While French and European news focuses on its own fractures, a series of major crises is taking place far from the cameras. However, they draw the same landscape: that of an arc of instability dominated byIslamism armed, the fragmentation of States and the direct endangerment of civilian populations. These conflicts are neither peripheral nor distant. They are already weighing on the security ofEurope.
Sudan is today experiencing one of the worst humanitarian tragedies in the world. More than 25 million people have been displaced or forced into exile. Famine is progressing, epidemics are increasing, human rights violations are massive.
The war pits the Sudanese army against Rapid Support Forces (FSR). But it must be said without ambiguity: neither side is defensible. The RSF are responsible for massacres and deliberate attacks against civilians and humanitarian convoys. The army remains closely linked to Muslim Brotherhood and above all pursues the restoration of Islamist and military power.
On the ground, the fighting is getting bogged down. The capture of Babanusa by the RSF in Western Kordofan marked a symbolic turning point. The army recaptured certain towns in the north, at the cost of extreme violence. No political horizon is emerging. It is civilians who pay the price, notably in El Fasher and potentially in El Obeid, where tens of thousands of people risk being displaced again.
Sahel: the economy of jihad
Of Mali in Burkina Faso, Nigeria in Cameroon, the Sahel has become a structured jihadist ecosystem. Al-Qaeda in the Sahel andIslamic State are no longer just ideological groups: they are armed cartels. They control roads, exploit artisanal gold, organize fuel, migrant and merchandise trafficking.
The clashes between jihadist groups themselves demonstrate less of a weakening than of competition for economic control of territories. Civilians remain trapped.
Civilians remain trapped
Nigeria has intensified its military cooperation with the UNITED STATESwith targeted strikes against Boko Haram and Daesh. It is useful, but insufficient without fighting against financial circuits and corruption. THE Cameroondespite security pressure, maintains fragile but real national cohesion. At Burkina Fasocertain local advances show that these groups are not invincible, even if nothing is certain.
Syria: two countries, an illusion of stability
There Syria has disappeared from the news, but not from the chaos. Behind the official images, tensions remain high, particularly in the Alawite and Druze regions. Christian minorities live in constant worry.
There Türkiye plays a central and deeply destabilizing role by supporting groups from the jihadist movement, notably Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, led by Ahmad el-Charaa, known as Joulani. This support comes at the expense of Kurds, Christians, Alawites and Druze.
The Gulf powers pursue their own interests, without consideration for internal balances. The Syrian economy remains bloodless. Minorities, marked by recent massacres, are demanding real guarantees. Some now openly discuss partition, due to lack of confidence in a unified state dominated by Islamist actors.
Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas: the logic of the arsenal
The refusal of Hamas and of Hezbollah disarming is not a matter of tactics, but of an assumed strategy. These organizations view their arsenals as the key to their political survival.
Ceasefires are used to buy time, never to prepare for demilitarization. At LebanonHezbollah rearms despite international pressure. HAS Gazathe disarmament of Hamas remains a major sticking point. This logic condemns civilians to remain permanent hostages of military calculations.
Iran: an existential protest that has become a national insurrection
Iran is no longer in a simple cycle of protest. The country has fallen into a structured, national and lasting insurrection dynamic. In more than thirty-five cities – from Tehran in Isfahan, Mashhad, Tabriz, Karaj, Bandar Abbas, Arak or Gorgan – the protests no longer demand reforms, but the fall of the Islamic system itself.
Youth and women, with the slogan “Woman, Life, Liberty”changed the moral balance of power. The slogans “Death to Khamenei”, “Bassidji, Sepah, you are our Daesh” and even “Long live the Shah” reflect a frontal rejection of the regime and the emergence of an explicit political alternative, including monarchical and secular.
The economy is suffocated, inflation is exploding, the bazaars are closing. The rial has collapsed to nearly 1.4 million to the dollar, inflation exceeds 50%, two thirds of the population live below the poverty line, water and electricity are rationed. The population refuses to see its resources squandered to finance militias abroad while the country enters into structural economic disintegration.
The regime is isolated, weakened, discredited. More than 2,200 executions have been recorded in 2025, torture and sexual violence are documented, and Revolutionary Guard Corps buildings have been attacked or burned in several provinces. The Revolutionary Guards remain powerful, but their violence accelerates their loss of legitimacy. Ali Khamenei now appears isolated, and signs of cracks are observed within the security forces.
Power still holds, but it no longer administers: it represses, and no longer convinces. Iran has entered the final phase of the Islamic Republic.
Yemen, Somaliland, Afghanistan: fragmentation as a strategy
THE Yemen disintegrates under the effect of a proxy war between regional powers. Pro-Iranian Houthis, factions supported by Riyadh or Abu Dhabi: each defends its interests, while the State disappears.
Somaliland in turn becomes a space of strategic projection, fragile and exposed. In Afghanistan and at Pakistanthe tensions reveal a confrontation between competing Islamisms. Pakistan now faces the consequences of its own past choices.
A threat that concerns us
These crises are not distant. They fuel jihadist networks, forced migratory flows, and economic and security instability. They directly threaten minorities, particularly Christians and Jews, and weigh on European security.
Understanding these conflicts, supporting civilian populations and acting against the Islamist ecosystems that thrive in these territories is not an abstract moral option. It is a strategic necessity for France and for Europe.
* Michel Fayad is a political and geopolitical analyst.
