Lebanon, Ukraine, international news and listeners’ questions

This week, listeners’ messages about international news are numerous. They write to us about the series of explosions in Lebanon or about the podcast “War in Ukraine”.

Franck Mathevon, director of the international editorial team at Radio France, is at the microphone of Emmanuelle Daviet, the mediator of Radio France’s antennas. He answers listeners’ questions on the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and this week in particular, with what happened in Lebanon.

Emmanuelle Daviet: The Middle East has generated a lot of mail since the beginning of the conflict between Israel and Hamas and this week in particular with the news in Lebanon, listeners are asking questions and a theme comes up very often in their mail. I will read you one of them:

“After the attacks via pagers and walkie-talkies, causing thousands of injuries and several dozen deaths, how come the franceinfo news reports are not talking about terrorism, but only about attacks?”

Franck Mathevon: So that’s an excellent question that this listener asks. In fact, it’s linked to the definition of terrorism. Experts are very divided on this subject. For many of them, a state cannot be the author of a terrorist attack. It is only the fact of an organization such as Hamas, for example, for the massacres of October 7 last year. But it cannot be the fact of a state.

Obviously, this is a debatable subject. A debate can certainly be established on this subject. There is no doubt that Israel wanted to sow terror among the Lebanese population, and in particular among the population of Hezbollah, this Shiite group that is hostile to it. Now, one can also estimate, and this would undoubtedly be the Israeli point of view, that Israel, by this attack – which has not yet been officially attributed elsewhere, but one can assume that it is – that Israel targeted Hezbollah fighters, militants, possibly armed men, at least reservists, and that, consequently, it is not a terrorist attack. But I am fully aware that there can be a debate on this subject.

How do you continue to respect the principle of balance that listeners are very attached to when discussing this war and are you planning special coverage on October 7?

So, we are extremely vigilant about the coverage of this conflict. We are and have always been, obviously, at Radio France, at franceinfo in particular. We have been since October 7. We know that it is an extremely sensitive subject. So, for us, it is essential to be present on all fronts, to be present in Israel, to be present in the Palestinian territories, in the West Bank but also currently in Lebanon.

So we sent teams to the field, both in Israel and Lebanon, this week. Obviously, there is a difficulty, which is that we are not present in Gaza, it is impossible. Israel prohibits us from having journalists in Gaza. So we are trying to cover this conflict remotely. But obviously, we want to be as objective as possible. And yes, for the anniversary of October 7, we will have a special device on franceinfo, and we will obviously be live from the field with many reporters deployed in the region.

Ukraine, another war that is frequently mentioned in the letters : listeners write to us to find out if the podcast dedicated to Ukraine is continuing this fall. One listener tells us: “I really appreciate the quality of the reports, the testimonies and the involvement of your journalists and fixers in the field.”

So this podcast, since its launch, has received a lot of praise. Are you still producing it?

Franck Mathevon: So first, thank you to this listener, and to all the listeners who have been loyal to this podcast, produced by the international editorial team of Radio France. We have not produced this podcast since this summer, because we were afraid that we would not be able to keep the same editorial promise as in the past. It is a podcast that has been extremely important for us, which has allowed us to document the war.

What does not change is that the conflict in Ukraine is a priority for Radio France and for franceinfo. We are one of the rare media present on the ground, since the first day. We have had a continuous presence on the ground with reporters, sometimes with up to four or five teams on site, deployed in the country. So it is a priority. There will be other products offered to listeners, to Internet users on the subject of the war in Ukraine, and we will remain on the ground, that is certain.