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French PM resigns after less than a month
00:26:31
More political upheaval in France as its shortest-lived government falls
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- [00:00]
BBC Announcer
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk. At the BBC we go further so you see clearer. Through frontline reporting, global stories and local insights, we bring you closer to the world's news as it happens. And it starts with a subscription to BBC.com giving you unlimited articles and videos, ad free podcasts and the BBC News channel streaming live 24. 7. Subscribe to trusted independent journalism from the BBC. Find out more at BBC.com join.
- [00:38]
Alex Ritson
This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson and at 17 hours GMT on Monday 6th October, these are our main stories. France faces more political uncertainty after the fall of its shortest lived government. A Sudanese militia leader is convicted of war crimes in the 1st International Criminal Court verdict on atrocities in Darfur, and Hamas chief negotiator meets Egyptian and Qatari mediators ahead of indirect talks on Gaza. Also in this podcast, rescuers race to save hundreds of hikers stranded by a blizzard on the slopes of Everest, where they are.
- [01:22]
Stephen McDonnell
It's on the eastern approach to Everest, so we're not sort of halfway up the mountain or anything like that. This is a time of year when there isn't supposed to be such heavy snow, so this is uncharacteristically heavy.
- [01:39]
Alex Ritson
Another political crisis in France. The Prime Minister, Sebastian Leconu, has resigned after just three weeks, making his tenure as leader the shortest ever in the modern era. Mr. Leconu, an ally of President Macron, stepped down after unveiling a largely unchanged cabinet from that of his predecessor, Francois Beru. Several parties are now clamoring for early elections, with some calling for Mr. Macron to resign too, although he's always said he will not stand down before his term ends in 2027, Sebastien LeCornu gave this statement in Paris. Being prime minister is a difficult task, he said, probably even more so at the moment because the conditions are not right. However, for three weeks I've been trying to build the right conditions to pass a budget for France. Working with the opposition, I got the feeling that we were always taking two steps forward and one step back. Our Paris correspondent, Hugh Schofield is following developments.
- [02:48]
Hugh Schofield
It came out of the blue. I mean, everyone knew he was in an extremely difficult situation and everyone knew that within a few weeks or months at the most, it was quite likely that he would have to resign because of the logic of parliament and the difficulty of getting any measure through parliament. But for him to resign so quickly and irony of ironies, just after announcing his own government, that was a huge shock and what seems to have happened is that even as he announced the names yesterday, several of those names were already saying, we don't want to be part of this. In particular, there's a part party, the old Gaullist Party, the Republicans Party, which is a sort of strongish force in Parliament, allied to the center. Their leader, Bruno Retailo, who's been Interior Minister for the last year or so, having accepted to be part of this new government, suddenly said, well, actually, I don't really want to stay part of this government. And he issued a statement overnight saying that he was calling a meeting of his party to see what their reaction should be. And from that point, the bricks started falling out of this edifice and it all crumbled.
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Alex Ritson
So President Macron has now tried three prime ministers. It's not really working, is it?
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Hugh Schofield
No. And now, of course, there's huge speculation about what he's going to do now. I mean, can he find another centrist? Sebastian Lecorny was seen as the last resort. He was the ultimate Macron loyalist who would do what the President told him to do. And even he has failed. It seems unlikely that he can find any other centrist figure of any weight to do this task. Could he then turn to the left? Possibly. I mean, the Socialists are saying, well, hang on a sec, you keep giving centrists and the Right a go. It's our turn to try to form a government. He could do that. It'd be against his instincts, and in any case, the Socialist government would be very unlikely to last any longer than these other ones have done. So the logic, it seems to me, determines that he must be certainly seriously thinking of dissolving Parliament and calling new elections. That, I think, is what everyone expects at some point soon. Though, of course, it might not necessarily be the solution to the problem that he wants.
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Alex Ritson
That's what the hard right leader, Marine Le Pen is calling for. She'd also like to see President Macron go, though.
- [04:58]
Hugh Schofield
Yes, that's not her primary call. I dare say she'd be quite happy if that happened. But I mean, her tactical solution for all this, what she's calling for now is the dissolution of Parliament and early parliamentary elections, because she reckons that she could do very well and come out with a clear majority this time. If you remember, at the last election called by Macron in such a disastrous way 15 months ago, she did very, very well. Her hard right party did very, very well in the first round, but they were beaten because the left came together to keep them out in the second round. Her calculation is that that kind of left wing alliance couldn't happen again because people don't believe in it anymore and they can see it was a bit of a cynical move and therefore the hard right would easily win the next elections. Macron knows that too, so that's why he's hesitating.
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Alex Ritson
Hugh Scofield in Paris as we record this podcast. Preliminary talks are said to have been taking place in Cairo between a Hamas delegation and Egyptian and Qatari mediators ahead of indirect talks with Israeli negotiators. It involves the largest diplomatic representation from Hamas since the start of the war in Gaza, and is the latest push since the armed militant group agreed to parts of President Trump's 20 point plan for peace in the Palestinian territory. Here's the Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti. There is a sense of optimism and hope that this would be the end of this terrible war which has already taken the lives of 66,000 Palestinian lives, including 20,000 children. Hamas has already declared their total acceptance of releasing all the Israeli captives together without delay. There are three or four major points that could undermine this whole agreement are related to Netanyahu's behavior because he has destroyed previously several agreements that were almost included with the American side. Meanwhile, reports from Gaza say Israeli attacks have been continuing. I heard more about the progress of the talks from our global affairs reporter, Sebastian Usher.
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Sebastian Usher
I mean, the immediate thing is about the mechanism of the release of our hostages and the release of the Palestinian prisoners in return for that in exchange for that, and how that would work out. I mean, the way that Trump put it was this will happen in 72 hours. So how that is going to actually be done, the practicalities of it within Gaza to get those hostages together and then to hand them over to Israel, and what the guarantees are of Palestinian prisoners then being released after that is a big deal, but also the withdrawal of Israeli troops. I mean, what we have in the proposal, what we've heard from Netanyahu, isn't very clear, certainly not from Hamas's point of view and the disarmament issue. Hamas doesn't essentially want to disarm unless it has a guarantee that a Palestinian state is coming.
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Alex Ritson
After that, how much do both sides want a resolution?
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Sebastian Usher
Both in one sense do I mean Hamas. I mean, it was always going to lose militarily, whether it still has anything to gain from continuing to fight. There has been a sense that there's some division perhaps between those inside guards of a leadership there who feel there's nothing left to lose, who might as well carry on fighting and outside, I mean, and we saw that attempt by Israel to kill the mediators, essentially. Khalil Al Hayy, the main negotiator in Qatar a few weeks ago, he survived. He is there at the talks, leading them. They are more, I think, attuned to the idea that they can put Netanyahu in a difficult position, which they've done by saying they will release the hostages and then hoping to use that as a way of putting pressure on Israel, on Mr. Netanyahu to give them and concede of the conditions that they're concerned about most and that that will sort of happen in a way that we. This 20 point proposal, which is a ceasefire, would come into place, hostages would be released and negotiations would then go on in earnest. That's where we seem to be moving towards again.
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Alex Ritson
But both sides under huge pressure here.
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Sebastian Usher
Yes, I mean, Hamas is coming under pressure, both internationally from its host, Qatar, the other Arab mediators, its supporters, but also within Gaza. We're seeing more and more an issue from the Palestinian population there. And Israel, we know internationally, huge pressure. Many of its Western allies have played cards like recognizing Palestinian statehood to put pressure on the Israeli government to stop this. But also there's internal pressure from hostage families from a majority of the Israeli population who want this to be ended so hostage can be released. But there is a pressure from the far right who are still in the government who believe that they shouldn't end, that Netanyahu should continue the war. So all these pressures have been pushing, they've been going on for a long time. But we may have reached a point where those pressures begin to tell and both sides feel that this is the moment to come to some kind of agreement, at least about the hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
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Alex Ritson
What we've got you here though, Sebastian, the conditions in the Gaza Strip. What is the latest?
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Sebastian Usher
Well, the bombardment is still continuing. There are still dozens of Palestinians who are being reported as killed. Local hospitals giving a number each day. It's been in the 60s, the last couple of days, so that's still a big deal. Mr. Trump had said that Israel should immediately halt its bombardment. Now it was a defensive position. I think that Israel would argue that it's doing now when it carries out these attacks rather than offensive, so would say it's obeying the letter of what Mr. Trump has said. But in reality, I think the situation for Gazans in guard city mode is not very different from how it was last week before this proposal was to nail down and Hamas had given its conditional approval.
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Alex Ritson
Sebastian Usher, the International Criminal Court has found a former Sudanese militia leader guilty of 31 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ali Mohammad Ali Abd al Rahman, better known by his pseudonym Ali Kushayb, was among the most notorious figures linked to atrocity in Sudan's Darfur region between 2003 and 2004. Our correspondent in the Hague, Anna Holligan, was in court and sent this report.
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Sebastian Usher
Ali Kushaib was the influential leader of the Janjaweed militia backed by the Sudanese state. He oversaw killings, the rape of women and girls and took part in acts of torture and persecution. The ICC judges found the Janjaweeds brutal tactics, including mass executions, systematic sexual violence and pillaging were often orchestrated and directly inflicted by Ali Kushayb. During the trial, the first before the ICC for Darfur's atrocities, survivors described how villages were burned down, men and boys slaughtered and women sexually enslaved. He'll be sentenced at a later date.
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Alex Ritson
Anna Holligan Rescuers are racing to retrieve hundreds of hikers who remain stranded by a blizzard on the slopes of the world's tallest mountain, Mount Everest. Villages have been deployed to clear out snow blocking access to the area in China, which sits at an altitude of more than 4,900 meters. Social media posts showed tents buried in deep snowfalls. I spoke to our China Correspondent, Stephen McDonnell about the rescue effort.
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Stephen McDonnell
We're just pulling this together in terms of the bits and pieces of information we're getting from officials up there. Not only is this a really remote region, but also a region we can't enter without special permission inside the Tibetan Autonomous Region as also as foreigners. So according to the official notifications we're getting from the government, at least 350 people have been rescued from the mountain and there are hundreds more who they've made contact with and are in the process of getting off the mountain. We've been in touch with some of their relatives. One woman said her husband had been on a 12 day trek and a couple of days in she received a call from him on the satellite phone and he said, you have to get in touch with the police because the snow levels have dangerous. And so she rang the Chudang police and they'd already received other notifications from similar hiking groups in the area and pulled together rescue teams involving hundreds of local Tibetans to push through the snow to get to these areas. And others have told us that they're coming back down the mountain, in some cases using yaks. And the reason they're using yaks is because the heavy snow has created these areas and they don't quite know what's underneath it. And so I guess they're pushing the axe ahead to try and clear a path for them to make their way down. They're saying it's been very difficult.
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Alex Ritson
So what are these people doing? Because they got into trouble. But they weren't even mountain climbers, were they?
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Stephen McDonnell
They were hikers where they are. It's on the eastern approach to Everest, so we're not sort of halfway up the mountain or anything like that. And this is a time of year when there isn't supposed to be such heavy snow. So this is uncharacteristically heavy and they're all caught out by it. And in terms of the numbers, it's because it's a natur. So people use this national holiday to go to have a look at the views of Mount Everest and that's how they've been caught up there in such numbers. But it's just sort of a terrible confluence of circumstances, if you like, that many people at this time and this uncharacteristically heavy snow at the beginning of.
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Alex Ritson
October and some people really quite unwell as a result of this.
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Stephen McDonnell
Yes, well, of course, altitude sickness is one of the things you're going to suffer, but also exposure, hypothermia, and you can be in kind of conditions than this and die from hypothermia. So while I say they're not halfway up Mount Everest, they are nevertheless up in the himalayas, well above 4,000 metres. So it is dangerous. And to give you an indication of how dangerous it can be, in the province next door to that, Qinghai, they've had a similar problem in the last 24 hours and there somebody was killed. But at least in terms of the Everest rescue attempt, if, if what the authorities are telling us is to be believed, they're pretty confident that nobody will die, that they'll get everyone off that mountain.
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Alex Ritson
Stephen McDonnell in Beijing. Still to come in this podcast, I'd.
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Sebastian Usher
Like to write something that wasn't so much a hurry. I'd always written too fast. I always ought to have another six months on it, if that's what I'd like. So one that I was happy with.
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Alex Ritson
The British novelist Gilly Cooper has died at the age of 88.
- [15:27]
BBC Announcer
At the BBC, we go further so you see clearer. Through frontline reporting, global stories and local insights, we bring you closer to the world's news as it happens. And it starts with a subscription to BBC.com giving you unlimited articles and videos, ad free podcasts and the BBC news channel streaming live 24. 7. Subscribe to trusted independent journalism from the BBC. Find out more@BBC.com join.
- [16:02]
Alex Ritson
A US federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from sending hundreds of National Guard troops to the city of Portland in the state of Oregon. The judge's ruling came hours after the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, said he would sue the president over the deployment of state troops. Mr. Newsom described the move as reckless and authoritarian. The Trump administration says troops are needed to protect immigration enforcement operations from protesters. Spencer Platt is a photojournalist in Portland.
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Spencer Platt
The city itself is extremely quiet and calm. People going about their usual day, and cafes are open, restaurants are open. Theater symphony is playing tonight. So it's very quiet. It's very much a split screen. Like so much of these news events these days, there are people that are very angry, organized on the street, and then there's a lot of people that have just kind of tuned out. They're tired of it all. And, you know, sometimes you can't blame them because it does get a little heavy. It does get a little overwhelming at times. But this is, I want to say, it's about a mile and a half out of the city center, and it's a ICE detention facility. And it's just become a kind of daily but mainly nightly focal point of anger for many residents. And, you know, the, the crowds aren't huge yet, but if the National Guard is deployed, I suspect the tension will, will grow. It's usually, you know, there's cars coming in and going out of this facility every hour. There's some police, there's some actual ICE members, there's some border patrol. And they usually come out like en masse, like every 30, 40 minutes maybe. And they try to push back the crowd. And that kind of leads, it just kind of, it creates a lot of tension. And sometimes there's tear gas and there's pushing and shoving. I haven't seen any real violence from the protesters yet. It's actually been pretty calm. But it does seem to be getting more tense as we, you know, grow increasingly close to a potential National Guard deployment. And I think, I think there's a worry on the streets about that. But I do, you know, often get stopped when I'm going to my hotel of all my camera gear, my helmet, my gas mask and people, locals will ask me, do you think it's violent here? And I'm always, I tell them I don't work for the Travel Channel. I love the city. And I'm just covering this one aspect.
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Alex Ritson
Of the city photojournalist Spencer Platt. In Portland, antigovernment protests have broken out again in Madagascar. A few hundred young people, mostly students, started marching this morning from the University of Antananarivo. On Sunday, the security forces defended their crackdown on protesters, saying it was provoked by the young people known as Gen z madder. The BBC's Sami Awami is in the capital and has been speaking to some of them.
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Sami Awami
There is growing determination among young people to make a difference in their country. As one of them told me, now that they've started this movement, they have to win.
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Alex Ritson
They wanted to rise up a lot.
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Spencer Platt
Of time, but it failed.
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Sami Awami
This is one of the organizers, let's call him Doda. We met him in the middle of the paddy fields on the northern edge of the city. He chose this sport, he says, because it's only place that he feels safe. And for the same reason, we can't use his real name.
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Alex Ritson
So now that we have launched this movement, the Gen Z, it is really. It matters to everyone to have their voice heard right now. And if it's not us, then everybody will be silenced forever.
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Sami Awami
How is it like to be a young person in Madagascar?
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Alex Ritson
Actually, to be a young person in Madagascar, you have to be tough. First of the insecurities, you need to be prepared for that. You live in constant fear of when your house will be broken into, when you will be shot by people, when you'll be stabbed.
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Sami Awami
About 7km away, we meet Herizo at his friend's house. He's a millennial, but he tells us he couldn't stay out.
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Alex Ritson
All of us suffer of this problem for Malagasy people is also about the governance. It's really about governance and many, many corruption. This is why all Malagasy's concern of.
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Sami Awami
The security, the frustrations voiced by Doda and Herizo echo across every corner of the city that we visited. About a few other kilometers away, we meet a young woman, about 24 years old. She sells fried sugary donuts at a borrowed weekend sport.
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Alison Aman Lawi
We really suffer because of this Power and water cut every day. How the president run the country. It's not good for the people, so he has to resign.
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Sami Awami
As dusk falls, Antanan river streets remain calm for now. But behind the quiet, the determination of a generation grows louder.
- [21:16]
Alex Ritson
Sami Awami in Madagascar. Millions of people in Somalia are at risk of worsening hunger and malnutrition. That's according to the United Nations World Food Program. And from next month, it says the WFP will have to reduce the number of people who receive emergency food help to just 350,000. That's down from 1.1 million in August, supporting less than one in every 10 people who need it. We heard more from Alison Aman Lawi of the WFP in Somalia.
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Alison Aman Lawi
It's a really serious situation here in Somalia. It really is unprecedented for us. The latest assessment that was just done shows that over a million people right now in Somalia are facing these emergency levels of hunger. This is a million mothers and fathers who can't provide even a single meal a day for their children. We have been supporting the community at a level of about 1.2 million. And that really is going to fall off a cliff. And that's very much how we feel that in November the situation is going to be dire. The level of hunger this, this represents what we're going into, which is a hunger season, is a 50% increase in the number of people who are in emergency hunger. And the assessment also shows that close to 2 million pregnant and breastfeeding women and children are malnourished. And this, of course, impacts their health, their growth, and their development. So, yeah, it's a really, really serious situation that we're facing right now.
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Alex Ritson
So what will happen to these mothers.
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Sebastian Usher
These children, these families that you won't be able to support?
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Alison Aman Lawi
Yeah, it's a very difficult situation. I mean, the World Food Program has teams and partners on the ground. We have families and communities that rely on us. But without the funding, we can't do our jobs, we can't help them, and we'll have to start suspending activities in November. Only being able to reach 1 in 10 people, coming down from 1.2 million down to 350,000. I mean, what happens to the rest? You know, I'm thinking about a family I met recently who they had to leave their home and their land. You know, we had Omar and Halima because of the drought. They watched their crops die from lack of rain. And then their goats got thinner and thinner. And finally they told me that when they finished their last sack of sorghum, they took their three children and just started walking, looking for assistance, for a way to feed their kids. They're a particularly sad story. They ended up building a small tent on the edge of a settlement for other people who also had been forced from their homes in the past. I mean, WFP has been able to support them thanks to the donations. You know, a helping hand only until they can go home and plant crops, but without rain to water those crops or food support until their plants grow. So honestly, I don't know how they will feed their children and without funding, we can't help them. So it really is quite serious.
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Alex Ritson
Alison Oman Lawi of the World Food Programme talking to Catherine Biaruhanger the British novelist Gilly Cooper, whose numerous bestsellers such as Riders were translated into many languages, has died. She was 88 years old. She began her career in newspapers writing a column for the Sunday Times for 13 years. But she gained fame for her racy romantic novels, the best known of which are her Rutshire Chronicles. One of the books, Rivals, was successfully serialized by Disney in 2024. It delved into the heady, bitchy cutthroat world of 1980s independent television. Alex Stanger looks back at her life.
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Alex Stanger
Gilly Cooper grew up in Yorkshire, in the sort of world she wrote about upper middle class and horsey. She said she'd had more than 20 jobs and been fired from most of them because of her atrocious typing. But in 1968 came her big break when she started writing a column for the Sunday Times about life as a young working wife. She later branched out into books, humorous non fiction, like How To Stay Married. Fiction followed first short romances including Prudence, then the longer Rutger Chronicle novels for which she will be best remembered. Jolly Naughty books with saucy covers and a handsome hero. Rupert Campbell, Black Mercy.
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Sebastian Usher
Mademoiselle, I hope your horse is all right.
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Alex Ritson
I don't know how he turned that wall. Yes, he was a bit of a silly chump, wasn't he?
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Alex Stanger
In person, she was full of vitality and gossip. But she was hard working and tough too. On occasion, she needed to be. She and her husband Leo enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle, but when his publishing firm went bust, she became the main breadwinner for a time. She wrote five books in a single year. In 1999, she was lucky to escape alive from the Paddington Rail crash. She climbed out of an overturned carriage and went, as scheduled, to a meeting in London. Yet despite the success of her books, she still thought she could do better.
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Sebastian Usher
I really would. I know that sounds serious. I'd like to write a book. My mother was wanting me to write that drama. Margaret Drabble, Sean. I'd like to write something that wasn't so much a hurry, so I'd always written too fast. I always thought to have another six months on it. That's what I'd like. So one, just one that I was happy with.
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Alex Stanger
She was, she thought, a reasonable writer, though not a real one. I get drunk at parties, she once said, when I should be observing things.
- [26:58]
Alex Ritson
Alex Stanger on the Life of Jilly Cooper. And that's all from us for now. But there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcastbc.co.uk. you can also find us on X@BBC World Service. Use the hashtag global newspod. This edition was mixed by Stephen Bailey and the producers were Muzaffa Shakir and Richard Hamilton. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritson. Until next time. Goodbye.
- [27:45]
BBC Announcer
At the BBC we go further so you see clearer. Through frontline reporting, global stories and local insights, we bring you closer to the world's news as it happens. And it starts with a subscription to BBC.com giving you unlimited articles and videos, ad free podcasts and the BBC News Channel streaming live 24. 7. Subscribe to trusted independent journalism from the BBC. Find out more@BBC.com join.