The Debate

It's much-needed backing from a key ally of Ukraine, along with welcome photo op for a president who's under pressure at home. After a gas deal with Greece, Volodymyr Zelensky is signing a 10-year military pact with France, far from Kyiv where a corruption scandal has brought down two ministers and has the main backer of his 2019 campaign on the run.

It's a welcome respite from the political storm back home and a timely morale boost for Ukraine, a nation that needs all the support it can get at a time when the US is scaling back its commitment to the continent, while Russia's advances in the east come with the nightly poundings targeting electricity supply and other critical infrastructure. 

What does the deal with France bring? Beyond fighter jet sales, can EU allies band together on defense? And what does a 10-year deal mean when there’s a presidential election here in 18 months, one where the pro-Kremlin far right currently leads in the polls?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Daniel Whittington, Ilayda Habip & Jean-Vincent Russo

A string of coups and the pushing out of former colonial power France in favour of Russian support haven't stopped insurgents from going from strength throughout the so-called coup belt from Burkina Faso to Niger. We ask about the blockade on Bamako that's made it perilous for fuel delivery trucks to reach the capital of landlocked Mali, and what it would take to repel the JNIM.

 

Mali has seen this movie before. The French intervened back in 2013, when insurgents tried to take the capital a first time. But that hero's welcome in Timbuktu for then-president François Hollande is now a distant memory. How do Malians take back their own country?

What's the alternative to what the jihadists are offering? And what's the spillover effect of potential failed states at the heart of the Sahel for the region, and for Europe?

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

Could the artificial intelligence boom already be running out of road? We examine the warning signs. To think that three short years ago, the commercial launch of ChatGPT took the world by storm. AI has since sparked a global race for cash, energy resources and data – all to feed the seemingly insatiable appetite of large language model computing systems.

With a few US companies dominating the AI race – and a US president who's all-in with billionaires – market watchers worry about investors tempted by the easy money of rising tech stocks at the expense of the entire rest of the economy. Is it a bubble? Is it about to burst?

And with what consequences? How should Europe and the rest of the world prepare? More broadly, is AI changing humanity and our world for better – or for worse?

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

From radical insurgent with a $10 million bounty on his head to a red carpet welcome at the White House, the rebranding of Syria's Ahmed al-Sharaa is now complete.

The former jihadist has become the first-ever Syrian president invited inside the Oval Office. We ask about the terms and conditions of a visit that surely seals a regional realignment on a scale unseen since the 1979 fall of the Shah of Iran. How much did backers Turkey and Saudi Arabia press for this moment?

Where does it leave Israel, who on the same day is getting a visit from the US president's son-in-law Jared Kushner to remind his hosts to play nice with the Turks during phase two of the Gaza peace initiative? Does this all mean that the same Donald Trump who campaigned against foreign interventions will wind up involving the United States more – not less – in the Middle East?

And where does it leave Syria, where the US still backs the Kurds in the fight against the Islamic State group and where Christian and Druze minorities have plenty of reason to doubt Sharaa's promise of guaranteeing their safety?

More broadly, how soon can the new masters of Damascus deliver a peace dividend to citizens still reeling from decades of dictatorship, corruption and civil war?

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

When it came to the Amazon, his predecessor was all for "chop, baby, chop". An easy act to follow if you're hosting the world for a climate summit. Since the return of Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, deforestation has continued but drastically slowed in what's by far the world's largest rainforest. But by bringing the United Nations COP30 summit to the Amazonian city of Belem, Lula is also drawing attention to Brazil's broader track record on the environment.

The South American powerhouse may boast of an electricity grid that's 90 percent powered by renewables, but last month it also approved drilling for offshore oil across from the mouth of the Amazon River.

Lula is defiant, arguing it's all with an eye to financing green investment and funding social programmes for the poor. Is his a balanced approach or a sellout?

One year after a presidential election where Donald Trump swept swing states and secured majorities in both houses of the US Congress, a first test has produced a radically different result. 34-year-old Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani has blown past establishment candidates for mayor of New York, unveiling his transition team this Wednesday. We ask about Mamdani's win and the highest turnout in the city's municipal elections in more than half a century. 

Read moreProgressive Democrat Zohran Mamdani wins New York City mayoral race

We also ask about wins for more moderate Democrats elsewhere in the US and whether Republicans should worry ahead of next year's Congressional midterms.

Donald Trump attributes the setback in part to the fact that he wasn't on the ballot. The US president may have a point: since returning to office, he has monopolised the airwaves. How do the TikTok skills of Zohran Mamdani measure up to the politics of outrage coming from the far right?

Will Trump double down on retribution? Will he send federal troops to more cities run by Democrats, including his native New York? More broadly, will democracy in America now grow more polarised, or will the centre eventually hold?

Protesters are fuming at Chinese e-commerce giant Shein electing the French capital as its debut point for a physical in-shop presence. We ask about behemoths that churn out clothes faster than we can scroll, Shein's choice of the iconic Right Bank department store BHV for its launch and how a new controversy fuels the feeling that this global orgy of consumerism is out of control: Shein is removing from its platform child-like sex dolls that fly in the face of French and EU laws against paedo-pornography. 

Shein's flooding of the market with ultra-fast fashion, often peddled by social media influencers, is just the latest iteration of an issue with globalisation's conveniences.

Supporters say companies like Shein make style affordable to all, but critics see them an existential threat to humanity's craftsmanship, not to mention the environment.

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

Is too much effort devoted to the planet's warming and not enough to helping humans adapt to the new normal? The Microsoft co-founder-cum-billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates is turning the heat up on activists traveling to the COP30, the annual UN climate summit this year in the Brazilian Amazon city of Belem.

We review the argument that the transition to cleaner energies is already bearing fruit, making the Paris Agreement projections of 2015 obsolete. Or, with coal and oil production still rising, is it too soon to take the foot off the gas of green investment?

In an age of echo chambers and slashed public spending, critics have seized on Gates's remarks as proof, they say, that climate change is a hoax – or, as is the case in Europe, to renew calls to roll back environmental norms in the name of competitiveness.

So, as insurance companies count the cost of rising sea levels, fiercer storms and deadlier fires, how to best invest in humanity's common future?

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

After launching a trade war with China, Donald Trump is now declaring a deal is at hand for a one-year truce. With nothing yet signed, we ask about the South Korean sit-down between the US president and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, promises of reduced tariffs and computer chip exports by the US, the easing of restrictions on rare earth minerals and a return to soybean imports by Beijing.

We also ask about the choreography of a shorter-than-expected one hour-and-40-minute meeting in South Korea, followed by Trump's decision to skip the regional APEC summit that followed. The US president will instead return to the White House for a Halloween trick-or-treat ceremony.

More broadly, will the United States remain committed to Asian allies, what with its troops permanently stationed in Japan and South Korea and its historic support for Taiwan and the Philippines? And is that compatible with hard-to-read great power bargaining?

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.

The whole world is watching 34-year-old Zohran Mamdani, whose army of Gen Z supporters have propelled the Democratic Socialist to heavy favorite to win next Tuesday's race for mayor of New York City. We ask about his promises of rent freezes and free buses and whether that's too radical for the world's financial capital.

We also ask whether the best way to break through polarised echo chambers is through moderation, as personified by Mamdani's closest rival, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo.

Plus we explore policy differences and age gaps, and whether, when it comes to Gen Z, New York City might be an outlier. As supporters of assassinated far-right activist Charlie Kirk will tell you, there's a whole demographic out there that's up for grabs, and not only in the United States.

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri and Guillaume Gougeon.