Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, Macron pushed back against what he described as a growing tendency to caricature Europe as weak, divided or repressive.

Instead, he presented the continent as a unique political success story – a collection of sovereign states that have turned centuries of conflict into lasting peace through cooperation.

“Europe is a radically original political construction,” he said, arguing that its blend of sovereignty and integration offers a model worth emulating.

His remarks set the tone for a summit dominated by calls to rebuild trust between Europe and the United States while adapting to a changing geopolitical landscape.

More than 60 leaders gathered in the Bavarian city amid lingering tensions sparked by US President Donald Trump’s sharp criticism of European allies, including threats last month to annex Greenland and complaints about Europe’s defence spending.

Although Washington has since softened its stance on Greenland and entered talks with Denmark, the episode has left unease on both sides of the Atlantic.

How Trump’s trade threats have reshaped Europe’s global strategy

Transatlantic ties under strain

European leaders responded in Munich with a mix of reassurance and resolve. Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz called for “a new transatlantic partnership”, stressing that cooperation remains vital in an era of intensifying global rivalry. “Even the United States will not be powerful enough to go it alone,” he said, underlining the mutual benefits of NATO.

At the same time, there was a clear push for greater European self-reliance. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to describe Europe as a “sleeping giant” in his speech on Saturday, urging the continent to shoulder more responsibility for its own defence while strengthening – not weakening – ties with Washington.

Macron echoed that balance, insisting that a stronger Europe would ultimately make for a better partner to the United States. “It will be a partner taking its fair share of the burden,” he said, adding that such a Europe would also command greater respect.

Russia’s war against Ukraine – now approaching its fifth year – loomed large over the discussions. European leaders reaffirmed their support for Kyiv and emphasised the need to boost defence spending in response to the threat posed by Moscow.

EU seeks stability after Trump steps back on Greenland and tariffs

Ukraine and the search for security

Macron said France backed Trump’s push for a negotiated end to the conflict, but cautioned that any settlement must come with robust safeguards. Europe, he argued, would need to define clear rules of coexistence with what he called “an aggressive Russia” to prevent future escalation.

Talks on Ukraine continued on the sidelines of the conference, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meeting European leaders including Macron and Merz. Zelensky also used the occasion to press the case for a stronger European defence industry, saying the continent must build greater independence even as it maintains close ties with the United States.

Diplomatic activity extended beyond Europe and the US. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a series of meetings in Munich, including talks with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi. According to Beijing, Wang stressed that “dialogue is better than confrontation” and called for more cooperative relations – a notable message amid heightened tensions between the two powers.

Rubio also met Danish and Greenlandic leaders in what Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen described as “constructive” discussions following last month’s dispute over the Arctic island’s future.

Despite the challenges, the mood in Munich carried a cautiously upbeat undercurrent. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Europe was “stepping up” and taking on more leadership within the alliance – a shift he suggested would ultimately reinforce the transatlantic bond.

(With newswires)

The report, The Business of Despair, by the investigative collective All Eyes On Wagner, documents recruitment networks operating across Africa and Russia.

Founded in 2014, Wagner is a Russian state-funded private military company that conducts covert military operations outside Russia.

With the war in Ukraine entering its fifth year and recruitment from prisons largely exhausted, Russia has increasingly turned to foreign nationals to sustain its military effort.

Families seeking answers

The investigation lists 1,417 fighters from 35 African countries, who enlisted between 2023 and mid-2025. Some joined voluntarily because of the salaries offered, while others were deceived by false job offers or pressured into signing military contracts.

Compiled through NGOs and the Ukrainian programme “I Want to Live”, the non-exhaustive list shows a death rate exceeding 22 percent, not including those wounded or missing.

The recruits are aged between 18 and 57, with an average age of 31.

Egypt has the highest number of recruits, with 361 recorded. Cameroon has suffered the heaviest losses, with 94 deaths among 335 fighters listed. Among Gambian recruits, 23 of 56 contract soldiers have died.

Nairobi sounds alarm over recruiters luring Kenyans into Russian war effort

Far from being marginal, this recruitment forms “the backbone of a strategy built around fighters to be injected into the waves of assaults used to overwhelm Ukrainian defence lines”, the report said.

All Eyes On Wagner’s Lou Osborne said the publication of the list should “enable families, who have often been without news for months, to find out the fate of their loved ones, to contact their national authorities to request the return of remains and stranded persons, and to take action against these recruitments, which have become increasingly numerous as the invasion of Ukraine drags on”.

The story of Joël and Linda

Joël (not his real name), a 24-year-old, is recorded as having been killed on 24 May, 2025 after going missing 10 months earlier while serving in the 255th Motorised Infantry Regiment.

His wife Linda, also using a pseudonym, told RFI last month she lost contact with him on 26 July, 2024, weeks after he arrived in Russia following promises of a well-paid job that would allow him to support his sick parents and two-month-old baby.

A Cameroonian recruitment agency had promised him travel to Poland, but after a stop in Russia and without enough money to continue the journey, he was forced to enlist in the Russian military.

After two weeks of training, he was sent to the frontline in Donetsk and never contacted his family again. Linda said she now wants to know whether his body was buried and if there is a grave.

Despite requests for comment from RFI, the Cameroonian government has not responded to the reports of its 94 nationals killed in Ukraine, or the testimonies from families of missing citizens.

In March 2025, the country’s defence ministry referred to “clandestine departures” and banned uniformed personnel from leaving the country without ministerial authorisation.

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

Students and migrants recruited

The investigation documents several recruitment pathways, including fake job offers and pressure on foreign students to enlist.

Malick Diop from Senegal travelled to Nizhny Novgorod to study but is now being held prisoner by Ukrainian forces, according to the report.

One 25-year-old Egyptian graduate of a language programme in Russia was forced to sign a military contract in order to renew his visa.

Togo has said young Togolese citizens were misled by promises of work or education. Illegal migrants arrested in Russia have also been offered residency papers in exchange for joining the army.

The presence of fighters from Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic, previously documented, was confirmed by the investigation.

All Eyes On Wagner identified recruitment networks involving travel agencies in Russia and Africa offering “fast-track procedures” to obtain visas within weeks.

Recruiters used social media platforms and messaging services including Facebook, Instagram, Telegram and TikTok to promote life in Russia through images of Moscow skyscrapers and luxury cars.

They promised signing bonuses worth several thousand dollars, monthly salaries of €1,600 or more for specialists, health insurance and simplified access to citizenship.

Several fighters who returned or remain in Russia reported unpaid wages or salaries lower than promised.

A report by French Institute of International Relations researcher Thierry Vircoulon estimated that between 3,000 and 4,000 Africans were among 18,000 to 20,000 foreign fighters in the Russian army.

“These abusive and deceptive recruitment practices are akin to a form of human trafficking, the most tragic consequence of which is sending amateur mercenaries to the front lines as cannon fodder,” the report said.

Another recruitment channel targeted young women aged 18 to 22, particularly from Côte d’Ivoire, according to the investigation.

How Moscow is reinventing its influence machine across Africa

Kenya pushes back

In Kenya, civil society organisations have protested against recruitment networks, while families and fighters have circulated videos calling for repatriation.

On Tuesday, Kenya’s foreign minister announced a visit to Moscow to “curb” the recruitment, while a senior official denounced “a pattern of luring people and killing them”.

All Eyes On Wagner said two Kenyan companies, Global Face Human Resources Ltd and Ecopillars Manpower, had been dismantled.

According to the investigation, victims signed payment agreements, worth between €10,000 and €15,000, with a foreign company responsible for visas and travel arrangements. The companies’ manager was arrested and a Russian entrepreneur based in Nairobi was deported.

The published list identifies 45 Kenyan recruits. Hundreds more are believed to have passed through Russia, according to reporting cited in the investigation.

Ukraine has also stepped up online campaigns aimed at discouraging Africans from joining the war, including videos showing drone strikes and Russian footage containing racist content.

The All Eyes on Wagner investigation can be read here. This article has been adapted from the original version in French by François Mazet.

African heads of state and government will convene in the Ethiopian capital on 14 and 15 February, following the 39th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU), held from 11 February.

Burundi is set to assume the rotating presidency, with President, Évariste Ndayishimiye to be named the AU chairman for 2026.

The issue of water as a vital resource is the official theme of this year’s summit. Addressing the executive council meeting this week, chairperson of the AU Commission Mahmoud Ali Youssouf emphasised its critical importance.

“In the face of observed climate disruptions, the prudent use of water in all aspects of daily life is a major imperative. This vital resource must be perceived as a collective good, to be preserved at all costs, and as a vector for bringing our states closer together and for peace.”

Climate change ‘supercharging’ deadly floods in southern Africa

‘Heightened global uncertainty’

With contested elections, repression of dissent and prolonged states of emergency seen across the continent, conflict and security are expected to top the agenda.

“The Summit comes against a backdrop of intensifying global fragmentation, shrinking multilateralism, escalating conflicts, deepening debt distress, and growing climate stress,”  Desire Assogbavi, an international development strategist and advocacy advisor for Africa at the Open Society Foundations wrote on his blog ahead of the summit.

This week, Youssouf met with United Nations secretary-general António Guterres at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa to discuss strengthening multilateralism at a time of war he called “heightened global uncertainty”.

Youssouf also expressed concern over “political instability, security crises, and unconstitutional changes of government, noting progress in Gabon and Guinea but setbacks in Madagascar and Guinea-Bissau, while underscoring the persistent terrorist threats in the Sahel and Horn of Africa, according to a statement following the meting.

“While there has been regression and progress is minimal, our mediators are active,” he said.

AU-EU summit ends with pledges on trade, minerals and migration

Internal weaknesses

However, Clionadh Raleigh, director of the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data organisation and a professor of African politics and conflict at the University of Sussex, cast doubt on the AU’s ability to tackle these crises. 

“It’s totally incompetent. Totally. It has a singular job to represent a coalition of African states. It can’t do that internally,” she told RFI. “And It certainly can’t do that externally.”

She said the organisations; internal processes are “factionalised and bureaucratic and just generally incompetent” and added: “And people are able to see this [from the] outside.”

“If you’re an organisation, a business, or a government, such as the Trump administration, you’re going to try to make sure that you benefit from [that factionalisation] or those vulnerabilities within the system.”

‘A defining test’

In addition to the ongoing conflicts in Sudan, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the Sahel and Libya, others have reemerged in South Sudan and Ethiopia,  exposing the limits of security solutions.

AU Commission spokesman Nuur Mohamud Sheekh told reporters: “The AU has helped de-escalate political tensions and support dialogue before situations descend into violence,” citing the work done to prevent war between Sudan and South Sudan over the flashpoint region of Abyei.

South Africa confirms temporary withdrawal from G20, as US takes the helm

However, a recent report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) notes the AU’s limited scope to act, saying: “At a time when the AU is needed the most, it is arguably at its weakest since it was inaugurated.”

KinkohHubert  of UK think tank Chatham House said this weekend’s summit was “an opportunity for decisive AU leadership on Sudan”, which he called a defining test for the AU.

Writing on the Chatham House site, he said: “The 2026 AU summit presents a narrow but critical window to reset the continental response. Without decisive action, Sudan risks irreversible fragmentation: de facto regional administrations could consolidate, national institutions could collapse entirely, and cross-border spillovers could intensify.”

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 17 January, I asked you a question about our article “France launches recruitment for 10-month voluntary national military service”. You were to send in the answer to these two questions: How many volunteers will be accepted into the 2026 program, and what will their jobs be? 

The answer is, to quote our article: “From September, around 3,000 volunteers will join the army, navy, or air and space force for missions carried out exclusively on French soil.

Tasks will range from helping out during natural disasters and providing support for counter-terrorism surveillance, to more specialized jobs such as drone operation, mechanics, electrical work, baking, or medical support.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question: What is the most romantic thing that has ever been said to you? Or the most romantic action? Or the most romantic gift?

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

The winners are: RFI English listener Murshida Parveen Lata, who is the Co-Chairman of the Source of Knowledge Club in Naogaon, Bangladesh. Murshida is also the winner of this week’s bonus question Congratulations on your double win, Murshida.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Ashraf Ali, a member of the International RFI DX Radio Listeners Club in West Bengal, India; Sumara Sabri, a member of the RFI Online Visitors Club in Sahiwal, Pakistan; Sameen Riaz – also from Pakistan, this time from Sheikupura city – Sameen is a member of the RFI Listeners Club in that fair city, and last but not least, RFI Listeners Club member Sami Mossad from Giza, Egypt.

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: “Fast Bob” by Romane and Stochelo Rosenberg, played by the Rosenberg Ensemble; “La Marseillaise” by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, arranged by Claude Bolling and performed by the Claude Bolling Big Band; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “You’re the Top” by Cole Porter, sung by Ella Fitzgerald.  

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 “Cambridge University Museum set to return Benin bronzes to Nigeria”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 9 March to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 14 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.

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French biathlete Julia Simon emerged from a conviction for fraudulently using a teammate’s credit card to cover herself in glory with two Olympic titles during the first week of competition at the Winter Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in northern Italy.

Simon, 29, was given a three-month suspended prison sentence and fined €15,000 in October 2025 for racking up €2,000 on the cards of fellow athlete Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and a team physiotherapist from 2021 to 2022.

Four months on from her brush with the law, she anchored the squad of Eric Perrot, Quentin Fillon Maillet and Lou Jeanmonnot to the top prize in the mixed relay. 

On Wednesday, Simon took the individual honours in the women’s 15km individual event, just ahead of Jeanmonnot. Braisaz-Bouchet finished 80th.

“I have a lot of pleasure, when I train, when I race, when I compete, so it’s the most important thing for me,” Simon said.

“I know I had a goal. I put all my energy in this goal, in myself. It was difficult over many months but I’m really proud of myself and today was a perfect race for me.”

Fillon Maillet, 33, claimed the men’s 10km sprint on Friday to take his 2026 tally up to two golds. His total haul from three Winter Olympic Games now stands at seven medals.

African athletes have blazed a trail at Winter Olympics for over 60 years

Skating scandals

Meanwhile, skater Guillaume Cizeron landed a second gold in the ice dancing amid recriminations from former partner Gabriella Papadakis.

He and Papadakis won the event at the Beijing Games in 2022, four years after claiming silver in South Korea.

But on the eve of the 2026 Olympics, Papadakis published a book in which she claimed she had been under Cizeron’s “control” during their partnership, which ended following their fifth world title in 2022.

Cizeron, 31, has denounced the book as “defamatory” and announced that he was “handing over the case to lawyers”.

The flurry failed to distract Cizeron and new partner Laurence Fournier Beaudry, who is herself fresh from a troubled former pairing.

The 33-year-old Canadian-born skater – who was granted French nationality last November – was on the lookout for a new teammate after her partner on and off the ice, Nikolaj Sorenson, was accused of sexual misconduct and banned by Canadian skating chiefs.

Friends since a skating camp in Germany while they were teenagers, Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry wowed the judges at the Forum di Milano. The duo narrowly beat the American world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates into second.

As he soaked up the plaudits, Cizeron told French broadcaster Franceinfo he had not yet decided whether he would seek a hat trick of golds at the next Winter Olympics in the French Alps four years from now.

“Laurence and I came together only a year ago because of our love for the sport and our affection for each other,” said Cizeron.

“We’ve had these Winter Olympic Games in Milan as the target for the last year and we’ve only been thinking about that,” he added. “It’s a bit soon to be talking about the 2030 Games in France. But we’ll think about it.”

Cizeron cools talk of defending title at 2030 Olympics, after taking gold in Milan

Silver skier

Of the six other French medals, Mathis Desloges bagged two silvers in cross-country skiing – one in the men’s 10km interval start free and the other in men’s 10km+10km skiathlon.

In both instances, the 23-year-old – who is appearing at his first Winter Olympics – finished behind Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo from Norway.

Klaebo, 29, also won the men’s sprint classic to increase his medal collection to eight golds.

The victory made him only the fourth Winter Olympian to achieve the feat. Before the Games end on 22 February, Klaebo will vie in the men’s relay, men’s team sprint and 50k marathon with a chance to stand alone.

The US space agency NASA launched the Crew-12 mission aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 5:15am EST from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The pre-dawn launch was delayed by two days because of adverse weather forecasts across the US East Coast, including high winds that could have complicated emergency manoeuvres.

The astronauts are expected to arrive at the orbiting ISS at about 3:15 pm on Saturday. They will spend nine months there.

Crew-12 is composed of Americans Jessica Meir, the mission commander, and Jack Hathaway, the pilot, along with French astronaut Sophie Adenot and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, a mission specialist.

They will replace Crew-11, which returned to Earth in January one month earlier than planned in the first medical evacuation in the space station’s history.

The ISS, a scientific laboratory orbiting 400 kilometres above Earth, has since been staffed by a skeleton crew of three.

NASA declined to disclose details about the health issue that cut the mission short.

All systems are go as France zeros in on space ambitions

‘One day that will be me’

Once the astronauts arrive, they will be among the last crews to live aboard the football field-sized space station.

Continuously inhabited for the last quarter century, the ageing ISS is scheduled to be pushed into Earth’s orbit before crashing into an isolated area of the Pacific Ocean in 2030.

Adenot, an astronaut at the European Space Agency, will become the second French woman to fly to space, following in the footsteps of Claudie Haignere, who spent time on the Mir space station.

France’s second woman in space prepares for launch after 30-year wait

When Adenot saw Haigneré’s mission launch, she was 14 years old.

“It was a revelation,” the helicopter pilot said during a recent briefing. “At that moment, I told myself: one day, that will be me.”

Adenot will carry out more than 200 scientific and medical experiments in microgravity while completing intensive training and maintenance work in space.

Among other research, she will test a system that uses artificial intelligence and augmented reality to allow astronauts to carry out their own medical ultrasounds.

(with newswires)

The 10-year energy planning ‌law (PPE) will be pushed through by decree on Friday after almost three years of disagreement among ⁠lawmakers.

In addition to cutting wind and solar power targets, it reverses a previous legal mandate for state-run EDF to shut down 14 nuclear reactors. 

President Emmanuel Macron promised to shutter the reactors in his 2017 presidential campaign but later changed course – supporting nuclear expansion with a plan for at least six ‌new ones.

French Finance ​Minister Roland Lescure ​said on Friday that the PPE has ‌set the ⁠target for decarbonised ‌electricity production at between 650 ⁠and 693 terawatt-hours (TWh) by 2035, from ​a current ‌level of 540 TWh.

The growth plan ‌is ambitious but realistic, ​he told reporters. 

“We need both nuclear and renewables,” Lescure had said on Thursday.

France’s Flamanville nuclear reactor reaches full power for first time

Nuclear backbone

The move to pare back renewables is designed to help shield EDF, which operates France’s fleet of 57 reactors.

The company is struggling to remain competitive as abundant wind and solar in Europe have pushed down power prices and forced reactors to lower output.

“Nuclear is the backbone of our electricity system,” said Lescure, adding that a first new reactor should be inaugurated by 2038.

EDF CEO Bernard Fontana welcomed the proposal, saying it would allow the company to advance toward its objectives.

The PPE lowers wind and solar ​targets to 105-135 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity by 2035 from drafts that had called for 133-163 GW.

Environmental non-profit Greenpeace France said the change represented a step backwards.

“If this PPE is more than two years late on paper, it’s at least a decade behind ​in its vision of an energy transition,” it said in a statement.

Solar power overtakes nuclear and wind to lead EU energy mix for the first time

Far-right opposition

The law had triggered fierce debate among lawmakers – pitting support ‌for renewable subsidies against financing new nuclear at a time when France is struggling with high debt.

Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally (RN) parliamentary group, sent a letter to French MPs saying ​the new power targets pursued and intensified “a policy that will impoverish the French people and ruin our economy, particularly our industry and agriculture”.

She invited all MPs to file a “cross-party no-confidence motion” by next Thursday in reaction to the new energy law, adding that her party will, by default, ​file its own.

(with newswires)

Many in Lebanon believed Assad wanted to dominate their country or even annex parts of it, but his fall in December 2024 has not improved relations between the two neighbours.

Lebanese officials say relations will take time to improve after decades of mistrust. They accuse Syria’s new authorities of maintaining the same approach as under Assad – putting what they describe as “security considerations” ahead of economic cooperation.

For Lebanon, resolving long-standing disputes such as the demarcation of the Lebanon-Syria border should come first.

Trade routes under pressure

Syria remains a crucial trade corridor, serving as Lebanon’s land gateway to Iraq, Jordan, Gulf countries and Iran. Lebanese agricultural exports rely heavily on transit through Syrian territory, as do goods arriving via the ports of Beirut and Tripoli.

Lebanese businesses have also expressed interest in participating in Syria’s post-war reconstruction, either through direct investment or by sharing expertise.

Instead of easing trade, Syria’s new authorities introduced measures that Lebanese officials say have harmed Lebanon’s interests.

Caught between conflict and crisis, Syria faces ‘incredibly fragile moment’

Syrian authorities imposed a flat $1,500 fee on every container transiting Syria to Arab countries, introduced tariffs on certain agricultural products – including a $55-per-tonne tax on bananas – and tightened procedures for trucks crossing the border.

Lebanon has meanwhile sought to show goodwill. President Joseph Aoun met Syria’s transitional president Ahmed al-Charaa twice, while Prime Minister Nawaf Salam travelled to Damascus in April 2025 with a ministerial delegation.

Lebanon also appointed a new ambassador to Syria, Henri Qastoun, who waited three months before he was allowed to present his credentials to Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani.

Syria limited its representation in Beirut to Iyad el-Hazaa, its top diplomat in Lebanon, who previously oversaw political relations in the coastal province of Latakia.

Prisoner dispute

During meetings with Lebanese officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri, Syrian leaders repeated the same message: improving relations depends on two issues – Syrian prisoners in Lebanese jails and supporters of the former Assad regime allegedly present in Lebanon.

Damascus is demanding the release of nearly 2,500 Syrian detainees, including hundreds of Islamists accused of terrorism or crimes against state security. Many have been held for years without trial, alongside others accused of rape or murder.

Lebanese leaders consider the demands unacceptable. They say transferring detainees awaiting trial would require a law passed by parliament, which they believe has no chance of being adopted.

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

On 30 January, the Lebanese government approved an 18-point judicial agreement between Lebanon and Syria allowing the transfer of convicted prisoners to their country of nationality.

The agreement excludes detainees awaiting trial and limits transfers to prisoners already sentenced. Those convicted of rape or murder would be eligible only after serving 10 years of their sentence.

Some 300 Syrian detainees could be affected. The agreement also provides for reciprocity, allowing Lebanese nationals convicted in Syria to be transferred to Lebanon.

The deal represents a compromise between Syrian demands and Lebanese concerns. It does not meet Damascus’s initial request to transfer all detainees, but it goes further than Lebanon’s earlier refusal to allow prisoner transfers.

Standoff deepens

During visits to Beirut, Syrian delegations included justice and interior ministers as well as security officials, reflecting Damascus’s focus on security issues.

In mid-December, a Syrian intelligence delegation visiting Beirut went to two seaside restaurants in the capital frequented by businessmen once close to the former Syrian regime. The delegation also handed Lebanese officials a list of 200 Syrian officers, politicians and business figures close to Assad believed to have taken refuge in Lebanon.

Days later, Lebanese and Arab media outlets, including Al Jazeera, reported alleged plots by Assad supporters operating from Lebanon to destabilise Syria’s new leadership.

Lebanese leaders sought US mediation to try to ease tensions with Damascus. “We have been surprised that the Americans showed understanding toward Damascus’s demands,” said a source close to President Aoun, speaking anonymously.

Facing pressure from Syria and limited support from Washington, Lebanese leaders began looking for compromises.

Syrian Army seizes northeast as US abandons Kurdish-led forces

Security operations

At the start of January, the Lebanese army carried out large-scale searches in Jabal Mohsen, an Alawite neighbourhood in the northern city of Tripoli, and in five other localities near the Syrian border inhabited by members of the same religious community.

After the March 2025 massacres in Syria’s coastal provinces, at least 60,000 Syrian Alawites fled to Lebanon. Many settled in areas where Lebanese Alawites live, in Christian villages in Mount Lebanon and in predominantly Shia regions.

Municipal councils in the five localities later said in a joint statement that “the Lebanese army carried out search and inspection campaigns in all camps housing displaced Syrians”.

“No person belonging to a military organisation or preparing armed operations was apprehended during these searches, which formally contradicts the report broadcast on the subject by Al-Jazeera,” the statement said.

It remains unclear whether Damascus will consider these steps sufficient to open talks on economic and trade relations between the two countries.

This article was adapted from the original version in French by RFI correspondant Paul Khalifeh.

The Loi Duplomb, named after conservative senator Laurent Duplomb who proposed it, claims to ease pressure on farmers by loosening rules on pesticide use, large-scale livestock farming and water storage projects.

Backed by the government and major farming unions, the law was passed on 8 July 2025.

It was immediately contested by some scientists, health experts and environmental groups because it reauthorised acetamiprid, part of the neonicotinoid group of pesticides banned in France in 2018 for harming bees and other pollinators.

Within days, a student-led petition denouncing the law as a “public health and environmental aberration” gathered more than 500,000 signatures. By the end of 2025, more than 2 million people had signed the petition – a record in France.

In August, opponents of the law brought it before France’s constitutional council, which ruled against reintroducing the pesticide, arguing it flouted France’s environmental charter, which guarantees the “right to live in a balanced and healthy environment”. 

However, all the other provisions in the law, such as easing authorisations for livestock farming and irrigation reservoirs, remained in place.

France’s top constitutional court rejects return of bee-killing pesticide

Brain disorders

Senator Duplomb is continuing to push for a derogation on pesticides. In early February, he submitted a revised version of the censured article maintaining the reintroduction of acetamiprid, along with another insecticide, flupyradifurone, in a limited number of cases.

“No serious study has shown that acetamiprid is carcinogenic,” Duplomb told French public radio on Monday, defending the measure and underlining that France is the only country in the EU to have banned acetamiprid.

“We are banning molecules that are authorised in Europe whereas independent agencies have shown that [acetamiprid] was dangerous neither for people nor the environment. Today in France, through a particular kind of obscurantism, we would like to have people believe the opposite.”

Chemist and toxicologist Jean-Marc Bonmatin said the lack of studies means there is no “formal proof” that acetamiprid causes cancer. However, “there are serious indications showing acetamiprid could be carcinogenic, notably for breast and testicular cancer because all neonicotinoids have been found to be endocrine disruptors,” he told RFI.

French health experts oppose bill that could reintroduce banned pesticides

There is no doubt, however, about the molecule’s impact on the brain.

“The main concern with neonicotinoids, and acetamiprid in particular, is the action of these neurotoxic molecules on the central nervous system”, Bonmatin said – adding that they affect neurodevelopment, notably in unborn babies and young children.

He pointed to “extremely important diseases” such as autistic spectrum disorders in children, and neurological disorders in the elderly.

“That’s why we scientists and doctors are taking action on this issue,” the chemist said.

In 2021, Bonmatin and colleagues at France’s Centre for scientific research (CNRS) published a list of the effects of neonicotinoids, including acetamiprid, on human health “so that doctors can recognise the symptoms of poisoning and the cases”.

While scientists often invoke the principle of precaution when studies are not clear, Bonmatin says that in this case the principle of prevention has to apply.

“We know very well what these pesticides will do to the population, to biodiversity, to the environment, so we have an obligation to protect people from future illnesses,” he said.

Even the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) – often cited by supporters of acetamiprid – said in 2024 that there were “major uncertainties in the body of evidence for the developmental neurotoxicity (DNT) properties of acetamiprid”.

It proposed reducing the acceptable daily intake by a factor of five.

French health watchdog warns of pesticide dangers to young children

Existing alternatives 

Duplomb said the revised law would allow the use of the pesticide only where farmers have no alternative.

“We have focused on those sectors that INRAE considers to be in a complete dead end – where plant protection products are the only solution, such as hazelnuts, apples, cherries and sugar beet,” he said on Monday – referring to the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment.

The Loi Duplomb is backed by France’s largest farming union, the FNSEA, which is dominated by large cereal and sugar beet farmers and agribusinesses. It says sugar beet farmers in particular have no alternative to neonicotinoids when faced with the jaundice virus transmitted by aphids.

Bonmartin cites a 2021 report by Anses – France’s food, environmental and occupational health and safety body – which specifically adressed the sugar beet issue and which found there were in fact around 20 alternatives.

“There are even varieties of sugar beet that resist the jaundice disease transmitted by flies,” he said. “So saying there is no alternative amounts to fake news to allow the reintroduction of neonicotinoids.”

“When the FNSEA says there is no alternative what they mean is that there is no alternative as easy as using pesticides.

“So the choice is either I take the easier solution through pesticides – the worst in terms of poisoning people – or I use alternatives and I preserve the environment, biodiversity and public health.”

France moves to ease pesticide ban to save sugar beet farmers

‘Farmers are main victims’

The Loi Duplomb was presented as a way to “lift the constraints on the profession of agriculture” in response to farmers’ protests in January 2024. One of their key demands was simpler rules and less paperwork.

Supporting the law, the FNSEA has denounced unfair competition linked to France’s ban on some pesticides and weedkillers allowed in other EU countries.

Other unions, including the Confédération paysanne, which represents smaller farmers and supports an agroecological transition, oppose the bill.

Eve Fouilleux, a researcher at the Centre for Agricultural Research for Development (Cirad), says farmers themselves are the main victims of pesticides, but they’re not always aware of the danger.

She said the issue is not regulations but agricultural economics.

“The root of the problem is income – the price paid to farmers – the economic system is crushing them,” she told RFI. “When you spend €100 on food in the supermarket, only €6.90 goes to the farmer.

“It’s a system where farmers are being asked to produce more and more with very little added value. So for them, pesticides are a guarantee of being able to produce a few percent more yield. And what is tragic is that this few percent means a little more money for them, but it’s a disaster for the groundwater, for water quality and for taxpayers’ bills.”

Fouilleux cited surveys showing farmers are “overwhelmingly in favour of the ecological transition in agriculture, but they’re asking for support”.

While the French government is spending a lot of money on the food system, 60 percent goes to manufacturers, supermarkets and commercial caterers, she explained.

Around 20 percent goes to farmers through subsidies from the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), but these are paid per acre. “So the bigger you are, the more support you get.”

Fouilleux said the existing productivist system contributes to the economic marginalisation of farmers in the food system. “That’s the problem, it’s not about standards at all. It’s really a discursive strategy by the FNSEA union, which is in fact run by agri-food industrialists,” she said.

Why are French farmers angry and who will reap the rewards?

Economic interests

Duplomb himself is a large dairy farmer and a senior member of the FNSEA union. He is also a former agro-industry executive.

From 2014 to 2017 he was regional president of the dairy group Sodiaal – a major French cooperative that owns brands such as Yoplait, Candia and others – and has been a member of Candia’s supervisory board.

“There’s a conflict of interest. He defends bills that will benefit his farm,” said Guillaume Gontard, president of the Senate’s environmentalist group. “He’s a representative of agribusiness who lives off exports.”

The environmental NGO Terre de Liens has described the Duplomb law as “tailor-made for FNSEA and agro-industry”.

“Duplomb has very strong ties to the agrochemical industry,” Bonmatin said. “There’s a denial of scientific facts in favour of economic interests.”

“He’s chosen private economic interest, he’s not defending the farming community at all. To do so, you just have to help it make the necessary transitions.”

Opponents of the Iranian regime living abroad say that rather than uniting in an effort to change realities on the ground, they are splitting and turning on each other.

A minority has created what some describe as a climate of fear – particularly on social media – targeting anyone who voices disagreement.

“It’s tough right now,” British-Iranian anthropologist Pardis Shafafi, who researches state violence and political repression in Iran, told Norwegian news site Filter Nyheter.

Shafafi, a member of the EHESS, a Paris-based academic research centre, said she did not expect her comments to trigger attacks from a pro-monarchist group in Europe.

She described heightened activism from radical fringes of the opposition in exile.

“When you post things online, it’s very common for a stranger to question you about yourself and the people you follow,” she said. “And it very often spirals into accusations of espionage.”

Shafafi is not the only one reporting this pattern: blacklists and death threats issued against journalists or researchers accused of being propagandists.

EU blacklists Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation

Hiding in silence

Whether monarchist, left-wing, nationalist or Islamist, opposition figures abroad continue to tear each other apart.

In France, several public figures of Iranian origin have described – publicly or anonymously –receiving threats after speaking out in ways seen as too sympathetic to the Iranian regime. One filed a complaint against unknown individuals over death threats but declined to give an interview.

Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s former king and the best-known opposition figure abroad, has tried to distance himself from the most radical voices in the monarchist camp. But those voices have succeeded in creating a toxic climate.

Self-censorship is spreading among opponents.

“The majority is hiding in silence, out of fear,” said Aïda Tavakoli, a French-Iranian activist and founder of We Are Iranian Students, a non-partisan secular organisation linked to student opposition groups in Iran.

The activist told RFI she can detect in the most extreme positions taken by some – “a minority”, she said – the immense pain of experiencing grief from a distance, mixed with survivor’s guilt and the absence of a place to channel anger.

How much is China willing to risk to protect its ties with Iran?

Prison scars

“Many activists now in exile were imprisoned by the Islamic Republic,” Shafafi said. “For these people, contradiction is not just a narrative disagreement. It is the denial of the most traumatic event that happened to them.”

Shafafi is the author of The Long Iranian Revolution – State Violence and Silenced Histories, due to be published in June.

Extreme polarisation within the opposition is also fuelled by an inability to agree on the legacy of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But after the worst repression ever experienced by modern Iran, some want to believe in a resurgence.

“I have many more people from all political sides – monarchists, republicans, left-wing, right-wing, feminists and non-feminists – contacting me to ask whether we could find unity because we don’t recognise ourselves in the extremes on either side,” Tavakoli said.

At a conference in Paris last week, Tavakoli recognised some of the people behind violent comments posted on social media. “They came to thank me and said it helped them to understand that our disagreement is not personal violence,” she told RFI.

Iran declares European armies ‘terrorist groups’ in tit-for-tat move

Cyber pressure

It is all the more important to work to overcome disagreements, Shafafi said, because the authorities exploit them.

“A large part of these conflicts is a smokescreen created by trolls working for the regime,” she said. “It equips and finances this cyber-army to ensure the opposition remains fragmented and to discredit anyone who manages to rally support.

“We saw this pattern in 2022 and it is important to remember it. What the regime fears most is a popular and united movement that is coherent and capable of opposing it.”

This story was adapted from the original version in French by Aabla Jounaïdi

Congolese lawyers and human rights defenders filed a petition on 21 January arguing the agreement should have been approved by parliament and may even require a referendum under the constitution.

Last Thursday, Trump praised Tshisekedi at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington – a gathering of US political leaders and foreign dignitaries – calling him a “good guy”.

Asking Tshisekedi to stand up and be applauded as a strong partner to the United States, Trump added that he was a “very brave and wonderful man”.

The praise came two months after Congo and the United States signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement on critical minerals, linked to the Washington Accords, a US-brokered peace deal between Congo and Rwanda signed on 4 December by Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Minerals and security

The move gives the US preferential access to Congolese minerals including cobalt and coltan – which are essential for batteries, electronics and defence manufacturing.

Washington says the arrangement will help stabilise eastern Congo while reducing US reliance on China for critical minerals.

In early February, the United States stepped up efforts to secure critical mineral supply chains. Secretary of State Marco Rubio convened 54 countries and the European Commission for talks on critical minerals, attended by Tshisekedi and six other African delegations.

Last December, while celebrating his “America First” foreign policy, Trump told supporters: “I actually stopped the war with Congo and Rwanda. And they said to me, ‘Please, please, we would love you to come and take our minerals.’ Which we’ll do.”

The agreement has triggered debate in Congo about sovereignty, oversight and who benefits from the country’s mineral wealth.

RFI spoke to Maurice Carney, who heads Friends of the Congo, a Washington-based organisation supporting the Congolese lawyers and civil-society groups behind the constitutional challenge.

RFI: The Trump administration is selling this agreement as a big win for both the Americans and the Congolese. Trump said Tshisekedi and he signed the largest minerals deal in US-Africa history. How is it violating the Congolese constitution?

Maurice Carney: It violates various aspects of the constitution, in particular section 214, which states that international agreements should go through the Congolese parliament and may even be subjected to a referendum. The lawyers are arguing that this never happened.

It hasn’t been presented to parliament, even though the agreement calls for changes in Congo’s laws, fiscal policy, mining laws and quite possibly constitutional changes.If you look at what has unfolded over the past year in Congo’s market, the Congolese government instituted a ban on cobalt because it felt the Chinese were flooding the market and wanted to rein in cobalt exports, which it was able to do successfully.

Now, according to this agreement with the United States, if Congo wanted to do that again in the future, it would be required to report quarterly to the US ambassador in Kinshasa about any fiscal or trade policy changes it would like to make. It would also have to be presented to the Joint Steering Committee for discussion and consensus.

The Joint Steering Committee of this agreement is made up of five US representatives and five DRC representatives.

RFI: Is Trump or the Trump family personally gaining from the strategic partnership agreement with DRC, given reports documenting how Trump and his family have profited since his accession to the White House, reaping billions shadowed by conflicts of interest?

MC: I know there are groups here in Washington doing investigative work to see whether Trump and his family are benefiting, but they haven’t released their reports yet.

We do know that people close to him are lined up to benefit from some of these investments. For example, Bloomberg News has reported that former campaign finance co-chair Gentry Beach, who runs a company in Texas, is preparing to invest in the Rubaya coltan mines currently under occupation by the M23 and Rwandan soldiers.

RFI: China is made to look like a big bad wolf, thriving in eastern DRC’s unstable environment, according to Congressman Ronny Jackson, keeping American companies out by colluding with Kinshasa to impose unreasonable taxes on them. How fair and sustainable do you think the US will be compared with China?

MC: That’s a good question. I think the characterisation of China is really a mischaracterization because China has just been ahead of the United States. It has been willing to go into the Congo where the United States has not.

The United States had one of the largest copper and cobalt mines in the Congo through its company Freeport McMoRan and had ownership of the Tenke Fungurume mines. They sold them on the market and China bought them.

So the US is trying to play catch up. We don’t know the extent to which it will be successful. But certainly, China hasn’t been a bad actor.

It has done business with the Congolese government and negotiated with the Congolese government. That’s what there is to it.

As for the agreement that’s been signed, the United States has laws and standards, and we don’t see them being applied. For example, when entering into agreements abroad around minerals, we usually seek prior and informed consent from local communities. Local communities in Congo have been excluded from all these discussions.

There are questions of labour rights, human rights and environmental rights, and we haven’t seen any of those pursued by the United States before any of these deals have been signed or money has been distributed.

Some 50 members of Congress wrote to Trump in 2025 calling on the administration to address how the minerals-for-security agreement would deal with labour, human rights, environmental protections and informed consent from local communities. We haven’t seen a response to that letter.

RFI: How is Congo’s rapprochement with Washington affecting relations with China?

MC: China hasn’t said much, and I’m not sure there’s much that can be said.

The Chinese do business differently on a global scale than the United States. They confine themselves mostly to business transactions, economics and trade, whereas the United States gets involved in politics.

RFI: How is that going to translate on the ground, in terms of China’s presence in DRC?

MC: At the moment, it’s a status quo. China got its deals.

The deals aren’t being challenged by the DRC government. In fact, one of the big questions before the agreement was made public was what the DRC had to offer, considering China controls about 80 percent of the copper and cobalt mines in the Congo.

You see that the United States is not able to encroach on those deals, other than the aspect of the strategic partnership agreement that says Congo can offer its minority stake in existing deals.

If you look at the deals being established, the US government has had to, for example with the Orion and Glencore deal, establish joint partnerships.

In fact, the US doesn’t even have mining companies there. They’re setting up and trying to catch up. China is in the pole position, so to speak.

The big question is whether the United States will be able to catch up. China is far ahead, not only in minerals extraction but also in processing and refining across the supply chain.

RFI: Is the US government investing more than American private companies in DRC through this agreement?

MC: Absolutely. The US government is taking the lead and investing in two areas. One is the mines for critical minerals. The second is infrastructure to ship those minerals out, particularly through the Lobito Corridor in Angola.

What we see unfolding is not just memorandums of understanding and agreements, but money and investment flowing directly from the US government. We’re up to around 3.8 billion dollars lined up to be invested through the International Development Finance Corporation.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity

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 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)

After months of uncertainty, the government said its pledge for the 2026-2028 cycle will fall from €1.6 billion in the previous funding period to €660 million.

Since its creation in 2002, the Global Fund has helped save nearly 70 million lives worldwide.

Vincent Leclercq, executive director of Coalition Plus, an international network of organisations dedicated to the fight against AIDS, told RFI that this decrease in funding will have serious consequences.

“There is a direct impact between the budget they are able to raise and the number of lives they are able to save,” he said, pointing to interventions including antiretroviral treatments for HIV, malaria prevention nets, condoms and testing services.

The Global Fund dispensed antiretroviral treatments to 25.6 million people in 2024.

World AIDS Day highlights major innovations amid decline in global funding

Rural populations at risk

“This decrease [in funding] will translate directly into disaster,” Leclercq warned, adding that the first people to suffer will be vulnerable and communities and those that are harder to reach.

“If budgets are cut, community-based workers won’t be able to provide testing in rural areas,” he said. “A decrease in testing will turn into an increase in infections.”

While private foundations may increase contributions, Leclercq calls the idea that they could offset such cuts “an illusion”.

After a lull during Covid, France sees rise in tuberculosis cases

France’s overall development aid contribution is set to fall by €800 million in the 2026 budget, down 18 percent from 2025 and 38 percent compared to 2024.

In a joint statement, several NGOs – including Coalition Plus – criticised what they called a historic reduction.

Camille Spire, president of the French non-profit AIDES, said the cut amounted to a “desertion” by France in the fight against these diseases, adding that previous funding reductions have already seen “devastating effects”.

Malaria fight under threat as US funding cuts raise fears in Africa

“We are revolted by France’s abandonment of the sick, its international commitments and multilateral cooperation,” she said.

The organisations also noted that the move comes despite a unanimous resolution in the French National Assembly on 3 February calling on the government to strengthen support for the global fight against HIV.

Many were drawn into fighting for Moscow through employment promises but ended up on the front line of a conflict they did not choose to fight.

President Cyril Ramaphosa raised the return of South Africans fighting with Russian forces during a Tuesday phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The call followed Russia’s statement that it supports a diplomatic solution to the conflict with Ukraine.

“In this regard, teams from both sides will continue their engagements towards the finalisation of this process,” the South African presidency said.

Ukraine war videos raise questions over Russia’s recruitment of Africans

Recruitment claims

The South African government said in November 2025 it had received “distress calls” from 17 men trapped in heavy fighting in Ukraine’s Donbas region after being tricked into joining mercenary forces.

The group All Eyes on Wagner, an investigative organisation that tracks mercenary activity, released a report on Wednesday listing 1,417 fighters from 35 African countries who joined the Russian army between 2023 and mid-2025. It said 316 had died.

A December 2025 report by the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) said young Africans were being lured by false promises of training and employment.

The report said Russia’s recruitment campaigns target “poor urban youth” seeking a better life, and that many realise “that Europe is an increasingly inaccessible destination”.

IFRI described Russia’s recruitment practices as a form of human trafficking.

Political accusations

Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, the daughter of former South African president Jacob Zuma, is facing several lawsuits accusing her of recruiting South African men to fight in the war on Ukraine. Her sister, Nkosazana Zuma-Mncube, is among those who filed a criminal complaint.

“They were fooled to fight in a terrible, barbaric war that Africa has nothing to do with,” said Olexander Scherba, Ukraine’s ambassador to South Africa, in November 2025. “And it’s a colonial war, so seeing Africans fighting a colonial war against a free country is especially insane.”

He added that “if it is true that some South African politicians were been involved, then it makes the whole situation even more precarious”.

Scherba also urged South Africans not to get “involved to fight in this barbaric, unfair, unjust war”.

Regional concern

In Kenya, the government condemned the use of Kenyan recruits as “cannon fodder on the war front” and estimated about 200 citizens are fighting for Russian forces.

Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi said he would travel to Moscow in March for talks aimed at “conclusively resolving the matter and identifying sustainable solutions”.

Mudavadi said he would also seek the release of Kenyans held as prisoners of war in Ukraine and verify the condition of those hospitalised.

In a modest studio on the sixth floor of a building ravaged by war, Emad Nour’s voice echoes.

The presenter, who works for Sawt Al Quds radio, tells listeners the good news: electricity is slowly coming back.

Gaza had around 20 local radio stations before Israel began its offensive in response to deadly attacks by Hamas in October 2023.

All ceased broadcasting as Israeli strikes intensified – cutting off a vital source of information about which areas had been hit, where aid was being distributed, or even health advice in a territory where people have limited access to media.

“In the aftermath of a devastating war, people living in difficult conditions told us they were sorry we weren’t covering their struggles and suffering anymore,” said Nour.

“They told us they loved us and needed our voice.”

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

From FM to internet

The station resumed broadcasting in January, starting with a tribute to colleagues killed, injured or imprisoned during the war.

With almost all FM antennae destroyed, its shows are broadcast online.

Listener Reema Salem said: “I recently saw videos of the Sawt Al Quds team on social media, and when I heard the sound of their programme, I was so moved.”

Podcast: The power of radio during British-mandated Palestine

The radio station Voice of the People is also limited to broadcasting pre-recorded programmes online for now, said its journalist Ramzi Abdallah.

“We want to return to FM, but the transmitter isn’t ready,” he said. “Some equipment was lost in the war, mainly during Israeli raids.”

With regular internet outages, Gazans’ access to radio remains spotty. Only one station, Zaman FM, has so far returned to broadcasting over traditional FM.

This article has been adapted from the original version in French by Remi El Meghari in Gaza and Aabla Jounaïdi in Paris.

University gates and residences at the Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD) in the capital Dakar have remained closed since a second-year medical student was killed in unclear circumstances during a police intervention.

The student, Abdoulaye Ba, died on Monday following injuries sustained during a security intervention at the UCAD campus. 

UCAD’s academic council said late Thursday that it had been “deeply affected by this tragedy” and, for safety reasons, had decided to “suspend, on a precautionary basis and until further notice, the student associations”.

Videos posted on social media showed scenes of chaos, with security forces entering university grounds and firing tear gas into buildings while students retaliated by throwing stones.

In one video, authenticated by France’s AFP news agency, police are seen beating a screaming man with batons.

Senegal says student’s death in clashes with police a ‘tragedy’

Family calls for clarity

An autopsy report of the victim circulating in the media details multiple traumas, including haemorrhages in one lung and left kidney, bleeding in the brain caused by concussion and a ruptured spleen.

A source who witnessed the autopsy confirmed to RFI that Ba had suffered multiple haemorrhages.

It is still unclear what caused the student’s injuries.

On Thursday, in a brief statement to the press, the victim’s uncle Mamadou Dioulde Ba called on judicial authorities to “clarify the circumstances surrounding Abdoulaye Ba’s death”.

A number of social media posts relayed a photo of the young medical student in the lab.

Student becomes first death in growing Senegal election protests

Unpaid grants

The government has called Abdoulaye Ba’s death a “tragedy” and admitted to “police brutality”.

But Senegal’s Interior Minister Mouhamadou Bamba Cisse also defended the police intervention, accusing students of attempting to damage campus infrastructure.

A student association collective said it held Senegal’s president, prime minister and other government officials responsible for the deadly violence.

Senegalese students have been rallying over outstanding stipends for years, with demonstrations sometimes leading to clashes with police.

The country’s university academic calendar is often disrupted by student and faculty strikes. As a result, students can go months without receiving their stipends.

(with newswires)

Organisers expect more than 60 heads of state and government, and around 100 foreign and defence ministers, to gather in Munich’s Bayerischer Hof from Friday through Sunday. In total, more than 1,000 delegates from 120 countries are set to attend.

The 2026 Munich Security Report, titled “Under Destruction” and published last Monday, sets a stark tone.

It argues that the post-1945 order led by the United States is now being actively dismantled by “wrecking-ball politics” – not only by revisionist powers, but by movements inside Western democracies that favour demolition over reform.

The most powerful of the “demolition men”, it contends, is US President Donald Trump, whose administration has slashed foreign aid, walked away from key multilateral bodies and imposed sweeping tariffs that defy World Trade Organization rules.​

According to the report, Trump’s second term has seen a “renunciation of core elements” of traditional US strategy: faith in multilateral institutions, support for an open trading system, and the role of “leader of the free world”.

Instead, it sketches an emerging order of transactional deals, regional spheres of influence and “neo-royalist” elites, in which private interests increasingly trump public ones.​

How Trump’s trade threats have reshaped Europe’s global strategy

European dependence

For Europeans, Munich comes at a moment the report describes as “a prolonged era of confrontation”.

Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, now approaching its fourth year, has shattered the post-Cold War security settlement, while Moscow steps up hybrid operations across the continent from cyber attacks to sabotage.​

At the same time, Washington’s “gradual retreat, wavering support for Ukraine, and threatening rhetoric on Greenland” have exposed Europe’s dependence on the US security umbrella, according to the MSC report.

It notes that US military assistance to Ukraine has dropped sharply since early 2025, forcing European allies and partners to shoulder most of the burden – including via a new NATO mechanism that channels European funds into US-made weapons for Kyiv.​

Europe’s defence dilemma: autonomy or dependence?

European leaders will arrive in Munich keen to show they are finally shifting from “security consumers” to security providers, pointing to steep increases in defence spending and efforts to coordinate industrial policy.

But the report warns of “multiple speeds” within Europe, as fiscally stronger northern and eastern states surge ahead while more indebted southern economies struggle with the new informal NATO goal to spend 5 percent of GDP on defence by 2035.​​

Beyond Europe, the report highlights China‘s economic and military dominance in Asia. It contrasts Washington’s growing unease over Chinese pressure on Taiwan and in the South China Sea with US policies that hover between confrontational language, harsh tariffs and overtures to Beijing.​​

Major test

The MSC report notes that in most NATO countries surveyed, majorities now see the US as a less reliable ally, and the West as less united than a decade ago.

The conference will again be a major test of transatlantic ties.

Last year’s incendiary appearance by Vice-President JD Vance, who claimed that mass immigration posed the most urgent danger to Europe, shocked many in the hall. This year, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio heads a large US delegation that includes some 50 members of Congress.

Some 5,000 police officers will be on duty in Munich, with reinforcements from France, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Airspace over the city will be closed for the duration of the event.​

Outside the secure zone, 21 demonstrations are officially planned, including two large rallies against Iran’s government and a separate protest by opponents of the conference itself that could draw up to 4,000 people on Saturday.

Police also expect significant numbers of people for the Iran protests, with demonstrators arriving from across Europe.​

High winds and hard rain forced cancellations of flights, trains and ferries on Thursday and brought chaos to roads in southern France, northern Spain and parts of Portugal.

Spanish officials said a woman died after the roof of an industrial warehouse collapsed on her, while French officials confirmed Friday that a person died after falling from a ladder in their garden, a day after a truck driver was killed when a tree smashed through his windscreen.

Dozens more were also injured in weather-related incidents in Spain, and a viaduct in Portugal partially collapsed because of flooding.

French forecasters said the storm, named Nils, was “unusually strong” and France’s electricity distributor said it had mobilised around 3,000 workers as it battled to reconnect households to the grid.

Earth records third-hottest year in 2025 as global heat streak grows

“Enedis has restored service to 50 percent of the 900,000 customers who were without electricity,” it wrote around 6:00am.

“Flooding complicates repairs because the fields are waterlogged and some roads are blocked,” Enedis crisis director Herve Champenois said at a press briefing Thursday.

Residents across the south of France were shocked at the storm’s ferocity.

“During the night, you could hear tiles lifting, rubbish bins rolling down the street – it was crazy,” said Eugenie Ferrier, 32, from the village of Roaillan near Bordeaux in the southwest.

Forecasters said the storm had moved eastwards away from French territory during Thursday, though some areas were still on alert for flooding.

For the West African country, it is the first time its winter sports federation has been represented at the Games.

Tang was born in Utah in the United States and began skiing at the age of two. He is following in the footsteps of his father, a former Olympic athlete, but says he is not focused on results.

“It’s just ski the best I can, try to make it to the second run and see how things go,” Tang explained.

African athletes have blazed a trail at Winter Olympics for over 60 years

Father and son on Olympic slopes

Tang’s father, Thomas Tang, competed for Chinese Taipei at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada, and again in 1992 in Albertville, France, taking part in the giant slalom and super-G events.

Now secretary-general of the Guinea-Bissau Winter Sports Federation Tang senior says he feels enormous pride watching his son follow in his footsteps – or ski tracks. 

“I’m so proud. People in Guinea-Bissau really support us,” he told RFI.

The federation’s ambition is to train other athletes and take them to the 2030 Winter Olympics, which will be held in the French Alps.

This story was adapted from the original version in Portuguese by Marco Martins

The competition, which takes place between September and June 2027, will be the first major international tournament for the new head coach of the French national team, who is yet to be named.

Didier Deschamps will take France to the World Cup this summer in the United States, Mexico and Canada, but the 57-year-old former France skipper will step down after the tournament.

During his 14 years as head coach, Deschamps led the squad to victory at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, and the 2021 Nations League against Spain. France made it to the final of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, losing out to Argentina.

French coach Deschamps to step down after 2026 World Cup

“You need to ask my successor what they think about the teams in the group,” joked Deschamps, following the draw in Brussels.

“It’s something of a déjà vu,” he added. “We had Italy and Belgium in the group last year and this time it’s Turkey who replace Israel. It’s the same as always in the four pools in the A band, you always have the top nations. There are always some glamorous ties.”

The Nations League is contested by the men’s national teams of the member associations of UEFA. Deschamps added: “Even if the European championships and World Cup are more prestigious, the Nations League is still a great tournament.”

In other pools in the top band, current champions Portugal will play in A4 with Denmark, Norway and Wales.

Germany, the Netherlands, Serbia and Greece feature in A2, while Spain, Croatia, England and Czech Republic play in A3.

“It’s a difficult group and a very competitive group,” England boss Thomas Tuchel told Uefa.com.

“We’re playing against Croatia in the World Cup group stages and we’ve got them again. But that’s what you get – a competitive group in the A band. You want to play against the best and see what level you are at. In any competition we play in, we dream big and we believe in ourselves.”

France and Argentina rise in Fifa rankings after Qatar feats but Brazil stay top

Each team in the Nations League will face every other team in their group twice, once at home and once away, between September and November 2026.

Each group winner in Leagues B, C and D will be promoted one league, while the teams finishing bottom of their groups in Leagues A, B and C will be relegated to the next level.

The top two teams from each group in League A advance to the quarter-finals which are held in March 2027. The semi-finals and final take place in June to determine the Nations League champions.

The arrests took place on Tuesday as part of a judicial investigation opened after the Louvre filed a complaint in December 2024, the prosecutors’ office said on Thursday.

The loss for the museum over the past decade is estimated to exceed €10 million, it said. Part of it was allegedly invested in real estate in France and Dubai. 

Among the arrests are two Louvre employees, several tour guides and one person suspected of being the mastermind, according to the prosecutors’ office.

The scandal comes just months after four thieves carried out a robbery in October, making off with jewellery worth an estimated €85 million.

Chinese tourists targeted 

The museum alerted investigators to the frequent presence of two Chinese tour guides suspected of bringing groups of Chinese tourists into the museum by fraudulently reusing the same tickets multiple times for different visitors.

Other guides were later suspected of similar practices.

The prosecutors’ office said surveillance and wiretaps confirmed repeated ticket reuse and an apparent strategy of splitting up tour groups to avoid paying the required “speaking fee” imposed on guides.

The investigation also pointed to suspected accomplices within the Louvre, with guides allegedly paying them cash in exchange for avoiding ticket checks, it said.

Louvre Museum to hike ticket price by 45 percent for non-EU visitors

Louvre under pressure

The famed museum has been in the spotlight in recent months. Its director has admitted to “terrible failure” over security failings that allowed thieves to steal jewels in broad daylight. 

Authorities have arrested all four alleged members of the heist crew, but have not found the jewels.

Trade unions have called several days of strikes at the Louvre, pressing for more recruitment, more pay and better maintenance of the vast former royal palace.

(with newswires)

The National Office for Risk and Disaster Management (BNGRC) confirmed on Thursday that at least 38 people were killed, six remain missing and at least 374 were injured after Cyclone Gezani made landfall late Tuesday.

The storm slammed directly into Toamasina, also known as Tamatave – Madagascar’s second-largest city and home to nearly 400,000 people.

Its violent gusts and torrential rains ravaged “up to 75 percent” of the city and its surroundings, according to Madagascar’s new leader, Colonel Michael Randrianirina, who took power four months ago following a military takeover.

In a statement Thursday, he called for “international solidarity” to support urgent relief operations.

More than 18,000 homes were destroyed, while over 50,000 were damaged or flooded, the BNGRC said. At least 12,000 people have been displaced.

The storm also caused significant damage in the surrounding Atsinanana region, where post-disaster assessments are still under way.

Cyclone Fytia in Madagascar leaves three dead, flooding affects nearly 30,000

Mozambique on alert

The CMRS cyclone forecaster on France‘s Indian Ocean island of Réunion said Toamasina had been “directly hit by the most intense part” of the cyclone. It described the landfall as likely one of the most intense recorded in the region – rivalling Cyclone Geralda, which left at least 200 people dead back in 1994.

Cyclone Gezani weakened after reached land, but continued crossing Madagascar from east to west as a tropical storm until Wednesday night.

Forecasters say it is expected to regain strength over the Mozambique Channel, potentially returning to “intense tropical cyclone” status, classified as stage four out of five. From Friday evening, it could strike southern Mozambique, a country already grappling with severe flooding since the beginning of the year.

Cyclone season in the south-west Indian Ocean typically runs from November to April and produces around a dozen storms each year.

On Tuesday, Iran’s top security official Ali Larijani met Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq in Muscat, where the two men “discussed the latest developments in the Iranian-American negotiations” and “ways to reach a balanced and just agreement between the two sides,” according to Oman’s state news agency.

The talks followed the first US-Iran dialogue since last year’s 12‑day Iran-Israel war, underscoring that diplomacy is back on track in the Gulf.

But French think tank France2050 alleges in its report The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Infiltration in France, published late last year, that while Iran has spent years influencing US and European policy makers, it has also been building a hidden apparatus of influence in France.

The 120‑page report, submitted to France’s Interior Ministry, Senate and National Assembly, argues that Iran has maintained a “structured system of infiltration” in France for nearly half a century, with its Paris embassy acting as the hub.

It describes the mission as “the European anchor of the Revolutionary Guards’ influence operations”, combining official diplomacy with covert intelligence work, diaspora surveillance and propaganda.​

“In France, the number two of the Iranian embassy, Ali Reza Khalili, was responsible for establishing an influence network: recruiting and directing ‘agents”, whether they were aware of being manipulated or not,” the report reads.

Khalili is presented as deputy ambassador, chief of staff to the envoy and president of the Centre Franco‑Iranien, an organisation created in 2016 that has hosted conferences, cultural events and training sessions which, according to the authors, allowed Tehran to “identify and recruit potential interlocutors in academia, civil society and the media”.

Iran’s exiled opposition fractures amid climate of fear online

Recruiting grounds 

Adrian Calamel, one of the report’s co-authors, says that France’s vulnerability is rooted in a long history of contact with Iran’s revolutionary leadership.

“When you think about 47 years to grow that network, that influence…. In the United States there absolutely is influence, but not at the level that we see inside France,” he said.

The report claims several staff accredited as diplomats in Paris have been flagged by European counter‑intelligence services as officers of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) or the Quds Force, the arm of the Revolutionary Guard responsible for intelligence operations and projecting Iranian influence abroad.

The embassy is described as simultaneously “a cultural centre, a propaganda unit and a coordination office for the surveillance of the diaspora and the repression of opponents abroad”.

The report describes universities and grandes écoles – France’s elite, highly selective higher education institutions – as prime recruiting grounds.

The embassy and the Centre Franco‑Iranien offered scholarships, internships and tightly managed trips to Iran to “students or researchers demonstrating open‑mindedness toward Iranian culture,” the report says, calling this a form of influence‑orientated recruitment.

Former PM Attal says France should lead coalition to topple Iran’s leadership

Campaign of confusion

Targets for recruitment have included “young intellectuals, journalists in training or NGO activists susceptible to anti‑Western or anti‑imperialist rhetoric”.

“There’s always going to be the influence with NGOs,” said Calamel, pointing out that some operate under umbrella structures linked variously to the Islamic Republic and the Muslim Brotherhood. “Often they’re intertwined.”

He added that there “is a concern with the press, that you do have people peddling the line of the Islamic Republic – that they have a right to produce a nuclear weapon, that they have a right to nuclear energy, but that they don’t have to go through the safeguards of everybody else”.

The France 2050 report accuses the Iranian embassy of coordinating a French‑language digital campaign through accounts tied to Iran’s state broadcasters, including Press TV, Al‑Alam and Hispan TV. Cyber‑monitoring cited by the authors found recurring links between these networks and the mission’s communications unit, with some account administrators appearing at events run by Khalili’s Centre Franco‑Iranien.

The aim, the report concludes, is to “create ideological confusion, erode trust in democratic institutions and normalise the Iranian regime’s positions in the French political and media landscape”.

How Iran is enforcing an unprecedented digital blackout to crush protests

Calamel sees Iran’s information campaigns – and, more recently, complete news blackouts – as an external extension of Iran’s internal repression. He recalls that when in 2019 the authorities “shut down the internet for roughly 12 hours, security forces slaughtered 1,500 protesters”.

To quell the protests that began in December 2025, Revolutionary Guard forces killed thousands of demonstrators after Tehran shut off the internet. 

Calamel warned: “This is a regime that murdered thousands of its own people just recently, and they want to influence France. The people of France need to start pushing back against this.”

More than 52,000 visitors attended the event this year, with over 20,000 business meetings organised between producers and buyers.

French wine and spirit exports fell by almost 8 percent in 2025, according to the latest data from the French Federation of Wine and Spirits Exporters.

Shipments to the United States were down 20 percent last year. American tariffs, currently set at 15 percent on European wine and spirits, have added strain to an industry that supports some 600,000 jobs in France.

Exports under strain

“After Covid, a lot of US importers over-purchased and now their stocks are full so they are buying less from France,” Nathan Terrigeol, who runs the Bordeaux winery Vignobles Terrigeol with his brother Quentin, told RFI.

“That phenomenon, combined with Trump’s tariffs, has seriously impacted our exports.”

Some producers say the Trump administration’s tariffs have not had as dramatic an impact on their sales as they feared.

How drinking culture, linked to French identity, can be a ’tool of exclusion’

Pierre Dietrich, founder of Pépin Wine, an organic winery whose bottles retail in the US for between $27 and $40, said his business has held up well.

“2025 was a good year for us, both in terms of the quality of the wine produced and our sales despite climate conditions not being ideal,” he said. “Our US sales are growing, despite tariffs. Yes we had to increase our prices due to tariffs but we didn’t lose many clients.”

Dietrich also pointed to trade diversification. While he sees opportunity in the Mercosur free-trade deal between the European Union and South American countries, he remains “worried for the rest of the French agricultural sector” facing what he considers unfair competition.

Climate disruption

Climate volatility remains another concern for French wine-growers. The sector has endured wildfires and hailstorms in recent years.

“We were lucky compared to other neighbouring producers,” said Terrigeol, explaining that his vineyards were spared last year from a nearby fire.

Beyond traditional markets, new opportunities are emerging.

Stuart Mugabe, a Ugandan wine importer who has attended the convention for the past three years, said demand for premium French wines remains strong in Uganda. He is also seeking organic and alcohol-free wines, noting there is “an empty space” for suppliers.

As consumption declines at home, French wine producers are seeking new markets, such as China and India, and are relying on the quality of their products to remain competitive.

The 20-year-old Section Paloise centre is one of two changes to the starting line-up of the team that romped past Ireland 36-14 on 5 February at the Stade de France.

Brau-Boirie will begin his France career beside Section Paloise teammate Émilien Gailleton, who will be making his 12th appearance for his country.

They replace the Bordeaux-Begles duo Nicolas Depoortère and Yoram Moefana, who miss the match due to injury.

“The fact that they play together regularly, and train together, creates greater understanding, which, in those instinctive moments, whether in attack or defence, adds a special connection,” said Galthié. “It is worth taking advantage of.”

Weighing in at 98kg and standing 1.90m tall, Brau-Boirie has been on the radar of the French selectors for the last 18 months.

He took part in the training sessions for the 2025 Six Nations competition and was earmarked for last summer’s tour of New Zealand before an ankle injury ruled him out.

“He regularly establishes himself, every weekend, by his club performances,” said Galthie.

Attack coach Patrick Arlettaz has compared Brau-Boirie to former France great Yannick Jauzion, who was capped 73 times between 2001 and 2011.

“He has that kind of talent… to be understated and very effective, to make others around him play well,” Arlettaz said.

Six Nations returns for a shortened tournament with clear favourites

France on a roll

Wales and France have beaten each other 51 times apiece in their 105 previous test matches, with three draws. However, France are on a seven-match winning run in the fixture and have scored more than 40 points in each of the last three, including last season’s 43-0 drubbing in Paris.

Wales launched their campaign abysmally. England battered them 48-7 at Twickenham on 7 February.

The annihilation was the 12th successive defeat in the Six Nations tournament and the team’s 22nd in 24 tests against all opponents.

Despite the slump, Wales coach Steve Tandy has ruled out a drastic overhaul of the side.

“There’s going to be nothing knee-jerk around it,” said the 46-year-old Welshman, who became head coach in September 2025. 

“I knew this when I took the job. On Sunday, we’re going to be playing one of the best teams in the world and it’s not going to click for us overnight.

“This is part of experiencing these moments and using them as learning experiences, making sure we adapt for the coming games.”

In the other ties in the second round of matches, Ireland entertain Italy in Dublin on Saturday, before Scotland host England at Murrayfield in Edinburgh.

Recent data shows one in two university students in France are skipping a meal each day and relying on food handouts. In response, the government is extending a 1-euro meal scheme – introduced during Covid for those on bursaries – to all university students as of May. Student union rep Marian Bloquet outlines why the problems go far beyond food. We also report from the Cop1ne community kitchen in Paris. Run by students for students, it provides cheap, home-cooked food, but also company and solidarity.  (Listen @3’20”)

As France prepares to ban children from social media, kids weigh in on their use of the platforms and how they would like to see them regulated. Cybersecurity expert Olivier Blazy considers the technical challenges and privacy issues raised by such a ban. (Listen @20’20”)

The adventurous life of the French explorer Alexandra David-Néel, who in the winter of 1924 became the first European woman to reach Lhasa, Tibet’s “forbidden city”. (Listen @14’10”)

Episode mixed by Cecile Pompeani.

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

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 17 January, I asked you a question about our article “France launches recruitment for 10-month voluntary national military service”. You were to send in the answer to these two questions: How many volunteers will be accepted into the 2026 program, and what will their jobs be? 

The answer is, to quote our article: “From September, around 3,000 volunteers will join the army, navy, or air and space force for missions carried out exclusively on French soil.

Tasks will range from helping out during natural disasters and providing support for counter-terrorism surveillance, to more specialized jobs such as drone operation, mechanics, electrical work, baking, or medical support.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question: What is the most romantic thing that has ever been said to you? Or the most romantic action? Or the most romantic gift?

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

The winners are: RFI English listener Murshida Parveen Lata, who is the Co-Chairman of the Source of Knowledge Club in Naogaon, Bangladesh. Murshida is also the winner of this week’s bonus question Congratulations on your double win, Murshida.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Ashraf Ali, a member of the International RFI DX Radio Listeners Club in West Bengal, India; Sumara Sabri, a member of the RFI Online Visitors Club in Sahiwal, Pakistan; Sameen Riaz – also from Pakistan, this time from Sheikupura city – Sameen is a member of the RFI Listeners Club in that fair city, and last but not least, RFI Listeners Club member Sami Mossad from Giza, Egypt.

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: “Fast Bob” by Romane and Stochelo Rosenberg, played by the Rosenberg Ensemble; “La Marseillaise” by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, arranged by Claude Bolling and performed by the Claude Bolling Big Band; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “You’re the Top” by Cole Porter, sung by Ella Fitzgerald.  

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 “Cambridge University Museum set to return Benin bronzes to Nigeria”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 9 March to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 14 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. 

Recent data shows one in two university students in France are skipping a meal each day and relying on food handouts. In response, the government is extending a 1-euro meal scheme – introduced during Covid for those on bursaries – to all university students as of May. Student union rep Marian Bloquet outlines why the problems go far beyond food. We also report from the Cop1ne community kitchen in Paris. Run by students for students, it provides cheap, home-cooked food, but also company and solidarity.  (Listen @3’20”)

As France prepares to ban children from social media, kids weigh in on their use of the platforms and how they would like to see them regulated. Cybersecurity expert Olivier Blazy considers the technical challenges and privacy issues raised by such a ban. (Listen @20’20”)

The adventurous life of the French explorer Alexandra David-Néel, who in the winter of 1924 became the first European woman to reach Lhasa, Tibet’s “forbidden city”. (Listen @14’10”)

Episode mixed by Cecile Pompeani.

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

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.

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.