The Debate

Forget that France is without a government, forget illiberal winds, superpower tensions and the overseas wars. On Saturday, the City of Light welcomes the world for the grand reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral. 

How the planet has changed in the five years since Our Lady of Paris was destroyed by fire. The presence at the grand reopening of US president-elect Donald Trump can attest to that, further proof that Notre-Dame means so much to so many over the world. 

So what does it mean? A place of worship? An attraction in the bigger tourist playground that is Paris? A relic of history? A measure of timelessness? What does it mean today and what's the current evolution of that meaning? 

 

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Ilayda Habip, Elisa Amiri, Rebecca Gnignati 

For Michel Barnier, negotiating with the Tories will have seemed a breeze compared with his short stint as French prime minister. The EU’s former Brexit negotiator is on the cusp of watching his minority government fall to the hands of parliament, a first in this country since 1962.

It was always going to be an uphill battle to pass a budget while so far outnumbered by an opposition that goes from the far right to the far left. We will ask what the 73-year old conservative could have done differently, and whether it is all down to an unpopular president who hopes his political luck will carry him from Wednesday’s conclusion of a state visit to Saudi Arabia to Saturday’s reopening of Notre Dame without drawing too much attention during this major institutional crisis.

A crisis of Emmanuel Macron’s own making, argue critics. After seven years in power, the French president inexplicably called snap elections that instead of giving his center-right bloc a majority brought Marine Le Pen’s far right closer than ever to power. He still has got two years in power, so is too soon to ask if this marks the start of Macron’s twilight?

It took years for Bashar al-Assad’s forces to take back Syria’s second city. But it took only days for Islamist rebels to overrun Aleppo. Why has a conflict that has been effectively frozen for four years suddenly sprung back to life? What to make of Hezbollah, which says it won’t be sending help for now as it’s pinned down at home by a precarious truce with Israel?

What role for Assad-backers Russia and Iran? And what role for Turkey, which backs some of the rebel groups with an eye to pushing Syrian Kurdish forces away from its border? Recep Tayyip Erdogan last summer offered a deal with Damascus, which Assad turned down on the grounds that it would mean ceding the nominal sovereignty he has over a territory never really recaptured in eleven years.

Back then, it was the Arab Spring and the leader of a hereditary dynasty who looked ready to fall, but Assad proved predictions wrong. Could this time be different? If so, how?

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Habip. 

Is France broken? Is France broke? Marine Le Pen to join the left and bring down a minority government that was scrambling to plug France's spiraling budget deficit. What is the plan for the far-right leader of parliament’s largest opposition party?

We will ask about a crisis that has been brewing ever since Emmanuel Macron’s surprise call for snap elections backfired last July with a hung parliament that constitutionally cannot be dissolved again until summer. With next year's budget yet to be approved, there will not be a US-style shutdown, but it is anyone's guess how a caretaker government limps along with a spiraling deficit. 

Yes, the hangover from tax breaks and Covid-era subsidies has France borrowing at a higher cost than Greece … and with an opposition that wants no part of belt-tightening and neighbouring Germany also in political and economic turmoil, it is all of Europe that just might have a problem. 

 

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Elisa Amiri, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Ibip. 

Is it a mere lull? Or the first time in more than a year, can the Middle East point to genuine de-escalation? We ask about the timing of guns going mostly silent in Lebanon after both Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire. A ceasefire; not a peace treaty. Still, with Egypt now renewing moves to follow up with a truce in Gaza, we take stock of a region that’s still holding its breath.

At the centre of it all is the ultimate political survivor: Binyamin Netanyahu. But does Israel's longest-serving prime minister still need a forever war in Gaza to stave off inquiries into the failures of October 7 and his own corruption trial, where he has obtained another delay?

But it's about more than one man's fortunes. How much has the Middle East changed in the past 14 months? How much has it changed in 10 weeks of the heaviest fighting Lebanon has seen since 2006? What's left of the Iran-led axis of resistance? And what – if anything – will an incoming Trump administration change?

Produced by Aline Bottin, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Habip. 

Will this trial be remembered as France's reckoning with sexual violence in the digital age? Closing arguments are underway in the mass rape trial of 51 men who were invited over the internet to the home of Dominique Pelicot to assault his heavily sedated wife Gisèle repeatedly, over several years. The defendants come from all walks of life: some confess fully, while others insist they're not rapists, claiming they believed it was all part of a consensual sex game. 

The French government is now considering introducing the notion of consent into law. Is such a bill necessary? After two months of testimony in a trial that's drawn global attention, is the public more aware of the concept of toxic masculinity and how it’s perpetuated in today’s world? 

Awareness may be growing, but so is the backlash. Donald Trump's self-styled image as a "man's man" has made a return to traditional gender roles a winning campaign issue in the recent US election. How do we break through the echo chambers on this issue? 

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Guillaume Gougeon and Ilayda Habip.

Watch moreThe Pelicot case: Will it change French attitudes towards rape?

Is it about the man or the nation? The International Criminal Court’s indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has sparked global debate, highlighting just how much Israel and its longest-serving leader have lost international sympathy since the Hamas-led attacks on innocent civilians on October 7, 2023. As we examine the merits of the war crimes case, we also ask: are the reactions to Netanyahu a reflection on one man, or on a nation that has charted a controversial course in recent years? 

Netanyahu has doubled down against rivals abroad and at home, where he is already on trial for corruption. Now, he faces fresh turmoil over allegations of leaked or falsified intelligence seemingly aimed at shifting blame for the 101 hostages still unaccounted for in Gaza. Is the focus on his leadership, or does it expose a deeper shift within Israeli society? 

As Israel moves further to the right, we also explore the international dimension. With the return of Donald Trump to the White House, can Israel sustain its current trajectory? Or could it revert to the pre-October 7 strategy of the Abraham Accords, which prioritised regional normalisation over addressing the plight of Palestinians? 

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Guillaume Gougeon and Ilayda Habip.

With just two months to go until Donald Trump’s anticipated return to the White House, tensions are rising on multiple fronts amid the war in Ukraine. The Biden administration, in its final stretch, has eased restrictions on Ukrainian use of Atacms long-range missiles, approved the provision of landmines to Ukraine, and announced $4.7 billion in debt forgiveness for Kyiv. Meanwhile, Russia is ramping up nuclear threats. Although Washington has downplayed Ukrainian claims of Moscow's first-ever use of intercontinental ballistic missiles, the US was alarmed enough to briefly shut its embassy in Kyiv this week. 

The unease extends beyond Ukraine. Suspicions of sabotage to critical data cables in the Baltic Sea coincide with Finland and Sweden distributing war preparedness guides to their citizens. Is this all spiralling out of control, or is it a calculated lead-up to hard bargaining? And if the US steps back, is this the last opportunity to shape realities on the ground before borders are redrawn for good? 

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Guillaume Gougeon and Mélissa Kalaydjian.

Is it all part of a bigger plan, or has Donald Trump simply decided that cabinet picks no longer matter? What to make of a TV host for defence secretary, a vaccine sceptic for health secretary, an ex-pro wrestling executive for education chief and a Putin-friendly conspiracy theorist to head intelligence services? Not to mention a now former congressman under investigation to head the Justice Department.

Our panel tries to rise above the outrage du jour over conflicts of interest and competence issues to ask if the US president-elect is simply tapping into a deeper rage: rage against the establishment; rage among many voters that earned him a return to the White House. Do Americans now actually want the gutting of the institutions that run the world's most powerful nation?

And how far does that rage against the system go on this side of the Atlantic? For those who like the welfare state, it's all about coming up with answers fast. 

Will history remember Rio as the swansong gathering of the US-led world order as we now know it? The curtain is coming down on Joe Biden's last G20 summit – his last big global gathering before the return of Donald Trump to the White House. The outgoing US president, who turns 82 on Wednesday, is slightly older than the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund; all institutions that evolved on Washington’s watch. The neoliberal rules of the global game are often referred to as the Washington consensus.

But already there are clubs to rival that consensus, including the BRICS, whose most recent summit was in Russia, and bids to bypass the US dollar as the world's currency. Trump himself is a convert to crypto and is vowing to ratchet up tariffs. Are we seeing the end of an era? 

Amid foreboding in Rio, we ask about the G20's bid to frontload financing on global poverty and climate change. Can the rest of the world "Trump-proof" common rules to rein in the excesses of globalisation?