It's easy to lecture world leaders about how fuel subsidies ruin the environment and bleed state coffers dry, but try telling that to beleaguered Bolivians and cornered Kenyans, two of the many nations where the energy crisis has reached breaking point with citizens unable to keep up with prices at the pump. It's not just in the Americas, Africa and Asia where the Iran war is destroying livelihoods and derailing fiscal roadmaps.

France – which at the outset of an election year is already running the biggest budget deficit of the eurozone at 5.1 percent of GDP – is further loosening the purse strings, with the prime minister announcing fresh measures.

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So, to subsidise or not to subsidise? On that score, what lessons have been learned from the last energy crisis in 2022? Oil and gas prices are notoriously volatile. What if the Strait of Hormuz is never the same again? And how much fuel is left before the entire global economy's running on empty?

Produced by François Picard, Antonia Cimini, Juliette Laffont, Juliette Brown, Charles Wente.