The exhibition Out of Place, now showing at the Jeu de Paume, traces moments in time captured by Ractliffe between 1982 and 2026. 

Bringing together photographs taken in South Africa and Angola – several of which are being shown in France for the first time – it explores places marked by history and trauma.

Throughout her work, Ractliffe says she asks a recurring question: “How do you photograph the mood of a place, the violence?”

RFI met her on the sidelines of the show.

RFI: What is your exhibition Out of Place about? 

Jo Ractliffe: The work really looks at places that have histories of violence and my interest in this work is how the land of these places, the landscapes of these places, show the residues of historical violence… whether it’s a donkey that was shot on the side of the road, whether it’s a small moment or a large institutionalised aspect of violence.

But it’s not ‘place’ in the sense of “I’m going to make a documentary” or “I’m going to make a project about Paris”. Often these places are on the edge of things – the borders, like The Borderlands title. So that was the title of Out of Place, because often these places are places that are off the radar.

Often I’m working with material which is not always visible. The traces, the residues, are either not visible or very hard to understand. It’s like trying to understand a story in a language that you don’t have. So often in these places with signs, I don’t know their meaning. I have to work in a slow, accumulative way, building up moment by moment the meaning of these places.

RFI: Your photos were taken in South Africa and Angola, but it seems the places you photographed could be somewhere else, in another country…

JR: Well, yes and no. Because on one level there are signs that make these specific, you know… whether it’s the quality of light, whether it’s the quality of the landscape. But yes, they don’t have these hugely distinguishing features.

I have a friend who is a Mexican art historian, and she first came upon my work with the book of Angola As Terras do Fim do Mundo [The Lands at the End of the World]. And she started looking at the images, and she thought, “this looks so familiar”. It almost, to her, felt like Mexico.

Then she thought, “is it because of the land?… No, it’s not the same, these are not the trees of Mexico, these are not what things, what forests look like in Mexico.” Then she realised what she was looking at was something very similar. It was the way violence is hidden in the landscape… It’s a landscape that is made up of violence. She recognised a quality, a mood, an atmosphere that was very similar to the atmosphere in Mexico.

RFI: What do you mean by ‘violence’?

JR: Maybe violence is too much of a specific word. There’s something more than what is apparent. There’s something below the surface and it’s not necessarily violent, but it might be loss. It might be something that is broken.

I mean, when I look at that Cuban [military] base in Angola, it reminds me of some of the photographs that I’ve seen of Gaza… I thought, “oh, these broken buildings in the sand”.

Violence is an easy word because violence happens and the loss is one of the things that remains. It’s like activities that come about from people’s cruelty to other people. That’s really what it is about. It’s about people exerting power. And you know, I look at the world and I see what is happening now. There are bullies all over the world. We are living in these dictatorships. We don’t really always see what is happening until a place no longer exists, like Gaza. They are going to destroy Gaza.

We don’t have to have all the information about these pictures. These are not history pictures nor documentaries. And if somebody comes and says: “I look at this pile of rocks and it reminds me…”, I think, “beautiful, perfect, that’s what I want”. I don’t want people to think that they have to have a big history book.

RFI: What about animals? Especially dogs, which we see in many of your photo series.

JR: If you see more work, you’ll see them more. I don’t know what it is.

There was this one body of work called Nadir… The dogs kind of happened and I was interested in them. And it seemed to me that it was easier to work with dogs as a kind of carrier of meaning, as a kind of symbolic figure, than it was with people. I think the works are political, but people would be making a kind of a specific political [point]… Dogs in these images, if you look at the whole series of Nadir, they are both victims and perpetrators.

In many of these images, the dog, or the goat or the donkey, they sit there, but they have a strong presence. Some of them are looking back at you, or some of them are looking at the scene, like that goat. And in the beginning it used to happen by accident. But then I used to think they are my interlocutors. It’s like the person, like the narrator of the story. They are the holders of the narrative… They hold the secret of these places.

The exhibition Out of Place is at the Jeu de Paume in Paris until 24 May 2026.

Kakuyu, in Malawi’s central district of Nkhotakota, provides hundreds of farmers with their livelihoods. Close to both the Dwangwa River and Lake Malawi, its swampy delta land makes it easy to grow crops such as rice and maize twice a year, without the need for fertilisers.

But a heavy downpour in December displaced these farmers and washed away their crops, which were about to be harvested.

Authorities say Nkhotakota and the surrounding districts received continuous rainfall from 25 December straight through to the end of the month, leading to rising water levels in rivers and streams which culminated in flooding of low lying areas.

Malawi’s Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA) said on 22 January that “at least 40 people have died while more than 36,000 households have been affected by rain-related disasters during the 2025/26 rainfall season”, the Malawi News Agency reported.

The statement, by Wilson Moleni, commissioner for Disaster Management Affairs, added that “209 people have sustained injuries, while 23 deaths were caused by lightning strikes and 17 by collapsing walls”.

DoDMA and its humanitarian partners have responded by providing maize flour, clothes, blankets and medical supplies, while the Malawi Defence Force has been involved in search and rescue operations.

Relentless rains and floods leave Africa reeling as UN seeks help

Global warming

For Julius Ng’oma, national coordinator for the country’s Civil Society Network on Climate Change (CISONECC), the cause of the disaster is clear: “The recent flooding in Malawi follows a pattern that can be attributed to climate change, suggesting that this is likely being amplified by the global warming phenomenon.”

Leah Phiri, 53 who has lived in the Kakuyu area for 30 years, educating her seven children with the proceeds of her crops, said she had never seen anything like the downpour.

The waters had reached shoulder height before officials from the Red Cross sounded the alarm and boats arrived to rescue residents.

“We were told that only people and no possessions were allowed in the boat,” said Phiri, who is still sheltering at a former school along with 700 others.

She had watched as her maize, rice and beans – which were almost ripe – were submerged in the water.

Now, she’s sharing a room with 50 other people and relying on beans and flour, along with other necessities, donated by the government, the Red Cross and other donors. She is afraid that an outbreak of cholera could erupt due to the overcrowding and lack of hygiene facilities.  

“We’ve stayed in that area for decades and it became our home. It hosts over 800 people and is composed of dambos [wetlands] which are ideal for growing different crops like rice and maize. We can’t go back now, and all our possessions have been destroyed.”

For 62-year-old Nancy Nthali, Kakuyu was like “a place God gave us to make a living”.

For her and her six children – including two orphans she looks after – the disaster has plunged their future into uncertainty.

Climate change ‘supercharging’ deadly floods in southern Africa

Livelihoods lost

This is not the first time Kakuyu and the surrounding areas have experienced rising water levels due to rains. But for the first time, residents have seen the water create gullies and streams which make it almost unusable for farming.

Leonard Chiphwanya, who has lived in the area for almost a decade, said families have been torn apart. His own four children were taken in by relatives while he stayed at the camp, agonising over the family’s next move. He should have been in the field working, he said.

Chiphwanya recalled how the district had an abundance of rice and maize, in an area that has now been destroyed – and said this plentiful supply meant an affordable price for these commodities compared to in other areas. There were excess harvests, he says, because people were able to “grow crops twice, during rainy season and dry season”.

Malawians face food insecurity and soaring unemployment as they head to polls

He added: “We were growing crops due to the type of soil and proximity to the water. In the past, the area was neglected… until [people] discovered its worth and one by one, they stayed permanently. Imagine people harvesting between 30, 50 up to 100 bags of rice and maize. This has been a source of livelihood to our families.”

For Ng’oma of CISONECC: “Malawi needs to ensure that tangible adaptation measures to the impact of heavy rains and flooding are put in place to secure property, livelihoods and lives in the near and long term. Careful planning in consideration of climate hazards and risk is essential. Climate proofing is key for infrastructure.”

Orion – which stands for “large-scale operation for resilient, interoperable, high intensity combat-oriented and innovative armies” – was conceived in 2021. Two years later, France carried out its largest military exercises to date with Orion 23 – an operation involving 12,000 troops, including NATO allies.

The “ongoing deterioration of the international landscape and the evolution of threats” has made Orion 26 even more relevant, according to the Ministry of the Armed Forces.

Bringing together land, air, naval, cyber, space and special forces, it demonstrates “France’s determination to protect the nation, its citizens and its interests in the long term by preparing for the most demanding military challenges”, the ministry said.

The three-month drills will be based on a “fictional but credible scenario” in which an expansionist country in the East, known as Mercury, is seeking to destabilise its neighbour Arnland in order to maintain its influence in the region and prevent the latter from joining the European Union.

Geographically, Arnland is located on French territory – but with Ukraine and Russia at war on Europe’s doorstep, the exercise also reflects what a reinforced version of the “Coalition of the Willing” for Ukraine might look like, should Kyiv need urgent reinforcement.

France now supplies most of Ukraine’s intelligence, Macron says

In the invented scenario, throughout 2025 Mercury has multiplied hybrid actions and increased its support for militias in Arnland. At the request of Arnland – an ally – France takes the lead of the Orion coalition on 6 January 2026, to ensure its defence and preserve balance in Europe.

The exercises include seizing entry points on contested territory, gaining the upper hand in the field, then conducting amphibious and airborne operations to secure a broader deployment zone.

From 8 February to early March, 10,000 troops will conduct amphibious and airborne operations in the Saint-Nazaire area, supported by 350 vehicles and 400 drones. 

For the amphibious phase, the French Navy will be present with the carrier strike group, while the Air and Space Force will deploy around 20 Rafale fighter jets and two surface-to-air defence systems.

In April, the exercise will come under NATO command and will focus on France’s role as a host nation, supporting allied forces transiting through its territory.

Vice-Admiral Xavier de Véricourt, commander of the Joint Force Command expert centre, told RFI more about the drills.

RFI: What’s the scenario for Orion 26?

The scenario was inspired by NATO. I’m not going to reveal all its secrets, firstly because there are confidential elements, and also because it would reveal everything to the players on all sides. It would diminish the intensity of the exercise. But, broadly speaking, it involves a country calling on a coalition, whose framework nation is France, and this coalition intervenes under French leadership. Then the situation evolves, NATO intervenes and the operation and its forces are transferred to NATO command.

The exercise begins in France and has four phases. How will they be structured?

There are three successive phases and then one phase that runs across the entire timeline. The first phase is taking place right now. It’s the planning phase, staff work. Then there’s a so-called field phase within the coalition, and finally a last field phase, but this time under NATO command.

Throughout this timeline, you have an interministerial crisis management component for the entire duration of the exercise. This involves, on the one hand, managing repercussions on French territory while our troops are supposed to be deployed abroad in support of the country calling on the coalition, and on the other hand, managing the support that would transit through French territory.

Russia sees France as its ‘chief enemy’ in Europe, says head of French army

So with Orion 26, will French forces move from national command to a broader command structure?

A NATO command, and that’s one of the challenges. But in fact there are multiple issues at stake with Orion 26. There’s the training issue, because if an army doesn’t train, it loses skills and operational performance. So the aim for us is to remain at the highest possible level of operational performance. There is also the challenge of training to deal with modern threats, in a context marked by innovation. So we inject innovation. And then there’s the issue of validating the reforms that we’ve carried out in our command structure. 

This articulation between French command and NATO command is well known, since this isn’t the first exercise we’ve conducted in this context. French forces regularly train in NATO exercises; these are familiar arrangements. But nevertheless, it’s good to practise and oil the machinery regularly so that, when the time comes, if it were to happen for real, everything is as smooth as possible.

The aim is to work on interoperability with our allies. Which other nations are taking part in the exercise?

There are 24 in total. There are 14 European countries, three Asian countries, three from the American continent and two from the Middle East. They include our close allies – the British, Germans, Italians and Spaniards. I can’t list them all, but there are many partners.

Is the carrier strike group, built around the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, integrated into the exercise?

Absolutely. In modern operations, across multiple environments and domains, we draw on land, air, maritime and cyber assets, in order to be as effective as possible in dealing with the threats we face. 

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

Addis Ababa, Feb 8, 2026 (AFP) – A bitter war of words has escalated further after Ethiopia ordered neighbouring Eritrea to “immediately withdraw its troops” from Ethiopian territory, with the pair seemingly inching towards a new conflict.

Relations between the two Horn of Africa countries have long been fraught.

In recent months, Addis Ababa has accused Eritrea of supporting insurgents on Ethiopian soil — allegations Asmara denies.

“Developments over the last few days indicate that the government of Eritrea has chosen the path of further escalation,” Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos told his Eritrean counterpart in a letter dated Saturday.

He demanded that Asmara “withdraw its troops from Ethiopian territory and cease all forms of collaboration with rebel groups”.

The “incursion” along its northwestern borders and joint military operations there were “not just provocations but acts of outright aggression”, he said.

Timothewos added, however, that he believed the “cycle of violence and mistrust” could still be broken through diplomacy.

“If we receive a positive response to our legitimate demand for respect for Ethiopia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” then Ethiopia will be “willing to engage in good-faith negotiations”, he said.

World leaders urge restraint as clashes in western Tigray resume

The Eritrean government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Eritrea, one of the world’s most closed countries, gained independence in 1993 after decades of armed struggle against Ethiopia.

They later fought a 1998-2000 border war in which tens of thousands died.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed initially sought rapprochement with Eritrea when he came to power, earning him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.

The two governments cooperated against rebels from Ethiopia’s Tigray region during the 2020-2022 conflict but fell out over the peace accord, from which Eritrea was excluded.

The Tigray civil war killed at least 600,000 people and the resulting peace deal, known as the Pretoria Agreement, has never fully resolved the tensions.

Ethiopian authorities say Eritrea is “actively preparing for war” and funding armed groups fighting federal forces.

Eritrea meanwhile accuses Ethiopia of seeking to seize its port at Assab as part of the landlocked country’s efforts to gain sea access.

(With newswires)

he election campaign has been disrupted by the storms, which have killed at least seven people, and at least 14 of the worst affected constituencies have postponed voting for nearly 32,000 people by one week.

Polling stations opened at 8:00 am, with 11 million voters at home and abroad eligible to cast their ballots. First exit polls are expected around 8:00 pm.

Socialist candidate Antonio Jose Seguro is almost certain to beat outspoken far-right leader Andre Ventura but the far-right score will nevertheless be watched closely.

Ventura’s Chega (Enough) party was only created in 2019 but is now the largest opposition force in parliament.

The storms and fierce gales that swept in from the Atlantic have killed at least seven people and left an estimated €4 billion in damage.

The latest victim — before the weather improved during the weekend — was a 46-year-old volunteer with the emergency services who died trying to cross a flooded zone on Saturday.

Ventura, who is trailing Seguro in the polls, alleged Portugal’s political leaders had shown themselves to be “useless” and called for the election to be postponed.

That demand was rejected and Seguro, during his last campaign rally on Friday, accused Ventura of “doing everything to keep the Portuguese from turning out to vote”.

(With newswires)

Wednesday’s meeting in Ankara between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the latest in a series aimed at improving relations.

It stems from the 2023 Athens Declaration, a formal statement of friendship that led to better economic cooperation and a cooling of military tensions over the disputed Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Seas.

Mitsotakis’s visit comes at a critical time for the process. “I think it’s very important, the meeting has been postponed twice in the past,” says former Greek foreign ministry advisor Panayotis Ioakimidis, who now teaches at the University of Athens.

“There are some people within the [Greek] governing party, and outside it, who have serious reservations about improving or even talking about relations with Turkey,” he notes. “So it’s very important for the meeting to happen, to keep cooperation going; otherwise, relations risk sliding into conflict.”

Claims on the Aegean

The talks come as tensions over the Aegean Sea – believed to have vast untapped energy reserves – are on the rise.

In January, the Greek foreign minister, George Gerapetritis, announced Greece’s intent to exercise its right under international law to extend its territorial waters in the Aegean from six to 12 nautical miles, to create a marine park.

Erdogan is expected to remind his Greek counterpart that any extension of territorial waters is a red line for Turkey. “Mitsotakis will get some lectures in Ankara,” predicts international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University.

In 1995, the Turkish parliament passed a motion declaring that Greece unilaterally extending its waters beyond six miles was a casus belli – cause for war. “Twelve miles [of] territorial waters for Greece means the Turkish ships cannot go one kilometre outside of Turkish territory. Turkey cannot accept this,” says Bagci.

In response, Athens is using Greece’s European Union veto to prevent Turkey from joining the EU’s SAFE defence procurement programme until Turkey withdraws its threat of war.

Turkey and Egypt’s joint naval drill signals shifting Eastern Med alliances

Alliance with Israel

Adding to tensions, last December Greece and Cyprus signed a series of defence agreements with one of Turkey’s fiercest rivals – Israel.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan accused Israel of seeking to encircle Turkey, while Turkish media dubbed it an “axis of evil”.

Mitsotakis is expected to try to allay such concerns during his visit to Ankara. “The Greek side thinks it can separate these issues and keep them quite separate from the bilateral issues between Greece and Turkey,” says Ioakimidis. “But it’s a very likely scenario to take the countries into very dangerous waters.”

Israel’s military support of Greece is to blame for Athens’ more assertive stance in the Aegean, argues Murat Aslan of the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research, a Turkish pro-government think tank. He says that Greece acts more boldly when backed by others: “Once they enjoy the support of another, material or narrative, they are much more courageous to challenge.”

If Greece maintains this approach, Aslan suggests, Turkey will likely go back to increasing its military activity.

Prior to recent attempts at rapprochement, Turkish and Greek warplanes often challenged each another in mock dogfights in the disputed airspace over the Aegean.

Turkey flexes naval muscles as neighbours fear escalating arms race

Trump effect

However, Trump could provide an impetus to contain tensions.

With the American ambassador to Greece announcing this week that the US president will visit Athens, both Erdogan and Mitsotakis will be wary of Trump’s involvement in their bilateral affairs.

“I think both countries are concerned about this destabilisation to the international order that the Trump administration has brought,” says Ioannis Grigoriadis of Ankara’s Bilkent University, a specialist in Greek-Turkish relations.

“It may be a strong incentive for both sides to declare that things are OK, so let’s keep Trump’s intervention away from Turkish-Greek relations. I don’t think that any side would like that to happen, given the circumstances and the unpredictability of such an intervention.”

Wednesday’s meeting is set to emphasise the economic benefits of rapprochement and regional cooperation. However, amid persistent Aegean tensions and Turkey’s concerns over Israel’s role, expectations for progress remain low.

“Emmanuel, you’ve been taking advantage of the United States for the last 30 years,” Trump said at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, referring to a discussion with Macron in which he allegedly convinced him to raise the price of medications in France.

Trump had made a similar claim a few weeks earlier during an address in which he imitated Macron allegedly agreeing to triple the price of drugs in France after Trump threatened tariffs.

The French presidency rejected the claim, posting an image of Trump and the words “fake news” on social media, saying that drug prices in France are negotiated and regulated by the public health system, not set by presidential decree.

“Anyone who has set foot in a French pharmacy knows this,” the post said.

Price negotiations

Drug prices in the US are nearly three times higher than in other wealthy countries, according to a study by the Rand Corporation, an American policy think tank.

One key reason for this discrepancy is structural. France has a single negotiator, the public healthcare system or Assurance Maladie, while the US system is fragmented among many private insurers, each negotiating on their own.

Two independent public bodies are involved in the process of negotiating prices in France: the National Health Authority (HAS), which assesses a drug’s efficacy, and a committee linked to the finance ministry which negotiates prices within a budget approved annually by parliament.

“Technically, and in theory, the French government has no say in the price of this or that drug,” explains Théo Bourgeron, a sociologist at the University of Edinburgh who studies the politics of the pharmaceutical industry.

Listen to this story on the Spotlight on France podcast:

Bourgeron argues that Trump’s focus on prices for patients is a way of deflecting from his real objective: pushing foreign governments to pay more for US-made drugs, while lowering prices on the American market.

“It’s more about creating an asymmetry in the way that corporations are treated in the US and other countries that is part of a broader mercantilist project,” he said.

Boosting ‘big pharma’

European and US drug companies have been pitted against each other for decades. In the 1980s and ’90s, France increased drug spending to help support local companies and build a competitive European pharmaceutical industry.

Drugmakers on both sides of the Atlantic received a boost in 1994 with the World Trade Organization’s TRIPS agreement, which introduced 20-year global patents on medicines.

The agreement favoured US companies, which already dominated the industry, and allowed them to charge higher prices by delaying the development of generics.

GlaxoSmithKline to stop seeking patents in world’s poorest countries

While the US pays more for drugs than elsewhere, Bourgeron points out that prices are rising everywhere.

“The responsibility for high prices lies with pharmaceutical corporations and their tendency to use their monopoly over drugs to redistribute a lot of money to shareholders,” he said, pointing to research showing that the industry pays out most of its profits in dividends and share buybacks.

“It’s very profitable and this money doesn’t go to research, innovation. It goes mostly to asset managers, to investors.”

European concessions

As Trump has been bragging about supposedly pressuring Macron, his administration has been negotiating with European pharmaceutical companies – which are scrambling to counter Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on exports to the US, their largest market.

In December executives from several companies went to the White House and agreed to invest more in the US and to lower prices on some drugs for Medicaid, the public insurance programme for low-income Americans.

Although Medicaid is only a small part of the US drug market, and many of the most profitable medications are not part of these agreements, lowering costs will impact the companies’ bottom line.

Drugmakers could seek to offset the loss by raising prices in other large markets, such as Europe – helping to explain Trump’s pressure on Macron and other European leaders.

Bourgeron says French drug prices could go up, but only within limits.

Increasing overall pharmaceutical spending would require a vote in parliament, which would be difficult given the current budget crisis. Tripling prices, for example, would push drug spending from 1.4 percent of GDP to 4.2 percent, requiring “an unprecedented austerity policy”, Bourgeron says.

More radical changes, like dismantling France’s public healthcare system to introduce more private insurance, are politically untenable.

“There is no way people would vote for this; it would require a new political regime,” Bourgeron says, adding that could well be Trump’s aim.

Drugs shortage sees France restart local production

New technologies

The spotlight on drug prices in the US has exposed flaws in the global pharmaceutical system, in which worldwide patent monopolies force states to negotiate with companies for access to essential medicines.

Bourgeron says the current system is relatively recent, and could be revised to give the public sector a larger role, while still rewarding innovation.

New drug technologies, such as personalised immunotherapy – often used in cancer treatment, and based on patients’ own cells – are putting intellectual property rules to the test, he noted.

“There are discussions over whether these new processes can be patented,” Bourgeron said. 

Adapting opens up a way to challenge the status quo, “to promote a system which would be more based on commonality, based on state funding, and less on multinational private corporations having monopolies”.

Listen to this story on the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 139.

The 53-year-old was shot dead on Tuesday at his residence in Zintan, a city in Libya’s northwest. According to those around him, four unidentified armed men broke into Kadhafi’s home before killing him.

Since his release from prison in 2016, Saïf al-Islam had been living in seclusion in Zintan with only two employees, in an isolated villa on a mountain overlooking the Hamada Desert.

For security reasons, he led an extremely discreet life and communicated only with a very small circle, small enough to be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Son of former Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi shot dead in home

A reformist image

Under his father’s rule, Saïf al-Islam cultivated the image of a reformer. Educated in London and fluent in English, he played a role in sensitive diplomatic missions, including negotiations over Libya’s decision to abandon weapons of mass destruction.

He became a key interlocutor with Western governments, calling for the adoption of a constitution and respect for human rights.

During the 2000s, he contributed to the release of political prisoners, including Islamists.

He also launched a reform project aimed at putting Libya on the path to democracy. That effort ran into strong resistance from the regime’s old guard and ultimately failed.

Kadhafi’s son breaks silence on Sarkozy Libya funding

A violent break

At the start of the uprising against his father’s rule in 2011, Saïf al-Islam promised “bloodbaths”, abruptly shattering his reputation as a progressive.

He was arrested while attempting to flee and spent six years detained in Zintan, held in near-total isolation.

In 2015, he was sentenced to death after a summary trial before later benefiting from an amnesty. The years in detention marked a decisive rupture in his public life and ambitions.

Despite his past, Saïf al-Islam retained support among Libyans nostalgic for the former regime.

He put himself forward as a candidate in Libya’s planned presidential election in 2021. His candidacy was controversial and widely contested. Saïf al-Islam was eventually disqualified because of his conviction.

Political disputes that followed caused the electoral process to collapse, and the vote never took place.

France urges rival parties in Libya to find political solution to end violence

Life on the margins

Marked by the death of his father and his brother Moatassem in 2011, and by the imprisonment of two of his other brothers, Saïf al-Islam mistrusted everyone.

He rarely left his home, though he sometimes walked alone near the desert. He was always accompanied by a book, a habit he had developed during his years in prison.

In 2025, he reopened official social media accounts, commenting on international affairs and signalling his continued ambition to stand in a future presidential election.

Trained in economics and architecture, Saïf al-Islam also pursued an artistic practice. He exhibited his paintings in several countries, including France, notably in Paris.

The US Justice Department last week published nearly 3 million government documents related to Epstein, who was convicted in 2008 for soliciting a minor and died in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.

The mere mention of someone’s name in the files does not, in itself, imply wrongdoing. However, the documents show connections between Epstein or his circle and some public figures who had downplayed or denied such ties.

Political contacts

Several French personalities appear in the latest files, reflecting Epstein’s repeated efforts to build links with political leaders.

He asked several contacts whether they had connections to President Emmanuel Macron, former economy minister Bruno Le Maire or former president Nicolas Sarkozy.

A review of emails by the French news agency AFP showed that businessman Olivier Colom, an adviser to Sarkozy from 2007-2012, corresponded regularly with Epstein from 2013-2018 while working at a bank.

Colom sought to facilitate political networking and organised a 2013 meeting between Epstein and his superior at the bank.

In a June 2013 exchange, Epstein compared women to “shrimp”, saying “you throw away the head and keep the body”.

AFP said it was not immediately able to reach Colom for comment. An initial search of the archive found no direct correspondence between Epstein and Sarkozy.

France uncovers Russian disinformation campaign falsely linking Macron to Epstein

Film director meeting

French film director Michel Hazanavicius first met Epstein at a dinner in Paris in March 2012, one month after his film The Artist won the top prize at the Oscars.

They exchanged emails until January 2014, with Epstein suggesting meetings in Paris or New York, though the director often replied that he was busy.

Hazanavicius said he “twice met the guy”, after being introduced through director Woody Allen.

“At one point he asked me if I knew a nice, smart girl, and that’s when Berenice told me ‘never again, you have to run away from that guy’,” he said.

The director said he and his partner, actor Bérénice Bejo, decided not to see Epstein again, adding he had “no idea who he was”.

Public explanations

French mathematician and former MP Cédric Villani told the newspaper Libération this week about meeting Epstein in October 2017.

“He presented himself as a close friend of Donald Trump,” Villani said. Epstein wanted to fund “a mathematics prize related to biology and complexity.”

Villani said he did not know about Epstein’s earlier conviction at the time.

On Thursday, former culture minister Jack Lang was summoned to the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs to explain his links with Epstein.

Lang’s daughter Caroline resigned Monday as head of a film producers’ union after revelations about the family’s connections to Epstein.

No charges have been brought against the Lang family. On Wednesday, Lang ruled out stepping down as head of the Institut du monde arabe (Arab World Institute), a cultural institution he has led since 2013.

A source close to President Macron said Lang should “think of the institution”.

Jack Lang’s daughter steps down from film post over Epstein revelations

Disinformation claims

French authorities said Friday they had detected a Russia-linked disinformation campaign alleging Macron’s involvement with Epstein.

France’s Viginum agency, which counters foreign disinformation campaigns, detected Wednesday the operation involving a fabricated article “accusing President Emmanuel Macron of being involved in the ‘Epstein affair'”, a government source told AFP.

The article appeared on a website falsely using the identity of the French media organisation France-Soir. The source said the Storm-1516 project was behind the operation spreading fabricated content.

(with newswires)

Tim Redford, in charge of the festival’s international competition and the African Perspectives section, says it acts as a cultural barometer, measuring the level of short film production around the world.

He also says there’s no getting away from geopolitics and global economics, which have great impact on the quantity – and quality – of content.

“The current climate is quite complex, and we feel it immediately in short film production,” he told RFI.

Despite having received more than 8,000 entries this year, he says armed conflicts have meant a lower number of entries – especially from Ukraine, Russia and the Palestinian territories. Meanwhile, inflation in Latin America has affected the number of entries from that part of the world.

However, he notes a rise in entries from China, which has invested heavily in the film industry in recent years, particularly in film schools.

This year’s special focus at the festival is South East Asia, a region Redford says is booming with activity.

“You can sense that there’s a [new] generation of filmmakers who are very free, very inventive in the way they talk about their society, politics and also intimate matters, pushing the boundaries of censorship a little,” he explains.

‘Nouvelle Vague’ dominates César nominations, Jim Carrey to get lifetime award

New technology

African Perspectives, now in its 36th edition, remains one of the highlights of the festival.

“It’s great because it often provides a first step into an international festival,” Redford says, noting the immense diversity he sees in the African entries – whether from Cap Verde, Nigeria, Chad or Tunisia.

“There is the use of social media and experimental forms… there is a transformation, a use of more hybrid forms than there were a few years ago. It’s a type of cinema that fascinates me, and every year I see wonderful things happening.”

Sousou’s TikTok is one of two Egyptian films in this year’s African Perspectives section.

Directed by Sondos Shabayek, this dark comedy introduces us to Sarah, a beautiful woman who sells beauty products on TikTok – but when her husband arrives home, she reverts to an oppressed housewife.

“That’s the problem with the online world, with all these women we see online and all these facades they create. I was very curious to explore what lies behind all that,” Shabayek told RFI.

With a low budget, the film was shot vertically, just like the videos seen on TikTok. On the right side of the screen is the livestream, on the left are the “likes” and readers’ comments can be seen.

“For me, the film is about a woman seeking her freedom. Her presence on TikTok is an expression of her desire to be seen and heard. Her attempt to sell products on TikTok is an attempt to achieve financial independence, which is generally very threatening to men,” the director says.

“I wanted to give the impression that we are the audience and question my point of view as a viewer… I wanted to portray the audience’s complacency, their negligence. In a way, they contribute to the environment in which this violence occurs.”

Redford says an increasing number of films “play with genres or blur the boundaries between fiction and documentary, reality and staging” as well as dealing with new technologies such as artificial intelligence.

He points to examples of how AI helps creators fill in gaps in images, and to those who use AI as a character – such as in the French film Curiosity On Planet Mars by Tommy Baron, in which a young man has an emotional relationship with a conversational AI tool.

“[AI] is beginning to revolutionise creation, film-making, writing, editing, imagery… and it certainly raises new questions about short films.”

While he says AI is “here to stay”, he admits to being concerned about its potential to replace human film crews.

African cinema takes to global stage with diverse storytelling

Parallels with the past

But the focus is not all on the future. Franco-Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb, a veteran of the festival, this year presents his film Boomerang Atomic, which uses archives to shine a light on little-known colonial history.

This 22-minute documentary delves into the long-lasting consequences of the 17 atomic bomb tests carried out by France in Algeria in the early 1960s.

Bouchareb is pleased to be back, 30 years after his first time at Clermont-Ferrand.

The award-winning director, of both short and long films, often turns his eye to historical events. His film Indigènes, about African soldiers in the Second World War, won the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 – awarded collectively to all five of the film’s leads.

Boomerang Atomic focuses on the lead-up to the first atomic detonation in Reggane, a town in the centre of the Sahara, which took place on 13 February, 1960, under the initiative of General Charles de Gaulle.

‘Telling stories differently’: Tunisian cinema shines at Franco-Arab Film Festival

For Bouchareb – there are parallels between those events and the threat of nuclear war in today’s world.

“We thought that many things had been debated sufficiently so that we could no longer go back on them,” he says. “But in the end, we realise that with human beings, anything is possible. Dropping another atomic bomb on a country is possible today, and even more so tomorrow. I can’t keep up with this world anymore. Everything is moving so fast. The presence of war… it’s always there.”

This article was based on interviews in French by Sigfried Forster. The International Short Film Festival runs until 7 February.

After a lifetime of clashes with successive powers in Nigeria, the recognition comes nearly three decades after Fela’s death and long after his influence reshaped global music.

He was one of several artists getting the award at a ceremony in Los Angeles on Saturday, the eve of the main Grammys gala.

Other recipients included Cher, Whitney Houston, Carlos Santana, Paul Simon and Chaka Khan.

Fela’s son Femi Kuti accepted the award on his father’s behalf.

“Thank you for bringing our father here,” he told the audience.”It’s so important for us, it’s so important for Africa, it’s so important for world peace and the struggle.”

In the 1970s, Fela the multi-instrumentalist and full-of-life performer invented Afrobeat: a mixture of jazz, funk and African rhythms.

That laid the groundwork for Afrobeats – a later genre that has attracted a global audience by blending traditional African rhythms with contemporary pop sounds, with its roots in Nigeria.

Two years ago the Grammys introduced the category of Best African Performance in 2024 and it has been dominated by Afrobeats artists, especially from Nigeria.

Of the five nominees for the Best African performance this year, three are Nigerian Afrobeats singers, after another Nigerian, Tems, won last year.

‘Black President’

“Fela’s influence spans generations, inspiring artists such as Beyonce, Paul McCartney and Thom Yorke, and shaping modern Nigerian Afrobeats,” said a citation on the Grammys list of this year’s honorees.

Known also as the “Black President”, the activist and legendary musician, died in 1997 at the age of 58.

His legacy lives on through his sons, Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti, and grandson Made.

Nigerian Afrobeat legend Tony Allen, 79, dies in Paris

“This acknowledgment coming at this time when all three of us are present. It feels wonderful,” Grammy-nominated Made Kuti told French news agency AFP ahead of the ceremony.

“It feels wonderful that all of us are still practicing Afrobeat, still taking the legacy as far as we can take it.”

Yemisi Ransome-Kuti, Fela’s first cousin and head of the family, told AFP on Friday the award was “a celebration for the African people and they should take (it).. as their award. Another African is being celebrated.

“But we also want to send a message to those who are giving these acknowledgements, please …not wait till people are dead,” she said.

Onward and upward

As to what would have been Fela’s reaction, Ransome-Kuti said: “I’m sure he would have said better late than never” although “in his lifetime he was not particularly interested in being recognised in the external world particularly the western world”.

Fela was arrested frequently by military governments during his career, sometimes for political activism and sometimes also on allegations of theft, which he denied.

His first brush with the law dated back to 1974 when he released his famous album “Zombie”, generally considered by the military authorities in power as a diatribe levelled at them.

Paris exhibition celebrates Fela Kuti, the rebel king of Afrobeat

His songs were long, defiant and explicitly anti-governments in power and anti-corruption.

His manager, Rikki Stein, speaking on the phone from Los Angeles ahead of the ceremony, was confident the award would “significantly uplift Fela’s music”.

“Fifty albums out there. I’m sure it’s going to continue onward and upward.”

“An increasing number of people what weren’t even born when Fela died are expressing interest in listening to Fela’s music and hopefully Fela’s message,” he told AFP.

(with AFP)

“I’m not anti-alcohol, I just want more tolerance,” says journalist and writer Claire Touzard, who stopped drinking in 2020 and later published a best-selling book about her experiences.

“It’s a norm to drink in France. And if you don’t fit in, there’s suspicion. ‘Are you anti-French? Do you have psychiatric issues?’ We don’t like people who don’t drink because they disturb the French party.”

Touzard grew up in a family of bon vivants where alcohol, especially wine, had a very positive image. After all, it wasn’t until 1956 that the French government finally banned wine in school canteens, and even then it was only for the under-14s.

 At the height of her drinking, she was downing a bottle and several beers a day. She decided to quit when she realised it was all about forgetting pain, rather than enjoyment.

She describes drinking as “a nationalist thing – we have to drink, we have to eat saucisson”.

“It’s a test for some communities who don’t drink because of their religion or culture. It becomes a way to judge whether you’re ‘really’ French,” she says, pointing to increasing intolerance on the part of the far right.

“We like to think drinking alcohol is about conviviality, but for me it’s a tool of exclusion.”

People make a living out of wine, but it’s also killing them: welcome to the French paradox

Cultural backlash

France’s drinking culture is changing – some 4.5 million people say they tried out Dry January last year, while one in five say they never drink and more than 60 percent no longer drink on a weekly basis.

However, unlike many EU countries, France has never endorsed Dry January – where people try and abstain for a month. In 2023, President Emmanuel Macron even publicly declined to support it, affirming that he drinks wine daily.

France is Europe’s largest wine producer, and wine remains its second most valuable export after luxury goods, so there’s also economic pressure to defend the industry.

With wine consumption falling by 22 percent between 2022-2024 and worries over tariff hikes on exports to the US, calls to put the brakes on drinking are seen by some as a both an economic and cultural threat. 

This year, Vin et Société, the main wine and spirits lobby, launched a counter-Dry January campaign “French January” promoting moderation rather than abstinence, and warning of the dangers of  “health moralism”.

Some trade groups have gone further, accusing Dry January of undermining France’s famed joie de vivre.

Vintage moment as French wine magazine crowns Macron ‘personality of the year’

Listen to a report on this story in the Spotlight on France podcast

Pressure to drink

Le Social Bar in central Paris offers a glimpse of a different, but no less social, drinking culture.

Throughout January the venue went alcohol-free, serving beers, fruit shots, and playful mocktails while hosting DJ sets, karaoke and debates.

“The aim is to prove that we can have great parties, without alcohol,” says project manager Cécile Cabon.

Le Social Bar opened a decade ago and Cabon says they’ve noticed every day “that when people get together and sociability is really a the heart of the experience, it has the same effect as alcohol“. 

While a group of 20-somethings enjoy a karaoke session in the basement, Laurène, 32, is having an elderflower spritz in the bar.  “It’s such a difference – they have real alcohol-free cocktails, not just a virgin mojito,” she says. 

She gave up alcohol six months ago for mental health reasons and appreciates being taken seriously as a non-drinker.

But, she says, that’s not the case at work, where she feels under pressure to drink.

“In French corporate culture, you’re expected to be social, to chat. So people often drink a lot at work.” Since she quit, colleagues who once saw her as “the party girl” feel awkward around her.

Binge drinking still a worry in France despite drop in daily consumption

National blind spot

Journalist Vincent Edin tried his hand at Dry January and hopes to cut down his heavy alcohol consumption. He believes French society still indulges heavy drinking.

“We don’t have alcoholics in France,” he says, sarcastically. “Alcoholics are people lying on the street. Everyone else is just a shiny, happy person who likes to party.”

Although official guidelines say more than 10 drinks a week is problematic, he says few people are ever challenged. “No one ever told me I had a problem,” he says, even when he was drinking two or three times that amount.

The most recent data shows 41,000 deaths a year in France are linked to alcohol-related diseases, including 11,000 among women.

The cost of this is an estimated €102 billion annually when factoring in healthcare, lost productivity, accidents and other costs, according to the Observatory for Drug and Alcohol Addiction (OFDT).

Alcohol also aggravates gender-based and sexual violence. “Rape culture is a problem. Alcohol doesn’t help – it’s present in femicides, in rapes, in all gender-based violence,” says Touzard.

While public health experts confirm that alcohol impairs judgment and self-control and is a major risk factor in domestic and sexual violence, “it’s really hidden by our government because they want us to be the country of wine,” Touzard believes.

Campaigns on the dangers of heavy drinking tends to focus on pregnant women and young people, she says, rather than being aimed at men – and yet middle-aged male professionals are the biggest drinkers. “It’s protecting patriarchy, men and French values.”

France has committed to the fight against tobacco addiction, but Edin argues it lacks the political will to tackle alcoholism head on. 

“You can’t be a major political figure without drinking,” he says, noting not only Macron’s public enthusiasm for wine, but that all recent French presidents, barring Nicolas Sarkozy, openly supported France’s wine and beer industries.

Dilemma for French winemakers as alcohol content rises while consumption falls

Generational shift

Edin describes France as an “increasingly polarised society”, with a growing generational divide around the issue of alcohol.

“I see that 43 percent of 25 to 34-year-olds are doing Dry January and they’re saying they’re very aware that they have to slow down,” while the older generation remains attached to alcohol in the name of tradition.

However, he says he has seen progress in terms of tolerance. “It used to be only Muslim people and pregnant women who didn’t drink. Now, when we see young men and women who don’t want to drink, we don’t make as many jokes.”

Touzard also takes heart in the younger generation’s willingness to cut down. “It’s also a way of saying they want French culture to evolve. I see it as a political movement.”

When Le Social Bar went “dry” in January, it noticed its clientele was a bit younger – people in their 20s to 30s – and more female. It aims to become permanently alcohol-free, but will have to work on its business model, since takings for January were down by 40 percent.

“We had the same number of people, but they [drink] less,” notes Cabon. “And that’s OK  – you don’t need to drink 10 pints of ‘dry’ beer.”

The venue will continue to be alcohol-free on Wednesdays and is exploring partnerships and ticketed events to support a full transition.

Listen to a version of this story on the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 139.

President Tinubu and his wife, Olumeri Tinubu, will be received at Windsor Castle, west of London, by Charles and Queen Camilla, the palace said.

London and Abuja concluded a strategic partnership in November 2024 to strengthen their cooperation on economic, immigration, and security matters.

The West African nation has been grappling with a jihadist insurgency for several years in the northeast and heavily armed criminal gangs in the northwest and centre of the country.

On Friday, the Nigerian Ministry of Defence said the two countries intended to strengthen their defence cooperation following a week marked by the massacre of more than 160 people in central Kwara State which President Tinubu attributed to jihadists.

The two capitals had also signed an economic cooperation agreement in early 2024, under the previous British Conservative government.

A former British colony and member of the Commonwealth, Nigeria was the first African state visited by the British Foreign Secretary (then David Lammy), shortly after the Labour government came to power in July 2024.

Nigeria, the most populous country on the continent with a population of 230 million and one of Africa’s largest economies, is also a major recipient of development aid from the UK, home to a large Nigerian diaspora.

Blood and Bronze: unveiling the British Empire’s brutality in Nigeria

Trade between the two countries reached €9.3 billion in the year to September 2025, an 11.4 percent year-on-year increase, according to data from the UK Department for Business.

British exports to Nigeria rose 14.2 percent to €6.6 billion.

The trip will be the first formal state visit by a Nigerian president to Britain in 37 years although President Tinubu was received by Charles in September 2024.

Charles visited Nigeria four times when he was Prince of Wales before the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.

On Friday, a Nigerian court ordered the British government to pay €484 million to the families of miners killed in 1949 by the colonial authorities, after they protested their working conditions and unpaid wages by occupying the mine where they were employed.

(With newswires)

According to a letter seen by French press agency AFP on Saturday, Lang informed France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, that he was “proposing to step down” from his position at the IMA.

He added that he would formally submit his resignation “at an upcoming extraordinary meeting of the board.”

The offer comes a day after France’s National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) opened a preliminary investigation into alleged “aggravated tax fraud laundering” involving Lang and his daughter.

Lang, who has led the IMA since 2013, is due to meet officials from the Foreign Ministry on Sunday.

Jack Lang’s daughter steps down from film post over Epstein revelations

Jean-Noël Barrot, whose ministry supervises the IMA, said he had “taken note” of Lang’s decision.

Speaking to reporters following his return from an international trip, Barrot confirmed he would “begin the process to appoint a successor” and convene the institute’s board “within seven days” to name an interim president.

Lang, 86, had been under mounting pressure since the release in late January of previously unseen documents relating to Epstein, the American financier and convicted sex offender who died in 2019.

According to the website of the US Justice Department where the Epstein files can be consulted, Lang’s name is mentioned 667 times, suggesting regular contact between the two men.

While no charges have been brought against him, the revelations prompted growing calls from across the political spectrum for Lang to step down.

On Saturday, he insisted in a statement sent to AFP that “the accusations made against me are baseless.”

The Arab World Institute, founded in 1980 to foster cultural and scientific exchanges between France and the Arab world, has not yet issued a formal comment on Lang’s proposed resignation.

IWith newswires)

The Malian Shippers’ Council, a body attached to Mali’s transport ministry, this week said the situation has become a major concern for national and regional supply chains.

It warned that empty containers are running dangerously low at the port of Dakar, threatening supplies to Mali and putting pressure on Malian businesses.

The authorities demanded the return of more than 4,000 containers still inside the country, most of them owned by shipping giants MSC and Hapag-Lloyd. It is not clear how long the containers have been blocked.

RFI contacted the Malian Shippers’ Council and the transport ministry for an explanation on why the containers remained blocked, but neither responded.

US looks to revitalise relations with Mali with envoy visit to Bamako

Route too dangerous

A Malian entrepreneur, who said he also has containers waiting to be returned to Dakar, told RFI that while the authorities wanted to send a positive signal to shipping companies, “they have no solution to offer”.

“We can’t find a transporter willing to make the journey,” the business owner said – pointing to a rise in jihadist attacks in recent months in the Kayes region near the Senegalese border.

The risk, he said, became brutally clear last Thursday, when at least a dozen truck drivers were killed after their convoy was ambushed, despite being escorted by the army. “You can’t force people to take that risk.”

He added that empty containers are not escorted on return journeys and warned of the threat posed by homemade mines and the very poor state of the road, which forces trucks to travel slowly and leaves them exposed for longer.

Another Malian business owner said trucks have also been stuck in the capital, Bamako, because of fuel shortages.

The disruption has been linked to an embargo imposed in early September by the jihadist group JNIM, which has been gradually contained by the Malian army but continues to heavily disrupt supplies of petrol and diesel.

The Fulani women living under the control of JNIM jihadists in the Sahel

Customs hold-ups

Operators have also complained about delays at customs in Bamako.

“Containers can wait several days before being taken off a truck, then several weeks or even months before all the formalities are completed,” one of them told RFI, while also alluding to problems of corruption.

“Angry drivers sometimes just leave without the containers,” the man said.

Customs procedures in Bamako have recently been sped up, but only for fuel tankers entering the country, to make fuel distribution easier and limit the impact of the jihadist embargo.

Meanwhile shipping companies are also facing a major financial hit. The price of a new container is around €5,000 – so 4,000 of them unreturned adds up to some €20 million worth of equipment.

Economists say logistics costs are quickly passed on to consumers, who are at risk of being hit hard given that nearly 70 percent of Mali’s imports pass through the port of Dakar.

With Ramadan approaching, Mali’s transitional authorities have repeatedly said they are working to secure supplies and fight price hikes.

Month-long blackout leaves Mali’s Mopti in the dark amid jihadist fuel blockade

Two-way street

The current blockage comes just months after tensions flared in the opposite direction. In November, full containers were stuck at the port of Dakar, waiting to be transported to Mali beyond the allowed storage period.

Mali later secured a full cancellation of storage penalties for Malian companies and was granted a three-month deadline to clear the containers. At the time, more than 2,000 were blocked at the port.

Mali’s transport minister, Dembélé Madina Sissoko, travelled to Dakar to plead the country’s case. According to the Malian Shippers’ Council, only 304 containers are now still waiting at the port.

The council has given their owners until 24 February to collect them, warning that no exemption will be granted after that deadline.

Shipping companies have not spoken publicly on the issue and have allowed Mali’s transitional authorities to relay their concerns, raised during a meeting in Dakar on 20 January.

Three months ago, shipping lines CMA CGM and MSC briefly suspended deliveries to Mali, citing insecurity and fuel shortages. The measures were later lifted after talks with Mali’s transitional authorities, although the details of those negotiations were not made public.

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

Although originally intended to oversee Gaza’s rebuilding, the board’s charter does not seem to limit its role to the Palestinian territory and appears to want to rival the United Nations.

One of the US leader’s closest allies in the European Union, the nationalist Orban attended the launch of the initiative last month in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

“Two weeks from now we will meet again in Washington, because the Board of Peace, the peace body, will have an inaugural meeting,” he told a campaign event in the western town of Szombathely.

Permanent members must pay $1 billion to join, leading to criticism that the board could become a “pay to play” version of the UN Security Council.

Hungary is the only EU country that showed interest in joining Trump’s Board of Peace. But its leader, Victor Orban — currently the longest-serving national leader in the EU — faces an unprecedented challenge at a general election slated for April 12.

Independent polls show the opposition led by Peter Magyar, an ex-government-insider-turned-critic, is ahead with a stagnating economy and growing discontent with public services, among key issues.

Doubts

Trump unveiled the new Board of Peace at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos in January, joined on stage by leaders and officials from 19 countries to sign its founding charter.

But key US allies including France and Britain have expressed doubts.

London expressed concerns about the inclusion of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose forces are fighting in Ukraine after invading in 2022.

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

France said the charter as it currently stood was “incompatible” with its international commitments, especially its UN membership.

“We have serious doubts about a number of elements in the charter of the Board of Peace related to its scope, its governance and its compatibility with the UN Charter,” the European Council president said after an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels.

“We are ready to work together with the US on the implementation of the comprehensive Peace Plan for Gaza, with a Board of Peace carrying out its mission as a transitional administration”.

(With newswires)

The Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) ends its mandate on Saturday – after 22 months governing a country without a president.

With no elections organised during its tenure and more than 10,000 people killed since it was established in 2024, the transition it was supposed to secure looks far off.

A new electoral calendar was finally adopted in December 2025, setting general elections for 30 August 2026, with a second round scheduled for 6 December.

But between now and then, no one knows what form the next phase will take, how long it will last, or who will lead it.

As the TPC’s mandate expires, power struggles are intensifying. At the end of January, five of its seven members called for the dismissal of Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé – a move blocked by the transitional president, Laurent Saint-Cyr, and opposed by the United States.

Washington has imposed sanctions on five members of the council, as well as a cabinet minister, who it accuses of colluding with gangs. The US has also sent a warship and three coast guard boats to patrol off Port-au-Prince, in a sign of growing concern at what may follow the TPC’s end. 

This week, members of the council held a flurry of political meetings in an effort to shape what comes next. But on the streets of the capital, patience has worn thin.

‘A total failure’

“It is clear that two years on, it is a total failure, an absolute failure. The situation has worsened,” said local resident Mysuel Tymothé, speaking to RFI in the suburb of Pétion-Ville.

“Before, there were still areas, neighbourhoods where people lived. Today, those neighbourhoods are lost, controlled by gangs. I think that 98 or 99 percent of the time, the TPC has done nothing serious for the country.”

Others echoed the same frustration. “The TPC is a total failure, a failure across the board,” said Johnny Baptisma, a Haitian journalist and TV presenter.

“First of all, on the administrative level, it’s total mismanagement. Several members of the Transitional Presidential Council have been implicated in shady corruption cases. We had hoped that they would overcome their differences and really think about the country, but in the end, it’s been a total failure.”

Haitians are still waiting for elections, which have not been held since 2016.

“Change is all we think about, all we dream about,” said Bedson, another Port-au-Prince resident. “We want elections to be organised, we want security. We want change. That’s what we’re waiting for, and nothing more.”

Gangs tighten grip on key towns in Haiti as violence and protests escalate

Spike in sexual violence

The armed gangs that have battled Haitian authorities since 2020 are now estimated to control up to 90 percent of the capital, and are extending their reach into other regions. 

Their dominance has been accompanied by a spike in sexual violence against women and girls. 

“Sexual violence is not new in Haiti,” said Diana Manilla Arroyo, head of mission for Doctors Without Borders (MSF). But since 2021, cases in Port-au-Prince have surged, according to an MSF report published last month.

“Not only are there more cases, but there is also increasing brutality,” Arroyo said.

Gang members are now responsible for 57 percent of recorded cases, according to the organisation’s figures, while gang rapes have become more frequent. Gangs “use rape to control communities”, said Arroyo.

Port-au-Prince sees ‘unprecedented’ displacement as gang violence escalates

“When criminal activity increases, sexual violence – particularly gang rape – increases,” said Abigail Derolian, a lawyer who focuses on gender-based violence at Haitian women’s rights NGO Nèges Mawon.

“Every time a neighbourhood falls under the control of an armed group, we find survivors of sexual violence committed during these attacks. It’s a weapon of control,” she told RFI. 

“When a rival gang takes control of another gang’s territory, they use rape as a way of telling girls and women that they have ‘changed masters’ and to control their movements.”

This article has been adapted from original reporting by RFI’s Peterson Luxama, Justine Fontaine and Achim Lippold in Haiti.

The 24-year olf reigning world champion hit speeds of 145km/h to clock a winning time of 1min 51.61sec down the testing Stelvio course, finishing ahead of the Italian pair of Giovanni Franzoni, who was 0.20sec behind, and Dominik Paris (0.50).

Pre-race favourite Marco Odermatt, Von Allmen’s Swiss teammate, could only finish fourth.

“At the moment it feels like a movie,” Von Allmen said.

“My secret is to enjoy skiing! I was really relaxed in the morning and tried to keep the good feelings from the training and have fun skiing.”

Booed

Earlier on, during the opening ceremony on Friday, US Vice President JD Vance was booed by some spectators, but the US team got loud cheers.

The boos came when Vance and his wife Usha were shown on a large screen at the San Siro stadium, both applauding and waving flags as the US athletes filed past in the ceremonial parade.

Some of the loudest applause during the parade was for the Ukraine team.

Russian athletes taking part as neutrals because of Olympic sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were not included in the parade.

Hundreds protested in Milan earlier on Friday against Vance’s visit and the presence of some agents from the US immigration enforcement agency ICE to help protect the American delegation.

Vance also on Friday met with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a fellow conservative who is close to US President Donald Trump, and hailed “shared values” with Italy.

(With newswires)

Loic Voisot and Benjamin Humblot embraced as they stood by the river on the Bund promenade, the financial hub’s distinctive skyline glittering in the background. 

Voisot and Humblot set off from Annecy in September 2024. 

“We were thinking about this moment almost every day for more than a year now, so it’s a really strong feeling,” Humblot said of reaching their destination. 

Hanging out after work one day, the two friends realized they both yearned for a “great adventure”. 

They wanted to visit China — but without flying, which they believe is too harmful to the environment. 

A plan to set out on foot was hatched, and except for a stretch in Russia which was done by bus for safety reasons, 518 days and around 12,850 kilometers later they took the last steps to completing it. 

Around 50 people gathered at the start point for the last 10km stretch of their odyssey, many local people who have been following them on social media and on their website, Mode Avion – Walk to China. 

Along the way their numbers swelled, as media, French residents of Shanghai and others joined. 

“If your dreams are crazy, just take it step by step and sometimes you will not succeed, but sometimes you will,” said Voisot. 

Asked what he would do first now the walk was over, he joked: “Sleep a lot!”

(With newswires)

Iran for its part said it expected to hold more negotiations with the United States, hailing a “positive atmosphere” during a day of talks in the Gulf sultanate.

“The Iran-US negotiations in Muscat concluded with an understanding between the parties to continue the talks.

“The parties, while explaining their views and demands, reached an understanding to make a decision regarding the next round of talks in consultation with their capitals,” a senior Iranian diplomat was quoted by the semi-official Mehr news agency, which also repeated Trump’s remarks on the meeting.

With an American naval group led by the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln in Middle Eastern waters, US and Iranian delegations held talks in Muscat on Friday mediated by Oman without publicly meeting face-to-face.

“We likewise had very good talks on Iran,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One en route to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

“We’re going to meet again early next week,” he added.

Shortly after the talks concluded, the US announced new sanctions against shipping entities and vessels, aimed at curbing Iran’s oil exports.

Trump also signed an executive order Friday enabling his administration to impose tariffs on goods from countries doing business with Iran, with any potential levies threatening trade with countries including China, Germany and the United Arab Emirates.

Iran confirms talks on nuclear programme with European powers

It was not clear if the moves were linked to the talks, which were the first between the two foes since the United States joined Israel’s war with Iran in June with strikes on its nuclear sites.

While Iran warned against further threats after Washington raised the spectre of new military action, Trump said: “If they don’t make a deal, the consequences are very steep.”

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi,  who led Iran’s delegation in Muscat, said talks “focused exclusively” on the Iranian nuclear program, which the West believes is aimed at making an atomic bomb but Tehran insists is peaceful.

The US delegation, led by Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s influential son-in-law Jared Kushner, had also wanted Tehran’s backing for militant groups, its ballistic missile program and treatment of protesters on the agenda.

“In a very positive atmosphere, our arguments were exchanged and the views of the other side were shared with us,” Araghchi told Iranian state TV, adding that the two sides had “agreed to continue negotiations.”

Speaking to the official IRNA news agency, Araghchi expressed hope that Washington would refrain from “threats and pressure” so that “the talks can continue.”

(With newswires)

Nearly 15 years after the fall of his father, former Libyan leader Muammar Kadhafi, Saïf al-Islam was shot dead on Tuesday at his home in the city of Zintan, north-western Libya.

Media reports said Saïf al-Islam, 53, was at home alone when four armed men broke into the residence and opened fire.

He remained, for many Libyan tribes and especially for his own clan, a powerful symbol of a possible Kadhafi comeback.

His assassination is expected to have lasting consequences for Libya’s political future. No other member of the clan, experts say, can match his level of popularity or influence.

Son of former Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi shot dead in home

Rival political camps in Libya could also be affected. The loss of a figure seen as capable of bringing different factions together is widely viewed as unlikely to serve the country’s broader interests.

However, Saïf al-Islam’s death benefits a number of political actors who viewed him as a rival, said Virginie Collombier, a political scientist at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome.

“Saïf al-Islam Kadhafi was carrying the torch of a united Libya, brought together around a major project of national reconciliation,” she told RFI.

“That was not well received by the two main centres of power, which saw the emergence of a third force as a potential threat to their ability to reach agreement and share power and resources.”

Reconciliation hopes fade

National reconciliation appears to be the first casualty of Saïf al-Islam Kadhafi’s murder. Efforts to bring Libyans into a genuine national dialogue have repeatedly failed.

So far, seven United Nations special envoys have been unable to make progress, blaming a lack of willingness among those in power to commit to reconciliation.

In 2019, the United States administration gave Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar the green light to attack Tripoli 10 days before a planned meeting. That episode led to the resignation of the UN envoy at the time, Ghassan Salamé.

Saïf al-Islam Kadhafi, the heir apparent without a crown

Saïf al-Islam was the third high-profile Libyan figure to be killed in recent months. Observers say a series of political assassinations risks destabilising the country’s internal balance and undermining the political process under way.

His death also comes at a sensitive moment, as the UN attempts to relaunch a new format for national dialogue – with a possible deadline mooted for November.

“The risk now is that this dialogue process will be seriously disrupted,” Collombier warned, adding that renewed tensions cannot be ruled out.

Regional and international players could also benefit from Kadhafi’s demise. He had frequently criticised the way Libya is currently run, which he believed was heavily influenced by foreign powers, including the US and Turkey.

Saïf al-Islam was wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, linked to his alleged role in the suppression of opposition protests in 2011.

This article was adapted from the original version in French.

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

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 13 December, I asked you a question about Paul Myers’ article “Nigeria power past Mozambique into quarterfinals at Africa Cup of Nations”.

Nigeria had just beaten Mozambique 4 to 0. Paul noted in his article that the win was the biggest winning margin in a Cup of Nations knockout tie since the Africa Cup in 2010. And that was one of your questions: you were to tell me which countries played in the Africa Cup semi-finals in 2010, and who won that knockout tie by 4 to 0.

The second question was: In the Nigeria/Mozambique match, what is the name of the Nigerian player who scored the fourth goal?

The answer is, to quote Paul’s article: “Akor Adams, fed by Lookman, thrashed in Nigeria’s fourth goal 15 minutes from time to notch up the biggest winning margin in a Cup of Nations knockout tie since Egypt battered Algeria 4-0 in the semi-finals at the 2010 tournament in Angola.” So, Egypt/Algeria, and Akor Adams are the correct answers.

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, suggested by RFI Listeners Club member Pradip Basak from West Bengal, India: “How do you deal with jealousy when your friend achieves something you secretly wished for?”

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

The winners are: Amir Jameel, the president of the RFI Online Visitors Club in Sahiwal, Pakistan.  Amir is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations on your double win, Amir.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Sharifun Islam Nitu, a member of the RFI Amour Fan Club in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, and Faheem Noor, the president of the WULO RFI Club in Nankana Sahib, Pakistan. There are also two RFI Listeners Club members: Hans Verner Lollike from Hedehusene, Denmark, and S. J. Agboola from Ekiti State, Nigeria.

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: “Heer on Sarangi”, traditional music from Pakistan performed by Ustad Sultan Khan; “Water No Get Enemy” by Fela Kuti, performed by Fela Ransome Kuti & Africa 70; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer; “Happy” by Pharrell Williams, and the traditional Andalucian “La Saeta del Larios”, sung by Diana Navarro.

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

This week’s question … you must listen to the show to participate. After you’ve listened to the show, re-read our article “French DJ wins Grammy for Lady Gaga remix”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 2 March to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 7 March 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

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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. 

Svalbard is often described as the fastest-warming place on the planet. Located close to the North Pole, the archipelago sits on the front line of climate change, a position that has drawn scientists from around the world for decades.

For years, a unique legal status allowed Svalbard to function as a model of global cooperation. But as Arctic ice retreats and geopolitical competition intensifies, the territory is newly vulnerable.

Recent tensions linked to the possibility of a US annexation of Greenland, less than 500 kilometres to the west, have fuelled concern in Norway’s media and political circles. Could Svalbard be next?

“Norway has not faced a security situation this serious since 1945,” Eivind Vad Petersson, a senior official at Norway’s foreign ministry, told The New York Times. “When Greenland is hit by a political storm, Svalbard is inevitably splashed as well.”

Svalbard’s sensitivity lies in its legal framework. The Spitsbergen Treaty, signed in Paris in 1920 after the First World War, recognises Norwegian sovereignty over the archipelago, located more than 900 kilometres north of mainland Norway.

At the same time, the treaty strictly limits Oslo’s authority. Citizens of signatory states are placed on an equal footing when it comes to access and activity in Svalbard – including hunting, fishing, mining and land ownership.

Initially signed by around 10 countries including France, Denmark, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and Italy, the treaty now counts nearly 40 signatories. They include Russia, China and North Korea, whose citizens can settle in Svalbard without a visa.

For decades, this system underpinned what many saw as an Arctic laboratory of cooperation. Nowhere symbolised this more than Ny-Alesund, a small research community hosting Chinese, Korean, Franco-German and Japanese scientific stations.

“Svalbard became a hub for research, exchange and the study of climate change. It’s a place where international scientific cooperation can really happen,” Florian Vidal, a researcher at the Arctic Institute of Norway in Tromso, told RFI.

Today, the archipelago – roughly the size of Croatia – has about 2,700 residents, mainly in Longyearbyen, the world’s northernmost town. A study published in January found there are fewer people there than polar bears.

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

Strategic ambitions take shape

In recent years, the Arctic as a region has become more politically charged. Once seen as remote, it has become a key arena of international competition at a time when the global order is shifting.

Security concerns, new maritime routes and access to resources have all raised Svalbard’s profile. Seabeds around the archipelago are believed to contain copper, zinc, cobalt, lithium and rare earths – seen as strategic for new technologies and the energy transition.

While extraction is limited by moratoriums, several major powers, including China and the US, are already looking further ahead.

Russia has played a central role in the rising pressure. “Tensions around Svalbard have existed since the 2010s, but they clearly accelerated after the annexation of Crimea and then with the war in Ukraine,” Vidal said.

In February 2024, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Trutnev warned that Moscow would fight for its “rights” in Svalbard, invoking the need to defend its “sovereignty” over the archipelago, in rhetoric echoing language used to justify the war in Ukraine.

The message was repeated in November, when Trutnev again stressed Svalbard’s strategic importance for Russia and the need to maintain a stronger presence, particularly through the state mining company Arktikugol.

Russia maintains two settlements on Svalbard – Barentsburg and Pyramiden, home to several hundred Russian citizens. Officially tied to coal mining, the sites are remnants of the Soviet era, with the mine in Pyramiden closing at the end of the 1990s.

“The Russians are artificially maintaining the Barentsburg mine to justify keeping a presence,” Vidal said.

Why Greenland’s melting ice cap threatens humanity, and could serve Trump

Testing Norway’s red lines

In recent years, these communities have become the stage for symbolic gestures viewed by Oslo as provocative.

In Barentsburg, where the Russian flag flies, a parade was held in 2023 to mark Victory Day on 9 May, celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany. There were no weapons, but the military-style staging and symbols were seen by Norwegian authorities as a political message.

Vidal also pointed to the use of security vehicles with visual codes close to those of Russian forces, and to the growing prominence of the Russian Orthodox Church. A full-time priest has been permanently based in Barentsburg since March 2025.

This helps anchor Svalbard in an image of “Russian land”, Vidal said. “These episodes fit into a logic of hybrid warfare. The Russians are testing the limits of Norway’s sovereignty over the archipelago.”

The message, he added, is unambiguous: “The Russians are there, and they are not leaving.”

Svalbard also holds military significance for Moscow. Nuclear submarines from Russia’s Northern Fleet, the country’s main Arctic naval force, are based in Severomorsk in northwest Russia and must pass near the archipelago to reach the Atlantic, making it a key transit point.

France to open Greenland consulate amid Trump takeover threats

Oslo reasserts control

Faced with these signals, Norway has moved to reassert its authority without formally challenging the 1920 treaty. In a strong symbolic move, King Harald V visited Svalbard in June for the first time in 30 years.

“America has gone mad in the Arctic and Russia does not respect the independence of its neighbours. It is very important to send the king to mark the kingdom’s supremacy over its distant territories,” Norwegian daily newspaper Verdens Gang said.

“There is a form of nationalism around Svalbard on the Norwegian side, it’s a very sensitive issue,” Vidal said.

Norway has also strengthened coastguard patrols around the archipelago. Moscow has protested, arguing this violates the treaty’s ban on military use.

While permanent militarisation is prohibited, naval patrols are not explicitly banned – a legal grey area Norway now relies on.

Administrative controls have also tightened. Local voting rights have been restricted to foreigners who have lived for several years on mainland Norway, and land sales to non-Norwegians have been banned.

Scientific research is now more closely supervised, with projects requiring approval from Oslo. “We are seeing a gradual extension of Norwegian prerogatives,” Vidal said, describing a “Russian-Norwegian ping pong game”.

Rare earths mining feud at heart of Greenland’s snap elections

Pressure from multiple sides

China’s presence is also viewed with growing caution. Beijing has been a signatory to the Spitsbergen Treaty since 1925, and has operated a research station in Ny-Alesund since 2004.

Officially dedicated to polar science, the station is suspected by Norwegian and US authorities of carrying out research with potential dual use.

Two granite lion statues have become a symbol of friction, with China refusing Oslo’s requests to remove them. In summer 2024, more than 180 Chinese tourists arrived in Ny-Alesund, displaying national symbols.

One woman posed in military-style clothing in front of the statues, triggering diplomatic unease.

Norwegian authorities have also, for the first time, denied Chinese students access to the University Centre in Svalbard, citing security risks.

Svalbard has also long been a point of tension between Norway and the European Union. Several EU member states contest fishing quotas and permits imposed by Oslo around the archipelago, arguing they breach the treaty’s principle of equality.

The EU has also raised concerns over Norway’s seabed prospecting campaigns near Svalbard.

Against this backdrop, tensions surrounding Greenland have revived fears of imitation. If US President Donald Trump were to seize Greenland in defiance of international law, could Russia feel justified in challenging the status quo in Svalbard?

“We are not in a critical phase, but in a crisis that is gradually building,” Vidal said.

One strategic question remains unresolved. In the event of an attack, would NATO’s Article 5 – its collective defence clause – apply to an archipelago with demilitarised status?

Aware of this uncertainty, Norway has stepped up political signalling in recent years, including hosting delegations from NATO’s parliamentary assembly in Svalbard, without ever securing a formal guarantee.

This article has been adapted from the original version in French by Aurore Lartigue

The disinformation campaign is linked to the Russian network Storm-1516 and falsely suggested Macron was involved in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, a government source told French news agency AFP on Friday.

According to the source, the operation was detected on Wednesday by Viginum, the French agency tasked with countering foreign digital interference.

It relied on the creation of a website impersonating the French news site France Soir, on which a fabricated article was published accusing the French president of involvement in the Epstein case. France Soir denied publishing any such content.

This claim was then amplified on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), the source said, confirming findings by French news channel BFMTV.

Members of France’s political and cultural elite named in Epstein files

No evidence of contact

BFMTV reports that the campaign involved a video made using artificial intelligence that was circulated on X, where it had amassed close to 700, 000 views by late afternoon on Wednesday.

The article, which had been posted earlier that day, falsely claimed that Macron had attended gatherings hosted by Epstein in Paris, at which it alleged the presence of “young boys”.

French authorities monitored the subsequent online amplification, which they said was carried out by numerous accounts likely paid for by the Storm-1516 network, whose activities they have been monitoring since 2023.

As news outlet Franceinfo reported, the French president’s name does appear more than 200 times in the hundreds of thousands of pages of documents tied to the Epstein case and published by the US Justice Department.

Former French culture minister Lang summoned to explain Epstein ties

However, these mentions do not indicate any wrongdoing. According to Franceinfo, Macron’s name appears mainly in discussions between other individuals, and there is no evidence of any meeting or exchange between him and the US financier, who died by suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking of minors. 

Franceinfo also linked a post on X which was flagged on Thursday by the French foreign ministry’s French Response account to the campaign. A woman using the name “Loetitia” claimed Macron was a frequent guest at Epstein’s residence in Paris, citing the fabricated article.

According to Viginum, Storm-1516 has been responsible for at least 77 disinformation campaigns since its emergence in late 2023. The agency said the group’s activities pose a significant threat to public debate on the internet in France and Europe.

(with newswires)

While the African continent is well represented at the Summer Olympics, it is a different story at the Winter Games.

In Paris in 2024, African athletes won a total of 39 medals, including 13 gold medals. At the Winter Olympics, Africa is still waiting for its first medal.

At this year’s Milan-Cortina Games, 13 athletes from the continent will compete in alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, freestyle skiing and skeleton.

Benin, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria and Eritrea will each be represented by one athlete. Madagascar, Morocco and Kenya are fielding two athletes apiece, while South Africa has the continent’s largest delegation, with five athletes.

Benin, represented by Nathan Tchibozo (alpine skiing), and Guinea-Bissau, represented by Winston Tang (alpine skiing), are both making their Winter Olympics debut.

At the last Games in 2022 in Beijing, Africa fielded six athletes from five countries: Eritrea, Ghana, Madagascar, Morocco and Nigeria.

South Africa first

South Africa was the first nation to take part in the Winter Olympics in 1960. Due to political boycotts against apartheid, South Africans did not return until Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994, with figure skater Dino Quattrocecere and speed skater Cindy Meyer.

Morocco became the second African nation to participate in the Winter Olympics in 1968 in Grenoble, France.

Senegal made its first appearance in 1984 in Sarajevo, while Ghana made its debut in 2010 in Vancouver, Canada, thanks to Scotland-born Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, who competed in the men’s slalom.

Between 1960 and 2022, 15 African countries participated in the Winter Olympics: Algeria, Madagascar, South Africa, Morocco, Senegal, Kenya, Ghana, Togo, Egypt, Eswatini, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Eritrea.

Cross-country skier Philip Boit, who represented Kenya in 1998, 2002 and 2006, had a memorable encounter with Norwegian world champion Bjorn Daehlie.

On 12 February 1998, during the 10km classic cross-country skiing event at the Nagano Games, Boit finished last. But he was met at the finish line by the winner, Daehlie, who personally congratulated him – an image seen around the world.

“My coach had told me about him and I’d seen him on TV. I couldn’t believe that the best cross-country skier in the world was here to congratulate me,” Boit said in an interview with Olympics.com.

Zimbabwe’s Coventry elected as head of International Olympic Committee

Women making history

Madagascar has participated in three Winter Games, in 2006, 2018 and 2022. The country’s alpine skier Mialitiana Clerc was the only African woman to compete in Beijing in 2022, having already taken part in the 2018 Games in South Korea when she was just 16 years old. 

Clerc discovered skiing in France’s Haute-Savoie mountains, where she grew up with her adoptive family. Born near Madagascar’s capital Antananarivo, the skier was adopted as a baby but has always kept in touch with her biological family.

This year she will become the first woman from the African continent to compete in three Winter Olympics. “I feel lucky because, yeah, there are not a lot of African women in the world of skiing,” she told Olympics.com. 

Fellow trailblazer Sabrina Wanjiku Simader was Kenya’s first female alpine skier to compete in the Winter Olympics in 2018. She was also due to compete in Milan-Cortina but had to pull out at the last minute, according to organisers.

Meet the man hoping to turn rugby into Africa’s favourite sport

‘Love story’ with skiing

Decades earlier, Senegalese skier Lamine Gueye made his mark on history when he took part in the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Games – becoming the first skier from sub-Saharan Africa to do so.

The grandson of a prominent politician, he was sent to boarding school in Switzerland. There, he discovered skiing on weekends.

“I had no idea what that feeling of gliding was like. Skiing and I have a love story that began at that time,” he told newspaper Ouest-France.

Founder of the Senegalese Ski Federation in 1979, he took part in three Winter Olympics, five World Championships and 25 World Cups. 

Today, he is fighting to ensure that as many African participants as possible attend the Winter Olympics. 

This article was based on the original in French by RFI’s Farid Achache.

Wednesday’s meeting in Ankara between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the latest in a series aimed at improving relations.

It stems from the 2023 Athens Declaration, a formal statement of friendship that led to better economic cooperation and a cooling of military tensions over the disputed Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Seas.

Mitsotakis’s visit comes at a critical time for the process. “I think it’s very important, the meeting has been postponed twice in the past,” says former Greek foreign ministry advisor Panayotis Ioakimidis, who now teaches at the University of Athens.

“There are some people within the [Greek] governing party, and outside it, who have serious reservations about improving or even talking about relations with Turkey,” he notes. “So it’s very important for the meeting to happen, to keep cooperation going; otherwise, relations risk sliding into conflict.”

Claims on the Aegean

The talks come as tensions over the Aegean Sea – believed to have vast untapped energy reserves – are on the rise.

In January, the Greek foreign minister, George Gerapetritis, announced Greece’s intent to exercise its right under international law to extend its territorial waters in the Aegean from six to 12 nautical miles, to create a marine park.

Erdogan is expected to remind his Greek counterpart that any extension of territorial waters is a red line for Turkey. “Mitsotakis will get some lectures in Ankara,” predicts international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University.

In 1995, the Turkish parliament passed a motion declaring that Greece unilaterally extending its waters beyond six miles was a casus belli – cause for war. “Twelve miles [of] territorial waters for Greece means the Turkish ships cannot go one kilometre outside of Turkish territory. Turkey cannot accept this,” says Bagci.

In response, Athens is using Greece’s European Union veto to prevent Turkey from joining the EU’s SAFE defence procurement programme until Turkey withdraws its threat of war.

Turkey and Egypt’s joint naval drill signals shifting Eastern Med alliances

Alliance with Israel

Adding to tensions, last December Greece and Cyprus signed a series of defence agreements with one of Turkey’s fiercest rivals – Israel.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan accused Israel of seeking to encircle Turkey, while Turkish media dubbed it an “axis of evil”.

Mitsotakis is expected to try to allay such concerns during his visit to Ankara. “The Greek side thinks it can separate these issues and keep them quite separate from the bilateral issues between Greece and Turkey,” says Ioakimidis. “But it’s a very likely scenario to take the countries into very dangerous waters.”

Israel’s military support of Greece is to blame for Athens’ more assertive stance in the Aegean, argues Murat Aslan of the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research, a Turkish pro-government think tank. He says that Greece acts more boldly when backed by others: “Once they enjoy the support of another, material or narrative, they are much more courageous to challenge.”

If Greece maintains this approach, Aslan suggests, Turkey will likely go back to increasing its military activity.

Prior to recent attempts at rapprochement, Turkish and Greek warplanes often challenged each another in mock dogfights in the disputed airspace over the Aegean.

Turkey flexes naval muscles as neighbours fear escalating arms race

Trump effect

However, Trump could provide an impetus to contain tensions.

With the American ambassador to Greece announcing this week that the US president will visit Athens, both Erdogan and Mitsotakis will be wary of Trump’s involvement in their bilateral affairs.

“I think both countries are concerned about this destabilisation to the international order that the Trump administration has brought,” says Ioannis Grigoriadis of Ankara’s Bilkent University, a specialist in Greek-Turkish relations.

“It may be a strong incentive for both sides to declare that things are OK, so let’s keep Trump’s intervention away from Turkish-Greek relations. I don’t think that any side would like that to happen, given the circumstances and the unpredictability of such an intervention.”

Wednesday’s meeting is set to emphasise the economic benefits of rapprochement and regional cooperation. However, amid persistent Aegean tensions and Turkey’s concerns over Israel’s role, expectations for progress remain low.

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

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 13 December, I asked you a question about Paul Myers’ article “Nigeria power past Mozambique into quarterfinals at Africa Cup of Nations”.

Nigeria had just beaten Mozambique 4 to 0. Paul noted in his article that the win was the biggest winning margin in a Cup of Nations knockout tie since the Africa Cup in 2010. And that was one of your questions: you were to tell me which countries played in the Africa Cup semi-finals in 2010, and who won that knockout tie by 4 to 0.

The second question was: In the Nigeria/Mozambique match, what is the name of the Nigerian player who scored the fourth goal?

The answer is, to quote Paul’s article: “Akor Adams, fed by Lookman, thrashed in Nigeria’s fourth goal 15 minutes from time to notch up the biggest winning margin in a Cup of Nations knockout tie since Egypt battered Algeria 4-0 in the semi-finals at the 2010 tournament in Angola.” So, Egypt/Algeria, and Akor Adams are the correct answers.

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, suggested by RFI Listeners Club member Pradip Basak from West Bengal, India: “How do you deal with jealousy when your friend achieves something you secretly wished for?”

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

The winners are: Amir Jameel, the president of the RFI Online Visitors Club in Sahiwal, Pakistan.  Amir is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations on your double win, Amir.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Sharifun Islam Nitu, a member of the RFI Amour Fan Club in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, and Faheem Noor, the president of the WULO RFI Club in Nankana Sahib, Pakistan. There are also two RFI Listeners Club members: Hans Verner Lollike from Hedehusene, Denmark, and S. J. Agboola from Ekiti State, Nigeria.

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: “Heer on Sarangi”, traditional music from Pakistan performed by Ustad Sultan Khan; “Water No Get Enemy” by Fela Kuti, performed by Fela Ransome Kuti & Africa 70; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer; “Happy” by Pharrell Williams, and the traditional Andalucian “La Saeta del Larios”, sung by Diana Navarro.

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

This week’s question … you must listen to the show to participate. After you’ve listened to the show, re-read our article “French DJ wins Grammy for Lady Gaga remix”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 2 March to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 7 March 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. 

Clashes in and around Aleppo have displaced around 170,000 people since mid-January, as the Syrian army seeks to extend its control over previously Kurdish-controlled areas.

Ongoing hostilities between government forces and armed groups continue to trigger displacement in several parts of the country, according to the UN.

While political transition is underway after the fall of Bashar al-Assad at the end of 2024, reconstruction and recovery efforts are hindered by instability and lack of funding. 

Access to healthcare remains unreliable, and basic services are severely disrupted. A harsh winter and long-term drought are exacerbating the crisis.

More than 16 million Syrians are expected to need humanitarian assistance in 2026 – yet the UN’s response plan is only 33.5 percent funded, leaving a $3.2 billion gap.

“It is an incredibly fragile moment for Syria,” said Slente, secretary-general of the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), speaking to RFI on a visit to the Syria, including areas in and around Damascus. 

“This is a country where two out of every three Syrians need humanitarian assistance, and 90 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.”

A year after Assad’s fall, Syrian hopes for transitional justice are fading

Returning to ruins, landmines

Around 3 million Syrian refugees and internally displaced people have returned home since the fall of the Assad regime, over 1 million from other countries and nearly 2 million from within Syria.

“Syria has had a new government in place for the last year,” Slente said, “and it’s time to sort of recap on our programming here and adapt our programming to the new realities on the ground. A vast percentage of the population here are in dire need of humanitarian assistance on the ground.”

Many people are returning to their homes to find almost nothing after more than 13 years of civil war, she added.

One of the DRC’s priorities now is to work on getting rid of the landmines that still litter areas where fighting took place, and pose a deadly threat to returnees.

The organisation recently finished training local teams to help clear mines, Slente said.

“We are helping build the capacity here of the National Mine Action Centre in the Ministry of Emergencies that needs to coordinate that very big endeavour of clearing Syria of unexploded ordinance and landmines. It means that now we can get more jobs done on the ground with the clearing of mines, getting them out of fields and villages, so that people can actually be safe when they move around the territory.”

As Syrian workers return home from Turkey, local businesses feel the loss

Upheaval in Kurdish north

In north-eastern Syria, near the border with Turkey, civilians say they are still fearful.

After months of tension, Kurdish-led forces have ceded swathes of territory to advancing government troops. Under a deal agreed last week, Kurdish forces and administrative institutions are to be integrated into the state.

It is a blow to the Kurds, who had sought to preserve the de facto autonomy they exercised after seizing swathes of territory in battles against the Islamic State jihadist group during the civil war.

“We are afraid that they will attack our regions and that massacres and genocide will occur,” one woman told RFI’s reporter in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli, where government forces entered on Tuesday.

Another resident said he was hoping for “a positive resolution to the conflict, so that no more bloodshed occurs”.

This episode was mixed by Nicolas Doreau.

This week, we discuss recent US airstrikes in northern Nigeria and the fact that many people of  African descent feel threatened by the recent enforcement actions by ICE in many US cities. 

The United States launched airstrikes in northern Nigeria in late December, saying it had targeted Islamic State jihadists – at Abuja’s request – to halt the killing of Christians. However, experts have challenged Washington’s claims that Christians are being massacred in Nigeria, arguing that the narrative, promoted by sections of the American right, oversimplifies far more complex conflicts.

US strikes on Nigeria set ‘deeply troubling precedent’ for African governance

First, we talk to Isa Sanusi, from Amnesty International Nigeria, to discuss the aftermath of the US strikes and of US President Donald Trump’s invasive strategy to fight jihadism in West Africa.

US to increase cooperation with Nigeria to pursue Islamic State militants

US African diaspora in Minneapolis

Meanwhile, within the United States, anti-immigration policies have intensified since the Trump administration took office a year ago, affecting even some people who are living in the country legally.

In Minneapolis in January 2026, two people were killed in shootings involving US federal immigration agents. On 7 January, 37‑year‑old Renée Nicole Macklin Good, an American woman, was fatally shot by an agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during a federal enforcement operation.

Then, on 24 January, 37‑year‑old Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a United States citizen and intensive care unit nurse, was shot and killed by officers from United States Customs and Border Protection in a separate incident in Minneapolis.

US immigration agent’s fatal shooting of woman leaves Minneapolis in shock

Others were killed without making the headlines. Human rights lawyers have cited at least nine such cases, and possibly more, including Keith Porter, Parady La, Heber Sanchaz Domínguez, Víctor Manuel Díaz, Luis Beltrán Yáñez-Cruz, Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres, and Geraldo Lunas Campos.

Anti-immigration policies have particularly targeted Somali migrants and Somali Americans, among other immigrant communities.

Minneapolis is also the city where George Floyd, a Black American man, was killed by police in 2020, an event that sparked the global Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

Dr Rashad Shabazz joins us from the United States. He is a historical geographer specialising in race, culture and the built environment at Arizona State University.

He has recently published a series of studies on the diversity of Minneapolis, undertaken while working on a new book about one of the city’s most famous residents, the musician and singer Prince.

Music from us

Finally you’ll also hear music from the Cameroonian French duo, OKALI.

The song Gathering celebrates gathering and sharing; Traveler explores travel and cultural exchange.

Episode edited by Melissa Chemam and mixed by Erwan Rome.

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

With the end of the Syrian civil war, Turkey claims that nearly a million refugees who were living there have already returned home.

Their departure is being welcomed by the Turkish government, amid growing public animosity over the presence of more than 3 million refugees.

But for many Turkish companies, Syrians are an economic lifeline – as seen in Gaziantep, an industrial city close to the Syrian border. 

The Inci Boya company is one of hundreds of small factories and workshops in the city. With a couple of dozen workers, hundreds of pieces of furniture are spray-painted each day. With long hours in air thick with dust, it’s arduous, dirty work. As in many factories in Gaziantep, Syrians make up a large share of the workforce. 

“I can’t get people from my own community to work in my sector,” explains owner Halil Yarabay. “Many workshop owners and many businesses are unfortunately experiencing this.”

He blames societal changes, “Our children, our youth… they consider such work beneath them. They consider they’ve failed in their family’s eyes by working with their hands as a furniture maker or a mechanic.”

French journalist arrested in Turkey while covering pro-Kurdish protest released

Realities of returning

But local authorities claim nearly 100,000 Syrians have already left the city – including including several who worked at Inci Boya.

During a welcome tea break, the topic of going home is on everyone’s tongue. Ahmed Hac Hussein has been working there for more than five years. He, too, is thinking of leaving.

“Many people are returning,  I have a relative who moves a family back to Syria every day,” he said. “For me, I lived in Aleppo for 35 years. I have so many friends there, I haven’t seen them for 14 years. I have three sisters there, and I haven’t seen them either. I want to go.”

However, Hussein, who lost his home in the war, acknowledges that the economic realities in Syria make returning difficult.

“You need to have money to pay the monthly rent. You need a job, but there is no work. My brother went back to Aleppo, but he says business is too slow.”

Listening is Hussein’s son, Ibrahim, who started working here a year ago after leaving school. He feels differently: “I grew up here; this place became my second home. I love it here a lot. I was two years old when I came here, and I never went back. I don’t want to go back.”

Demographic time bomb

Turkish companies such as Inci Boya will be hoping many Syrians feel the same as Ibrahim, claims Atilla Yesilada, Turkey’s economic analyst for consultancy Global Source Partners.

He says around 900,000 Syrians work in small businesses and factories across Turkey.

“They’ve filled all the low-paying jobs. Without Syrians, business owners say they’ll go bankrupt, since that keeps costs down.”

This reliance on Syrian workers, and their departure, also comes as Turkey faces a demographic time bomb. “The birth rate has declined substantially. The Turkish birth rate is 1.5, and you know, replacement is 2.1,” Yesilada added.

He warns the outlook for Turkey is grim, given the experience of other countries. “[The birthrate is] coming down significantly, and it’s been going down for 20 years.… [the example of] China shows that there is nothing you can do about it.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently called on families to “serve the nation” by having at least three children. His minister of family and social services claimed nearly half of Turkish families didn’t have children.

To attract workers, visa and work permit restrictions were lifted last year for all Turkic Central Asian nations.

Turkey blocks calls for regime change in Iran as protests escalate

Rising costs

But at the Inci Boya factory, owner Halil Yarabay is already counting the cost of Syrians leaving, and says a bidding war to keep these workers is beginning.

“Labour costs are rising. Employees we paid 10,000 TL a week now cost up to 15,000,” he said.

Some larger companies in Gaziantep – such as Tat Holding, which makes furniture and sweets among many other products – are even considering following their workers back to Syria, says its CEO Salih Balta. 

“Syria is close to Gaziantep and allows us to produce and export at up to 35 percent lower cost,” he explained.

Balta claims that producing in Syria – a member of the Arab League – would allow his company to export tax-free to 17 Arab countries under its free trade agreement. “For us, the Gulf countries are a very important market,” he said.

Gaziantep, along with many cities across Turkey, has seen protests against Syrian incomers. Several polls have found that the majority of people want them to return. But this could ultimately prove a double-edged sword, as businesses face growing economic pain over the loss of their Syrian workforce.

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 13 December, I asked you a question about the then-new US security strategy, which presented Europe as lacking in “self-confidence” and facing “civilizational erasure” due to immigration.

You were to re-read our article “EU Council president rejects political influence in US security plan”, and send in the answer to this question: What did the EU Council president, Antonio Costa, say about the difference in the idea of “free speech” between Europe and the United States?

The answer is, to quote our article: “The United States cannot replace Europe in what its vision is of freedom of expression,” Costa said.

“There is no freedom of speech if citizens’ freedom of information is sacrificed to defend the techno oligarchs in the United States.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, suggested by RFI Listeners Club member Jayanta Chakrabarty from New Delhi, India. Jayanta’s question was: “What inspiring act have you witnessed that could motivate a nation or society?”

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

The winners are: RFI English listener Khizar Hayat Shah from Punjab, Pakistan. Khizar is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations on your double win, Khizar.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Faheem Noor, the president of the World United RFI Listeners Organization in Nankana Sahib, Pakistan, and RFI Listeners Club members Solomon Fessahazion from Asmara, Eritrea, as well as Deekay Dimple from Assam, India.

Last but not least, there’s RFI English listener Liton Hossain Khan from Naogaon in Bangladesh.

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: “Scherzo” from the Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57, by Dmitri Shostakovich, performed by the Quintetto Chigiano; “What’s Going On?” by Marvin Gaye, Al Cleveland, and Reynaldo Benson, performed by Marvin Gaye; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “ Pithecanthropus Erectus” by Charles Mingus, performed by Mingus and his ensemble.

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, tune into Alison Hird’s report on alternative retirement living on the “Spotlight on France” podcast number 138 (Reinventing retirement, saving a Paris cinema, counting the French), which will help you with the answer.

You have until 23 February to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 28 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. 

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.