Four days ahead of Pope Leo’s visit to France, preparations have been underway for months. From Friday, the Pope will travel to Paris, Lourdes and Metz, with several sensitive issues hanging over the trip, including clerical sexual abuse and France’s assisted-dying law. For now, security remains the top priority. Camille Corcoran reports.
France is the worst-hit country in the world for these attacks, with more than 70 logged in the first eight months of 2026.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party won a large majority in parliamentary elections, according to preliminary results published by state media Monday, in a vote held amid Ukrainian drone strikes, cyberattacks and a crackdown on anti-war opposition. The election was the first since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. France 24 International affairs editor, Oliver Farry, shares further insights from this election.
Rising diesel prices in France highlight the vulnerability of global oil markets to geopolitical tensions, potentially driving broader economic impacts.
CryptoBriefing•Estefano Gomez21 Sept
As the Middle East war disrupts global oil supplies and refining costs soar, diesel prices in France have reached record levels, making them among the highest in the EU.
Euronews21 Sept
Pope Leo XIV's four-day visit to France this weekend is expected to touch on the Catholic Church's views on abortion and euthanasia, in a secular country that recently enshrined abortion in its constitution and gave final approval to a bill creating a right to assisted dying for adults with incurable illnesses.
Germany’s regional elections delivered mixed results for the country’s major parties. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the far-right AfD won the largest share of the vote, but remains isolated as other parties have ruled out coalition talks, leaving incumbent SPD premier Manuela Schwesig with a realistic path to forming a government. In Berlin, meanwhile, the Left Party came out on top and could potentially form a coalition with the Greens and SPD. The CDU, however, performed poorly in both elections, putting additional pressure on Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his conservative bloc. Speaking after the results, France 24 correspondent Jörg Taszman reported that Merz said his government would “continue with the reforms” and that “Germany will be better,” urging supporters not to focus only on what has gone wrong.
A tightrope walker crossed a 400-metre wire between Europe's two highest slag heaps in Loos-en-Gohelle, France, watched by over 9,000 people on Sunday.
Euronews21 Sept
US and Chinese delegations held "succesful" and "constructive" talks in New York on Sunday on Artificial Intelligence and trade, ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Washington later this week. The two countries discussed setting up a dialogue mechanism as fears over AI security keep rising, and prepared to ease trade tensions as a truce deal is set to expire in November. Also in this edition, France and Canada seek to deepen ties on critical minerals and energy.
On September 1, 2026, an ATR aircraft took to the skies over Toulouse, France, which caught the attention…
AeroTime•Miquel Ros21 Sept
Four hooded men broke into a family home in northern France over the weekend and forced the father, who works in the cryptocurrency sector, to transfer 40,000 euros in digital assets. The intruders bound both parents and their two children, aged 8 and 12, with black tape before feeling. The police have made no arrests
BeInCrypto•Kamina Bashir21 Sept
Since January 2025, the Trump administration has deported more than 25,000 people to so-called “third countries” – places that are not their countries of origin. Working with a team of 26 international media outlets, Forbidden Stories and FRANCE 24 have used information gathered by NGOs and open-source information to count and map these deportations. Our investigation shines a light on the scale of this mass deportation campaign that is being carried out under the cover of darkness.
Under often-secret deals struck with so-called "third countries" across Africa and Latin America, US President Donald Trump has deported thousands of people hoping to build new lives in the US to countries they’ve never set foot in before. Together with Forbidden Stories, FRANCE 24 investigated the stories of several African migrants housed in a temporary shelter in Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé whose lives have been thrown into chaos by their abrupt deportation from the US.
As part of a consortium of 26 media outlets coordinated by Forbidden Stories, FRANCE 24 and RFI spent seven months investigating the secret deals struck between the administration of US President Donald Trump and several African countries. These so-called “third countries” have agreed to host undocumented migrants detained by ICE and deported from the US.
Click to expand Image United Nations headquarters in New York City, December 2020. © 2020 zz/STRF/STAR MAX/IPx via AP Photo World leaders at the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City from September 22-28, 2026, should commit to defending human rights, Human Rights Watch said. They should counter attempts to undermine accountability for grave international crimes and the work of the UN and other vital international institutions. Dozens of leaders and foreign ministers from the UN’s 193 member countries will attend the General Assembly’s general debate. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is scheduled to deliver the first speech on September 22, followed by US President Donald Trump. Others speaking on the first day include the leaders of Türkiye, France, the United Kingdom, and Japan. “The UN and other international organizations created to protect human rights are under attack from countries that had pledged to defend them,” said Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch. “All UN member countries should condemn attempts by the United States, Russia, China, and others to dismantle the international human rights system and destroy avenues for accountability for abuses.” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will participate virtually for the second year in a row after the US refused to grant him and other Palestinian officials visas to travel to UN headquarters. Issues expected to be on many leaders’ agendas will be: the global impact of the US and Israel’s war with Iran; Israeli forces’ continuing abuses against Palestinians in Gaza and their support for settler violence in the West Bank; Russian laws-of-war violations in Ukraine; and concerns about the risks of artificial intelligence and climate change. World leaders should urge accountability for ongoing atrocities and human rights abuses in Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Haiti, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. At the same time, they should work together to counter the escalating assault on human rights around the world—including in long-standing democracies like the US and countries in Europe—and on the international laws and organizations created to promote and protect those rights. Human Rights Watch, in its World Report 2026, called for governments committed to upholding human rights to form a coalition of like-minded countries to resist efforts by the US and other powers to undermine international law. The US has announced a campaign to “dismantle” the International Criminal Court (ICC), as the Trump administration seeks to protect US and Israeli officials from the court’s scrutiny. In 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza. The US campaign, including punitive sanctions against ICC officials and judges, three Palestinian human rights groups, and a UN expert, threatens victims’ access to justice globally. ICC investigations include crimes against humanity and other atrocity crimes in relation to Myanmar, Sudan, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and Ukraine. The ICC has also issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and senior Russian officials on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine. Governments should use the general debate at the General Assembly and opportunities on the sidelines to pledge support for the ICC and all those working with it to seek justice, and commit to measures to mitigate the impact of US attacks on justice, Human Rights Watch said. Together with three other human rights organizations, Human Rights Watch has sued the Trump administration in US federal court over its sanctions targeting the ICC. UN member countries should also resist efforts by the US and other governments to undermine the human rights of refugees and migrants, women and girls, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, among others, and should defend existing protections for equality and nondiscrimination. They should actively resist the alarming increase in actions by some countries to contest, roll back, or actively remove well-established international norms on gender equality from UN mandates, including Security Council decisions. While many delegations will focus on issues of peace and security and development, world leaders should publicly commit to ensuring that the UN’s human rights work is adequately resourced and staffed. The UN has been mired in a liquidity crisis for years, largely caused by the US’ refusal to pay its full obligatory assessed contributions and cancellation of most voluntary contributions. The US recently paid $800 million in dues to the UN, a fraction of the roughly $4 billion it owes. China has repeatedly exacerbated the UN’s liquidity problems by failing to pay its dues on time. A number of other countries are also in arrears, though the US and China account for nearly half of the UN’s regular and peacekeeping budgets. Countries should condemn efforts by some governments to flout and undermine UN sanctions regimes, sanctions monitoring panels, and arms embargoes. The UN Security Council has been holding informal “straw” polls for candidates seeking to replace Antonio Guterres as UN secretary-general when his second five-year term ends on December 31. The next UN chief should prioritize human rights and reinvigorate UN peacekeeping to protect civilians, as well as find ways to press governments to pay their dues and voluntary contributions in full and on time. Member states should explore better ways to hold governments that default on their obligations accountable. To counter impunity for crimes against humanity around the world, countries will soon be negotiating a new treaty to prevent and punish these grave human rights abuses. Crimes against humanity include murder, torture, rape and sexual violence, persecution, enforced disappearance, extermination, enslavement, and apartheid, among others, committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a population. UN member countries should support this effort as these are among the gravest offenses under international law. “World leaders should use the UN podium to speak out forcefully against efforts by some major powers to trample on human rights and make it easier to get away with atrocities and other grave crimes,” Charbonneau said. “The UN and the international human rights system can only survive the current assault if governments take urgent and strong action to defend them.”
France is facing mounting pressure to rein in its public finances as it prepares a €54 billion package of spending cuts for next year.
Euronews21 Sept
French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Sunday called for stronger bilateral ties in the face of new global threats at a meeting on Saint Pierre and Miquelon, a French territory off Canada's Newfoundland. The first-ever visit by a Canadian leader to the North Atlantic archipelago came as both countries have increasingly awkward relations with the US.
Owen Simonin, known as Hasheur, reported a rise in the number of fraudulent call scams in which threat actors impersonate customer service representatives of a crypto platform. Simonin stressed that this rise was caused by the recent data leaks affecting French crypto users. Crypto Call Scams Rise in France, Says Crypto Entrepreneur The recent data […]
Bitcoin.com News•Sergio Goschenko21 Sept
In response to the Iranian authorities' decision to close a French language center affiliated with its embassy in Tehran, France vowed to take appropriate measures.
Deutsche Welle21 Sept
Two leaders meet in French territory off Canada as Ottawa seeks stronger relations with EU while fighting trade war with US The leaders of France and Canada have pledged closer ties to grapple with rising geopolitical tensions, climate change and the erosion of democratic values, after they met in a French territory off Canada’s Atlantic coast. The two leaders’ visit to Saint-Pierre and Miquelon – the first by a French president since 2014 and the first by a Canadian prime minister – came just weeks after Donald Trump posted an image showing the islands, as well as all of Canada and other countries in North America, covered by the US flag. Continue reading...
The Guardian•Reuters21 Sept