Spotlight

François Picard is pleased to welcome Vivian Salama from Washington. An attorney and staff writer at The Atlantic, Salama has reported from more than 85 countries. Her latest investigation takes us back to September 26, 2023. As Israel's national security establishment gathered to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War and one of the country's greatest intelligence failures, Abbas...

François Picard is pleased to welcome Ian Bremmer, the American political scientist, author, and founder and president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media. According to Bremmer, we may now be entering the autumn of the "Donroe Doctrine" and the MAGA era: an "America First" isolationist approach in which President Donald Trump envisions a return to "greatness" in Gilded Age fashion. But is this the Am...

François Picard is pleased to welcome Barbara Slavin, Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center. She describes the US-Iran conflict as a dangerous combination of military escalation, diplomatic ambiguity and political calculation. Slavin sees an absence of true diplomacy: the recent indirect contacts between Washington and Tehran, mediated by Qatar, have been too limited and too fragile to produc...

A referendum has been held in Switzerland on whether Swiss neutrality should be more strictly enforced in the Constitution. Richard Werly, Europe correspondent for the Swiss publication Blick, tell us why the Swiss have voted "no". It was at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 that Swiss neutrality was internationally recognised. After the defeat of Napoleon, European powers wanted a stable buffer as t...

Protests are ongoing in Madrid right now, with many demonstrators holding signs and banners that read "Maricarmen vs the vultures", "Maricarmen, you are not alone", or "Ni una Maricarmen más", not one more Maricarmen. The story is centred around the Retiro quarter of Madrid , one of the chic and desirable areas in the Spanish capital, located by the Prado Museum and the so-called Golden Triangle o...

François Picard is pleased to welcome Kyrylo Berkal, Deputy Commander of Ukraine's Third Army Corps. He sees Ukraine’s struggle centred on human potential, adaptation and will. While Ukraine is outnumbered, outgunned and sometimes outflanked, their answer is to make human initiative a weapon: giving soldiers and sergeants room to innovate, developing technology from the tactical level upward, and...

François Picard welcomes Scott Anderson, journalist, war correspondent and best-selling author of "King of Kings: The Fall of the Shah and the Revolution That Forged Modern Iran". For Anderson, there is a striking parallel between 1979 and 2026: Washington's persistent misreading of Iran, and the consequences that follow. "Over the years, the CIA and the Pentagon have war-gamed out war scenarios w...

François Picard is pleased to welcome Eoghan Gilmartin, an award-winning investigative journalist and part of The Guardian team whose investigation examined links between IPCC authors and Saudi Arabia’s oil industry, including Saudi Aramco. Their findings take us to the intersection of climate science, political and economic interests, and institutional credibility, and into the politically conseq...

François Picard is pleased to welcome Washington Post national security reporter Adam Taylor. The Forbidden Stories consortium, involving FRANCE 24 and 25 other media outlets, has spent six months investigating the thousands of people abruptly deported from the United States to third countries, amid concerns over due process and their ability to challenge their removal. The investigation examines...

In this edition, FRANCE 24’s François Picard speaks to investigative journalist Emanuel Maiberg, Co-founder of 404 Media. As we embark on AI's uncharted waters, Maiberg has made a most unexpected discovery: the mass acquisition, dismemberment and scanning of rare books for use as training data. His investigation reveals a globalised and deliberately opaque supply chain in which books purchased thr...

For Spotlight, FRANCE 24 François Picard is pleased to welcome Anne Applebaum, staff writer at The Atlantic and author of Autocracy, Inc. According to Applebaum, the upheaval in American diplomacy and foreign policy transcends any one administration. She describes a full-fledged transformation in the way the United States exerts power, pivoting away from leadership of a democratic alliance and tow...

François Picard is pleased to welcome Andrew Weissmann, Author, Professor at NYU School of Law, and former General Counsel of the FBI. He argues that as political deception and deliberate falsehoods become normalized, and politically useful, it erodes any trust we have in our government and our institutions. Drawing on his book, "Liar’s Kingdom", Weissmann questions why political leaders are above...

In this edition, FRANCE 24’s François Picard talks to Nick Rees-Roberts, Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University about Celine Dion. For Roberts, Dion’s extraordinary return to Paris reveals something larger than the enduring popularity of a global pop star. Her appeal lies in an unusual ability to bridge categories that contemporary celebrity and pop cultu...

FRANCE 24’s Gavin Lee speaks to Scandinavia Correspondent Trine Villeman for some analysis on how Sweden has voted in the 2026 election.

Who are the Houthis, what are their objectives for Yemen, and could the Iranian-backed group hold a significant part of world trade to ransom in the Bab el Mandeb Strait? FRANCE 24’s Gavin Lee speaks with Professor Thomas Juneau, a specialist on the Houthis and Iran, explains the intricate dynamics of the group, its repressive nature and the level of the threat to world shipping.

FRANCE 24’s François Picard talks to Richard Roeill, former New York Firefighter and 9/11 First Responder. Roeill’s testimony reframes the legacy of September 11th not as a historical event confined to a single day, but as living history. The former New York City firefighter describes an anniversary that reactivates trauma, while the illnesses suffered by first responders make the consequences of...

The Yemeni and Saudi governments are under pressure. The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman reportedly called US President Donald Trump twice to ask him to authorise US strikes against the Houthis in Yemen over the threat to the Bab el Mandeb Strait. According to Axios, the US President declined. FRANCE 24’s Gavin Lee discusses that decision and the wider conflict with  the retired Lieutenant...

In this edition, FRANCE 24’s Gavin Lee speaks to New York Times reporter Carol Rosenberg, widely regarded as one of the foremost American journalists covering the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Several alleged suspects in the 9/11 attacks are still being held there, including their so-called “architect”, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He is scheduled for trial in June 2028, 27 years after t...

François Picard is pleased to welcome Victor Mallet, Financial Times Senior Editor at the World News Desk. He interprets the emerging tensions between Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella as more than a clash of personalities. They reveal a deeper struggle over the political future of France's far-right National Rally is becoming as they find themselves in prime position in their hunt to capture the...

FRANCE 24’s François Picard speaks with Anish Gawande, spokesperson for the Nationalist Congress Party. He sees the controversy surrounding the inauguration of the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) temple near Paris as more than an isolated dispute over the treatment of female staff at the Eiffel Tower. From his perspective, the incident exposes a broader and insufficient...

Mali's military junta is facing one of its most serious security challenges in months. A wave of coordinated attacks by the jihadist group JNIM and its Tuareg ally, the FLA, has targeted army positions across the north of the country, raising fresh questions about the government's ability to contain the insurgency. The armed groups have been seeking to expand their control since capturing the nort...

The images emerging from Tehran are striking. Tens of thousands of mourners dressed in black have gathered at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla for the funeral and lying in state of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, following his assassination on February 28, the first day of joint US-Israeli strikes on the Iranian capital. The images emerging from Tehran are striking. Tens of thousands of mourners d...

Armenia sits at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East. In contrast to much of the European Union where the drag scene is mainstream, it remains underground in Armenia. Performers face stigma, police pressure, threats of violence, and rejection by their own families. Despite all this, drag queens have built a vibrant, bustling community that has attracted both local Armenians and inter...

This weekend, the United States marks 250 years since the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, one of the most influential political texts in modern history. Its assertion that governments derive their power from the consent of the governed, and that all people are endowed with the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, has inspired democratic movements around the world. As...

In this edition, FRANCE 24's François Picard talks with Dr. Gershon Baskin, Middle East Director of the International Communities Organisation and former hostage negotiator. One thousand days after the outbreak of the Gaza war, Gershon Baskin shares a stark assessment of Israel's political and strategic trajectory. Rather than framing the anniversary solely as a military milestone, he argues that...