On Saturday, Trump ordered large-scale military strikes in Venezuela and announced that leftist leader Nicolas Maduro had been captured and flown out of the country.

The US Attorney General said Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores had been indicted in the Southern District of New York on charges including “Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy,” conspiracy to import cocaine, and charges related to machineguns.

The European Union has called for international law in Venezuela to be respected.

“The EU has repeatedly stated that Mr Maduro lacks legitimacy and has defended a peaceful transition” in Venezuela, the bloc’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas wrote on X after speaking with her US counterpart Marco Rubio on Saturday.

“Under all circumstances, the principles of international law and the UN Charter must be respected. We call for restraint,” she wrote.

Undermining international law

Kallas said the EU was closely monitoring the fast-moving situation and that she had spoken to the bloc’s envoy to Venezuela, with the safety of EU citizens “our top priority”.

France condemned the American operation, saying it undermined international law while no solution to the country’s crisis can be imposed from the outside.

Maduro “gravely violated” the rights of Venezuelans, but the military operation that led to him being grabbed “contravenes the principle of non-use of force, which underpins international law”, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot wrote on X.

“No lasting political solution can be imposed from the outside”, he said, warning that “the increasing violations” of this principle by permanent UN Security Council members “will have serious consequences for global security, sparing no one”.

Earlier on Saturday, Spain offered to mediate in the crisis.

“Spain calls for de-escalation and restraint,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding it was “ready to help in the search for a democratic, negotiated, and peaceful solution for the country”.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said all countries should “uphold international law”, adding that “the UK was not involved in any way in this operation” as he urged patience in order to “establish the facts”.

Bombs away for Trump, self-proclaimed peace president

Election results contested

The EU refused to recognise the results of the disputed 2024 election that handed Maduro a third term in power, and has slapped sanctions on dozens of Venezuelan officials for undermining democracy in the country.

The 27-nation bloc has stopped short however of formally recognising opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as Venezuela’s rightful leader, as the United States has done.

Gonzalez Urrutia ran as a last-minute stand-in for opposition figurehead Maria Corina Machado, who was barred from contesting last year’s election.

After the vote, Gonzalez Urrutia fled Venezuela for Madrid.

Venezuela’s Machado dedicates Nobel Peace Prize to fellow citizens and Trump

Where’s Maduro?

Venezuela has demanded an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the US attacks on the country, amid uncertainty over Maduro’s whereabouts.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello urged citizens to remain calm and to trust the country’s leadership and military. “The world needs to speak out about this attack,” Reuters reported him as saying.

The United States stands behind its decision to forcibly bring Maduro before the US courts.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said that Maduro and his wife have been indicted in the Southern District of New York, charged with “Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States”.

“They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts,” Bondi said.

Justifying Maduro’s capture, US Vice President JD Vance said that Venezuela ignored Trump’s offers to reach a settlement.

“The president offered multiple off ramps, but was very clear throughout this process: the drug trafficking must stop, and the stolen oil must be returned to the United States,” Vance said in a post on X.

Vance also doubled down on the US justification that Maduro was a fugitive from US law, saying: “You don’t get to avoid justice for drug trafficking in the United States because you live in a palace in Caracas.”

Trump orders blockade of ‘sanctioned’ Venezuela oil tankers

‘Serious affront’ to sovereignty

Russia, an ally of Venezuela, has demanded “immediate” clarification about the circumstances of Maduro’s reported abduction.

“We are extremely alarmed by reports that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife were forcibly removed from the country as a result of today’s US aggression. We call for an immediate clarification of the situation,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has also slammed the US attacks as a “serious affront” to the country’s sovereignty, echoing criticism made by fellow regional heavyweight, Mexico.

What happens now?

Jordi Canas, a Spanish former MEP with the Socialist party of Catalonia, welcomes the fall of Maduro.

“Those of us who have condemned Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorial Chavist regime, think it is good news that he is leaving power,” he told RFI, but the question of “how” still matters.

“The question is whether the intervention now by the United States is intended solely and exclusively to restore democracy, or whether its purpose is the return of a government that may be close to it and, as [Trump] himself has publicly stated in his endless press conferences, has the objective of reclaiming “its” oil. For Trump, Venezuelan oil is his oil… it’s not the oil of the Venezuelans, [he considers] it belongs to American companies.

Is the United States after Venezuela’s oil?

Canas wonders what Maduro’s departure – however welcome – will cost Venezuelans.

“Will Venezuelans regain control of their resources in order to grow economically, allow exiles to return to the country, and have a future of prosperity? Or will they fall under American oligopolies, with control of raw materials – oil, gold, mineral resources – without Venezuelans being able to use them for the benefit of the country as a whole?

“That’s the big question we now have to ask ourselves.”

(with newswires)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RFI: Two years later…

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

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

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

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

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

Bardot: the screen goddess who gave it all up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trump’s stunning announcement follows months of steadily mounting US military and economic pressure on leftist leader Maduro and his country’s oil-export-dependent economy.

“The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country,” Trump said on Truth Social.

“This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement.”

Trump added that he would give a news conference at 11:00 am (1600 GMT) at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, where he is nearing the end of a two-week Christmas and New Year’s vacation.

In a brief phone interview with The New York Times, Trump hailed the “brilliant” operation. “A lot of good planning and lot of great, great troops and great people,” the paper quoted Trump as saying.

The US army’s elite Delta Force unit carried out the operation to seize Maduro, CBS News reported. US officials did not immediately confirm the report.

The US military action was now complete, with Maduro having been arrested to “stand trial” in the United States, a US senator quoted Secretary of State Marco Rubio as saying.

“He anticipates no further action in Venezuela now that Maduro is in US custody,” Senator Mike Lee, a Republican initially critical of the operation, wrote on X after what he said was a telephone call with Rubio.

The Trump administration in August offered a $50 million reward for information leading to the capture of Maduro, whom it accuses of leading the alleged “Cartel of the Suns” drug trafficking organization.

Venezuela’s Machado dedicates Nobel Peace Prize to fellow citizens and Trump

‘Justice for his crimes’

Rubio’s number two hailed a “new dawn” for Venezuela.

“A new dawn for Venezuela! The tyrant is gone. He will now — finally — face justice for his crimes,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau wrote on X.

The White House meanwhile reposted a video on X of Trump saying in October that Maduro “doesn’t want to fuck around with the United States.”

Trump has given differing arguments for his campaign against Venezuela, including the claim that the country is a major drug exporter to the United States and that Venezuela seized US oil interests.

The Republican leader has not explicitly called for Maduro’s ouster but the US government, along with many European nations, does not recognize the Venezuelan leader’s legitimacy.

Trump said in December “it would be smart for (Maduro)” to step down and has also said that the Venezuelan leader’s “days are numbered.”

Eight dead in US strikes on alleged drug boats: US military

The US president’s claim of Maduro’s capture comes two days after Maduro attempted to engage with Trump, offering cooperation on fighting drug trafficking and illegal migration.

A huge naval and aerial presence has been established in the Caribbean, including the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and other warships.

US forces have seized two tankers at sea as part of an oil blockade on Venezuela and killed more than 100 people in aerial strikes to destroy small boats accused of drug trafficking.

Trump said on Monday that the United States had hit and destroyed a docking area for alleged Venezuelan drug boats, in what was the first known strike on Venezuelan soil of the campaign.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.

“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” said Guterres’ spokesperson Stephane Dujarric in a statement.

Israel confirmed on Thursday it is suspending the licences of 37 international humanitarian organisations operating in the Gaza Strip. It accuses them of failing to provide the list of their employees’ names, which is now officially required for “security” reasons.

MSF called this demand a “scandalous intrusion” but Israel says is needed to stop jihadists from infiltrating into humanitarian structures.

“To work in Palestine, in the occupied Palestinian territories, we have to be registered … That registration expired on 31 December, 2025,” Isabelle Defourny, a physician and president of MSF France, told France Inter public radio.

“Since July 2025, we have been involved in a re-registration process and to date, we have not received a response. We still have 60 days during which we could work without being re-registered, and so we would have to end our activities in March” if Israel maintains its decision, she said.

‘Post-apocalyptic wasteland’: aid worker describes enduring horror in Gaza

‘Witness’ to violence

MSF has around 40 international staff in the Gaza Strip and works with 800 Palestinian staff across eight hospitals.

“We are the second-largest distributor of water (in the Gaza Strip). Last year, in 2025, we treated just over 100,000 people who were wounded, burned, or victims of various traumas. We are second in terms of the number of deliveries performed,” the president of MSF France said.

According to her, the Israeli decision is explained by the fact that NGOs “bear witness to the violence committed by the Israeli army” in Gaza.

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

A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented 7 October, 2023 attack on Israel.

In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.

Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data.

About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than two million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.

(with AFP)

Yahia, 17, Algeria fan

“The Africa Cup of Nations in Barbès is a celebration of football, especially when you are supporting Algeria, Morocco or Tunisia. In fact, these are my three favourite teams,” said 17-year-old Yahia, a student who was watching Algeria play against Equatorial Guinea in Barbès, a predominantly north-African neighbourhood in the north of Paris.

“My parents are Algerian and Tunisian, I was born in France but my heart is with the Maghreb countries for this football competition. I come to Barbès for the crowd, the party atmosphere. And it will be even more fun as we near the finals.”

Riad, 29, Algeria fan

“I am an Algerian from Algiers and I am a die-hard fan of the Algerian team. So much so that I am wearing the Algerian jersey underneath my shirt. I even went to work like this,” said 29-year-old Riad, who teaches German in Paris.

He came to Barbès to watch the match but couldn’t find anywhere indoors, so he and his friends resorted to standing in the cold watching on a big TV screen behind the window of a closed United Youth International cultural centre.

But, he said: “Even if it means standing in minus 10 degrees, it does not matter, we have to support our country.”

He added: “Watching the Africa Cup of Nations in Algiers is something else. Very different from here in Paris. Back home it’s bombastic. There are wide TV screens to watch the matches, everybody is on the streets when Algeria is playing – old people, kids, families.

“Everybody is out to have a good time, eating, drinking and have fun. When we are nearing the semi-finals, people will even stop work to watch the matches. This year, I believe the odds are in favour of Algeria.”

Oumar, 56, Senegal fan

“The 2025 Africa Cup of Nations so far has been interesting with good games to watch. I am Senegalese and support Senegal, but Côte d’Ivoire is next and then Mali. They’re my top three sides,” said 56-year-old Oumar, who stays in an African workers’ social residence. He shares a studio there with a friend.

For Oumar, there is no comparison between watching the tournament in Paris and watching it back home in Senegal.

“I have much more freedom to express myself at home. While watching a match I can shout, jump around, eat, drink, have lots of my friends over. Here in this small studio, I am very much restricted. There is such an ambiance back home – the music, the food, the people, old and young, all rooting for Senegal. I miss that a lot.”

Oumar said that the matches are shown on big screens in towns across Senegal, making it easy for people to watch together.

“We argue a lot too. In Senegal, everybody is a coach, they all know better. We are as passionate about football as we are about politics.”

He added: “I’m convinced Senegal will win the Africa Cup of Nations 2025. We have great players like Sadio Mané, Ibrahim Mbaye, Lamine Camara, Krépin Diatta. And the best player trophy will go to 17-year-old Ibrahim Mbaye.”

Elise, 40s, Côte d’Ivoire fan

“I am a football fanatic who is closely following the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations. I am from Côte d’Ivoire and obviously a die-hard fan of the Côte d’Ivoire team,” said Elise, who is in her forties and was watching the Côte d’Ivoire versus Gabon match with friends at an African restaurant.

“This Africa Cup of Nations gave us quite a few surprises. Who could have predicted that the Democratic Republic of Congo would play so well and score up. I thought Cameroon would have been a tougher side.

“I am thoroughly enjoying the matches even though we were on tenterhooks during this match. That’s Côte d’Ivoire, the capacity to change the odds, fight back and grab victory at the last minute.”

Elise too says watching the tournament in France is not the same, as she feels constrained.

However, when the match ended in a Côte d’Ivoire victory and the Ivorian restaurant owner began blasting coupé-décalé music, she didn’t hesitate to break out some dance moves among the tables with her fellow supporters.

Some 1,300 kilograms of expired raw materials have been discovered at a Softcare factory, a subsidiary of a Chinese group specialising in the manufacture of baby nappies and sanitary towels.

On 8 December the Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (ARP) ordered the withdrawal from the market of the brand’s products, but reversed its decision a week later, stating that no expired materials had been used in the manufacture of the nappies.

‘Who is telling the truth?’

The ARP’s contradictory reports, coupled with accusations of attempts to bribe the agency’s inspectors, have fuelled doubts in Senegal. The opposition party FRAPP (Front for a Popular and Pan-African Anti-Imperialist Revolution) is calling for clarification.

“Who is telling the truth? On what scientific and technical grounds are these two contradictory statements based? asks Magor Dieng, a member of FRAPP. “And above all, were Senegal’s children exposed to potentially dangerous products or not?”

He underlines that nappies are not an ordinary product. “These are items in direct, prolonged and intimate contact with the fragile skin of infants. The slightest negligence can have serious consequences: irritation, infections, hormonal disorders or other long-term impacts,” he continues.

‘We want to be clear. We are not condemning any company without evidence, but we categorically refuse vagueness, silence and contradictions,” he told RFI’s correspondent in Senegal Léa-Lisa Westerhoff. “That is why we solemnly call for an official and definitive clarification from the Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency, based on verifiable facts.”

Still no conclusions

On 19 December, the Ministry of Health announced a joint mission with the Ministry of Trade to shed light on the affair. Two weeks later, the conclusions of that fact-finding mission have still not been made public.

For Dr Serigne Modou Babou, the management of the ARP must also be scrutinised.

“There have been reports for months, even for more than a year, of opaque and questionable management within the Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency,” he told RFI. “We recently submitted a letter requesting the publication of the ARP audit.”

More than 1,000 citizens have signed a petition calling for full transparency over the manufacture of Softcare products. A parliamentary inquiry has also been set up to inform MPs on the issue.

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This article was adapted from the original in French and has been lighted edited for clarity.

Protests began on Sunday in the capital Tehran, with demonstrations by shopkeepers over the government’s handling of the economic crisis. Iran’s national currency has fallen sharply and prices have risen rapidly.

The unrest has since spread nationwide, intensifying into the largest wave of protests the country has seen in three years. Violent clashes have been reported between protesters and security forces in several cities.

Several people have been killed, according to Iranian media and rights groups.

The semi-official Fars news agency reported on Thursday that three protesters were killed and 17 injured during an attack on a police station in the western province of Lorestan.

Earlier, Fars and the Kurdish rights group Hengaw also reported deaths in Lordegan, in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province. Authorities confirmed one death in the western city of Kuhdasht, while Hengaw reported another fatality in the central province of Isfahan.

Trump says US will ‘come to their rescue’ if Iran kills protesters

Pro and anti-royalists

While the demonstrations are smaller than the last major outbreak of unrest in 2022, triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini after her arrest for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women, they have once again underlined political divides within the Iranian diaspora in France.

There are no precise figures on the size of the diaspora, though some studies suggest France is home to more than 30,000 Iranian-born nationals – including elites from before the 1979 Islamic revolution, which saw the fall of the last shah, post‑revolution refugees, students and professionals.

Hilda Dehghani, a Franco-Iranian living in Paris, supports Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah, who lives in exile in the United States. She has once again unfurled the monarchy’s flag, which she had put away in recent years.

Dehghani believes he is best placed to lead the country.

“Very clearly, the Iranian population, across the country, in different places, is calling for him,” she told RFI. “Not only are they saying ‘Death to the dictator’, they are calling for his replacement, the one they want to see come.”

However, feminist film-maker Setareh Karimi, who is also living in exile in France, said the influence of royalists within the protests is being overstated, often at the expense of more progressive voices.

“There are pro-royalist sympathisers but they are not as numerous as royalist media claim. This represents a danger for demonstrators, who are not all royalists,” she said.

Son of late shah urges Iranians to break with Islamic republic

The battle over images

Persian-language satellite television channels and social networks are the main sources of information for the diaspora about events inside Iran. But they have also become vectors for misinformation and polarisation among exiled opponents of the Islamic Republic.

Some outlets have broadcast manipulated or misleading video footage that they claim shows pro-monarchy demonstrations. The origin of the images remains unclear.

Verifying such material to counter disinformation has become an increasingly important and time-consuming task for activists.

“We place a strong emphasis on the accuracy of information,” says Kian Habibian, co-founder in Paris of the association We Are Iranian Students.

“When we get a video, we put it through software to see whether it has been altered, to make sure it is the right date, the right place and that the information coming out is correct,” he told RFI.

‘Woman. Life. Freedom’: Paris marches in solidarity with Iran protests

Despite political disagreements, members of the Iranian diaspora in France say they share a profound admiration for the courage shown by protesters confronting Iran’s security forces.

According to Iran Human Rights Monitor, at least 1,956 executions were carried out in 2025, a 97 percent increase compared to the previous year. The majority were convicted of drug-related offences and murder.

Research by international rights group Amnesty found that many death sentences followed unfair trials, including use of “confessions” obtained under torture.

Amnesty said the surge in executions since the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests reflects the use of the death penalty as a tool of repression, combining mass executions for drugs with targeted executions of dissidents and minorities.

Africa: power and protest

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

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

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

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

How football mega tournaments became a lightning rod for Morocco protesters

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

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

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

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

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

The karate grannies of Korogocho, fighting back at any age

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

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Ukraine and Russia: war, identity and closed worlds

How the Russian invasion has sparked a renaissance of Ukrainian culture

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

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

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

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Europe: democracy, disinformation and shifting ground

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

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

How deepfakes and cloned voices are distorting Europe’s elections

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

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

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

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

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

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France: citizens, culture and disappearing worlds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Environment and technology: new pressure, old knowledge

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

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

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

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

Indigenous knowledge steers new protections for the high seas

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

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

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

How weird fossils created by human garbage may baffle future civilisations

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

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Culture and memory: bearing witness

How exiled photographer Ernest Cole captured apartheid’s human toll

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

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

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

As a result of the parliament’s failure to vote the 2026 budget, France’s government was forced to invoke a special emergency budget law that rolls over the previous year’s budget to keep the state funded when a new finance bill has not been adopted.

The same type of emergency legislation was used ahead of the 2025 budget, which was only finalised in February after being forced through parliament, a delay that cost the government €12 billion.

Bank of France governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau has cautioned that carrying over the 2025 framework into 2026 would lead to “a deficit far higher than desired” – a warning that temporary fixes risk worsening France’s financial situation.

Why €310 billion more?

According to the budget bill the Treasury presented to the government in October, France needs to raise just over €305 billion in 2026 – slightly more than in 2025 – to keep the state running and pay back part of its existing debt.

Under a funding plan unveiled earlier this week, that will be done by selling about €310 billion in government bonds – in other words, by borrowing money on the financial markets for several years at a time.

The extra borrowing is mainly because more old loans are coming due. Repayments on past borrowing will increase from €168 billion in 2025 to nearly €176 billion in 2026, while the annual shortfall between what the state spends and what it takes in – the budget deficit – is still expected to total some €124 billion.

On top of that, the cost of servicing the debt is rising as higher interest rates feed through, partly as a result of France’s credit rating sliding downwards. 

Lower credit ratings

Paris is starting to feel the effects of downgrades and negative outlooks from the big credit‑rating agencies, which act as referees for investors when they judge a country’s debt.

In recent years, Moody’s, S&P and Fitch have all warned that high and rising debt, political tensions over reforms and repeated budget slippages make France a riskier bet than before, even if it remains firmly in investment‑grade territory.

Overseas investors hold more than half of France’s tradeable government debt, leaving the country more exposed if confidence wobbles and markets start demanding higher rates.

The amount the state pays just in interest is set to jump from €52 billion in 2025 to more than €59 billion in 2026 – money that cannot be used for schools, hospitals or investment, and still does nothing to shrink the overall debt.

France faces credit downgrade as Moody’s readies verdict on €3.2 trillion debt

In the EU’s bad books

Meanwhile, with a staggering €3.2 trillion, France’s public debt has risen from around 97.4 percent of GDP in 2019 to more than 112 percent in 2023, placing it among the most indebted countries in the euro area and well above the 60-percent ceiling in the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact.

Germany‘s debt, by contrast, stands at around 62 percent of GDP, roughly half the French level, while the euro‑area average is below 90 percent.​

Deficits have also widened. France moved from a government deficit of 2.1 percent of GDP in 2019 to about 4.9 percent in 2023 and remains in primary deficit, meaning it still borrows even before interest payments – unlike Germany, which has moved much closer to balance.

France is now the EU’s third most indebted member, behind Greece and Italy, and faces renewed EU pressure as fiscal rules are phased back in.​

France braces for economic judgment amid political turmoil and record debt

High public spending, low growth

Several factors push France into repeated large‑scale borrowing.

The country has a tradition of high structural public spending, notably on social protection, health and pensions, which successive governments have struggled to trim without triggering protests.​

Covid‑19 and energy‑price crises have also left a costly legacy. President Emmanuel Macron vowed to do “whatever it takes” to shield households and businesses, leaving a permanently higher debt burden.​

Meanwhile economic growth remains weak, held back by low consumer spending and investment, as well as lingering political uncertainty.

Slower economic growth means France must cut €10bn in public spending

Eyes on 2027 presidential election

France’s budget impasse comes after an exceptionally turbulent political period that has seen Macron cycle through five prime ministers in his second term. It reflects the difficulties of governing with a parliament deadlocked between rival blocs, none of which has a clear majority.

Current Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu remains under intense pressure from the president to secure the 2026 budget while navigating threats of no‑confidence votes from both left and right.​

Political challengers are likely to exploit the fiscal crisis and Macron’s lame-duck status ahead of the 2027 presidential elections by framing the debt and budget situation as a failure of the president’s centrist movement.

The far-right National Rally may blame what they see as excessive spending as well as ties with Brussels, while vowing to cut immigration and welfare programmes but protect pensions at the same time.

Meanwhile the left-wing New Popular Front is poised to attack austerity and push for new wealth taxes to fund social spending.

Insurance boss breaks ranks with French business elite over taxing the rich

And Macron’s centre-right allies such as Édouard Philippe are likely to demand discipline via pension tweaks and caps, as all sides leverage Macron’s PM carousel and institutional distrust to boost their ratings in the opinion polls.

The lower house of parliament will resume examining a full budget bill in the coming weeks, with debates expected to reopen on 13 January. Both houses must agree on the text before it becomes final.

(with newswires)

Trump rebooted

Returning to the White House in January, Donald Trump launched his protectionist second term agenda at breakneck speed, ordering mass deportations of undocumented migrants, imposing sweeping budget cuts and dismantling large parts of the United States’ federal government.

Trump also deployed the National Guard in Democrat-led cities, sought to intimidate the media and freely threatened his opponents with legal action.

‘Ceasefire’ in Gaza

Under pressure from Washington, a ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Hamas, two years after the start of the war in Gaza following the 7 October, 2023 attacks. It allowed the return to Israel of the last living hostages and most of the bodies of those killed, in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners.

But the truce remains fragile. Negotiations on the second phase of the peace plan have stalled, with both sides accusing each other almost daily of violating the agreement.

Ukraine peace efforts at a standstill

Trump’s return to the White House revived efforts to end the war in Ukraine, but talks have failed to deliver a breakthrough. The US president made repeated reversals before putting forward a draft plan widely seen as favourable to Moscow.

International discussions continue on that basis, while Russia appears unwilling to compromise and continues its slow and costly advances on the ground.

Tariffs trigger global showdown

Trump imposed tariffs on imports and on entire sectors deemed strategic, triggering a trade conflict that shook the global economy. Difficult negotiations led to numerous agreements, with uneven consequences depending on the country in question.

Talks with neighbouring Mexico and Canada continue to drag on while relations with China, above all, are extremely tense.

AI’s explosive rise

Technology giants and investors spent vast sums to fuel the rapid growth of artificial intelligence. Markets fear a speculative bubble and concerns are mounting, with AI accused of driving disinformation and copyright violations.

Many companies cited it to justify mass lay-offs too. As the technology expands rapidly, the full consequences are difficult to assess.

Gen Z in revolt

Nepal, Indonesia, Peru, Madagascar, Morocco, Bulgaria… across the world, mass movements led by people under 30 emerged in protest at poor living conditions, social media censorship and elite corruption.

They adopted the pirate flag from the manga comic One Piece as a symbol, both on the streets and online, and while their success and impact varied from country to country, together they reflected the anger of a generation.

Climate warnings fall flat

It was another bleak year for the climate. Deadly floods struck Vietnam, while hurricanes and typhoons devastated the Caribbean and the Philippines. Across Europe, temperatures surged and forest fires intensified.

Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, more deadly and more destructive because of climate change. Despite this, Cop30 – held in Belém, in the Amazon – resulted in only a minimalist agreement.

Former leaders behind bars

The year was also marked by the imprisonment of several former presidents. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro began serving a 27-year sentence for an attempted coup. In France, Nicolas Sarkozy was jailed for 20 days after his conviction for criminal conspiracy.

In South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol is in detention and on trial for insurrection and abuse of power. In the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte was arrested and transferred to The Hague under a warrant from the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

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This retrospective was translated from the original version in French

Images of the screen diva were splashed across media outlets around the globe following the announcement of her death on Sunday. Many also highlighted her role as a catalyst for social change in France.

Bardot’s libertine attitude in her breakthrough 1956 movie And God Created Woman outraged censors at the time. The French Catholic daily La Croix said she had a “career without much success” which she cut short to devote herself to animals.

The left-leaning Liberation newspaper said, however, that Bardot had a “meteoric career”.

“She was probably the last of that handful of new and free figures in which France liked to recognise itself at the turn of the 60s,” noted Liberation, which called her the “greatest sex symbol of French cinema”.   

The conservative Le Figaro said “this blonde whirlwind burst on to the screens” in a France still suffering from the fallout of the Second World War. “She shook things up, danced the mambo on the tables of Saint-Tropez,” it added, recalling her iconic scene in And God Created Woman.

Bardot: the screen goddess who gave it all up

‘She hid nothing’

International media highlighted the screen sensation and the controversy after Bardot gave up acting to defend animal rights, as well as to become a far-right supporter. She was convicted and fined five times over comments that incited racial hatred.

“She was a French cocktail of kittenish charm and continental sensuality,” said the United Kingdom’s public service broadcaster the BBC.

Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper called her “a diva rebel” who “chose liberty until the very end”.

In Spain, El Pais called Bardot a “controversial activist”, adding: “In her own way, she hid nothing. Neither the wrinkles, nor her increasingly radical character or her ideological convictions, which she evoked with crude euphemisms.”

The New York Times said that Bardot “redefined mid-20th century movie sex symbolism”, highlighting her “unapologetic carnal appetite” on screen.

But, it added: “At best, Ms Bardot was considered eccentric in her later years, prompting observations that this former sex kitten, as she was often called, had turned into a ‘crazy cat lady’.”

Bardot was repeatedly convicted for hate speech – mostly against members of the Islamic faith after migration from France’s former colonies.

French screen legend Brigitte Bardot fined for racial slurs against Reunion islanders

She actively backed far-right presidential contender Marine Le Pen when she ran in 2012 and 2017.

Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said it would be better to “forget, even if it may be difficult, the political Bardot of recent years for the duration of this obituary” and “remember THE Bardot” instead.

Bardot “will be buried in her garden near the sea,” said her long-time friend and journalist Wendy Bouchard on Monday.

“It was her wish and it will be respected,” said Bouchard, referring to the icon’s last wish to “be buried near those she cherished, her animals” with a simple wooden cross to mark her grave.

However, Saint-Tropez, officials said on Monday that Bardot would to be buried in the town’s seaside cemetery.

The Brigitte Bardot Foundation said that the funeral in the Notre-Dame de l’Assomption church of Saint-Tropez would take place on 7 January and would be broadcast on screens across the town.

This would be followed by a “private” burial, but the foundation did not confirm where in Saint-Tropez she would be inhumed.

(with newswires)

Al-Shabaab (“The Youth”) rose to prominence in Somalia in the early 2000s and aims to establish a “Greater Somalia”, joining ethnic Somalis across East Africa under strict Islamic rule.

It has allegedly become one of al-Qaeda’s strongest and most successful affiliates.

A joint United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force known as the African Union Transitional Mission to Somalia (ATMIS), along with the United States and several East African nations, have been actively trying to combat the movement, but it has proven resilient against numerous counterinsurgency campaigns.

RFI: Why have Shabaab militants been able to regain the ground they lost over the past three years?

Matt Bryden: Three years ago, the offensive against the Shabaab was led by clan militias that wanted to free themselves from Al-Shabaab. They received support from the federal government and from the Americans. But clan militias can only fight on their own clan territory. Once they had liberated their own areas, they could not advance any further. So the offensive was really a series of small, local operations by different clan militias, not a coherent, coordinated campaign.

RFI: And today, have these clan militias allied themselves with the Shabaab against the government?

MB: No. Most of them are still opposed to the Shabaab, especially in the areas where they fought them. But they are not necessarily allied with the government either. That is another major problem for the federal government: it is not just fighting the Shabaab, but also some of the provinces and regions of Somalia, which are themselves fighting Al-Shabaab. In reality, the government in Mogadishu controls at most 15 per cent of Somalia’s territory – and that’s a generous estimate.

RFI: Still, these are the first elections without attacks. Isn’t that a success for President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud?

MB: Absolutely. There were voters at some polling stations, that’s true. But Somalia is a clan-based society. Members of clans that support the government turned out to vote, while other clans – those that support the opposition – did not. So the election risks deepening divisions between Somalia’s clans and regions: those that back the government, who are currently a minority, and those clans and regions that oppose it.

US launches air strikes against Islamic State targets in Somalia

RFI: President Hassan Sheikh Mohammed was beaming on Thursday during the elections. But the next day, Friday, he received very bad news. For the first time, the secessionist state of Somaliland was officially recognised by another country – Israel. Did that surprise you?

MB: For Somalia, certainly. It’s a very unwelcome surprise. Somaliland now risks receiving not only Israel’s recognition, but that of other countries as well. What Israel has done is clearly not an isolated initiative; it was coordinated with other states in Africa, with some Arab countries, and probably with the United States too.

RFI: You say other countries could follow. Two years ago, Ethiopia nearly recognised Somaliland’s independence, but eventually backed down under pressure from Somalia and Turkey.

MB: Yes, but Ethiopia’s move was not coordinated with other states and amounted to a declaration rather than formal recognition. This time, Israel has officially recognised Somaliland. From what I hear from diplomats in the region, Israel and other countries have been coordinating this decision for months, perhaps more than a year, so that Israel would not be alone. There are likely to be further recognitions in the weeks and months ahead.

With a new president, Somaliland seeks international recognition

RFI: The Israelis suggest that this recognition of Somaliland is in the spirit of the [2020] Abraham Accords, under which Israel normalised relations with countries including the United Arab Emirates and Morocco. Are the Americans perhaps behind this?

MB: Yes, absolutely. The Americans, especially since President Trump’s election, have signalled deep frustration with the situation in Somalia. They have spent billions of dollars on the country’s security, yet the situation is worse than before. As a result, the US has begun working directly with the regions of Jubaland and Puntland to fight Al-Shabaab and also Islamic State, which has been very active in north-eastern Puntland.

Relations with Somaliland are also deepening. The head of Africom, General Anderson, visited a few months ago. So it is fairly clear that the Americans see Somaliland as a potential partner, both to secure maritime routes in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, and to combat extremist movements in the Horn of Africa.

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

At dawn, when the mist is still clinging to the grass, Nasieku Kipeke’s hands are already moving through beads. Red, blue, white… she threads them with the same rhythm her mother taught her.

The beaded bracelets she makes will end up in the hands of tourists who come to the Maasai Mara to witness the Great Migration – the epic annual journey made by 2 million zebras, wildebeest and gazelles from Tanzania to Kenya, following the path of the seasonal rains.

The money Nasieku earns from her beads pays for her children’s porridge and books and, when she can manage it, clinic visits – which she often puts off.

But this morning, her fingers are slow. Word has spread about the new luxury hotel rising near Sand River, one of the most important wildlife corridors in the reserve. For her, the development feels like a storm cloud settling over land she depends on but has no power to protect.

“When they block the animals, they block us,” she says in a low voice. “We survive because the world comes to see what lives here.”

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

Opportunities out of reach

Down the road, 20-year-old Lemayian leans on a crooked fence post. His ambition is to be a wildlife guide – one who can speak about lions, migration cycles and Maasai history in the same breath.

But jobs are thin on the ground now. Conservancies are tightening rules. The land for grazing is shrinking.

“They tell us tourism will give us opportunities. But sometimes I feel like the opportunity is fenced away from us, something we can see but not reach.”

For people like Lemayian, the pace of development can be a double-edged sword, promising prosperity while encroaching on and eventually closing off spaces that his family has depended on for generations.

Jane Goodall, pioneering primatologist and voice for wildlife, dies aged 91

Ole Nkaputie, a herder in his seventies, drives his cattle toward a water point. Each step is deliberate, steady, shaped by a lifetime of reading the land. To him, the world-famous Maasai Mara National Reserve is not a tourist attraction – it’s memory, livelihood, identity.

“The animals move like we move,” he says, as he watches his cows drink. “When you block their path, you block ours too.”

He remembers when people would assemble under a tree to debate the changes, when the elders spoke and everyone had their say.

‘Fear cannot guide us’

Dr. Meitamei Ole Dapash is a conservationist. His small office is cluttered with maps of wildlife routes and folders full of petitions and legal papers. The weight of responsibility hangs heavily over him.

“This isn’t about stopping tourism,” he says, tapping a map where the Sand River flows. “It’s about stopping harmful tourism – development that ignores the people and the wildlife it claims to celebrate.”

It was Dapash who took the fight to court, challenging the construction of the Ritz-Carlton luxury Masai Mara Safari Camp on the grounds of poor community consultation and suspect environmental review.

The women carrying the burden of Kenya’s rural healthcare on their backs

He has put himself squarely in the crosshairs of powerful interests. The threats have followed – late-night calls, anonymous warnings, intimidation.

“But fear cannot guide us,” he says. “If we lose this land, what will my grandchildren inherit? Photographs of animals that used to roam here?”

When he speaks with communities, he listens more than talks. Women like Nasieku speak of incomes drying up with bad tourist seasons. Young people like Lemayian ask who will hire them when the land they depend on is parcelled off. Elders like Nkaputie warn of a day when cultural erosion will creep in, long before anyone notices it happening.

He walks one afternoon with a group of women to the edge of the river. A herd of zebra hesitates nearby, unsure of the new noise. One woman sucks her teeth in frustration. “This place was for the animals,” she says. “Now it is for the rich.”

With no fewer than 10 presidential elections held across the African continent, the political stakes were high in 2025.

In several countries, elections reinforced entrenched leaderships rather than opening the door to political renewal.

One of the most notable cases was in Cameroon, where veteran president Paul Biya, aged 92, secured an eighth consecutive term. While the outcome was widely expected, it nonetheless triggered major protests and renewed questions about political succession and space for opposition voices.

There was similarly little surprise in Côte d’Ivoire, where 83-year-old Alassane Ouattara won a fourth term. The vote was marked by the absence of his main political rivals, many of whom were barred from running.

The most striking, however, was Tanzania, where President Samia Suluhu Hassan claimed an overwhelming 98 percent of the vote.

The landslide came against a backdrop of unprecedented violence. Opposition figures allege that hundreds or even thousands of people died during election protests, a claim the government disputes.

Tanzania accused of hiding bodies of those killed in post-election protests

Military transition becomes lasting power

Beyond disputed civilian elections, 2025 also saw several military-led transitions harden into long-term rule.

In Guinea, General Mamadi Doumbouya claimed political legitimacy by winning a controversial presidential election, four years after taking power in a coup and promising to hand back over to civilian rule.

A similar pattern played out in Gabon, where General Brice Oligui Nguema – who had earlier overthrown the long-ruling Bongo dynasty – won the presidency with close to 95 percent of the vote.

In Guinea-Bissau, the military intervened directly to halt the electoral process, overthrowing the outgoing president and preventing the publication of results.

An attempted coup was reported in Benin, while in Madagascar a president forced out by street protests was replaced by a military officer.

Taken together, at least eight African countries are now governed by leaders with military backgrounds.

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

‘Decline in democracy’

For Gilles Yabi, a researcher and president of West Africa-focused think tank Wathi, the common thread running through Africa’s 2025 elections is a growing normalisation of force.

He told RFI that leaders already firmly in power are using “all possible means” to stay there. These range from outright repression – as seen in Tanzania, where the human toll remains unclear but is believed to be extremely high – to mass arrests in countries such as Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire.

In Côte d’Ivoire, he noted, around a thousand people were detained and key opposition candidates excluded through legal and administrative manoeuvres.

In his view, 2025 illustrates “a real decline in democracy and the rule of law”.

Elections entrench the army

Asked whether some elections were designed primarily to keep the army in power, Yabi points to Gabon as a telling example.

Oligui Nguema, he pointed out, carried out his coup in the middle of an electoral process that was widely seen as lacking credibility and likely to cement the rule of Ali Bongo. Many Gabonese initially welcomed the military takeover, hoping it would finally close the chapter on decades of Bongo family rule.

“In the best-case scenario,” Yabi told RFI, “the person who carried out the coup would not have stood for election.” That, however, did not happen. Nguema ran, won, and is now an elected president. The hope, Yabi added, is that incremental steps over the coming years might still steer Gabon towards genuine democracy and respect for the rule of law.

By contrast, the situation in Guinea-Bissau sends what he described as an “extremely negative signal”.

There, the interruption of a presidential election by a military coup amounts to “a real affront” to voters who had turned out to choose a new president and parliament.

Guinea-Bissau general sworn in as transitional president following coup

A year of concern

For Yabi, there is little doubt that 2025 should be seen as a troubling year for democracy, in Africa and beyond.

The world’s major powers, he argues, are hardly setting an inspiring example. In the United States, he points to a weakening of institutions under President Donald Trump, while China continues under a one-party system.

This global backdrop, he believes, feeds into a broader contempt for international law that is increasingly visible at the African level.

“In all cases,” Yabi concludes, “we have the law of the strongest – and perhaps also the most cynical – which now seems to prevail almost everywhere.”

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This article has been adapted from the original in French by RFI’s Alexandra Brangeon.

Macron’s second and final term expires in 2027, and the search for his successor within the presidential camp remains unresolved.

His party, Renaissance, still dominates the governing alliance Ensemble, but enthusiasm has dwindled.

Macron’s approval ratings are low, hovering in the 20s. It reflects weariness with a presidency marked by pension reform protests, tensions over immigration and a reputation for technocratic detachment.

According to opinion pollster Gallup, based on its annual survey of public faith in institutions, trust in the French government dropped 13 percentage points to 29 percent in 2025, while confidence in the honesty of elections fell by the same margin to 51 percent. Trust in the judicial system and financial institutions was also down.

“No other European Union country has seen a bigger average drop in confidence across these four institutions in 2025 than France,” Gallup notes.

Moving towards a post-Macron era

As the 2027 vote looms, several figures within the centrist bloc are testing their national appeal – among them former prime minister Gabriel Attal, whose youth and communication skills contrast with Macron’s more aloof image.

Yet Attal faces the same structural weakness as his former mentor: the absence of a clearly defined ideological base. The centrist movement created by Macron for the 2017 presidential election was based largely around the leader himself rather than political doctrine.

Ensemble’s hold on parliament is fragile, forcing Macron’s team to rely on precarious alliances or the use of special constitutional powers to pass major legislation.

If 2025 was a year of constrained governance, 2026 looks set to test whether the Macron legacy can endure beyond the man himself. The president faces the delicate task of sustaining authority while preparing France – and his party – for a post-Macron era.

Macron vows to work until ‘last second’ of mandate in NYE address

Far right gathers its forces

Among those looking to replace the Macronistes, the faction mounting the most united opposition is the far right. 

Marine Le Pen and the National Rally (RN) enter 2026 with more confidence than ever. After a strong showing in the 2024 European elections and the party’s continued dominance in rural and working-class regions, the RN’s path to the presidency no longer seems impassable.

In February, Le Pen will learn whether she can run in the 2027 presidential election. Convicted last March alongside eight other members of the RN of embezzling EU funds, she was sentenced to a five-year ban on holding office and a four-year prison term.

She is appealing the verdict, with a second trial scheduled from 13 January to 12 February.

Does ‘politically dead’ Marine Le Pen still have a path to power?

If the court upholds her conviction, it could radically reshape the next presidential race. Rather than its veteran leader, the RN’s “plan B” candidate would be Le Pen’s protégé Jordan Bardella.

Bardella, now party president, has helped “normalise” the RN’s image, appealing to younger voters and middle-income professionals frustrated with mainstream politics.

Their message combines economic nationalism with promises to restore social order – a contrast to the perceived elitism of Macron’s centrists.

Left divided

On the other end of the spectrum, the French left remains divided.

The left-wing alliance known as Nupes, which once united Socialists, Greens, Communists and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s hard-left France Unbowed (LFI), has largely unravelled. A new coalition formed for the 2024 parliamentary elections, compromising roughly the same members, met a similar fate, riven by divisions between centre-leftists and the far left.

Mélenchon’s confrontational style continues to polarise, leaving space for new figures to claim the middle ground – such as the more moderate Socialist leader Olivier Faure, or Green politicians seeking to reframe the debate around environmental justice.

While strong locally, the Greens face a struggle to broaden their appeal beyond urban and educated voters.

Climate policy remains a central concern, particularly amid new EU-level goals for energy transition, but in a country grappling with inflation and anxiety over purchasing power, those themes risk being overshadowed.

Traditional right struggles for relevance 

For France’s traditional right, 2026 could prove a decisive year.

The conservative Les Républicains continue to struggle for relevance. Their local base remains sturdy, but nationally they lack both a clear leader and a message to distinguish them from the far right.

Some within the party, notably former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, are pushing for closer cooperation with Le Pen’s camp. In his newly published memoir, he declared an end to the cordon sanitaire that has traditionally kept mainstream parties from allying with the far right.

The Républicains’ leader Bruno Retailleau, a former interior minister who took a hard line on immigration and policing, has also wooed voters further to the right. 

But others in the party insist on preserving a centrist, pro-European identity – such as former minister Xavier Bertrand, who is one of several other hopefuls challenging Retailleau for the 2027 nomination.

Locked in power struggles and squeezed between the RN and Macron’s centrists, the party risks marginalisation.

Sarkozy prison memoir a bid to ‘control the story’ and protect image for political future

Local elections preview presidential campaign

In March, municipal elections across France will be the final nationwide vote before the 2027 presidential contest. They are expected to serve as a dress rehearsal, testing alliances and strategies and setting the tone for the presidential campaign.

Immigration debates and questions of secularism are likely to again dominate political rhetoric, reflecting divisions that cut across the party spectrum.

Domestic security also looms large, especially after a string of shootings linked to drug trafficking in French cities.

As for foreign policy, France remains influential in Europe, especially amid the EU’s green and defence transitions. But wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, continued tension with Russia, and uncertainty about relations with the United States all weigh heavily on Paris’s diplomatic agenda.

Macron’s call for greater European “strategic autonomy” still resonates, though critics say his vision lacks practical backing.

(with newswires)

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

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

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

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

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

Importers of these goods must declare the carbon dioxide emissions embedded in their products. If those emissions exceed EU standards, they must pay a levy.

The policy, known as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), is designed to ensure foreign producers face a carbon cost similar to that already paid by European companies under the EU’s internal emissions trading system.

Some trading partners argue the measure restricts trade and favours European manufacturers. The EU says the system encourages cleaner production because countries can avoid the levy by imposing an equivalent carbon price on their own industries.

“Pricing carbon is something that we need to pursue with as many as possible, as quickly as possible,” the EU’s climate commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, said at the Cop30 UN climate negotiations in Brazil in November.

For more than 20 years, European producers in highly polluting industries have had to buy pollution permits if they fail to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Until now, foreign producers were not subject to the same costs. European officials and economists have long described this gap as unfair competition that weakened EU industry.

Amazon summit seals climate deal without fossil fuel plan

Climate ambitions

The EU says the aim of the border tax is to incentivise heavy industry to decarbonise and help combat global warming by correcting this imbalance.

Economist Christian Gollier said aligning the treatment of European and foreign producers was essential if the EU was to continue cutting emissions “without collapsing economically”.

The European Union has raised its climate ambitions, setting a target of a 90 percent reduction in emissions by 2040.

“To achieve these objectives, we will have to increase incentives for decarbonisation and therefore we will have to increase the price of carbon,” Gollier told RFI. “If we don’t correct this inequity in the market with these importers who wouldn’t pay this increasingly high price, it won’t be possible.”

Carbon pricing has already pushed European polluting industries to change how they produce goods, said Frédéric Ghersi, a climate policy specialist at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

“Either foreign producers adapt their production processes and continue to sell as much in Europe, or European production will have to compensate for the reduced imports from these more polluting countries,” he said.

From the perspective of controlling global emissions, the measure “seems effective”, Ghersi added.

He said the overall impact could remain limited because the number of products covered by the border tax is relatively small.

Europe’s climate progress overshadowed by worsening loss of nature

Mixed global response

Aurora D’Aprile, who studied the global response to CBAM for the Swiss-based International Emissions Trading Association, told French news agency AFP there had been “a clear step change in the reaction” over the past 12 months.

“Several key trade partners of the European Union actively expanded their carbon-pricing schemes, for instance China, or launched emissions trading schemes after being in the making for many years, such as Turkey,” she told AFP.

Japan has cited the EU measure in its reasoning for advancing its own climate policies, said Nicolas Berghmans, a climate and energy researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations in Paris.

The United Kingdom and Canada are also considering similar mechanisms.

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

Diplomatic pushback

The CBAM – originally adopted by the EU in 2022 – was not the only influencing factor on other countries, says Marios Tokas, a trade lawyer at the Brussels-based law firm Cassidy Levy Kent.

But given the size of the European market it “sharpened” the urgency of the global policy response.

Russia has argued the policy breaches global trade rules and has taken its complaint to the World Trade Organisation. China and other emerging economies have criticised what they call a “unilateral trade measure” and pushed to place the issue on the agenda at the Cop30 climate talks in November.

But criticism at a global level “doesn’t mean that the action on the compliance or adaptation side” isn’t also being undertaken, said D’Aprile, pointing in particular to China.

Georg Zachmann, a specialist in European energy and climate policy at the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, said the border tax could be described as “a political success for the EU”.

He told AFP that its long-term impact would depend on how many countries introduce their own carbon pricing schemes and how effective those policies prove to be.

D’Aprile cautioned against declaring victory before the EU finalises and implements the remaining “complex” steps of the system. Berghmans said differing carbon pricing schemes would pose “a big challenge” in the years ahead.

“We will have to support progress with a significant diplomatic effort,” he said.

Some European industrial groups have also raised concerns that foreign producers could under-report the emissions linked to their products, undermining the system’s effectiveness.

RFI: Cyprus took the presidency of the EU Council on 1 January. What will be the priorities of the Cypriot government?

Fiona Mullen: In many ways it’s like a continuation of the Danish one, which has just finished, and that was about security and competitiveness. Cyprus has [stressed] the word “autonomy”, “an autonomous union open to the world”, and within that, they’re talking about defence and about competitiveness, about values and about the budget.

But essentially, it is about this new world order that we’re finding ourselves in, and how the European Union makes sure it’s resilient to that. 

RFI: How do you expect a small frontline member state like Cyprus to shape this huge EU agenda and put it into practice over the next six months? 

FM: Cypriots are pretty good at the bureaucratic, technocratic side of things. If you think about how many diplomats they’ve had to evacuate from various countries around the world in the past few years – Sudan, Israel, Lebanon, etc – they’re good at that practical side of things. Obviously, they’re not going to have the power of a big member state to steer things like the budget. 

And there’s also this potential issue that if a majority of member states wants to push ahead and have Turkey as member of Security Action for Europe [Safe, Europe’s defence readiness programme], and if Cyprus is blocking it, that might be an issue as well.

RFI: The Cypriot foreign minister has said that Nicosia will not use the presidency to raise national issues. Do you believe that’s realistic, given that the Cyprus problem and the tensions with Turkey inevitably influence how EU partners see the island? 

FM: [Constantinos] Kombos, the foreign minister, wants to show that they are competent to run a presidency. It would only become a tension if there’s something really specific, like an open disagreement between Turkey and Cyprus and/or Greece during the presidency. 

RFI: Cyprus says it will not get in the way of EU-Turkey relations during its presidency. They even invited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to an informal Council meeting. How credible is that pledge, given the long record of mutual distrust? 

FM: Turkey’s not going to turn up in the government-controlled areas of the Republic of Cyprus. Not unless it’s allowed to come through the [Turkish-controlled] north, which won’t happen.

But there’s an improved atmosphere on the ground with the attempts to solve the Cyprus problem, because we now have a new Turkish Cypriot leader who’s more pro-solution than the last. But he’s not a pushover, he’s got his demands as well.

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

RFI: The EU Commission’s 2026 work programme talks about “Europe’s independence moment”, focusing on competitiveness, resilience and strategic autonomy. Where do you see the biggest gap between that rhetoric and economic reality on the ground in member states?

FM: I keep noticing, especially from abroad, in the UK or America, people saying, ‘oh, Europe is hopeless, Europe is finished.’ I’m not as depressed about the European economy as everyone else is. Spending a load of money on defence is going to boost the economy one way or the other.  

You’ve got a tension, because when you’ve got 27 member states that have to agree on difficult issues like defence, obviously, that is going to hold you back. But once you actually get that agreement, it’s much stronger than other places in the world where things can fall apart from one election to another.

EU Council president rejects political influence in US security plan

RFI: How much room does Cyprus really have as Council president to influence the EU’s approach to things like economic security, or rivalry with China, or de-risking supply chains, without sliding into protectionism? 

FM: It’s got one of the largest ship management sectors in the world, certainly in Europe. So, with regard to shipping, there might be things that Cyprus can bring to the table, especially together with Greece, because they’re a big shipping country as well.

At the same time, both Greece and Cyprus have received Chinese investment in various sectors. The Chinese own part of Greece’s port. And this also creates a bit of tension with Cyprus.

Meanwhile, in the past few years, Cyprus got very close to the US, [forming] lots of defence relationships with them. And that is going to cause tension is if we’re trying to create a European Union that’s essentially independent of the US. We have Cyprus leading the EU presidency, and the US is essentially building bases here. Going forward, this is going to be a tension for Cyprus.

At the same time, the French have are building defence operations here. [Cyprus and France last month signed a strategic declaration to upgrade the Mari Naval Base to facilitate the permanent presence of French warships in the Eastern Mediterranean.] So Cyprus is always going to be something in the middle.

RFI: The presidency coincides with the war in Ukraine, long-term funding for rebuilding if the war ever ends, and the next EU budget. What trade-offs do you expect between support for Ukraine and internal spending priorities or fiscal constraints in countries like Italy and France, and also Cyprus itself? 

FM: Cyprus has got a very strong fiscal position at the moment, so they’re not going to have a problem on that. But the inability to use the Russian reserves as money for Ukraine is a problem.

They’ve found an artful way of raising money to support Ukraine, with this essentially collective borrowing. [On 18 December, the EU Council said it would provide a €90 billion loan to Ukraine based on EU borrowing on the capital markets.] But if they’re going to have to keep doing that more, then that will raise tensions here within member states.

But for the moment I think they’ve found a way that they can get away with politically, in the sense that most ordinary voters are not going to notice that they’ve issued a bond for Ukraine. 

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

RFI: If this Cyprus presidency is a test of the EU’s ability to manage crises while keeping the door open to partners like Ukraine and Turkey, what will you be watching most closely between now and July? What would count for you as mission accomplished?

FM: For me, mission accomplished would be get Turkey into Safe, but I think that would be a very ambitious goal. Certainly, I think a more modest goal will be keep EU interest in supporting Ukraine. And to not have a complete blowout with Turkey, because Cyprus is the president. 

The fire broke out at around 1:30am local time Thursday at Le Constellation, a bar popular with young tourists.

About 40 people were killed and around 115 others injured, as many as 80 seriously.

Authorities declined to speculate on the cause, saying only that it was not an attack.

Swiss police warned it could take days or even weeks to identify everyone who died.

The bar, on the ground floor of a residential building, has a capacity of 300. Police said the exact number of people inside when the fire broke out remains unclear and did not specify how many people are still missing.

‘Are they OK?’: desperate search for the missing after Swiss fire

French assistance

Switzerland‘s President Guy Parmelin, who took over on Thursday, called the fire “a calamity of unprecedented, terrifying proportions”, and announced that flags would be flown at half mast for five days.

“Behind these figures are faces, names, families, lives brutally cut short, completely interrupted, or forever changed,” Parmelin said at a press conference.

“Given the international nature of the Crans resort, we can expect foreign nationals to be among the victims,” local police commander Frederic Gisler said.

The French foreign ministry – the Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères (Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs) – said nine French citizens were among the injured and eight others remained unaccounted for.

French President Emmanuel Macron spoke to Parmelin on Thursday to offer assistance.

France is preparing to take in eight more of the injured. “We have reserved 15 adult beds and four paediatric beds in French hospitals, so the capacity is there,” the foreign ministry told FranceInfo public media.

This is in addition to the three injured people who were transferred to French hospitals in Lyon and Paris on Thursday.

13 killed in bar fire in northern France

Ongoing investigation 

Swiss police have yet to establish what caused the blaze.

Several witness accounts broadcast by Swiss, French and Italian media pointed to sparklers mounted on champagne bottles and held aloft by staff as part of a regular show for customers who made special orders.

“There were waitresses with champagne bottles and little sparklers. They got too close to the ceiling, and suddenly it all caught fire,” Axel, a witness, told Italian outlet Local Team.

The canton’s chief prosecutor, Beatrice Pilloud, said investigators would examine whether the bar met safety standards and had the required number of exits.

Multiple sources told France’s AFP news agency that the bar owners are French nationals: a couple originally from Corsica who, according to a relative, are safe, but have been unreachable since the tragedy.

(with newswires)

From 1 January, France’s automatic “lifetime” state benefits – including official cars, drivers and permanent police protection – for former prime ministers and interior ministers have been discontinued, with 24 police officers and 24 drivers withdrawn from former office holders.

The move follows an announcement by Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu in mid-September 2025 that such automatic benefits would be replaced by fixed-term arrangements.

Under the new rules, former prime ministers will retain a state-funded car and driver for 10 years, while police protection will be limited to three years.

Former interior ministers will receive protection for two years, after which security will only be maintained if a specific threat is identified.

Former prime ministers – including Jean-Marc Ayrault, François Fillon and Jean-Pierre Raffarin – were reportedly notified of the change by a letter from the prime minister’s office.

The Interior Ministry stressed that the reform was not about stripping protection altogether, but about scaling it back to match genuine risk. The objective, it said, was to ensure “consistency, proportionality and good management of public resources”.

Lecornu has framed the decision as a matter of political credibility. In a message posted on social media when the reform was announced, he argued that leaders could not credibly demand sacrifices from the public while retaining privileges that no longer reflected the country’s reality.

Writing on X (formerly Twitter), he said: “While it is normal for the Republic to protect individuals who are subject to threats, it is not acceptable, on the other hand, for them to benefit from lifetime advantages due to a temporary status.”

Lecornu sworn in as prime minister as clashes erupt across France

A deepening divide

The decision comes against a backdrop of growing mistrust between French voters and the political class.

The Fractures françaises poll, a long-running annual survey that tracks social, political and cultural divides within French society, shows confidence in political institutions at persistently low levels, with many respondents saying elected leaders no longer understand their daily lives or concerns.

The 2025 edition of the study found a majority of respondents describing France as “in decline”, while trust in political parties and parliament ranked far below that placed in institutions such as hospitals or local authorities.

Calls for sweeping political change – including the dissolution of the National Assembly – featured prominently in responses in the poll, founded in 2013 by Ipsos and several French academic partners.

This scepticism has repeatedly spilled on to the streets. The autumn 2025 “Block Everything” protests, triggered by proposed budget cuts and rising living costs, drew comparisons with the Yellow Vest movement of 2018–19, which erupted over fuel taxes and broader concerns about social justice.

From deficit to deadlock: why France is borrowing €310bn without a budget

Political turmoil

Behind Lecornu’s reform lies a far tougher economic reality. France’s public debt remains above 110 percent of GDP, while efforts to pass a functioning budget in 2025 exposed deep divisions in parliament and led to months of political instability.

Two prime ministers fell in quick succession, as governments struggled to assemble majorities for spending cuts and tax measures demanded by Brussels.

Unions responded with waves of strikes across transport, education and the public sector, arguing that ordinary workers were being asked to shoulder the burden of fiscal consolidation while political elites appeared insulated from its effects.

In that context, ending lifetime perks carries more symbolic than financial weight. The savings involved are modest in the context of the state budget, but the gesture has been widely interpreted as an attempt to show that political leaders are no longer exempt from belt-tightening.

Joking about how he would manage without a chauffeur, former interior minister Daniel Vaillant told French daily La Dépêche that he had not driven himself for more than two decades.

A third of the non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council change hands each year – and from January 2026, Algeria, South Korea, Guyana, Sierra Leone and Slovenia will be replaced by Bahrain, Latvia, Colombia, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Elected in June 2025 as a non-permanent member for the 2026–2027 term, the DRC won 183 votes out of 187 at the UN headquarters in New York.

DRC‘s seat at the table coincides with Somalia’s rotating presidency and marks its third term on the council, following two mandates in 1982-83 and 1990-91.

“We will carry the voice of the DRC, but also that of Africa,” said the country’s foreign minister Thérèse Wagner.

Its return comes as Kinshasa described the security situation in the east of the country as a “war of aggression waged by Rwanda”.

The DRC authorities aim to keep the crisis high on the United Nations agenda and to secure the implementation of Resolution 2773, adopted in February 2025, which calls for the withdrawal of the AFC/M23 armed group and Rwandan forces.

Boys recount ‘torment’ at hands of armed rebels in DR Congo

DRC’s agenda

The non-permanent seat is a timely win for Congolese diplomacy. Kinshasa will sit alongside Liberia and Somalia, as part of the so-called African three or “A3” caucus.

In previous sessions, the A3 has acted as a swing bloc capable of bridging positions between permanent and elected members.

Since the conflict in eastern DRC broke out between the Congolese army and rebel forces in 2022, securing decisive action from the UN has “proved difficult for Kinshasa”,  a source close to the presidency said.

Rwanda and DR Congo begin complex peace process after signing US-brokered deal

By joining the “A3” group in its own right, Kinshasa now hopes to reverse that trend and “keep the Congolese issue on the Security Council’s agenda”, says Christian Moleka, coordinator of the DRC Political Scientists’ Network (Dypolrdc).

“There is currently a dynamic of mediation and conflict resolution in [DRC] that continues to attract international attention, even if other priorities are taking precedence, with tensions today in Venezuela and probably tensions in the Middle East,” he told RFI.

“The Congolese issue could disappear overnight, given the evolution of global security challenges. So for [DRC], the aim is to keep the Congolese agenda on the Security Council table so that Resolution 2773, which was adopted unanimously, can be implemented and allow a return to peace.”

On 1 January, Bulgaria became the 21st European Union country to adopt the single currency. The outgoing government of the Balkan nation of 6.4 million people presents the move as a milestone that should strengthen the economy and help curb corruption.

On the streets of the capital Sofia, however, optimism is mixed with unease. While some Bulgarians see the euro as a logical step in the country’s European integration, others worry about its impact on everyday life.

In a shop in central Sofia, women’s fashion designer Mirella Bratova told RFI adopting the euro will simplify her business.

“I have customers in the European Union, but also in the United States. Most of them shop online or in our stores here in Sofia, in the United Kingdom and in the Czech Republic. In our dealings with these customers, but also with our European suppliers, there will be fewer exchange rate-related expenses. Everything will be more straightforward,” she said.

A committed European, the 60-year-old sees the change as long overdue. For her, “the adoption of the euro is the final piece in the puzzle of Bulgaria’s integration into Europe”.

Europeans invited to pick theme for new, ‘more relatable’ euro banknotes

Nostalgia for the lev

Not everyone shares her enthusiasm. Georgi, a 47-year-old business owner who asked not to give his surname, regrets the abandonment of the lev, Bulgaria’s national currency.

“Our currency represents our national identity, our Bulgarian soul,” he said. “But everything was decided behind closed doors. The government decided to switch to the euro without consulting the nation. People are completely unprepared for this.”

His concerns also echo a broader unease. Like many Bulgarians, Georgi fears that the arrival of the euro will push prices higher. Economists note that food prices were already up 5 percent year on year in November, even before the changeover.

Eurozone rocked by record inflation as prices soar 10 percent

Between concern and optimism

At Sofia’s Zhenski Pazar – the capital’s oldest and usually liveliest market – the mood is subdued. Cold weather and grey skies add to the sense of uncertainty.

On the stalls, prices are displayed in both leva – the plural of lev – and euros. Trying to make sense of the figures, Mrs Dimitrova, 50, clutches a handful of crumpled lev notes and sighs: “We want to keep our national currency, the euro means poverty. Bulgaria has always had its own currency. That’s real money!”

Nearby, a chilli pepper seller looks on with raised eyebrows. “People aren’t used to it yet,” he says. “Sometimes they get confused because they think the cheaper price is in leva when it’s just been converted into euros. They mix everything up.”

He is adamant, however, that prices are climbing, particularly in supermarkets – and that the switch to the euro has only added to the pressure.

Others strike a more hopeful note. In her wine shop, 47-year-old merchant Anita Koleva remains confident despite the initial disruption. “The chaos will last for a while, that’s for sure,” she says. “But everything will be back to normal by February.”

For now, Bulgaria is in a transition period. For one month, the lev and the euro will circulate side by side, while prices will continue to be displayed in both currencies until next summer. 

---

This has been adapted from the original article in French by RFI’s Agnieszka Kumor in Sofia

The decision, announced on Thursday, requires the affected NGOs to cease their activities by 1 March.

Among those targeted are some of the most prominent humanitarian organisations working in Gaza, including Médecins Sans Frontières, Médecins du Monde, Handicap International, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam and World Vision International.

According to Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, the organisations failed to meet new “security and transparency standards”, particularly the requirement to provide full and verifiable information about their Palestinian staff.

“The primary failure identified was the refusal to provide complete and verifiable information regarding their employees, a critical requirement designed to prevent the infiltration of terrorist operatives into humanitarian structures,” the ministry said in a statement.

Minister Amichai Chikli insisted that “humanitarian assistance is welcome – the exploitation of humanitarian frameworks for terrorism is not”.

‘Post-apocalyptic wasteland’: aid worker describes enduring horror in Gaza

Rules on disclosure

The ban follows legislation passed by the Israeli parliament in March 2025 that overhauled the registration and visa process for international NGOs. Under the new rules, organisations were given 10 months to disclose details of their personnel, funding sources and operational structures. The deadline expired at midnight on 31 December.

Several humanitarian groups argue that the demands undermine their independence and could put staff at risk. Médecins Sans Frontières has said that it had not submitted a list of employees because it had not received sufficient “guarantees and clarifications” about how the information would be used.

The organisation said the request “may be in violation of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law” and stressed that it would “never knowingly employ people engaging in military activity”.

Israel, however, has accused MSF of employing two staff members who it says belonged to Hamas and Islamic Jihad – allegations the organisation strongly disputes.

Speaking to RFI, Jean-François Corty, president of Médecins du Monde, warned that the ban “jeopardises international humanitarian law” and risks setting a troubling precedent for aid operations worldwide.

International and domestic backlash

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk described the decision as “outrageous”, saying that “such arbitrary suspensions make an already intolerable situation even worse for the people of Gaza”. He urged states to press Israel to reverse course.

The head of UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, called the move a “dangerous precedent”. Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X: “Failing to push back against attempts to control the work of aid organisations will further undermine the basic humanitarian principles of neutrality, independence, impartiality and humanity underpinning aid work across the world.”

Opposition also emerged from within Israel. At least 17 Israeli left-wing organisations issued a joint statement condemning the ban, arguing that the new registration framework “violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality”. They warned that the “weaponisation of bureaucracy institutionalises barriers to aid, endangers staff and communities, and forces vital organisations to suspend operations”.

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

European officials have also raised concerns. In April, members of the European Parliament cautioned that the NGO registration law risked “hindering the delivery of humanitarian aid and social services to Palestinians”. European Commissioner Hadja Lahbib said on 31 December that “the EU has been clear: the NGO registration law cannot be applied in its current form”.

The controversy comes against the backdrop of a fragile ceasefire that has been in place since October, following the war triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

Conditions in Gaza remain dire, with UN figures suggesting that nearly 80 percent of buildings have been damaged or destroyed, while around 1.5 million of the territory’s more than two million residents have been displaced.

Earlier this week, the foreign ministers of 10 countries – including France and the United Kingdom – urged Israel to guarantee access to humanitarian aid, describing the situation in Gaza as “catastrophic”.

(with newswires)

With Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer increasingly under pressure over the issue, his Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has proposed a drastic reduction in protections for refugees and the ending of automatic benefits for asylum seekers.

Home Office data showed that a total of 41,472 migrants landed on England’s southern coast in 2025 after making the Channel crossing from northern France.

The record of 45,774 arrivals was reached in 2022 under the last Conservative government.

Former Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak vowed to “stop the boats” when he was in power. Ousted by Starmer in July 2024, he later said he regretted the slogan because it was too “binary” and lacked sufficient context “for exactly how challenging” the goal was.

Adopting his own “smash the gangs” slogan, Starmer pledged to tackle the problem by dismantling the people-smuggling networks running the crossings, but has so far had no more success than his predecessor.

Surge in Channel crossings puts UK-France migrant deal under pressure

‘Landmark’ French deal

Mahmood has said irregular migration is “tearing our country apart”.

In early December, an interior ministry spokesperson called the number of small boat crossings “shameful” and said Mahmood’s “sweeping reforms” would remove the incentives driving the arrivals.

A returns deal with France had so far resulted in 153 people being removed from the UK to France and 134 being brought to the UK from France, border security and asylum minister Alex Norris said.

“Our landmark one-in, one-out scheme means we can now send those who arrive on small boats back to France,” he said.

Signed in July, it entered into force on 12 August but has been criticised by human rights groups and politicians in France.

Guy Allemand, mayor of Sangatte near Calais, told RFI the deal was “purely political” and “hypocritical”.

In October, 17 NGOs filed a complaint with France’s highest administrative court calling for the annulment of the scheme, arguing that its principles were inhumane.

French aid groups complain of harassment by British anti-immigration vigilantes

The groups also argued that the agreement should have been submitted to Parliament for ratification prior to publication.

But at the end of December, the court threw out the complaint and said the agreement should stand. 

The past year has seen multiple protests in the UK over the housing of migrants in hotels and other issues. Amid growing anti-immigrant sentiment, in September up to 150,000 massed in central London for one of the country’s largest ever far-right protests.

Asylum claims in the UK are at a record high, with around 111,000 applications made in the year to June 2025, according to official figures as of mid-November.

(with AFP)

The initiative is backed by President Emmanuel Macron, who said in his end-of-year address on Wednesday that there was a need to “protect our children and teenagers from social networks and screens.”

Earlier this month, Macron said parliament would begin debating the proposal in January.

“Many studies and reports now confirm the various risks caused by excessive use of digital screens by adolescents,” the draft law says.

Children with unrestricted online access can be exposed to “inappropriate content” and may face cyber-harassment or changes to their sleep patterns, the government said.

Macron mulls social media ban as mother challenges platforms over son’s suicide

Digital protection

The draft law has two articles. One would make illegal “the provision by an online platform of an online social media service to a minor under 15.” The second calls for a ban on mobile phone use in secondary schools.

Macron has said protecting minors online is a priority for his government, but enforcement and compliance with international law have raised problems in the past.

France breached European Union rules with a law setting a “digital legal age” of 15 passed in 2023, which has since been blocked.

An ban on mobile phone use in pre-schools and middle-schools came into force in 2018, but is rarely enforced.

In September 2024, some middle schools across France trialled a “digital pause,” banning mobile phone use for the entire school day rather than simply requiring phones to be switched off.

The Senate, France’s upper house, this month backed a separate initiative to protect teenagers from excessive screen time and social media use. It includes a requirement for parental authorisation for children aged 13 to 16 to register on social media platforms.

The Senate proposal has been submitted to the National Assembly, which would need to approve the text before it can become law.

France struggles to decide what place screens should have in schools

Harmful content

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

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

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

Last month, Australia became the first country to ban under-16s from social media entirely, saying it was time to “take back control” from powerful technology companies, a move criticised by YouTube, Meta and other industry groups.

(with AFP)

“The laposte.fr website and all of La Poste’s information systems are currently facing a cyber attack,” a message on the postal service’s homepage stated on Thursday.

The website and app of La Banque Postale, the post office’s banking arm, were also largely inaccessible.

The previous denial-of-service attack, which involves overloading servers to prevent or slow down access to an online service, was claimed by a pro-Russian hacker group NoName057(16).

Its duration was unusually long for this type of attack: it began on 22 December, and disruptions continued until 26 December. It severely disrupted customer tracking of parcels, but delivery proceeded normally.

La Poste filed a complaint and asserted that no data had been stolen, as a denial-of-service attack is not considered an intrusion into information systems.

French police arrest suspect over interior ministry cyber attack

Pro-Russian hacktivists

The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation, which has been entrusted to the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) and the national cyber unit. It confirmed that NoName057(16) had claimed responsibility for the attack.

The hacker group emerged in 2022, the year that Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. 

It has previously targeted Ukrainian media websites and government and corporate websites in countries including Poland, Sweden and Germany.

Experts say that its activities appear to be designed to support pro-Russian information warfare. They say the group appears to be a loose organisation of hacktivists.

When contacted by French news agency AFP, La Poste was not immediately available for comment.

(with AFP)

Minimum wage and pensions

The gross monthly minimum wage for full-time work will rise by 1.18 percent on 1 January – up from €1,801.80 to €1,823.03. A full-time employee on the minimum wage will earn just under €17 net more per month. The increase is mechanical and partly linked to inflation.

The salary of around 356,000 civil servants – out of France’s 5.8 million public-sector employees – will be slightly adjusted to prevent them from falling below the minimum wage, according to the Ministry for Public Accounts. Their minimum pay, previously set at €1,801.74 gross, will rise by €21.23 through a “differential allowance”, paid as a bonus rather than through an increase in basic salary.

Basic state pensions and minimum benefits will also rise by 0.9 percent, due to the implementation of the social security part of the 2026 budget that was voted through parliament. 

Ban on ‘forever chemicals’

The manufacture, import and sale of a range of products containing PFAS (“forever chemicals”) will be banned from 1 January. The list includes cosmetics, ski waxes, most clothing and shoes, and their waterproofing products, except specific protective gear.

France cracks down on ‘forever chemicals’ in cosmetics, clothing

Birth leave

Parents of babies born or adopted from 1 January onwards will be eligible for up to two months of birth leave provided for in the social security budget. However, the scheme will only take effect from 1 July.

The new leave supplements existing maternity leave (16 weeks) and paternity leave (28 days), while parental leave will remain in place. Birth leave will last for one or two months, at the employee’s discretion, and may be split into two one-month periods. The level of compensation will be set by decree, but during parliamentary debates, the government said it should be 70 percent of net salary for the first month and 60 percent for the second.

Health insurance

The cost of supplementary health insurance – known as a mutuelle – could increase after the government passed a special 2.05 percent “health tax” on insurance companies.

The French Mutual Insurance Federation has already announced that mutuelle insurance rates are set to increase by an average 4.7 percent for group contracts, and 4.3 percent for individual deals in 2026.

Sick leave 

Conditions for accessing sick leave will become stricter from 1 January, with doctors able to issue sick notes for a maximum of one month in the first instance. In the event of a renewal, the maximum period is set at two months. 

Civics exams 

Foreign nationals applying for a multi-year residence permit, a long-term residence card or French nationality will have to pass a written civics test, consisting of 40 multiple choice questions to be answered in 45 minutes. Candidates must score at least 32. The exam is designed to assess knowledge of the Republic’s principles and values, as well as the rights and duties of people living in France.

George and Amal Clooney granted French citizenship along with children

Fuel prices

While the price per kilowatt-hour will fall slightly, the annual gas standing charge will increase by €13.10 in 2026, according to the Energy Regulatory Commission. 

Arenh – the system requiring state energy company EDF to sell around a quarter of its nuclear output to competitors at a fixed, low price – ended on 31 December, 2025. It has been replaced by a new mechanism allowing EDF to sell more of its production at market prices, within set limits.

This could mean higher fuel bills for customers not on regulated tariffs, but the government says it expects electricity prices to remain “stable at least in 2026 and 2027”.

Housing renovation grant suspended

The application portal for the MaPrimeRénov’ housing renovation grant has been suspended, due to the absence of a budget for 2026. The special law passed in lieu of a full finance law allows the state’s operations to continue, but “blocks any non-contractual spending”, the Housing Minister Vincent Jeanbrun said.

France unveils its first ‘positive energy’ neighbourhood, powering local pride

Stamps  

Postage prices for letters and parcels will rise by an average of 7.4 percent. The economy rate stamp goes up to €1.52 from €1.39. The red e-letter, used for urgent next-day deliveries, will go from €1.49 to €1.60. A 20g registered letter will cost €6.11, up from €5.74. Prices for Colissimo parcels sent by private individuals will increase by an average of 3.4 percent.

La Poste justifies the increases “to ensure the sustainability of the universal postal service with a high level of quality”, as the steady decline in letter volumes continues to eat into revenue.

Gifts between individuals

Online declaration of cash gifts and valuable donations to relatives becomes compulsory for taxpayers. Only “significant” gifts are concerned, including cash gifts of several thousand euros, valuables and shares.

Roadworthiness tests tightened 

Mandatory roadworthiness tests (contrôle technique) become stricter, including automatic re-inspection rules for vehicles equipped with Takata airbags, following difficulties encountered with these during recall campaigns.

Around 1.3 million vehicles affected are still in circulation. Similar procedures already apply to the most serious defects, such as the absence of braking systems or rearview mirrors.

Pink car plates 

Vehicles awaiting final registration and those registered abroad pending French registration (WW), along with vehicles used by professionals for road testing (W), will have to display plates with a pink background as of 1 January. 

The aim is to make these vehicles easier to identify and monitor. The new plates will display the month and year of expiry instead of the regional identifier and department number.

Reimbursement of drink-spiking tests

Medical tests to detect drink spiking will be reimbursed by the health insurance system, even without a prior complaint. A doctor’s prescription will still be required. If a test is positive, a dedicated “patient pathway” will allow a complaint to be lodged.

Tested in three regions – Île-de-France, Hauts-de-France and Pays de la Loire – an evaluation report will determine whether the scheme should be rolled out nationwide.

Senior French civil servant accused of mass drinks spiking to humiliate women

Energy performance rules revised 

The calculation method for the energy performance certificate (EPC) is being revised in favour of small, electrically heated properties. These were previously penalised compared with homes fitted with gas boilers. According to the government, the reform should allow 700,000 of the 5.4 million homes currently rated F or G to exit the category of energy sieves.

Homeowners will not need a new inspection to benefit from the change. An attestation can be downloaded directly from the Ademe website.

Cigarette prices 

A €0.10 to €0.50 increase per pack of 20 cigarettes is planned for 1 January, depending on the brand. The average price per pack will therefore rise to between €12.50 and €13. While a national anti-smoking programme had planned for a minimum pack price of €13 during 2026, this threshold is now expected to be reached in 2027.

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

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

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

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

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

Hello everyone!

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

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

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

Send your essays to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

Or by postal mail, to:

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Here’s Rashid Naz’s essay:

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Turkey and Iran unite against Israel as regional power dynamics shift

Israeli objections

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Turkey’s position

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

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

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

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

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

Regional doubts

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

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

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

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

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

Hello everyone! Merry Christmas!

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

Christmas on the Border, 1929

1929, the early days of the Great Depression.

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

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

They would host a grand Christmas party

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

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

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

A pine in the desert.

Its branches, they promised, would be adorned

With over 3,000 gifts. 3,000.

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

With candles, but it was already a little dry.

Needles were beginning to contemplate jumping.

A finger along a branch made them all fall off.

People brought candles anyway. The church sent over

Some used ones, too. The grocery store sent

Some paper bags, which settled things.

Everyone knew what to do.

They filled the bags with sand from the fire station,

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

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

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

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

Made of everything, walnuts and small gourds and flowers,

Chilies, too—the chilies themselves looking

A little like flames.

The townspeople strung them all over the beast—

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

This curious donkey whose burden was joy.

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

Children from nearby communities were invited, and so were those

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

But there was a problem. The border.

As the festive day approached, it became painfully clear—

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

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

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

Collaborated with Mexican authorities on the other side.

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

On Christmas Eve, 1929,

For a few transcendent hours,

The border moved.

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

The Christmas tree within reach of children from both towns.

On Christmas Day, thousands of children—

American and Mexican, Indigenous and orphaned—

Gathered around the tree, hands outstretched,

Eyes wide, with shouting and singing both.

Gifts were passed out, candy canes were licked,

And for one day, there was no border.

When the last present had been handed out,

When the last child returned home,

The border resumed its usual place,

Separating the two towns once again.

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

The only thing that mattered was Christmas.

Newspapers reported no incidents that day, nothing beyond

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

Milling people on both sides,

The music of so many peppermint candies being unwrapped.

On that chilly December day, the people of Nogales

Gathered and did what seemed impossible:

However quietly regarding the outside world,

They simply redrew the border.

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

Episode mixed by Cecile Pompeani.

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

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.

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.