France and Algeria

Available for over a year

Owen Bennett Jones presents inside stories from Christian Fraser in France and Chloe Arnold in Algeria. Challenge from the right The French presidential race is usually made more interesting by the fact that the leading two candidates in the first round go into a second run-off round. With elections coming up next month, Christian Fraser has been on the trail with Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right Front Nationale. Running for her life In homes in Muslim countries you often see black and white pictures from the 1950s and 60s of women playing tennis or other games in shorts. But that would now be difficult in some countries, where Islamist extremists disapprove of what they deemed immodest dress. This was the case until very recently in Algeria, where one of the county’s greatest athletes Hassiba Boulmerka faced death threats, but still kept running. Our correspondent Chloe Arnold went to meet her.