The Debate

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. 

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.