The Debate

Time is not on Volodymyr Zelensky's side. Ukraine's president is on a tour of five European cities in two days as he seeks the green light for longer-range missile strikes inside Russia from NATO allies. In a week that has seen his side lose two key towns in the Donbas region, fate seems to be conspiring against Zelensky as Hurricane Milton keeps Joe Biden away from a now-scrapped summit of Kyiv's allies in Germany.

With November 5 fast approaching and US voters' enthusiasm for backing Ukraine waning, how does Kyiv handle the prospect of an eventual return of Donald Trump to the White House?

A new book by Watergate journalist Bob Woodward purports to shed more light on the cosy relationship between the Republican candidate and the master of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, who Trump has referenced more than ever in upbeat terms on the campaign trail.

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Annarosa Zampaglione. 

Here in France, the flood waters are rising as the remnants of Storm Kirk dump biblical amounts of rain. But that's just a drop in the bucket compared with what the southeastern United States faces. Hurricane Milton is forcing the evacuation of 5.5 million Florida residents, with President Joe Biden warning this could become the storm of the century.

Even more dramatic is that Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and beyond are still reeling from the US's deadliest storm since 2005, with Hurricane Helene killing at least 230 people and causing billions in destruction.

Now is not the time for partisan politics, or is it? Democrats accuse Republicans of a mass disinformation campaign about the rescue and cleanup effort from Helene, while Donald Trump doubles down on accusations that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris funnelled money to charities that help migrants.

Just how much will Mother Nature be on the ballot on November 5? More broadly, there is a populist backlash on both sides of the Atlantic against carbon-cutting policies. According to Hungary's Viktor Orban, France's Marine Le Pen and Germany's far right, those policies punish the pocketbooks of the middle classes while taking away individual freedoms.

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Annarosa Zampaglione. 

When does escalation morph into overreach? On October 8, the one-year anniversary of the first Hezbollah rockets fired on Israel, the IDF is announcing the killing of another top-ranking Hezbollah commander – the heir apparent to Hassan Nasrallah – and the deployment of a fourth division to southern Lebanon.

Militarily, the Israelis have so far been wildly successful, neutralising much of the enemy's leadership and thereby cashing in on years of painstaking intelligence work. But what is the precise objective of it all?

After flattening Gaza for a year, Israel has already forced an estimated 1.2 million Lebanese to flee their homes. To what end? Israelis employ the adage that to make peace, you first need war. We ask our panel if that makes sense, as the world waits for Israel's response to direct rocket attacks by Hezbollah's patron Iran.

And does this escalation serve the interests of Israel's allies? In the United States, talk of brokering a truce alongside France has gone quiet. Is Joe Biden or Binyamin Netanyahu driving policy in Washington?

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Annarosa Zampaglione. 

It was an unspeakable terror attack that succeeded: succeeded in shock value, succeeded in triggering a massive overreaction that has appalled the planet, succeeded in stoking an escalation that's drawn in the whole region. Fortunately, not everyone is hell-bent on an all-out clash of civilisations in the Middle East.

On the anniversary of the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, at a time when public opinion in Israel supports the widening of the campaign into Lebanon and retaliation against Iran, we put some simple questions to a panel that instead wants to find the path to peaceful co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians.

Where to start? How to address and process the genuine fear felt by both sides? And what can the international community do? 

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati, Ilayda Habip and Annarosa Zampaglione.

Watch moreOctober 7 attacks: Israel's intelligence failures

As Israel ponders its response to Iran, as allies urge restraint, as battles targeting Tehran proxies rage in Lebanon, let's begin with a simple fact of geography: Iran and Israel don’t share a common border. Since October 8, Tehran has been touting a so-called axis of resistance; what Israelis brand a ring of fire, with Iranian-backed militants in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen and Syria ... to which the US would add Iraq.

With the past two weeks of military successes, are we seeing a short run that restores a measure of aura for Israeli might, or something more profound that could deal a blow to these non-state actors and upend the region's balance in ways unseen since the 1979 Iranian revolution? 

One can look at Middle East rivalries and alliances through the prism of Israel's relations with its neighbours, but also through the up-and-down Sunni-Shia divide.

In the middle are the likes of Jordan, whose military shot down Iranian missiles on Tuesday night. Its own population sees no good outcome in the current spike in tensions. With the US and Europe ineffective in stopping this spiral the past 12 months, is there any bold initiative that can turn the current nightmare into a positive dynamic?

After a string of setbacks and humiliations that include the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon, Iran has fired its long-range missiles directly at Israel. As Binyamin Netanyahu and his generals ponder their next move, there are obvious targets and huge unknowns.

First, the pager attacks of two weeks ago on Hezbollah command became a bombing campaign that triggered the mass displacement of Lebanese civilians. Then came signs of growing incursions into Lebanon and now direct confrontation on a whole new scale between Israel and Iran.

Since October 7 of last year, US diplomacy has been in overdrive to prevent an out-of-control regional war. Can an ageing lame duck president be heard above the din of blaming and brinkmanship? If not, then who?

It's only the second time that Iranian missiles have rained down on Israel. Tehran's pushback comes as no surprise to François Picard's panel after a string of humiliations that included last week's assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the targeting of the militant group's top commanders. Will the response beget more retaliation? Who to stop the spiral, with the United States currently in a state of limbo ahead of its presidential election?

Seventy-two hours on from the bombing of Beirut and the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader and figurehead of the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, Israeli air strikes have continued relentlessly on three fronts: in Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen. Israel's military thinks it has Hezbollah on the ropes, assassination after assassination, with the senior chain of command effectively wiped out according to the US. The Hamas leader in Lebanon was killed this Monday. Central Beirut was hit for the first time too, with the leaders of another Palestinian militant group killed there.

Israel's opposition leader and former defence minister Benny Gantz says this is a moment of opportunity that can weaken what he called Iran's ring of fire with proxies surrounding his country. 

According to reports in The Washington Post, Israel has told Washington it is planning a limited ground operation in Lebanon.

We analyse the many questions of where this conflict stands, the humanitarian situation for almost a million displaced Lebanese, and where the conflict could be heading.

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Habip.

Ceasefire or all-out war? While Israel's prime minister headed to UN Week in New York, his office stated that Binyamin Netanyahu had not even started considering a Franco-American plan for a 21-day truce with Hezbollah. Word of the plan was greeted with immediate pushback from hawks within Netanyahu's right-wing cabinet.

As Israeli jets continue to pound Lebanon, as top brass talk up the potential for a ground invasion, Hezbollah and its main backer Iran are more circumspect: they are still reeling from last week's exploding electronic devices and the killing of three of the militant group's top commanders. They would gladly consider an all-in-one US plan to wind up fighting both in Gaza and on Lebanon's border. 

The question remains: what are Israel's goals going forward? Has it weakened Hezbollah enough? Has it restored an aura of regional might that first teetered with its inconclusive 2006 war with Hezbollah and then shattered last October 7 when Hamas attacked from Gaza? Can a prime minister who probably faces an inquiry over Gaza when the guns go silent keep up a perpetual state of war? And is Lebanon doomed to forever remain a battleground for all the region's proxy wars?

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Mélissa Kalaydjian.

Winter is coming. So are the US elections. So how about diplomacy? It's UN Week in New York and before heading to Washington, Ukraine's president is trying to rally support for what he's branded his "victory plan". How much support and how much leverage can he expect?

On the battlefield, Ukraine is on the backfoot in the brutal battle for Pokrovsk in the east, but has scored a huge moral boost with its cross-border incursion into Kursk. We bring you an exclusive FRANCE 24 report from that Russian region.

And of course, we ask our panel if any deal can be struck, whoever the next occupant of the White House is and whether it is all down to who sits at the Kremlin. 

Read moreExclusive: On the ground in Russian territory held by Ukrainian forces

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Mélissa Kalaydjan.