The Debate

One month after the stunning assassination of the brother of an anti-gangland activist, French President Emmanuel Macron is returning to the Mediterranean port for an update on the government's plan to win back the streets and offer hope to fed-up citizens of France's second-largest city. The whole reason Amine Kessaci became an activist was the earlier murder of his older half-brother, who got mixed up with the wrong crowd.

The unsolved murder of 20-year-old Mehdi Kessaci – who was training to become a police officer – bears the hallmarks of a calling card from the narcos. The lore of Marseille as a hub for traffickers extends back centuries, long before Hollywood glamourised the French Connection heroine smugglers in the 1970s. But it's just one of many European ports of entry for cannabis and cocaine.

Cocaine will further flood the market, now that the United States is blowing suspected smuggler boats that head its way out of the water. The drug is cheaper and increasingly in demand. There lies an essential question: is the onus on cartels or consumers? We ask what today's supply and demand of narcotics says about us and our societies in 2025.

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

It was the worst of humanity, and the best of humanity. What kind of a father-son duo decides to go shooting at a gathering that's come together to celebrate the Jewish festival of light? We ask about the motives and circumstances of the Bondi Beach terror attack, and the heroism of a Syrian-born street vendor who took bullets to the shoulder while disarming one of the gunmen.

Read more'Genuine hero': Bystander tackles alleged gunman during Bondi Beach mass shooting

The amateur video of the incident illustrates not a clash of civilisations, but a clash of selflessness and nihilism. Nihilism and the merchants of hate from all sides seem to thrive in this digital age, where messages of hate seem to travel much faster than messages of love. What's the answer?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Andrew Hilliar.

It turns out that it's not enough to stage peace signings. Half a million people are displaced as fighting rages along the border between Thailand and Cambodia, a resurgence of July's five-day conflict that Donald Trump counts as one of the eight wars in eight months he's ended. We ask why the return to fighting has occurred and examine the root causes of a dispute that's more than a century old and seems to require more than a stroke of the pen to settle. First, who to broker a cessation of hostilities now? 

This as the old guard on both sides enjoy free rein: Cambodia's Hun Sen, who's officially no longer head of government but whose shadow looms large, and Thai generals who have a habit of taking the lead in times of crisis. 

As for the Thai prime minister, he's otherwise engaged. Anutin Charnvirakul has paid a late-night visit to the king, followed by his strongest hint yet that he'll soon move up elections scheduled for March. We ask why and where it all leads. 

Produced by François Picard, Charles Wente, Rebecca Gnignati, Ilayda Habip & Jean-Vincent Russo

Will history remember this as the day the planet started to rein in big tech? Australia is firing the first shot by banning under-16s from platforms and social media that include giants such as Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. We of course ask if rebellious teens will make light work of the ban. More broadly, is this the day regulators start treating merchants of scrolling the way they do tobacco and drinks giants: like businesses with a penchant for encouraging addiction?

In tech, profits can be measured in data – often our personal data – and traffic. The longer users stay engaged, the more can be billed to advertisers – any advertisers, even scammers. 

A report back in June by Reuters found that Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, made a whopping 10 percent of its revenue from scammers in 2024 – scammers that sometimes use forced labour to cultivate potential victims. 

We ask about the will to crack down on cyber crime and, more broadly, to regulate a "views at all costs" business model, especially when big tech is so beholden to American billionaire tech bros – who certainly have a friend in Washington these days.

Produced by François Picard, Charles Wente, Rebecca Gnignati, Ilayda Habip & Jean-Vincent Russo

Europe is weighing its words after Washington's publication of an official policy paper that warns the Old Continent is under threat of "civilisational erasure", with fading powers overrun by migrants. It’s the logical follow-up to Vice President JD Vance's admonishments back in February at the Munich Security Conference, one that goes far beyond the unexplained absence of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at last week's NATO foreign ministers' meeting.

Read more'They're decaying': Trump recycles far-right tropes about European decline

Are we seeing an irrational about-face on historical ties with the continent, or is the real outlier the last 80 years, when Washington took it upon itself to ensure Europe's defence in the name of fighting Soviet expansion? Before that, the US was a much more isolationist nation. 

Our panel scrutinises the premise that Europe is in economic and moral decline, how it's adapting to this wild swing in superpower alliances and whether it's got what it takes to fend for itself. 

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.

It was exactly one year ago that a lightning offensive reached its ultimate conclusion. Syria saw the fall of Bashar al-Assad, ending over five decades of his family's dictatorial regime in a blitz that stunned the world. In Damascus, celebrations erupted in Umayyad Square, as Syrians emerged from 13 years of brutal civil war, marking a moment of both relief and disbelief.

In the chaos that followed, Assad fled to Moscow and former jihadist Ahmed al-Sharaa, now the interim president, took the reins. His charm offensive has seen him meet with world leaders and even speak at the United Nations, presenting a new face of Syria.

However, the year since has been fraught with challenges. Sectarian violence in Latakia and Tartous, skirmishes in the south, bombings in Damascus and tensions with Kurdish forces in the northeast have all threatened stability. While Syrians begin returning to a country unrecognisable from its former self, questions remain: Can Syria rebuild? What will become of its minorities? Have we seen enough in terms of transitional justice? And with an economy still in tatters, can the country recover from the horrors of the past?

Produced by Théophille Vareille, Elisa Amiri, Riham Mahir.

When should a soldier disobey an order? The US president and his Pentagon chief are doubling down on operations to sink alleged drug boats without summation in the Caribbean and the Pacific. The pair pushed back on a Washington Post report asserting that back in September, Pete Hegseth's orders led to a follow-up strike on a vessel, killing all remaining survivors. Among the issues are whether the interested parties could face war crimes charges.

US War Department footage can make this look like a video game, but there are real human beings assassinated in these images – without trial, without warning. Already the family of one Colombian fisherman killed in September has launched legal action. Are these war crimes? And is this a war?

Drug cartels are criminal syndicates, not nation states or insurgencies. On that score, Donald Trump's war on drugs is hard to read. Between pinning the blame on Venezuela's leader and pardoning Honduras's former president, who was actually serving time in the US for cocaine trafficking, what's Washington’s campaign in the Americas really all about?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Daniel Whittington, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

A peace plan allegedly made in Moscow, a week of furious scrambling to dial it back by Ukraine and its European allies and now it's back to the Kremlin for Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff, flanked only by the US president's son-in-law Jared Kushner and an interpreter. Have negotiations in Florida moved the needle back in Kyiv's favor? How hard – or soft – can the bargaining be?

Is Witkoff really Putin's puppet, as suggested last week by French newspaper Libération? Beyond last week's leaks that saw the political novice coaching the Russians on how to handle Trump, can this friend of the US president from his New York real estate days make something of the current White House's "art of the deal" approach to trading war for commercial ventures?

Read morePutin accuses Europeans of sabotaging peace efforts ahead of US talks on Ukraine

With facts on the ground slowly swinging in Moscow's favour, what's Russia's incentive to compromise when it's pounding critical infrastructure nightly and now claims to have taken the key eastern city of Pokrovsk after an 18-month siege? What say allies, what with Putin talking deals with Washington while serving up fresh threats of war against Europe?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

Why is Nigeria in the throes of a kidnapping epidemic? Sometimes depicted as terrorists, other times as bandits, attackers have targeted three schools inside of a week, leading some to compare the abductions with the 2014 Chibok attacks by the jihadists of Boko Haram. We do our comparison and revisit the same question as a decade ago – why would any human being abduct children; in some cases nursery school children?

It's an ordeal for the victims and their families, and bad timing for Africa's most populous nation, what with the Trump administration threatening military intervention over what it calls genocide against Christians. How does the government of Bola Tinubu handle the sudden pressure from the Evangelical right in Washington?

Watch moreWhat's behind Nigeria's mass kidnapping and security crisis?

More broadly, how to address insecurity in Nigeria, a nation where locals feel abandoned by the state and some instances feel they have to choose between mounting their own vigilante self-defence groups and striking deals to allow their attackers grazing rights for cattle and access to water?

The third option is fleeing for good from the impoverished north. But with what consequences?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that France is to reintroduce a national military service. Young people will be taken into the military, trained for a period of around a year and paid €800 a month. The programme will be open to all, and voluntary. 

Macron made this historic announcement at an army barracks in the Isère region, surrounded by young people already in uniform. The reason for this reintroduction of military service, according to the French president, is clear: the growing threat from Russia.

Is Macron's decision a necessary one, or a worrying step towards sending France's youth to fight?

Produced by Mark Owen, Rebecca Gnignati, Charles Wente, Ilayda Habip & Jean-Vincent Russo