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As part of his first foreign tour since his election as Pope, Leo XIV paid a three-day visit to Turkey. His visit coincides with the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, at which the foundations for the ecumenical creed were laid. Leo XIV also met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whom he praised for his peace efforts in the Middle East and Ukraine.

Two referendums were held in Switzerland this week. An initiative aimed at introducing a 50-percent inheritance tax on wealth exceeding 50 million Swiss francs (53.6 million euros) was rejected, with 78 percent voting against the measure, the proceeds of which would have been used to finance climate protection measures. In the other referendum, no less than 84 percent voted against an initiative to introduce compulsory national service for women.

La Police républicaine a renforcé les connaissances des journalistes et acteurs culturels sur la police communautaire, la prévention de l'extrémisme violent et la lutte contre la désinformation. L'atelier s'est tenu les 26 et 27 novembre 2025 à Dassa-Zoumè.

25 journalistes et acteurs culturels ont été outillés pour une pratique médiatique plus responsable. L'objectif de la formation de deux journées, organisée par la Police républicaine avec l'appui de la coopération belge Enabel, est de faire des participants des relais d'information fiables et des acteurs de cohésion sociale.

Les échanges tenus les 26 et 27 novembre 2025 à Dassa-Zoumè ont tourné autour de quatre communications.

Le commissaire Ambroise Hounhouédo a ouvert les travaux avec un rappel historique et conceptuel sur la police communautaire.

Le commissaire Jérémie Avadji a ensuite présenté les missions de la Police républicaine et ses relations avec la presse.

Deux interventions ont suivi : l'une sur l'intégrité de l'information, assurée par Romuald Vissoh, l'autre sur le rôle des médias dans la prévention de l'extrémisme violent, conduite par le commissaire major Jacques Singbo.

Former pour prévenir

Selon les participants, ces sessions ont permis d'affiner leur compréhension des enjeux sécuritaires et de mieux mesurer leur responsabilité face aux risques de radicalisation. L'initiative a également mis en avant l'importance d'une collaboration étroite entre médias, acteurs culturels et forces de sécurité.

Pour la Police républicaine, cette démarche s'inscrit dans une stratégie plus large de prévention et de rapprochement avec les communautés. L'information fiable et la vigilance citoyenne restent des piliers essentiels pour contenir les menaces d'extrémisme violent au Bénin, selon la Police.
M. M.

La fintech panafricaine Zazu annonce une levée de fonds pré-seed de 1 million de dollars. L'opération réunit plusieurs investisseurs africains et européens.

Zazu accèlère son déploiement en Afrique du Sud et au Maroc avant une expansion continentale en 2026. La startup veut devenir la première plateforme bancaire panafricaine dédiée aux entrepreneurs et aux PME. Elle a annoncé, ce 1er décembre 2025, la levée de fonds pré-seed de 1 million de dollars auprès dʼinvestisseurs africains et européens de premier.

« Nous construisons l'OS financier des entreprises africaines », affirment les fondateurs de Zazu.

La levée rassemble Plug and Play Ventures et un groupe d'anges investisseurs reconnus de l'écosystème fintech. On y retrouve notamment Zachariah George (Launch Africa Ventures), Axel Peyriere (AUTO24.africa), Akshay Patel (Paymentology), Ismael Belkhayat (Chari) ou encore Sophie Guibaud (Fiat Republic). Plusieurs membres fondateurs de Qonto et Solarisbank complètent le tour. Zazu revendique ainsi « l'un des cap tables les plus expérimentés de la fintech africaine ».

Fondée par Germain Bahri et Rinse Jacobs, anciens dirigeants de Solarisbank, Zazu veut offrir une expérience bancaire professionnelle moderne, inspirée de Mercury mais « adaptée aux réalités africaines ». La plateforme est déjà testée par plus de 50 PME, tandis que 1 000 entreprises figurent sur la liste d'attente.

Zazu entend servir les 50 millions de PME sous-bancarisées du continent. Les fondateurs misent sur une combinaison d'expertise européenne et de connaissance fine des marchés locaux.

La solution est déjà opérationnelle en Afrique du Sud et au Maroc. Elle s'appuie sur des intégrations avec Paystack, Shopstar ou Ozow. La startup revendique plus de 20 partenariats avec l'écosystème local. Elle a rejoint le Visa Accelerator Program, été élue KPMG Enterprise Innovator of the Year 2025, et figure dans les PwC Fintechs to Watch 2025.

Le choix de l'Afrique du Sud et du Maroc n'est pas fortuit. Les deux pays disposent de marchés entrepreneuriaux dynamiques et d'infrastructures fintech avancées. Ensemble, ils concentrent plus de 5 millions de PME et un marché B2B de plusieurs dizaines de milliards de dollars. Deux « portes d'entrée naturelles » vers le sud et le nord du continent, selon Zazu.

Forte de ses premiers résultats, la startup prévoit d'ouvrir un Seed Round début 2026, réservé à des investisseurs stratégiques. Ce tour doit permettre d'accélérer l'acquisition clients, d'enrichir la plateforme et d'étendre la solution à d'autres marchés africains.

Dutch Defence Minister Ruben Brekelmans called on EU countries to not let peace negotiations "distract" from Ukraine support

The international context is changing profoundly, owing to rising autocratisation and the return of international war. These transformations also impact the long-standing problem of state fragility.
The IDOS Constellations of State Fragility (CSF) provides a differentiated model to measure state fragility along the three dimensions of authority, capacity and legitimacy. Rather than aggregating scores in these dimensions on a one-dimensional scale, the CSF identifies eight constellations of how deficits in these three dimensions occur jointly in reality. The CSF was launched in 2018 and was recently updated for the second time, now covering the period 2005 to 2024.
In this Policy Brief, we pursue three objectives. First, we briefly present the CSF model. Second, we describe the methodological adjustments of the 2025 update. This includes the use of a new measure for “battle-related deaths” – one indicator to assess the state’s monopoly on the use of force (authority). The modification became necessary due to a real-world development: the return of international war and, in particular, Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine. Third, we elaborate on the main empirical trend that emerges from the 2025 update: the global rise of deficits in the legitimacy dimension, reflected in the increase of “illiberal functioning” and “low legitimacy” states. This development is in line with wider autocratisation trends. We derive the following recommendations for policy and policy-related research:
• Use multidimensional models to assess state fragility. Foreign and development policymakers as well as academics should employ multidimensional approaches to conceptualise and measure state fragility. Not only are such models better suited for adequately capturing the complexity of state fragility, but they also provide better starting points for designing tailored policy interventions sensitive to context.
• Acknowledge that deficits in the legitimacy dimension are also rising in Europe. Rather than considering state fragility a phenomenon limited to the Global South, German and European policy-makers would be well advised to acknowledge that deficits in the legitimacy dimension are also growing in Europe, including countries of the European Union (EU). Studying developments in the Global South and mutual learning with Southern policy-makers and civil society actors may contribute to enhanced resilience in Europe as well.
• Explore the relationship between state fragility and international war. Future research should explore how international war and state fragility are related, including investigating the relationship between internal fragility dimensions and vulnerabilities to external shocks, and whether defence capabilities matter in determining whether and to what extent a state is fragile.
• Explore and address the relationship between state fragility and autocratisation. Investigating how state fragility and autocratisation are interrelated is a promising research agenda. This comprises exploring whether and how changes in fragility patterns and autocratisation trends are correlated as well as under what conditions autocratisation acts as a driver of state fragility by prompting violent resistance. Foreign and develop-ment policymakers could build on the findings to design coherent policy interventions.

Dr Sebastian Ziaja is Team Lead for Survey Data Curation at GESIS (Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) in Cologne.

The international context is changing profoundly, owing to rising autocratisation and the return of international war. These transformations also impact the long-standing problem of state fragility.
The IDOS Constellations of State Fragility (CSF) provides a differentiated model to measure state fragility along the three dimensions of authority, capacity and legitimacy. Rather than aggregating scores in these dimensions on a one-dimensional scale, the CSF identifies eight constellations of how deficits in these three dimensions occur jointly in reality. The CSF was launched in 2018 and was recently updated for the second time, now covering the period 2005 to 2024.
In this Policy Brief, we pursue three objectives. First, we briefly present the CSF model. Second, we describe the methodological adjustments of the 2025 update. This includes the use of a new measure for “battle-related deaths” – one indicator to assess the state’s monopoly on the use of force (authority). The modification became necessary due to a real-world development: the return of international war and, in particular, Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine. Third, we elaborate on the main empirical trend that emerges from the 2025 update: the global rise of deficits in the legitimacy dimension, reflected in the increase of “illiberal functioning” and “low legitimacy” states. This development is in line with wider autocratisation trends. We derive the following recommendations for policy and policy-related research:
• Use multidimensional models to assess state fragility. Foreign and development policymakers as well as academics should employ multidimensional approaches to conceptualise and measure state fragility. Not only are such models better suited for adequately capturing the complexity of state fragility, but they also provide better starting points for designing tailored policy interventions sensitive to context.
• Acknowledge that deficits in the legitimacy dimension are also rising in Europe. Rather than considering state fragility a phenomenon limited to the Global South, German and European policy-makers would be well advised to acknowledge that deficits in the legitimacy dimension are also growing in Europe, including countries of the European Union (EU). Studying developments in the Global South and mutual learning with Southern policy-makers and civil society actors may contribute to enhanced resilience in Europe as well.
• Explore the relationship between state fragility and international war. Future research should explore how international war and state fragility are related, including investigating the relationship between internal fragility dimensions and vulnerabilities to external shocks, and whether defence capabilities matter in determining whether and to what extent a state is fragile.
• Explore and address the relationship between state fragility and autocratisation. Investigating how state fragility and autocratisation are interrelated is a promising research agenda. This comprises exploring whether and how changes in fragility patterns and autocratisation trends are correlated as well as under what conditions autocratisation acts as a driver of state fragility by prompting violent resistance. Foreign and develop-ment policymakers could build on the findings to design coherent policy interventions.

Dr Sebastian Ziaja is Team Lead for Survey Data Curation at GESIS (Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) in Cologne.

The international context is changing profoundly, owing to rising autocratisation and the return of international war. These transformations also impact the long-standing problem of state fragility.
The IDOS Constellations of State Fragility (CSF) provides a differentiated model to measure state fragility along the three dimensions of authority, capacity and legitimacy. Rather than aggregating scores in these dimensions on a one-dimensional scale, the CSF identifies eight constellations of how deficits in these three dimensions occur jointly in reality. The CSF was launched in 2018 and was recently updated for the second time, now covering the period 2005 to 2024.
In this Policy Brief, we pursue three objectives. First, we briefly present the CSF model. Second, we describe the methodological adjustments of the 2025 update. This includes the use of a new measure for “battle-related deaths” – one indicator to assess the state’s monopoly on the use of force (authority). The modification became necessary due to a real-world development: the return of international war and, in particular, Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine. Third, we elaborate on the main empirical trend that emerges from the 2025 update: the global rise of deficits in the legitimacy dimension, reflected in the increase of “illiberal functioning” and “low legitimacy” states. This development is in line with wider autocratisation trends. We derive the following recommendations for policy and policy-related research:
• Use multidimensional models to assess state fragility. Foreign and development policymakers as well as academics should employ multidimensional approaches to conceptualise and measure state fragility. Not only are such models better suited for adequately capturing the complexity of state fragility, but they also provide better starting points for designing tailored policy interventions sensitive to context.
• Acknowledge that deficits in the legitimacy dimension are also rising in Europe. Rather than considering state fragility a phenomenon limited to the Global South, German and European policy-makers would be well advised to acknowledge that deficits in the legitimacy dimension are also growing in Europe, including countries of the European Union (EU). Studying developments in the Global South and mutual learning with Southern policy-makers and civil society actors may contribute to enhanced resilience in Europe as well.
• Explore the relationship between state fragility and international war. Future research should explore how international war and state fragility are related, including investigating the relationship between internal fragility dimensions and vulnerabilities to external shocks, and whether defence capabilities matter in determining whether and to what extent a state is fragile.
• Explore and address the relationship between state fragility and autocratisation. Investigating how state fragility and autocratisation are interrelated is a promising research agenda. This comprises exploring whether and how changes in fragility patterns and autocratisation trends are correlated as well as under what conditions autocratisation acts as a driver of state fragility by prompting violent resistance. Foreign and develop-ment policymakers could build on the findings to design coherent policy interventions.

Dr Sebastian Ziaja is Team Lead for Survey Data Curation at GESIS (Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) in Cologne.

An industry source estimated that, compared with the Commission’s initial proposal, this represents a 132% increase

Le centre de dépôt des demandes de visa Schengen pour l’Espagne, BLS International, annonce une modification importante concernant son calendrier de rendez-vous et le niveau […]

L’article Visa Schengen pour l’Espagne : BLS à Alger annonce un report des rendez-vous est apparu en premier sur .

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2025 - EP