French President warns of escalating Russian hybrid attacks

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:30Reserve your spot with just$200 down at BKFSEA.com. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. The Friends and Family Sale is here at Apple Vacations. Book by September 24th and save up to 50 % on all-inclusive vacations with instant savings. Whether it's a getaway with friends or a family vacation, there's always a reason to make more memories with your favorite people. Travel through August 2027 and start planning your getaway today at AppleVacations.com or with your trusted travel advisor.

1:07Hello there, I'm Sean Lay. Thank you very much for downloading the BBC's World Tonight podcast from Friday the 18th of September. We have a lot in store for you, beginning with France where there's a warning from President Macron of the growing threat to Europe from Russia. We'll be asking whether it could have an impact on next year's presidential election. What, for example, would a Marine Le Pen presidency mean for European unity over Ukraine? We're going to be examining the week-long crackdown against Turkey's LGBTQ community, by no means the first example of the hostility of President Erdogan towards them.

1:43Earl Spencer insists he's told the truth about his phone conversation with the then-Prince Charles after Diana, the Earl's sister, died in a car crash in 1997. These are events from almost 30 years ago, so why do they still divide the public? will have live discussion. And as the Governor of California tells AI companies in Silicon Valley that they must develop a kill switch to prevent the technology from getting out of hand, we'll be examining whether life is now imitating art and how much religion influences how we think about AI. President Macron has met candidates hoping to succeed him next year as well as their political parties and simultaneously issued this public warning about what he calls a growing threat from Russia.

2:31I want to emphasize that the nature of Russian aggression and its threats in Europe are changing. The drone attack on a passenger train from Kiev a few days ago, the attempted attack at Leipzig airport, which failed, but it's precisely because it failed that there were so few consequences attributed by the German services to the Russian military intelligence agency. The firing of a flare near a Danish frigate incursions into the airspace of several European countries and the increase in hostile acts in most of our countries. Even before the presidential election, the first round of which will be held next May, energy has become a major political issue.

3:07Fuel protests are expected this weekend in France. The war in the Gulf is the most proximate cause of higher petrol prices, but Marine Le Pen, regarded by many as the candidate to beat, has said supporting Ukraine against Russia is no longer affordable. Samantha de Bendern is a Paris-based journalist who focuses on the Ukrainian war and on international security. She's also an Associate Fellow at the London Foreign Policy Organisation Chatham House in London. What does she make of President Macron's message on Friday? Two very important things happened today. First of all, President Macron has really admitted to the French people that there is a problem with what he calls hybrid warfare.

3:45I think at this point we need to start calling it state-sponsored terrorism because that's what happens when people try to blow up trains or drones come close to planes. What he did, he said basically that France needs to protect its critical infrastructure against drone attacks. But what was so interesting about this announcement is it came after a meeting of all the heads of political parties and all the candidates in the election, as well as the internal and foreign intelligence services. So this was a message also to the potential future president to say, you know, we have our differences.

4:25We're all fighting over this election, but France is in danger. So put your political differences aside and let's get serious. And there is a concern about the impact the high energy prices, the shortage of oil translating into petrol might have in the campaign. Absolutely. And this is one of the other things that the president wanted to talk to the candidates about. And what he explained in his address to the nation afterwards, he said, look, there are certain issues which this government cannot control. When foreign wars, and he was also meaning the war between the United States and Iran, impact on our petrol prices, there's not much that the government can do.

5:08The opposition parties, or some of them at least, have said, well, you can reduce taxes on petrol. There is one French petrol company, Total, which has promised to keep its petrol price at€1.99 below the sort of emotionally significant€2 a litre to sort of help French consumers. And I filled up my car today at a hotel. And I was actually one of the drivers in Moscow queuing us for the petrol shortages because it was a very long queue. What has been France's position in recent years under President Macron when it comes to Ukraine? Because in the past, the president had made quite a lot of effort to build a constructive relationship with Vladimir Putin.

5:52But presumably that is very much a thing of the past. Yes, that is a thing of the past. So in the first few months of the war, Macron was people would make fun of him because he was always trying to call Putin. And there were even memes going around of looking at him and saying, you've called him again, haven't you? Because he was known as the person who thought we have to maintain this dialogue. And as Putin systematically continued to lie to him, there was a sort of wake up moment when he realized that France really has to get behind and start supporting Ukraine. The aid has been important. There's the storm shadow.

6:29The scalp is the French version of the Franco-British missile, which the Ukrainians have been allowed to use. And there has been a very strong personal relationship built between Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, and President Macron. And there is broad cross-party support, although the two main contenders in the election, the far right and the far left, would be in favour of ceasing all aid to Ukraine. And one of those candidates, the far right candidate, Marine Le Pen, is very well placed to win this election in the spring. I mean, how dramatic a shift in French foreign policy would it be were she to win the keys to the Elyse Palace?

7:12I think it would be very dramatic. She has said on a number of occasions that she would stop financing French military aid to Ukraine, although it's a drop in the ocean of the French budget. But this is more of an emotional thing that she's talking about. She has a relationship with Putin. Marine Le Pen has been a frequent visitor to Moscow and she has met President Putin a number of times. Broadly, the public is in favour of supporting Ukraine, but we cannot discount what the information battering that they will be getting from both the far right and the far left might do to that support in the coming months.

7:54Samantha de Bendern in Paris on next year's French presidential election. A more immediate one has been taking place in Russia. Three days of voting for members of the Juma, the parliament, ended on Friday. There was no anti-war partial on the ballot paper after Yabloka was banned. The campaign has also produced some truly bizarre moments, as our Russia editor Steve Rosenberg reported in one of his dispatches this week.

8:22Welcome to speeches by candidates, says the host on state TV. She's standing next to six empty lecterns. The candidates haven't turned up, she adds. So good night. Well, Stanislav Andreychuk, an experienced election monitor, has been forced to flee Russia, but he's still monitoring what's been happening back home. These elections are really interesting because from one point of view, we understand that there are a lot of restrictions. There was censorship inside Russia because all Western social media are blocked. Mass media, independent mass media and international mass media are blocked inside Russia.

9:01People can't go to street protests because officially we still are in a pandemic situation. We still have COVID in Russia officially, so all street actions are banned. Not football matches, but on the political actions. So just to be clear, officially, seven years on from the pandemic, you still have COVID, therefore people aren't allowed to meet together unless they're going to watch football. Yeah, yeah. We still have the same law regulation for all mass actions, all street actions. Right. Right. Now, in terms of voting, it's a three-day election. There's an electronic voting system. How much effort is being made by the authorities to ensure that people bother to vote?

9:45Because after all, the only party against the war has been banned from standing. And all the other parties are basically, to one degree or another, supporters of President Putin. Yeah, of course, in this situation, a lot of people don't see a candidate or political party that they can support, and they are dissatisfied and demobilized. That is what Kremlin wants today, to make this turnout among these people, among those who are not satisfied, very low among them. But at the same time, they make a lot of pressure to the people that are dependent on state from private companies because even private companies are dependent on ties with the government.

10:30They don't need just a good turnout. They need a right turnout. They think about turnout among people that are dependent on them and maybe support them. And they do their best to make it turn out very low among people who are not satisfied with what really happens in that country. Some people listening will say, OK, they make it very, very hard for you to turn out if you're not a Putin supporter. They make sure you turn out if you are a Putin supporter. But in the end, cast your ballot paper. You do that in private. So the choice of candidates may be controlled, but they can't actually ensure that you vote the way you say you're voting.

11:10Or can they? If you vote electronically and from your working place, never will be sure that nobody will know your choice. You're in a very unsafety situation. If you go to polling station and vote with a paper ballot, we see a lot of signals that people are under pressure and they have to make a photo of their ballot. and to send it to their boss. And even if the result, the real results on police stations will be not very good, we see that they prepare massive frauds. Because, for example, only today, more than 1 ,300 observers all over the country were buried from police stations. So they have huge possibilities to change the real results.

12:03Russian election monitor Stanislav Andrzejczyk. Still to come in the next half hour, how fears over AI are prefigured in well over a century of popular literature, theatre and film. You can go all the way back to the idea of artificial assistance, the bronze handmaids of Hephaestus in Greek mythology. You can think about the golem in Jewish mythology. You can come closer and think about Frankenstein. Every time we try to tell these stories about artificial life that we've created. There is a sort of hubristic element of fear that we are playing God. That's still to come, but for now we're going to go back a little less far because Earl Spencer, the brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, has insisted there is nothing wrong with his recollection of a phone conversation with the then Prince Charles just after Diana died in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

12:55In a new book, the Earl said Charles had told him people would soon forget Diana, who was at the time one of the most prominent public figures on the planet. Buckingham Palace had responded by suggesting that the Earl's memory was clouded by fraternal grief. He's been speaking to the BBC's Laura Coonsberg for a special programme due to air on Sunday evening at 6.30. I've only ever had two calls on the line with Prince Charles at any stage of my life. I was hyper alert to what he was saying and those are precisely the words he said and I promise that to you now. Genuinely, that is what he said.

13:29I don't hear him saying he didn't say that. Did you write it down? Did you keep a diary? Do you have evidence that that is what he said at the time? Because, to be fair, this was a time of massive shock and emotion for both of you. I told friends and family straight away, close friends and family, about what had been said because it was so monstrous. Oh, Spencer, talking to Laura Coonsberg. This all happened nearly 30 years ago. Yet it's tonight the fourth most read story on BBC News, suggesting public appetite for and interest in. A couple the media used to call in happier times, Charles and Di, remains undiminished.

14:12But why? Let's hear from Dr Tessa Dunlop, historian, whose books include Elizabeth and Philip, and the journalist Alexander Larman, who's written books on the House of Windsor, covering the period from the short, painful reign of Edward VIII It's the longest reign of all, that Queen Elizabeth II, Tessa and Alexander. Welcome to the world tonight. Tessa Dunlop, first of all, why do you think this has had such an apparent impact? Well, if you're referring specifically to the clip of Laura Klinsberg interviewing Earl Spencer. Well, I think probably more the story itself that started with the book.

14:49But if we could just fan out from that, because I thought the optics were startling. There was the public broadcaster weaponising the king's rebuttal. I thought that was an error, by the way, for His Majesty to rebuke, especially in such a long-winded way. But she weaponised his words. And Earl Spencer thrust forward, basically accusing His Majesty of lying, placing his truth first. And it was also, I thought, startling the visuals for those listeners who perhaps haven't seen the interview yet or the clip of the interview. The last time we saw a titled individual, a member of the high, high up aristocracy, a scion of the Spencer dynasty, sit in an ornate room like that was, of course, when ex-Prince Andrew sat there and insisted on his truth.

15:42So it feels like layer upon layer of repeat. Yes, recollections always vary. I'm an oral historian and I can testify to that. But still, the idea that you have our head of state, his integrity and his honesty questioned on a public broadcaster platform, it's not a good look. Right. It may not be a good look, but my question was, why do you think it is having such impact on the public? Well, precisely that. Right. Because it's a shock to people's perceptions. Yes. And also, after 30 years, and I think this is one of the reasons why Charles Spencer has been triggered into releasing this book, we've actually found King Charles to be benign.

16:21We found him avuncular and reassuring. He polls rather well, actually. He polls above the popularity of monarchy individually. And this is a reminder, actually, of a darker part of his past. And the idea of questioning his integrity, yeah, that's going to get clicks. Right. Alexander Larman, what do you make of it? And why do you think it still appears to resonate, even with the younger generation for whom these are frankly people talking about historical events and a figure who has been dead for nearly 30 years. Good evening. Well, I think to be absolutely frank, the reason why this is resonating with people who were not alive when these actions were happening is that essentially we are watching soap opera of the very poshest kind because what we have seen over the past few years, I mean essentially ever since Harry and Meghan announced they were going to leave the royal family, is that we have watched the entire process be reduced to essentially he said, she said, now of course and this rather unenlightened in case he said, he said as well.

17:24So the reason why it's the fourth most viewed story on the BBC News website, and actually I'm surprised it's not the first most viewed story given how absolutely everywhere it's been over the last couple of days, is because it's a story that we're looking at in inverted commas our betters and we are seeing the backbiting, we're seeing the fighting, We're seeing who's lying, who's telling the truth. And ultimately, it is like watching something out of EastEnders or something like that. We may as well be in Walford Square, but instead we're in the highest palaces and houses of the land. Tessa Dunlop, do you think there's a sort of older historical theme here, a theme that goes to something we perhaps don't talk about much?

18:02We sort of assume that the aristocracy and the monarchy are always on the same side. But actually, there's a history of tension between two institutions which both, in a sense, claim their kind of authority from their longevity. Yes, I want to come to that. I'm scared to not answer your question immediately. But just I want to quickly, Alex Narman's comment, that's just a soap opera. Actually, I think let's talk here about the impact of Diana. She was the incontrovertible icon of the late 20th century. And I think whether you're young or old, we all know about Diana. That's not to sanctify her legacy.

18:38It's just the impact she had and continues to have. But re the aristocracy versus the monarchy. What's happened is we've defenestrated the aristocracy. We've removed many of their perks and privileges. This has been happening incrementally since the Second World War. They've been forced to either mothball their big houses or in the case of Ulthrop, throw open the doors to the public and find all sorts of ways to basically keep the lead in their roofs, including writing biographies and exposés and weaponising their truth, as we're seeing at the moment. Now, in contrast to that, the only dynasty that's got progressively riches, so rich, Dimbleby, the public broadcaster, referred to them as rich as plutocrats at the back end of last year, is the royal family.

19:25You know, you don't even have the peers that used to support monarchy. They no longer sit in the lords. We've just got rid of the last hereditary peers. So this framework that once supported monarchy has actually found itself what they would consider to be on their uppers, where they look over the fence. Thank you very much at the bling of what was once a branch of the German Hanoverians. I mean, try and compare that to the Spencers, infinitely more English, darling, far longer and richer heritage. and you can see why the sour grapes going back more than 30 years. Alexander Larmond, last 30 seconds or so, is this one going to just run and run, do you think?

19:59I think it's going to run until at least publication next week and of course I think the most sensational stories have already come out. And what we're going to see over the coming days is obviously we're going to see the full broadcast of Earl Spencer's interview with Laura Gunsberg and given the clip that we've just been talking about, she's not giving him the easiest of rides but on the other hand, as Tessa said, there are the optics of it being another retread of Emily Maitland's Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. So I think this is going to go on for some time, yes. Alexander Lahman, Tessa Dunlop, thank you both very much.

20:49More memories with your favorite people. Travel through August 2027 and start planning your getaway today at applevacations.com or with your trusted travel advisor. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. With a subscription to the BBC website and app, you can now get early access to your favorite BBC podcasts. Listen to shows like You're Dead to Me, In Our Time, Good Bad Billionaire, and more. Plus, there's all the other great benefits you get with a BBC subscription. From live streaming the BBC News Channel and acclaimed documentaries to in-depth analysis and features. Visit bbc.com forward slash subscribe to find out more.

21:34You're listening to The World Tonight. It is approaching 27 minutes past 10 if you're listening to us live. If you're not listening to us live, I'm afraid you're going to have to consult a clock of your own. The main headline so far on the world tonight, President Macron orders measures to protect French critical infrastructure and defence sites from Russian hybrid attacks. The brother of Princess Diana L. Spencer stood by claims the king told him she'd be forgotten soon enough after her death in 1997. And the security service MI5 has admitted at the High Court that its evidence in previous court cases were based on lies.

22:08It's been announced that Stephanie Cole, who starred in Open All Hours, Tenko, Waiting for God on BBC One, Coronation Street and Doc Martin on ITV and numerous radio shows has died. She was 84 and had been living with Alzheimer's for some years. Here is Stephanie Cole alongside Benedict Cumberbatch in 2008 in the BBC Radio 4 comedy smash success Cabin Pressure, in which she played airline owner Carolyn Knapp-Shappie. Martin, you are many things but believe me, you are not sir if anyone is sir, I am sir and as sir, I am telling you from now on, diversions are out I see, so if an engine catches fire on take-off shrug shoulders, keep up a lip stiff and press on for Portugal, got it alright, biggles, you divert if something goes very, very seriously wrong and I am talking oh dear, surely we had two wings when we started wrong

23:03Stephanie Cole, who's died at the age of 84.

23:15Protesters outside Turkey's embassy in London on Friday, they're angry at a crackdown against the LGBTQ community ordered by the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Hundreds of people have been detained throughout this week One newspaper headline said the West is feeding the LGBT scourge. Well, Emily Withers is a journalist who's been covering the story inside Turkey. Well, I should start by saying, Sean, that life has been pretty tough for LGBTQI plus people here for some time. So Pride, for example, in this country has been banned since 2015. Turkey doesn't recognise same-sex marriage, but same-sex relations are not illegal here.

23:55But what we saw over the weekend and into the start of this week is really unprecedented. This is a massive crackdown on this community. So over 160 people were detained. Associations were raided. Bars, which are LGBTQ plus friendly, were raided. And then there was this footage that was released from the Justice Ministry, which showed police officers searching offices and confiscating rainbow flags. they say to protect children and family. And then later in this week, when some of these court cases started happening, these people were being held in pretrial detention. There were small protests outside courtrooms in Ankara and Istanbul.

24:37And the authorities then arrested over 100 people that had come out to show solidarity. So these events have really sent a chill through the LGBTQ plus society here that life for them is about to get a lot harder. Last year, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan designated 2025 as the year of the family, encouraging people to have more children. Is he kind of blaming the LGBTQ community in some way for the fact that the birth rate in Turkey has been falling? Yes, that's right. So like many countries around the world, people in Turkey are not having as many babies as the government would like. So there's been this year of the family last year that's now been extended by the government here.

25:19So it's a decade where they're going to be pushing people to have at least three children. And they've partly blamed the drop in people having children here on the LGBTQ plus community. Erdogan has made many speeches over the last year or so where he has warned that society risks moral decay and that this decay is spreading from individuals to families and then from families to society. The language that the politicians use here now against this community is really quite shocking. It is effectively hate speech. I mean, President Tayyip Erdogan has called LGBTQI people perverts. We also heard this week from the justice minister.

26:00He made a statement on his social media account that he had let all police force operations know in the country that they had to look out for any activity that might endanger children, might endanger the family. and we have just seen the language around this community tightening, life getting harder for them, people being attacked more, they say, on the street. I mean, just this week I went to an LGBTQ plus friendly bar. I watched a band play that was made up of queer and trans people and they said that they used to play in venues all around the country and they're now really struggling to find places to perform because bars just simply won't have them.

26:41Emily Withers reporting on the crackdown in Turkey. Now, what do all these songs have in common?