The Interview

The director-general of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, gave an interview to FRANCE 24 in Tunis from the emblematic ruins of Carthage. She urged member states to put education higher on the agenda and to support peace "in the long term", for example in Iraq's Mosul, where UNESCO is working to restore a cultural heritage destroyed by war.

Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), is about to leave her post after nine years in office. In an interview with FRANCE 24 from The Hague, she said the transfer of ousted Sundanese president Omar al-Bashir to the ICC in the near future was "a possibility". Bensouda called the sanctions imposed on her by the Trump administration last year, which were later lifted by the Biden administration, "a difficult and unfortunate moment" for her and the court.

With the planet facing a triple crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss, Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), tells FRANCE 24 that it's time for a gear change with respect to restoring ecosystems.

Major General Éric Vidaud, the commander of French special forces, granted an exclusive interview to FRANCE 24 in Africa's Sahel region. It's the first time he has spoken to the media since taking office. Major General Vidaud shared his insights on the elimination of Abdelmalek Droukdel, the leader of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), exactly one year ago by French special forces in Mali. Today, he has another terrorist in his sights: Iyad Ag Ghali, the head of al Qaeda's official branch in Mali.

The President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, granted FRANCE 24 and RFI an interview against the backdrop of the Paris summit on the financing of African economies. He said that he sees the jihadist terrorism that's striking the neighbouring Sahel region as "the most important security challenge" for Ghana and the other 14 ECOWAS countries. He also called the Covid-19 vaccine coverage a "scandal", as less than 2 percent of vaccines administered worldwide have been in Africa.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa tells FRANCE 24 that the situation in Gaza reminds him of the apartheid era in his own country, with Israeli actions against the Palestinians evocative of an apartheid state. He said South Africa stands by the Palestinians but urged both sides to sit down and negotiate as was done in South Africa in the early 1990s.

In an exclusive interview with FRANCE 24 and RFI during a visit to Paris on Monday, Rwandan President Paul Kagame hailed as "a big step forward" a report by French historians released in April that concluded France had an "overwhelming" responsibility for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The Rwandan leader added that Kigali and Paris now have a chance to move forward.

Leaders from more than a dozen African countries will attend a summit in Paris from Monday to discuss their financial needs after the Covid-19 pandemic. Ahead of the gathering, the head of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, has told FRANCE 24 the international community must step up efforts to ensure a "dangerous divergence" of fortunes between advanced and developing economies is avoided. "This divergence would mean more insecurity, more instability and lost opportunities for the world economy to grow," she warned.

In an interview with FRANCE 24 on the sidelines of the recent Social Summit in Porto, Portuguese PM Antonio Costa discussed the priorities of the Portuguese presidency of the EU, the bloc's Covid-19 vaccine roll-out and the possible waiver of Covid-19 vaccine patents. He called the latter a "false debate", saying "the real question is about boosting production capacity and – second – solidarity to share existing vaccines between all of Europe and with the world".

In an interview with FRANCE 24, General David Petraeus, former commander of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and former CIA director, reacted to the recent decision of US President Joe Biden to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan. "I do fear that two to three years from now we are going to look back and regret the decision to withdraw the remaining 3,500 US troops," he told our Washington correspondent Sonia Dridi. "This is not going to end the endless war in Afghanistan; it is going to end the US and the coalition involvement in that war militarily."