We look into how the war on Gaza has been reshaping global perceptions among youth in the West and what potential reforms that might bring.
Through a conversation with young online activists, we delve into some of the new shifts in young people’s perspectives of their governments, mainstream media, international law, Western democracy and more.
Presenter: Myriam Francois
Guests: George Lee – educator and content creator Allie O’Brien – content creator Yeganeh Mafaher – social justice content creator
Buildings and cars torched after protest against constitutional amendments descends into rioting.
Security forces have been mobilised and a curfew imposed in the French Pacific island territory of New Caledonia after a general strike and protests over proposed constitutional amendments descended into violence.
Shops and buildings were set on fire in the capital Noumea, as well as surrounding settlements, on Monday night, after a day of action over the proposed changes which would increase the size of the electorate for upcoming elections.
Many in the Indigenous population fear the move will “further minimise the indigenous Kanak people”.
Noting that the violence was continuing, Louis Le Franc, the high commissioner of New Caledonia, said in a statement that security forces had been deployed and a curfew would be imposed from 6pm on May 14 (07:00 GMT) until 6am on May 15 (19:00 GMT on May 14).
“The high commissioner condemns in the strongest terms these acts of violence, which constitute serious attacks on people and property,” the statement said.
New Caledonia’s airport was also closed.
The high commissioner said 36 people had been arrested.
New Caledonia is one of France’s biggest overseas territories and a key part of its claim as a Pacific power.
Voters rejected independence in a series of referendums that were promised after the islands were rocked by violent unrest.
Pro-independence groups boycotted the last vote in 2021 and rejected the result in which turnout was only 44 percent.
Noumea lies about 17,000km (10,563 miles) from Paris.
Mbappe has so far won six Ligue 1 titles and three French Cups in his seven years at PSG, his hometown club.
French football star Kylian Mbappe says he will leave Paris Saint-Germain and end his “adventure” with the club in a few weeks.
“This is my last year at Paris Saint-Germain. … I will play my last match at the Parc des Princes this Sunday,” the 25-year old said in a video posted on the social media platform X on Friday.
PSG have already secured the Ligue 1 title, their 10th in the past 12 seasons, and will pick up the trophy after Sunday’s game against Toulouse, which will be their last of the campaign on home turf.
Luis Enrique’s side were eliminated from the Champions League this week by Borussia Dortmund in the semifinals, a 1-0 loss in Tuesday’s second leg at home sealing a surprise 2-0 aggregate defeat.
The defeat means Mbappe will not get the send-off he had hoped for in the Champions League final at Wembley on June 1 and will end his seven-year spell at PSG without ever having won Europe’s elite club competition.
Mbappe informed the Qatari-owned PSG privately in February of his intention to depart when his contract expires at the end of the current campaign.
The 25-year-old has not said publicly, though, where he will be going next, but it appears certain that he is bound for Real Madrid.
“It’s a lot of emotions, many years where I had the chance and the great honour to be a member of the biggest French club, one of the best in the world,” Mbappe said.
“It allowed me to arrive here, to have my first experience in a club with a lot of pressure, to grow as a player, of course, by being alongside some of the best in history, some of the greatest champions,” he added.
“It’s hard, and I never thought it would be this difficult to announce that, … but I think I needed this, a new challenge, after seven years.”
Mbappe did not find the net in either leg of the Dortmund tie but has scored 43 goals in all competitions this season with 26 of those coming in Ligue 1.
He will still hope to add to his club record tally of 255 goals for PSG and win another medal in the French Cup final. Mbappe has so far won six Ligue 1 titles, three French Cups and the now defunct League Cup twice in his seven years at his hometown team.
After Sunday’s game, PSG will complete their league campaign with away matches at Nice and at relegation-threatened Metz before Mbappe wraps up his career with the club in the French Cup final in Lille on May 25.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has concluded a five-day tour of Europe, after visiting France, Serbia and Hungary, where he touted Beijing’s vision of a multipolar world and held talks on trade, investments and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron feted Xi with gifts of luxury bottles of cognac and a trip to a childhood haunt in the Pyrenees mountains, while in Serbia, President Aleksandar Vucic organised a grand welcome, gathering a crowd of tens of thousands of people, who chanted “China, China” and waved Chinese flags in front of the Serbian presidential palace.
In Hungary, President Tamas Sulyok and Prime Minister Viktor Orban also rolled out the red carpet for Xi, receiving him with military honours at the Hungarian presidential palace.
The tour marked Xi’s first trip to Europe in five years and came at a symbolic time for the three nations.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and France, and the 75th of those with Hungary. The trip also coincided with the 25th anniversary of the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during Serbia’s war on Kosovo.
Xi’s main aim with the visit, analysts say, was pushing for a world where the United States is less dominant, and controlling damage to China’s ties with the European Union as trade tensions grow amid a threat of European tariffs and a probe into Chinese subsidies for electric vehicles that European officials say are hurting local industries.
People waving Chinese and Serbian flags gathered outside the Palace of Serbia during a welcome ceremony for Chinese President Xi Jinping in Belgrade [Dimitrije Goll/ Serbia’s Presidential press service via AFP]
Here are the main takeaways.
No concessions on trade, Russia-Ukraine
Throughout Xi’s two-day trip to France, Macron pressed the Chinese leader to address Beijing’s trade imbalances with the EU – which stood at a deficit of 292 billion euros ($314.72bn) last year – and to use his influence on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine.
Macron invited European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to join his talks with Xi, to underline European unity on calls for greater access to the Chinese market and to address the bloc’s complaints regarding its excess capacity in electric vehicles and green technology. The pair also pushed Xi to control the sales of products and technologies to Russia that can be used for both civilian and military purposes.
But the Chinese leader appeared to have offered few concessions.
Xi denied there was a Chinese “overcapacity problem” and only reiterated his calls for negotiations to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. Xi, who is expected to host Putin in China later this month, said he called on all parties to restart contact and dialogue.
“Both trade and Russia are non-negotiable for China. Macron could not achieve anything [on those fronts],” said Shirley Yu, political economist and senior fellow at the London School of Economics in the United Kingdom.
But she suggested the visit furthered Macron’s personal relationship with Xi, one that is part of the French leader’s strategy to make France a crucial partner to all emerging world powers.
“Macron shares one vision in common with Xi, which is that the US hegemony – including the quest for Europe’s allegiance to the US’s foreign policy – must yield to a multipolar global order by accommodating the rising powers’ interests and concerns,” Yu told Al Jazeera. Macron’s recent visits to India and Brazil also “prove that France wants to stay at the forefront of that global shift,” she added.
And despite the lack of concessions, French officials told the Reuters news agency that the visit allowed Macron to pass on messages on Ukraine and would allow for more open discussions in the future.
As for Xi, Macron’s talk of European “strategic autonomy” helps further the Chinese leader’s vision for a multipolar world. And while there was no reconciliation on the economic front, Xi’s visit would help with “damage limitation” wrote Yu Jie, a senior research fellow on China at the Chatham House, a United Kingdom-based think tank. It could help prevent ties with Europe from worsening even more, as they have with the US, she said, amid the threat of European tariffs on Chinese goods and a probe into Chinese subsidies for electric vehicles.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, right, address the press after their official talks in the Carmelite Monastery, the prime minister’s office, at Buda Castle district in Budapest, Hungary on May 9, 2024 [Pool via AFP]
In contrast to Xi’s stop in France, his visits to EU candidate country Serbia and EU member state Hungary were marked by pledges to deepen political ties and expand investments in eastern and central Europe.
In Belgrade, Vucic, the Serbian president, signed up to Xi’s vision of a “global community of shared future” and the two leaders hailed an “ironclad partnership” while also announcing that a free trade deal signed between their two countries last year would come into effect on July 1.
Other economic promises included the purchases of new Chinese trains, new air links and increased Serbian imports.
Yu, the political economist at LSE, said Xi’s visit to Belgrade on the 25th anniversary of NATO’s bombing of the Chinese embassy in the city, was meant to make “clear that China and Russia share a common objection to NATO’s east expansion”. It also “reveals that there should be no illusion that China will bow down to Western pressure to curtail economic partnership with Russia,” she said.
In Budapest, Xi pledged more investments in transport and energy, including the construction of a high-speed railway connecting the capital city centre to its airport and cooperation in the nuclear sector, according to Hungarian officials. Xi also promised to move forward on a $2.1bn project to connect the Hungarian capital with the Serbian capital.
The project, most of which is financed by a loan from China, is part of the Belt and Road Initiative, the ambitious infrastructure plan launched by Xi a decade ago to connect Asia with Africa and Europe.
All this demonstrates Xi’s keenness “to reintroduce the Cold War ‘Second World’ as a significant geostrategic player,” said Yu. “With China’s economic support, the periphery of the EU can become more significant European economic players, boasting higher speed of growth and delivering high-tech supply chains,” she said.
To China, Hungary serves as a gateway to the EU trade bloc and Yu added that Beijing’s growing partnership with Hungary could also “potentially deem the EU’s sanctions on Chinese EVs ineffective”.
Shanghai, China– “The Chinese take great pride in their food,” read a memo prepared for United States President Richard Nixon ahead of his groundbreaking visit to the People’s Republic of China in 1972. Nixon’s lavish state banquet with Chinese premier Zhou Enlai in Beijing, broadcast live across the world, was crucial in improving US public opinion of a country that had been hidden from view for decades.
More than half a century later, food is once again playing a central role in nurturing warmer US-China relations. With Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen both recently wrapping up their second visits to China in less than a year, meals have emerged as a key ingredient in stabilising ties between the two countries, as officials on both sides look to tap into the potential of what has been called “food diplomacy”.
Yellen’s visit in early April was notable for the level of Chinese public attention on her food choices. Anticipation was high after her first visit last July, when her choice of a Beijing restaurant serving authentic food from the country’s southern Yunnan province, including mushrooms that can have psychedelic effects if cooked improperly, made her a social media darling in China.
This time around, it was not only her choice of authentic Cantonese and Sichuan food that grabbed headlines but also her use of chopsticks at a popular Guangzhou restaurant established in 1880, reminiscent of Nixon’s own chopstick skills that also impressed his hosts in 1972.
Although Yellen is known to sample local food during her trips around the US, the symbolic significance of doing so in China was especially pronounced, according to Thomas DuBois, a historian of China who teaches at Beijing Normal University.
“In China, food is the language of diplomacy, and the Chinese are rightfully proud of their culinary culture. She [Yellen] knew that how she ate would reflect extremely heavily on her visit,” DuBois told Al Jazeera.
“If you’re eating badly in China, because it’s a very food-obsessed culture, it’s more than a sign of bad taste, it’s a sign that there’s something off about you.”
US President Richard Nixon’s 1972 banquet in Beijing was broadcast live on television [Bill Achatz/AP Photo]
DuBois noted that one of the common phrases used to describe Yellen’s eating in China was “qianxu”, or humility – a character trait “extremely important” to the Chinese.
“Eating well and knowing how to eat is a profound moral philosophy in China that really comes down to being humble enough to change yourself according to what needs to happen, such as coming here and using chopsticks,” he said.
Food’s importance to diplomacy is well-known among foreign diplomats in China. According to a diplomat for a major European country in Beijing, eating together is one of the top priorities when interacting with Chinese officials.
“In high-level bilateral meetings, it’s incredibly important to have an eating element in the programme because that’s where you can have an open and frank conversation,” he said, preferring not to be named. “The dinners are used strategically on both sides to create a trusted relationship,” he said.
Before the diplomat was posted to Beijing, part of his training related to Chinese banquet customs, including who sits where at the table and the rules surrounding toasting. Ministers from his country are also briefed on these customs before they have meetings with their Chinese counterparts, he added.
Even so, banquets can be tricky affairs. In addition to complicated customs, the complex nature of Chinese cuisine, which uses a wide range of ingredients, can lead to challenges in establishing rapport over food, especially with food allergies, which are relatively uncommon in China.
At a recent banquet in Beijing arranged by the Chinese, each visiting European minister had a different allergy, from lactose intolerance to shellfish.
“A Chinese staffer came over and told me that they had such difficulty planning this dinner for us because our ministers have so many different allergies,” the diplomat said. “These differences in eating habits can complexify things and create lots of stress and anxiety.”
Warm coverage
The viral seven-second video of Yellen’s chopstick skills was first posted by a social media account believed to be run directly by Beijing. Multiple state-run outlets published the full details of Yellen’s food itinerary, including all the dishes she ate.
In an essay on the popular Chinese app WeChat, veteran commentator and former journalist Zhang Feng noted that Chinese state media coverage of Yellen’s more endearing side was a departure from the “cold” reporting on US officials in recent years.
“Yellen’s trip to China may somewhat improve the anti-American sentiment of ordinary Chinese people,” Zhang wrote. Chinese public opinion of the US sharply deteriorated during the Donald Trump presidency, who famously ate “Americanised” Chinese food during his state visit in 2017, rebounding slightly since President Joe Biden took office.
The warmer coverage is consistent with the Chinese state media’s shift in tone on US-China relations in recent months as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) looks to stabilise bilateral relations amid domestic economic challenges.
The practice has historical roots. Chinese officials also used food to improve perceptions of the US in the run-up to Nixon’s visit in 1972. Photos of Americans friendly to the regime, such as journalist Edgar Snow, attending various state banquets were widely circulated in both national and internal party newspapers.
The Nanxiang Steamed Bun restaurant said it had seen no spike in business as a result of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken eating there [Vincent Chow/Al Jazeera]
However, there has also been nationalist pushback against the recent softening of rhetoric.
The outspoken tabloid Global Times said in an editorial that “[t]he Chinese people welcome anyone from anywhere to come and enjoy our food, but that does not mean we won’t push back against groundless accusations and outright crackdowns”.
Another vocal critic, former Xinhua News Agency journalist Ming Jinwei, accused compatriots of being “hopelessly enamoured” with the US in a WeChat essay and referred to them as “spiritual Americans”. He claimed that the reputation of the US is now “bankrupt” in China, which he described as “a good thing”.
The debate over how the CCP should shape domestic opinion towards the US was on display in the much frostier reception Blinken received during his visit in late April, which included meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
While Blinken also ate in authentic restaurants in Shanghai and Beijing, with the US embassy even sharing a clip of him with a popular Chinese food vlogger showing off his chopstick skills, his eating habits received far less attention than Yellen’s.
The social media account that had enthused about Yellen’s ability to use chopsticks did not share any videos of Blinken’s culinary adventures. Instead, it emphasised Chinese talking points about the US’s “wrong words and deeds” on various red-line issues at the centre of US-China tensions, including Taiwan, the South China Sea, and Ukraine.
On Weibo, China’s equivalent of X, one of the most discussed topics during Blinken’s three-day visit was an interview with the BBC in Beijing in which he was subject to tough questioning over US support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
The related hashtag for the interview broke into the site’s top 10 most discussed topics on April 28, amassing more than 67 million views as of Tuesday. In contrast, multiple hashtags about Yellen’s eating habits had amassed a total of 39 million views.
It is unclear whether the BBC interview went viral organically. Weibo has been accused of rigging its hashtag ranking system before, with hashtags relating to international politics prone to manipulation.
Chinese President Xi Jinping enjoys a glass of wine on his visit to France this week [Aurelien Morissard/AP Photo]
On Saturday evening, the Shanghai restaurant that Blinken visited was about 80 percent full. A staff member said the restaurant’s location in a tourist hotspot meant that they were always busy and that Blinken’s visit had not led to a spike in customers.
Nonetheless, other countries have also recognised the power of food diplomacy.
On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron thanked the visiting Xi after an hours-long meeting in Paris for his “openness“ to not imposing preemptive tariffs on French cognac. Beijing had launched an anti-dumping investigation into European brandy in January, viewed by some as a response to a European Union probe on Chinese electric vehicles.
Macron later took Xi and his wife to the Pyrenees, where they nibbled on cheese and enjoyed some wine.
And what did Macron’s going-away gift for Xi include? Two bottles of cognac, of course.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is on his first trip to Europe in five years, which is likely to be dominated by Russia’s war in Ukraine as well as economic strains between Beijing and Brussels.
The first stop will be France, with Xi due to hold talks in Paris on May 6 with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, before travelling south to the Pyrenees.
After that, he will travel to Serbia and Hungary, two countries that have maintained close ties with Russia despite its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
According to Matt Geracim, the assistant director of the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, the Chinese president is travelling to Europe with three goals: “repairing relations in Europe damaged by China’s support for Russia’s war on Ukraine, blunting the EU’s economic security agenda vis-a-vis China, and showcasing Beijing’s strong ties with its stalwart partners Serbia and Hungary.”
Here is all you need to know about Xi’s European tour, which continues until Friday.
The big picture
Beijing and Paris are marking 60 years since diplomatic relations were established, with France the first Western country to formally recognise the People’s Republic of China on January 27, 2024.
But the trip also comes amid a deteriorating global security climate, with the war in Ukraine now into its third year and at least 34,683 Palestinians killed in Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza.
France has said those two conflicts, particularly Ukraine where Beijing has professed neutrality but not condemned Moscow for its full-scale invasion, will feature prominently in the talks.
“Exchanges will focus on international crises, first and foremost the war in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East,” the Elysee Palace said in a statement ahead of the visit last week.
Macron has recently emerged as one of the most hawkish of the EU leaders on the continent’s security, and he will be urging Xi to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine. In an interview with the Economist newspaper published last week, the French president argued the war was existential for Europe.
“If Russia wins in Ukraine there will be no security in Europe,” he said. “Who can pretend that Russia will stop there?” What security would there be, he asked, for neighbouring countries: Moldova, Romania, Poland, Lithuania and others?
To underline the unity of the European position, von der Leyen will also join Monday’s discussions, which are due to get under way just after 11am (09:00 GMT).
As well as the Ukraine war, Europe is also concerned about Chinese business practices and has initiated an investigation into China’s subsidies for electric vehicle manufacturers, amid concerns such payments are undermining competition and harming European companies.
The more than two-year-long war in Ukraine will be high on the agenda when Macron meets Xi [Ukraine Patrol Police via AP]
Macron told the Economist that he would also convey to Xi why Europe needs to safeguard its own manufacturers and industries.
Ahead of Xi’s departure last week, Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that Beijing was ready to “work with France and the EU to take this meeting as an opportunity to make the China-EU relations more strategic, stable, constructive and mutually beneficial, promote steady and sustained progress in China-EU relations, and contribute to the prosperity of both China and Europe and a peaceful world.”
Following Monday’s summit, Marcon and his wife, Brigitte, will host Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, to a state banquet.
On Tuesday, Macron will take the Chinese leader to the Pyrenees mountains, where he made regular trips to see his grandmother as a child. The two couples are also expected to take a cable car up to the summit of the 2,877-metre (9,439 ft) Pic du Midi, a dark sky reserve.
After wrapping his trip in France, Xi will head to Serbia where he will arrive in Belgrade on the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the Chinese Embassy for talks with President Aleksandar Vucic. Three people were killed when Washington said it accidentally struck the compound during the NATO air campaign against Serb forces occupying Kosovo, in an event that triggered outrage and protests in China.
China has since emerged as the biggest single source of investment in Serbia, which is not a member of the EU, and prior to the trip Lin, the MOFA spokesperson, referred to the two countries’ ties as “ironclad”.
“The bombing remains a significant topic for Chinese officials, who use it to support narratives that question the values of liberal democracies,” Stefan Vladisavljev, programme director at Foundation BFPE for a Responsible Society wrote in an online analysis. “For Serbia, the visit presents an opportunity to strengthen its position as China’s main partner in the Western Balkans.”
Xi Jinping will arrive in Belgrade some 25 years since US bombs struck the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade [Marko Djurica/Reuters]
Xi will then travel on May 8 to Budapest, the final stop on his European tour.
There he will meet Hungarian President Viktor Orban, the most Russia-friendly leader in the EU.
Hungary, whose policies have raised concern among other EU members, has become more closely aligned with Beijing and Moscow and recently signed a security cooperation agreement with China that allows Chinese police officers to work in areas where there are large populations of ethnic Chinese or which are popular with Chinese tourists, according to Zoltan Feher is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.
Reports on such Chinese police stations have raised alarm in other parts of Europe, particularly among exiles and dissidents.
Hungary is also part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which it joined in 2015, and the two men are likely to discuss the ongoing construction of the high-speed rail between Budapest and Belgrade.
Ukraine war
Macron has spoken increasingly about the need to develop Europe’s own security architecture rather than rely on NATO and the US.
He has even suggested that France would be willing to send its troops to Ukraine, if Russia broke through the front lines and Kyiv asked for assistance.
China has long maintained it is neutral in the war, but Beijing and Moscow have deepened their ties since the full-scale invasion began, and Putin is expected to visit China this month.
Macron will be hoping to persuade Xi of the need for China to get more closely involved in efforts to secure peace as Switzerland organises a peace conference next month to discuss a 10-point plan put forward by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the end of 2022.
The Swiss say they have already invited more than 160 delegations, but it is not clear whether Beijing, which has also put forward a proposal for peace talks and deployed its own envoy in the region, will attend.
Russia has repeatedly dismissed the process, and insists a precursor for negotiations is that Kyiv give up the 20 percent of its territory that Russia currently occupies.
“We must continue to engage China, which is objectively the international player with the greatest leverage to change Moscow’s mind,” the French newspaper Le Monde quoted an unnamed diplomatic source as saying.
Human rights
Chinese state media have been reporting breathlessly on Xi’s arrival in Paris; the streets decorated with Chinese and French flags and groups of Chinese nationals welcoming their president.
But campaigners for Tibet and Xinjiang, where the United Nations says China may have committed crimes against humanity in holding some 1 million ethnic Uighur Muslims in re-education camps, were also out on the streets of the capital.
The EU imposed targeted sanctions on certain Chinese officials and companies over Xinjiang in March 2021, prompting anger in Beijing.
Delighted to be at a protest in Paris “welcoming” Xi Jinping’s visit
Amazing to see global solidarity among Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hong Kongers and many others in pursuit of freedom from the CCP
Human Rights Watch says while the French president did not raise the issue publicly on his visit to China last year, he should do so while Xi is in Paris and call for the release of those arbitrarily detained or imprisoned including Ilham Tohti, an Uighur economist who was awarded the Sakharov Prize, Europe’s most prominent human rights award in 2019.
The human rights organisation said Macron should also raise the issue of Tibet, where some 1 million Tibetan children are being placed in boarding schools and separated from their language and culture, and Hong Kong, once the most free territory in China but now subject to two draconian security laws.
“President Macron should make it clear to Xi Jinping that Beijing’s crimes against humanity come with consequences for China’s relations with France,” Maya Wang, the acting China director at Human Rights Watch said in a statement. “France’s silence and inaction on human rights would only embolden the Chinese government’s sense of impunity for its abuses, further fuelling repression at home and abroad.”
On April 30, Macron was pictured at the Elysee Palace with Penpa Tsering, the president of the Tibetan government-in-exile, on the sidelines of a ceremony to honour former Senator Andre Gattolin, a longtime supporter Tibet, who was awarded the Legion d’Honneur.
Tibetans demonstrate in Paris on Sunday as Xi Jinping arrived for a state visit to France [Thomas Padilla/AP Photo]
Penpa Tsering presented the French president with a signed photo of his 2016 meeting with the Dalai Lama and “urged him not to forget Tibet”, according to a report the Central Tibetan Administration.
“We understand that the agenda between the two presidents will be dense given the many international crises such as in Ukraine and in the Middle East, but this must not be done at the expense of exchanges on human rights, which are in a deplorable state throughout the country as well as in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet, where a latent conflict has been going on for over 60 years and poses a threat to regional and international security,” Vincent Metten, the EU policy director for the International Campaign for Tibet said in a statement.
In Freedom House’s 2024 report on Freedom in the World, Tibet’s overall score was zero out of 100; the lowest in at least eight years.
Maryse Artiguelong, the vice president of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), said: “The conflict in Ukraine highlights the threat posed to international order and security by authoritarian regimes such as Russia and the People’s Republic of China. Their aggressive foreign policies and repressive domestic policies are inextricably linked: Anyone who does not oppose China’s human rights violations risks one day facing its aggressive foreign policy.”
Students around the world are raising their voices to protest against Israel’s continuing war on Gaza.
More than 50 universities across the United States have now established Palestine solidarity encampments, demanding action to stop Israel’s war on Gaza.
What started as a student encampment at Columbia University in New York City two weeks ago has turned into a global student movement, expanding to Europe, Australia and Canada.
Student protesters have been met with brutal counterprotests, arrests and suspensions, raising debates around freedom of expression and the future of activism on college campuses.
But beyond the mainstream media’s attempt to reduce this movement to free speech and safety, why are students risking it all for Gaza?
Presenter: Myriam Francois
Guests: Mahmoud Al Thabata – Harvard student and activist Fraser Amos – University of Warwick student and activist Jasmine Al Rawi – Sydney University student and activist
French police officers entered the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) in Paris and removed pro-Palestinian student activists who had occupied its buildings to protest Israel’s war on Gaza.
Reporting from the French capital, Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler said that police on Friday “moved in” into one of the buildings and removed more than 50 students who were staging a sit-in, including some who had begun a hunger strike.
“They [students] have filtered out slowly. They were allowed to leave the scene. It seems that it had gone off peacefully,” she said.
James, a student at the university, told Al Jazeera that earlier on Friday, the school administrator held another round of talks with protesters, but negotiations to move the protest elsewhere on campus broke down.
“There were no assurances given that there wouldn’t be a police intervention after people leave the rooms,” he said.
Another student named Lucas, who is studying for a master’s degree, told the AFP news agency that he witnessed how “some students were dragged and others gripped by the head or shoulders”.
Images captured by Al Jazeera outside the campus, also showed young protesters shouting pro-Palestinian chants as they faced off with police.
Students from the university’s Palestine Committee had earlier told reporters they faced a “disproportionate” response from police, who had blocked access to the site before moving in.
They also complained of a lack of “medical assistance” for seven students who had started a hunger strike “in solidarity with Palestinian victims”.
Speaking before the police intervention, a Sciences Po spokesperson, said the university was seeking a “negotiated solution to end the standoff” with its students, and that some of its satellite campuses in Reims, Le Havre and Poitiers were also affected by protests.
The university was closed for the day on Friday, with a heavy police presence around its main building.
Epicentre of protests
Sciences Po has become the epicentre of student antiwar protests in France over the institution’s academic ties with Israel. Last week, students blocked access to the university.
But Sciences Po’s director Jean Basseres rejected on Thursday the demands by protesters to review its relations with Israeli universities, prompting the students to continue their sit-in.
Although the protests have spread across the country, they have remained much smaller in scale than those seen in the United States.
Outside the Sorbonne University, a few hundred metres from Sciences Po in central Paris, members of the Union of Jewish Students in France (UEJF) were setting up a “dialogue table” on Friday.
“We want to prove that it’s not true that you can’t talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” UEJF President Samuel Lejoyeux told broadcaster Radio J.
“To do that, we have to sideline those who single out Jewish students as complicit in genocide,” he added.
In the northeastern city of Lille, the ESJ journalism school was blocked off, according to the AFP news agency.
Students at the city’s nearby branch of Sciences Po had their identities checked before they were allowed in via a back entrance to sit exams.
About 100 students had occupied a lecture hall at Science Po’s Lyon branch late on Thursday, while a blockade at a university site in nearby Saint-Etienne was cleared on Thursday morning by police.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s office said such protests would be dealt with using “total rigour”, adding that 23 university sites had been “evacuated” on Thursday.
Depardieu released after questioning about allegations made by two women that he sexually assaulted them on film sets.
French actor Gerard Depardieu has been released after police questioned him in connection with sexual assault allegations, his lawyer has said.
French media had reported earlier on Monday that Depardieu was in police custody for questioning about allegations made by two women that he sexually assaulted them on film sets.
Speaking to reporters as he was leaving the police station in the 14th district of Paris, the actor’s lawyer, Christian Saint-Palais, said: “The police custody is over. He is no longer held in the police station.”
Depardieu, 75, one of France’s top movie stars, has been at the centre of a number of sexual assault allegations in recent years that have tarnished his legacy and exposed broader divisions about sexual conduct in France.
BFMTV and Le Parisien reported that the police summons relates to accusations of sexual assault filed by two women who accuse him of groping during filming – one in 2014, the other in 2021.
Alleged assaults
The alleged 2014 assault was reported to police in January this year, Le Parisien reported.
The other alleged assault involved a 53-year-old movie decorator. She alleged that Depardieu grabbed her and kneaded her waist, stomach and breasts during filming for the movie Les Volets Verts (The Green Shutters), according to the woman’s lawyer, Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, when she filed the complaint with the Paris prosecutor’s office in February.
Depardieu already faces a rape charge, as well as claims of assault from more than a dozen women – all of which he has strongly denied.
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