France is feeling the shockwaves of the war in Gaza with a rise in Islamophobia and a wave of anti-Semitic attacks that have got the public and politicians worried. Also, bikers rev up to fight school bullying. And the African-American fighter pilot who flew for France in WWI because the US would not take him.
The Israel-Hamas war has been imported into French society and politics, with the left unable to agree on how much to denounce Hamas, and the far right using the conflict to further bolster its support for Jews – an about-face for the party of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who famously dismissed the Nazi gas chambers as a "detail" of WWII. Nonna Mayer, a researcher at Sciences Po and the CNRS specialising in the far right, anti-Semitism and racism, talks about the rise in anti-Semitic attacks in France, why Marine Le Pen is championing Jews, and whether the left-wing coalition can survive its differences over the war in Gaza. (Listen @0')
One in 10 kids in France will get bullied at school and after a recent series of teenage suicides, the government has rolled out a raft of measures to help prevent such tragedies. As part of national anti-bullying day, on 9 November, we look at the role members of U.B.A.K.A (Urban Bulldogs Against Kids’ Abuse) are playing in the fight against school bullying. 76-year old Bernard Mignot, a biker and former bodyguard who set up the French chapter of U.B.A.K.A in Brittany in 2015, talks about going into schools to help kids open up and share bikers' values of respect for one another, and oneself. (Listen @20')
As France commemorates the 105th anniversary of the end of WWI, on Armistice Day, 11 November, we talk about Eugene Bullard, who made history by becoming the first black American to fly a fighter plane; but he flew for France, not for the United States, where racial segregation kept him out of the Air Force. (Listen @14'40'')
Episode mixed by Cecile Pompeani.
Spotlight on France is a podcast from Radio France International. Find us on rfienglish.com, Apple podcasts (link here), Spotify (link here) or your favourite podcast app (pod.link/1573769878).
Podcast: Pro-Palestinian student protests, French euroscepticism, Channel Tunnel
Podcast: War on youth, Ionesco in Paris, French women's right to vote
Podcast: France-Russia relations, hair discrimination, tax history
Podcast: Covid obedience, vasectomies in France, was Rosa Bonheur a lesbian?
Podcast: #MeToo hits French cinema, mobile movie theatre, leap year paper
Podcast: French farmers protest, battling the mathematics gender gap
Podcast: Fixing France, opposing immigration reforms, Françoise Giroud
Podcast: British in France, returning human remains, the Comtesse du Barry
Podcast: French rooster revival, thrifting, reporter Albert Londres
Podcast: immigration referendum, childfree in France, the feline astronaut
Podcast: French police go back to school, eating insects, deciphering hieroglyphics
Podcast: France's heatwave legacy, 15-minute city conspiracies, the first TGV
Podcast: A deeper look at urban and police violence in France's banlieues
Podcast: wheat on the Seine, denim goes home to Nimes, forgotten first woman filmmaker
Podcast: New Caledonia dialogue, homophobia in French football, moonlighting novelists
Podcast: Conserving a martyred village, abortion drug shortages, identifying HIV
Podcast: French union paradox, Tintin today, first Miss France
Podcast: holding multinationals to account, Agent Orange on stage, ten years of gay marriage
Podcast: France and China, menstrual leave, the 'Picasso Papers'
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Spotlight on Africa
World Music Matters
Culture in France
The Sound Kitchen
Africa: Stories in the 55