Can Starmer and Macron Win the Peace?
Newscast
BBC
4.3 • 6.6K Ratings
🗓️ 3 March 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, we look at possible plans for a Franco-UK peace deal in Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron floated the idea of a partial month-long truce between Russia and Ukraine in a interview on Sunday. But the UK government has played down the idea as just a suggestion, and say that lots of proposals are still on the table. Meanwhile President Trump has criticised President Zelensky online again.
Adam and Chris are joined by Marion Solletty, POLITICO’s editor at large in France.
Plus, Israel have blocked the flow of aid into Gaza, after phase one of it’s ceasefire deal with Hamas expired on Saturday night without a plan for phase two agreed. Adam speaks to BBC World Affairs correspondent, Paul Adams to find out why a plan has yet to be agreed.
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New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bit.ly/3ENLcS1 Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Adam Fleming. It was made by Jack Maclaren with Anna Harris and Shiler Mahmoudi. The technical producer was Dafydd Evans. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The editor is Sam Bonham.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.8 | Hello, it's good to be back in the newscast studio, |
| 0:07.3 | and thanks to everyone who has kept the various seats in here warm while I was away. |
| 0:11.3 | Now, while I was on holiday, I wasn't watching the news 24-7. |
| 0:15.7 | So what I got was a series of quite vivid images, kind of flashes. |
| 0:21.0 | So it started off with Macron and Trump being quite pally and quite kind of touchy-feely in the Oval Office. |
| 0:27.8 | Then on Thursday you had that moment of Kier Starrmer whipping out the letter from the King, |
| 0:33.2 | offering a state visit to Donald Trump. |
| 0:35.4 | And then you had the total opposite on Friday with Trump, Vance and Zelensky |
| 0:40.1 | like almost punching each other in the Oval Office. |
| 0:43.4 | And then as I was getting on the plane to come back home on Sunday morning, |
| 0:48.0 | all the TVs in the airport, quite a long way away from the UK, |
| 0:52.5 | had pictures of Keir St Starmer on them as he was |
| 0:56.0 | getting ready to host that summit |
| 0:57.9 | of European leaders and others |
| 1:00.0 | at Lancaster House in London |
| 1:01.5 | on Sunday. And for me that kind of |
| 1:03.9 | marked his arrival on the world stage |
| 1:06.4 | as a big political figure. |
| 1:08.9 | Now the problem is, as vivid as all those images are, in your brain it's quite hard to connect |
| 1:15.4 | them all if you haven't been watching and listening to all the minutes that happened in |
| 1:19.4 | between the images, which is why it's so good to have places where it is all joined up |
... |
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