The Debate

There’s trade deals, there's partnerships and then there's fighter jets. French President Emmanuel Macron is in Mumbai to put the finishing touches on a €30 billion sale of 114 Rafale jets. This third batch comes as France struggles to convince European neighbours to either buy its warplanes, build one together or – at the very least – get NATO allies to de-risk from relying on US-made F-35s. 

On the Indian side, there's scrutiny over how Rafale sales have gone so far, both with cost and in combat. Then there's the question of how much Delhi weens itself off historic supplier Russia. And what goes for military hardware goes for oil imports, what with US pressure to stop buying discounted crude from Moscow.

On that score, what to make of fast-tracked trade deals with Washington and the European Union?

How much strategic autonomy can both India and France afford in a realigning world?

Produced by Charles Wente, Aline Bottin, Daniel Whittington and Ilayda Habip

In the wake of the Munich Security Conference, we're asking: what happens now? With Russia's war on Ukraine still raging, do the grand words of Munich mean anything to those struggling to feed themselves, stay warm and survive under Vladimir Putin's ongoing missile and drone attacks?

On European security, tensions are rising. Germany is pressing France to increase its defence spending, with Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul essentially telling Emmanuel Macron to put his money where his mouth is. But with France facing a massive public debt crisis, finding the 5 percent of GDP required for NATO commitments is far from simple.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is visiting Budapest, delivering a message of support from President Donald Trump to his ally Viktor Orbán – Europe's most outspoken admirer of Putin. Rubio's words at Munich suggested conciliation, but standing side by side with Orbán raises questions: is the gap between the US and the EU widening, just when unity is needed most for Ukraine?

Read moreRubio visits Slovakia and Hungary to bolster ties with pro-Trump leaders

Produced by Charles Wente, Aline Bottin, Guillaume Gougeon and Ilayda Habip

Can Europe man the ramparts on its own? As the US war secretary snubbed a NATO defence ministers' meeting in Brussels, EU leaders converged on the 16th-century Alden Biesen castle in Belgium's Limburg province to answer former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi's call for a "big bazooka" approach to reform and competitiveness. 

But behind the walls of the one-time headquarters of the Knights of the Teutonic Order lies a rift: between France, which is pushing a "Buy European" approach to strategic autonomy; and a converging German-Italian couple, which is more focused on lightening regulation and striking new trade deals. 

Read moreEU leaders back major economic overhaul to counter pressure from US, China and Russia

How much of a sense of urgency is there when it comes to safeguarding strategic industries, energy, defence and financing of the 27-member EU's needs? This Old Continent feels caught in a superpower squeeze: between China, with its flood of cheap goods; the US, with its adversarial trade policy and its full-throttled support for Eurosceptic far-right parties; and Russia, which continues to pound Ukraine just as Washington signals the end of its historic role as Europe's defense shield. 

When Draghi was chair of the European Central Bank, he once assured that he would do "whatever it takes" to safeguard the continent's common currency. Markets believed him. For Europe circa 2026, what does "whatever takes" look like and who can deliver it? 

Here in Europe, the heads have started to roll. As journalists and prosecutors continue to speed-read their way through the more than 3 million documents dumped a week ago Friday in the Epstein files, the revelations have already led to resignations, sackings and criminal probes in Norway, France, the UK and beyond. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is hanging by a thread and he never even met Epstein.

Over in the US, former president Bill Clinton has been subpoenaed by a Congressional panel, but what about the current occupant of the White House and his commerce secretary, who visibly lied about never having seen Epstein again after 2005? In the age of echo chambers, does telling the truth ultimately matter?

Read moreUS Attorney General Bondi deflects questions, clashes with democrats over Epstein files

More broadly, will the Epstein files go down in history as the moment that made accountability great again, or be remembered as the bellwether of an irreversible erosion of the rules-based order?

Imagine having to mourn a loved one in secret. One month on, that seems to be the lot of many inside a shellshocked Iran, this after seeing the regime shut the internet and start shooting at unarmed protesters across the country in towns big and small. When the lights came back on, the Islamic Republic of Iran had got away with the very bloodbath that Donald Trump warned it not to carry out. 

While Washington's attention has instead shifted to nuclear negotiations with Tehran, the journalists at FRANCE 24's investigative unit have been hard at work on the testimony and images sent their way – with contacts risking their own lives by getting the word out. We show you an excerpt from their documentary "Iran, massacre under a blackout".

Watch moreExclusive: Iran, massacre under a blackout

You can sometimes win a war by annihilating your enemy. We ask our panel about the bloodbath, the subsequent arrests and if in a nation of 90 million people, Iran's clerics can simply annihilate dissent.

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Rochelle Ferguson.

Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party has turned the wobbly coalition she inherited back in October as Japan's first woman prime minister into a landslide win in snap elections, giving the 64-year-old admirer of late British maverick prime minister Margaret Thatcher enough leeway to reform the constitution and break with eight decades of pacifism. 

In a nation whose population is in decline, we ask why young Gen Z voters broke for the anti-immigrant, China-bashing nationalist and whether flag-waving is the way to go. Cue the conservative sweep in Thailand this past weekend. There, it's border tensions with Cambodia that upended the script. 

And then there is what Takaichi does with her endorsement by US President Donald Trump, who's preparing a spring visit to China, and a United States whose military presence remains vital for both Japan and South Korea. Washington is in two minds when it comes to defending Taiwan and keeping the peace in the Pacific. How volatile could it get in the region?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Rochelle Ferguson.

It's snowing in the Alps. Normal weather for February, you say? But cue the sighs of relief of organisers of the 25th Winter Olympics in Milan and the Dolomites resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo. Organisers of the next Games just over the border in the French Alps will take heart. Mother Nature has been fickle in recent years. 

As the US vice president and secretary of state attend the opening ceremonies, there's been plenty of media coverage of the flying in of federal immigration agents, the same who've been grabbing five-year-olds and shooting protesters in Minnesota. The ICE agents are there purely in an advisory role, but it throws the spotlight on the optics of what's ostensibly PM Giorgia Meloni's moment of glory. The only European leader invited to Donald Trump's inauguration a year ago must astutely calibrate between her far-right roots and Europe's interests as she hosts the planet. How will these Olympics play in times of testy transatlantic relations, especially ahead of next summer's World Cup in the United States?

More broadly, what legacy for the 2026 Winter Olympics? Which exploits and which characters will transcend the flag waving? And when the fortnight's over, how will the locals feel about having welcomed the world?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Daniel Whittington, Ilayda Habip, Delphine Liou.

It's moving day at the palace – or should we say moving night. The former prince Andrew exited Windsor Castle under the cover of darkness for his brother's private Sandringham estate in Norfolk. The latest document dump about disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein provided more lewd allegations around the former royal. 

Also out, but not yet stripped of his title, is ultimate Labour Party insider Peter Mandelson, who's under criminal investigation over the leaking of state secrets to an Epstein who had many friends and acquaintances, from the Kremlin to the Clintons, from far-left thinker Noam Chomsky to far-right agitator Steve Bannon. 

Read moreUK ex-US ambassador Peter Mandelson quits House of Lords amid Epstein scandal

Will the current occupant of the White House himself face a reckoning, or simply shrug off the latest allegations with a "see, they all do it" attitude to entitled elites that further fans the flames of populism?

Can the age of massive data dumps meet the promise of transparency, or overwhelm and cloud the issue of accountability for all?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Daniel Whittington, Ilayda Habip, Delphine Liou.

One month after the US captured Nicolas Maduro, is Washington trying its Venezuela template on Iran? Not the part where special forces swoop in for foreign leaders, but rather the part where the regime and its apparatus can stay, so long as Washington gets what it wants. In the case of Iran, maximum pressure and Donald Trump's initial promise to protesters that "help is on the way" seem to be morphing into art of the deal-style nuclear bargaining. 

We ask about this coming Friday's direct talks between the Iranian foreign minister and Trump's New York real estate buddy-cum-special envoy for hot zones Steve Witkoff, whose busy week started with a stop in Israel. How very different times these are from 2015, when the UN could still broker an Iran nuclear deal with all the permanent members of the Security Council. 

Today, despite sanctions, last June's US and Israeli strikes against nuclear facilities and most recently, a ferocious crackdown that's possibly left tens of thousands of Iranians dead, the clerics and the Revolutionary Guards still rule.

With all the upheaval in the region, what next for a traumatised nation and a region in flux?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Delphine Liou.

The official line these days out of China is that it's a stable partner "in an uncertain world." So what to make of the bombshell news out of Beijing? Xi Jinping has purged his top general Zhang Youxia, with accusations against the 75-year-old loyalist that range from corruption to leaking nuclear secrets to the US. We ask about the reasons and the timing, what with the move fuelling speculation that an invasion of Taiwan could now come sooner rather than later.

How soon? And with what pushback from a United States that's offering fresh armament for Taipei but not troop support, and from wary neighbours like Japan, where new nationalist Prime Minister Takaichi Sanai has taken a big gamble by calling a snap election for this coming Sunday.

More broadly, does this purge signal a very new chapter in the longest reign of China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Piera Rocco, Delphine Liou.