Re-elected in September with more than 84 percent of the vote, Tebboune used his first televised interview with Algerian media to admonish France.

“I will not go to Canossa” he replied when asked if a long-awaited trip to Paris was on the cards.

The German expression “to walk to Canossa” has come to mean humbling oneself and asking an enemy for forgiveness.

Its roots can be found in an 11th-century power struggle between the pope and King Henry IV of Germany. Having been ex-communicated by the pope in 1076, the king was forced to go and beg the pope for forgiveness in Canossa, northern Italy.

Tebboune’s visit has been postponed several times and the most recent date was scheduled for late September or early October.

But given increasingly tense relations between the two countries, Algiers views an official visit to France as a potentially humiliating experience.

Algeria president re-elected with 84.3 percent of vote: official results

Accusations of genocide

Just a few months ago, Tebboune held largely positive talks with President Macron on the margins of the G7 meeting in Italy.

According to the France’s Elysée palace, the two leaders discussed how to continue implementing the bilateral Declaration of Algiers signed in August 2022, praising progress made by a joint commission of historians created to reconcile colonial difficulties.

But relations nose-dived in July after Macron sent a letter to King Mohammed VI of Morocco voicing support for the Kingdom’s autonomy plan in the disputed territory of Western Sahara.

Algeria withdrew its ambassador to Paris in protest over what was seen as a shift in France’s policy away from Algeria.

France reiterates its support for Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara

Saturday’s interview provided an opportunity to voice other ongoing grievances against France, which ruled over Algeria from 1830 to 1962.

Tebboune reiterated long-standing Algerian demands that France recognise the massacres committed during French colonialism, accusing France of committing “genocide”.

The population of Algeria, Tebboune said, had been four million in 1830; 130 years later it had only doubled, at around nine million. “There was a genocide,” he stated.

While the commission of Algerian and French historians, who met in Alger in May this year for the fifth time, had intitially made progress, their joint work has since stalled.

Tebboune blamed “political declarations made a French minority that harbours hatred towards Algeria” for blocking the work.

France called to fully recognise use of torture during Algerian war

1968 accords

Algeria’s leader also tackled controversy surrounding a Franco-Algerian agreement that makes it easier for Algerian nationals to immigrate to France.

Signed in 1968, at a time when France needed workers for its economy, it grants Algerians special status in relation to rights of movement, residence and employment – allowing them to set up businesses as traders or self-employed professionals through “residence certificates” rather than residence permits.

The documents are generally quicker to obtain than for nationals of other countries. 

Last year the rightwing Republicans, backed by the far-right, anti-immigration National Rally (RN), tabled a motion calling for the termination of the agreement. In December, the French parliament rejected the proposal by 151 votes to 114.  

Tebboune said the agreement had become a “banner behind which an army of right-wing extremists” were marching.

RN – which historically has close ties to former French colonials in Algeria – has increased its clout since this summer’s snap parliamentary elections made it the largest political party in the National Assembly.

As a result, France’s new government has swung to the right, and left-wing politicians and some observers insist it is now dependent on RN support for its survival. 

Nuclear testing

Tebboune also raised the issue of the 17 nuclear tests France carried out in the Algerian Sahara between 1960 and 1966.

Documents declassified in 2013 revealed ongoing significant radioactive fallout, stretching from West Africa to southern Europe.

“France’s responsibility for the nuclear tests … still claim lives in southern Algeria,” Tebboune said.

“You want us to be friends, come and clean up the nuclear test sites.”

Beyond the issue of French-Algerian relations, he spoke about the Brics organisation – an alliance of major developing countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – designed to challenge the political and economic power of wealthier North America and Western Europe.

“For the moment, we do not plan to join this organisation,” Tebboune noted. “Our interest lies in joining the Brics Bank, which is just as important as the World Bank.”

“We all acknowledge the difficulties, but we are already discussing at a technical level with the French authorities, with the new government, about the draft budget and especially about the fiscal mid-term plan,” Gentiloni told reporters in Luxembourg.

Earlier, Armand vowed that France’s budget for 2025 would be “fully” be in line with the European Union’s new spending rules.

The new minister will present the national budget on Thursday, which Paris hopes will tackle France’s “colossal” debt through spending cuts and new taxes.

“We have prepared a budget to strengthen the country’s financial and national sovereignty,” Armand said during a media briefing, adding that respecting EU rules is “a question of international credibility”.

Brussels has already rebuked France for breaking budget rules, placing the country in a formal procedure in July because its deficit is above 3 percent.

France has ‘one of the worst deficits’ in its history, minister says

Credibility

France must submit a plan to reduce its public deficit, but Paris obtained a delay after a new government had to be appointed following snap elections.

France is looking to improve its financial situation by some €60 billion in 2025 in the hope of bringing the public sector deficit to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) from an estimated 6.1 percent this year.

Armand was bullish about France’s push to reduce the deficit below EU rules.

“Our objective is to bring our deficit below the three percent mark by 2029,” he said, which is two years longer than his predecessor Bruno Le Maire’s promise earlier in 2024.

France targets the rich with temporary tax hikes to bring down debt

He reiterated France’s determination to get the deficit down to 5 percent next year.

“The prime minister has given me an extremely clear mandate: to defend French and European interests in the world in economic and financial matters,” Armand said.

Germany on Monday warned EU countries “not to joke” around with financial markets over “the credibility of public finances”, days before France is due to present its national budget for 2025.

“We must credibly reduce our deficit and our debt in order to be able to finance ourselves in an adequate and stable manner,” German Finance Minister Christian Lindner told reporters.

(with AFP)

“The pain remains, as vivid as it was a year ago,” President Emmanuel Macron posted on social media on Monday in English, French and Hebrew.

“The pain of the Israeli people. Ours. The pain of wounded humanity. We do not forget the victims, the hostages, or the families with broken hearts from absence or waiting. I send them our fraternal thoughts”.

Macron hosted the families of hostages and victims of the Hamas attack in Israel on Monday at the Elysée palace.

More than 40 French nationals were among the 1205 victims.

Some 4,000 people have been invited to the Paris Dôme for a ceremony on Monday evening “in tribute to the victims” and “in support of the hostages still held captive”, where videos and photos of hostages will be broadcast.

French Prime minister Michel Barnier and several members of the government will attending the event, organised by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (Crif).

Visit to Israel

The commemorations in France, Israel and around the world come with Israel still fighting in Gaza and engaged in a new war to the north in Lebanon against Hamas ally Hezbollah.

It is also preparing its retaliation against Iran over its missile attack last week, raising fears of all-out regional war.

France’s Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noël Barrot attended a ceremony for victims of the Hamas attack in Israel on Monday, assuring France’s “unwavering” support.

“Today, France mourns alongside Israel, our compatriots. France will never stop demanding the unconditional release of the hostages,” he told those gathered in Reim, in southern Israel.

Of the 251 hostages seized by militants 7 October 7, 117 have been freed, most of them women, children and foreign workers.

Israel believes 63 people, including two children, are still alive, while 34 are confirmed dead but remain in Gaza.

“To our some 180,000 compatriots in Israel, I say it forcefully, France loves you, the Republic will always be at your side as it was in the first hours of this terrible ordeal,” he added. 

Barrot met his Israeli counterpart Israel Katz, and will head to Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority later this Monday.

His comments came on the heels of his regional tour of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan over the weekend.

This visit however takes place in a particularly tense context, after Macron called for a halt to deliveries to Israel of weapons used in Gaza on Saturday, provoking the anger of the Israeli Prime Minister, who denounced the move as “shameful”.

“I think that today, the priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop supplying weapons to lead the fighting in Gaza,” Macron said on France Inter.

France’s Macron urges halt to arms exports destined for Israel’s use in Gaza

Meanwhile, spokespeople from Jewish and Muslim communities in France called for their followers to show compassion.

For Francis Barokel, president of the Jewish consistory of Bordeaux, “this is not an event that will only be remembered for a few days or a few years, it is an event that we will still think of in 100 years, in 200 years, in 300 years,” he told France Bleu radio.

Barokel added that he thought most Jews were unhappy about what is happening in Gaza and what is happening in Lebanon.

“Let’s not believe that we don’t care about the people in Gaza and Beirut. When we think about it, they have the same suffering, they have the same fears, they have the same anxieties and we say to ourselves that it could be so much better otherwise, so much better.”

Some members of the French Muslim community also reacted in solidarity, expressing compassion for their Jewish counterparts, like the Imam of Bordeaux, Tareq Oubrou. 

He compared 7 October to 11 September and the attacks in the United States.

‘Emotion must not obscure reason’

“It is an event that will mark History. We see it today through the consequences of this terrorist act committed by Hamas,” he told France Bleu.

He condemned the “terrorist act” perpetrated by an organisation that “claims to be Islamic” and deplored attacks on civilians.

“Neither divine law nor human law permits such crimes,” he added, urging people “not to import the conflict here to France”.

“Our two respective communities, Jewish and Muslim, must transcend this divide and build peace already here in France. We are in a moment of great emotion, but emotion must not obscure reason”, he warned. 

“We are for peace and unfortunately there are fanatics,” Michel Tordjman, father of a hostage killed on 7 October, at the age of 26, told French radio France Bleu on Monday, from Israel, where the former Bordeaux-based doctor settled after retiring.

Avidan Tordjman was participating in the open-air techno music festival targeted by Hamas, as a volunteer.  

“I am for cohabitation, I am a trainer of doctors, we have Arab doctors in our medicine department. We are not trying to kill our neighbours. We are trying to raise our children and our grandchildren.”

Gerald Steinberg, founder and president of NGO Monitor, shared his thoughts on how the conflict has deeply changed Israeli society.

NGO Monitor is a think tank that scrutinizes critical reports on Israel from groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and France’s FIDH.

Steinberg is also an emeritus professor at Bar Ilan University.

Hamas attack, one year on – a view from Gaza

RFI: How did the 7 October attacks change Israel?

Gerald Steinberg: Most Israelis will agree that this was the most significant event since the 1973 war and even since the founding of the state in 1948. 

The number of people that were killed, the failure of the entire security system to prevent or limit these attacks were very much of a shock to almost every Israeli. The results of that continue to echo. Once the war is over there will be many investigations and attempts to understand and prevent this from happening again.

RFI: What impact did the hostage crisis have on public opinion?

Gerald Steinberg: Over 300 hostages were taken by Hamas – many of them children, women, and elderly people, including Holocaust survivors.

Every Israeli identifies with them. The hostages were used by Hamas to protect their fighters and leadership. They wanted to use these hostages to force Israel to end its response against the Hamas terrorist structure in Gaza. So that led to strong divisions.

There are two main perspectives in Israel. Some, including most of the hostage families, believe Israel should do whatever it takes to get the hostages back, even if it means agreeing to a ceasefire and allowing Hamas to survive. Others argue the government must keep fighting, saying if we give in, it makes us vulnerable to another 7 October.

World reacts to surprise attack by Hamas on Israel

RFI: There have been lots of protests inside Israel over the way the government has handled things. How has the war affected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political future?

Gerald Steinberg: Everything depends on the results of this war, and that includes the survival of the hostages and the ability to return them.

Netanyahu was initially widely blamed for a lack of preparation, for a failure to deploy troops. His Gaza policies were thought to have been the reason why Israel was so badly surprised. But since then, Netanyahu has emerged as a strong leader.

Many people, including myself, did not expect Netanyahu to be prime minister a year later. Many of the military officials at lower or mid-levels have resigned, and accepted responsibility. Others have said they’re going to leave soon.

But Netanyahu has continued to run the government be responsible for setting strategy on all these issues. And as long as the Israeli military appears successful against Hamas and now Hezbollah, Netanyahu is seen to be an important leader. 

RFI: Israel’s military operations have led to civilian casualties in Gaza, raising accusations of war crimes, genocide, and ethnic cleansing by international institutions like the International Criminal Court (ICC,) the International Court of Justice (ICJ,) and the United Nations. How is Israel responding to international criticism?

Gerald Steinberg: Most Israelis reject the criticism as part of a political war. The Israelis are very aware of the actions of the United Nations, of the NGO industry like Amnesty International, the FIDH, Human Rights Watch, the ICC and other frameworks. 

Israelis dismiss this as a form of hatred, propaganda and anti-Semitism. 

At some point, Israelis will have to deal with the responses, with the cost, arms embargoes and arrest warrants of leaders. But as long as the war is going on, those are secondary issues. They have really no impact.

Israel vows ‘mighty vengeance’ after Hamas surprise attack

What matters most is the support from our allies, especially the United States. Israelis heard President Biden’s speech in the United Nations and very much saw full support for Israel’s right to defend its citizens and to oppose the kind of vicious and brutal terror atrocities we saw on 7 October.

Statements from European leaders that emphasize primarily Palestinian victimhood are rejected by Israelis as entirely unacceptable and based on very cynical domestic politics because of the Muslim populations of those countries. 

Europe is discounted as completely irrelevant.

RFI: How do you see Gaza after the war?

Gerald Steinberg: It’s very difficult for most Israelis to imagine what might happen after the war. It’s been a year and we have not yet come up with any kind of pragmatic political framework for post-war control of Gaza, for the society, for rebuilding in Gaza.

What we do talk about a lot is deradicalisation, and ending what has for 76 years been the dominant Palestinian view that Israel can be erased, that they can return to the pre-1948 image of Palestine as being an Arab and Muslim-dominated society.

That’s an important part of any kind of rebuilding. How do you prevent Hamas from, or other groups – the PLO, ISIS – from rebuilding a terror infrastructure even further than what Hamas was able to do? 

Israel doesn’t want to occupy Gaza. But there is no international force that is considered to be credible. So this is all going to have to be worked out piece by piece, slowly. There is no one accepted formula for how Gaza will be governed after the war ends.

Some of the Hamas leadership may survive. Some of the terror groups may continue. There’s been talk of guerrilla fighting, which could emerge after the main forces of Hamas are defeated.

There are too many points of uncertainty to be able to predict what thing will look like six months or a year from now.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity

For most Palestinians, the 7 October attacks, and Israel’s response, fit a decades-old pattern dominating their struggle for self-determination amidst ongoing Israeli blockades and military actions.

RFI spoke to Diana Buttu, a lawyer and former negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), about what the events of the past year mean for Palestinians – and what happens next.

Hamas attack, one year on – a view from Israel

RFI: What did the 7 October attacks by Hamas change for Palestinians?

Diana Buttu: Up until 7 October, Palestinians were going through a period of a very slow but systematic genocide. Since 7 October, it’s still a genocide. It’s just faster paced.

Nothing that was done on 7 October justifies this genocide. We are in a place and space where we should be looking at the perpetrator and ask whether this makes sense for them in the long term to continually live by the sword rather than understand that Palestinians deserve their freedom.

RFI: Did Hamas miscalculate when they launched the 7 October attack, given the relentless counter-assault by the Israeli Defense Forces that remains ongoing as we speak?

Diana Buttu: I don’t think that they had a choice. No matter what Palestinians do, with the exception of remaining silent and accepting their fate of living in cages, it would have led to Israel doing what it’s doing.

I look back over the course of the past 24 years, and with each and every passing year, for Palestinians, life was getting worse and worse. And Israel was able to get away with more and more.

RFI: How do you see a leadership emerging from the ranks of Palestinian politicians whenever this war is finally over?

Diana Buttu: Intellectually speaking, this happens through elections. We have plenty of leaders. Some of them are in prison, some of them are in civil society. Leaders will be chosen through elections and through actions on the ground.

But realistically, I say: let’s look around and what has Israel done? It’s assassinated leaders, whether those leaders are people who are in Fatah or in Hamas or in any of the political factions. There isn’t one political faction where they haven’t harmed or assassinated people.

So the real question is not how a leader will be chosen, but whether the world is going to allow for there to be a leader in the first place, because Israel has been able to get away with assassinating people or imprisoning them.

Turkey joins South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at ICJ

RFI: What role do international mediators like the US, the EU, the UN or Arab states have in stabilising this situation? Do you see a productive way forward?

Diana Buttu: The past decades show a lack of global leadership. In climate or political conflicts or wherever, we’ve yet to see a global leader who is able to stand up and have a backbone. Instead, they play these little games of manoeuvring back and forth.

It took weeks before the UN secretary general called for a ceasefire. It took months before any of the global leadership called for a ceasefire. The US vetoed the first attempt to have a ceasefire resolution. We could have spared thousands of lives if they hadn’t vetoed it.

We are speaking at a time that is particularly sad and fragile for me, because just two days ago a friend of mine was killed. She’s a journalist. Two daughters, a son, and she didn’t need to die.

I’ve been looking over my diary over the course of the past year and just seeing place after place after place where there was a failed international community. Where my friends were killed, where they lost their houses. Where they were turned into refugees again.

And I just shake my head and say: really, nobody could come in? Nobody could stop this? It’s just hitting me hard.

RFI: Much of public opinion in the West gradually changed from pro-Israel in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s to more pro-Palestinian today. But this is not reflected in UN votes, where the US still supports Israel and most Western states abstain. How can Palestinians leverage this shift in opinion nonetheless?

Diana Buttu: When you look at what happened with the global anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, one of the things that was really important was that the last country to stop supporting Apartheid South Africa was the United States. There was a global anti-Apartheid movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions. The same is already taking shape in Palestine.

It is not the same as in South Africa in in that the Zionist movement is certainly more entrenched, it’s larger than the Apartheid movement was. But I still think that world public opinion is going to change things. 

South Africa takes Israel to international court for ‘genocidal’ acts in Gaza

RFI: How do you see Gaza after the war?

Diana Buttu: I don’t think there’s going to be an “after”. This is going to continue for quite some time. Hospitals have been bombed, teachers have been killed. Where are you going to send your child to school? Outside of Gaza. You want to have a job as an artist, a lawyer, you name it, that’s not going to be possible in Gaza. So you’re going to do it outside of Gaza.

[Israel’s] plan has always been to make Gaza unliveable. Since 1948, they lived by the sword. And that will remain so until an Israeli Charles de Gaulle steps forward and says, enough is enough. But I don’t think that they have any idea in mind other than them continuing to rule over our lives.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity

“We are prepared with increased forces in anticipation for this day,” Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told a televised briefing over the weekend, warning there could be “attacks on the home front”.

At least one person was killed and several others wounded in a shooting in southern Israel on Sunday, which police said they were treating as a suspected terrorist attack.

The Israeli military said it had deployed extra troops to protect southern communities and areas bordering Gaza over the coming days.

Israel also stepped up its air strikes on Lebanese capital Beirut in the days leading up to Monday’s anniversary and signalled it was preparing to respond to last week’s missile attack by Iran – drawing fresh threats from Tehran and prompting fears that the year-old conflict is about to enter a new and even more dangerous phase.

A bloody year

The surprise attacks that Hamas launched on 7 October 2023 killed more than 1,200 Israelis and set off a war that has shattered the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has so far killed nearly 42,000 people in the Hamas-controlled territory, according to the Gazan health ministry.

Swathes of Gaza have been reduced to rubble, and nearly all of its 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in the past year, half of them in the past week alone. The Lebanese government estimates that around 1.2 million people have been displaced, including hundreds of thousands who have fled to Syria.

Israel says over 60,000 people have been displaced since Hamas ally Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel from Lebanon, while around 350 of its soldiers have been killed since the start of its ground offensive in Gaza in late October 2023.

It lost 1,205 people in the Hamas attack that month, most of them civilians. Of 251 Israeli hostages seized on 7 October, nearly 100 remain in Gaza, with fewer than 70 believed to be alive.

Unhealed wounds

Several events are planned in Israel to commemorate the deadly assault, including a memorial service in the south led by President Isaac Herzog and a televised tribute.

“Our wounds still cannot fully heal because they are ongoing. Because hostages are still being tortured, executed, and dying in captivity,” Herzog said in a statement issued on Saturday.

“Because they and their families are still living in the loss and the terror of 7 October right at these very moments… In many senses, we are all still living the aftermath of 7 October.”

Several of the bereaved are planning a rival event in Tel Aviv to demand action to secure the release of remaining hostages and draw attention to the state’s failures.

Some of the kibbutz communities that lost members in the attacks also said they would boycott the official ceremonies in favour of private memorials.

Global protests

In France, President Emmanuel Macron and Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot plan to meet families of French-Israeli victims on Monday.

Paris and other French cities saw protests over the weekend in support of Palestinians, alongside others in London, Rome, Istanbul, Jakarta, New York, Caracas, Cape Town and elsewhere.

Demonstrations are expected to continue on Monday.

Security forces in several countries warned of heightened levels of alert in major cities, amid concerns that protests could turn violent or the escalating conflict in the Middle East could inspire new terror attacks.

Earlier this week, France’s Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau warned regional prefects about possible tensions, saying that the terrorist threat was high.

(with newswires)

The port city on the Mediterranean coast is witnessing a turf war for control of the highly profitable drug market between various gangs including the so-called DZ Mafia and Yoda.

The problem was once again in the public eye Sunday, as Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone told reporters that the victims and perpetrators of such violence were getting increasingly younger.

A 15-year-old was murdered on Wednesday in a case Bessone described as one of “unprecedented savagery”, then on Friday, a 36-year-old football player, Nessim Ramdane, was shot and killed “in cold blood” by a 14-year-old in a case linked to Wednesday’s murder.

The two latest cases show that the number of drug-related killings in Marseille has risen to 17 since the start of the year.

Shot in the head 

The 15-year-old teenager was spotted by members of a rival gang who searched him and discovered that he was carrying a gun. To punish him, they repeatedly stabbed him, then set him on fire.

“He was stabbed 50 times and taken to the Fonscolombes housing estate, where, according to the autopsy, he was burned alive,” said Bessone.

The drug dealers turned to social media to recruit a 14-year-old minor to carry out a revenge attack and kill a member of the Blacks gang, promising to pay him €50,000.

This 14-year-old then hired football player Ramdane, who also worked as a private-hire driver to support his family, the prosecutor said.

Is talk of ‘rising’ youth violence in France a reality or a political tool?

The minor, accompanied by a friend, asked the driver “to drop them off and wait for them”, but he apparently “didn’t comply”, Bessone said.

The teenager then “shot him in the back of the head”, he added.

The minor was taken into custody and admitted shooting the driver, but insisted that the shot had “gone off accidentally”. He has been placed in detention in a regional prison for minors.

Marseille’s drug lords have been increasingly recruiting foot soldiers with ads on social media, “outsourcing” street dealing to youngsters known as “jobbeurs”.

Bessone said on Sunday that young boys were responding to ads not only to sell cannabis resin but also to kill “without any remorse or reflection”.

Ongoing tragedies

In September, Franck Rastoul, public prosecutor at the Aix-en-Provence court of appeal, warned of the scourge of drug-related violence.

“It is imperative that we fully understand the ravages of drug trafficking, which undermines the very foundations of our society,” he said.

Rastoul said young people were “intoxicated by easy drug money” to the point of “total disregard for human life”.

Drug-related violence caused a record number of 49 deaths in Marseille last year.

In March, President Emmanuel Macron promised actions to solve the social problem.

Macron launches major police operation to end Marseille drug wars

He said he’d put in place an “unprecedented operation” against drug trafficking in the southern port city, during a surprise visite ahead of the Olympic games.

These events show the solutions might not be efficient enough yet.

Marseille, France’s second-largest city but also one of its poorest, has been plagued by drug-related violence for years but inhabitants say the problem is getting worse.

 (with AFP) 

The operation, which ran for several years, shipped approximately 200 containers of dangerous car waste annually from the French overseas department. 

It is estimated to have generated profits of €3.5 million. 

Under environmental laws, vehicles must be depolluted before being exported. 

“The sheer volume of waste exported from the island to India without proper treatment is concerning,” the public prosecutor’s office in Saint-Pierre said. 

Those arrested include a prominent local entrepreneur in the vehicle destruction sector, his wife and seven others. 

The investigation revealed that the suspects had been hiding dangerous materials with other waste products whose international trade is permitted. 

France pledges to tackle monopolies inflating prices in overseas territories

Global issue

Illegal exports of waste, including electronics and vehicle parts, are not uncommon. Much of this waste ends up in countries in Africa and Asia, where the environmental impact is devastating.  

Developing countries often receive vast shipments of waste – both legally and illegally – from wealthier nations. India is a frequent destination for such waste. 

French authorities are continuing their investigation into the Reunion-India trafficking network, with further arrests possible in the coming weeks. 

The move comes as part of a wider crackdown on international waste trafficking.  

In 2023, Interpol reported a 50 percent increase in such operations over the previous two years. 

Turnout stood at 27.7 percent, the election commission said after the close of polls – just half what it was in the runoff round of the 2019 presidential election.

Official results are not expected until Monday evening but an exit poll by Sigma company, a polling agency, showed Saied in the lead with 89.2 percent of votes, according to state television.

In his first comment, Saied told state television, “We must wait for the results of the independent higher authority for the elections, but the results that were announced recently, which are exit polls, are, as in all countries, close to reality.”

“This is a continuation of the revolution,” he added. We will build and will cleanse the country of the corrupt, traitors and conspirators.”

On the main avenue of Habib Bourguiba in the capital city of Tunis, supporters raised pictures of Saied and the Tunisian flag, chanting “The people want to build and develop.”

Saied on Sunday faced two election rivals: his former ally turned critic, Chaab Party leader Zouhair Maghzaoui, and Ayachi Zammel, who was jailed last month.

But Zammel and Maghzaoui’s campaigns rejected the exit poll results saying the real results will be different.

Maghzaoui even called an emergency meeting according to RFI’s correspondent in Tunis, in which he announced that he did not give credence to these figures and asked the army to protect the electoral process.

“Unfortunately, the poll that was made public is not reliable,” he assured. “It is a manoeuvre to prepare public opinion for the results that will probably be revealed tomorrow. I want to ask our security forces and our army to protect the electoral process from all the dangers that threaten it.”

Opponents sidelined

Tunisia had for years been hailed as the only relative success story of the 2011 “Arab Spring” uprisings for introducing a competitive, though flawed, democracy following decades of autocratic rule.

Rights group Human Rights Watch has said more than “170 people are detained in Tunisia on political grounds or for exercising their fundamental rights”.

Saied, 66, has rejected criticism of his actions, saying he is fighting a corrupt elite and traitors, and that he will not be a dictator.

Tunisia votes in presidential polls marked by economic and political woes

Senior figures from the biggest parties, which largely oppose Saied, have been imprisoned on various charges over the past year and those parties have not publicly backed any of the three candidates on Sunday’s ballot. Other opponents have been barred from running.

“The vote’s legitimacy is undoubtedly tainted with candidates who could have overshadowed Saied being systematically sidelined,” said Hatem Nafti, a political commentator and author of a forthcoming book on the current president’s authoritarian rule.

The vote’s “democratic legitimacy is indeed weak, but there is no minimum threshold,” said North Africa analyst Pierre Vermeren. “The majority of Tunisians let it happen.”

Candidates disqualified  

Political tensions have risen since an electoral commission named by Saied disqualified three prominent candidates last month, amid protests by opposition and civil society groups.

Lawmakers loyal to Saied then approved a law last week stripping the administrative court of authority over election disputes. This court is widely seen as the country’s last independent judicial body, after Saied dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council and dismissed dozens of judges in 2022.

While elections in the years soon after the 2011 revolution were fiercely contested and drew very high participation rates, public anger at Tunisia’s poor economic performance and corruption among the elite led to disillusionment.

‘This country has let us down’: young Tunisians seek future abroad

Saied, elected in 2019, seized more powers in 2021 when he dissolved the elected parliament and rewrote the constitution, a move the opposition described as a coup.

A referendum on the constitution passed with turnout of only 30 percent, while a January 2023 runoff for the new, nearly powerless, parliament he created with that constitution had turnout of only 11 percent.

Tunisia is also facing its worst economic crisis in its history.

Although tourism revenues are on the rise, the country depends on financial help from European countries, worried about migration, but state finances remain strained.

Tunisians face daily shortages of subsidised goods, as well as outages of power and water.

 (with newswires) 

“As Israel fights the forces of barbarism led by Iran, all civilised countries should be standing firmly by Israel’s side,” Netanyahu said in a statement issued by his office.

“Yet, President Macron and other Western leaders are now calling for arms embargoes against Israel. Shame on them.”

In a video posted on social media and addressed directly to Macron, Netanyahu called such positions “a disgrace”. 

“Israel will win with or without their support,” the Israeli premier said. “But their shame will continue long after the war is won.”

Netanyahu was speaking after Macron told French radio that “the priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza”.

“If you call for a ceasefire, it’s only consistent that you do not supply weapons of war,” the president said in an interview with France Inter, specifying that France does not supply Israel with offensive arms.

France’s Macron urges halt to arms exports destined for Israel’s use in Gaza

His comments appeared directed at the United States, Israel’s biggest weapons supplier by far, which has continued to ship arms despite acknowledging they have been used against civilians.

Qatar, a key mediator in the talks on a ceasefire in Gaza, said Macron’s statement was “an important and appreciated step towards stopping the war”.

Jordan also welcomed his remarks and stressed “the importance of imposing a complete ban on the export of weapons to Israel” and “real consequences” for the country’s actions.

‘Excessive’ remarks

Netanyahu’s sharp response prompted the French presidency to release another statement later on Saturday, describing France as a “steadfast friend of Israel”.

It nonetheless called the Israeli prime minister’s reaction “excessive and detached from the friendship between France and Israel”.

Speaking to broadcaster Franceinfo on Sunday, Israel’s ambassador to France, Joshua Zarka, said his country remained confident of Paris’s ongoing support.

“France has been at our side from the beginning,” he said, noting Macron’s defence of Israel after the 7 October terror attacks by Hamas last year as well as Iran’s missile strikes earlier this month.

While Paris has repeatedly called for a ceasefire, however, Zarka insisted that Israel would continue to wage war on Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon until their military capacities were neutralised.

Macron condemns Iran’s attacks, mobilises French military in Middle East

Lebanon operation criticised

Macron criticised Netanyahu’s decision to send troops into ground operations in Lebanon in further comments to a summit of French-speaking countries.

While both Paris and Washington had called for a ceasefire, he said in his closing speech on Saturday, “I regret that Prime Minister Netanyahu has made another choice, has taken this responsibility, in particular, for ground operations on Lebanese soil.”

The members of the International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF), including France and Canada, have called for an “immediate and lasting” ceasefire in Lebanon, he added.

Macron nonetheless reaffirmed Israel’s right to self-defence, and said that on Monday he would be meeting relatives of Franco-Israelis held hostage in Gaza. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot will also meet the families of French-Israeli victims.

Monday marks the first anniversary of the 7 October Hamas attacks that sparked the war in Gaza, a conflict that now threatens to engulf the wider region.

(with AFP)

The root of the problem lies in carbon emissions. Not only do they contribute to climate warming, the vast amounts of CO2 released into the atmosphere also destabilise the balance of the oceans.

About one-third of the CO2 produced by human activities has been absorbed by the oceans since the start of the industrial revolution.

Because CO2 is an acidic gas, this absorption leads to ocean acidification. The acidity of oceans has already increased by nearly 30 percent, and if lifestyle changes are not made, predictions suggest a further 150 percent rise in acidity by 2100.

Threatened marine life

Experts warn that the implications of acidification are severe for marine ecosystems. The chemical changes in the ocean disrupt the ability of marine organisms to build their shells and skeletons, as many rely on carbonate, which becomes increasingly soluble in more acidic conditions.

This trend threatens not only large marine life but also smaller organisms, such as plankton, that form the foundation of the ocean food web.

“Many microorganisms but also larger organisms like corals build their shells or skeletons from carbonate,” said Wolfgang Lucht, a planetary systems specialist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, which co-authored the study.

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“In a more acidic ocean, the carbonate dissolves more easily, so they have much greater difficulties forming their bodies.”

This phenomenon mirrors the effect of vinegar dissolving limestone, threatening not only oysters, crabs and sea urchins, but also vital microscopic plankton that form the backbone of marine ecosystems.

“This can create enormous disruptions throughout the entire ocean food chain, and we are now very close to the high-risk zone where these profound changes can occur,” Lucht told RFI.

Nine planetary boundaries

Fifteen years ago, an international team of scientists defined nine planetary boundaries, which indicate thresholds beyond which natural balances can be destabilised.

A report from September 2023 reveals that six of these limits have already been crossed, including those related to climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution from chemical fertilisers.

The ozone layer and fine atmospheric particles currently remain within safe limits, but the threshold for ocean acidification is projected to be crossed in just a few years.

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Boris Sakschewski, one of the lead authors of the Planetary Health Check – a yearly assessment produced by the Potsdam Institute – stressed the urgency of the situation.

“Polluting lifestyles have already led to excessive CO2 emissions, which accumulate in the atmosphere and eventually dissolve in the oceans. It will remain there for tens of thousands of years,” he said.

“While it is difficult to predict the exact extent of the impact of this acidification, it is certain that it will not be trivial.”

As the planet faces this pressing crisis, Lucht urged for immediate action to address the causes of these environmental threats.

“The best thing to do is to limit our emissions to prevent things from getting worse,” he said.

This article was adapted from the original French version by RFI’s Jeanne Richard.

Food waste represents 3 percent of France’s annual carbon footprint. Under French law, it’s defined as “any food intended for human consumption which, at any stage of the food chain, is lost, discarded or damaged”. 

The country wastes 10 million tonnes of food, valued at €16 billion, each year. Households account for 39 percent of that waste – far more than producers (22 percent), agro-industrial processing (14 percent) and restaurants (12 percent). 

Laws requiring supermarkets to donate unsold food have only done so much, with ordinary folk remaining the least efficient link in the food waste chain. 

“I often find myself throwing away vegetables that have expired in my fridge because I didn’t have time to cook them,” Nikola Krtolica, a 40-something resident of Paris, told RFI.

“I hate throwing away food, and when I shop I try not to buy too much – but my schedule is so unpredictable that I struggle to stay organised.” 

Each person in France throws away an average of 25 kilos of edible food per year, a recent study by the online platform Too Good to Go found.  

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EU checks

The government is pursuing some big goals to tackle the problem. It wants shops and canteens to halve waste by 2025 compared to 2015 levels. For homes, farms and food makers, that target is to be achieved by 2030.  

The laws are not just French though; they’re part of a broader European Union plan. Every year, the EU monitors and quantifies the efforts of its member countries, assessing their progress and compliance. 

Apps like Too Good to Go seek to slash food waste by connecting consumers with retailers offering unsold food at a discount.  

“Today, I’m a bit in a hurry,” said Pauline Brutus, opening the app on her smartphone in a neighbourhood in northern Paris. It’s almost noon and she’s looking for a ready-made lunch. These are yesterday’s dishes, offered at knock-down prices. 

For Brutus, the fight against food waste is a personal mission. 

“I’ve travelled a lot. And I’ve seen people who lacked even the most basic food. I think we’re lucky to live in a country where we can have everything at our fingertips,” she added.

“Giving ourselves the luxury of throwing food in the bin is really a shame. So if I can save a meal waiting at a shop rather than them throwing it away, that’s good.” 

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Changing mindsets

Food waste is of course an environmental challenge as well as an ethical one. In France, the food wasted each week uses up 1.3 km² of farmland and the equivalent of two bathtubs of water for every person. 

In 2013, France rolled out a National Pact to Combat Food Waste, making it the first European country to ban the waste of food by retailers.

The move led to several new laws aimed at changing mindsets across the food industry. They included banning the destruction of consumable products and requiring unsold items to be donated to food aid groups. 

Supermarket chain Carrefour says it is proactively removing items from shelves that have passed their sell-by date but are still perfectly good to eat. 

“We create packs filled with fruit and vegetables, cold meats, and mixed selections that include salad, yoghurts and juice,” said Amina Mohamed Abdou, the deputy manager of one Paris store. 

“These packs are priced between three and eight euros, yet they contain products valued at over 20 euros.” 

Amid soaring food prices, the anti-waste bundles are in high demand. 

“Most of our customers are locals, but even our employees regularly set aside some of these packs,” Abdou told RFI. “It means less food ends up in the bin. And at the same time, it helps people who don’t have much money to eat healthily and with good products.”

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Creative reuse 

This focus on reducing food waste resonates with artisan bakers like Arnaud Delmontel, who has long made it a priority. He’s developed creative ways to reuse unsold goods, including turning leftover pastries into new delicacies.  

“Since time immemorial, pastry chefs have invented recipes that allow them to reuse products while maintaining quality,” he said.  

“A Polish brioche, for example, is a brioche that hasn’t been sold. We cut it in half, toast it, dip it in syrup, add pastry cream with raisins and candied fruit. So it continues to be a good product.” 

Delmontel also sells his day-old breads at half price. In his upmarket Parisian patisserie, all products are organic, and plastic bags and cutlery are banned. Despite facing “far less food waste than large-scale distribution”, he insists on keeping waste to a strict minimum. 

The Too Good to Go app allows him to attract new customers.  

“We’re in a neighbourhood where the residents are between 30 and 60 years old and have a certain lifestyle. But from 8.25pm onwards, young people hang around the shop with this app,” Delmontel said.  

“They look like students, yet this isn’t a student neighbourhood. But they come to look for what hasn’t been sold. This may help to build customer loyalty later on.” 

This story was adapted from the original French by Stefanie Schüler.

Scientists dressed head to toe in protective suits stand on an empty beach, gazing out towards a grey horizon, surrounded by what looks like green slime.

An alien invasion? Discovery of another planet? The apocalypse? It’s like all these things and more, says French photographer Alice Pallot.

“I produce images that are very powerful because they are visually arresting and enable me to challenge the viewer,” she told RFI.

Green algae on the Breton coast has been a problem since the 1970s. It washes up on shore and rots, producing hydrogen sulphide, a highly toxic gas that has caused people and animals to fall ill, and sometimes die.

For decades, thousands of tonnes of nitrate fertiliser and waste from intensive pig farms have polluted eight Breton bays, causing rapid growth of the “killer seaweed” and forcing towns to regularly close beaches.

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Spurred by rising temperatures due to global warming, the algae quickly proliferates, soon asphyxiating local flora and fauna. 

The subject came to Pallot’s attention thanks to an investigation by radio journalist Inès Léraud, subsequently turned into a 2019 graphic novel with illustrator Pierre Van Hove.

Léraud’s work raises the question of how authorities managed to hush up sensitive information for so long and why reactions to the problem have been slow.

The ‘black’ beneath the green

Drawn to the potential of documenting the crisis in photos, Pallot arranged to spend time in Brittany in 2022 in the company of Yves-Marie Le Lay, a member of local environmental group Sauvegarde du Trégor Goëlo Penthièvre.

Dressed in protective gear, he took her to places including the Bay of Saint-Brieuc to point out the black sludge beneath the green film. Pallot began photographing the algae, all while taking on board the scientific data.

The resulting series, “Cursed Algae, a Sea of Tears”, is a powerful visual voyage into the heart of an ecological tragedy.

Pallot used different techniques to photograph the algae, even taking pieces of it to use as filters on her camera lens. The unsettling but stunning visual universe that resulted could be straight out of a science fiction movie.

Pallot admits she’s a fan of the genre – but not of the real-life catastrophe unfolding before her eyes.

Showing the invisible

Pallot’s series – currently on display at La Gacilly Photo Festival in Brittany – is what she calls an “anticipatory” documentary, combining elements of reality with her vision of the future.

“It’s my way of showing catastrophic problems all while offering a new narrative through photography,” she says.

Photography “is a medium to show what is invisible”, she says, referring to the toxic gas produced by the algae that can’t be seen by the naked eye.

Despite the destruction of one natural habitat, Pallot says, she realised other life forms – ones that don’t need oxygen – were prospering in a new, anoxic environment.

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The second phase of her project took her to Toulouse, where she worked with scientists at France’s state research laboratory, CNRS, to reproduce the chemical effects of the algae.

Together, they soaked images for three weeks in a toxic algae bath. The stains formed glitter-like spatters across the photographs – like a landscape on a distant planet, both mesmerising and haunting.

Beauty as bait

The stronger the image, the more effective the message, suggests Pallot, who has also documented other forms of pollution – notably the damage caused by the absorbent sponge used to preserve cut flowers in the commercial floral industry.

Pallot says she uses beauty like bait, to draw people in. Once they read the captions on the photos, they are confronted with harsh recognition; a visual wake-up call of sorts.

“I use artistic techniques that are visually appealing. After the beauty has drawn the [public] in, I can raise awareness so that that they will look more carefully and better understand the situation,” she explains.

“Photography as I see it, is a way to inspire empathy among young people and viewers in general. I really think that it’s a medium that can change things in terms of personal commitment.”

Alice Pallot’s work is on display as part of the La Gacilly Photo Festival in Brittany until 3 November 2024.

At a cafe in Tunis’s bustling Bab Souika, a group of young men lean over sports betting slips. With presidential elections just days ahead, they are instead focused on Champions League scores – a sign of common indifference in a country many wish to leave.

Mohamed, a 22-year-old who chose not to give his full name for fear of “imprisonment”, told AFP that he and his friends were not going to vote because it was “useless”.

“We have nothing to do with politics,” he said. “We try to live our lives day by day. It doesn’t concern us.”

About a third of the nearly 10 million Tunisians set to cast their ballots Sunday are under 35, according to official figures.

Yet the election appears to have created a mood of resignation among young people, most of whom would rather leave the country, according to a recent study.

Published by the Arab Barometer in August, the study found that seven out of 10 Tunisians aged between 18 and 29 wished to emigrate.

Tunisia now leads Arab nations measured by the desire to migrate, it said, with an estimated 46 percent of the whole population wanting to live abroad.

“If you provide three boats right now, no one here will stay,” Mohamed added, looking around him at the busy cafe.

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‘Hard to consider a future’

Each year, thousands of Tunisians, mainly young men, attempt to make the perilous sea crossing to Europe in search of a better life.

Others try to do it by overstaying tourist visas or through study-abroad programmes.

The Arab Barometer said the new figures contrasted with the 22-percent rate it had recorded in Tunisia overall in 2011.

That year, a revolution – which later swept through the region – ousted longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and sparked hope among young people.

But over a decade later, they are faced with dimmed prospects, grappling with a stagnant economy, soaring unemployment, and dwindling rights.

Official figures show 41 percent of young Tunisians are unemployed – even as 23 percent of them hold university degrees.

Ghaith, a high-schooler who also chose not to provide his last name for fear of retribution, said he was thinking about leaving too.

“I’m only 17, and when I see older people who haven’t done anything with their lives, I ask myself: what will I do?” he said.

Next to him, his 19-year-old friend, also named Mohamed, said he wanted to learn German and move to Berlin, but that it was too expensive.

“This country has let us down,” he told AFP. “It’s become hard to consider a future.”

If none of the youngsters interviewed by AFP wished to disclose their last names, it was because authorities have stepped up cracking down on dissent.

‘Patterns from past’

Saied was democratically elected in 2019 but orchestrated a sweeping power grab two years later, enshrining what many see as one-man rule.

New York-based Human Rights Watch recently said that more than “170 people are detained in Tunisia on political grounds or for exercising their fundamental rights”.

A number of his critics have been prosecuted under Decree 54, a law he enacted in 2022 to combat “false news”.

Slim, a 31-year-old gig worker who also chose not to give his full name out of fear, said he hasn’t “gained anything” under Saied.

“I like him,” he said. “He fought corruption, but I didn’t personally benefit from it.”

“What’s in it for me if I still can’t find eggs, milk, coffee and other necessities?” he added.

“We’re tired, seriously,” he pleaded. “Why do you think people keep leaving the country? They take to the sea knowing they might die.”

This week, 15 Tunisians were found dead after their boat capsized as two boats bearing dozens were intercepted.

Tunisia’s presidential campaign continues amid protests over restricted freedoms

Some, however, choose to stay.

At a recent protest near the parliament in Tunis, Souhaieb Ferchichi, a 30-year-old activist, called for boycotting the election which rights groups have said wasn’t fair.

Many of Saied’s challengers have been barred from running, with some even jailed.

Salma Ezzine, a 25-year-old protester and doctor, said Tunisia was “noticing patterns from the past”.

“This is how dictatorships are born,” she said.

Unlike more than 1,000 doctors who left Tunisia last year according to labour figures, Ezzine said she has to stay and chip into bettering the country.

“Leaving the country can be a short-term solution,” she said. “But people need to realise that it adds to the problem. If no one stays, who is going to make the change?”

(AFP)

As everywhere, speed, alcohol and not wearing a seat belt or helmet are among the main causes of death and injury, say experts.

But in Africa, where there are 620 traffic deaths every day, these problems are compounded by bad roads, outdated vehicles, minimal prosecutions and a shortage of emergency services.

A recent World Health Organization report found that Africa surpassed the rest of the world, including Southeast Asia – which recorded the most road deaths – with a record ratio of 19.5 people killed per 100,000 inhabitants in 2021.

Home to only around four percent of the world’s automobiles, Africa accounted for 19 percent of road deaths last year.

“What is worrying is the upward trend in Africa,” said Jean Todt, a former head of the International Automobile Federation and now the United Nations special envoy for road safety.

Spike in deaths

The continent is the only region where road deaths increased between 2010 and 2021 – up 17 percent to 226,100. The spike was seen in more than half of Africa’s countries (28 out of 54).

The biggest victims are pedestrians, accounting for a third of fatalities due to a lack of adequate pavements, compared to 21 percent worldwide.

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“We need to have better designed streets with sidewalks, adequate signage and pedestrian lanes, particularly around schools,” Todt said.

He also bemoaned the shortage of public transport for the rapidly urbanising continent.

Urban planning is also at fault.

“Many African countries continue to design their infrastructure for motor vehicles and not for individuals, and without safety being the main concern,” said Haileyesus Adamtei, a transport expert at the World Bank.

Old cars in disrepair

One major culprit is the quality of the cars plying Africa‘s roads, with many more than 15 years old, according to the UN Road Safety Fund.

A transport ministry spokesperson in Senegal told AFP that faulty brakes and worn tires were common – and often deadly.

“The dilapidated state of vehicles is a major factor in the lack of safety,” the spokesperson said.

The West African country introduced a raft of new rules after a head-on crash between two night buses in January 2023 killed 40 people.

“But most have never been implemented,” the ministry spokesperson admitted.

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Some rules, such as a ban on loading luggage on the roof of buses, which could unbalance the vehicle, were fiercely opposed by operators.

It does not help that drivers can often get a licence with only perfunctory lessons and testing – often avoided altogether with a bribe.

Corruption also means that permissive law enforcement often sweeps many road safety violations under the carpet.

The UN has called for a “decade of action” to halve the number of road deaths by 2030.

Todt insists the aim is achievable and should top government agendas.

“Beyond the human tragedy, road crashes are also a major cause of slowdown in the development of a country, costing on average four to five percent of GDP, sometimes much more in Africa,” he said.

(AFP)

RFI: Why did you create a French-speaking village in Mitahato?

Chris Mburu: I wanted the children of my village to learn French very early. I learned French late, and though it helped me tremendously, I believe my career could have gone in a better direction had I learned it sooner.

So I want the kids in my village to have this advantage. They can get jobs in francophone countries and go to university. And they have an added advantage because they already speak English. 

In Kenya, most children already speak three languages because there’s the mother tongue, there’s Swahili, which is the national language, and there’s English. If you add French, you have four languages, and that’s extremely important for the world today. 

RFI: You were based in DR Congo with the UN and now in the Republic of Congo. Do you need to speak French for your job?

CM: Yes. I would not have gotten this job if I didn’t speak French because nobody speaks English in my teams. It is a huge advantage. A lot of anglophones cannot get this kind of job because they do not speak French.

So this is another example of why I keep preaching this whole idea of bilingualism. 

Inside Mitahato, the Kenyan village where residents speak French

RFI: You were invited to Paris this week to talk about Mitahato. What’s next for your French language initiative in Kenya?

CM: I really hope that the children in my village learn this language and use the village as a prototype, an experimentation of how French can be expanded nationwide.

Many Kenyans can be encouraged to learn French and seek opportunities in the francophone world… in France, but also in francophone Africa. 

What people don’t realise is that there’s more French spoken in Africa than English, so it’s extremely important, even for our own African integration, for people to learn French. 

RFI: What about French in East Africa? 

CM: In East Africa, there is a big initiative to have people speak French, and I’m glad to see governments encouraging that. It’s practical given we have a number of neighbouring countries that are francophone. 

Two years ago, the DRC became a member of the East African Community. That’s huge. There are 100 million people [in the DRC], many of whom speak only French. So there are big opportunities. Trade, education and career – opportunities for everybody.

The importance of French cannot be underestimated in East Africa because we are in a moment of change. There are so many things happening, integration is going on and we cannot be isolated. 

It’s extremely important that not only governments encourage the learning and teaching of French, but also try to join organisations like the OIF, the International Francophonie Organisation, to get the benefits that come with that.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

A year ago, the night that gunmen showed up at Ami G’s village near Titao, in northern Burkina Faso, she and her six children left everything behind and fled on foot, walking for several days.

“There was a baptism that day. Suddenly, we heard gun shots,” said the young woman, who belongs to the Mossi ethnic group, which makes up about half of the Burkinabe population.

“The jihadists killed our husbands and threatened to do the same to us on their next visit,” she said.

“They had already come and forced us to wear long black dresses. Then, they threatened us with reprisals, because we had been speaking with soldiers. There, it is war, they even murder children,” she said, wiping a tear from her face.

After a journey of more than 600 kilometres, Ami G found safety in Ouangolodougou, a city in northern Cote d’Ivoire where she is being hosted by a camp for asylum seekers in Niornigue.

Abidjan does not recognise those fleeing Burkina Faso as refugees.

Adama M, another newcomer at the camp, wearing a blue headscarf and a yellow skirt, recalled the day that armed militants looted her home.

“They killed my aunt with a bullet in the head and tied up and kidnapped my older brother. They told us not to cry,” she said, after having travelled 900 kilometres from Gorom-Gorom, a town in the north of Burkina, near Mali and Niger.

The ACLED non-governmental group, which tracks conflict, has counted more than 26,000 people killed – soldiers, militiamen and civilians – in Burkina Faso since the start of the conflict in 2015.

An estimated two million people have been forced to flee their homes.

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Militia violence

As well as insurgent violence, another kind of abuse is pushing Burkinabes to flee – the terror spread by the Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland (VDP), a force made up of civilians recruited by the army to fight alongside troops but who do not hold military status.

The militia, which was formed to defend villages against jihadist attacks, has scaled up since junta chief Captain Ibrahim Traore seized power in the West African country in a 2022 coup.

He vowed to regain control over a nation plagued by armed groups, mainly affiliated with Al-Qaeda but some with the Islamic State group.

Because many ethnic Fulani people, a community of mainly semi-nomadic herders, have joined the ranks of the jihadists, the community as a whole has become a target of the VDP, sources told AFP.

Abdoulaye D, 79, fled his home in Bobo-Dioulasso with his grandchildren after armed men in military uniforms killed his two sons and stole his cattle.

“They tied up all the Fulanis and executed them with a rifle,” he told AFP, holding his one-year-old granddaughter in his arms.

When asked about Captain Traore, his expression turned to anger.

“What those in power are doing is ethnic differentiation,” said Abdoulaye, who arrived in Cote d’Ivoire four months ago.

“There is no more Burkina for me, even when I die, I don’t want my body to be sent there.”

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‘Killed my entire family’

Other stories in the community echo Abdoulaye’s.

Aminata S left the northwestern town of Nouna in January 2023 after the VDP killed her husband and parents in a massacre Amnesty International blamed on the “army’s proxy forces”.

“They came on a Friday and killed my entire family. There were three Fulani camps – they fired everywhere and killed 31 people,” said Aminata, adding that she did not want to hear about Traore.

“I don’t want to go back to Burkina,” she said.

A Ivorian resident of Ouangolodougou who spoke on condition of anonymity said Fulani traders, whom locals were used to seeing in the city, had been killed by the VDP.

“They said they were supplying the jihadists,” the resident said. “They target people who go back and forth between the two countries.”

“In the bush in Burkina, if you are Fulani, people say you are a jihadist. If they see you, you’re dead. It is ethnic targeting,” said Moussa T, a Fulani refugee.

In the Niornigue refugee camp, 98 percent of the population is Fulani. Many Mossis – the majority ethnic group in Burkina Faso – did not stay, officially citing a desire to make a living out of farming land.

But for one woman who fled Burkina Faso and took refuge in the camp seeking asylum, said there was more to it.

“Many left because they did not want to live with Fulanis,” she said.

“When they see them, they are reminded of jihadists. But for me, living together is good, these people haven’t done anything to me.”

In many parts of France, you can still send a letter with just the person’s name, village name and nearest big city – no street name or house number needed.

The post office usually knows where everyone lives, but this system has confused other delivery services, which are busier now that more people shop online.

Emergency services also want to be able to more precisely identify where people live, which is the intent behind the 3DS law passed in February 2022, requiring all homes and buildings in France to have a number on a named street.

This affects a lot of places. In 2024, 84 percent of France’s nearly 35,000 towns had fewer than 2,000 residents.

The post office estimated that before the law, a million buildings did not have an official address.

Listen to a village deciding on its street names on the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 116:

Geographer Frederic Giraut recognises the common sense behind the reform, but also says it wipes out a lot of local knowledge.

In rural France, a village or group of buildings is called a lieu dit, which means more than just a hamlet.

“Lieu dit means the locality: the name of a farm, or a group of farms, a hamlet or other set of buildings,” Giraut explains. “They are geographic indications, related to places – to very local communities.”

Switching to street names puts these places into a network. While that might make them easier to find on GPS, something is lost, especially for people in remote, rural areas who feel more connected to the land than city dwellers.

There is a “loss of cultural attachment, cultural and heritage elements, especially related to place names”, Giraut says.

The lieu dit might live on as a street name, but its meaning will weaken as other streets get names too.

Evolving tradition

Naming streets isn’t new in France. Cities have been doing it since the Middle Ages.

At first, names were descriptive, like Grande Rue (Big Street), or Rue des Lavandières (Washerwomen Street). Later, they became tributes to saints, religious figures or royalty.

“The Revolution introduced the idea of promoting a kind of pantheon related to the central power,” explains Giraut.

This led to streets named after politicians or cultural figures, which not everyone liked. Some worried that naming streets from above would “erase a very interesting layer of vernacular or popular culture”, Giraut added.

Today, most French cities have a street or avenue named after Charles De Gaulle, the founder of the current republic, or Jean Jaures, a 19th century socialist leader.

Legacy of landscape

While the new law comes from the top, local towns are in charge of putting it into action. They often ask villages what they think.

Some places have pushed back, especially in regions with strong local traditions like Brittany or the Basque country. One Breton group has even asked Unesco to pause the law.

Giraut, who serves as Unesco chair in inclusive typonomy, says that opposition should not be seen as just reactionary politics. There are real questions about the impact of names, which are not neutral.

“If you choose mainly religious names, or ones in dialect or names related to the former historical ownership, or related to the environment and the historical knowledge related to the environment, you will produce a very different landscape of street signs and personal addresses,” he says.

As cities come into line with the new legislation, a whole string of new names will come into play.

Giraut says it’s easy to be dismissive of street names, but they do matter.

“It’s serious because it deals with the landscape of everyday life,” he says. “Place names are so present in daily life that it seems normal, with nothing at stake. But because its use is quite permanent, it is very important.”

Listen to more on this story on the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 116.

Just two days after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was shot dead in Lebanon in an Israeli air strike, France’s new Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot headed to Beirut.

“France stands alongside Lebanon during its most difficult moments,” he said, exhorting Hezbollah and Israel to commit to a 21-day ceasefire plan laid out by France and the US.

Ten days earlier, President Emmanuel Macron had addressed Lebanese people directly in a video posted on social media.

“Lebanon is struck by grief and fear,” he declared, flanked by French and Lebanese flags. Without mentioning Hezbollah, he said he was working on a diplomatic solution in the light of France’s values and “fraternal feelings” for Lebanon.

While France has provided its former protectorate with humanitarian aid – including 12 tonnes of medicines and medical equipment, and 10 million euros – its diplomatic efforts appear to have had little impact as Lebanon lurches closer to an all-out conflict on its soil.

“Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Noel Barrot are first and foremost involved in a communications exercise,” says Middle East specialist Fabrice Balanche.

“Since the president lost power on the domestic front, he has to exist on the international scene. And Barrot, who is completely unknown to the public, is looking to make a name for himself.”

The bottom line, Balanche notes, is that France has lost its political clout in Lebanon: “In 10 years French influence has collapsed.”

Old friends

An estimated 23,000 French citizens live in Lebanon and more than 300,000 Lebanese reside in France.

The two countries’ close historical and cultural ties were cemented as early as 1860, when Napoleon III sent 6,000 troops to rescue Maronite Christians from Ottoman oppression.

Under the 1916 Sykes-Picot accords that carved up the Middle East, the area of Lebanon and Syria was put under French control. Greater Lebanon was created in 1920 and remained a French protectorate until 1943.

That period left a huge impact on Lebanese culture, economy and politics. For decades France enjoyed close relations not only with the country’s Christian community, but also Shia and Sunni Muslims.

Ties were particularly strong during the 1995-2007 presidency of Jacques Chirac – a close friend of Lebanon’s then prime minister and Sunni Muslim billionaire Rafic Hariri.

France invested heavily in construction in Lebanon and French business interests flourished.

At that time France also weighed heavily within the EU.

”The Franco-German relationship was strong, EU funds were invested in Lebanon in line with French interests,” Balanche notes. “There was a kind of agreement with Germany that Lebanon was the preserve of France.”

Why France and the Middle East have such a deep and lingering past

The Syria ‘fiasco’

Hariri’s assassination in 2005 plunged Lebanon into its worst crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war. 

But the real turning point  came in 2015-2016 with the war in Syria, argues Balanche, author of an award-winning book on the Syria crisis. He describes France’s policy as “a fiasco”.

“We believed Bachar al-Assad would fall, we backed the rebels and the country fell into civil war,” resulting in more than a million Syrian refugees heading to Europe. The majority ended up in Germany.

“Germany paid the price for this French fiasco, and from then on the Germans began taking real power within Europe,” says Balanche.

Germany put a stop, he says, to France’s policy of using European funds to favour its foreign policy, notably in Lebanon.

France “no longer has a say” there – the foreign powers that matter are now Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United States.

Supplanted by the US

France’s diminishing influence was illustrated in August 2020, when Macron visited Lebanon to push for reconstruction efforts following a deadly explosion in the port of Beirut.

“France will never abandon the Lebanese, never. Our destinies are inextricably linked by the ties of time, spirit, soul, culture and dreams,” the French president said.

His call for solidarity helped raise a much-needed 250 million euros in aid worldwide. But Macron’s other message, that he was “ashamed for Lebanese politicians” and that the ruling elite had to introduce political and economic reforms, went down badly.

“In giving orders to Lebanese leaders, saying they had to agree on reforming the country, elect a president and so on, he talked down to them,” comments Balanche. “Lebanese leaders were up in arms.”

Meanwhile the president’s insistence that Lebanese leaders had to speak with Iran-backed Hezbollah upset the Americans.

Balanche recalls how envoy David Schenker, then in charge of Near East affairs at the US State Department, told the Lebanese on a visit to Beirut: “‘Don’t forget! It’s the Americans and the Saudis who sign the cheques.'”

France’s Macron says Lebanon must change leadership to break deadlock

‘Disoriented’ diplomacy

Other experts, however, say France holds a different kind of sway. 

French diplomacy prides itself on being able to speak to all sides, including Hezbollah. Middle East analyst Karim Bitar said this helps make France a possible broker in the current conflict.

“The French still have a degree of influence in Lebanon because of their communication channels with Hezbollah,” the researcher told German media.

He added that France could play a “modest but not insignificant role” moving forward, though it would “require US cover for it to be successful”.

Yet Balanche says it’s not enough to talk to everyone – governments need to defend a clear line.

“We can’t tell the Israelis on Friday: ‘You have the right to defend yourselves, we’re going to create an international anti-Hamas coalition modelled on the anti-ISIS coalition.’ And then tell the Arab countries: ‘What Israel is doing in Gaza is scandalous.’”

If France weighed more in Lebanon during Chirac’s presidency, it’s partly because he had a clear, pro-Arab policy, Balanche argues.

“You may or may not agree with it, but he had a clear line, which meant we could talk with Arab countries.”

Suppression of diplomatic corps could leave France without professional diplomats

More broadly, drastic cuts in France’s diplomatic corps have not helped shore up influence abroad.

A recent book by a former senior French diplomat painted a grim picture of the state of French diplomacy in Ukraine, the Middle East and on the African continent, describing it as “disoriented”.

The author, three-time ambassador Jean de Gliniasty, called for France to revive its traditional values such as respect for sovereignty, national differences and aspirations, “to give France its full place” in a changing world.

French language in decline

It’s hard to see how France can claw back influence in Lebanon. While there remains a certain nostalgia for “France the protector” that built modern-day Lebanon, the Lebanese are under no illusions.

“They saw that with the economic crisis in 2019, the explosion of the port, that France didn’t have the means to protect the country, so there’s disappointment of course,” says Balanche. “And for your average Shia Muslim, talk of France means next to nothing.”

Balanche, who worked at the Institut Français in Beirut from 2003 to 2007, has also noticed a dramatic drop in the use of French.

“If you went to bars where middle-class youth gathered, you’d hear Arabic or French. If you go there now you’ll hear Arabic and English – people under the age of 30 don’t speak French.”

A lack of investment in France’s cultural institutions in Lebanon is partly responsible, with far fewer staff employed in French cultural cooperation programmes. Meanwhile those who are sent over are more likely to be interns than professors.

“It’s cheaper,” Balanche regrets. “All of that has played a role in the collapse of a French presence in Lebanon.”

The European Commission – which provisionally approved the step in June after an inquiry found that Beijing’s state aid to auto manufacturers was unfair – now has free rein to impose steep tariffs for five years from end October.

Ten member states including France, Italy and Poland supported imposing the tariffs of up to 35.3 percent, coming on top of existing duties of 10 percent, European diplomats told AFP.

Only five including Germany and Hungary voted against while 12 abstained including Spain and Sweden.

Although the tariffs did not win support from a majority of states, the opposition was not enough to block them – which would have required at least 15 states representing 65 percent of the bloc’s population.

That leaves the choice on moving ahead in the hands of the European Commission which “can be expected to decide in line with its proposal”, an EU diplomat said.

China has slammed the new tariffs as “protectionist” and warned they would trigger a trade war.

Bumpy road as Ethiopia struggles with electric vehicle revolution

France vs Germany

The extra duties also apply, at various rates, to vehicles made in China by foreign groups such as Tesla – which faces a tariff of 7.8 percent.

Brussels says it aims to protect European carmakers in a critical industry that provides jobs to around 14 million people across the European Union but does not benefit from hefty state subsidies like in China.

Canada and the United States have in recent months imposed much higher tariffs of 100 percent on Chinese electric car imports.

The EU duties have pitted France and Germany against each other, with Paris arguing they are necessary to level the playing field for EU carmakers against Chinese counterparts.

But Germany, renowned for its strong auto industry and its key manufacturers including BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes heavily invested in China, says the EU risks harming itself with tariffs, and has urged for negotiations with Beijing to continue.

In an indication of fears spreading in Europe, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez reversed course and asked Brussels last month to “reconsider”, despite Madrid’s initial support.

Beijing launches probe in response to EU investigation into Chinese subsidies

EU’s tightrope

Hungary has also been vocal in its opposition and before the vote, Prime Minister Viktor Orban lambasted the tariffs as “the next step in the economic cold war”.

Beijing has threatened to retaliate forcefully and has already opened probes into European brandy, dairy and pork products imported into China.

China tried in vain to stop the duties, hoping to resolve the issue through dialogue, but talks have so far failed to lead to an agreement that satisfies the EU.

The commission has said that any duties could be lifted later if China addresses the EU’s concerns.

Trade tensions between China and the EU are not limited to electric cars, with inquiries launched by Brussels also targeting Chinese subsidies for solar panels and wind turbines.

The bloc faces a difficult task as it tries to foster its clean tech industry and invest in the green transition without sparking a painful trade war with China.

A French vessel responded to a distress call on Saturday morning, according to a statement from the Pas-de-Calais prefecture in northern France.

It picked up 14 people from the dinghy, the statement said, some injured and others already dead. 

“Yet again, several migrants lost their lives trying to reach Britain by crossing the Channel,” the prefecture said.

According to French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, the victims included a child who was “trampled to death”. 

“The smugglers have the blood of these people on their hands and our government will intensify the fight against these gangs who enrich themselves by organising these deadly crossings,” he posted on social media.

French officials said the accident was not a shipwreck and the dead child had been found in the boat, not in the water.

Local reports estimated the child’s age at around four years.

Death toll

The dinghy continued towards British waters with the rest of its passengers, the prefecture said.

Other rescue operations were underway in the Channel on Saturday afternoon, it told broadcaster Franceinfo.

The latest tragedy comes after eight people died in mid-September when their overcrowded vessel capsized while trying to cross the Channel.

Around 50 people have died in its waters this year so far.

French minister says EU, UK need ‘migration treaty’ after Channel deaths

The French and British governments have sought to stop the flow of undocumented migrants, who may pay smugglers thousands of euros per head for the passage from France to England aboard small boats.

France’s new right-wing prime minister, Michel Barnier, said earlier this week that the country needed a stricter immigration policy.

He vowed to be “ruthless” with people traffickers, who he said “exploit misery and despair”.

(with AFP)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another idea for your students: Br. Gerald Muller, my beloved music teacher from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, has been writing books for young adults in his retirement – and they are free! There is a volume of biographies of painters and musicians called Gentle Giants, and an excellent biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., too. They are also a good way to help you improve your English – that’s how I worked on my French, reading books that were meant for young readers – and I guarantee you, it’s a good method for improving your language skills. To get Br. Gerald’s free books, click here.

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

This week’s quiz: On 7 September, I asked you a question about the Paris Paralympics 2024. You were to re-read our article “Golden glory for French para-triathletes despite delays over Seine water quality” and send in the answers to these two questions: How many medals did the French Paralympians win in the triathlon events that were held on 2 September, and: What are the three sports that make up a triathlon?

The answer is: French Paralympians won four medals in the triathlon events. Alexis Hanquinquant and Jules Ribstein both won gold in their divisions, Thibaut Rigaudeau and Antoine Perel won bronze in the competition for visually impaired athletes.

And which three sports make up a triathlon? Swimming, bicycling, and running. 

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question: “What is the scariest creature you have ever encountered?”, which was suggested by Alan Holder from the Isle of Wight, England.  

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

The winners are: RFI Listeners Club member Swapan Kumar Chandra from Kolkata, India – who is back in the kitchen with us after a long break … welcome back, Swapan! Swapan is also this week’s bonus question winner – congratulations!

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are A. K. M. Nuruzzaman, the president of the RFI Amour Fan Club in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, and Rasheed Naz, the chairman of the Naz RFI Internet Fan Club in Faisal Abad, Pakistan. There’s RFI Listeners Club member Radhakrishna Pillai from Kerala State in India, and last but certainly not least, RFI English listener Shihab Ali Khondaker from Naogaon, Bangladesh.

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: Le Boeuf sur le Toit by Darius Milhaud, performed by the Ulster Orchestra conducted by Yan Pascal Tortelier; “Love Me Do” by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, played by The Beatles; “Les Jours Heureux” by Cyrille Aufort; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer; “Happy” by Pharrell Williams, and “At The Centerline” by Brian Blade, performed by the Brian Blade Fellowship Band.

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

This week’s question … you must listen to the show to participate. After you’ve listened to the show, re-read our article “French far-right leader Marine Le Pen on trial for misuse of EU funds”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 28 October to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 2 November podcast. When you enter be sure to send your postal address with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

or

By text … You can also send your quiz answers to The Sound Kitchen mobile phone. Dial your country’s international access code, or “ + ”, then  33 6 31 12 96 82. Don’t forget to include your mailing address in your text – and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Click here to learn how to win a special Sound Kitchen prize.

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

This week, our focus shifts to the dynamics of Chinese-African-Western relations.

In September, as the United States pursued investments in nuclear energy projects in Ghana and Kenya, the China-Africa forum concluded with a series of new agreements between China and a number of African countries. These deals spanned key sectors, including industry, agriculture, natural resources, and renewable energy.

China’s new strategy in Africa: is the continent getting a fair deal?

Chinese President Xi Jinping also announced that Beijing will allocate $50 billion (€45 billion euros) to Africa over the next three years.

However, China’s overall investments in the continent have declined over the past year, creating an opening for both the US and Europe, who are both eager to re-establish their economic presence in Africa.

Russia has also entered the picture.

But what does Africa realy need?

To explore this, Jan van der Made and Melissa Chemam spoke with experts, including historians Daniel Large and Michael Dillon, as well as Igor Ichikowitz from the Ichikowitz Family Foundation.

Episode mixed by Erwan Rome 

Spotlight on Africa is a podcast from Radio France Internationale

At the UN, Erdogan again compared Israel to Hitler, calling for an “international alliance of humanity” to stop Israel as it did Hitler 70 years ago. However, such fiery rhetoric is finding a shrinking audience.

“It’s more conveying a message to their own base”, said Sezin Oney of the Turkish news portal Politikyol. “There isn’t an audience that really sees Turkey or Erdogan as the vanguard of Palestine rights anymore. On the contrary, that ship sailed long ago.”

Erdogan attempted to boost his image as a powerful regional player by meeting with the Lebanese and Iraqi Prime Ministers on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. But Ankara is increasingly finding itself sidelined as a regional diplomatic player.

“Ankara‘s pro-Hamas approach has only marginalised Turkey in the international arena,” said international relations expert Selin Nasi of the London School of Economics. “So we see Egypt and Qatar receiving credits for their roles as mediators. And Turkey is locked out of international diplomatic efforts.”

Since Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent Gaza campaign, Ankara has tried to position itself among international mediating efforts to end the fighting, given its close contacts with Hamas.

Turkish youth finds common cause in protests against trade with Israel

Mediation efforts

“Turkey was asked by the United States to speak with Hamas people”, said international relations expert Soli Ozel at Vienna’s Institute for Human Studies.

However, Ozel says the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran denied Erdogan his diplomatic trump card.

“One big blow to Turkey has been the murder of Haniyeh, with which Turkey did have very close relations. For all I know, he may even have had a Turkish passport”, said Ozel.

“And I really don’t think Turkey has any relations or contacts with Yahya Sinwar, who is officially and effectively the leader of Hamas”.

With Israel already alienated by Erdogan’s fiery rhetoric along with Turkey imposing an Israeli trade embargo, Gallia Lindenstrauss of Tel Aviv‘s National Security Studies says Turkey has nothing to offer.

Turkey flexes naval muscles as neighbours fear escalating arms race

“There are two main mediators in this conflict: Egypt and Qatar. They’re the two actors that have leverage over Hamas. Turkey, despite its very open support of Hamas, has very little leverage on Hamas’s decisions,” said Lindenstrauss.

“So Turkey is not effective – it doesn’t have the money to push Hamas in a certain direction, it doesn’t have the political leverage over Hamas to push it in the right direction. In practice …Turkey is not very efficient.

“So I don’t think it’s a mistake that Turkey is not part of this [mediation] process.”

Ankara has been quick to point out that existing mediation efforts between Hamas and Israel have achieved little, with the conflict now spreading to Lebanon.

However, some experts claim Ankara’s diplomatic sidelining has a broader message of Arab countries pushing back against Turkey’s involvement in the region.

“None of the Arab countries would like to get Turkey involved in this process,” said international relations expert Huseyin Bagci, of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University.

“Turkey could be considered by their views as the enemy of Israel, but it is artificial. The Middle East Arab-Israeli conflict since 1948 has been an Arab-Israeli conflict, not a Turkish-Israeli conflict.”

Turkey and Egypt bury the hatchet with a dozen new bilateral deals

Regional ambitions

For more than a decade, Erdogan has sought to project Turkey’s influence across the Middle East, often referring to the years of Ottoman rule as the halcyon days of peace and tranquillity.

But the latest Middle East war has ended such dreams, analyst Ozel said.

“The Turkish government thought that they could dominate the Middle East. They played the game of hegemony seeking, and they lost it,” Ozel explained.

“When they lost it, Turkey found itself way behind [the position] it had prior to 2011 when their grandiose scheme of creating a region which would be dominated by Turkey began.”

As the Israel-Hamas war threatens to escalate across the region, Erdogan’s rhetoric against Israel will likely continue. But analysts warn that outside of the leader’s conservative base at home, few others in the region will be receptive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another idea for your students: Br. Gerald Muller, my beloved music teacher from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, has been writing books for young adults in his retirement – and they are free! There is a volume of biographies of painters and musicians called Gentle Giants, and an excellent biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., too. They are also a good way to help you improve your English – that’s how I worked on my French, reading books that were meant for young readers – and I guarantee you, it’s a good method for improving your language skills. To get Br. Gerald’s free books, click here.

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

This week’s quiz: On 29 August, I asked you a question about the 2024 Paris Paralympics Games, which had just opened with a parade on the Champs-Élysées and a grand show on Place de la Concorde, designed by the Games artistic director Thomas Jolly. You were to re-read our article “Paralympic torch arrives in France ahead of opening ceremony” and send in the answer to this question: How many athletes will compete in how many events?

The answer is, to quote our article: “During the Games, around 4,400 athletes will compete in 549 events, which will take place in 18 competition sites, including 16 identical to their Olympic counterparts.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question: “With whom do you feel the happiest, and why?”, suggested by Jayanta Chakrabarty from New Delhi, India.

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

The winners are: Razia Khalid, who’s a member of the RFI Seven Stars Radio Listeners Club in District Chiniot, Pakistan. Razia is also this week’s bonus question winner. Congratulations, Razia!

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are M. N. Sentu, a member of the RFI Amour Fan Club in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, and RFI Listeners Club member Kashif Khalil from Faisalabad, Pakistan.  

Last but certainly not least, two RFI English listeners from Bangladesh: Shahanoaz Parvin Ripa, the president of the Sonali Badhon Female Listeners Club in Bogura, and Shihab Uddin Khan from Naogaon.

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: Traditional music from the Middle Ages; the Allegro from the Piano Sonata K. 545 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, performed by Gabriel Tacchino; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was” by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, sung by Cécile McLorin Salvant.

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

This week’s question … you must listen to the show to participate. After you’ve listened to the show, listen to Alison Hird’s report on political compromise in France on the Spotlight on France podcast no. 115, or consult her article “Where did France’s culture of political compromise go, and is it coming back?”, both of which will help you with the answer. 

You have until 21 October to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 26 October podcast. When you enter be sure to send your postal address with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

or

By text … You can also send your quiz answers to The Sound Kitchen mobile phone. Dial your country’s international access code, or “ + ”, then  33 6 31 12 96 82. Don’t forget to include your mailing address in your text – and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Click here to learn how to win a special Sound Kitchen prize.

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

Native Americans from French Guiana and Suriname were recently in Paris to demand the restitution of the remains of six of their ancestors who died after being exhibited in so-called human zoos. Corinnne Toka Devilliers, whose great-grandmother Moliko was exhibited at the capital’s Jardin d’Acclimatation in 1892 but survived, describes holding a shamanic ceremony at the Museum of Mankind to prepare her fellow Kali’na for the voyage home. But there are still legal obstacles to overcome before the remains can leave the Parisian archives where they’ve spent the past 132 years. (Listen @3’30”)

Until recently, French villages with fewer than 2,000 residents did not need to name their streets – but legislation that came into effect this summer now requires them to identify roads to make it easier for emergency services and delivery people to find them. While not all villages have jumped at the opportunity, we joined residents in a hamlet in the south of France as they gathered to decide their new street names. And geographer Frederic Giraut talks about how the law is impacting the culture and heritage of small, rural localities. (Listen @21’53”)

The closely watched trial of a man accused of drugging his wife and inviting others to rape her while she lay unconscious at their home in southern France has become a rallying cry for those who say society needs to change the way it thinks about sexual assault. Fifty years ago, another rape case caused similar outcry – and led to changes in how France prosecutes and defines rape. (Listen @13’25”)

Episode mixed by Cecile Pompéani. 

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).

In Istanbul’s conservative Uskudar district overlooking the Bosphorus waterway, activists from the group 1,000 Youth for Palestine recently gathered to protest the killing by Israeli security forces of the Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi.

But along with chants condemning Israel, the demonstrators also attacked Erdogan and his government for Turkey’s continuing trade with Israel.

“I am here to force the Turkish government to stop the oil trade with Israel and to stop genocide,” declared Gulsum, a university academic who only wanted to be identified by her first name for security reasons.

“This is not just a public demand. It’s also a legal obligation for Turkey to stop genocide.”

Since the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the student-based group has directed its protests at the export of Azerbaijani oil to Israel by way of a Turkish port.

It also targets Turkish companies – many of which have close ties to Erdogan – that it accuses of circumventing the trade embargo by using third parties.

Turkey talks tough on Israel but resists calls to cut off oil

Unifying cause

The group uses social networks to broadcast its message, getting around government-controlled media.

The activists say they have received broad support that crosses Turkey’s traditional divides of religious and secular.

“When it comes to Palestine, it is a story that we all unite about,” said Gizem, a university student and 1,000 Youth for Palestine member.

“There are those who define themselves as socialists and those who define themselves as Islamists. There are also apolitical youth who say ‘I don’t like politics’, but still join us.”

While Erdogan presents himself as a stalwart defender of the Palestinian cause, police are cracking down on the protests.

One of the group’s Palestinian members was arrested after activists disrupted a panel discussion on Israel hosted by the state broadcaster. She now faces deportation in a case that has provoked further protests.

Images of police arresting headscarf-wearing members of the group further embarrassed Erdogan and his religious base.

Protests escalate in Turkey over Azerbaijani oil shipments to Israel amid embargo

‘Divide and rule’

Sezin Oney, a commentator for Turkey’s Politikyol news portal, says the group’s diversity poses a problem for Erdogan, given he has often sought to exploit the deep divisions between religious and secular voters when facing attack.

She argues that 1,000 Youth for Palestine’s ability to bridge those gaps is indicative of a wider change in Turkish society.

“It’s actually portraying the current youth of Turkey – you don’t have monolithic circles in the grassroots,” explains Oney.

“You have a mixture: hybrid groups of conservatives, conservative-looking, but very progressive,” she says. “Such hybrid groups are coming together because of a cause, but ideologically or background-wise or social class-wise, they may be very diverse.

“And that’s something threatening for the government. Because the government is embarking on divide and rule.”

Persistent political headache

Erdogan lost heavily in local elections earlier this year, a defeat widely blamed both on economic problems and anger over Turkey’s ties to Israel.

The 1,000 Youth for Palestine activists say they hope to continue to build on those results. 

“The reason for our success is that we put our finger on the right spot. We expose the hypocrisy of both the capitalists, the corporations and the government,” claims Murat, a university student who belongs to the group.

“People also saw this hypocrisy and thought that someone should speak out, and they supported us a lot because of that,” he added. “We will unite as the people of Turkey and continue to stand in the right place in history to stop the massacre in Palestine.”

The diversity of 1,000 Youth for Palestine is seen as its main strength, which is why it will likely continue to pose a political headache for Erdogan. Yet it may also offer hope that the deep divides in Turkish society can be bridged.

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.