The Debate

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. 

It will soon be two years since Israel endured its worst day of bloodshed and terror in its history. At the time here in France, home to Europe's largest Jewish community, a majority expected and even supported a forceful reaction. Nearly two years on, the sympathy has long waned: yes, Hamas still holds hostages but public opinion has long turned, long before a summer of daily images of desperate Gazans braving bullets to reach aid distribution points and the United Nations now formally labelling the situation as a famine. Is it a tipping point? Yes and no.

Traditional Western allies are certainly banding together to up the pressure on Israel over its stranglehold on Gaza and the increased destruction of Palestinian livelihoods in the West Bank, but all Benjamin Netanyahu needs is a single ally, the strongest one, and he's got it: the United States.

To French President Emmanuel Macron's coalition of countries ready to recognise a Palestinian state at UN Week next month, the new US ambassador to France replies that Paris is stoking anti-Semitism. If Washington's OK with the crushing of civilians in Gaza and a further land grab in the West Bank, then what’s to be done?

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

The world couldn't believe it last December when Syria's Assad regime, after decades of iron-fisted rule, suddenly fell like a house of cards. The speed of that collapse exposed how the state had been hollowed out on the quiet. Eight months on, how weak does Syria remain?

The government forces of Ahmed al-Sharaa are pulling out from the Druze-majority city of Sweida after bombardment from neighbouring Israel and pressure from a United States that's only recently offered Damascus a lifeline through the lifting of years-old crippling sanctions. 

What just happened in Sweida, with reports of summary executions of civilians? How will other minorities like the Kurds and the Alawites view the bloodbath? And why the climbdown by Damascus?

Looming large is Israel, with its own Druze community and its own agenda for perennial foes Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. Is war the only way for a nation that's occupied the Golan Heights since 1967 and which for now enjoys clear military supremacy over its neighbours?

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.

Call it India's ignored conflict: it’s been two years since violence erupted in Manipur state, yet 60,000 people remain displaced by intercommunal tensions between the majority Meitei and the Kuki-Zo communities. We ask why mediation efforts have stalled and what's changed since the central government imposed President's rule from Delhi at the start of the year. 

We also ask why the prime minister's remained mostly silent on Manipur, why foreign journalists wanting to report there have to apply for special accreditation – which is rarely granted – and we ask our panel to react to our exclusive report filmed by FRANCE 24's local team.

More broadly, what lessons can the rest of India draw, particularly in regards to unrest and insurgencies in other border areas like Kashmir and the mountains near China?

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.

Brazil has announced it's working on counter-measures should the Trump administration make good on its threat to punish the country and sanction its Supreme Court president over the coup attempt case against far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro. Brazil is one of the nations threatened with secondary tariffs for buying Russian oil – but not Trump ally Turkey.

The US is using its economic might to boost fellow travellers like Bolsonaro and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but also applying political pressure for purely domestic policy reasons, like last week when the threat of sanctions was reportedly dangled if African leaders didn't take in expelled immigrants.

Is this just a bit of political theatre? Or is the rest of the world taking seriously this blurring of the lines between economic policy and political vendettas? Does it damage – or not – the US's street cred on the world stage? And what's the right response when your nation gets a tariff warning from Washington?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Alessandro Xenos.

The Nobel Peace Prize can wait. The same Donald Trump whose administration just weeks ago paused munitions and air defence supplies for Ukraine is now turning on Vladimir Putin with threats of asset seizures and ramped-up weapons sales for Kyiv. Why the about-face? How committed to Ukraine is Trump going forward? And how committed to NATO? Allies know that the days are numbered for the United States providing the bulk of Europe's defence umbrella.

It's Bastille Day and on France's national holiday, we review remarks by President Emmanuel Macron on Europe's strategic autonomy and by Germany's defence minister, who's in Washington as Berlin takes stock of its own meagre supply of air defences.

And then there's the war in Ukraine, with the Russians relentless in their bombardments and steadfastly refusing truce offers. Do these announcements out of Washington change the calculus at the Kremlin?

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Aurore Laborie, Ilayda Habip.