By now "Le Dessous des cartes" / "Mit offenen Karten" (= "the background of maps" / "with open maps" ) is the longest-running program broadcast by the French-German culture channel Arte. This weekly documentary is renowned for the achievement to condense broad packages of actual and highly relevant background information on current geopolitical topics into a broadcast of only ten to twelve minutes. To achieve that end, the programm makes brilliant use of maps and a well-organized theme script to display all that information in a way that can be easily followed and understood.
Until the end of 2016, the show was produced and moderated by Jean-Christophe Victor and his Laboratoire d'études politiques et d'analyses cartographiques. Sadly, J.-C. Victor passed away on December, 28th, 2016. Hopefully, his former staff will come to the conclusion that the best way to honor his legacy would be a continuation of his outstanding political Magazine on the same quality standard. This series would be sorely missed otherwise.
Since the information of single episodes does not become outdated too soon, it can also be valuable to watch or (re-watch) older entries on youtube.
