Episodes
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This week's guest on Talking Europe has a unique vantage point on both the world of politics and sports. Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland, has been an established and influential figure in European and global affairs for the past decade. He's also a keen sportsman, competing – and winning titles – in triathlon, even during his political career.
While in Paris, Stubb is taking the opportunity to attend a number of Olympic events and cheer on his Finnish compatriots. But this year's Games have been overshadowed by geopolitics, with conflicts raging between Russia and Ukraine, as well as in the Middle East. For Stubb, even the much-reduced number of Russian athletes competing at the Paris Games is too much. He says: "A lot of Russians are now understanding 'why we are not in the Olympics'. So I hope that this puts pressure on Russia and Putin to stop this completely senseless war. If it was up to me, there would be no Russian athletes here. You have to pay the price."
It's not the first time, of course, that politics has competed with sports on the global scene. As Stubb points out, the Games are also an opportunity to put conflict to one side, and potentially build bridges with adversaries. "Politics is part of the Olympics," he says. "There's nothing you can do about it. It wants to brand itself as a peace movement. When I'm here, I meet about 140 heads of state and government from all around the world. So it's a good opportunity to have a few battles on the track and field, nowhere else."
As president of Finland, Stubb's main domain of responsibility is foreign affairs. Finland finally joined the Alliance last year, a move that Stubb supported despite domestic opposition. He explains: "I've been an advocate of Finnish NATO membership for the better part of 30 years. I was in a quite distinct minority”.
Given the current geopolitical situation – particularly the menace posed by Russia, with which Finland shares a 1,300 kilometre-long border and centuries of tense relations – Stubb believes that NATO membership is beneficial to both Finland and the Alliance. "Finland is safer and I think the Alliance is safe. Remember that we have one of the largest militaries in Europe. We just doubled NATO's border with Russia. We still have obligatory military service. We have 900,000 men and women that have done military service. So we're a very safe pair of hands. Because of the size of our military, we are a mid-sized power in the Alliance. People expect a lot from us, but it is quite clear that Russia now sees us very much on the enemy side because we joined NATO. But I actually think that we are very much in a position of strength."
Of course, the destiny of NATO is inextricably linked to the United States – and the outcome of the US election in November. Finland's president underlines that Donald Trump did have an impact on NATO, especially when it came to ensuring each NATO member pulled their weight. "Trump … we always talk about him being so harsh on NATO, but he actually forced many of the allies to reach a 2 percent threshold of GDP in defence expenditure, because in 2014, there were only three countries reaching that level in the allies in the Alliance, and now it's 23." Stubb adds that, whoever eventually wins the US election, he expects them to maintain strong ties with Europe, noting that "America wants to be the number one superpower in the world. And in order for it to be so, it needs allies. And those allies come here from here".
For the Finnish president, international cooperation is vital to push for an end in the Ukraine conflict – a prospect he considers is closer now than in the past. "We're moving slowly towards peace. I was at the peace forum in Switzerland a few weeks back. Now we're seeing President Zelensky starting to talk about Russia being involved in the peace process as well. I think we need to get the Chinese involved. We need to do this together”. However, the EU has struggled to impose a united front of late, with the EU institutions reacting angrily following a recent so-called Peace Tour conducted by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. With Hungary adopting the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU this July, Orban visited Kyiv and Moscow, as well as Beijing and the US – adding an additional voice to the chorus of European diplomacy. For Stubb, "if you hold the presidency of the European Union, you are in no position to visit Moscow without the consent of others. [...] There's no space for Orban-like solo moves".
Finally, Finland sits in an interesting position regarding the rise of populist politics and politicians in Europe. Since last year, its government has included a right-wing populist movement, the Finns' Party. But during the European elections of this year, the pendulum swung the other way, with moderate parties sending a majority of MEPs from Finland to Brussels. Stubb, who has been a student of European politics for at least three decades, sees cause for measured optimism that the EU can push back. "The forces of regional integration are stronger than the forces of global integration," he says. "So I predict that the European Union is going to continue to be strong and steadfast. Remember, it's never perfect.”
Somewhat wryly, Finland's president outlines his vision for how the EU functions. "You go through three phases. First, you have a crisis, then you have chaos. And eventually you get a suboptimal solution."
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In the weeks before the EU elections of June 9, FRANCE 24's Europe team, and the channel's correspondents and reporters, reported from across the continent to shine a light on the issues preoccupying voters.
From defence and security to immigration, housing and the cost of living, the major topics of the last five-year European mandate remain serious challenges for the freshly elected European Parliament – and for Ursula von der Leyen, who was re-elected by MEPs in mid-July to serve another term as head of the European Commission.
Faced with an unconventional Hungarian rotating EU presidency, as well as uncertainty over US politics and the situation in Ukraine, the EU Council will have its hands full as well.
Reports by Clovis Casali, Johan Bodin and Luke Brown
Motion designs by Sophie Samaille
Produced by Perrine Desplats and Isabelle Romero
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The EU Commission president has won a comfortable majority from MEPs for a second term, but the Left bloc remains resolutely opposed to Ursula von der Leyen. We speak to Manon Aubry, the co-president of the Left group, about why she voted against von der Leyen, while also discussing international issues such as Ukraine and Gaza. Aubry, a prominent member of the France Unbowed party, also tells FRANCE 24 that President Macron must “admit that he lost the (parliamentary) election” and appoint a prime minister from the left-wing alliance – the New Popular Front.
Asked about the re-election of Ursula von der Leyen, Aubry says that the President of the European Commission “is not questioning herself in the politics she's been driving for the last five years. And what is the result? An unprecedented rise of the far right. That is the result of her policy”.
“Certainly I voted against the re-election of Ursula von der Leyen. And I will certainly be the first opponent to Ursula von der Leyen for the next five years,” Aubry affirms.
Manon Aubry is more positive about von der Leyen’s commitment to tackle housing issues, saying that “it’s good if the Commission wants to tackle this; we really have a housing crisis across the European Union. But you can't do that while having a big austerity wave with drastic reductions of public spending, including on social housing. So, there's a big contradiction there,” she says.
Aubry’s group voted in favour of the EU parliament’s resolution to continue supporting Ukraine, on July 17. But she cautions against any “military escalation”, which she says “will not lead to an end of the war.” While being clear that she does not support Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban’s recent self-styled peace mission, she says that “we need some leadership from the European Union to put the different stakeholders around the table and to start negotiating. There's no other way out,” she argues.
Aubry turns to the ongoing war in Gaza. She insists that “there is really an unbearable double standard when it comes to the application of international law” by the European Union. She asks: “how dare we search for a resolution on Ukraine, but stay completely blind towards what's going on in Gaza?”
“Israel is literally doing a massacre in the Gaza Strip and the European Union is refusing to have a resolution, even a debate” proposed by her parliamentary group. For Aubry, this double standard is “an attack on the credibility of the European Union when it comes to international law”.
Aubry has been outspoken about the “Pfizergate” scandal that has rocked Ursula von der Leyen since late 2021. And now, the EU's General Court has ruled that the European Commission had not been sufficiently transparent in securing Covid vaccines. This does not surprise Aubry. “Everything is decided, negotiated behind closed doors,” she says. “This means that we, as well as journalists and the people watching us – citizens and voters – they have no clue of what's going on.”
She elaborates; “I've always been fighting to say what's going on in these rooms. I'm proud of what I'm doing. People should be held accountable. Accountability is only possible if you have transparency.”
France’s left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front (NFP), won the largest number of seats in the snap parliamentary elections on the 7th of July, but fell short of the majority that would have made an NFP prime minister inevitable.
The NFP suffered a further blow when its candidate for speaker of the French National Assembly was rejected in a vote by members of parliament. “This is not respecting the votes of what French people wanted,” Aubry states.
“French people wanted to get rid of Macron. And at the end of the day, we have the same government, and we have a president of the National Assembly from Macron’s party,” she says, adding that this is “sort of a coup” by Macron.
“He needs to get back to reason and admit he lost the election and nominate a prime minister from the New Popular Front. This is a democracy,” she says.
Programme prepared by Sophie Samaille, Isabelle Romero, Perrine Desplats and Elitsa Gadeva
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Ursula von der Leyen has been as confirmed the head of the European Commission for a second five-year term. She won a comfortable majority on July 18th, with 401 MEPs voting for her at the plenary session in Strasbourg – forty votes more than she needed to get her over the line. That is a stark contrast to 2019, when she scraped through with just nine votes. But the balancing act that she had pull off, in order to bring different political families together, does not stop now. Indeed, in the next mandate, she will have to navigate a difficult political landscape, not just vis-à-vis the European parliament, but in the EU as a whole. We discuss what comes next, and what her big challenges are likely to be.
Programme prepared by Sophie Samaille, Isabelle Romero, Perrine Desplats and Elista Gadeva
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Talking Europe speaks to the head of the centrist Renew group in the European Parliament, Valérie Hayer, who recently led the EU election campaign in France on behalf of President Macron’s political bloc. We dissect the all-important vote on July 18 on Ursula von der Leyen’s potential second term as EU Commission’s president, and what Renew’s expectations of her are. On the political deadlock in France, Hayer urges politicians to take a leaf out of the EU parliament’s book when it comes to building coalitions and finding compromise. Hayer is also very outspoken on what the Hungarian prime minister called his “peace mission” to Kyiv, Moscow, Beijing and Washington. Hayer says what Viktor Orban is doing is “completely unacceptable,” and that it cannot be done “in the name of Europe.”
“We have a real political problem here. We knew that his (rotating presidency of the EU) would be like no other,” Hayer says, adding, “With my group, I request that the heads of state and government take their legal and political responsibilities, and ask Orban to stop doing what he is doing in our name.” Would she be in favour of ending Orban’s rotating presidency before the six-month stint officially ends? “I think so,” Hayer replies. “We should find a political way for him not to hold that responsibility anymore. And if that’s not possible, for political or legal reasons, let’s see how we can manage him and challenge him.”
Concerning the secret ballot that will decide the political future of Ursula von der Leyen, Hayer says that her group has had a “very constructive exchange” with the EU Commission president. “We welcomed the decision to propose her as candidate for re-election. But this is not a blank cheque,” she states. “We requested two things. First, the priorities regarding competitiveness, rule of law, defence and security, and climate issues. And also, we want her and political family to be absolutely clear on not doing any deal with the far right in the European Parliament.”
Did she receive such a guarantee from von der Leyen? “She had a very clear answer,” Hayer says. “No deal with the European Conservatives and Reformists. No formalised deal with the ECR. She has discussions with some of them, but there is no deal, and that’s important.”
On the losses suffered by Renew and centrists in the June EU election, Hayer affirms, “I would have preferred to have more seats, and I fought for that. We have gained three members in the last few days and we are now at 77 members, and I will try to have more colleagues. But the important thing is that we are the bridge between the European People’s Party and the Socialists in the European parliament. No majority can be done without the bridge. So it means the right needs us and the left needs us too.”
Hayer also weighs in on the French parliamentary election, which was triggered by President Macron on the night of the European election when he lost heavily to the far-right National Rally. “The reality is that nobody won the election. No bloc has an absolute majority in the National Assembly. French politicians should look at what we do in the European parliament. That is not a practice at the national level. We don’t do coalitions in France – it’s not in our political culture. So French politicians should say, ‘look, we are all pro-European democrats; let’s speak together to try to find a way to work together’,” Hayer says.
Programme prepared by Sophie Samaille, Perrine Desplats, Isabelle Romero and Elitsa Gadeva
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It seems that France is going to have to learn coalition politics after a parliamentary election in which no party or bloc came close to winning an absolute majority. Germany and other countries have experience of grand coalitions, but in France, a win-or-lose mentality has been dominant among French politicians, and the last power-sharing ended 22 years ago. In this edition we discuss the implications of this stalemate for the EU – France being a founding member of the European project and whose partnership with Germany provided the basis for European integration.
Programme prepared by Isabelle Romero, Sophie Samaille and Perrine Desplats
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Talking Europe speaks to one of France’s most distinguished diplomats. Philippe Etienne, once dubbed “Macron’s diplomatic brain,” has been the French ambassador to Washington and Berlin as well as the permanent representative to the European Union. We ponder Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House – something that Etienne says could pose problems for Europe on trade, given Trump’s penchant for tariffs. We also discuss Hungary’s presidency of the EU; the EU’s defence and security agenda over the next few months; and the hopes for a smoother EU-UK relationship following the British general election.
Under a Trump administration, “multilateralism would be neglected in favour of transactionalism,” Etienne says. “And we can also be worried about trade because Donald Trump has announced that he would very much rely on tariffs for China in particular, but also towards anybody. So if he becomes president again and does what he has announced, then we would have big, big difficulties in trade. And we saw when he was president that he did not make a difference between allies of the United States and other countries,” Etienne affirms.
Asked whether Europe is ready to go it alone on defence and security if Trump returns to power, Etienne says, “We have not started on European defence yesterday. We have been embarking on this journey for five or six years, with new instruments, and a new budget, which is still very small compared to our needs. But we have to continue and to accelerate on this way to have a more independent Europe, which doesn't mean that we're not in the Atlantic alliance. We need this alliance. But we have to do our own job. We have our own tasks as Europeans.”
Hungary has just taken up the six-month rotating presidency of the EU, and we discuss Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s “peace mission” to Kyiv and Moscow. “Any peace should respect the rights of Ukraine and its people, and it should not be a peace that is imposed on Ukraine,” Etienne states. “I think that it is in not in the interest of any country holding the rotating presidency to abuse its role,” he adds. “Every country tries to present its own views, but in a way which is respectful of the role of a rotating presidency as an honest broker. So we can hope that Hungary will see its interest in doing the same,” he said.
After Labour’s landslide victory in the UK general election, what should we expect from the UK-EU relationship? “The United Kingdom and the European Union face common challenges; really big challenges,” Etienne answers. “Defence and security policy is an obvious field for cooperation. But there are other common challenges, such as artificial intelligence, or the climate. I am convinced that the UK and the EU will have to engage even more closely on these topics.”
Programme prepared by Sophie Samaille, Isabelle Romero and Perrine Desplats
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The EU has long talked about unfair competition from China. After a nine-month probe, Brussels announced additional tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, establishing that those cars have benefited heavily from “unfair subsidies”, which pose a threat electric vehicle producers in Europe. Beijing has accused the EU of “naked protectionism” which it said will harm relations and undermine global efforts on climate change. Seeking to “de-risk” from China, the EU, is focused on boosting its own auto industries as it transitions to greener energies.
Programme prepared by Sophie Samaille, Isabelle Romero, Elitsa Gadeva and Anaïs Boucher
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The European Greens lost a third of their seats in the EU elections earlier this month. Bas Eickhout, co-president of the group in the European Parliament, points out that the Greens actually increased their strength in some parts of the EU – but admits that their message did not cut through to a lot of voters. The Dutch MEP tells Armen Georgian that it's now crucial to build on the EU's Green Deal with an investment programme. "If we do not get a European programme, we will see national investment programmes, and then the Dutch will lose to the Germans. Rotterdam harbour will lose to Hamburg harbour," he says.
Programme produced by Sophie Samaille, Isabelle Romero, Elitsa Gadeva and Anaïs Boucher
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It's been almost exactly eight years since British voters decided to leave the European Union, although that decision did not become active until December 2020. Much of this last decade has been marked by a turbulent relationship between the UK's ruling Conservatives and the EU. The opposition Labour Party looks poised to win back power in the July 4 election, but are pro-Europeans' hopes of a much closer relationship misplaced? Our guests argue that Labour leader Keir Starmer’s room for manoeuvre would be very limited if he sticks with the current UK-EU agreement.
Programme produced by Sophie Samaille, Isabelle Romero, Elitsa Gadeva and Anaïs Boucher
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Our guest recently described the EU's action on cohesion – levelling up Europe's diverse regions – as "more than a policy: rather, a guiding principle to strengthen and unite Europe" in an op-ed. Elisa Ferreira has been the EU Commissioner in charge of Cohesion and Reforms since 2019. On Talking Europe, we discuss the outcome of the European elections, and whether new spending priorities – including on defence – could end up competing with cohesion funding needs. Despite her warnings on that, Ferreira remains optimistic. "I trust that we Europeans will be intelligent enough not to fragment Europe in such difficult times," she tells the programme. We also showcase a best-of our cohesion reports over the past year, filmed by Luke Brown and Johan Bodin.
Ferreira addresses the rise in far-right parties in the June 2024 EU elections – a vote that was obvious in poorer regions which, perhaps paradoxically, have benefited from cohesion funding. "If there is no progress, if people feel that the next generation will have a worse life than their own lives, then people start doubting if there is a place for them in this economy and in this Europe. And then they start blaming people, blaming someone for this lack of future. So it is important that we give a dimension of mutual support, with different intensities and with different instruments, because in certain regions you still need to solve roads or basic infrastructures. In other regions you just need to help these regions to go through their transitions. The solidarity across citizens and regions is what makes Europe a success project."
Turning to the battle for the top EU jobs following the election, Ferreira comments: "I would like to make sure, with all the results that we have from the Parliament, that we have a pro-European group of leaders that manage to keep Europe together, that put cohesion at the centre of the agenda and at the same time prepare Europe to be strong and competitive, and create well-paid jobs inside Europe and good businesses inside Europe, so that young people can have a good and prosperous life and have families if they so wish without leaving Europe."
Ferreira admits that procedures for beneficiaries of cohesion funds still need to be simplified – as the High-Level Report on the Future of Cohesion Policy recommended earlier this year – but she insists that this cannot come at the expense of safeguards needed to prevent fraud. "We have got to make sure that we know where the money goes, that we have instruments to prevent fraud and wrongdoing completely. We reach very high standards every year. In terms of fraud, the level is less than 1 percent, when we close the accounts at the end of every funding period. But even less than 1 percent is too much," she says.
"I think the likely evolution of cohesion policy is to be simpler," Ferreira goes on. "But that also requires more capacity at regional level to explain, to make the right diagnosis on what is blocking regions' development. Because the purpose of the funds is not to create a permanent subsidy. It is to create the conditions to not need subsidies later on."
Programme produced by Sophie Samaille, Isabelle Romero and Anaïs Boucher
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In the end, the centre held. The far right's gains in this month's European elections, while historic, were not the continent-wide romp that some Europe-watchers had predicted. After the nail biting, the groups that set the agenda in the old European Parliament are not much different from those in the newly elected body. But nationalist conservative and hard-right parties do hold about a quarter of the seats in parliament, potentially giving them lots of sway on policies ranging from climate change to immigration to farm subsidies. If they were to coalesce in a grand coalition – a big if, given the far right's divisions – they could tear up the European playbook as we know it. We discuss what's at stake with two MEPs.
Programme prepared by Isabelle Romero, Sophie Samaille and Anaïs Boucher
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Pascal Lamy, a 77-year-old "globalist" Frenchman who has staked his decades-long career on the idea that more Europe is always better than less, has told FRANCE 24 he's hopeful that the solid gains by hard-right and Eurosceptic parties in the EU elections will spur Europe's 500 million citizens to build more bridges. Speaking to Douglas Herbert, Lamy also discussed the new political landscape in his native France, following President Emmanuel Macron's shock decision to call snap elections. He predicted that the most likely outcome is that France will have "an extreme-right government sometime in July".
Lamy, a former two-term head of the World Trade Organization who was once ranked in the top 50 of the world's leading thinkers by the British magazine Prospect, built his reputation as a champion of pro-European causes during the nine years he served as chief of staff to European Commission President Jacques Delors, from 1985 to 1994.
Lamy told FRANCE 24 that the rise in voter turnout in these European elections from five years ago, though slight – 51 percent, up from 50.6 percent in 2019 – suggested that people cared more, not less, about Europe "due to the fact that the world has become a terrible place for many people".
In an opinion piece for The New York Times that he wrote in 2012, when Greece was at the centre of Europe’s debt crisis, and many saw the EU as teetering on the brink, Lamy wrote that "the European stage must be lit up for the European project to advance".
Caught between Putin, Xi and TrumpLamy said the European stage is "lit up" today in a way that could galvanise Europe's citizens as they face a difficult geopolitical map.
"If you're caught between [Vladimir] Putin, Xi Jinping and, possibly, [Donald] Trump, then the notion that you should coalesce, get your act together, is much more obvious than in normal, peaceful times. Fortunately, this is where we are and this is the reason why I believe with EU integration, there is probably more to come." He added: "Hopefully, although I am not sure."
Lamy echoed the view of political analysts who said a far-right earthquake had not come to pass, with centrist parties holding their ground perhaps enough to prevent extreme parties from blocking key legislation on issues ranging from climate to migration to trade.
"There was some push to the right, but this push was contained," Lamy said. "So, yes, we will have a slightly more right-wing European Parliament, although what really matters in a parliamentary system with a large variety of parties is whether the government, that is to say, the Commission [which proposes and enforces laws and implements the EU budget], can rely on a stable majority."
The French exceptionAsked about the far-right's especially strong performance in his native France, where the National Rally party led by Jordan Bardella trounced President Emmanuel Macron's centrist Renaissance party 31.5 percent to 14.6 percent, Lamy attributed the rout to the quirks of the French political system.
Shortly after the result, Macron shocked the country, including many of his own close allies, by dissolving parliament and calling snap national elections, to be held in two stages on June 30 and July 7.
"We have a presidential system which is very different from others in the European Union," Lamy said. "So we have a sort of European election that looks like a [US-style] midterm election … It was an anti-Macron result."
He predicted that the most likely outcome will be that France has "an extreme-right government sometime in July".
Some political observers have called Macron's dissolution move a dangerous rolling of the dice, with some likening it to former British prime minister David Cameron's decision to hold a Brexit referendum that he probably never believed had a chance of passing.
Macron's motivesBut the debate over Macron's motives is far from clear-cut.
Was he calculating that the French, after using the European election vote to blow off steam and vent their anger at Macron, as some have suggested, would behave differently when they head to the ballot box in France, knowing that the far right could be on the brink of power in their own country?
Put differently, was Macron betting that his compatriots would not vote at home the way they did in Europe?
Lamy suggested another explanation for Macron's actions, one that has more to do with what happens when his current – and final – term in office ends in 2027.
"He knows that for the next three years to come he is a sort of lame duck. No majority in parliament, muddling through, and that leads to a likely scenario where [National Rally standard bearer] Marine Le Pen and the extreme right will become president. His calculation may be, 'Let's have them in government and show that they don't do what they said they would do, like most populist movements. And then when 2027 comes, people will be able to see the difference between a populist party that pretends it will do miracles, and the reality in government.'"
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Charles de Gaulle famously complained that governing a country with 246 kinds of cheese was all but impossible. Less known is what De Gaulle said just before that: "Only peril can bring the French together". President Emmanuel Macron had peril on his mind when he stunned his compatriots by calling a snap national election after the far right routed his pro-European party in Sunday's European elections. Macron is betting that faced with peril – the risk of being governed by the most extreme-right party since the Nazi-era Vichy government – French voters might put their grievances aside and unite against what he sees as a common threat. But will they? Douglas Herbert puts the question to Sandro Gozi, a French MEP from the centrist Renew Europe group in the European Parliament, and Thierry Mariani, a French MEP from the right-wing Identity and Democracy group, which includes Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally.
Programme prepared by Perrine Desplats, Sophie Samaille, Isabelle Romero and Anaïs Boucher
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He's been seen campaigning on empty beer crates in pubs and playing table tennis. Talking Europe catches up with the lead candidate of the Party of The European Socialists (PES) and asks him what he has learned in this EU election campaign, away from the buttoned-up confines of the Berlaymont building in Brussels. We ask him if he will block the nomination of Ursula von der Leyen for a second term at the head of the European Commission if she goes for a tie-up between her centre-right EPP group and the hard right ECR. Schmit, who is currently also EU Commissioner for jobs and social rights, answers: "If Mrs. von der Leyen tries an arrangement with the extreme right, she will not be able to count on the support of the Socialists."
Programme prepared by Isabelle Romero, Elitsa Gadeva, Anaïs Boucher and Perrine Desplats
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Five years after the fall of the so-called Islamic State caliphate in Iraq and Syria, the EU's anti-terrorism coordinator sees a more diffuse threat, coming from many different directions and spreading online. This is what Bartjan Wegter calls "mutant jihadism". With FRANCE 24's Armen Georgian, he discusses Afghanistan, IS-KP (Islamic State – Khorasan Province), and how the French authorities are trying to make the upcoming Olympic games secure – efforts that Wegter praises as "impressive". Wegter admits that more needs to be done to tackle what he calls "borderline content" online that might be inciting hatred and fuelling individuals' radicalisation. He also draws attention to new forms of terrorist financing such as cryptocurrencies – something that the EU and national authorities should keep a close eye on, he says.
Programme prepared by Perrine Desplats, Elitsa Gadeva and Anaïs Boucher
