The Debate

It's been 10 years since the attack on a very French institution: the targeting of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and the murder of 12 people, including five cartoonists and two police officers. That attack would launch a wave of jihadist terror on French soil and spark a slogan that would go global. 

In 2025, what does it mean to post "Je suis Charlie" - I am Charlie? How has that slogan evolved since that massive demonstration in Paris, four days after the Charlie Hebdo attack, where some 40 world leaders attended and where in a very rare moment of national unity, crowds even cheered the police?

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayd Habip. 

Elon Musk really doesn't like British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. This Monday saw Starmer hit back at Musk after days of silence, saying the world's richest man was spreading "lies and misinformation" with his attacks on the British leader and one of his ministers on X. More broadly, what is Europe to do about X owner Musk's trolling of sitting governments and support for the far right?

Elon Musk is no longer just the billionaire boss of Tesla and SpaceX. He has been tapped for what is billed as a cabinet position by Donald Trump. He's no longer a private citizen and so it is all the more surprising that he's using his social medium X to furiously slam sitting governments in Britain and Germany and endorse far-right leaders and tropes.

Do not feed the troll, says the German chancellor. But as Olaf Scholz himself admits, Musk's unique positioning presents new challenges. Is the Trump whisperer inciting hate? Is it foreign meddling on the part of the incoming US administration? How do European leaders react?

And what do Musk's invectives signal for relations between Washington and Europe after Inauguration Day on January 20?

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Habip. 

Guilty verdicts for all. A court in southern France has sentenced Dominique Pelicot along with the 50 co-defendants he invited over the internet into the family home to rape his drugged wife. The 72-year-old pensioner got the maximum 20 years behind bars, but his co-accused received lighter sentences than those demanded by the prosecution.

We ask what the last few months have revealed, first about the courage of ex-wife Gisèle Pelicot who opted to go public. She attended every day of the three-and-a-half month-long trial, saying shame was for her abusers – less than a third of whom expressed remorse in their closing statements. 

Is the verdict a triumph for victims the world over? Or does it challenge the presumption that after #MeToo, women's rights can only progress? After all, the evidence was posted online years before police or the victim caught wind of what was playing out in the sleepy Provence village of Mazan. 

Produced by Aline Bottin, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Habip. 

The killing in the heart of Moscow of Vladimir Putin's general in charge of chemical weapons comes on the eve of the Russian president's traditional marathon end-of-year press conference. Putin is so far yet to comment on his country's precipitated drawdown from Syria after the fall of Assad, but he's sure to opine on the death of under-sanctions General Igor Kirillov, what with the arrest of an Uzbek suspect who's confessed to working for Ukraine.

Russia may seem exposed and weak, but time is not on Volodymyr Zelensky's side. The Ukrainian president is making the rounds at NATO headquarters, as the Alliance prepares for the return of a Donald Trump who's talked up a deal to end the war; an agreement that could redraw national boundaries in Moscow's favour.

Simply put, which is weaker: a Ukraine exhausted by a decade of fighting, or a Russia that's had to pivot to a wartime economy and still ask for Iranian drones and North Korean reinforcements? In the middle, there's Europe, which is divided over how much it’s going to have to invest in assistance and defence spending for what lies ahead.

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri and Ilayda Habip.

Just as the leader of the Islamist-led alliance that toppled Syria's Assad announced he was shedding his wartime alias Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, can Ahmed al-Sharaa's HTS shed its past as the al-Nusra Front, a hardline offshoot of al Qaeda? FRANCE 24's Wassim Nasr was one of just a handful of journalists to interview Sharaa on Monday.

For the president-elect of the United States, it was Turkey that toppled Assad. Donald Trump calls it a "hostile takeover", this as the outgoing Biden administration reportedly sounds the alarm over a potential Turkish invasion of northern Syria to oust US-backed Kurdish militias. Those same militias guard IS group prisoners for the West.

In the middle, Europe is sending dignitaries and diplomats to both Ankara and Damascus. When is the right time for normalisation? How much has the map of the region been redrawn?

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.

Read moreExclusive: Syria’s de facto new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa calls for lifting of sanctions

Will it be dozens, hundreds or thousands killed? Mayotte's worst cyclone in 90 years has flattened homes, knocked out power and cut phone service, leaving faraway loved ones in limbo as they desperately try to get in touch with those in the French Indian Ocean department. We ask why Chido proved so devastating and track the storm as it now hits Mozambique and the nearby Comoro Islands.

With 77 percent of the population below the poverty line and so many shantytowns, it’s little wonder that so many homes got flattened. Mayotte is a magnet for asylum seekers and economic migrants and serves as a capsule of the demographic pressures that France and Europe face. The far right won a seat there in the last legislative elections. What response will we see in the wake of this disaster?

And what solutions are there going forward? This as the planet experiences both a rising population and rising temperatures; the kind that environmentalists say lead precisely to this sort of extreme weather occurrence.

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri and Ilayda Habip.

Paris got 46 hours of sunlight in November. The weather wasn’t particularly cold, it was only slightly wetter than usual, but definitely grey. As for France's political climate, the deadlock's enough to make the natives want to hibernate.

Emmanuel Macron to name his fourth prime minister of 2024 after a divided parliament ousted the minority government of veteran conservative Michel Barnier. After a surprise call of snap elections, the French president then waited nearly two months to name Barnier and try to double down on a core of centrists and conservatives to pass a budget.  

With the country constitutionally unable to return to the polls to replace the hung parliament until summer, will Macron try to change tack and offer concessions to the oppositions, even attempt a German-style grand coalition? France is an outlier in Europe: when there’s a majority in the legislature, its president has outsized powers with the ability to micro-manage day-to-day affairs.   

Can the French do compromise? The far left and far right have their eyes on the big prize, the next presidential election in 2027 and demand purity tests of their faithful and allies. But then, how do you get a budget over the line? And does the system safeguard against illiberal methods. One week after South Korea’s president tried and failed at martial law, as the West prepares for the return of Donald Trump … how will France’s democracy weather what’s ahead? 

 

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip. 

Taking advantage of a brief power vacuum or are we witnessing a scramble for Syria? As Islamist-led rebels savour their surprise swoop on Damascus, foreign powers are seizing the moment to either clean house or settle scores: Turkey targeting Kurds in the north, the US hitting Isis positions in the east and Israel firing on all cylinders in a bid to debilitate Iran-backed military installations. 

Assad never bent and so he broke, but for more than a decade, Syria’s seemingly immovable strongman could rely on Russia, powerful neighbour Iran, and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah. 

Supreme leader Ali Khamenei blaming Assad’s fall on a US-Israeli plot and, without naming it, Turkey. How will Tehran react, particularly if the feels under threat?

Will the dust settle or is there more to come in the region?

 

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Annarosa Zampaglione. 

Refugees, asylum seekers, Syrians in exil: the return to Syria begins with people who have given up on returning now back on their home soil.

Syria after Assad starts to take shape this Tuesday December 10, with a people still trying to come to terms with the end of the Assad regime that has ruled for over 50 years. 

Europe starts to close its doors: states that have welcomed Syrian refugees are now stopping processing asylum requests. But does the end of the Assad regime mean it’s safe to go back?

The world watches and other states are calculating their stance as a new Syria starts to emerge.

 

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Annarosa Zampaglione.

And suddenly, they were gone. For more than half-a-century, the Assads ruled Syria with an iron fist, seeing off uprisings, plots and a civil war. But in less than two weeks, encountering little resistance, an Islamist-led rebellion managed to swoop into Aleppo, Hama, Homs and now Damascus.

We will ask why, why now, and what to make of Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the onetime jihadist who has groomed a more moderate image and made alliances with Syria’s other rebel factions, including the Kurds.

Why the defeat for Bashar al-Assad now exiled to Moscow? What’s next for a former Ottoman dependency-cum-French protectorate that has only known dynasty and dictatorship for most of its citizens’ lives?

 

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Annarosa Zampaglione.