The Debate
FRANCE 24 English
A live debate on the topic of the day, with four guests. From Monday to Thursday at 7:10pm Paris time.
Episodes
24 episodesWill Trump really pull the plug? Starlink restored but Ukraine's fate still uncertain
Can a flick of a switch really be enough for Donald Trump and Elon Musk to end Ukraine's hopes of holding out against Russia? With Kyiv already reeling from daily strikes by Russia's new motor-powered drones, the United States decision to slow SpaceX Starlink service felt immediately Wednesday when air raid warnings failed. We'll check the status on Starlink - reportedly back up to speed, ask if Volodymyr Zelenskiy has any friends in Washington that can convince an administration that prefers diesel deals with Moscow to supporting Ukraine, and whether supporters of Kyiv have run out of...
How far will 'Cockroach' movement go? India's youth-led protests defy Modi government
It all started as a bit of online satire by a few young people fed up by corruption. Clearly though, the "Cockroach" movement is no longer a laughing matter for India’s government, which has shut transport and blocked rallying points in the capital to quell the momentum of a youth-led mobilisation that's already brought down the education minister over rampant school exam cheating and is now spearheading the protests against the culling of names from voter rolls, with the electoral commission chief accused of bias. We ask about Abhijeet Dipke, the head of what calls itself the...
France's fed-up youth: Can presidential candidates connect with student movement?
Will it be autumn recess to the rescue for a beleaguered French government? Ministers are no doubt counting the days until the school holidays start on Friday evening, in the hopes that an unexpected student movement disappears as quickly as it materialised. The movement sparked three weeks ago by deteriorating conditions in a Paris-area high school may indeed take a leave of absence, but what about demands for a generation that feels left behind by cost cutting? Only one party has sided vocally with the students since the very start: Jean-Luc Mélenchon's far-left France Unbowed. We a...
How exposed is Saudi Arabia? Yemen's Houthis scale up drone and missile attacks
How exposed is Saudi Arabia? Just as Iran's retaliation to Donald Trump's war suddenly exposed the vulnerability of neighbouring Gulf states, how much is Riyadh reeling from the escalation with Yemen's Tehran-backed Houthis? We assess the physical and material damage from strikes on airports and oil facilities, as well as eventual repercussions for the kingdom's ability to project strength. In the age of cheap drone warfare, how much can a battle-hardened militia push against the region's richest nation? We ask about the Houthis and the options available to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with the United...
Black Sea and black ops: How exposed is Europe to Ukraine war spillover?
The story is as underreported as it is consequential for the entire planet. Three Turkish-owned cargo ships out of Ukraine have been hit in EU waters by suspected Russian drones. One, the Togo-flagged Alfa Watan, sunk on Tuesday off Bulgaria. Ten Egyptian and Syrian crew members are missing. For its part, Ukraine has been hitting Russian tankers in the Black Sea, with no sign of a return to a UN-brokered deal to allow oil, grain and fertiliser ships to pass. With the United States in drawdown mode – and reports that its president's entourage is coveting commercial deals with...
No longer the same Israel? October 7 and the future of the Jewish State
For now, it's still Benjamin Netanyahu's Israel. In 2023, in the immediate aftermath of the country's worst day of bloodshed in its history, pundits predicted the quick demise of the right-wing prime minister. But on the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks, Israel's still not reckoned with the security failures on the day, the root causes of the Hamas-led terror attack, the brutal war of vengeance that followed and above all, Netanyahu is still prime minister with a fair shot at re-election. Even if the Likud leader is voted out on October 27, his most serious election rivals don't exactly advocate...
France erupts over schools: Why the violence surrounding surprise movement?
It’s a protest movement that a broke, lame-duck French government did not see coming. Civil servants this Tuesday joined high schoolers who are now in their third week of picketing over long-deteriorating classroom conditions. The usual recipe for wearing down movements in France has recently been to match any violence with a heavy hand, with the escalation turning the silent majority against the protesters, as was the case with the pre-Covid Yellow Vests movement. There has certainly been plenty of violence. But those involved are teenagers, not adults, with many pressing legitimate gripes about growing inequality in...
Return of the Bolsonaros: Why the far-right surge in Brazilian elections?
Do voters care about attempted coups? Brazil's Flavio Bolsonaro is on the cusp of unseating Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the country's October 25 presidential runoff. Bolsonaro's father was jailed over the Brazilian version of the January 6 storming of the US Capitol. Up and down the ballot, other Bolsonaros have been elected in the first round as the far right surges. Is it about incumbent fatigue? Do Brazilians subscribe to Bolsonaro's "God, Homeland, Family" mantra? And what will it take for the 80-year-old Lula to convince enough of the 21 percent of voters who stayed home last Sunday...
Will AI write our books? Row over bestseller fuels fear over future of literature
France still very much takes its literary prize-giving season seriously. So when a Haitian-born Canadian writer was accused of infusing his best-selling breakout novel with artificial intelligence, it got ugly in a hurry. We wade into the Thélyson Orélien affair with its subsequent accusations of racism, previous plagiarism by the author and doubts over the accuracy of AI verification tool Pangram. Interesting, some still love Orélien's book. Is that a problem? The scandal is all the more heartbreaking for publishers because "It Was Either That or Die" has sold 40,000 copies since its release, this as b...
Ethiopia back to civil war? Horn of Africa fears spillover effect of renewed fighting
After contagion in the Arabian Peninsula, should the entire Horn of Africa fear a domino effect? Just as US President Donald Trump’s decision to invade Iran drew the Saudis back to Yemen, did threats over the Bab al-Mandab Strait light the fuse in Ethiopia, where last week, unresolved issues between the government and its Tigray region erupted? Could a potential return to civil war draw in regional rivals? Ethiopia didn't need pressure over the Red Sea to ignite. The breakdown of dialogue after the 2022 Pretoria agreement was always going to be a ticking time bomb for Afr...
Still the same far right? Le Pen's National Rally denies fresh anti-Semitism claims
A minor bump on the French far right's road to power, or a car crash that wipes out years of rebranding? Bombshell allegations of past anti-Semitic tropes by the man Marine Le Pen has touted as her future prime minister could test her years-long effort to convince French voters that the National Rally is a party of government, rather than the fringe far-right National Front of old. We examine the evidence and hear the denial from 31-year-old Jordan Bardella. We also chart his rise to being groomed as an eventual stand-in for the presidential frontrunner after an...
Leo the moderate? Pope in France defends EU values
There's a new pope in town and he's got very different ideas on what France's far right calls the defense of Christian civilisation. Leo XIV is concluding his trip to France in the eastern city of Metz, which is closely associated with a founding father of present-day European federalism, Robert Schuman. There, the head of the world's largest organised religion proudly stated that Europe's roots are Christian, dating back to the Romans, all the while hailing an EU model that transcends "us versus them" ideology and brushes aside "might is right" in favour of human rights and international law. ...
The future of AI in their hands? Trump-Xi summit dismisses calls for global oversight
It's their AI world and we're just living in it. If that's the feeling of those who suffer from AI anxiety, it may worsen watching the Chinese president's first state visit to Washington in nine years. If there's one issue that the planet's biggest superpowers agree on, it's that now is not the time for global regulation of artificial intelligence. As they sit down to a White House state dinner just hours after news that OpenAI had hacked the Australian government, we ask who will call to task the US tech titans at the table. Read moreOpenAI...
Holy regulation? Pope in Paris to press case for 'disarming' AI
It's all about his high holiness here in France. For weeks already, the nation's been abuzz over the upcoming visit of Leo XIV, from Friday evening mass at Notre-Dame Cathedral and another mass before 600,000 faithful outside Paris to the pilgrimage city of Lourdes and a trip to Metz, hometown of father of European unity Robert Schuman. A papal visit to France usually draws much attention to the symbiotic love-hate relationship between the Church and a secular state of mostly lapsed Catholics. And yes, there have been grumblings about the visit's cost to taxpayers. But the pushback is r...
Trump's world? Leaders navigate consequences of US policy
A year ago, Donald Trump went to the rostrum of the United Nations General Assembly and after taking an axe to US aid and development funding, he read the world the riot act. One Iran war later, the US president is sticking to script, with a speech that borrowed much of the language from last year. With citizens on five continents now feeling the pain at the pump, we ask what it will take to tame a global energy crisis whose potential spiral mirrors the contagion of hostilities from the Strait of Hormuz to the mouth of the Red...
First New York, now Berlin: Why the left turn for major metropolises?
There's the inroads of the far right, but also the broader desire for change. Introducing Berlin's answer to Zohran Mamdani: Elif Eralp, who led the far-left Die Linke party's historic win in Sunday's municipal elections in Berlin. We ask if the 45-year-old daughter of Turkish political exiles can push through her promises of rent freezes and nationalisation of private real estate companies. Just like in New York last year, affordable housing was a hot-button issue. It didn't hurt that her party ran a social media-savvy campaign. Contrast that with the German chancellor's Christian Democrats, who not only...
The Ceuta effect: how far will Europe's anti-migrant backlash go?
As the United States threatens Europe with more tariffs and eyes Greenland, Russia tests the continent’s resolve over Ukraine and the planet overheats, where do citizens feel the biggest threat is coming from? In her Wednesday state of the Union speech, the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen went big on manning the borders, suggesting new tools to better deal with migration. This comes against in a context of Ceuta where over two days in July, tens of thousands of mostly Moroccans overran Spain’s North African enclave. A blame game ensued as well as a di...
The 28th state? Carney's Canada draws closer to European Union
US president Donald Trump has previously talked about making Canada the 51st state, Now, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is in Europe, and the president of the European Commission has proposed the country ‘associate membership’. In this edition, we ask what that means and how it differs from the close status afforded to Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and the UK – countries which Carney is also visiting ahead of his own Strasbourg speech Thursday before the European Parliament. What are Canada’s options? What are Europe’s options as both the US and Russia are eyeing the Arctic? How closer can...
First Hormuz, now the Red Sea? Oil spikes as Saudis sucked into Yemen spiral
First, there was US President Donald Trump’s surprise decision to strike Iran. Then, came the quagmire of a war without an exit strategy. Now, six months later, with access to the Strait of Hormuz all but shut, global shipping has taken another hit the other end of the Arabian Peninsula. Iran-backed Houthis are threatening access to the Red Sea. Whereas Washington jumped at Israel’s request to take out Iran’s Supreme Leader in February, he is reluctant to go all in for his other ally in the region. In this edition FRANCE 24’s François Picard ask...
Where is the kill switch? AI doomsday warnings trigger calls to regulate
Talk about doomscrolling. In the past week, our timelines have been full of dark predictions of our imminent demise, including one by a Silicon Valley engineer who puts the chances of artificial intelligence wiping out humanity at better than 10 percent. The recent breach of the machine-learning programmers' site Hugging Face by AI machines is also triggering panic. In this edition, we ask: can machines destroy the planet on their own? In the age of technology, does problem-solving always override safety? US President Donald Trump has indicated that the AI race will not be paused. Meanwhile, the tech t...
9/11 then and now: Do September 2001 attacks still shape our world?
Once in a generation – sometimes once in a lifetime – a singular event blindsides the entire planet. 25 years on, does the memory of the 9/11 attacks on New York's Twin Towers, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania fade into history, or is it still as raw and vivid as on that sunny September morning? Back then, the world was still processing the end of the Cold War. Western spies who had learned Russian suddenly had to take Arabic lessons. There was also the element of surprise compounded by the shock of non-state actors killing thousands on US soil. Each big anniv...
Whose space is it? Europe scrambles as US rules satellite race
With the digital age came the scramble for minerals below and to master the heavens above. US President Donald Trump wants a thousand rocket launches per year and with SpaceX’s reusable modules leading the way. The United States towers over the competition – which is why Ukraine’s president has to beg Elon Musk to use his Starlink low orbit satellite system to take out the Russian cruise missile launchers. Europe is late to the space race. Only around 10 launches are planned for its Ariane rocket next year. In this edition, we look at Norway’s first private l...
Missiles or mediation? Trump envoys shuttle between Russia and Ukraine
Ukraine’s momentum on the battlefield was a primary focus at July’s NATO summit in Turkey. Kyiv’s long-range drones and US President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement that the Washington would allow Ukraine to produce Patriot missiles on in the country. However, Trump's deal has yet to materialize. Moreover, Russia has ramped up cruise missile launches and Ukraine has run out of air defenses to stop them. Moscow is also failing to stop incoming missiles. In today’s edition we ask: What happens in war when offense proves better than defense for both sides? Could this lose...
Only the beginning? German far right's breakthrough shakes Europe to its core
The result was not enough to win outright, but certainly enough to shake Germany and Europe to their core: the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) trounced the ruling conservatives in the impoverished former East German state of Saxony-Anhalt in Sunday's election. We ask about the consequences of voting for an anti-immigrant, pro-Russian party that wants schools to teach less about the ills of Hitler and more about the glory of Bismarck. Will Sunday's result further fuel the momentum of the far right in places like Sweden, which votes next Sunday or here in France, where the f...
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