Historique.

Pope Leo XIV, whose real name is Robert Francis Prévost, is visiting France from September 25–28 for religious and diplomatic events. Elected following Pope Francis's death on April 21, 2025, he is the first pope from the United States and has family ties to France—his paternal grandmother was born in Le Havre.

• Friday: visit to the Élysée with Emmanuel Macron, then to UNESCO headquarters on AI and global peace, followed by a papal motorcade tour through Paris. • Saturday: outdoor mass at Place de la Concorde with approximately 600,000 registered attendees out of 1 million expected visitors. • Sunday: travel to Lourdes to meet privately with seven victims of sexual abuse within the Church. • Monday: visit to Metz near Robert Schuman's burial site, with an expected speech on European peace and unity.

• The Vatican refused to allow Macron to accompany the pope to Notre-Dame, possibly linked to French end-of-life legislation. • Meeting in Lourdes with victims including Jean-Marie Delbau from the Notre-Dame de Bétharram case. • A Civis report estimates 330,000 minors were victims of sexual abuse within the Church in France between 1950 and 2020. • Debate over a religious figure's presence in public space in a secular country.

Catholicism is declining in France, yet adult baptisms are surging dramatically, rising from roughly 4,000 per year between 2015 and 2022 to nearly 13,000 this year, reflecting faith chosen in adulthood rather than passed through family tradition.

• Approximately 98,000 hectares burned since the start of the year, an unprecedented level since 1976. • 21,000 fire incidents recorded, five times the average of the past 20 years. • 76,000 hectares of forest destroyed, including 42,000 hectares from the Sommières megafire alone in Gironde.

The year 1976 remains the absolute record with over 100,000 hectares of vegetation burned in France.

Forests already weakened by drought remain highly vulnerable to pathogens, and it will take 50–60 years for trees to reach the height of those destroyed.

Droughts and heatwaves linked to climate change increase wildfire risks.

Following Emmanuel Macron's condemnation of Israeli military actions in Gaza and the West Bank at the UN on Tuesday, Benjamin Netanyahu replied at the same venue days later.

• Netanyahu denounces criticism of Israeli settlements from former colonial powers like France and Britain. • He notes these countries invented colonialism and once ruled colonies across the globe. • He characterizes Israeli settlers in the West Bank as ordinary young delinquents and accuses international media of giving them disproportionate coverage.

• 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank alongside over 500,000 Israeli settlers. • Over 1,100 Palestinians killed in the West Bank since October 7, 2023. • 48 deaths on the Israeli side according to national authorities.

This speech came the day after a car-ramming attack in the West Bank that seriously injured the son of Israel's ambassador to the United States.

Internet access is severely disrupted in northern Ethiopia as fighting resumes between federal forces and several armed regional groups.

Since Tuesday, the country's major armed groups, led by the Tigray People's Liberation Front, formed an alliance to topple the government and establish a transition, launching an offensive in the Tigray, Afar, and Amhara regions.

Ethiopia experienced a Tigray war from 2020 to 2022 that killed over 600,000 people, during which the government cut telecommunications and Internet in the region, despite a peace agreement signed in 2022 in Pretoria.

These battles raise fears of famine in a region hit by historic drought this year, with some areas already in food crisis according to the American network FEWS.

Last Friday, Donald Trump barred CNN and MSNBC from the White House, accusing them of negative coverage and threatening national security.

The media outlets sued on press freedom grounds and prevailed on Thursday, with U.S. courts ruling that journalists' rights were not respected.

Despite reauthorization, two CNN journalists and MSNBC journalists were unable to attend a state dinner honoring Chinese President Xi Jinping that same evening.

During CNN's first broadcast from the White House, journalist Betsy Klein was surrounded by dozens of colleagues celebrating the return.

The Goncourt Academy excluded Tison Aurélien's novel "C'était ça ou mourir" from its selection following accusations of AI use.

The controversy began Monday on X with the anonymous account Balance ton cloud, claiming to have submitted about twenty passages from the novel to the American software GPTZero, designed to detect AI-generated text, with results suggesting nearly complete AI generation.

These results do not constitute credible evidence, as the software's methodology is opaque and its reliability for French-language literature is not clearly established.

• Author Tison Aurélien firmly denies the accusations and denounces racist attacks against him. • Several literary figures support him and warn against these AI detectors. • His French publisher Grasset strongly rejects the accusations. • His Quebec publisher Boréal suspended the book's promotional tour as a precaution.

From October 1 to December 31, public transportation will be free in the Valenciennes area, including both tramway lines, all buses, and on-demand transport operated by Valenciennes Métropole and Porte du Hainaut.

Reduce travel costs for the 350,000 residents affected amid rising fuel prices and encourage a shift to public transit.

During these three months, the goal is to observe whether free fares increase bus and tramway ridership before considering wider free transit.

About forty local authorities in France already offer free public transport for all, including Dunkerque and Montpellier.