The Debate

Kindred spirits or odd couple? Three days of joint photo ops featuring Emmanuel Macron and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva make for more than just entertaining viewing: they're downright confusing. The first state visit by a French president to Brazil in 11 years highlights how long overdue this reckoning was.

With the war between Israel and Hamas now in its sixth month, the needle is moving. But by how much? For the first time, the United States has lifted its veto on a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. In past conflicts, whenever Washington has called time, Israel has bended. But what's to say this story follows the pattern?

The West blames jihadist radicals, the Kremlin is searching for a Ukraine connection and Moscow is reeling. Russia's deadliest terror attack in nearly two decades follows the same modus operandi as the 2015 Bataclan concert hall massacre in Paris.

Ukraine is the central theme of EU talks in Brussels, and notably whether Russian assets frozen in Europe should be diverted to Kyiv for the war effort. The support of the 27 states is increasingly under the spotlight as doubts persist over America's continued financing of the Ukrainian resistance.

In this edition of The Debate, we examine the situation in Gaza as diplomatic efforts are stepped up to find a path to a truce. This as the death toll continues to rise.

Violent gangs in Haiti have overrun the country while Prime Minister Ariel Henry went to Kenya to seal a deal for an international policing force. With the PM now stuck in Puerto Rico, the situation in America's poorest nation, which has been without a president since the 2021 assassination of Jovenel Moise, has gone from bad to worse.

Five months, 30,000 Palestinians killed and an Israeli prime minister whose only plan seems to be to reoccupy Gaza indefinitely. This time, has the US had enough?

Why set it in stone? France has become the first nation to enshrine abortion rights in its constitution, thanks to overwhelming approval from a rare joint session of both houses of parliament. Lawmakers launched the initiative after the US Supreme Court's overturning of a half-century-old federal guarantee. But does the rolling back of reproductive rights across the Atlantic and in places like Poland and Hungary necessitate a constitutional amendment in France?

With July just around the corner, is Paris ready to host the Summer Games? Mostly yes, if you listen to France's president, who was on hand this Thursday for the inauguration of the Olympic village. It's one of the few venues built from scratch for an event that promised sustainability and, for the most part, to showcase existing structures. A total budget of less than €9 billion makes for 40 percent less than that of the 2012 London Olympics.

Don't bet the family farm on it. Politicians in Paris, Warsaw, Brussels and New Delhi won't magically find the quick fix for an agriculture sector that's gone global at the expense of small producers. Why is it erupting all over, including here in France?