The Debate

It's the first day on the job for the new French prime minister, and the long-announced date for a Yellow Vests-style day of protest against austerity. Sébastien Lecornu is taking over from predecessor François Bayrou, who also passed on the bigger political hot potato – a budget that still needs passing. Bayrou was undone by an opposition-led parliament.  

The 39-year old Sébastien Lecornu is unknown to many, yet he's been in every government since Emmanuel Macron's second month in office back in 2017. Wednesday's Yellow Vests-inspired "Block everything" movement started on social media, adopted by the hard left, and is part of the pushback against further cuts to the welfare state in a nation still brooding over pension reform, the scrapping of the wealth tax and –more broadly – the disconnect between elites and the disenfranchised.

Read moreCan Macron’s quiet power broker Sébastien Lecornu navigate France’s fractured politics as PM?

Will naming a loyalist further stoke resentment against the term-limited Macron? Or can his quiet man succeed where previous heads of government have failed in striking deals with a hostile parliament? Lecornu may promise a new approach, but can Macron himself change, and resist the temptation to override eventual compromises?

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rachael Griffiths and Juliette Brown.

In 2017, he blew up the system. Now, can he keep it together? France's Emmanuel Macron had never run for public office before becoming president. And for a while, he seemed exempt from the crude reality of political horse-trading. Yet now, the same Macron who reigned supreme when he smashed the big tent centre-left and centre-right parties eight years ago is running out of road in his second term, with his baffling decision last year to dissolve parliament backfiring miserably and an even stronger opposition ousting the 47-year-old president's second prime minister in under a year on Monday.

Macron had hoped that with Michel Barnier and then François Bayrou, he could stay in his comfort zone with a coalition that runs from traditional conservatives to the centre. But Monday’s vote at the National Assembly wasn’t even close. That vote was triggered to anticipate the bruising austerity budget battle that's still to come, not to mention this Wednesday’s Yellow Vests-inspired day of protest. 

Beyond the choice of Bayrou's successor – now confirmed as outgoing defence minister Sébastien Lecornu – is it about Macron himself, the leader who promised Jupiter-like strength from on high and who now has to make concessions, or a democracy that's no longer so unique on a continent rife with populist pressures and fragmented political forces?

Produced by Theophile Vareille, Elisa Amiri, Juliette Brown.

French MPs voted to topple the government of Prime Minister François Bayrou on Monday after the PM surprised even his own allies by calling a confidence vote to resolve a months-long deadlock over his austerity budget. Bayrou will tender his resignation on Tuesday morning, plunging France into fresh political turmoil.

Security guarantees for Ukraine have been agreed at the Paris meeting of the "coalition of the willing" to help Ukraine in its existential fight against Vladimir Putin's Russia. But how will Moscow respond?

French President Emmanuel Macron said "we want fair, long-term peace" as he confirmed the announcement alongside Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky. The latter, at war since Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, thanked the coalition partners for their backing and called for a swift and just end to the war.

Ukraine's independence remains at stake, and protecting that going forward is the aim. No one thinks that Putin's quasi-imperial and wholly illegal ambition to capture the whole of Ukraine will suddenly stop if peace is reached.

The guarantees, Macron said, include land, air and sea security and coalition members are ready to send troops if there is a peace deal to defend. If not, then it's a sanctions package against Moscow.

The extent of the role of Donald Trump's America is yet to be revealed. A video call was held with the mercurial US president after the coalition's meeting. 

Produced by Mark Owen, Alessandro Xenos, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

China has staged an impressive display of its military might to mark its Victory Day, a commemoration of the end of World War II, which Beijing couches as its defeat of Japanese forces and – crucially – fascism.

Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, as head of the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army, spending on arms has more than doubled – some say quadrupled.

And there was a clear message to the rest of the world in the display of weapons paraded through Tiananmen Square.

Produced by Mark Owen, Alessandro Xenos, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

As Europe goes back to school, it already had plenty on its plate. Now – on top of inflation, extreme weather, the AI race, Russian threats and a no-longer-so-friendly United States, it's got a new worry: France.

After last year's baffling dissolution that resulted in a hung parliament, the French prime minister's now got six days to convince the opposition parties that hold his fate in their hands that he was right to preempt a raucous showdown over his austerity budget and call a vote of confidence next Monday. Like with Emmanuel Macron a year ago, François Bayrou didn’t have to put his neck on the line. But he did.

And if all goes to script next Monday, the centrist 74-year-old mainstay of French politics will have to make way for Macron's fifth prime minister since his re-election in 2022. Why the seemingly self-inflicted crisis? What are the president's options? The far left and far right want the term-limited Macron to resign. Is it about the man or the system?

Next week’s vote is only the start of it. Trade unions have latched onto a Yellow Vests-style day of action called for September 10. Where it will lead? It's hard to say, in a nation where critics quip that citizens prefer revolution to reform. We ask about a country that fared better than most during Covid but never shut the tap after on stimulus spending. Rising borrowing costs on French debt show that for markets and jittery neighbours, it's time to pay the piper.

Produced by François Picard, Alessandro Xenos, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

"Yes, it was Russian troops that launched an unprovoked invasion – but it's the West that started the war in Ukraine." That's the long-repeated line spun again this Monday by Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in China. Repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it, goes the saying. But for Putin, this founding myth story is not a myth at all.

Tried and true Kremlinologists insist that the ex-KGB agent genuinely feels grievance and genuinely believes in greater Russia's manifest destiny – a right to expand steeped in nostalgia and mysticism.

After a summer of chatter about venues and incentives for still hypothetical direct Russia-Ukraine peace talks, we ask about the mindset in Moscow and elsewhere across the 11 time zones of the Russian Federation, and about a traditional NATO leader – the US – whose mixed messages fuel uncertainty over its loyalties and embolden all those in the West who buy Putin's line.

Produced by François Picard, Alessandro Xenos, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

What's the US doubling of tariffs on India really all about? The Trump administration insists it just wants India to stop buying, then reselling, discounted Russian crude oil to bypass sanctions over Ukraine. New Delhi's imports of crude have indeed soared, but is that the only reason? Supporters of Kyiv say they wish Washington applied the same zeal to others like Turkey, not to mention the shadow fleets that ship Russian fossil fuels.

We ask about New Delhi's muted reaction and why relations have soured between kindred political spirits Narendra Modi and Donald Trump. Back in April, US Vice President JD Vance visited the prime minister in the company of his wife of Indian origin and their children.

And as relations between New Delhi and Washington sour, it just so happens that Modi's packing his bag for his first trip in seven years to that even bigger importer of Russian oil: China. We ask about Sunday's Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin and just how far India could pivot towards its neighbour and rival to the north.

Produced by Ilayda Habip, Aurore Laborie, Maya Yataghène, and Charles Wente. 

How's the United States' 249-year-old experiment in democracy going? On this show, we've discussed how the long-vaunted system of checks and balances is being tested by a president who's made a grab for more power than any US leader since the Second World War. 

Does that executive power extend to firing the first Black woman ever appointed to the US Federal Reserve's board of governors? Ostensibly it's because Donald Trump wants his way on a malleable central bank that would lower interest rates at his command. But why single out Lisa Cook?

Watch moreTrump orders dismissal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook

Similarly, it’s in the name of lowering the crime rate that the US president is bent on deploying federal troops to major cities. But is it also because the likes of Chicago, Washington DC and Baltimore are opposition strongholds whose mayors just happen to be African American?

Watch moreHow accurate are Trump's claims about crime in Washington DC?

More broadly, when Trump signs executive orders that reverse affirmative action measures, feels the need to make English the official language of the land and enables manhunts for foreigners who follow the legal path to residency and citizenship, is it simply another nativist swing – the kind that Americans have seen before – or, in a nation of immigrants, a whole new direction?

Produced by Ilayda Habip, Aurore Laborie, Alessandro Xenos and Charles Wente. 

Humans enjoying the suffering of others is as old as the ancient Romans baying for blood when they would send in the lions at the Colosseum. Now though, the mob seems to have moved online. Just as Donald Trump threatens to slam nations that try to regulate the World Wide Web, France is coming to grips with last week's death of 46-year-old online personality Raphaël Graven, who went by the name of Jean Pormanove or JP. He died after 12 days of a marathon livestream where viewers were encouraged to contribute to keep the broadcast going.

We ask about the death of the streamer who earned a living by subjecting himself to verbal and sometimes physical abuse and about the platform where he broadcast: Curaçao-registered, Australian-based Kick, which was founded in 2022 after gaming platform Twitch tightened its moderation. In this case, the antics and abuse had been flagged. Yet after a brief suspension, the channel returned and the show went on. What does this story say about the world we live in?

Read moreFrance to sue Australian platform Kick for 'negligence' after livestream death

Is it about the profiteers or the otherwise ordinary people – mostly men – who watched, everyone from loners to football stars? 

Produced by Ilayda Habip, Aurore Laborie, Alessandro Xenos and Charles Wente.