Media Interventions

• Madagascar, Ivory Coast and Nigeria were first on the itinerary for Tokyo’s top diplomat this week, with Japan’s Indo-Pacific strategy front of mind

• Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa‘s 10-day tour is calling at Sri Lanka and Nepal last – where the China-India rivalry is sure to be high on the agenda

Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to embark on his first European diplomatic tour in five years, starting in France before traveling on to Serbia and Hungary.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to embark on his first European diplomatic tour in five years, starting in France before traveling on to Serbia and Hungary.

• European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen to meet Chinese President Xi and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in Paris to discuss China ties

• Xi’s trip comes amid barrage of EU trade and competition tools mostly targeting Chinese firms, including dramatic raids in the Netherlands and Poland

PARIS — Three months before an Olympics that presents unprecedented security challenges at a globally tense time, French officials are facing a potential shortfall of qualified private contractors to help protect the Games.

Last month, on a highly anticipated visit to Brazil, French President Emmanuel Macron expressed harsh criticism of the EU-MERCOSUR trade deal. He told a group of businesspeople in São Paulo: “it is a very bad deal, for you and for us.” He also said that the agreement needed to be renegotiated from scratch. But why?

China continues to add new members to its International Lunar Research Station initiative, but many of these are subnational, suggesting issues attracting partners.

In a world already threatened by climate change, wars bring an additional component of instability. How do armed conflicts impact the energy transition, and what can be done about this? Learn more from the discussion featuring Marc-Antoine Eyl-Mazzega, Director of Ifri’s Center for Energy & Climate, moderated by Tatiana Mitrova, NEAH Founder and Director.

Breakdown of continental partnership is a threat to Europe – and could be catastrophic for Ukraine. It was meant to be a patching up of the notoriously fraught Macron-Scholz relationship, a “reset”, to borrow Hillary Clinton’s expression.

There is a war on at home, but Europe’s strategic and naval aspirations are on the far side of the world. After years in search of a geopolitical identity, Europe is aiming to become a much bigger player in one of the most contentious spaces in international relations: maritime security, including in Asia.

As the vital relationship between Franco-German leaders Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron appears “broken”, hopes for a sustainable fix rest on the Weimar Triangle and even the return of an old nemesis.

Allies fret that Franco-German animosity is undermining western unity over Ukraine. Emmanuel Macron will arrive in Berlin on Friday for talks designed to repair a fractured Franco-German relationship marred by caustic public spats and mutual recriminations over the war in Ukraine.