The Debate FRANCE 24 English

He has literally gone halfway around the world. Now what can President Emmanuel Macron do with his surprise visit to New Caledonia? Critics see deadly riots in the French Pacific island as a crisis of his government's own making, with an electoral reform that indigenous Kanaks say dilutes their voice in upcoming provincial elections. Sovereignists loyal to Paris point to longstanding residents who do not have the right to vote.

Is it about justice or politics? In the same breath, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requested arrest warrants against both Israel's Binyamin Netanyahu and Hamas's Yahya Sinwar.

Iran's regime just lost a safe pair of hands. Yes, another hardliner is sure to replace Ebrahim Raisi – known to detractors as the butcher of Tehran for the thousands of dissidents he sent to the gallows as a state prosecutor. But the president's sudden death in a helicopter crash may still change the equation – not so much for a presidential election slated by the constitution to be held in 50 days' time, but in the behind-the-scenes jockeying to pick a successor to Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader who is 85 years old and frail. Raisi – himself a cleric – had been tipped as a possible replacement.

A black swan moment. The assassination attempt of populist Slovak leader Robert Fico has shocked both Slovaks and Europeans. But in hindsight it is easy to point to security lapses and a climate of verbal violence in a country that finds itself increasingly polarised. Our guests take a look.

Another showdown in the country that launched the so-called coloured revolutions. Georgia’s parliament has shrugged off some of the biggest protests in its post-Soviet history by approving a “foreign agents” bill that mirrors legislation in neighbouring Russia. The opposition argues it is the way for the government to curb media freedom and dissent in a country which only recently graduated to EU candidate status.

It’s that place where once a year, high art and hustlers rub elbows, a place for icon worshipers and insurgents, old legends and young upstarts…

Welcome to the French Riviera resort of Cannes and the 77th film festival that bears its name… the first one since French actress and director Judith Godrèche went back on her personal story – her filmmaker's mistress at age 14 – and sparked a MeToo reckoning in French cinema.