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📰 France in crisis as government collapses—again

📰 France in crisis as government collapses—again

and al-Shabaab regains territory across central Somalia

Billy Robinson & Ross Crabtree
October 06, 2025

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Hello and welcome back to Geopolitics Daily.

Across the Horn of Africa, al-Shabaab’s gains are emptying Somali towns while Eritrea faces renewed pressure as Ethiopia eyes Red Sea access. In the United States, a federal judge has halted National Guard deployments to Oregon, and President Trump touts a fresh strike on a Venezuelan drug boat with a promised land crackdown to follow.

Our lead story: the US–China “framework deal” and how it heralds the age of weaponised interdependence.

More below ⤵️

Top 5 Stories

1️⃣ 🇫🇷 French government collapses again after Prime Minister Lecornu resigns: French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and his cabinet resigned just 12 hours after being sworn in, ending the shortest premiership in France’s Fifth Republic. His 27-day tenure triggered outrage across the political spectrum, as President Emmanuel Macron faces mounting pressure to either appoint a new prime minister or dissolve parliament for fresh elections.

2️⃣ 🇪🇬 🇮🇱 🇵🇸 Israel and Hamas begin indirect talks in Egypt as ceasefire prospects improve: Israel and Hamas are preparing for indirect negotiations in Egypt, with growing optimism that a ceasefire could soon be reached. As discussions begin in Sharm el-Sheikh, international pressure mounts for a truce amid mounting casualties in Gaza and calls for a unified Palestinian administration and full Israeli withdrawal.

3️⃣ 🇪🇷 🇪🇹 Eritrea faces renewed threat as Ethiopia eyes Red Sea access: Eritrea, long frozen in time under Isaias Afwerki’s repressive rule, is confronting renewed peril as Ethiopia’s PM Abiy Ahmed openly signals ambitions to seize its Red Sea ports. With Addis Ababa amassing advanced weaponry and talk of “Greater Tigray” resurfacing, the region risks being pulled back into conflict — a volatile mix of imperial nostalgia, shifting alliances, and the ghosts of unfinished wars.

4️⃣ 🇦🇺 🇵🇬 Australia and Papua New Guinea sign mutual defence treaty to deepen regional security ties: After a brief stall over sovereignty issues, Australia and Papua New Guinea have completed a mutual defence treaty in Canberra, pledging closer military cooperation and interoperability between their forces. The agreement, known as the Pukpuk Treaty, will allow PNG citizens to serve in the Australian Defence Force and marks a milestone in strengthening regional security as both nations navigate growing strategic competition in the Pacific.

5️⃣ 🇻🇪 🇺🇸 Trump announces new US strike on drug boat off Venezuela and vows crackdown on land routes: Donald Trump told sailors at a naval anniversary ceremony that US forces had destroyed another vessel allegedly smuggling drugs off Venezuela’s coast, warning traffickers that land routes would be targeted next. The strike—one of several recent naval operations in the Caribbean—has drawn UN condemnation as an unlawful extrajudicial killing, though Washington insists it is fighting “narco-terrorism.”

Major Story

🇺🇸 🇨🇳 US-CHINA “FRAMEWORK DEAL” SIGNALS THE AGE OF WEAPONISED INTERDEPENDENCE

Washington’s June “framework deal” with Beijing marks a shift from managing great-power rivalry to competing through economic and technological chokepoints. Sanctions, export controls, supply-chain pressure and data rules now double as strategic weapons. Having long exploited US-centred stacks in finance, tech and communications, Washington must now defend itself as others learn to leverage their own points of control.

Facing Chinese curbs on rare-earths vital to autos and defence, the US eased semiconductor restrictions: EDA firms regained access to China, and Nvidia can sell constrained AI chips. Secretary of State Marco Rubio framed the bargain as hard reality—US industry is exposed to adversary bottlenecks—underscoring the limits of going it alone.

China adapts; Europe hesitates

Beijing has rapidly built a “whole-of-nation” export-control regime and an alternative high-tech stack (especially around energy), moving from commodity leverage to ecosystem control. Europe, despite powerful assets (SWIFT, Euroclear, ASML, the single market), lacks integrated economic-security machinery; its anti-coercion instrument is slow, legalistic and rarely deployed, inviting pressure from both Washington and Beijing.

America’s self-inflicted vulnerability

Instead of consolidating institutions as it did in the nuclear era, the US is hollowing them out: staff cuts, weakened interagency process, and politicised, short-term dealmaking erode OFAC/BIS-style expertise. Simultaneously, policy reversals on clean-tech supply chains and permissiveness toward opaque crypto rails dilute US centrality, nudging allies and markets toward non-US stacks.

Strategic choice ahead

Weaponised interdependence is proliferating. Adversaries can now exclude, monitor and retaliate, while firms reroute around risk. If Washington keeps overusing unilateral tools while dismantling its own capacity, it accelerates fragmentation and its relative decline. The alternative is to rebuild an economic-security state fit for complex networks—clear rules on when not to weaponise chokepoints, renewed alliances, investment in critical technologies, and geoeconomic “arms control” that limits escalatory use of economic power. Without this reset, the US risks forfeiting both security and prosperity to more cohesive competitors.

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Other News

1️⃣ 🇺🇸 Judge blocks Trump from deploying national guard: A federal judge has halted President Donald Trump’s order to deploy national guard units from California to Oregon, siding with lawsuits filed by Governors Gavin Newsom and Tina Kotek. The ruling, effective until at least 19 October, intensifies a constitutional clash between the White House and state leaders, who accuse Trump of abusing executive power to militarise U.S. cities for political ends.

2️⃣ 🇸🇴 🇹🇷 Al-Shabaab advances leave Somali towns deserted as civilians flee: As al-Shabaab regains territory across central Somalia, fears that the militants could reach Mogadishu have escalated. The group’s sweeping offensive, reversing last year’s government gains, has exposed deep fractures within Somalia’s security forces and reliance on foreign military support from Turkey, the UAE, and the African Union.