On Tuesday, the Syrian Defence Ministry announced a ceasefire with Kurdish forces and gave them four days to agree to integrate into the forces of President Ahmed al-Sharaa – the Islamist military strongman who came to power in December 2024.

The United States, the main ally of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has urged them to accept.

The SDF has so far resisted joining the central state, and ceasefire negotiations have collapsed.

Syrian government forces have seized swathes of territory from Kurdish forces in northern Syria, driving them out from Aleppo, Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor – effectively dismantling more than a decade of self-rule by the Kurds. 

RFI spoke to Kendal Nézan, the president of the Kurdish Institute of Paris, about the latest developments.

Kendal Nezan: Obviously, we are very worried. The offensive began on 6 January, after a deal between President Trump and Turkish President Erdoğan, so with an American green light.

We saw nearly 40,000 militiamen from the Syrian Arab Army mobilised against two Kurdish neighbourhoods where there were around 450,000 displaced refugees. The neighbourhoods have been defended since 2011 by just a few hundred local police. That gives you a sense of the disproportion.

The neighbourhoods were encircled and, after six days of fighting, the Kurds withdrew. Afterwards, under American pressure, they decided to pull out of towns with an Arab majority, which they did. The Syrian army then retook these cities, which had been liberated by Kurdish forces from the grip of Islamic State.

RFI: A four-day ceasefire came into effect on Tuesday night. Could this help bring the current confrontation to a peaceful resolution?

KN: The issue obviously goes far beyond the fate of the Kurds alone. The fate of the Kurds matters because they defended not only their country and their territory, but also Europe, and humanity, against the Islamist scourge. More than 15,000 young Kurds were killed in that fight. They defeated Islamic State and captured tens of thousands of its members, who were held in camps. They have been doing this since 2014.

And how are they thanked? By being handed over to the Syrian regime and told ‘listen, your mission is over, find an arrangement with the new Syrian regime’, which is Islamist in nature, given that the current leader is a former jihadist.

So what will happen? The Kurds are faced with a dilemma. They are now confined to areas with a Kurdish majority. Either they come to terms with the regime by individually integrating into the new Syrian army, case by case, or they shift into resistance against this regime.

Syria says Sharaa, Trump discuss Kurdish rights as forces deploy in country’s north, east

RFI: What is President Ahmad al-Sharaa trying to achieve?

KN: His intention is to establish his authority across the entire territory, with the logistical, diplomatic and political backing of Turkey, his sponsor. That’s very important to point out.

And to establish an Islamic Syrian republic that is already in conflict internally. We saw the massacres of Alawites in March and of Druze in July. The Christian community is very worried. Now it is the Kurds.

So after the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, we are moving rapidly towards a new dictatorship – this time Islamist. And I say this for Europeans who think the regime will stabilise: such a regime, with so much power concentrated in the hands of one man, will generate a new influx of refugees and will become an Islamist hub.

RFI: So what is happening in Syria will have consequences for Europe and elsewhere?

KN: It will certainly have consequences in the region, and in Europe. It could tip over and become a centre of jihadism, because within the current Syrian Arab Army you have a heterogeneous mix of various Islamist militias – including between 6,000 and 8,000 foreign jihadists.

RFI: Do the events of recent weeks definitively mark the end of the Kurdish dream of autonomy in Syria?

KN: The Kurds are a resilient people. Over the course of their turbulent history, they have experienced setbacks, betrayals and shifting alliances. Definitive end? No.

But for the moment there is an autonomous zone in northern and north-eastern Syria. That zone has now shrunk to almost nothing and will probably no longer exist. The Kurds had in fact established an alternative system that was ecological and feminist, in which all components of the population – Arabs, Assyrian Chaldeans, women, everyone – took part. And we are heading towards an authoritarian regime where there is only the voice of the leader, who has appointed a parliament and rules the country with an iron fist.

What’s driving France’s sudden deportation of Kurdish activists?

RFI: There was also talk of a repressive Kurdish authority installed in Arab regions. It was not an ideal, democratic system either.

KN: Repressive? Certainly not. But conservative Arab tribes did not agree with the model that was put in place, because women were involved, because there were local councils and democracy, so there was irritation. Now they feel liberated.

One of the symbols of the Kurdish resistance was a female fighter, a statue of a Kurdish woman fighter who had liberated Raqqa. The first thing the current Syrian army did was to pull down that statue of a woman. For them, it’s heresy. And they opened prison doors to free Kurdish detainees.

RFI: The issue of controlling the region’s prisons, where jihadists or people close to Islamic State are held, is one of the big questions. The Syrian army accuses the SDF of having opened the doors, notably at Shahdad prison, where 120 Islamic State terrorists were held. Does this mean the Kurdish forces are now playing a dangerous game, using the prisons as their last card, at the expense of security?

KN: The Syrian government is coached and briefed by Turkey, which has an extraordinary mastery of black, negative and deceitful propaganda. If the Kurds had wanted to open the prison doors, they would have done so. They have guarded these prisons for around 10 years.

But on Tuesday, for example, the Kurds withdrew from al-Hol, the largest detention camp in the area, where there are 24,000 relatives of jihadists. The camp was attacked from all sides by drones, by the Syrian army and by the Americans. The international coalition was informed and did nothing. They said ‘listen, we cannot, we must first defend our own territories, and then it is up to you’. They no longer have the means to act.

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

RFI: Do you feel that you’ve been abandoned by the West, by the Americans?

KN: Yes, we’ve been abandoned. Ingratitude is, of course, a constant in human and political history. I would even say we’ve been sacrificed by the allies of the international coalition, the Americans of course. But the others remained silent.

RFI: Would you include the French in that? 

KN: The voice of France is inaudible. I may be a little hard of hearing, but France’s voice is inaudible. Have you seen any statements of support for our ‘brothers in arms’? That was the expression used by a French minister only recently.

This interview, adapted from the original version in French, has been lightly edited for clarity

A source familiar with talks between Trump and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said the agreement would be revised, but stressed that placing American bases on Greenland under US sovereignty had not been discussed.

“The 1951 agreement will get renegotiated,” the source told the French news agency AFP – adding that European allies would also step up security in the Arctic.

The defence pact, last updated in 2004, already allows Washington to increase troop deployments on the island as long as authorities in Denmark and Greenland are informed in advance.

The US currently operates one base there, the Pituffik Space Base in the north-west, which plays a key role in its missile defence system.

Trump said on Wednesday he had reached a “framework” agreement with Rutte covering Greenland and the wider Arctic region.

Trump reverses course on Greenland, drops tariff threat, citing ‘deal’

But Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said NATO’s chief had no authority to negotiate on Denmark’s behalf.

In a social media post, Poulsen said it was “very positive” that NATO wanted to strengthen Arctic security, but warned there were firm limits.

“We have a clear red line,” he said. “We will not cede sovereignty over parts of the kingdom.”

A NATO spokesperson later said talks would continue, stressing that “negotiations between Denmark, Greenland and the US would go forward aimed at ensuring that Russia and China never gain a foothold, economically or militarily, in Greenland”.

Unclear framework

Trump’s earlier threats over Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, had shaken relations between Washington and its European allies.

He had repeatedly said he wanted the territory to become part of the United States, and threatened tariffs of up to 25 percent against Denmark and other European countries.

Based on his talks with Rutte, Trump said he would not impose the tariffs that were due to take effect on 1 February.

Trump arrives in Davos as Europe struggles for unity over Greenland

European diplomats said the shift in tone had eased tensions, but warned that key questions remain unanswered. NATO has insisted that Rutte “did not propose any compromise to sovereignty” in his talks with Trump.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she had been informed that Greenland’s status was not discussed.

“We can negotiate all political aspects: security, investment, the economy,” she said. “But we cannot negotiate our sovereignty.”

Aaja Chenmitz, one of two Greenlandic lawmakers in the Danish parliament, questioned why NATO should have any role in discussions touching on the island’s resources.

“NATO in no case has the right to negotiate on anything without us, Greenland,” she wrote on social media.

(with newswires)

The city is one of Sudan’s most important and the capital of North Kordofan state, part of the wider Kordofan region that stands between the RSF’s Darfur stronghold and the army-controlled eastern half of the country.

After the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) tightened their grip on the western-most Darfur region in late October, they shifted their focus to Kordofan and drones have struck weekly in and around al-Obeid, residents say.

At around the same time, the paramilitary’s ground forces began taking over towns and villages across Kordofan, while also besieging cities in South Kordofan state.

The force has not yet approached al-Obeid, where daily life has continued despite the looming threat and an exodus late last year as the war intensified.

The army and allied forces have positioned themselves on the outskirts of the city.

Sudan’s El-Fasher ‘an epicentre of human suffering’, UN says

Funeral crowd hit

Sudan’s war erupted in April 2023 after the army and RSF clashed over their roles in a planned political transition. It has driven half the population into hunger and famine and decimated the country’s economy. Drones have come to play an increasingly dominant role, with the RSF in particular using them to usurp the army’s early air dominance.

Overall deaths from the conflict are hard to estimate, though researchers say at least tens of thousands have been killed.

More than 100 civilians were killed in the first half of December across the Kordofan region, according to the UN human rights office.

In al-Obeid, satellite imagery from the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab shows the appearance of about 100 new burial mounds in two cemeteries in the two weeks between 2 and 14 January.

The imagery also shows evidence of bombardment of the city’s power station, as well as the construction of berms around the city, a possible defence against future RSF encirclement.

In the al-Obeid area, residents say the worst of the incidents happened on 5 November in al-Luweib village.

Dozens had gathered from afar for a funeral when an ambulance belonging to the army-aligned Joint Forces drove past, and soon after a drone followed.

The drone, which residents assumed was directed by the RSF, fired on the funeral gathering, killing 65 people, all of them women and children, according to four al-Luweib residents who spoke to Reuters.

The incident echoes frequent attacks documented by Reuters in el-Fasher, Darfur, near or against ambulances and clinics alleged by the RSF to be harbouring enemy forces.

“We were sitting, and all of sudden the drone hit us. I went outside and felt something hitting me and I didn’t know what it was. They told me it was a drone,” said one of the witnesses, Safaa Hassan, who had burn marks on her arms and a shrapnel injury on her leg. “The yard was full of women,” she said.

Victims’ bodies, some of them torn apart by the impact, were later buried in a mass grave, the residents told Reuters.

Reuters could not independently verify the accounts. The RSF did not respond to a request for comment.

Sudan’s El-Fasher under the RSF, destroyed and ‘full of bodies’

‘Children under the rubble’

More recently, in early January, a drone strike killed Abdallah Mohamed Ahmed’s wife, seven of his grandsons, and two other female relatives when it hit the home in al-Obeid they had rented after fleeing their village following an RSF attack.

They are among about 43,000 who fled their homes in North Kordofan and about 65,000 who have fled the region as a whole between late October and 31 December, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration.

“We found the children under the rubble, under the iron, under the beds. Only God knows the state of the children,” said Moussa Adam, a neighbour present at the time of the attack.

“[They] could not achieve their goals they are looking for, so they started killing the citizens and terrorising the citizens,” Ahmed said of the RSF.

Imagery obtained by Yale researchers corroborated the targeting of the home.

With the use of oil, gas and coal by far the main cause of global warming, a report released by Carbon Majors on Wednesday highlights the role played by a small group of fossil fuel producers.

According to the study, 32 fossil fuel companies were responsible for half of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2024. The ranking is led by Saudi Arabia’s state-owned giant Aramco, followed by Russia’s Gazprom and the National Iranian Oil Company.

The report found that Saudi Aramco alone generated 1.7 billion tonnes of CO₂ in 2024, much of it linked to oil exports. ExxonMobil’s fossil fuel production accounted for a further 610 million tonnes.

Cop30 climate summit runs into overtime amid divisions over fossil fuels

State-owned companies

Overall, 17 of the top 20 highest-emitting companies are state-owned, with all 17controlled by governments that opposed a proposed global fossil fuel phaseout at the Cop 30 United Nations climate summit in December.

These include Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and India.

These findings follow a landmark ruling by the International Court of Justice last summer which established a legal link between fossil fuel production, global warming and its impacts.

Paris Agreement turns 10 as heat rises faster than global action

Meanwhile, emissions reductions again stalled in France and Germany in 2025, while a resurgence of coal-fired power generation in the US pushed emissions higher, reversing years of progress.

To meet the Paris Agreement goal of 1.5C, global emissions would need to fall by 45 percent by 2030 – a target that many experts now consider out of reach.

This article has been adapted from the original version in French.

The company on Wednesday said the products may contain cereulide, a substance that can cause diarrhoea, vomiting and lethargy in babies. It said the recall was launched as a precaution after further testing on prepared bottles.

According to a Radio France investigation, the General Directorate for Food, which oversees food safety within the agriculture ministry, was aware from last Friday, 16 January, that Lactalis had received batches potentially contaminated with cereulide.

Initial tests carried out on finished products did not show levels considered problematic by the authorities, their report found.

Additional checks were later requested on prepared bottles, which revealed higher concentrations of the toxin after dilution, prompting the withdrawal from sale.

Lactalis said the issue was linked to an international supplier which provides ARA, an ingredient used in some infant formulas, adding that Spain and countries in South America were notably affected.

In France, the recall covers Picot Nutrition Quotidienne first-age products in 400g, 800g and 850g containers, Picot Nutrition Quotidienne second-age products in 800g and 850g containers, and Picot AR second-age in an 800g container.

The products are sold in pharmacies and large retail stores.

French doctors stage symbolic ‘exile’ to Brussels over health policy row

Prepared bottles tested

Lactalis said the recall followed an alert from the French Professional Association for Infant Nutrition, an industry body.

The group said initial tests carried out on the powdered products produced compliant results.

Further analysis carried out on reconstituted products, meaning prepared bottles, later revealed the presence of cereulide, the company said in a statement. 

“We are fully aware that this information may cause concern among parents of young children,” Lactalis said.

“At this stage, no complaints or reports linked to the consumption of these products have been reported by the French authorities.”

EU tightens rules on ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water

Recalls widening

The Lactalis recall comes as infant milk products have been recalled in several countries in recent weeks over potential cereulide contamination.

Nestlé recalled infant milk products earlier in January in several countries, including France, as a precaution.

The Swiss food group said the presence of cereulide had been confirmed in some of its products and said that other manufacturers could also be affected.

French health authorities have opened a judicial investigation in that case, including epidemiological and food safety inquiries, the Health Crisis Centre said.

In its annual report on sexism, the High Council for Gender Equality, an advisory body attached to the office of the prime minister, on Wednesday said France was falling worryingly behind in identifying and tackling masculinism.

The council said the phenomenon should be recognised as a public security issue, warning that hatred of women can lead to violence and even terrorism. It noted that countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom have already included the issue in their strategies against violent extremism.

Masculinism emerged in the 1980s as a reaction to feminism. The ideology promotes male supremacy and blames women for what its supporters see as a decline in men’s living conditions.

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

From ideology to violence

“This is a real threat. From the moment you develop a hatred of women, there can be violence and terrorist acts,” Bérangère Couillard, president of the council, told French news agency AFP.

The report cited several cases linked to misogynist violence, going back to 1989 when a self-declared anti-feminist shot dead 14 women at Montreal’s École Polytechnique in Canada.

In France, an 18-year-old was arrested last summer in Saint-Étienne on suspicion of planning knife attacks against women. He was charged by the national anti-terrorism prosecutor, marking the first case involving someone claiming allegiance solely to the masculinist “incel” movement.

The council described that judicial decision as “a major step forward”, and said it now supports integrating what it calls “misogynist terrorism” into security doctrines.

This would involve training intelligence agents to recognise the language, recruitment methods and narratives used within the so-called manosphere.

Growing ‘masculinist’ culture in France slows down fight against sexism

Online influence

“If masculinist language is not understood, it gets missed,” Couillard said. She cited the British series Adolescence as an example of why familiarity with these terms matters.

The Netflix series, released in March 2025, depicts the murder of a schoolgirl by a classmate and the influence of masculinist ideas on boys. In January, French Education Minister Elisabeth Borne announced that it will be shown in French schools.

The gender equality watchdog said such masculinist ideologies were spreading more widely in France and elsewhere, especially among young people through social media.

It called for stronger regulation and more resources for Pharos, the state platform for reporting illegal online content, and Arcom, the media regulator.

A 2024 study by Dublin City University found that young men are exposed to masculinist content within 23 minutes of browsing TikTok and YouTube, on average, regardless of whether they looked for this material.

France to show ‘Adolescence’ mini-series as part of school curriculum

Hostile vs. paternalistic sexism

The council’s report is based on an online survey by polling company Toluna Harris Interactive of 3,061 people aged 15 and over, representative of the French population.

It found that 60 percent of men believe feminists are seeking to give women more power than men.

A quarter of men said it was normal for a woman to agree to sex to please a partner or out of duty. The same proportion said they had already doubted a partner’s consent.

From these findings, the council estimated that 17 percent of the French population adheres to “hostile” sexism, which devalues women and justifies discrimination and violence.

“The risk is that these people join and become members of masculinist networks,” said Couillard.

In addition, some 23 percent of those surveyed supported a more “paternalistic” form of sexism which promotes traditional gender roles, the council said. Often seen as benevolent by its proponents, it nonetheless contributes to inequality by confining women to stereotypical roles based on fragility or dependence.

Magali Lafourcade, the general secretary of France’s National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH), an independent advisory body, confirmed on Wednesday that she brought a conversation with two US advisors to the attention of the French foreign ministry.

She feared they were seeking to influence French public debate by looking for ways to show that Marine Le Pen’s trial was political.

RN leader Le Pen battles for political future after embezzlement conviction

Lafourcade met with Samuel D Samson and Christopher J Anderson last May in Paris – advisers for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, part of the US Department of State.

She said the pair were convinced that Le Pen had been “treated unfairly” and was a victim of a “political conviction”.

This view echoed that of US conservatives who rallied around Le Pen after her conviction for embezzling European Union funds.

US President Donald Trump called the conviction and Le Pen’s subsequent ban from holding public office a witch hunt. 

‘Free Le Pen’: US conservatives rally behind French far-right leader

The two US officials “were convinced that this was a political trial that aimed to keep [Le Pen] away from the presidential race or to ostracise her for purely political reasons,” Lafoucrade said, adding that they were seeking elements to back up the theory.

Lafourcade said she was uncomfortable with the conversation, and reported the meeting to the French Foreign Ministry, fearing a potential “manipulation of the public debate in France”.

This is the second time that French magistrates have issued a warning over influence from the US on the case.

At the start of January, the president of the Paris tribunal, Peimane Ghaleh-Marzban, said that magistrates who were on the case had received threats of sanctions from the US.

(with AFP)

A year after Donald Trump’s return to office, the shock persists – but the consequences grow starker. Power is wielded impulsively, institutions appear weakened, and policy often follows presidential whim over process. Critics call it monarchical governance. What does this mean for American democracy and the global order?

Speaking to RFI, former US diplomat William Jordan says what we are witnessing is not simply an unconventional administration, but something far more radical.

“What’s happening in Washington is basically a revolution – a far-right or reactionary revolution – that is playing out every day,” he says. “It’s driven by agitation and then propaganda to support it.”

Jordan points to what he describes as a deliberately performative strategy, popularised by Trump allies like Steve Bannon, designed to overwhelm opponents and institutions alike.

“There’s a certain theatricality to it – flooding the zone, making it impossible for anybody to focus on anything else,” he says. “And the institutions that should be protecting the American system are proving they’re not up to the task.”

Trump 2.0: tariffs, trade and the state of the US economy one year in

Checks, balances and a broken Congress

The United States’ constitutional architecture – its checks and balances,its bicameral Congress – is often held up as a model of democratic resilience. But Jordan is blunt about how well it is functioning today.

“Is it working? I would say no,” he says. “Congress has not been insisting on any sort of real accountability from the executive – at least not anything the executive would have a hard time ignoring.”

While courts are clogged with legal challenges to Trump administration actions, Jordan notes that even there, resolution is slow and often indulgent.

“The court system is choked with pending cases, and we have no clear resolution,” he says. “So the real stakes now are how much has already changed – and how much of that we won’t be able to change back easily, or at all.”

Recent, tentative pushback from Republican senators – particularly over Venezuela and Trump’s threats towards Greenland – may hint at limits, but Jordan cautions against optimism.

“Congress, as an institution, is simply not functioning in the way it’s supposed to,” he says. “The House is basically deadlocked, and the Senate has only shown resistance in very limited areas.”

Trump has openly suggested that a Democratic victory in the midterm elections could lead to impeachment – and has even hinted at blocking or cancelling the vote altogether. Constitutionally, Jordan says, that line is difficult to cross.

“I’m not aware of any provision that+ allows a president to suspend elections,” he says. “Even during the Civil War, the United States continued to hold federal elections. Abraham Lincoln was re-elected in the middle of it.”

The real battleground, he argues, lies elsewhere – in voting rules, redistricting and restrictions on mail-in ballots.

“If the Democrats do take control of the House, it would at least allow hearings and some level of accountability,” Jordan says. “It could also open the door to articles of impeachment – and frankly, they’d likely have even more material to work with than before.”

American expansionism 

Abroad, Trump’s expansionist rhetoric is being digested very differently depending on the capital.

“The Russians are much more publicly in a celebratory mode,” Jordan says. “The Chinese are more inscrutable – and I think more apprehensive.”

Far from welcoming chaos, he argues that Beijing sees itself as a status quo power.

“What the United States is doing is undermining the status quo,” he says. “And I don’t think that’s in China’s interest.”

European allies hit back at US threat to start trade war over Greenland

Few issues encapsulate the current unease more clearly than Trump’s repeated threats to take control of Greenland – a move that would strike at the heart of NATO.

“If the United States were to move on Greenland, that would effectively spell the end of the transatlantic alliance as we know it,” Jordan says.

Could NATO survive without Washington?

“I think something would emerge from the ashes,” he says, though he acknowledges it would be an “extremely heavy lift” for Europe. “Europe remains heavily dependent on American equipment and capabilities. That’s a vulnerability that will last for decades.”

Still, he believes the political will is growing – and that Canada, in particular, could play a key role in keeping NATO genuinely transatlantic.

“I can’t help but think Canada will continue to see value in a very close relationship with European partners,” he says.

France’s refusal to join Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ sparks new wine tariff threat

Pulling back the curtain

Commentators argue that Trump is merely exposing behaviour the US has long practised behind closed doors, and Jordan agrees – up to a point.

“What we’re seeing now is the culmination of decades of the US undermining the rules-based international order it helped create,” he says, pointing to Iraq, the war on terror, and long-standing double standards over issues like Palestine.

But he warns that what comes next could be even more destabilising.

“I think the next target is the United Nations,” Jordan says. “I’ve been waiting for the guns to come out and start blasting at what remains of the UN system.”

He sees recent talk of an alternative “board of peace” as the opening shots in a broader campaign.

“This is being carried out in stages,” he says. “What we’re seeing now is likely the first salvo in a much larger battle to undermine the international order.”

Winter is storm season in Labenne, a seaside resort on France’s southern Atlantic coast.

On the beach, a World War II bunker is half buried by the dunes. The lifeguard station will soon be overtaken too; the town council has had to build another one, farther from the beach. 

“We’re well aware that even the beach car park is doomed to disappear,” says Stéphanie Chessoux, Labenne’s mayor.

“Like businesses, we will have to take this natural progression into account. The elements are reclaiming their rights.”

Surrendered to sea and sand

This part of France loses around two metres of coast a year to erosion.

In Labenne, more and more land has turned into sand dunes. They surround the site of the town’s former sanatorium, where tuberculosis patients once came to breathe the sea air.

Constructed in the 1920s, the concrete building contained asbestos, presenting health risks as it fell into disrepair. Local authorities had it demolished last October.

“The ocean has advanced, but the building also deteriorated due to its proximity to the ocean, sand and salty air, which wore down everything made of metal inside the concrete,” explains Laure Guilhem-Tauzin of the Coastal Protection Agency, where she focuses on the Aquitaine region.

By knocking the structure down, “the idea was first and foremost to give nature back its rights and prevent marine pollution in the medium term”, she says.

“And also to prevent an investor who underestimated the costs of investment and depreciation from redeveloping the building, which would have had to be demolished 15 or 20 years later.”

French towns left uninsured as climate change increases risks

Nature-based solutions

Now, the 12,000-square-metre site is being turned over to a project to plant vegetation that can help stabilise the sand.

The area will be planted with species adapted to growing on dunes, says Guilhem-Tauzin. “It traps sand and holds the dunes in place. When there are storms, it stops the sand going inland.”

The project is an example of “nature-based solutions”, she explains, which are often the most effective. “A floodable marsh protects a green space behind the coast better than a sea wall, which can break in one go.”

Across France, as many as 50,000 buildings could be threatened by shrinking coastlines by 2100.

In the long term, some experts say the country will have to consider more radical options, such as managed retreat – moving communities away from the coast and allowing the sea to reclaim low-lying land.

This article was adapted from the original in French by RFI’s Raphaël Morán.

Designed to protect ice cores from glaciers that are rapidly disappearing due to global warming, the sanctuary is housed in Concordia Station, a French-Italian research base located 3,200 metres above sea level.

The first samples, taken from two glaciers in the Alps, are stored in a purpose-built snow cave.

Buried about 5 metres beneath the surface, the cave maintains a constant temperature of -52C, allowing the ice to be preserved naturally without artificial refrigeration. It also minimises the risks from human or technical failures.

Scientists officially inaugurated the Ice Memory Sanctuary on Wednesday, amid outside temperatures of -33C.

“We are the last generation who can act,” said Anne-Catherine Ohlmann, director of the Ice Memory Foundation. 

“It’s a responsibility we all share. Saving these ice archives is not only a scientific responsibility – it is a legacy for humanity.”

French scientists probe deep into Antarctica for clues on climate change

Preserving climate records

Launched in 2015 by research institutes and universities in France, Italy and Switzerland, the Ice Memory project was conceived after scientists noticed a sharp rise in temperature on several glaciers. 

Since 2000, glaciers have lost between 2 percent and 39 percent of their ice regionally and about 5 percent globally, according to a study published in Nature in 2025.

As they melt, invaluable scientific records are lost.

Preserving ice cores will allow future scientists to study Earth’s climate history, explained Carlo Barbante, vice-chair of the Ice Memory Foundation and professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. 

“By safeguarding physical samples of atmospheric gases, aerosols, pollutants and dust trapped in ice layers, the Ice Memory Foundation ensures that future generations of researchers will be able to study past climate conditions using technologies that may not yet exist,” he said. 

Natural vault

The Ice Memory Sanctuary measures 35 metres long and 5 metres high and wide.

Its stability is ensured by the extreme and naturally constant Antarctic temperatures.  

The natural and low-impact snow cave was approved in 2024 under the Antarctic Treaty, which regulates the use of Antartica for scientific research, and was funded by the Prince Albert II Foundation.

It currently houses ice cores extracted from the Mont Blanc and Grand Combin glaciers in 2016 and 2025 respectively.

Scientists hope million-year-old Antarctic ice will reveal climate secrets

‘Race against time’

Dozens of additional ice cores from glaciers worldwide – such as in the Andes, Pamir, Caucasus and Svalbard mountain ranges – are expected to join the Ice Memory archive in the coming years.

An international governance framework will be established over the next decade to ensure fair and transparent scientific access for future generations.

On Wednesday, European climate monitors and US confirmed that 2025 was the third hottest year on record, pushing the planet closer to a key warming limit. 

“We are in a race against time to rescue this heritage before it will vanish forever,” said Barbante.

The company has already built two quantum computers that use photons – particles of light – to encode and process information, setting it apart from competitors relying on other quantum computing architectures.

Established in 2017 as a spin-off from France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the University of Paris-Saclay, Quandela represents a new generation of European quantum technology ventures translating academic research into commercial systems.

RFI English’s Dhananjay Khadilkar recently visited Quandela’s facility to speak with the company’s chief operating officer, Valérian Giesz, about the firm’s progress in making quantum computing a practical reality.

The saga could make a script for a David-and-Goliath movie: plucky community group saves local cinema from real estate developers!

That’s exactly what happened to La Clef (“The Key”), one of the few remaining independent arthouse cinemas in Paris, which reopened on 14 January.

Established by cinephile Claude Franck-Forter in 1973, when the 1968 protests still loomed large in the student-dominated fifth arrondissement, the cosy theatre on the corner of Rue de la Clef carved out a niche for non-mainstream films and political debates.

It has always prided itself on supporting rare films from France and abroad, showcasing minority voices and under-represented groups while keeping ticket prices reasonable.

That model came under pressure when the building was taken over by the social committee of a French savings bank in 1981. Although it continued to function as a cinema, its future was uncertain – and even more so when the bank decided to put it on the market, forcing La Clef to close its doors in April 2018.

But the cinema’s connection to the neighbourhood and wider film community ran deep – so much so that a collective calling itself La Clef Revival formed to raise funds to buy the building and keep it running as a non-profit organisation.

This ad hoc group of cinema-lovers, activists and local residents organised an illegal occupation of the building from 2019 until 2022, putting on screenings and gatherings and drumming up financial support.

‘Caméra Libre’: a French plan to foster freedom of speech for muzzled filmmakers

Round-the-clock occupation

After an eviction, a long legal battle and a crowdfunding campaign, the cinema was finally bought by the collective in June 2024 for just over €2.5 million.

Chloé, a member of the collective, has fond memories of the sit-in, when activists occupied the cinema from 6am to midnight everyday to deter police intervention.

“We took turns sleeping in the cinema,” she told RFI. “I remember I had put my mattress behind the screen in the main screening hall and I was awoken by the noise of the 35mm [projector] showing a Gregg Araki film.

“Students from the area were coming in to have a croissant and watch the film before their classes. It was wonderful to wake up in that environment.”

The campaign to save the cinema received support from the film world in France and overseas – including in Hollywood, where Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino were among the high-profile backers.

Numerous French directors, including Céline Sciamma and Leos Carax, hosted screenings during the occupation. And in 2023, more than 80 international artists donated works to be sold off in a fundraising auction, including filmmaker David Lynch and photographers Wang Bing and Nan Goldin.

“We were very touched by the recognition from certain figures in the film industry regarding our project and our commitment to saving this place,” says Taddeo, a cinema-goer who helped organise the sale and now acts as one of the collective’s programming coordinators.

The day-to-day work of reopening La Clef has been led by ordinary film lovers like him – and Kira, who was in New York at the time of the occupation but remembered the cinema from her childhood in the neighbourhood.

“It’s amazing to show that it’s possible to de-commodify an entire building, to take it out of the speculative real estate, to run it together and figure it out, to learn how to use the projectors, to learn how to take care of a space,” she told RFI.

Simon, who lives nearby, has been a regular spectator for years and loves the variety of films on offer. He became steadily more involved during the occupation and helped renovate the building after the sale was finalised.

“Every time I’ve seen a screening at La Clef, it’s been completely different,” he says. “Being able to discuss amongst ourselves, developing new ways of watching films, is really something we can do in this kind of place.”

A true community cinema

In order to manage the funding and purchase, the collective set up an endowment fund called Cinéma Revival. The new legal status means that the building doesn’t belong to any one entity and decisions must have a consensus from all members, preventing the cinema being sold off on a whim.

To maintain financial independence and limit the need for subsidies, La Clef’s business model is based on a mix of yearly memberships, sales at the bar and pay-what-you-want tickets. This means the price is decided by each audience member according to their means – at an average of €4.

The cinema operates with only two paid employees. The rest are volunteers who receive training to run the building, project the films and liaise with the public. 

The collective also rents out the space to other associations for themed screenings and other community activities. And they have partnerships with film schools to allow cinema students to practice using 35mm projectors, as well as image and sound editing.

La Géode cinema in Paris reopens after six-year revamp

Model for independents

The cinema is connected to other independent cinemas around Europe via the Kino Climates network, which unites alternative venues in 17 countries.

La Clef Revival hopes their success will be emulated elsewhere, proving that there are viable alternatives to blockbuster films, multiscreen cinema chains and ever bigger streaming platforms.

“We really hope that this serves as an example, and that other people who want to also run spaces that are open to the public in their neighbourhoods and their cities,” says Kira.

“Maybe other countries can come here and see that it actually happened and that they could probably do it too.” 

As protests and repression intensify inside Iran, Beijing finds itself under growing pressure. China’s long-standing principle of non-interference is colliding with its deep economic entanglement with the Islamic Republic.

When US President Donald Trump warned that Tehran would face “serious consequences” if protesters were killed, China initially stayed silent. When it did respond, it repeated familiar positions, calling for calm, opposing outside interference and restating views it said it had “always” held.

That posture shifted on Tuesday, when Trump announced an additional 25 percent tariff on countries that continue to defy Washington’s policy on Iran. The measure was to take effect “definitively” and “immediately”, and was aimed above all at China, Iran’s most important trading partner.

Beijing said it would “resolutely defend its legitimate rights and interests”, reject foreign military intervention in Iran and act as needed to protect Chinese citizens.

New protests hit Iran as alarm grows over crackdown ‘massacre’

Trade and oil ties

China is central to Iran’s economy. More than a quarter of Iran’s total trade in 2024 was conducted with China, according to the World Trade Organization.

Iran imported around $18 billion worth of goods from China and exported about $14.5 billion in return, figures that underline the scale of the partnership.

Chinese energy companies, including Sinopec, are directly involved in offshore oil extraction in Iranian waters. China was still importing an estimated 1.8 million barrels of Iranian oil per day last autumn.

“These oil flows fluctuate depending on the month,” said Théo Nencini, a researcher specialising in Sino-Iranian relations at the Catholic Institute of Paris and Sciences Po Grenoble.

“They increase with the Chinese New Year. In general, between December and January – not always – the Chinese import a little less, then imports rise just after.”

Nencini said a key shift came in March 2023, when Iran and Saudi Arabia restored diplomatic relations in Beijing.

“From that moment on, we saw a fairly dizzying increase in Iranian oil exports to China,” he said. Until 2022, exports averaged around 700,000 to 800,000 barrels per day. “Then it rose to around 1.5 million in 2025.”

UN sanctions on Iran set to return as nuclear diplomacy fades

Why China can absorb Iranian oil

Estimates suggesting that more than 90 percent of Iranian oil exports go to China are plausible, said Didier Chaudet, an expert in geopolitics, specialising in Persian-speaking regions.

“If we look at Iran’s other potential customers, we see countries that do not have the means for abundant consumption, such as Afghanistan at present, or Syria until the fall of the Assad regime,” Chaudet said.

Others, such as Turkey, “do not have the political will, for fear of provoking American wrath”.

That leaves China as “the only country with the political will, economic need and financial capacity to absorb the majority of Iranian oil”, Chaudet added.

Around a quarter of that oil is processed in so-called teapot refineries, small semi-independent facilities known for handling sanctioned crude from Iran or Venezuela.

China is increasingly assuming responsibility for this trade through forums such as BRICS+ and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, both of which Iran has joined, Chaudet said.

“It is a way to criticise the latest sanctions imposed on Iran, which are considered excessive and even illegal,” he said.

Buying Iranian oil beyond China’s immediate needs is also “a way of helping the regime to stabilise”, Chaudet said. Many Chinese researchers fear that if the regime collapses, Iran could become “a greater Syria rather than a greater Sweden”.

Is China’s SCO a counterweight to NATO or just geopolitical theatre?

A relationship centuries in the making

China’s engagement with Iran predates recent crises. Beijing supported the 2015 nuclear deal, which Trump later abandoned during his first term.

In 2021, after Joe Biden entered the White House, China and Iran announced a 25-year cooperation agreement promising up to $400 billion in Chinese investment, although the extent of its implementation remains unclear.

For Emmanuel Lincot, professor at the Catholic Institute of Paris and research director at IRIS, the agreement was “unprecedented in the history of bilateral relations”.

He said it was accompanied by military cooperation, most recently joint Chinese, Iranian and Russian naval manoeuvres off South Africa.

The relationship stretches back centuries.

Lincot pointed to the 7th-century Sassanid ruler Péroz, a Persian king, who sought refuge at the Chinese imperial court in Xi’an after Arab-Muslim invasions, a story “regularly repeated by both propaganda machines” as evidence of ancient ties.

In the early 15th century, Chinese admiral Zheng He sailed as far as the Strait of Hormuz during his maritime expeditions.

Iran is now a key link in Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road strategy, connecting Central Asia to the Arabian Gulf. China has also acted as a broker between Iran and Saudi Arabia when strategic, particularly energy, interests align.

China marks ten years of Belt & Road forum, though interest is waning

Support, but with limits

Beijing’s support for Tehran is not unconditional. Chaudet said Iranian perceptions of Russia and China are increasingly diverging.

“Moscow has not lived up to the expected level of support,” he said, despite Tehran’s alignment with the Kremlin over Ukraine.

China, however, “is not in a position of absolute support”, Chaudet said. Chinese analysts are aware of the Iranian regime’s weaknesses and are “not receptive” to Tehran’s calls for greater assistance.

“Iran is a partner, certainly, but not at the heart of China’s national interests,” he said. “China will not go into conflict with Washington to save Tehran.”

What remains central for Beijing is keeping oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.

“The Chinese are waiting,” Nencini said. “They are waiting to see how everyone reacts.”

Whether Washington’s threat of secondary tariffs will divert China from Iranian oil remains uncertain, particularly given the fragile trade truce between the two countries.

Much now depends on Trump’s next move. He has said his only limit is his own “moral compass”, alongside domestic political pressure and looming mid-term elections.

This has been adapted from the original article in French by RFI’s Igor Gauquelin.

“I am on my way home,” Raphael Boukandoura, 35, told the AFP news agency in a brief phone call on Wednesday. He was speaking from a taxi bringing him home from the migrant detention centre in Arnavutkoy, near Istanbul airport, where he had been transferred after his arrest on Monday.

His lawyer Emine Ozhasar confirmed he had been freed, adding that they were still waiting to hear details of his release.

Boukandoura, who has been living in Turkey for at least a decade and holds an official press card, was arrested on Monday while he was covering a protest called by pro-Kurdish opposition party DEM for the French daily newspaper Libération.

He was arrested along with nine other people when police broke up the protest, and was accused of joining in with the protesters shouting slogans against the Turkish military offensive targeting Kurds in north-eastern Syria.

He denied taking part in the protest, and said he was there as a journalist covering the event.

Turkey’s independent media on alert over stance of tech giants

‘Hazardous job’

France’s foreign ministry had on Tuesday said it hoped Boukandoura, who regularly covers Turkey for French publications, would be “freed as quickly as possible”.

The European Parliament’s Turkey rapporteur Nacho Sanchez Amor had also said he was following “with concern” the reporter’s case, especially the threat of deportation.

“Independent journalism is really a hazardous job in Turkiye for locals and foreigners,” he wrote on social media before Boukandoura’s release.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) had earlier called it “unacceptable” to threaten a French journalist with expulsion for doing his job.

“It is intended to intimidate journalists covering pro-Kurdish protests in Turkey,” the group’s Turkey representative Erol Onderoglu told AFP.

(with AFP)

The year-long crackdown, announced on Wednesday by Europol, saw officers take down 24 industrial-scale laboratories and seize roughly 1,000 tonnes of chemicals used to produce street drugs including MDMA, amphetamine and methamphetamine.

More than 85 people were arrested, among them two suspected ringleaders from Poland.

“I’ve been in this business for a while. This is by far the largest ever operation we did against synthetic drug production and distribution,” said Andy Kraag, head of Europol’s European Serious and Organised Crime Centre.

“I think this is genuinely a massive blow to organised crime groups involved in drug trafficking, specifically of synthetic drugs.”

Inside the cocaine boom fuelling Europe’s most lucrative drug market

Police forces from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain worked together on the operation, which investigators say exposed a sophisticated network stretching across the European Union.

Suspicions were first raised in 2024, when Polish police noticed a network importing unusually large volumes of legal chemicals from China and India.

Further investigation revealed that the substances were being repackaged, mislabelled and redistributed across the EU to clandestine laboratories manufacturing synthetic drugs.

Most of those arrested are Polish nationals, although Belgian and Dutch suspects are also believed to have played roles in the criminal enterprise.

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

Cutting the supply chain

Kraag said the investigation was guided by a “supply-chain strategy” aimed at choking off the drug trade at its source.

“These criminal groups – they don’t have their supply anymore,” he said.

Beyond the health risks associated with synthetic drugs, Kraag highlighted the broader damage caused by the trade, including violence, corruption and money-laundering.

He also drew attention to the often-overlooked environmental toll. During the raids, authorities seized more than 120,000 litres of toxic chemical waste that criminals typically dump on land or into streams.

“Today, it’s profit for criminals. Tomorrow, it’s pollution,” Kraag warned.

Investigators are continuing to pursue other networks believed to be operating across Europe.

“This is one of the biggest distributors. But it’s not the only one. So we’re still looking,” Kraag said.

(with newswires)

Signed on Saturday with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, the pact to create one of the world’s largest free trade areas has been fiercely opposed by farmers’ groups backed by France and others.

Lawmakers in Strasbourg voted 334 to 324 in favour of asking the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to determine whether the deal is compatible with the bloc’s rules.

Hundreds of farmers had gathered with tractors outside the parliament building ahead of Wednesday’s vote – and erupted in celebration as the result came in.

“We’ve been on this for months and months, for years,” a euphoric Quentin Le Guillous, head of a French young farmers group, told French news agency AFP outside the EU parliament.

Tractors surround EU Parliament as MEPs vote on Mercosur review

“Tonight, I’m going home, I’m going to kiss everyone, and I’m going to tell my kids, ‘I got it, we got it, we can be proud.'”

The court will now have to assess the legal challenge, a process that could delay and even derail a deal seen as a cornerstone of a Brussels push to open up new markets.

The vote deals a blow to the European Commission, whose president Ursula von der Leyen had given a speech to parliament just hours earlier touting the “historic deal”.

Devastating sign

More than 25 years in the making, the EU-Mercosur deal was given fresh impetus amid the sweeping use of tariffs and trade threats by US President Donald Trump’s administration, which has sent countries scrambling for new partnerships.

The commission, which championed and negotiated the pact that eliminates tariffs on more than 90 percent of bilateral trade, said it “regrets” the lawmakers’ decision.

“According to our analysis, the questions raised in the motion by the parliament are not justified because the commission has already addressed those questions and issues in a very detailed way,” European Commission trade spokesman Olof Gill told reporters in Brussels.

EU countries green-light Mercosur trade deal despite France’s opposition

The court challenge centres on whether the deal can be partially applied before full ratification from member states, as envisaged by the commission, and if it unlawfully restricts Brussels’ powers on some environmental and food safety matters.

The head of German auto industry group VDA decried the EU parliament’s decision, saying it sent a “devastating sign” and risked irking Mercosur countries.

“Europe is weakening itself with the EU Parliament’s decision at a time when geopolitical stability and reliable international partnerships are more urgent than ever,” Hildegard Mueller said.

Parliament will now wait for the court’s opinion before holding a vote on whether to approve the Mercosur deal – a necessary step for it to fully come into force.

But the commission could push ahead and apply it provisionally, also pending judgement, a potentially politically explosive move.

A small battle in a larger war

Key power Germany, as well as Spain and the Nordic countries, strongly support the pact, eager to boost exports as Europe grapples with Chinese competition and a tariff-happy administration in the White House.

“We are convinced of the legality of the agreement. No more delays. The agreement must now be provisionally applied,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said after the vote.

But France, Poland, Austria Ireland and Hungary oppose it over concerns for their agricultural sectors.

“The fight continues to protect our agriculture and guarantee our food sovereignty,” said French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot.

EU backs tough legislation to slash food waste and rein in ‘fast fashion’

The deal favours European exports of cars, wine and cheese, while making it easier for South American beef, poultry, sugar, rice, honey and soybeans to enter Europe.

This has angered many European farmers, who have rolled tractors into Paris, Brussels and Warsaw to protest a feared influx of cheaper goods produced with lower standards and banned pesticides.

“It feels good, finally a victory,” French farmer Alice Avisse, 52, said of the vote, cautioning however that it was “only a small battle in a larger war”.

Together, the EU and Mercosur account for 30 percent of global GDP and more than 700 million consumers.

(with AFP)

A senior Christian clergy member and a village head said more than 160 people were seized in Kurmin Wali village. A security report prepared for the United Nations noted the kidnapping of more than 100 people at multiple churches.

Kaduna state police and two senior government officials had earlier denied any abduction, saying security officers visited the area and found no proof of any kidnapping.

But late Tuesday, national police spokesman Benjamin Hundeyin said an “abduction” had occurred and that security operations were under way “with a clear focus on locating and safely rescuing the victims and restoring calm to the area”.

He said earlier remarks by police and other officials in Kaduna were “intended to prevent unnecessary panic while facts were being confirmed”.

“Those remarks, which have since been widely misinterpreted, were not a denial of the incident but a measured response pending confirmation of details from the field, including the identities and number of those affected,” he said.

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Names put forward

“Subsequent verification from operational units and intelligence sources has confirmed that the incident did occur,” Hundeyin said.

A Christian grouping in northern Nigeria has submitted a list of people seized during the attack.

“We did produce the names of over 177 people and there is no contest that it was real,” Reverend Joseph Hayab, head of the Christian Association of Nigeria for the country’s north, told the French news agency AFP.

“Such a number couldn’t have been taken and you think you can bury it just like that.”

He said there was also evidence of “those who escaped even with injury”.

Nigerians push back on Trump’s military threat over Christian killings

Pressure and violence

The attack is the latest in a wave of mass kidnappings targeting both Christians and Muslims in Nigeria. Armed gangs, known locally as bandits, frequently carry out mass kidnappings for ransom and loot villages, mainly in the northern and central parts of the country.

In November, armed gangs seized more than 300 students and teachers from a Catholic school in Niger state. Fifty escaped and the rest were released in two batches weeks later.

US President Donald Trump has focused on insecurity in Nigeria, putting Abuja under diplomatic pressure.

In late December, the United States launched strikes on what it and the Nigerian government said were militants linked to the Islamic State group in Sokoto state, with Nigeria saying it approved the strikes.

Nigeria has also struck a $750,000 per month deal with a US firm to lobby Washington to help Abuja communicate “its actions to protect… Christian communities and (maintain) US support in countering west African jihadist groups”, according to disclosure forms filed with the US Department of Justice.

(with newswires)

Lecornu, who heads up a fragile minority government, appears to have won a stay of execution.

He invoked article 49.3 of the Constitution on Tuesday to force the finance side of the budget bill through the lower house without a vote. The move came after he failed to win over enough lawmakers to get the legislation voted on in the usual way.

In October, the prime minister promised the opposition that he would not resort to using the 49.3 clause – known colloquially as the “nuclear legislative weapon” of parliament – but would instead look to compromise.

That, however, didn’t work and discussions with opposition parties have been in deadlock for the last three months.

 “Things are now at an impasse. The text can no longer be voted on. And we believe France must have a budget,” the prime minister told the National Assembly.

The use of article 49.3 also automatically allows MPs to block the bill’s adoption by tabling a vote of no confidence – which must be signed by at least 10 percent of members (58 MPs) and filed within 24 hours.

The hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) has already filed a motion of no confidence and the far-right National Rally (RN) party is expected to follow suit.

If a majority of MPs vote in favour of the no confidence motion, which is likely to take place on Friday, the government falls and the budget is scrapped. If the motion fails, the government survives and the budget passes.  

France’s article 49.3 a handy constitutional tool to bypass parliament

Concessions to Socialists

Both the conservative Republicans and the Socialists have said they will not vote against the government.

Despite having just 66 out of the total of 577 MPs, the Socialists have turned out to be the key swing voting block, with the prime minister and his government appearing to have won their backing by making a number of concessions in the budget.

These include unfreezing government spending outside defence and eliminating tax breaks for retirees. Low-income workers’ take-home pay will be boosted via a benefit scheme, with some 3 million households receiving an additional average of €50 per month, at a cost of around €700m in 2026. 

A scheme to refurbish energy-inefficient housing (MaPrime Rénov) is being maintained, and the Green Fund, aimed at local authorities’ ecological transition projects, will receive an extra €200m.

The government is also expanding subsidised meals to all university students, regardless of income.

French PM Lecornu survives no confidence votes after pension U-turn

Tax hikes

The most contentious U-turn on the budget concerns tax hikes, which are needed to finance these social measures.

Under pressure from the Socialists, the government has agreed to extend a temporary tax on France’s biggest companies, despite earlier promises to ditch it, then halve it. 

The full tax is to be maintained and will apply to around 300 companies (rather than around 450 last year) with a turnover of at least €1.5bn. It is expected to bring in €7.3bn in revenue this year, compared to €8bn last year.

The government has also backtracked on its promise to cut so-called production taxes (CVAE), which are levied on the “value” companies create in France, rather than their profit or revenue. Slashing the tax would have handed back €1.3bn to French businesses to boost competitivity. 

Patrick Martin, the head of the Medef business leaders’ union, has slammed the budget. In an interview with business daily Les Echos he said the state was “betraying itself” by renewing the temporary tax and reversing the reduction on CVAE. 

Entrepreneurs were being “systematically used as the adjustment variable”, and short-term decisions favouring households were at the expense of competitiveness and attractiveness, he said.

However, in an open letter to business leaders Lecornu insisted that a “new political crisis would weaken our country and weigh even more heavily on the economy and jobs”.

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

What happens now?

Lecornu is expected to survive Friday’s no confidence vote, but that’s not the end of the road.

The spending side of the budget bill still has to be agreed, meaning he will have to repeat the use of the 49.3 measure, thereby coming up against further no confidence votes.

The entire finance bill must then go through the Senate and then return to the National Assembly to be finally adopted, once more most probably via article 49.3.

This is expected to be in the first half of February, a government official told Le Monde.

So far, France has been operating on a rollover budget from 2025 to keep paying everything from civil servant salaries to pensions and defence costs.

The government has committed to reducing the fiscal deficit to a maximum of 5 percent of its projected economic output for the year, compared to 5.4 percent at the end of 2025.

Restoring public finances is a “priority on which there can be no compromise” Lecornu has said.

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

The prime minister is in a weak position since Macron’s centrist alliance no longer has a majority in the assembly, following the president’s decision to call snap elections in June 2024.

Two prime ministers, Michel Barnier and François Bayrou, have already been toppled in just over a year – both victims of budget discord.

“We have recorded exceptional amounts of rainfall for the month of January” in certain regions such as Monastir (east-central), Nabeul (northeast) and Greater Tunis, Abderazak Rahal, director of forecasting at the National Institute of Meteorology (INM), told AFP.

At least four people were killed on Tuesday as floods swept across Tunisia amid the worst torrential rain for over 70 years in some regions, and there were fears the death toll could rise, authorities said.

Images of flooded streets circulated on social media, showing numerous cars stranded in torrents of water reaching up to the doors.

Meteorological officials said the rainfall levels in some regions were the heaviest recorded since 1950.

Unprecedented chaos

“The rain fell all night, it didn’t stop, and it’s still coming down. At first, I didn’t pay much attention; there were only small leaks. But when I got out of bed, I found myself standing in water,” said Mostafa Riyahi, a resident of Tunis, in his flooded home.

A source within the Ministry of Defense, who requested anonymity, also told AFP that even the army, as a member of the commission for combating natural disasters, is participating in rescue operations.

The cloudbursts are inundating streets, submerging vehicles and disrupting daily life in multiple governorates (provinces) of the North African country, with emergency services struggling to respond to the scale of the flooding.

Civil protection teams say several areas are cut off by rising waters, particularly in low-lying neighbourhoods.

Schools had to close in the capital Tunis and in the towns of Nabeul, Sousse and Beja, and court sessions were suspended and public and private transport crippled in some districts, at least on Tuesday.

Videos shared on social media keep on showing fast-moving floods sweeping debris through residential streets, with seawater inundating neighbourhoods in the coastal town of Menzel Temime.

Infrastructure and climage change

The latest rainfall has proved record-breaking, but Tunisian streets often flood after heavy downpours, largely because of the state of the country’s infrastructure.

Drainage and stormwater networks are often old and poorly maintained, particularly in rapidly expanding urban areas, with waste sometimes clogging the system.

Rapid urbanisation of some areas has also led to less rainwater being absorbed into the ground, increasing runoff.

The dramatic deluge comes as Tunisia grapples with a seven-year drought, worsened by climate change and marked by a sharp decline in water reserves in dams nationwide.

The country has seen severe water stress, particularly affecting agriculture and drinking water supplies, with cuts imposed in several regions during the summer.

In neighbouring Algeria, several regions have also been hit by massive downpours and floods.

 (with newswires)

RFI: Since Donald Trump returned to power, he has repeatedly attacked Europe, going so far as to threaten the annexation of Greenland. Do Europeans today have an enemy in the White House?

I wouldn’t speak of an enemy. I think we simply need to be lucid. The transatlantic relationship as we have known it for decades is rooted in the blood of the Second World War. That relationship is over, and we’ll have to build a new one. That will probably involve a moment of confrontation, which may be difficult politically and diplomatically. But this is the time for the European Union to stand tall and say: ‘enough is enough, we must now be respected’.

The issue of the moment is, of course, the United States’ desire to annex Greenland. And Donald Trump has added fuel to the fire saying: ‘I don’t think European leaders will put up much resistance to my project.’ Is he wrong?

I hope with all my heart that he’s wrong. And I believe this is a moment of truth for the European Union and for European leadership. [On Tuesday] the European Council is meeting in Brussels, convened by my successor, António Costa. It’s the moment for clarity and for unity within the European Union. Why? Because in reality, for several years now – and this has intensified since Donald Trump’s return to the White House – all the pillars on which the European project is founded have been under attack.

On the one hand, a war has been unleashed that threatens peace on the European continent – a war launched by Russia. In terms of competitiveness, the trade war launched against the rest of the world, including against the European Union, is clearly a threat to our future prosperity. And we can also see, even at the democratic level, attempts to interfere in a number of European democratic debates that are unacceptable.

So I believe this is a moment for lucidity and for strength. That means we must be extremely clear and use the means at our disposal. We are not without leverage. We hear far too often that the EU cannot resist, has no strength, no capacity. Take the European market – 450 million consumers – that’s vital to major American companies.

European allies hit back at US threat to start trade war over Greenland

You said, ‘I hope he is wrong’ referring to Trump’s claim that European leaders will not put up much resistance. Does that mean you nevertheless have doubts – not about Europe’s capacity to resist, but about the willingness of European leaders to do so today?

If I have mixed feelings, and if I hope the right decisions will be taken, it is because over recent months I have observed far too little resistance. On the contrary, I have seen what I call the development of a diplomacy of flattery – a diplomacy of complacency and appeasement. I believe this is a major mistake made by some of my former colleagues. And it doesn’t work. It is even counter-productive.

We can clearly see that the more there have been these sometimes cowardly compliments – it has to be said – and this sometimes cowardly flattery, the more it has fuelled the White House’s appetite and the more it has worsened and unbalanced the relationship between the United States and the European Union.

Our wish, of course – and mine as well – is to have a respectful, balanced and effective relationship between the US and the EU. And that’s not the case.

You’re describing a Europe that has been immensely soft, weary, when facing the United States.

I think that over recent months and the past year, Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House has unfortunately not been an opportunity for the European Union to reveal its power, its strength, or its capacity to defend our vision of Europe in the world – including economically.

When we were threatened in the context of this trade war, and when in the end 15 per cent tariffs were imposed on us, and the response was a thumbs-up and a smile, that shows, in my view, very serious naivety – if not a culpable error. Because that attitude triggered an escalation and indeed encouraged a temptation to go ever further in threatening, intimidating and ultimately harming the European project.

Trump says not thinking ‘purely of peace’ in Greenland push

On Monday the Commission’s deputy spokesperson [Olof Gill] call for restraint in the face of Trump’s threats saying ‘Our priority is to engage, not escalate’. Does that mean the Commission has decided we’ll do nothing?

There’s a saying in Latin: ‘to err is human, but to persist is diabolical’. And I hope European leaders will draw the lessons of recent months. What more is needed when we are faced with serious ambiguity from the United States – if not complacency – towards Russia? What more is needed when we are hit hard by a trade war? And what more is needed when we are now confronted with direct threats to the sovereignty of one of our Member States? [Greenland is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark – a member of the EU]

Who is to blame for this weakness? European leaders as a whole? The Commission? Ursula von der Leyen? Is there anyone in particular who should be held responsible?

I don’t want to personalise the debate at this stage. I simply observe that over recent months a number of extremely important opportunities have been missed. That was certainly the case over the summer, when negotiations between the White House and the European Commission on tariffs were finalised.

I believe this was a very sad moment for the European Union – that is the first point. But there is more than that. A few years ago, before the war against Ukraine, only a handful of us were arguing for what we called the European Union’s strategic autonomy, its sovereignty. The French President was very clear-sighted on this issue. I was clearly – and I still am – on his side in this ambition for independence and sovereignty for the European Union. But at the time, Emmanuel Macron, myself and others were facing strong headwinds within the European Union, including from the European Commission.

Even under the previous Joe Biden administration, when decisions were taken that harmed European competitiveness – each time there was an attempt at appeasement.

A collective drifting off to sleep…

A form of lethargy.

In other words the Europe we have known for years?

No, not for years. During the Covid crisis, we reacted within a few months. We succeeded in countering the pandemic and in launching joint borrowing that demonstrated European solidarity at the economic level. 

EU to tighten Covid-19 vaccine export approval to ensure doses for own citizens

You are saying it can be done?

Of course. The history of Europe has shown that in difficult moments, European leaders have been capable of vision and courage. What we have seen in recent months is sad, but I don’t think it’s too late. And I believe that in the coming days we’ll see whether there is the indispensable wake-up call.

What should Europe do in the face of this threat of annexation combined with threats of punitive tariffs? What levers does the European Union have to say to Trump: ‘no, this will not pass’?

We have a range of economic levers, in particular anti-coercion measures. This is the moment to activate them, and we must be clear. Of course, we all hope there can be dialogue that might suddenly lead to de-escalation, but I do not see that happening. On the contrary, if no concrete action is taken – not just agreeable language and calls for restraint – that will indeed provoke smiles in the White House.

What is needed is to show that we have instruments and that we are ready to use them. If, for example, tomorrow we say that American companies no longer have access to European public procurement markets, that strategic American investments are halted or frozen on European soil… we have a whole range of measures that can be deployed, with an intensity that can go quite far. 

We have to act and stop talking…

I think so. I will be a bit blunt. In diplomacy, if someone slaps you, you slap back and then you talk. But you cannot simply take one blow, then a second, then a third. For now, I have the feeling that the White House is slapping the European Union, and the response is a thumbs-up, a smile – or even, within NATO, a certain general [Secretary-General Mark Rutte] calling the President “Daddy”. That is complacency. That is flattery. It does not work.

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

After US President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs of up to 25 percent on a string of European countries unless Greenland is ceded to the United States, the European Union finds itself contemplating a powerful – and so far unused – weapon in its trade arsenal: the so-called “anti-coercion” instrument.

The warning from Trump was met with shock across Europe over the weekend. The US president said the tariffs would target EU members Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden – as well as non-EU Britain and Norway – unless Denmark hands over Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Danish kingdom.

The remarks triggered alarm in European capitals and prompted leaders of the 27-nation bloc to call an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday evening – a sign of how seriously the EU is taking what it sees as one of the most severe crises in transatlantic relations in years.

European allies hit back at US threat to start trade war over Greenland

Talk first, but tools ready

Publicly, Brussels is striking a careful tone. EU trade spokesman Olof Gill said the bloc’s “priority is to engage, not escalate”, stressing that contacts with Washington were continuing at all levels.

“We are trying to be calm, to be firm, to be serious, to be responsible, because that’s what, in our view, leadership looks like,” he told reporters.

Still, the message comes with a clear caveat. If the threatened tariffs are imposed, Gill said, the EU “has tools at its disposal and is prepared to respond”.

Those options range from putting the current tariff deal with the United States on ice, to re-imposing suspended EU tariffs on €93 billion worth of US imports. Beyond that lies the most eye-catching measure of all – the anti-coercion instrument, often dubbed Brussels’ “bazooka”.

What is the anti-coercion instrument?

Formally adopted in 2023, the anti-coercion instrument was designed to deter economic pressure on EU member states by third countries. The EU defines coercion as a state applying – or threatening to apply – trade or investment measures to interfere with the bloc’s or a member state’s legitimate sovereign choices.

The tool has never been activated, but its reputation is formidable. Supporters describe it as a “nuclear option” because it allows the EU to retaliate with wide-ranging trade measures across its 450-million-strong single market.

That could include restricting imports or exports of goods and services, or limiting US companies’ access to lucrative public procurement contracts in Europe. American technology firms are seen as a potential target, given the United States runs a services surplus with the EU, and Brussels has previously drawn up lists of US services that could be hit.

The instrument was conceived after Lithuania accused China of blocking its exports in 2021 following Vilnius’ decision to allow a Taiwanese diplomatic office to open – a case that sharpened EU thinking on how to push back against economic pressure.

France to step up Greenland deployment with land, air and sea forces

How would it be triggered?

Both the European Commission and EU member states can request activation, but it would require backing from at least 55 percent of member countries, representing 65 percent of the EU’s population.

Even then, the process is deliberately measured. The commission would have up to four months to investigate the alleged coercion, followed by an eight-to-ten-week period for member states to approve any proposed response.

Only after that could concrete measures be prepared, potentially taking effect within six months. Brussels says these timelines are indicative rather than fixed.

In other words, the instrument is not designed for instant retaliation. Yet simply launching an investigation would send a strong political signal that the EU is ready to stand its ground, even against a close ally.

Macron warns of ‘cascading consequences’ if US seizes Greenland

That signal is precisely what some European leaders and lawmakers want to send.

French President Emmanuel Macron has raised the prospect of deploying the instrument if Trump follows through on his threat, according to aides.

Valerie Hayer, leader of the liberal Renew group in the European Parliament, has gone further, openly calling for its use.

“The United States is making a miscalculation that is not only dangerous but could be painful,” she said, describing the tool as the EU’s “economic nuclear weapon”.

(with newswires)

Raphaël Boukandoura, who works for various French publications including Ouest France and Courrier International, was arrested outside DEM’s Istanbul headquarters in the Sancaktepe district, it said.

His arrest was also confirmed by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), who called for him to be freed without delay.

“We call for the immediate release of our colleague who did nothing but his legitimate duty to cover a protest,” RSF’s Turkey representative Erol Onderoglu told AFP.

“RSF is closely following his case and calls on the authorities to put an end to such arbitrary interference against media professionals,” he said.

Ouest France echoed the call for him to be freed “immediately”.

Call for protection

The police intervened after a DEM statement was read out calling for “an immediate halt to the attacks” and for the protection of civilians in northeastern Syria, Turkish news reports showed.

Syrian forces began an offensive nearly two weeks ago which pushed Kurdish-led SDF forces out of the northern city of Aleppo, and expanded over the weekend to push deep into territory that has been held by Kurdish forces for over a decade.

The move was hailed by Ankara as a legitimate “fight against terror” but triggered angry protests among Turkey’s Kurds, who make up a fifth of the country’s population of 86 million and who have been deeply unsettled by the violence.

It has also raised questions about the fate of Turkey‘s peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in a bid to draw a line under a four-decade insurgency that cost some 50,000 lives.

Ceasefire negotiations collapse

The PKK on Tuesday said it would “never abandon” Kurds in Syria.

“You should know…whatever the cost, we will never leave you alone.. we as the entire Kurdish people and as the movement, will do whatever is necessary,” Murat Karayilan of the PKK was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, negotiations have collapsed between the Syrian president and the chief of the country’s Kurdish-led forces, a Kurdish official told AFP on Tuesday, as the army deployed reinforcements to flashpoint areas in the north.

US and EU urge fresh talks between Syria govt, Kurds after deadly clashes

President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Mazloum Abdi, who heads the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), were meeting to discuss a ceasefire agreement that included integrating the Kurds’ administration into the state.

The agreement had marked a blow for the Kurds‘ long-held ambitions of preserving the de facto autonomy they had exercised in swathes of northern Syria for over a decade.

Sunday’s ceasefire deal included the Kurds’ handover of Arab-majority Deir Ezzor and Raqa provinces, which they administered after their US-backed defeat of IS at the height of Syria’s civil war.

Sharaa, who is backed by the United States and Turkey, has refused to entertain the idea of decentralisation or federal rule, and insisted the army must deploy across Syria.

(with AFP)

General Muhoozi Kainerugaba’s comments come after his father, President Yoweri Museveni won an seventh term following general elections on Thursday that was widely criticised by poll observers and rights groups.

The embattled opposition, led by 43-year-old Bobi Wine, real name Robert Kyagulanyi, says they faced violence and intimidation ahead of the vote, with international bodies also accusing the government of “brutal repression”.

“We have killed 22 NUP terrorists since last week. I’m praying the 23rd is Kabobi,” Kainerugaba posted on social media X late Monday night, referring to Wine and his National Unity Platform (NUP) party.

“As for Kabobi, the permanent loser, I’m giving him exactly 48 hours to surrender himself to the Police. If he doesn’t we will treat him as an outlaw/rebel and handle him accordingly,” he added in a separate post on X.

‘He represents a population desperate for change’, Bobi Wine’s lawyer tells RFI

Ordeal

The east African country‘s veteran leader Yoweri Museveni, 81, was declared the landslide winner of the January 15 poll with 71.6 percent of the vote against his opponent Bobi Wine with 24.

Wine, the pop star-turned-politician, and his party, the National Unity Platform (NUP) have rejected the results, alleging widespread irregularities including ballot stuffing, enforced disappearance of polling agents and intimidation by security forces. 

Wine’s whereabouts remain unknown after he said on Saturday he had escaped a police raid on his home, where his wife remains under apparent house arrest. He says he is in hiding.

Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine under house arrest as Museveni leads vote

Wine criticised Kainerugaba’s “threats to kill me” on his own social media and demanded the military vacate the his compound, adding: “My wife and people are not safe.”

He also appeared on NTV Uganda on Monday night and accused police of vandalising his home and said leaving his residence would free him “to speak to the world,” still not disclosing his location.

The opposition leader had already faced arrest and torture in the run-up to the 2021 election, when he first ran for president.

Growing role

Over 100 members of Uganda’s biggest opposition party have also been charged with various offences including unlawful assembly related to violence around last week’s election, according to court documents and an opposition official.

In the run-up to polls last week, Kainerugaba, infamous for his colourful tweets and regular threats to behead Wine, was unusually silent on social media, but since his father’s win he has returned to posting frequently, often late at night.

It has been said on several occasions that Museveni wants his son to succeed him.

 (with newswires)

Louvre employees have been demanding better pay, more recruitment, and improved maintenance of the museum, and their strike action has shut down the museum several times since mid December.

Two previous strike days resulted in a loss of “at least one million euros” in revenue, according to management.

While nearly 140 new hires have been announced since start of the strike movement, and a meeting is scheduled at the culture ministry on Thursday to discuss salary increases, some union leaders remain critical of director Laurence des Cars.

Her management style, which has been described as remote and inflexible, has come under criticism.

“If we get the pay but continue with this governance model, we won’t be out of the woods,” Valerie Baud of the CFDT union said.

Culture Minister Rachida Dati, who plans to step down soon as she is running for Mayor of Paris, said Sunday that “major decisions” on the Louvre would be coming soon.

“I reviewed the organisation, the governance,” Dati said, answering a question put to her about Des Cars on France Inter radio and public television.

Des Cars offered to resign a few hours after the spectacular break-in on 19 October, which Dati refused.

Images of brazen heist revealed

Surveillance camera footage of the robbery was broadcast for the first time on French television Sunday evening.

The footage showed the two burglars forcing their way into the Apollo Gallery and slicing into display cases under the eyes of several staff members who do not intervene.

After breaking in through a reinforced window with high-powered disk cutters, they begin slicing into display cases.

Managers at the Louvre have stressed that staff are not trained to confront thieves and are asked to prioritise the evacuation of visitors.

Four suspects are in police custody over the robbery, including the two suspected thieves, but the eight stolen items of French crown jewels worth an estimated $102 million (€87 million) have not been found.

During the roughly four minutes that the two men were inside the gallery, one staff member can be seen holding a bollard used to orient visitors through the gallery, according to France Televisions.

The images, as well as multiple DNA samples found at the scene, form a key part of the ongoing criminal investigation into the robbery.

Metal bars have been installed over the windows of the Apollo Gallery since the break-in.

(with AFP)

Pape Gueye’s scorcher into the top right hand corner of Yassine Bounou’s goal in the first minutes of extra-time decided a contest that descended into chaos in the closing stages of the regulation 90 minutes at the Stade Prince Moulay Abdellah in Rabat.

Senegal’s players were furious with referee Jean-Jacques Ndala for ruling out Ismaila Sarr’s goal without checking the video assistant referees (VAR) and then awarding a penalty for a foul on the Morocco striker Brahim Diaz after consulting VAR.

Senegal boss Pape Thiaw led his players off the pitch in protest before veteran striker Sadio Mané urged them back on to face down their perceived injustice.

Nearly 20 minutes after the infringement, Diaz stepped up for the spot kick. But the Real Madrid striker botched his panenka – a chipped shot into the centre of the goal as the keeper dives to the right or left.

“Heroic!” read the headline on the front page of the Senegalese daily newspaper Le Soleil.

“From hell to heaven, the Lions went through every emotion at the end of a crazy scenario in the final,” it added.

Nigeria beat Egypt in shootout to claim third place at Africa Cup of Nations

“Incredible victory,” said L’Observateur on its front page. The paper saluted Mané as the man who refused to let history defeat him.

“A victory of collective intelligence over the brutality of circumstances and the pressure of interests,” the newspaper said.

Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye declared a national holiday in the wake of the team’s second success at the Cup of Nations in four years.

Faye is expected to receive the players at the presidential palace before they return to their club sides to resume their respective championships.

But as the squad made its way to Senegal, executives at the Confederation of African Football (Caf), which organises the Cup of Nations, said they were reviewing video footage of the incidents before and after the penalty was awarded.

 “Caf condemns the unacceptable behaviour from some players and officials during the Cup of Nations final.

Five things we learned on Day 6: Nigeria find danger in dominance

“We will refer the matter to competent bodies for appropriate action to be taken against those found guilty.”

On Monday, Gianni Infantino, the boss of world football’s govrning body Fifa, added his disapproval. He said he wanted Caf to take what he described as appropriate measures.

“Sometimes you can react in the heat of the moment,” Thiaw told French television shortly before his post-match press conference was cancelled when fighting broke out among journalists.

“Now we accept that referees do make mistakes and we apologise.”

Morocco and Senegal will be in action at the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Morocco will play in Group C against Brazil, Scotland and Haiti.

Senegal will feature in Group I with France, Norway and a team that emerges from the intercontinental play-off in March.

A container ship carrying 383 tonnes of food aid left from France’s port of Le Havre on Sunday bound for Gaza, the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The cargo is made up of Plumpy’doz, a nutritional supplement paste made of peanuts and milk powder intended treat malnutrition in young children, produced by Nutriset, a company based in Normandy.

The aid is intended to “improve the health of more than 42,000 Gazan children aged between six months and two years, who are suffering from malnutrition,” the ministry said.

Hunger, disease and no escape: Gaza aid worker’s account of life under siege

The ship is expected to arrive at Egypt’s Port Said in about ten days, and then it will be transported to Gaza by the World Food Programme.

Since 7 October 2023, France has delivered “more than 1,300 tonnes of humanitarian freight for civilian populations,” the ministry noted.

Though Israeli strikes have been less intense since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel began in October 2025, bombs still fall every day.

Israel and Hamas have repeatedly accused each other of violating the ceasefire’s terms.

Calls for Israel to lift blocks on aid

With more than 80 percent of its infrastructure destroyed, Gaza is in shambles, and day-to-day living conditions remain precarious.

Aid workers say the humanitarian response remains insufficient due to access restrictions imposed by Israeli authorities, who deny these claims.

France insisted that Israel must lift obstacles so that the United Nations and NGOs “can continue to deliver humanitarian aid independently and impartially throughout the Gaza Strip.”

“France is fully mobilised for the people of Gaza,” French President Emmanuel Macron posted on social media platform X.

Medical charity MSF says may have to halt Gaza operations in March

‘Board of Peace’

Meanwhile, France was one of the countries officially invited to join US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” initiative aimed at overseeing the end of the conflict in Gaza, which would be expanded to resolve conflicts globally.

Some 60 countries have been invited to join for three-year terms, which can become permanent memberships for $1 billion (€857 million).

A mandate for a Board of Peace was authorised by the United Nations Security Council in November, but only through 2027 and solely focused on the Gaza conflict.

Russia and China, two veto wielding powers, abstained, complaining that the resolution did not give the UN a clear role in the future of Gaza.

Trump’s proposal said “durable peace requires pragmatic judgment, common-sense solutions, and the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed”.

There was a “need for a more nimble and effective international peace-building body”, it added.

Several governments appeared reluctant to make public statements about the proposal, leaving officials to express concerns anonymously about the impact on the work of the UN.

(with newswires)

Over 21 million Ugandan citizens were called to the polls last Thursday in the country’s general elections.

Incumbent President Yoweri Museveni, 81, stood for a seventh term following 40 years in power. He faced seven challengers, including Robert Kyagulanyi, known to most as Bobi Wine, who garnered substantial support but fell short of unseating the veteran leader. Museveni was declared the winner on Saturday 17 January, securing over 76 per cent of the vote.

In this edition of Spotlight on Africa, you’ll hear from Bobi Wine’s international lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, about the formidable obstacles facing opposition candidates during the campaign.

‘He represents a population desperate for change’, Bobi Wine’s lawyer tells RFI

Jeffrey Smith, executive director of the think tank Vanguard Africa, joins us to examine the aftermath of these elections and the future of politics in Uganda, and more broadly across East Africa and other parts of the continent where democracy is severely undermined.

Somaliland, Israel and the Horn of Africa

The state of Israel recognised the independence of Somaliland from Somalia in the final days of December, prompting widespread concern and questions in an already turbulent region, and drawing largely condemnatory responses.

The risky calculations behind Israel’s recognition of Somaliland

Faisal Ali is a Somali British independent journalist. He looks with us at the motivations behind this move for every state involved. 

Episode edited by Melissa Chemam and mixed Erwan Rome.

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

One year after Donald Trump returned to the White House, his second administration has wasted little time putting trade at the forefront of policy.

Tariffs, the US president insists, are delivering an economic renaissance. Inflation has supposedly all but vanished. The stock market is booming. Trillions of dollars are said to be pouring into the Treasury, with the promise of tariff-funded cheques soon landing in American letterboxes. Critics, Trump has declared, are “fools”.

Strip away the slogans, however, and the picture looks far less flattering.

According to Gerald Friedman, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Trump’s tariff-driven revival is built on shaky foundations – economically incoherent, politically vindictive and geopolitically destabilising.

EU readies response to new US tariffs, France braces for fallout

The numbers don’t add up

From an economist’s perspective, Friedman says, Trump’s claims barely survive contact with reality. “Almost nothing” in the president’s upbeat assessment is true. Yes, the stock market is high, but only because a small group of technology giants dominates the indices. Remove them, and the wider market is essentially flat.

The idea that tariffs are generating vast new revenues is equally illusory. Tariffs face an unavoidable contradiction: set them high enough to block imports and they raise little money; set them low enough to generate revenue and they fail to protect domestic industry. Either way, the notion that they are filling federal coffers with “trillions” is “fantasy”.

Friedman notes that “virtually no economists outside of those being paid through Donald Trump … support his tariff regime”, particularly given its random and unsystematic application. What is billed as strategic economic policy looks more like improvisation.

Trump’s first 100 days: Trade, diplomacy and walking the transatlantic tightrope

Illusion of tariff-funded cheques

The administration’s proposal to issue tariff-funded “refunds” – between $1,000 and $2,000 per household in early 2026 – has clear populist appeal. Economically, Friedman argues, it makes little sense.

The US already runs a federal deficit of roughly $1.7 trillion a year, around 6 per cent of GDP. Washington does not need tariffs to send out cheques; it can simply borrow more. The real question is whether it should, particularly after extending large tax cuts for the wealthy that continue to inflate the deficit.

There is a deeper irony. Tariffs, Friedman points out, already constitute “the biggest tax increase as a share of GDP that this country has had since the early 1990s”, adding roughly $1,500 a year to household costs through higher prices. Refunding some of that money would merely hand back what had just been taken – while leaving the underlying economic damage untouched.

Inflation, eggs and everyday living

Trump has repeatedly pointed to falling egg prices as proof that inflation is under control. Friedman underlines that egg prices surged because of bird flu, not economic policy, and fell as the outbreak eased. They are down by about half, not by the 85 per cent the president boasts about – “one of the smaller lies”, as Friedman puts it.

Elsewhere, tariffs are doing exactly what economists expect: pushing prices up. Imports such as coffee and bananas cannot realistically be replaced by domestic production. Taxing them feeds directly into the cost of living. Households are paying more, not less.

The impact does not stop at consumer prices. Retaliation and uncertainty are quietly undermining export industries. China has cut back on US soybean imports, hurting farmers. Canada is actively reducing its reliance on the US market, deepening ties with Europe and China.

Even sectors untouched by tariffs are suffering. Higher education – one of America’s largest export earners – is losing foreign students as visas tighten and the country’s tourism has also slumped.

The combined effect, Friedman warns, is “higher prices and a reduction in employment and wages… ultimately, devastating to the US economy”.

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

Gunboat diplomacy, with grudges attached

For Friedman, Trump’s economic policy cannot be separated from his personality. Tariffs have become instruments of pressure and punishment, often driven by personal vendettas rather than strategic calculation. Hostility towards Canada’s former prime minister Justin Trudeau, for example, owed as much to personal dislike as to trade policy.

This is where economics merges with geopolitics. The US, Friedman argues, is drifting away from the postwar, rules-based order it once championed towards something far older and harsher – “pre-1940”, rather than merely pre-1945. Trade policy is wielded like a weapon, diplomacy reduced to threat and coercion.

“Nobody wants to be the one who sticks his head up,” to speak out, Friedman says. Corporate leaders and officials see what happens to dissenters and keep their heads down for fear of investigations, legal costs and political retaliation. 

Occupy Wall Street protestors clash with police outside New York Stock Exchange

A symptom of deeper failures

None of this, Friedman stresses, emerged from nowhere. Echoing arguments made by Greek economist and former left-wing finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, he sees Trump as both cause and symptom. Decades of rising inequality, deindustrialisation and attacks on unions hollowed out large parts of the working class, particularly in the US and Europe.

The 2008 financial crisis was explosive. Banks were rescued, executives kept their bonuses, and almost nobody went to jail.

The lesson, Friedman says, was clear: the powerful play by different rules. Regions once loyal to centre-left parties – coal country in West Virginia, manufacturing towns across the Midwest – became some of Trump’s strongest supporters.

Trump did not invent these grievances, but he has channelled them into a politics driven less by repair than by ego and confrontation.

Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured in ‘large scale’ US strike

Judging Trump in 2026

So how should Trump’s second presidency be judged as it heads into 2026? Friedman offers a stark metric. Ignore the rhetoric and watch the behaviour of those with real power. Do Republican lawmakers rediscover a spine? Do corporate leaders decide that long-term stability matters more than short-term fear?

If they do not, the outlook is bleak. “It’s not only the America First agenda,” Friedman says, “it’s Trump’s personal, ego-driven agenda.”

Protests may continue to swell, but without resistance from political and economic elites, the consequences will stretch far beyond the US.

In 2026, the results will be difficult to spin away. Tariffs promise strength and sovereignty. What they are delivering, Friedman argues, is higher prices, weaker alliances and a dangerous slide towards a world the US once helped consign to history.

Since protests began across Iran almost three weeks ago, Turkey has tried to play down the scale of the unrest. It has distanced itself from Western allies calling for regime change and avoided offering explicit support for those demands.

The protests began on 28 December after a currency collapse triggered demonstrations by merchants and traders in Tehran. The unrest quickly spread nationwide. Activists say more than 2,000 protesters have been killed.

Alongside Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar, Turkey has lobbied Washington against any military response to the killings. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said such a move would worsen the situation.

“We oppose military intervention against Iran; Iran must resolve its own problems,” Fidan said. “We want the issue resolved through dialogue.”

France summons Iran envoy over ‘unrestrained’ protest crackdown

Fear of regional collapse

According to The Guardian newspaper, US President Donald Trump’s decision to step back from attacking Iran was influenced by Turkey and its Arab allies – who warned of regional chaos if an attack went ahead.

Turkey fears that Iran could descend into civil war similar to Iraq after the collapse of its regime, said Serhan Afacan, head of the Ankara-based Center for Iranian Studies, adding the consequences would be more severe due to Iran’s size and diversity.

“Iran has a population of about 90 million, including many ethnic minorities such as Turks, Kurds, Arabs and Baluchis,” Afacan explained.

“If a conflict erupts among these groups, it could result in a prolonged civil war. Any resulting immigration from Iran to Turkey could reach millions.”

Turkey and Iran unite against Israel as regional power dynamics shift

PKK security fears

Turkey already hosts about three million refugees. Experts say Ankara’s biggest security concern is the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has fought Turkey for an independent Kurdish state and has an Iranian affiliate, PJAK.

Although the PKK announced a ceasefire last year and pledged to disband, Ankara fears unrest in Iran could give the group new opportunities, said Iranian expert Bilgehan Alagoz, of Marmara University.

“Day by day, we have started to see the PKK groups in certain cities of Iran demanding some separatist demands, and this is the main concern for Turkey,” he said.

Ankara also accuses Israel of exploiting the situation in Iran.

“Israel has targeted all these PKK groups and tried to motivate the PKK groups inside Iran,” Alagoz said. “Any instability inside Iran can create a space for the PKK.”

Fidan has also accused Israel of manipulating the protests.

Turkey is already confronting another PKK-linked group in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces, which controls large parts of the country. Ankara accuses Israel of supporting the SDF, adding Iran to a broader Israeli-Turkish regional rivalry.

France’s Iranian diaspora divided over deadly protests back home

Energy pressure

Turkey could also clash with Washington over Iran if the protests continue. Trump has warned that countries trading with Tehran could face 25 percent tariffs.

Iran supplies Turkey with about one-fifth of its gas needs, according to Atilla Yesilada, an analyst at the Global Source Partners think tank. “Iran pumps 10 billion cubic metres of gas to Turkey every year, roughly one-fifth of total consumption,” he said.

That supply could theoretically be replaced by liquefied natural gas imports, but Yesilada warned that Turkey is already struggling to cut its dependence on Russia, its main energy supplier.

“Combine this with increasing American and EU pressure to cut gas purchases from Russia, and Turkey is in a very difficult situation,” he said.

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.

World Radio Day is just around the corner, so it’s time for you to record your greetings for our annual World Radio Day programme!

WRD is on 13 February; we’ll have our celebration the day after, on the 14 February show. The deadline for your recordings is Monday 2 February, which is not far off!

Try to keep your greeting to under a minute. You can record on your phone and send it to me as an attachment in an e-mail to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

Be sure to record your greeting from underneath a blanket. Then the sound will be truly radiophonic – I mean, you want everyone to understand you, right?

Don’t miss out on the fun. 2 February is just around the corner, so to your recorders!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This week’s quiz: On 29 November, I asked you a question about two Chinese pandas – Huan Huan and Yuan Zi – who were in the Beauval Zoo here in France, and had just gone back to China.

You were to re-read our article “France says goodbye to star pandas going back to China” and send in the answer to this question: How many cubs did Huan Huan give birth to while here in France?

The answer is, to quote our article: “Huan Huan gave birth to three cubs – the first to be born in France. The eldest, Yuan Ming, a male, was sent back to China two years ago, but twins born in August 2021 will remain at Beauval at least until 2027.” The twins’ names are Hunalili and Yuandudu.   

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, suggested by RFI English listener Sadequl Bari Liton from Naogaon, Bangladesh, “How do you spend your weekly holiday?” 

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

The winners are: Nafisa Khatun, the president of the RFI Mahila Shrota Sangha Club in West Bengal, India. Nafisa is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations on your double win, Nafisa.

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 RFI Listeners Club members Samir Mukhopadhyay from West Bengal, India; Kanwar Sandhu from British Columbia in Canada, and last but not least, Habib Ur Rehman Sehla, the president of the International Radio Fan and Youth Club in Khanewal, Pakistan.  

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from Peer Gynt by Edvard Grieg, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nicolò Foron; the traditional Chinese “Sun Quan the Emperor”; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer; “L’auzel ques sul bouyssou” (“Bird sitting in the Bush”) by Estienne Moulinié, sung by Claire Lefilliâtre with Le Poème Harmonique conducted by Vincent Dumestre.

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 Paul Myers’ article “France launches recruitment for 10-month voluntary national military service”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 9 February to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 14 February podcast. When you enter, be sure to send your postal address with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

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

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

Scandals over abuse of the elderly in French care homes, combined with growing loneliness among pensioners, are forcing reflection on how – and where – people spend their later years. Three decades after founding the Utopia network of independent cinemas, Anne-Marie Faucon and Michel Malacarnet have turned their energy and experience towards imagining an alternative to traditional retirement homes. Their project, La Ménardiere, is an 18th-century mansion in the small town of Bérat, in south-west France. It operates as a shared-living collective, where residents, known as coopérateurs, are also shareholders. By taking control of their own destinies, they have created a model that also provides services and cultural activities for the surrounding community. Residents describe the approach as ageing together in a house that is “on the offensive”. (Listen @4′)

La Clef, an historic arthouse cinema in Paris, has reopened its doors after a group of residents, cinephiles and activists spent years protesting its closure. Ollia Horton met some of those who took part in a years-long occupation of the theatre that resulted in the activists raising enough money to buy the building from owners who wanted to sell the prime piece of real estate in the centre of the city. (Listen @21’48”)

As census-takers fan out around France to begin the annual counting of the population, we look at a process that started in the 14th century. During World War II the census was co-opted by Nazi occupiers to identify Jews, and while it has since stripped out questions relating to race and religion, it recently added controversial ones about parental origins. (Listen @17’10”)

Episode mixed by Cecile Pompeani.

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

Aleppo has seen its worst fighting in years, as the Syrian army moved to oust the SDF from two large, mainly Kurdish neighbourhoods in the north of the city. The clashes began in late December and continued into January, forcing many civilians to flee.

The SDF controls a large swathe of northern and eastern Syria. The offensive comes as efforts to integrate the SDF into the Syrian army stalled.

“This is a warning. It is a kind of pressure on the SDF to come to a conclusion quickly, rather than to kick the can down the road with Damascus,” Aydin Selcen, a former senior Turkish diplomat who served in the region, told RFI.

Turkey’s backing

Ankara, which has recently reopened channels with Damascus after years of strained relations, strongly backs the offensive and has signalled its readiness to provide military support against the SDF.

“Turkey has the military advantage there, and I believe the SDF should take these warnings seriously,” Selcen said. He is now an analyst for the Turkish news portal Medyascope.

Turkey accuses the SDF of links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK, which has fought an insurgency against the Turkish state for decades.

The PKK is designated a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union. Turkey is also pursuing a renewed peace initiative with the PKK and sees the integration of the SDF into the Syrian army as key to stabilising northern Syria.

US pushes Israel to accept Turkish role in Gaza stabilisation force

Stalled integration

In March last year, the SDF signed an agreement in Damascus to integrate with the Syrian army. The deal set out broad principles but left key questions unresolved.

“There was a discrepancy from the beginning in what the parties understood integration to mean,” said Sezin Oney, of the Turkish Politikyol news portal.

“In Turkey’s case, they mean integration in such a way that it melts into the Syrian army. But the SDF understands it as integrating while protecting its inner core and identity. Remaining as the SDF, but operating under the umbrella of the Syrian army.

“Unless one of the parties backs down and makes concessions, we are likely to see a bigger military operation.”

International stakes

On Thursday, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa held telephone talks with his French and Turkish counterparts on the security situation. The discussions focused on containing the fighting and preserving the ceasefire.

Despite its precarious position, the SDF retains influential supporters. Israel, an increasingly vocal critic of Turkey’s regional role, has expressed support for the group. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar condemned Damascus’s operations in Aleppo.

The SDF remains a key partner of the United States Central Command in operations against the Islamic State group in Syria.

“The SDF lost a lot of troops, at least 10,000 fighters, in the fight against ISIS since 2014,” said Turkish international relations expert Soli Ozel.

“It’s a complicated picture. But from the American side, I do not yet see signs they would allow an attack on the SDF at this moment.”

According to Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey and Washington’s envoy on Syria, diplomatic efforts are under way to extend the Aleppo ceasefire and allow SDF fighters to withdraw from contested areas.

Turkey fears Ukraine conflict will spill over on its Black Sea shores

Pressure on Washington

The duration of US support for the SDF remains uncertain, especially after last year’s agreement between Washington and Damascus to step up cooperation against the Islamic State group.

The issue has taken on added significance following President Donald Trump’s meeting with Syrian President al-Sharaa in Washington.

Given President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strong relationship with Trump, time may not be on the SDF’s side, Oney said.

“They want to have the northern part of Syria, at least, but also Syria more broadly, as their backyard,” she added. “Turkey is the most influential country in Damascus. They want the SDF to melt away into the new Syrian state and its army.”

Turkey could face domestic political fallout for targeting the SDF. Protests have erupted in the country’s predominantly Kurdish southeast, which borders Syria, in response to the clashes in Aleppo.

Any further military action against the SDF could jeopardise the fragile peace process with the PKK. 

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.