Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average since 1980, a new report shows, with 2025 marked by extended heatwaves across the continent, from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. RFI examines the reasons why.

Labour Day marches across France on Friday focused on wages, workers’ rights and the future of the 1 May public holiday, as unions pushed for higher pay, bakers and florists opened despite legal uncertainty and clashes broke out in Lyon and Nantes.

Brussels is bracing for a political storm as European Union officials consider hosting Taliban representatives in the Belgian capital for talks on returning Afghan nationals living in Europe, a move that critics say risks legitimising Afghanistan's hardline regime.

France needs to take concrete action to tackle growing racism before the 2027 presidential election, the newly installed mayor of Saint-Denis Bally Bagayoko tells RFI, after facing racist abuse in the weeks following his election in mid-March.

Paris Saint-Germain have not been afforded a weekend off this time in between the two legs of their Champions League semi-final against Bayern Munich, but they could instead take a big step towards clinching yet another Ligue 1 title.

Russia said on Thursday its forces would remain in Mali and continue backing the country’s military rulers, rejecting demands from Tuareg separatists to withdraw after surprise attacks forced Russian troops out of a key northern town.

The world’s first conference on phasing out fossil fuels has ended in Colombia with delegates from 56 countries declaring that the global debate has shifted from whether to stop using oil, gas and coal to how to do it. Debt and financing remain major obstacles.

France’s Foreign Legion – an elite force of foreign volunteers serving under French command – will on Thursday hold its most important annual commemoration. The legion's commander, General Cyrille Youchtchenko, spoke to RFI about its role in an era of drone warfare and rising security fears.

Oil giants have posted "exceptional" profits as war in the Middle East drives up crude prices, fuels global supply fears and creates trading opportunities – handing some of the world’s biggest energy companies a financial boon while consumers face rising costs.

Mali's military leader insists the situation in his country was "under control" as he made his first public address since unprecedented large-scale attacks at the weekend destabilised his ruling junta.

France on Tuesday announced a "first of its kind" plan to phase out coal by 2030, oil by 2045 and gas by 2050 during a global conference aimed at breaking reliance on fossil fuels.

Britain's King Charles and Donald Trump hailed their countries' longstanding ties at a White House state dinner Tuesday – despite the US president claiming the monarch agreed with him on Iran's nuclear weapons.

As a major exhibition retracing how music from Africa, the Caribbean and North America merged to make a distinctly British sound opens in London, Spotlight on Africa looks at a century of black music in the diaspora.

Mali’s crisis deepened on Tuesday, a day after Russian paramilitaries withdrew from the northern city of Kidal, allowing jihadist and Tuareg rebel forces to seize the strategic stronghold. The withdrawal came after coordinated attacks across the country killed Mali’s defence minister and struck targets near the capital, with a senior Malian official telling RFI that Russian forces had “betrayed” Bamako.

Signatories of the landmark nuclear non-proliferation treaty began a meeting at the United Nations headquarters on Monday as fears of a renewed arms race escalate, with atomic powers once again at loggerheads over safeguards.

World military spending rose again in 2025, reaching a record $2.9 trillion (€2.67 trillion), according to new figures from Stockholm-based global armament watchdog SIPRI. This comes as governments responded to war, strategic rivalry and uncertainty, with Europe and Asia leading the push for rearmament.

As radiation spread across Europe in April 1986, so did the truth about a political system built on silence. Four decades on, RFI spoke to history and politics professor Oleg Kobtzeff about how the Chernobyl nuclear disaster exposed the USSR's culture of secrecy, and was among the catalysts for its collapse.

Salmon exposed to cocaine in the water swim longer distances, an Australian and Swedish study published this week shows. Recreational drugs and medicines entering natural environments via wastewater are a growing threat to biodiversity, disrupting the behaviour of many animals.

Paris Saint-Germain coach Luis Enrique on Sunday praised the performance of his players during their 3-0 victory at Angers which sent them six points clear at the top of Ligue 1 with four games remaining.

France's President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday assured Greek leaders that they would be able to count on the support of France during any regional disputes.

More than two months into a conflict that has failed to deliver a decisive military or diplomatic win, President Donald Trump faces the risk that a standoff with Iran will drag on indefinitely and leave an even bigger problem for the US and the world than before he launched the war.

A new Israeli plan to invest $334 million in expanding settlements in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights marks a major escalation in a broader pattern of territorial expansion – on land the United Nations still regards as Syrian.

Mali's army and its Russian mercenary allies surrendered a strategic northern military stronghold to armed rebels on Friday, as Tuareg separatists and jihadists waged a unified front to bring down the country's junta.

The European Union's mammoth trade deal with South American bloc Mercosur provisionally enters into force Friday, despite a pending court ruling on its legality.

King Charles III arrived in Bermuda on Thursday after wrapping up a marathon US state visit aimed at healing ties between Washington and London strained by the war in Iran.

France is using European Immunisation Week to push a nationwide vaccination campaign to raise protection among adolescents and young adults, while scientists warn that anti-vaccine disinformation seen in the United States could spread across Europe.

Mali's junta leader Assimi Goita is expected to attend the funeral on Thursday of Mali's defence minister Sadio Camara, who was killed in an assault on his home during attacks that have destabilised the army's grip on power.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the United States is considering reducing the number of its troops in Germany, amid a row with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the Iran war.

France has launched an investigation into the reappearance of the website that enabled Dominique Pelicot to recruit dozens of strangers to rape his heavily sedated wife, Gisèle, after it was banned two years ago.

Hungary’s incoming government is entering talks with European Union leaders aimed at releasing €17 billion in frozen funding, while advancing reforms to address long-standing rule of law concerns.

Paris Saint-Germain coach Luis Enrique admitted his team will likely need to score several more goals away to Bayern Munich next week to be sure of reaching another Champions League final after a remarkable 5-4 victory in the first leg of their semi-final on Tuesday.

A remotely operated submarine has begun uncovering the secrets of a 16th-century shipwreck lying 2.5 kilometres beneath the Mediterranean off southern France, where researchers are delicately recovering brightly coloured ceramic treasures from the deepest wreck ever found in French territorial waters.

A swipe from President Emmanuel Macron at French hardliners over Algeria has elicited a sharp response from right-wing presidential candidate Bruno Retailleau, as tensions over diplomacy, immigration and security enter the 2027 race for the Elysée Palace.

More than 50 countries are meeting in Colombia on Tuesday to push forward plans for phasing out planet-heating fossil fuels – with new urgency driven by geopolitical tensions.

Mali is facing its most serious security crisis since 2012 following coordinated weekend attacks by jihadists and Tuareg separatists on army positions near the capital Bamako and in the north of the country. Analysts say this could be a turning point for the junta in power since a 2020 coup.

France’s prisons are edging closer to a breaking point, with one of the country’s main prison guard unions calling for strike action to force what it says are long-overdue reforms.

As oil prices surge and key shipping routes close because of the war in the Middle East, the downstream effects are impacting different markets around the world, from pistachios and bananas to luxury leather goods, as industries are being forced to adapt to disrupted supply chains and increased costs.

More than 125 years of black music in Britain is being celebrated in the inaugural exhibition at the new V&A East museum in Stratford, London. RFI was at the opening to explore how music from Africa, the Caribbean and North America merged to make a distinctly British sound.

France's president Emmanuel Macron on Sunday joined leaders from across the world to offer support to Donald Trump after a gun attack during the American president's annual gala dinner in Washington with journalists.

In 1968, Alain Delon’s former bodyguard Stevan Markovic was found dead, a bullet in his head, wrapped in plastic, wearing the actor’s clothes. The scandal took France by storm, with Delon questioned by police and his friend, gangster François Marcantoni, spending a year in prison charged with the killing before he was released and the case dropped. "Murder In Paris '68: A True Story of Death and Glamour” attempts to uncover what really happened. RFI spoke to its author, Edward Chisholm.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the withdrawal of about 5,000 troops from Germany within the next year, the Pentagon said on Friday, in the latest rift in transatlantic ties over the Mideast war.

China will extend zero-tariff treatment to all African countries with diplomatic ties from Friday, in what Beijing called a “significant measure” to deepen China-Africa trade and investment ties.

The United States has sanctioned former Democratic Republic of Congo president Joseph Kabila over what it calls his support for Rwanda-backed M23 rebels and their ally, the Congo River Alliance. The move freezes any assets Kabila may hold in the US and bars transactions through the US financial system.

French unions are mobilising for Labour Day on Friday, defending the status of 1 May as a paid day off, as the government pushes to allow some businesses to open. The battle comes as inflation and fuel costs stoke calls for salary increases.

A sharp rise in Iranian executions of alleged People’s Mojahedin members is drawing attention to one of the country’s oldest and most divisive opposition movements – a group whose leaders fled abroad decades ago, but which still claims to run resistance networks inside Iran.

Press freedom has fallen to its lowest level in a quarter of a century, the media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) warned in its annual survey of conditions for journalists in 180 countries.

France's top tennis player Arthur Fils advanced to a semi-final showdown with world number one Jannik Sinner at the Madrid Masters following a straight sets victory over Jiri Lehecka.

Paris Saint-Germain defender Achraf Hakimi will miss the Champions League semi-final second leg at Bayern Munich next week due to a thigh injury, the European champions said on Wednesday.

Footballers who leave the pitch without the referee's permission and those who cover their mouths during confrontations can now be given red cards, under new rules announced on Wednesday.

Europe endured a historic heatwave across Nordic countries, shrinking glaciers and record sea temperatures in 2025 as the fast-warming continent faces more frequent climate extremes, a new report showed Wednesday.

France is facing mounting pressure over cadmium – a toxic heavy metal linked to cancer and found in everyday foods – as fresh health warnings, public anger and political action intensify around a long-running contamination crisis now heading for a parliamentary battle.

The European Parliament on Tuesday approved a resolution calling for an EU-wide definition of rape based on the absence of freely given and informed consent.

French people are scaling back their summer holiday plans, spending less and staying closer to home as international tensions, rising energy costs and inflation weigh on travel decisions, a survey published on Tuesday found.

France said Monday that Iran must be ready to make "major concessions" to end a crisis, as countries piled pressure on Tehran at a UN session on its control of the key Strait of Hormuz.

French President Emmanuel Macron is in the small state of Andorra for a two-day visit, where the sensitive issue of abortion is set to take centre stage. This comes on the heels of a stop in the Pyrénées to discuss economic development and healthcare.

Mali’s Defence Minister, Sadio Camara, has been killed during an attack on his residence near the capital Bamako,as fighting continued around the country between the army and Tuareg rebels backed by jihadist groups.

Europe is turning to Turkey to fill the security vacuum left by an increasingly unreliable United States. But as Nato's secretary-general was praising Ankara's growing military role this week, the European Commission president was placing Turkey in the same bracket as China and Russia. The contradiction points to a dilemma that is only going to deepen.

When Hungary's Tisza party swept to a two-thirds majority, it ended Viktor Orban's 16-year grip on power and raised hopes – and difficult questions – about the country's democratic reset. Zsuzsanna Szelenyi, an early Fidesz member turned critic and now political analyst, reflects on Orban's transformation of the party, Hungary's regime-change challenges and a new generation's pro-European momentum.

The events of 26 April, 1986, changed the lives of millions of Ukrainians, and people beyond Ukraine’s borders, when Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant underwent a catastrophic failure during a safety test. RFI spoke with Dr Andrei Kindzelski, son of Professor Leonid Kindzelski, chief radiologist of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, who in 2021 was awarded the title Hero of Ukraine in recognition of his tireless efforts to save the lives of those affected.

World number one Jannik Sinner added his voice to the well-wishers after Carlos Alcaraz announced he would be unable to defend his 2025 French Open crown due to an injured right wrist.