Two people critically hurt when vehicle carrying HGV drivers hit stationary train in Calais, say French authorities
Nineteen people have been injured after a minibus collided with a stationary freight train at the loading platform of the Eurotunnel near Calais, French authorities have said.
Pas-de-Calais underprefect Agathe Cury said 18 passengers and the bus driver were injured in the incident.
The Maison de l’Amérique Latine (MAL) celebrated its 80th anniversary this Thursday against a backdrop of uncertainty: the Bank of France has put up for sale the two 18th-century mansions that have housed the institution since 1965, with a valuation of 100 million euros.
The 6,791-square-meter property consists of the hôtels particuliers of Varengeville and Amelot de Gournay, located on Boulevard Saint-Germain in the heart of Paris. The bidding process could be concluded before the end of 2026, and the future buyer will be under no obligation to maintain the MAL’s cultural activities at the site.
According to reports from French media, potential interested parties include businessman Xavier Niel and Bernard Arnault, owner of the LVMH group.
Several Latin American embassies in France have launched a public petition to ensure that the Latin America House does not cease its operations. The diplomatic missions emphasized that the institution is particularly vital for smaller embassies, which lack the resources to organize exhibitions or cultural events in a city with such high real estate costs.
Mexico’s Ambassador to France, Blanca Jiménez Cisneros, and Panama’s representative, Joanna Villarreal, attended the event commemorating the MAL’s 80th anniversary.
The petition has garnered over 25,000 signatures, including those of former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and former French Prime Ministers Dominique de Villepin, Bernard Cazeneuve, and Jean-Marc Ayrault.
“It would be a tragedy for the institution to disappear in the very year we mark our 80th anniversary. We will fight until the end,” stated the institution’s president, Jean-Marc Laforêt. Cultural and Diplomatic Space
Founded in 1946 on the initiative of then-French President Charles de Gaulle, the House of Latin America (in spanish Casa de América Latina) was established in recognition of the support provided by Latin America and the Caribbean to Free France during the Second World War.
For eight decades, the institution has served as a meeting point between France and the region, hosting exhibitions, conferences, and cultural activities. Among the notable figures it has welcomed are former Bolivian President Evo Morales and Commander Hugo Chávez.
Former French ambassador Alain Rouquié, the long-standing president of the House of Latin America (in spanish Casa de América Latina), has championed the entity’s autonomous and independent nature. He noted that while the institution receives public funding from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its primary source of revenue comes from renting out the rooms within its historic mansions.
“We have sought to remain free, and that has required significant effort,” stated Rouquié, who considers it essential to remain in the current premises and maintain the model of renting out space to ensure the institution’s continuity.
Rouquié reported that the Bank of France has been attempting for 23 years to evict the institution from the premises it has occupied since 1965. He recalled that in 2003, the then-president Jacques Chirac intervened to halt a sale, requesting that Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin stop the transaction.
Latin American art specialist Christine Frérot compared the situation of the MAL (Latin American House) to that of the Arab World Institute, which receives greater support from public funds. According to 2025 data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Latin American House receives an annual subsidy of 25,000 euros.
Former French-Argentine deputy Paula Forteza, founder of the collective Artivistas, linked the defense of the institution to the international political climate. “As the far-right grows globally, spaces like this become especially important,” she stated.
Bolivian visual artist Kenia Almaraz Murillo also voiced her support for the continued existence of this cultural space, joining Frérot and other prominent figures from the artistic and diplomatic spheres.
Blockades Continue at Schools Across France Ahead of Third Meeting with Education Ministry.
On Thursday, thousands of French people continued protesting and blocking educational centers just hours before student organizations hold a new meeting with the Education Ministry, the third since the start of the protests more than two weeks ago.
Among the blocked institutions is the Paris School of Commerce (HEC), a symbolic place in these protests given that it is one of the most elitist and prestigious institutions in France.
This action shows its solidarity with the student movement, on the eve of a major day of demonstration scheduled for this Saturday, which will be joined by other movements related to the protest over the rising cost of living or agricultural demands. Some French media have described this expression of unity among social groups as a resurgence of the “yellow vests.”
So far, over 1,000 demonstrations are expected to take place across the country on the first day of the two-week “All Saints” school holidays, a date on which President Emmanuel Macron’s government hoped the protests would ease.
"When you see that 98% of news channels' airtime is devoted to burning rubbish bins and only 2% to our demands, of course it makes us angry!”
Thousands of students, teachers, and supporters rallied in Nantes on Tuesday to demand more funding for public education.
On Thursday morning, HEC directors closed their offices to mark their exasperation with the current situation and with the attacks suffered by some teachers. Meanwhile, the Macron administration is trying to control the student protest through negotiations.
Initially, the French government announced the deployment of 3,000 additional teachers, of whom 2,000 are already in their posts, to try to alleviate the teacher shortage, one of the most widespread demands among high school students.
Education Minister Edouard Geffray will receive the student organizations this afternoon for a third meeting, although the French are skeptical of achieving positive results.
“We will go to the meeting with little hope; the Education Ministry is not responding to our demands. We want to meet with the prime minister, who is the one who appears to have budgetary room,” said the vice president of the ‘Les Lyceens!’ union, Louis Letoubon.
🇫🇷Interesting Footage from France captures the moment a brave French student single-handedly takes on a dozen French riot police. This is the kind of spirit that can bring the cowardly French riot police to their knees; imagine if you had a hundred guys like this leading a… pic.twitter.com/9AsCpFT1aD
There Is a Moment of Fatigue in the Country: Lecornu
As expected, the calls for dialogue have been accompanied by attempts to delegitimize the social protest. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu lashed out against the students while symbolically defending “the right” of citizens to peacefully express their discontent.
“This no longer seems like a student movement. We are facing an urban violence movement,” declared Lecornu, who admitted that the intensity of the protests has increased in Paris, Creteil, and Lyon.
The prime minister denounced the firing of pyrotechnic mortars from the street against high schools or “absolutely horrifying calls to violence.” According to him, around 200 of the country’s 3,700 high schools are experiencing episodes of “entrenched” violence, sometimes carried out by people outside the centers.
“We must clearly distinguish between urban violence and legitimate demands,” said the prime minister, who expressed his fear of new disturbances on Saturday during the demonstrations called against the cost of living, in which the Yellow Vests could be present again.
Lunettes étanches, eau, masque FFP2 : France 3 Alsace publie un tuto pour se protéger des lacrymogènes avant les manifestations lycéennes. Les interna… https://t.co/qdgyr3eFAZpic.twitter.com/iWBVkbQd57
The text reads, “Waterproof goggles, water, FFP2 mask. France 3 Alsace publishes a tutorial on how to protect oneself from tear gas before the high school student demonstrations. The boarding school students”
Lecornu acknowledged that France is going through a period of social exhaustion marked by crises and uncertainty. “We are in a kind of permanent crisis situation: wars, uncertainty about purchasing power and inflation… It is evident that there is a moment of fatigue in the country. I perceive it deeply,” he said before immediately insinuating that left-wing organizations are trying to take advantage of that malaise to “turn it into electoral fuel.”
The prime minister promised to respond to student demands. He said the platform enabled to collect their proposals has received over 92,000 contributions so far.
Among the main demands are the improvement of school facilities, the replacement of absent teachers and the adaptation of educational resources to the needs of each territory.
The Macron administration plans to work with regional councils to evaluate the state of the buildings and the needs of the centers, according to Lecornu, who defended the mobilization of 3,000 teachers from a substitute reserve to cover absences.
He also proposed opening a broader debate on the consequences of demographic decline for the education system. France will have 1.6 million fewer students by 2035, an evolution that will force a review of the organization of educational centers, especially in rural areas.
Nearly half of Muslim and Jewish respondents in a major French poll say they would consider leaving the country if Marine Le Pen wins the 2027 presidential election, according to an exclusive Ifop survey for the magazine Marianne.
The poll found that 46 percent of respondents identifying as Muslim would contemplate “leaving France to settle in another country” under a Le Pen presidency. Of those, 20 percent said they would “certainly” take that step. By comparison, 21 percent of the overall population expressed a similar willingness to leave.
The figure is part of a broader set of findings on identity, secularism, and anticipated reactions to a National Rally (RN) victory. Eighty-one percent of Muslim respondents believed a Le Pen win would lead to a rise in discrimination against their community. Twenty-seven percent said they would consider concealing their religious identity in daily life, including 18 percent who would stop wearing the veil in public.
Similar sentiments appeared in other groups polled.
Forty percent of the youngest cohort of French voters, 43 percent of France Unbowed (LFI) voters, and 44 percent of Jewish respondents said they would consider leaving. The survey also recorded elevated support for civil disobedience in some cohorts. For instance, substantial shares indicated they would refuse to respect laws they viewed as unjust.
Notably, while Le Pen has been antagonistic towards Islam in France, she has often cast herself as a protector of Jewish life in the country.
In 2024, she said, “The best shield for French people of the Jewish faith is the National Rally. It is the only movement that has the will, the conviction and the means to fight Islamist fundamentalism, which is the major danger facing them.”
Yet, nearly as many Jews said they would leave the country as Muslims.
Le meilleur bouclier pour les Français de confession juive, c’est le Rassemblement National.
C’est le seul mouvement qui a la volonté, la conviction et les moyens de lutter contre le fondamentalisme islamiste qui est le danger majeur qui pèse sur eux. https://t.co/pggWHgzITu
François Kraus, director of the Politics and Current Affairs division at Ifop, described the results: “The arrival in power of the candidate favored by the polls risks creating significant obstacles and generates high levels of fear and a sense of insecurity.”
The National Rally has long advocated tighter controls on immigration, greater priority for French nationals in housing and employment, and restrictions on Islamic veiling in public spaces. Le Pen has indicated she would not impose an immediate ban on the veil upon taking office but would put broader restrictions to a national referendum.
Previous Ifop work has documented rising religiosity and support for more rigorous interpretations of Islam among younger French Muslims, including significant shares prioritizing Islamic norms over French civil law on issues such as inheritance or ritual slaughter in certain scenarios. Remix News reported on this poll last year.
Figures on the right treated these results as evidence of failed integration and the dangers of demographic change.
Currently, Le Pen has frequently led first-round voting intention polls, making her the favorite to win the presidential election.
It is important to note that many groups claim they will leave a country if their preferred candidate does not win an election, but actually leaving is an entirely different story. The 46 percent figure for Muslims and 44 percent for Jews is only an expressed willingness or contemplation in a hypothetical scenario, not concrete plans to leave France.
The reality is that family ties, employment, and economic realities mean that leaving is far harder in practice.
While presidents of both parties have long rewarded donors and allies with plum ambassadorships, Trump has chosen loyalists willing to go to bat for him regardless of the implications for US-foreign relationships.
It’s hard to know whether to break the TV set or throw up when listening to the European governments rushing to condemn the air strike by Yemeni forces on Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid international airport.
The blast from a ballistic missile that slammed into the airport at the weekend, October 12, killed at least 13 civilians and injured scores of other travellers. Horrific video footage shows the moment the missile explosion ripped through a terminal lounge.
European leaders immediately in a coordinated fashion trotted out condemnations of Yemeni “terrorism” and vowed solidarity and support for Saudi Arabia. U.S. President Donald Trump called it “a terrible thing.” (As if bombing schoolchildren is not quite a terrible thing.)
Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, and Spain all issued strident denunciations of the Yemeni attack.
The strike on the Saudi capital came after the Ansar Allah-led Yemen Armed Forces had given ample warning to the Saudis that their airports would be targeted and for civilians to avoid the areas. The airports were kept open for business as usual. The Yemenis have said that the attack on Riyadh and other Saudi airports are retaliation for weeks of multiple air strikes by the Saudis on Yemeni civilian centers.
Hundreds of Yemeni civilians have been killed since Saudi Arabia broke a four-year truce with an air strike on the international airport in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, on July 13. Saudi warplanes, U.S.-supplied F-15s and European Typhoon jets, have been continously bombing homes across Yemen. This week, two days after the Riyadh strike, at least nine people including five children were killed in air raids on houses in Taiz city and in northern al Jawf province. Al Masirah TV footage showed a distraught father holding up a child’s shredded body amid rubble. There was no condemnation of that atrocity from any European leader.
As Mick Wallace and Clare Daly, former Irish Members of the European Parliament, point out in their podcast this week, the official European reaction is utter hypocrisy and a cynical distortion of the conflict on the Arabian Peninsula.
Britain and France in particular, along with the United States, have backed the Saudi aggression against Yemen beginning in 2015. Over seven years, that aggression killed up to 400,000 Yemenis through air strikes and a blockade on humanitarian needs.
The European Union remained largely silent for seven years. No protests were made to Washington, Paris or London. Ambassadors were not summoned, sanctions were not imposed.
The return to hostilities that began with Saudi air strikes on Sanaa in July have been enabled by U.S. and Britain supplying warplanes, military advisors and intelligence.
None of the European governments have bothered to condemn this recent U.S. and UK-backed slaughter.
So, it is nauseating when one hears British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband saying he is “appalled” by the strike on Riyadh airport. And other European leaders vowing “full solidarity with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul condemned Yemen’s “terrorist act.”
His French counterpart said France stood with Saudi Arabia “in defending its territory and infrastructue.” (No mention of what the Saudis have been doing for years to Yemen’s territory.)
Referring to the strike on Riyadh without any context, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni said: “Attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure are unacceptable and must cease.” (Yes, indeed, so why not tell that to the Saudis who are doing it deliberately on a massive scale with support from Washington and London?)
What is instructive here is not just the sickening hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy. It is the manifestation of a systematic corruption and criminal responsibility. This is not just one more example of a flawed European political class whose judgement is suspect. What is increasingly apparent is the totality of the corruption.
The same European supporters of Saudi monarchs waging a genocidal war on Yemen are also contemporaneously supporting the Israeli Zionist regime in its extermination of Palestinians. They are complicit in enabling the U.S. aggression against Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. They are sponsors of the NeoNazi regime in Kiev to keep fighting a proxy war against Russia despite more than one million Ukrainian military casualties and the risk of nuclear conflagration.
The death cult of Western capitalism is on full display in multiple theaters, exposing the organic evil at work. There is sense that all of Western imperialist history is now on display in one final orgy of barbarity.
In previous times, the death cult operated discreetly in seemingly disparate conflict scenarios. Wars on different continents seemed somehow unconnected. The Western media would in the past reliably cover up the crimes by distorting the motives and objectives with false narratives and (laughable) claims of noble purpose. The West was “defending democracy,” “fighting communism,” “protecting human rights,” or “waging war on terrorism,” or some other pretext that in isolation and with loads of media propaganda managed to fool a lot of people as somehow plausible.
What’s happening now, it seems, is a concatenation of wars that ultimately exposes the essential system that drives the violence, and its insatiable lust for human suffering.
It is impossible to work for such a vile system, the death cult of capitalism, without also being oblivious to its evil ways. To remain oblivious necessitates denial or lies. That deception might be tenable for occasional and seemingly disparate scenarios. But not when the system is exposed in its infernal entirety.
American and European wars in the past might have succeeded in being sold to the Western public as one-off wars and misadventures. We think of the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Latin American, Africa, former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and more recently Libya.
In more recent years, as consciousness evolved, the public began discerning and decrying “endless wars”.
But now the world is witnessing a totalizing of the war machine that goes by the name of “Western democracy”.
What’s happening in Ukraine, Gaza, Iran and Yemen is not coincidence. It is the death cult on display and unable to hide itself. It manifests too in attacking and locking up Western citizens who condemn genocide or who simply call for peace.
Capitalism, fascism, wars, the Epstein class, endemic poverty and suffering – it’s a death cult in a theater near you.
The politicians, governments, media and pundits who promote it or serve it are seen for what they are.
High school and university students in France continued their protests on Tuesday, October 13, demanding government investment in public education. Approximately 480,000 protesters took to the streets in the latest iteration of the mobilization, with families, teachers, and trade unions backing students’ demands.
The mobilization remains marked by widespread police violence. Police used tear gas and dispersal grenades on crowds, including at Tuesday’s central march in Paris. Hundreds of students were injured and thousands arrested in these incidents, prompting reactions from human rights organizations.
In response, the public joined students as they blocked high schools and organized marches to physically shield them from potential harm. Trade union members, notably from the education sector, were highly represented in these support lines.
“The CGT reaffirms the urgent need to address the demands of those who are the country’s future ,” the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) asserted. “The CGT salutes their fighting spirit. It welcomes the strong anti-fascist tone of the demonstrations, which shows that there is no inevitability to the continued flourishing of fascist ideas or to the far right’s rise to power.”
Students demand access to higher education
Since the beginning of the month, French students have organized three massive demonstrations to warn against the state of education under austerity. “For several weeks, high school and university students have been mobilizing to denounce the deterioration of their study conditions, the Parcoursup system, staff and resource shortages, policies that are dismantling public services, and – more broadly – the future this society holds in store for them,” the trade union federation Solidaires recognized in their statements.
Trade unions continued their support for student mobilizations. The banner reads: “Electricity and gas workers stand with the youth. Our rage is nuclear.” Source: CGT/Facebook
Equal access to higher education has been high on the protesters’ demand list since the beginning. This refers in good part to how students are currently recruited into university courses – the Parcoursup admission platform. Introduced in 2018 under Macronist ministers to replace a previous system that randomized selection for oversubscribed courses, Parcoursup was supposed to “rationalize” admissions.
In practice, however, critics and applicants emphasize the platform allows institutions to apply unclear selection criteria and even discriminate against students from working-class areas.
In September 2026, the left party La France Insoumise warned that 126,652 students were not able to access a course as a result of the system – up from 77,000 in 2023. “This selection process is the product of austerity-driven political choices deliberately implemented by successive Macron-era governments,” the party warned.
“Parcoursup is a social sorting machine,” Solidaires echoed. “The platform organizes competition among young people for places that the State deliberately refuses to create. It transforms the right to study into a privilege, scarcity into selection, and austerity into supposed individual failure.”
Commodification of education
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the left’s presidential candidate, pointed out that these choices are part of a broader political agenda: “the commodification of education and knowledge.”
Trade union briefs on the subject back this interpretation. At the beginning of this school year, Solidaires warned that thousands of those left without higher education placings are being sacrificed in the name of austerity.
“But not everyone experiences this violence in the same way,” they wrote. “The wealthiest families can afford private schooling, fund housing on the other side of the country, or sustain a year without studying. Young people from working-class backgrounds, however, have no way out. A lack of options means either being forced into the job market or military service – abandoning their plans for good – or facing precariousness, isolation, and debt at a private institution.”
“We have shifted from an egalitarian system to a discriminatory one: pay for your own future,” Mélenchon concluded in a recent interview.
The left leader anticipated that student demands will be an important topic during the upcoming election campaign, where the left is contrasting a program of rupture with neoliberal policies to the far right’s intention to build a debt brake not unlike Germany’s. In practice, this would translate into years of sustained attacks on social security and public services.
Trade unions and progressive organizations announced their support for the youth mobilizations will continue as they build campaigns to resist the government’s intention to impose billions in cuts to pensions and social security while spending record amounts on rearmament.
For their part, student unions invited their members to remain active and join a general mobilization against the cost of living crisis this Saturday, October 17.
Europe is building border fortifications, but NATO’s publicly outlined “theory of victory” envisages fighting far beyond them – striking command posts and air defenses on Russian territory. Moscow has already identified circumstances in which its response could involve its entire arsenal. Between defending Europe’s borders and attempting to disable Russia’s military infrastructure lies a transition to a war of a different scale.
What Warsaw Put on the Table
At the Warsaw Security Forum on October 12–13, NATO’s top commander in Europe, Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, outlined a three-stage response to an attack on the alliance: “block, blunt, break.” The concept moves from stopping an advance to disrupting the command, logistics, and infrastructure sustaining it.
“Block, blunt, break.” NATO has three words for winning a war with Russia. Keeping that war limited will take more than a slogan
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski addressed the forces Europe might eventually field, saying he expected a combined European army by 2030, at least on the eastern flank.
These statements followed regional consultations in Lithuania, where the Nordic-Baltic Eight’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee chairs discussed security and border protection. Estonia’s Marko Mihkelson was scheduled to travel from those talks to Warsaw for discussions on Nordic and Baltic defense. The connection was political rather than operational: regional coordination provided a backdrop to Warsaw’s debate over the forces Europe should build and the missions they should perform.
A united front for the cameras. Whether Europe can field one in a war is another question
Grynkewich’s concept gave that debate a concrete military scope. Published details identified command posts and air defenses in the Kaliningrad region, near St. Petersburg, and in Belarus as potential targets. Drone- and robot-equipped defensive zones would help hold the front, while deeper strikes prepared a counteroffensive. Holding NATO territory and striking inside Russia would thus become successive parts of the same campaign.
Grynkewich says NATO does not seek Russia’s strategic defeat. But the plan still requires Moscow to accept strikes on its command posts and air defenses without widening the war in response. That is not a condition NATO can dictate. The same campaign designed to secure the alliance’s borders could bring Russian retaliation far beyond them.
Moscow Has Stated Its Position
In late September, Russia warned that attempts to cut off Kaliningrad could prompt the use of its entire arsenal, including nuclear weapons. On October 13, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko described the warning as a preventive signal intended to avert armed confrontation. Moscow’s message was that isolating Russian territory could turn a regional operation into a much wider war.
That warning gave particular significance to a question put to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte the following day in Tallinn: would the alliance close the Gulf of Finland to Russian ships in wartime? Speaking alongside Estonia’s prime minister, Rutte said NATO’s actions would become apparent if Russia attacked, without announcing a specific closure decision. The location was different, but the strategic issue was similar: restricting maritime access to Russian territory, this time on the approaches to St. Petersburg.
“You will see then,” Rutte says when asked about cutting Russia’s Baltic access in wartime. Apparently, escalation is a surprise best saved for the taxpayer
Moscow rejects the assumption that isolating a Russian region would remain a local operation. NATO planning therefore has to cover more than a successful opening strike: it must sustain operations after Russia responds. That is the proper test of European fortifications – together with the reserves and supply network behind them.
Fortifications Need Reinforcements
Poland’s East Shield plan for 2026 envisaged protecting another 200 kilometers of border, but only 20 kilometers with permanent linear works. The remainder would rely on pre-positioned construction materials.
Estonia plans 600 small bunkers by the end of 2027. Such positions must be occupied, supplied, and reinforced in time.
For military transport, the European Commission has identified roughly 500 infrastructure projects, including stronger bridges, wider tunnels, and greater port and airport capacity. It also identifies shortages of rail wagons and ferries for equipment. Around €1.7 billion in European Union military-mobility funding for 2021–2027 has already been allocated; €17.65 billion was proposed for the next budget period. But an allocation is not a completed transport route.
History illustrates the distinction. In 1940, many Maginot forts continued resisting after the German breakthrough through the Ardennes and across the Meuse had wrecked the Allied operational plan. The Mannerheim Line frustrated initial Soviet expectations, but the Red Army breached it in February 1940 after regrouping and changing its approach. Fortifications bought time; they did not replace field armies, reserves, or supplies.
Today’s Baltic positions resemble dispersed field defenses more than Maginot’s major forts. Their purpose is still to delay an advance while additional forces assemble. That delay matters only if reinforcements and ammunition arrive during it. Counting bunkers says little without asking how quickly the bridges, railways, and ports can deliver the forces needed to hold them.
Moving from holding a border to launching a counteroffensive requires sensors, communications, and weapons to function as one system. Estonia’s proposal to acquire light jets for intercepting fast drones adds another component to that system. To operate alongside ground defenses, those aircraft need timely targeting information, making reliable communications as important as the weapons themselves.
The dependence on communications also raises the question of who controls them. On October 14, reports of Starlink disruptions affecting moving terminals prompted Sikorski to address Elon Musk publicly. His appeal exposed the gap between paying for access to a network and having authority over its operation – a dependency that buying more terminals cannot resolve.
Europe’s planned answer is to build its own satellite capabilities. Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius identified 2029 as the target for the first phase of IRIS², Europe’s secure satellite-communications system, and called for European orbital reconnaissance. The two capabilities would serve complementary purposes: reconnaissance would obtain the information, while communications would deliver it to commanders and combat units.
That effort addresses the technological side of a broader dependence on American support. The availability of U.S. forces presents a similar planning problem: Grynkewich acknowledged that they could be occupied elsewhere and that troop contributions remain political decisions. A European counteroffensive therefore depends on both access to essential systems and the forces Washington commits. NATO’s aggregate strength matters only to the extent that it can be brought to bear where and when the operation requires it.
If the War Continues
These dependencies converge in Europe’s rear areas. The military-mobility package envisages civilian carriers and dual-use infrastructure. Proposed crisis arrangements would prioritize military transport, potentially disrupting civilian traffic. Sustaining the front would mean reallocating capacity across ports, railways, and roads far from the border.
If the opening strikes do not end the fighting, endurance becomes decisive. Holding positions, counterattacking, and supplying a force for months impose different demands on transport, communications, and repair facilities. Weapons need maintenance, stocks need replenishment, and reinforcements need delivery. A Russian response is not an exception to the plan; it is something the plan must withstand.
Public promises of decisive action remove none of these dependencies. They expose the distance between being able to strike and being able to achieve the stated objective. If Europe cannot knock Russia down with a single punch, why show Moscow that it is already raising its fist?
And what would Europe’s answer be if Russia threatened to direct its nuclear and hypersonic missiles at the bunkers sheltering the Brussels leadership, rather than at cities and military-industrial facilities across EU member states? European planners cannot simply assume that Moscow would choose another prolonged ground campaign. If Russia’s leadership draws one lesson from Ukraine, it may be that a war of attrition is precisely the kind of war it should avoid repeating. Brussels is announcing how it intends to fight. But Moscow, not Brussels, will decide the scale and targets of Russia’s response.
Peak of French mountain now 4,807 metres high and fluctuates year by year due to changes in Alpine climate
Western Europe’s highest mountain shrank by more than a metre last year. The peak of Mont Blanc in France now stands 4,807.47 metres above sea level, a team of surveyors said on Wednesday, putting “the roof of Europe” 1.29 metres lower than in 2025.
The mountain is about 4,792 metres tall but the summit constantly shifts as heat, wind and precipitation change the thickness of snow and ice on top. The height scientists recorded during an expedition last month was 1.88 metres greater than it was in 2023, when it reached the lowest levels in recent memory.
Say what you will about France’s high schools, they still produce world-class slogan writers. Here’s a brief selection spotted during three weeks of blockades and marches over chronic teacher shortages, overcrowded classes and crumbling buildings:
“Pas d’avenir, pas de calme” (No future, no calm). “Diplômés aujourd’hui, précaires demain” (Graduates today, insecure tomorrow). “Vous détruisez notre futur, on bloque votre présent” (You destroy our future, we block your present).
Jean-Noël Barrot criticises X owner in speech attacking foreign efforts to destabilise France before 2027 election
France’s foreign minister has accused Elon Musk of using his social media platform to orchestrate “massive online harassment campaigns” against European leaders as he took aim at foreign efforts to destabilise the country before next year’s presidential election.
Speaking at an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development conference on Tuesday, Jean-Noël Barrot pointed to the role that social media had come to play in the global battle over democracy. “The forces seeking to undermine democracy now dominate the information landscape, where they employ tactics designed to polarise public debate,” he said.
Ukraine has loosened its reliance on Washington but still depends on the United States in three military areas that let US President Donald Trump keep pressuring Kyiv, The Telegraph wrote on 12 October. That pressure now centers on the energy ceasefire Trump declared on 11 October, with US officials reportedly warning Kyiv not to hit Russian energy during the truce. Kyiv backs a mutual truce, but Moscow has not confirmed it, and Russian strikes on Ukraine’s grid have continued.
The paper named three such ties: satellite intelligence, Patriot interceptors, and American weapons bought with European money. A pause in any of them would hit just as Russia’s winter campaign begins. Ukraine says an intercepted document reportedly lays out up to 1,000 Russian missiles, drones, and bombs for 60 critical sites this winter, so any pause in US intelligence, interceptors, or PURL deliveries would land as that campaign gets under way.
Satellite intelligence: the US still holds the key
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other US services still pass precise satellite data that help Ukrainian forces hit targets inside Russia, by the paper’s estimate. Trump briefly suspended that flow in March 2025 to pressure Zelenskyy. A Ukrainian official told Axios that Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner threatened during 9 October talks in Miami to cut off US intelligence.
Explore further
Russian ballistic missiles hit Kyiv before sirens, gap that lands hard amid fears that Washington could cut data that warns of launches
Patriot interceptors: no quick substitute
The Telegraph called interceptor missiles the second and probably sharpest dependency. Only American Patriot systems can down Russia’s most powerful missiles, which strike Ukrainian cities daily, the paper wrote. Kyiv’s PAC-3 stocks ran dry mainly because US reserves were diverted to the Middle East after America’s war against Iran, the paper added. Kyiv had warned in March that a long Middle East war would squeeze its PAC-3 supply.
Five European defense firms—Destinus, MBDA Deutschland, Safran, Airbus, and Thales—signed a letter of intent in July to develop a joint interceptor, but a testable prototype is not expected before next year, the paper wrote. Ukraine is also building its own interceptor with European allies under the FREYJA program.
Explore further
The night Trump announced a diesel deal with Putin, drones knocked out more than half the tanks at a Russian fuel-export terminal
US arms bought with European money
The third is buying American arms with European money through the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), a NATO-run purchasing scheme. US officials have reportedly warned Europe that Trump may halt those supplies if Ukraine keeps striking Russian oil refineries.
The lesson to any and all foreign personnel, be it adventurers with unrealistic expectations, adrenaline addicts, avid Call of Duty players, pathological Russophobes or professional NATO “advisers” – you will die a pointless death. Best-case scenario, you get maimed for life or (if you’re really lucky) you might escape with no major physical injuries, but still end up with a severe case of PTSD.
Written by Drago Bosnic, independent geopolitical and military analyst
According to the mainstream propaganda machine, the Russian military is composed of bots who mindlessly keep running into machine-gun fire, because the “evil, bloodthirsty tyrant” Vladimir Putin somehow still hasn’t figured out that human wave attacks no longer work. Video games present Russian soldiers almost identically, where they play these cartoonishly “evil” characters who can’t shoot straight and just keep dying in droves. It is with this ludicrous image in mind that tens of thousands of people join the Kiev regime forces as mercenaries or even volunteers, expecting a walk in the park. Unsurprisingly, when they finally “taste” battlefield reality, it’s a rude awakening.
Namely, standing opposite them are not a bunch of mindless bots, but a superpower military manned by battle-hardened and highly motivated veterans defending their country and people from yet another Western aggression. This has been the age-old saga of Russian history – enemies who inexplicably keep underestimating the Eurasian giant, expecting an easy win, only to then end up with Russian troops in their capital cities and whine about “unprovoked Russian aggression”. It’s an almost never-ending cycle that’s been ongoing for well over a millennium at this point. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, the political West won the first prize in it long ago.
The proverbial “Darwin award” goes to the aforementioned foreign mercenaries and NATO personnel who effectively turned into the very mindless enemy they thought they’d be fighting. Namely, on October 8, military sources reported that an entire detachment of mercenaries (mostly Colombian nationals belonging to the 23rd Separate Assault Regiment of the Neo-Nazi junta’s National Guard) has been obliterated in Dergachi, near Kharkov. The unit was just transferred to the area from an assembly point in Kiev, where they were tracked by increasingly effective Russian ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) assets. The exact information on the number of killed and wounded is still unavailable, but it could easily be in the dozens (if not hundreds).
Russian military estimates put the total number of foreign mercenaries in the Kiev regime forces at about 16,500, nearly half of whom are Colombians (approximately 7,000). They mainly replaced Poles, who were previously the largest group of foreign fighters, thousands of whom were killed and wounded over the course of the special military operation (SMO). Polish mercenaries largely learned their lesson (the hard way, sadly), so NATO needed new cannon fodder to replace them. Unfortunately, Colombians emerged as the most suitable candidates. Back in March, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) published an updated report on foreign mercenaries its forces eliminated in NATO-occupied Ukraine in 2025.
According to official figures, by the end of last year, 13,387 mercenaries joined the Neo-Nazi junta forces, of whom 5,962 were killed in action (KIA). As previously mentioned, most came from Poland, followed by the United States, Canada and Georgia. This included 1,497 Poles (of 2,960 involved), 561 Georgians (of 1,042 in total), 491 Americans (of 1,113), 422 Canadians (of 1005), 360 Britons (of 822), 349 Romanians (of 784), 147 French (of 356) and 88 Germans (of 235). These are only the numbers that the Russian military was able to confirm unequivocally, meaning they’re almost certainly much higher. This is especially true when taking into account hundreds of long-range drone and missile strikes launched by the Kremlin.
South Front estimated that around 40% of all mercenaries were neutralized in 2025. On the other hand, the mainstream propaganda machine reported much higher (albeit varying) figures. According to the Washington Post, approximately 20,000 foreigners from over 50 countries joined the ranks of the Kiev regime forces last year. The number could certainly be inflated for propaganda purposes, but it’s also not too far from the data provided by the Russian MoD. Either way, one thing is certain – no foreign fighter was ready for the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict. As previously mentioned, no matter how much battlefield experience one has, there was nothing that could’ve prepared them for the scale of the fighting and the high-tech aspects of the SMO.
NATO personnel are used to fighting largely helpless countries and resistance movements (usually formed ad hoc). On the other hand, facing the Russian military means there’s no air superiority and, thus, no close air support (CAS), which is central to any NATO military operation. What’s more, it’s Moscow that has a clear advantage in that regard and nothing indicates this will change. Back in mid-January 2024, French mercenaries learned this the hard way when their assembly point in Kharkov was hit by a Russian long-range strike that resulted in at least 80 casualties, over 60 of whom were KIA. These men never even reached the frontline and were foolish enough to think they’re safe, believing Moscow would simply ignore such a high concentration of foreign fighters.
And yet, the situation in the trenches is not much better either. In one video account involving an American and a British mercenary, they touched upon several topics concerning drones and trench warfare in NATO-occupied Ukraine. Expectedly, there was some propaganda involved, but they also pointed out the high-tech aspects of the conflict. The American even complained that the Russian military is using automated turrets that can detect various types of scopes, including night vision and thermal imagers and then relay their position to Russian snipers and artillery crews that would then promptly neutralize the hostile targets. Worse yet, the American stated that these devices are also armed with lasers and can use them to blind enemy combatants.
Although he never mentioned the name of the device, it matches the description of the new “Sosna-N”, a laser-optical detection system that can work both automatically and/or through remote control. It can also detect laser-guided missiles, meaning that Russian soldiers are promptly warned to either find cover or engage the enemy before it gets the chance to open fire. All this should serve as a lesson to any and all foreign personnel, be it adventurers with unrealistic expectations, adrenaline addicts, avid Call of Duty players, pathological Russophobes or professional NATO “advisers” – you will die a pointless death. Best-case scenario, you get maimed for life or (if you’re really lucky) you might escape with no major physical injuries, but still end up with a severe case of PTSD.
France has seized an oil tanker suspected of belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet after intercepting it more than 450 nautical miles south of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on 12 October.
The seizure targets a network Russia relies on to keep oil revenues flowing despite Western sanctions imposed over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The shadow fleet allows Moscow to continue exporting oil and funding its war in Ukraine.
The French Navy boarded the DF Peak over suspicions that it was sailing under a false flag and involved in illegal fuel transportation, Macron said. French forces escorted the vessel to an anchorage near Réunion for further checks as part of a judicial investigation.
La France est déterminée à lutter contre la flotte fantôme, partout dans le monde.
Ce matin, à plus de 450 nautiques au sud de La Réunion, notre Marine nationale a arraisonné le pétrolier DF Peak, suspecté de naviguer sous un faux pavillon et impliqué dans des activités… pic.twitter.com/GS91egdvzN
Russia’s shadow fleet consists of oil tankers used to keep Russian oil and petroleum exports moving despite Western sanctions imposed after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The vessels often operate through opaque ownership structures, change names or flags, and use registration practices that make it harder to establish who controls them and where their cargo originates. These methods help Russia maintain oil revenue while limiting the impact of sanctions and restrictions on shipping and insurance.
The fleet also raises safety and environmental concerns. Many of the vessels are older tankers operating with unclear insurance coverage or limited oversight, increasing the risk of accidents and oil spills.
DF Peak previously sailed under different name
The DF Peak was previously named Kaliningrad and sailed under the flag of Benin. It has been subject to US, UK, and EU sanctions since 2024, according to Reuters. Ukrainian military intelligence has also linked the tanker to Russian crude oil transportation and the shipping company Sovcomflot.
The tanker was last tracked near Madagascar on 12 October after departing from Venezuela, according to shipping data cited by Reuters. French authorities said the vessel would be taken to Réunion for a closer examination of its registration and activities.
Russia condemns seizure
Russia’s embassy in France condemned the seizure, calling it a violation of international law and describing the operation as “piracy,” according to Russian state media cited by Reuters. The embassy said France had not notified Moscow about the seizure and that it was checking whether Russian citizens were among the crew.
The seizure is part of wider European efforts to enforce sanctions against Russia’s oil exports and target vessels suspected of using false flags. France has seized at least five Russian-linked tankers since 2024, Reuters reported.
Preparations for war with Russia and complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza have set off a struggle over jobs, wages and military production
War preparation is now a reality across Europe. Within a single September week, Poland issued fresh warnings, Germany ran drills and national alerts, military exercises were held across the Baltic, and Lithuania published plans to evacuate residents of Vilnius in the event of an attack.
The Finnish government is in full cry over the prospect of war, reminding its citizens yet again that they should be ready, in mind and in practice, for the disruption it would bring.
On 18 September, French President Emmanuel Macron gathered party leaders and presidential hopefuls at the Elysee Palace to hear the heads of France’s intelligence services describe what his office called the rapid deterioration of the international situation.
Nato, meanwhile, talks ever more openly about Russian sabotage, cyber attacks, arson and drone attacks.
Many workers and citizens across the continent, though, are not convinced by the war fever.
Thousands of Airbus workers in Spain began strike action on 1 July after rejecting the company’s pay and conditions offer.
Representatives of the UGT and CGT unions said the stoppage had slowed military and commercial production and would make it harder for the company to meet its delivery target. Airbus’s eight sites in Spain produce military transport planes and parts for commercial aircraft and satellites.
As the Defence Matters website reported: “The industrial pressure is not confined to commercial aviation. Spain is central to Airbus Defence and Space, including military transport and satellite activity. European governments are asking manufacturers to increase output at the same time as companies compete for engineers, technicians and production workers.”
Supply lines are so tight that Airbus has had to hire giant Antonov An-124 heavy-lift aircraft to ferry parts from one plant to another just to keep production running.
Air Data News reported that the strike “threatens key military aircraft programmes”, noting that the Eurofighter plant near Madrid and the military transport aircraft site near Seville were both affected.
Spanish unions said about 90 percent of eligible workers took part in the stoppage on 25 August, part of an indefinite strike. The strikes were called after workers voted at plant-level assemblies to reject the company’s offer.
French unions briefed on the dispute said the three striking Spanish unions represent about 40 percent of Airbus Spain’s roughly 14,000 employees. Workers were seeking inflation-linked pay rises, the restoration of previous remote-working arrangements and sick-leave benefits.
After the intervention of Industry Minister Jordi Hereu and concessions from Airbus, the strikers paused the stoppage on 10 September, but not the movement. Two days later, around 8,000 workers from Airbus sites across Spain marched through Madrid to keep the pressure on.
On 1 October, 77 percent of those voting backed an improved offer providing for the restoration of lost purchasing power, inflation-linked pay rises and the protection of remote-working rights, a settlement that months of industrial action had forced out of the company.
The Airbus dispute shows the leverage workers hold in the very industries on which Europe’s rearmament depends.
Trains and the TUC
In Scotland, meanwhile, the rail union RMT, the drivers’ union Aslef and the white-collar TSSA have demanded that the Scottish government remove CAF, the Spanish manufacturer Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, from its shortlist of contractors to build ScotRail’s new fleet of suburban trains.
The company is included in the UN human rights database of businesses involved in Israeli settlements for its role in running the Jerusalem light rail and helping to extend it into territory illegally seized by Israel.
Aslef made clear that its members would refuse to drive CAF trains, a position echoed by TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust when she urged the Scottish government to “think again”.
Scottish Greens co-leader Gillian Mackay put the first minister on the spot, asking him directly: “So will the first minister agree that CAF should be blocked from this contract, and will he stand with the rail workers who have refused to drive trains produced by a company that they say profits from apartheid?”
In his response, the first minister confirmed that ScotRail was seeking advice on the contract.
For the second year running, delegates at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) backed a motion opposing increases in arms spending.
This year’s motion passed with even more support than last year’s, which reversed the TUC’s previous backing, advocated by the GMB and Unite unions, for higher defence spending.
Speaking in favour of the motion, Alex Gordon, a former RMT president and national officer of the Stop the War Coalition, said: “This movement is about fighting for jobs, for public services, for investment in the industries of the future that our young people, that our young workers need.
“Those industries are not military industries. The skills of the workers in the military sector are vital skills, vital skills that need to be used in civilian production.”
Ports and classrooms
Dockworkers’ unions in at least six countries are planning an international day of action and strikes on 30 October to protest against the war on Gaza and demand an immediate end to the genocide of the Palestinian people.
This coordinated mobilisation follows a strike on 6 February this year that shut down cargo operations at more than 20 Mediterranean and European ports to halt arms shipments bound for Israel.
“No to the war economy, government rearmament plans, and the project of militarisation of ports and strategic infrastructure from [the] EU,” the unions said in their statement. “Public resources must be used to meet people’s social needs, not to finance war.”
The signatories include CGT FNPD in France, Enedep in Greece, LAB in the Basque Country, Liman-Is in Turkey, ODT in Morocco, and Orsa Porti and USB in Italy.
The next generation, at least in Germany, seems even less enthusiastic about the prospect of a new European war. More than 45,000 school students across the country walked out of class in late September to protest against plans for compulsory military service, after hundreds of young men were summoned for medical examinations.
The School Strike Against Conscription initiative said demonstrations took place in more than 100 cities after the German defence ministry began calling in 18-year-old men for medical screening. Service itself remains voluntary for now, but the screening is compulsory.
Students took to the streets demanding a halt to the forced checks, the repeal of the new military service law and an end to what they call a step-by-step return to the draft.
This is now the ground on which European politics is being fought. It is a contest between a political establishment obsessed with war and preparations for war, and millions of workers across the continent unwilling to pay for rearmament with their wages, jobs and living standards.
France's military was taking a tanker suspected to be part of Russia's "shadow fleet" skirting Western sanctions to Reunion island on Tuesday in what Moscow called another act of "piracy."
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg joins teenagers calling for investment to fix teacher shortages and crumbling schools
More than 160,000 schoolchildren, students and trade unionists have marched in cities across France as protests over high school education continued into a third week and many demonstrators denounced policing tactics.
Riot police fired teargas at the end of Tuesday’s marches in Nantes and near the Montparnasse area of Paris, but most of the demonstrations over teacher shortages, overcrowded classes and crumbling school buildings held in cities including Lyon, Lille and Marseille were peaceful.
When people picture Gaul between the fifth and seventh centuries, they tend to think of invading tribes, shrinking towns and Merovingian kings so passive that later historians nicknamed them the “do-nothing kings”. A hilltop in Burgundy fits that picture badly. Archaeologists there are digging up a sizeable church, buildings heated from beneath the floor and […]
Ukraine’s president says his country has halted strikes on Russian oil refineries for two days after Trump’s energy ceasefire announcement
On frozen Russian assets, Poland’s Sikorski says the use of frozen Russian assets is “a complicated issue,” but takes a very clear stance in response to any suggestion of releasing them back to Russia.
“We are working on it, but there is also some rumours that some people are expecting these assets to be released back to Russia.
I don’t think I’m speaking just for myself in saying: over our dead bodies.”
“Russia right now is not ready for ceasefire, but still, this only can encourage us to stay with Ukraine and to, strengthen, the pressure on Russia and always be ready for conversations, but and also especially for, for ceasefire negotiations.
But, until this doesn’t happen, we are with Ukraine. We are with the president the German government is is backing the Ukrainian government and the president, completely. He is the person to lead Ukraine, and we are with him.”
On a cold April morning in 1875, three men ascended into the sky above Paris in a balloon, hoping to push the boundaries of human flight. Their journey was a scientific expedition, an attempt to explore the upper atmosphere and venture into a realm where few human beings had ever been. But as their balloon climbed higher, the air grew thinner, the temperature plunged, and the simple act of breathing became a desperate struggle. What began as a daring experiment in the conquest of the skies would end in one of the most horrifying tragedies in the early history of aviation.
Depiction of Théodore Sivel, Gaston Tissandier and Joseph Crocé-Spinelli in Zénith's fatal ascent of 15 April 1875. "La Nature", 1 May 1875
The balloon, named Zénith, carried its crew into a hostile world for which 19th-century science had only begun to prepare. At ground level, the atmosphere seemed limitless. But at altitude, it revealed itself as an unforgiving environment where the human body could fail with terrifying speed. The Zénith expedition exposed the dangers of high-altitude flight, and left behind a grim lesson for generations of aeronauts who dreamed of going higher.
The aeronauts of the Zénith were Gaston Tissandier, a French scientific writer and balloonist; Joseph Crocé-Spinelli, a scientist and journalist; and Théodore Sivel, an experienced sailor and aeronaut.
Gaston Tissandier, born in Paris in 1843, was a scientist, author and enthusiastic aeronaut. He had a particular interest in meteorology and the scientific study of the atmosphere. His brother, Albert Tissandier, was also involved in aeronautics, and the two helped popularise ballooning as a means of scientific investigation.
Joseph Crocé-Spinelli, born in 1845, shared this interest in atmospheric research. He had participated in earlier high-altitude experiments and understood the importance of studying the composition and properties of the air. Théodore Sivel, born in 1834, brought considerable ballooning experience to the expedition. His practical knowledge complemented the scientific interests of his companions. It was under his guidance that Zénith was constructed.
Barely a month before the fatal flight, Sivel along with zoologist and physiologist Paul Bert, Joseph Crocé-Spinelli, Albert Tissandier, Albert's brother Gaston Tissandier, and Claude Jobert, successfully completed a long-duration flight lasting 24 hours and 40 minutes.
Encouraged by the success of the flight and the positive coverage in the press, the Société Française de Navigation Aérienne (SFNA) announced that it would organize a high-altitude ascent using the aptly named Zénith, a 3,000 cubic meter balloon owned by Sivel.
At approximately 11:35 a.m. on 15 April, Zénith lifted off from the gasworks at La Villette. They carried an array of instruments with them to study the atmosphere, including an aneroid barometer, a hygrometer and an electroscope. They also carried an oxygen-supply apparatus. Three small reservoirs containing a mixture rich in oxygen were attached to the balloon's basket. Rubber tubes and mouthpieces allowed the men to inhale the gas when required.
The crew understood that oxygen deprivation was one of the greatest obstacles to high-altitude ballooning. At lower elevations, the atmosphere supplied sufficient oxygen for normal breathing. As a balloon climbed, however, atmospheric pressure fell, making it increasingly difficult for the lungs to transfer enough oxygen into the bloodstream.
Diagram of the balloon's ascent from Paris to Ciron. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The men had prepared for the dangers as best they could with the knowledge and technology available. What they could not fully anticipate was how rapidly hypoxia, the condition caused by an inadequate supply of oxygen to the body, could impair their judgement, coordination and consciousness.
By around one o'clock, according to Tissandier's later account, they had passed 5,000 metres. The atmospheric pressure had fallen substantially, and the temperature outside was below freezing. Their instruments were working, and they continued to monitor their physical condition.
As they climbed higher, however, the men began to experience symptoms of oxygen deprivation. At 7,000 meters, Tissandier recorded that Crocé-Spinelli and Sivel had become pale. He himself felt weak and tried inhaling the oxygen they carried, which briefly improved his condition. Sivel then turned to Tissandier and asked whether he would throw out some ballast in order to ascend higher. Tissandier, feeling lethargic because of the altitude and the freezing temperature of −10 Celsius, agreed to the proposal. Sivel proceeded to cut three bags of ballast and the balloon shifted to a quick ascent.
By the time that they reached 7,500 meters, Tissandier could barely move. He described feeling no pain at all, but ‘an inner joy’ and indifference to the increasingly dangerous situation. The lack of oxygen made him delirious. Increasingly debilitated, Tissandier's memory of the events from hereon became even hazier. He remembered trying to reach for the oxygen but unable to lift his arm. Then, looking at the barometer, he saw the pressure at 280 mm and tried to yell out that they had breached 8,000 meters, but the words did not come out from his mouth and he fell inert at about 1.30 p.m.
Sketch depicting Crocé-Spinelli and Sivel, having lost consciousness due to a lack of oxygen, and Tissandier, in the basket of the Zénith on 15 April 1875. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
At 2.08 p.m., Tissandier woke up and saw the balloon descending at a perilous speed. Gathering all the strength he could muster, he managed to cut off a bag of ballast to re-establish the equilibrium before passing out again. After a while he was shaken awake by Crocé-Spinelli, who asked to throw out even more ballast. Fading in and out, Tissandier saw Crocé-Spinelli throw out the respirator, blankets and more ballast, which caused the balloon to rise again.
Tissandier drifted in and out of consciousness. The effects of oxygen deprivation had left him confused and physically incapacitated, and the sequence of events could only be pieced together from his fragmentary memories.
When he regained consciousness again, the balloon was descending at terrifying speed. He tried to rouse his companions by calling their names and shaking them, but neither man responded. Sivel's face had darkened, and blood was visible around his mouth. Crocé-Spinelli, too, appeared lifeless.
The Zénith finally landed at about 4.00 p.m. in the plains near Ciron, 250 km from Paris. Local residents rushed to help the surviving aeronaut. Tissandier was severely weakened, bruised and suffering from the effects of his ordeal. His companions, however, could not be saved. Both Crocé-Spinelli and Sivel had died during the flight.
The deaths of Crocé-Spinelli and Sivel raised urgent questions about the safety of high-altitude ballooning. The crew had carried oxygen, understood the dangers of ascending too far and possessed considerable experience. Yet their precautions had proved inadequate.
The central problem was the physiological effect of low atmospheric pressure. At high altitude, the reduced pressure makes it harder for oxygen to pass from the lungs into the blood. The resulting oxygen deprivation can cause headaches, confusion, impaired coordination, loss of consciousness and, in severe cases, death.
One particularly dangerous feature of hypoxia is that it can undermine a person's ability to recognise the danger. Someone who is becoming severely oxygen-deprived may lose the capacity to make sensible decisions or carry out the actions necessary to survive. For balloonists, that could mean being unable to operate oxygen equipment, monitor instruments or manage the balloon's descent.
The Zénith expedition also demonstrated that carrying oxygen was not enough by itself. The supply had to be accessible and usable under extreme conditions, and the crew had to be able to operate the equipment while suffering the effects of altitude. The ascent showed how quickly a scientific expedition could become an emergency when the human body began to fail.
The exact sequence of events cannot be reconstructed with complete certainty. Tissandier himself acknowledged that he had spent extended periods unconscious and remembered parts of the flight only imperfectly. Nevertheless, his testimony provided a remarkably direct account of the dangers confronting early high-altitude aeronauts.
Tissandier survived, but the loss of his companions was a profound personal blow. He subsequently documented the expedition and its tragic conclusion, helping preserve the details of the flight for other scientists and balloonists. His account remains particularly valuable because it records not merely the instruments' readings but the physical and mental collapse of the men who made them.
The tomb of Joseph Crocé-Spinelli and Théodore Sivel located in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Login
.png){kind=link}
