The World This Week

France braces for another weekend of unrest as the Yellow Vests return to the streets under the rallying cry of ‘Act III – Halloween’, with 70,000 police and security forces deployed after the riots and looting of recent weeks. A cash-strapped government faces mounting grievances, a rolling protest movement and little room for manoeuvre ahead of elections, as it struggles to restore order while grappling with crippling debt.
In Israel, an inconclusive election has left both Benjamin Netanyahu and his rival Gadi Eisenkot claiming victory, with neither securing the 61 seats needed for a parliamentary majority. Arab parties have made historic gains, potentially holding the balance of power, but Netanyahu is challenging the legitimacy of their result, while Eisenkot insists on a Zionist government.
Meanwhile, in the US, the final days of the midterm campaign have taken a distinctly theatrical turn, as Donald Trump and Barack Obama trade barbs in a public back-and-forth involving gold-plated White House décor, accusations of elitism and an unlikely cameo from the Cheesecake Factory.
Written & Presented by Gavin Lee.
Produced by Nicholas Rushworth, Théophile Vareille, Guillaume Gougeon and Marguerite Lacroix.

This week has seen mass protests hijacked by violent rioters across France, with the looting of shops, trashing of public buildings, the burning of Lyon's Tourist Information Office and the iconic Limoges City Hall.  After the riots came the curfews and the contemplation: who did what and why weren't they stopped? French President Emmanuel Macron blamed seditious groups, ultra-left anarchists and opportunist criminals, with a qualified mea culpa: authorities made mistakes in anticipation and dropped the ball in intelligence gathering.
Macron is out of breath, exhausted and disorientated, claimed the presidential frontrunner Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader who is now polling in an even stronger position for the presidency. Foreign leaders had a free-for-all too, with US President Donald Trump wading in and Israel's prime minister settling old scores ahead of elections there. But France wasn't isolated in its protests and unrest. Milan was a mirror image and there were demonstrations in Spain, Portugal and Belgium too, with more protests to follow this weekend.
It's been a week of American flattery in the court of Vladimir Putin. St Petersburg's Constantine Palace was the setting for the toasting of Russia's president by Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff, after the release of 74-year-old US teacher Stephen Hubbard. He'd been held for four years, accused by the Kremlin of serving as a mercenary in Ukraine, but was widely seen as a pawn of hostage diplomacy. Freshly released, Witkoff told Hubbard that Putin sent his blessings, and then blessed Putin himself, calling him a "humanitarian", just as Russia was launching another mass aerial attack on Kyiv.
The hostage deal appeared to be one result of the US lifting sanctions on Russian diesel, and there was also an apparent commitment by Moscow to renew trilateral peace talks with Kyiv and Washington. Critics allege that the Trump administration has disregarded a just peace over the lure of business deals dangled by the Kremlin, and that Witkoff's in "Wonderland", accused of falling down a rabbit hole of Russian propaganda. 
Finally, it's been an intense and bitter week of final rallies in Israel ahead of the first election since the October 7 attacks and the global fallout that followed. Prime ministerial candidates have been described as shouting rather than debating on issues of responsibility for the wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, plus the escalating settler violence in the West Bank, which is now on the verge of lockdown after an attack this Friday.
Voters head to the polls with a government increasingly isolated on the world stage. A last-minute endorsement came Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's way from Trump, who behind the public warmth is said to have harboured deep private frustration with Israel's longest-serving leader, previously calling him "a conman, who everyone's sick of", according to New York Times insiders Maggie Haberman and Johnathan Swann, though this was dismissed by the US president as untrue. Netanyahu also claimed this week that successive US presidents before Trump had tried and failed to get him out of office for the past three decades.
Produced by Gavin Lee, Théophile Vareille, Juliette Laffont, Alessandro Xenos.

Our panel of international correspondents look back at the week's news, from protests in India to a blame game in Ukraine.
In India, the "Cockroach" movement felt the crushing boot of the state this week. Thousands of Gen Z protesters were rounded up and detained in sports stadiums and community halls turned into makeshift detention centres, while the movement's founder, Abhijeet Dipke, was arrested on arrival. A mass demonstration over alleged voter fraud was effectively crushed before it could begin. Dipke has been detained again this Friday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government says the measures were necessary to protect civilians in the capital. But he now faces accusations of choosing repression over democracy, with the UN Human Rights Office urging authorities to respect the right to peaceful assembly. 
It's been a week of blame games and accusations of betrayal in Ukraine, with President Volodymyr Zelensky speaking of his personal hurt at US President Donald Trump's decision to make a diesel deal with the Kremlin ahead of the US midterm elections, calling it "weak" and suggesting Trump had chosen "the other side". Trump, meanwhile, made it clear he wants Zelensky replaced, warned him against striking Russian refineries and announced an energy ceasefire that went nowhere. Zelensky continued to search for solidarity and a solution in Europe.

It’s been a week of vigils, protests and political upheaval – from Israel, where three years after the Hamas-led attacks, former hostages and mourners called for accountability over the failures of October 7, as questions grow over the stalled path to peace in Gaza; to France, where mass demonstrations over chronic underfunding and poor conditions have drawn students, unions and hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets, just months ahead of a presidential election. In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has made the housing crisis the centrepiece of a high-stakes electoral gamble, as protests intensify following the death of a pensioner whose eviction helped ignite the movement. And in the UK, questions remain over a suspected Iranian plot targeting US aircraft at RAF Fairford, after American B-1 bombers were hastily withdrawn amid warnings of a serious and immediate threat.

Produced by Gavin Lee, Alessandro Xenos, Théophile Vareille, Guillaume Gougeon and Laura Burloux

This week, student protests at French high schools across the country turned violent as frustrations over learning conditions boiled over, sparking clashes with police. 
But first: in a week that's seen the heroism of the captain, crew and passengers on board FlyDubai flight 1073 heralded, eyewitnesses report seeing the co-pilot trying to kill the pilot and destroying the cockpit controls in order to crash the plane. Despite being stabbed repeatedly, Captain Smit Machchhar managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers to overwhelm the suspect and regain control of the aircraft after its rapid descent of more than 14,000 feet in 30 seconds. They prevented a 9/11-style catastrophe, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Read moreNetanyahu warns of 'very heavy price' if any country found to be behind FlyDubai incident
Plus, in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian town of Oleshky, in the Kherson region, there's almost nothing left to eat. Some civilians are reportedly surviving on grass and weeds. The OSCE is calling the situation a humanitarian catastrophe.
Produced by Gavin Lee, Théophile Vareille, Juliette Laffont, Delphine Liou.