Research, a Turkish pro-government think tank, points out that changing dynamics inside Iran also give an impetus to Turkish diplomatic efforts towards Tehran.

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

“Iran is trying to build a new landscape in which they can communicate with the West, but under the conditions they have identified”, observes Aslan.

“In this sense, Turkey may contribute. So that’s why Turkey is negotiating or communicating with Iran just to find the terms of a probable common consensus.”

However, warming relations between Turkey and Iran are not viewed in a favourable light by Israel, whose ministers have in turn accused Turkey of being Israel’s biggest threat.

Tensions are rising over Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strong support of Hamas, which Ankara’s Western allies have designated as a terrorist organisation.

“Obviously, Israel does not want to see Iranian and Turkish relations warm as Israel sees Iran as an existential threat and hence anything that helps Iran is problematic from Israel’s perspective”, warns Turkey analyst Gallia Lindenstrauss at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

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

This month, Israeli security forces accused Hamas of operating a major financial operation in Turkey under Iranian supervision. Many of Hamas’ senior members are believed to reside in Istanbul.

American ally

Israeli concerns over Turkey’s improving Iranian ties will likely be exacerbated with Turkish officials confirming that a visit by President Erdogan to Iran has been “agreed in principle”.

Ankara also has a delicate balancing act to make sure its Iranian dealings don’t risk antagonising its American ally, given ongoing tensions between Tehran and Washington.

Good relations with Washington are vital to Ankara as it looks to US President Donald Trump to help ease tensions with Israel. “For Israel, the United States shapes the environment right now”, observes Aslan.

“The Turkish preference is to have an intelligence diplomacy with Israelis, not to have an emerging conflict, but rely on the American mediation and facilitation to calm down the situation”, added Aslan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Go to our website and get started! At the top of the page, click on “Test level”, and you’ll be counselled on the best-suited activities for your level according to your score.

Do not give up! As Lidwien van Dixhoorn, the head of “Le Français facile” service, told me: “Bathe your ears in the sound of the language, and eventually, you’ll get it”. She should know – Lidwien is Dutch and came to France hardly able to say “bonjour” and now she heads this key RFI department – so stick with it!

Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!

In addition to the breaking news articles on our site, with in-depth analysis of current affairs in France and across the globe, we have several podcasts that will leave you hungry for more.

There’s Spotlight on France, Spotlight on Africa, the International Report, and of course, The Sound Kitchen. We also have an award-winning bilingual series – an old-time radio show, with actors (!) to help you learn French, called Les voisins du 12 bis.

Remember, podcasts are radio, too! As you see, sound is still quite present in the RFI English service.  Please keep checking our website for updates on the latest from our excellent staff of journalists. You never know what we’ll surprise you with!

To listen to our podcasts from your PC, go to our website; you’ll see “Podcasts” at the top of the page. You can either listen directly or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone.

To listen to our podcasts from your mobile phone, slide through the tabs just under the lead article (the first tab is “Headline News”) until you see “Podcasts”, and choose your show.  

Teachers take note!  I save postcards and stamps from all over the world to send to you for your students. If you would like stamps and postcards for your students, just write and let me know. The address is english.service@rfi.fr  If you would like to donate stamps and postcards, feel free! Our address is listed below. 

Independent RFI English Clubs: Be sure to always include Audrey Iattoni (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department in all your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me (thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr) when you write to her so that I know what is going on, too. N.B.: You do not need to send her your quiz answers! Email overload!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congratulations winners!

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

Do you have a music request? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

This week’s question … you must listen to the show to participate. After you’ve listened to the show, re-read Jan van der Made’s article “EU Council president rejects political influence in US security plan”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 26 January to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 31 January podcast. When you enter, be sure to send your postal address with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

Click here to find out how you can win a special Sound Kitchen prize.

Click here to find out how you can become a member of the RFI Listeners Club, or form your own official RFI Club. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Information blackout

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beyond the Middle East

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

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

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

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

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

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

Journalists detained

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congolese filmmaker Baloji mixes magic with biting social commentary

Episode edited and mixed by Melissa Chemam and Erwan Rome.

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

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

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

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

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

Shadow fleet

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trade implications

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

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

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

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

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

Ankara wary of escalation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2026 is right around the corner, and I know you want to be a part of our annual New Year celebration, where, with special guests, we read your New Year’s resolutions. You must get your resolutions to me by 15 December to be included in the show. You don’t want to miss out! Send your New Year’s resolutions to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

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

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

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

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

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

Go to our website and get started! At the top of the page, click on “Test level”, and you’ll be counselled on the best-suited activities for your level according to your score.

Do not give up! As Lidwien van Dixhoorn, the head of “Le Français facile” service, told me: “Bathe your ears in the sound of the language, and eventually, you’ll get it”. She should know – Lidwien is Dutch and came to France hardly able to say “bonjour” and now she heads this key RFI department – so stick with it!

Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!

In addition to the breaking news articles on our site, with in-depth analysis of current affairs in France and across the globe, we have several podcasts that will leave you hungry for more.

There’s Spotlight on France, Spotlight on Africa, the International Report, and of course, The Sound Kitchen. We also have an award-winning bilingual series – an old-time radio show, with actors (!) to help you learn French, called Les voisins du 12 bis.

Remember, podcasts are radio, too! As you see, sound is still quite present in the RFI English service.  Please keep checking our website for updates on the latest from our excellent staff of journalists. You never know what we’ll surprise you with!

To listen to our podcasts from your PC, go to our website; you’ll see “Podcasts” at the top of the page. You can either listen directly or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone.

To listen to our podcasts from your mobile phone, slide through the tabs just under the lead article (the first tab is “Headline News”) until you see “Podcasts”, and choose your show.  

Teachers take note!  I save postcards and stamps from all over the world to send to you for your students. If you would like stamps and postcards for your students, just write and let me know. The address is english.service@rfi.fr  If you would like to donate stamps and postcards, feel free! Our address is listed below. 

Independent RFI English Clubs: Be sure to always include Audrey Iattoni (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department in all your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me (thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr) when you write to her so that I know what is going on, too. N.B.: You do not need to send her your quiz answers! Email overload!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congratulations winners!

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

Do you have a music request? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

This week’s question … you must listen to the show to participate. After you’ve listened to the show, re-read Jan van der Made’s article “On NATO’s eastern flank, Romania finds itself at the crux of European security”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 19 January to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 24 January podcast. When you enter, be sure to send your postal address with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

Click here to find out how you can win a special Sound Kitchen prize.

Click here to find out how you can become a member of the RFI Listeners Club, or form your own official RFI Club. 

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.