The Debate

A couple of weeks back, we asked if the tide was turning in Ukraine. The short answer: a little, but it's hard to cut through the fog of war. Now, we're beginning to wonder if Crimea could be back in play. Kyiv's new line of longer-range missiles and drones are wreaking havoc on fuel and power supplies. And while Russia continues to inch forward in other frontline flashpoints, the peninsula occupied in 2014 by Vladimir Putin's little green men has never looked so vulnerable. 

A Ukrainian offensive still seems like a pipe dream. Instead, is the current pressure a way to force concessions out of a Kremlin forced to admit what's all over Russian social media: that petrol stations across Russia are running on empty because of those long-range strikes? Will Vladimir Putin compromise or double down?

And what do Crimeans themselves want? Most seemed happy to vote yes in a referendum to rejoin a Russia they only left in 1954. More broadly, what consequences for the entire Black Sea region, which since 2022 has alternated between periods of war, disruption and mutually agreed calm to allow both sides to ship goods? The Black Sea is of course shared with Turkey, which hosts next week's timely NATO summit. 

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

We are in awe of Venezuela’s first responders and all the brave citizens still pulling survivors from under the rubble of some 770 buildings that collapsed in last Wednesday’s double earthquakes. Is the sudden collapsing of so many structures – many built during the boom years of high oil prices – a tipping point for a nation under sanctions that has been dogged by decades of eroding services and infrastructure? Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuelan interim president of a regime in survival mode, was booed copiously Saturday in Caracas as many accuse the successor of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro of putting security before disaster relief.

In this edition, we ask how best the international community can help Venezuela and take a look at the dozens of US forces airlifting in supplies and helping coordinate air traffic – an unexpected turnaround as Washington was once the sworn enemy of Caracas. But US President Donald Trump has claimed the locals are "dancing in the streets" now that he’s removed former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and the oil’s flowing his way. If this is truly a turning point, then what kind of turning point is it?

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

Has Trump whispering run its course? Ask the now departing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who famously brought that letter of invitation from the king to the Oval Office, or Hungary’s ousted leader Viktor Orban. And how about the very public breakup with the only European leader invited to Donald Trump's second inauguration last year? Beyond the spat over whether Italy's Giorgia Meloni begged the US president for a selfie at last week's G7 summit, there's a growing divide between Rome and Washington over trade, Ukraine, Greenland, Israel, Lebanon and the war in Iran.   

On that score, some still stick to Trump whispering, like the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who before a show-and-tell display of flattery in the Oval Office told Fox News that Italy had allowed "500 US planes" to take off from bases as part of Operation Epic Fury.

We ask if the Italian prime minister lied about her refusal to actively take part in the campaign against Iran and, more broadly, about Meloni's tack towards the pro-EU mainstream – patching up sometimes testy relations with neighbour France and getting a red carpet welcome this Thursday from Emmanuel Macron at an overdue bilateral summit in the French Riviera town of Antibes.

Why the shift? Is it the end of the whole of the European far-right's MAGA envy? Remember that 2027 is an election year in both France and Italy.

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Piera Rocco, Riham Mahir, Charles Wente.

Can citizens of Albania – population 2.4 million – push back against their own government and the Trump family? Albanians are accusing the US president’s son-in-law and his wife of capitalizing on their connections to build a luxury resort on protected coastline along the Adriatic Sea. Launching what activists have dubbed the Flamingo Revolution of 2026, the leaderless movement is trying to stop the couple’s bid to build a $4 billion luxury resort on the land – purchased by Qatari contacts of the Kushners. 

From no-bid contracts and allegations of fraudulent sales of land, to the diplomatic row sparked over the manhandling of ethnic Greeks in the area, we ask about the situation and the prime minister’s promise that the project will propel Albania into the “Champions League” of tourist destinations.

In this David-versus-Goliath tale, the lines are becoming blurred between the personal business interests of the Trump family and the power of a sitting US president. US President Donald Trump has sent his son-in-law to mediate peace with Iran and Russia, pardoned his convicted real estate mogul father and appointed him ambassador to France. Why does the outrage seem stronger in Albania than in the United States or here in France, where French President Emmanuel Macron quietly welcomed four-term Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama just this week?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Piera Rocco, Charles Wente.

The heat is on: enough to make Parisians take the plunge into the once notoriously polluted Canal Saint-Martin. France this Tuesday awakened from its hottest night on record, testing the tempers of Paris city dwellers as they sizzle under the zinc roofs of top-floor apartments built for a bygone age. This is the second heat dome to settle over Western Europe in less than a month.

Watch moreHow can France adapt to recurrent heatwaves?

France's political class is scrambling to prove it's prepared to do what's necessary. Enter that burning question: should there be air conditioning for all? Emphatic yeses are arising from more than just home appliance salespeople: the far-right is all in with A/C, framing as constraining and elitist those who fret that cooling systems add to the warming outside temperatures.

Unquestionably, hospitals, nursing homes, schools and social housing need to adapt to the new normal, with more than half of France's heatwaves occurring since 2010. So what measures should be taken? How to help those who can't afford expensive geothermal pumps or new shutters for their homes? What's fair and what's sustainable?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Piera Rocco, Charles Wente.

Another post-Brexit prime minister bites the dust. Keir Starmer has owned up to the obvious: that he's too unpopular to lead the Labour Party into the next general election. After replacing the hard left's Jeremy Corbyn, the same Starmer won a landslide election victory two years ago on the promise of stability after all the chaos of Tory rule. So where did it all go wrong? Can the heavy favourite to replace him win back disgruntled Labour voters who first flocked to the Conservatives and now to the far-right Reform UK party?

Read moreAndy Burnham, ‘King of the North’ and frontrunner to replace Starmer as PM

We ask about the politics of popular Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, and reflect – on the eve of Tuesday's tenth anniversary of the Brexit referendum – if the same Britain that took a punt on leaving the European Union can rally behind any leader or any party to end a decade of turmoil.

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Piera Rocco, Juliette Brown, Charles Wente.

Surprise! A stroke of a pen over dinner at Versailles has pre-empted plans for that big Friday signing in Switzerland of an interim agreement between the United States and Iran. Coming off the G7 in France, we ask why Donald Trump suddenly decided to get it over with and whether the region and the world can breathe a sigh of relief.

Read moreMore than 12 million oil barrels transited the Strait of Hormuz overnight, Vance says

Oil markets certainly believe. They're down again as the Strait of Hormuz gets set to reopen. But it's only a 60-day Memorandum of Understanding. And while Gulf neighbours will cheer the lifting of the blockade on what's the world's biggest maritime choke point for oil and gas, we take a second look at the agreement brokered by Pakistan and Qatar – most notably, the inclusion of a cessation of fighting in Lebanon.

What happens if Israel or Hezbollah don't like the way negotiations unfold? Would Washington and Tehran be able to rein them in? How does the US president's plan compare with the 2015 UN nuclear agreement that he constantly belittles? Are we headed for closure or a whole new level of uncertainty?

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

Is it better to persuade or to confront? French leader Emmanuel Macron is opting for the royal treatment with Donald Trump at Versailles, what with a dinner to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the King of France's support for the birth of a new nation. It's all about keeping the US president on board: on Ukraine, reopening the Strait of Hormuz and more. But will flattery work when it comes to the AI revolution?

Lunch preceded dinner with tech titans the guests of honour on the closing day of the G7 summit in the French Alps. There, the elephant in the room was Trump's sudden decision last Friday to give Anthropic 90 minutes to shut down foreign access to its latest artificial intelligence models. The reason cited: national security. How exposed are both governments and major corporations like French banking giant BNP Paribas, which recently announced it was partnering with Anthropic for its security needs? Can a stroke of the pen from the Oval Office suddenly expose the rest of the world to hackers?

Read moreAnthropic disables access to top-tier AI models after US ban on foreign use

For years, the same Europeans who counted on the US defence shield to protect them also banked on its big tech: everything from Visa credit cards and Google searches to Amazon deliveries and cloud storage.

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos is the star attraction at this week's VivaTech trade fair in Paris. Silicon Valley's dominance has grown to the point where it draws the planet's money and data. Its billionaire bosses dictate their terms and oligarchs like Elon Musk peddle pro-Kremlin, far-right messaging on their platforms. So how does the rest of the world defend its own national security and sovereignty?

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

Before he left Washington, there were reports that Volodymyr Zelensky wasn't even on Donald Trump's G7 bilateral meeting list. But in the end, the US president took the meeting, and more. In the French Alps resort of Evian, Trump is putting the onus on Vladimir Putin to come to the bargaining table and even suggesting a rapid return to full sanctions on Russian oil. Why the sudden turn-for-the-better in relations between Washington and Kyiv?

Watch moreTrump suggests US can swiftly reimpose sanctions on Russian oil

How much of it is down to facts on the ground? Overnight, a Moscow-area refinery was hit by a long-range drone, illustrating Kyiv's growing capacity to cripple Russia's oil and gas exports with long-range strikes.

Already, Europeans are tapping into that Ukrainian military upscaling in what's a race against time, with the US drawing down its NATO presence on the continent, making allies pay for Ukraine-bound US hardware and pulling rank on the use of AI by traditional allies who know that true strategic autonomy is years away.

So at summits like this one, even after an Iran war they didn't ask for, G7 members' primary job, critics say, is to placate the president of the United States.

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

If Donald Trump calls it a peace deal, does that make it so? '"Let the oil flow," trumpeted the US president after agreeing on the day of his 80th birthday to a memorandum of understanding with Iran. Trump was quick to schedule a signing ceremony for this coming Friday in Switzerland, across from where he's flown in for a G7 summit on the French side of Lake Geneva.

We ask what's actually in the memorandum of understanding brokered by Pakistan and Qatar, and whether the uncertainty is well and truly lifted for the world's biggest maritime choke point, the Strait of Hormuz. Will Iran continue to charge for passage? Will the Gulf states pay the US protection money, as Trump insinuated in a New York Times interview? 

Read moreWhat we know about the US-Iran memorandum of understanding

Are Europeans right to volunteer naval patrols? And what should those signatories of the 2015 UN-brokered nuclear agreement make of vague US promises of a new deal with Iran? Everything was done to accommodate the US. Hosts France even pushed back the G7 summit by a day so Trump could enjoy his birthday festivities in Washington. How accommodating  should allies be going forward?

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