The Interview

The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi spoke to FRANCE 24 from Vienna and stated that his teams had not observed any Russian military deployment inside the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, despite Ukrainian authorities claiming that Moscow was preparing to attack the site.

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe discusses his country's debt burden, relations with China, as well as plans for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in an interview with FRANCE 24 on the sidelines of the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact in Paris.

The United States’ special climate envoy John Kerry assesses efforts to secure funding for climate action and the green transition in an interview with FRANCE 24 on the sidelines of the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact in Paris.

In an interview with FRANCE 24 on the sidelines of the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, Kenya President William Ruto said the world's multinational financial architecture needs to be "fixed". He also reacted to the ongoing conflict in Sudan, saying "there are already signs of genocide". More than 2,000 people have been killed there since fighting broke out on April 15.

In an interview with FRANCE 24, RFI and franceinfo, French President Emmanuel Macron outlined his vision for tackling the twin issues of climate change and global poverty. Speaking from the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, which he hosted in Paris, Macron answered questions from Stéphane Ballong (FRANCE 24), Mounia Daoudi (RFI) and Marc Fauvelle (franceinfo).

The biggest war in Europe since 1945 has prompted several countries to try to speed up their integration with the West. Those include Ukraine itself but also nations in the western Balkans, as well as Moldova and Georgia, which has been knocking on NATO's door for many years. The former Soviet Republic applied for EU membership in March 2022, although it has not yet been given candidate status. Our guest on The Interview is Salome Zurabishvili, the president of Georgia.

The Mediterranean migrants crisis was one of the main topics discussed by Tunisa's foreign minister Nabil Ammar and his French counterpart Catherine Colonna during their first meeting in Paris. In an interview with FRANCE 24, Nabil Ammar said that the two nations "share lots of views". He told Marc Perelman that stopping the migrants from crossing "cannot be the middle-term or long-term solution at all". "It is rather about fixing the people in their countries, creating wealth", he said.

Pakistan's former prime minister and PTI party leader Imran Khan was released on bail on May 12 after being arrested on graft charges. Since then, he says he has been "isolated" at his home, cut off from the senior leadership of his party, while thousands of his supporters have been arrested. "Anyone who supports PTI is either arrested or has gone underground," he told FRANCE 24 from his home in Lahore.

FRANCE 24 spoke to exiled Russian opposition figure Ilya Ponomarev, the political representative of the Freedom of Russia Legion. This Ukraine-based paramilitary group of Russian volunteers has been involved in cross-border incursions into Russia's Belgorod region in the past last few days. Ponomarev claimed the pro-Ukrainian, anti-Putin group "didn't lose a single soldier" and is successfully making progress inside Russia. Ultimately, "our guys will be in Moscow and Putin will not be in the Kremlin," he predicted. 

FRANCE 24 spoke to Evgenia Kara-Murza, the wife of Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition activist who was recently sentenced to 25 years in jail by a Moscow court for "high treason" because of his outspoken criticism of the war in Ukraine. Kara-Murza sent a message to her jailed husband: she will "never stop fighting" for him. She also discussed the current situation in Russia and said she felt unable to return there as she feared the authorities would arrest her to "put pressure" on her husband.