There's no need to go to the Armani Hotel's kosher restaurant unannounced. It's better to book well in advance. As for the terrace, it is crowded, in order to be able to attend a unique show mixing water jets, sounds and lights. Draped in his white dishdasha, the traditional dress of the men of the Gulf, our interlocutor tells us that in the lounge of a large hotel in Dubai, he recently found himself the only Arab among dozens of Jews. “But if this continues, there will be more of them than us!” he says with a smile. When they signed the Abraham Accords in September 2020 normalising Emirati-Israeli relations, the Emiratis expected to welcome a wave of visitors from Tel Aviv. But it is a wave that has swept through the Gulf. As for the Western Jewish communities, they no longer say “next year in Jerusalem”, but “the next holiday in Dubai”!

Pakistan has been witnessing a rapid breakdown of its internal administrative machinery, with its police and security forces unable to control the country-wide violence engineered by the supporters of the radical Islamist party, the Tehreek -e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) that has been demanding the ouster of the French Ambassador and halting of trade relations with France. While the spotlight is on the grim domestic security situation with the government being held hostage by the TLP, the condition of its economy and its diplomatic standing is no better.

Bangladesh made headlines, last October, when thousands of protestors came out to the streets in Dhaka to protest against France. The protesters, around 50,000 in number, were demanding the closure of the French embassy in the country. A dummy of President Emmanuel Macron was also burnt during the protest with Junaid Babunagari, the Secretary-General of Hefazat-e-lslam (Hel) - one of the biggest Islamist groups in the country - stating that "Emmanuel Macron should beg for forgiveness.". Apart from Dhaka, there were protests in smaller towns including one large protest in the port town of Chittagong, the headquarters of the Hel.

“May Allah curse France!” headlined the Islamic State's French-language magazine, Dar al-Islam, a few weeks after the Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Casher shooting. These words, always the same, saturate the atmosphere in the manifestations of anti-French hatred that are regularly unleashed, on any grounds, in the Islamic world. The jihadists massacred in France because France embodies the major resistance to their barbarism.

On his way to Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, in the dark hours following the assassination of Samuel Paty, Emmanuel Macron was well inspired to chant: they shall not pass, inspired by no pasarán!, the famous slogan of the partisans of the Second Spanish Republic (1936-1939), which has since become the rallying cry of all anti-fascist struggles throughout the world...

On 9 March, a Brazilian plane landed on the tarmac at Algiers airport. Its holds were reportedly full of doses of vaccine delivered by Israel. Algeria is already supplied with Russian Sputnik and Chinese Sinopharm vaccines, which is not surprising. Health logic follows diplomatic logic. But Israel! The country most vilified by the Algerian media, the target of all the conspiracy theories! Is the information, broadcast by the I24 news channel, which broadcasts from Tel Aviv in French, English and Arabic, serious? Even if it is only a rumour, it has the advantage of making people think.

The Ottoman Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying to reweave the nationalist fibre, through external provocation, because he is weakened on the inside by a sluggish economy and growing unpopularity. It is a dangerous game because he wants to project himself beyond his borders and is once again seeking to settle scores with his historical Armenian enemies, whose genocide in 1915 was caused by Turkey. Which Erdogan denies. And that is a shame.

The Covid crisis has highlighted the need to relocate what is essential, such as food and drug production. In the Middle East, it is clear that the supply of basic foodstuffs depends heavily, and increasingly so, on international markets, as arable land and water resources are becoming increasingly scarce.

“What is a fanatic,” Churchill said, “one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” The massacres taking place in the Caucasus remind us of that fanaticism that is more than a century old: the Armenian genocide in 1915.

At a time when we are wondering about the consequences that the pandemic will have on our lives and children's lives. At a time when the challenge of getting our economy back on its feet is obsessing our fellow citizens and our leaders, in the Zaatari camp in the Jordanian desert, 80,000 Syrian refugees try to survive in appalling conditions.