The year 2025 is coming and with it its share of major news. International geopolitical, cultural and sporting issues. Here are the five events that will mark the year.
From the start of Donald Trump's second term in the White House to the football-saturated sports calendar, here are five events to watch in 2025.
Donald Trump, season 2
On January 20, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States, eleven weeks after his landslide victory over Kamala Harris. The Republican will take the oath of office at the Capitol, the seat of legislative power in Washington, which was stormed four years ago by his supporters who refused to accept his defeat in the previous presidential election.
Despite Four indictments and a criminal conviction, the 78-year-old Republican has made an unprecedented comeback to the White House after an extraordinary campaign marked by two assassination attempts.
His sensational appointments – Elon Musk at the “Ministry of Government Efficiency” or vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Health – are already promising a new order in the United States and around the world. His nationalism predicts the return of an all-powerful America, imposing its law, with the president-elect preferring transactional relations and power relations to multilateralism.
He promised to stop the “transgender delirium” on his first day in the White House, to sign “a whole series of decrees to close our border to illegal immigrants and stop the invasion of our country” and made threatening or controversial remarks about Panama, Greenland and Canada in December.
Kumbh Mela, the largest gathering worldwide
The Hindu pilgrimage called “Kumbh Mela”,the largest gathering in the world, will be held in Prayagraj, in northern India from January to February. Some 400 million Hindus are expected to gather on the banks of the Ganges and Yamuna, forming a gigantic temporary city.
By immersing themselves in these sacred rivers, sadhus (Hindu monks) and pilgrims purify themselves of their sins, hoping to “free themselves from the vicious earthly cycle of life and death.” This gathering takes place every three years alternately in four holy places (Prayagraj, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nashik).
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000Some 120 million pilgrims thronged the last gathering in Prayagraj in 2013. Thirty-six people died in a stampede.
The “Kumbh Mela” or “festival of the pitcher”– classified as intangible heritage of humanity by UNESCO – finds its origins in Hindu mythology according to which for 12 days and 12 nights, the gods and demons killed each other to recover the jug containing the elixir of immortality. During the fighting, four drops of the precious nectar fell on these four sacred places.
Oasis and BTS, two comebacks
On one side the two grumpy brothers of Britpop, on the other the seven young and handsome kings of K-Pop: Oasis and BTS, two heavyweights of music, are making their big comeback in 2025. Oasis, led by the Gallagher brothers whose legendary rivalry got the better of the group in 2009, is reforming for a world tour this summer.
Thanks to this reconciliation, they could each pocket around 50 million pounds according to an expert. Nostalgic fans rushed to buy tickets. But this quest turned into chaos between endless waiting lists, crazy prices and fraudulent sites. On the other side of the Earth, the group BTS promised its “ARMY” (its community of fans, editor's note) to reunite after June when the seven singers have finished their military service, compulsory in South Korea.
With several tens of millions of albums sold, the boy-band created in 2013, generates billions for the South Korean economy. “The return of BTS will, in anticipation, have a positive effect on the stock of HYBE (BTS's label, editor's note) and album sales,” says an analyst at Daishin Securities.
Towards the end of the growth of greenhouse gases ?
Could the growth of global greenhouse gas emissions stop next year? ? Researchers are cautious: they are watching for signals from China, the world’s largest polluter, where growth in CO2 emissions from burning oil, coal and gas is expected to reach near zero by 2024.
“It seems that emissions are stabilizing,” says Lauri Myllyvirta of the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). Given the country’s size (30% of global emissions), the impact would be global. Glen Peters of the Global Carbon Budget would not be surprised if the global peak occurs in the next few years. “We are close, but we will need a few years of data to be certain,” he warns.
And, adds Ignacio Arróniz Velasco, from the E3G think tank, the world will not have to be satisfied with stabilizing its emissions: it will then have to reduce them rapidly, in order to hope for carbon neutrality within three decades. “We will not be able to relax”, he says.
Football, football, football
When you love, you don't count, and yet…: in 2025, the question of the explosion in the number of matches and the fatigue of players, faced with an overloaded calendar, will be central. The programme includes: the Club World Cup, expanded to 32 teams, which will deprive players of their summer break, after a season marked by the inauguration of the new Champions League format, with ever more matches – and revenue.
This trend of endlessly increasing official matches will continue in 2026, with 16 new teams participating in the World Cup organised in Canada, Mexico and the United States, and therefore… 104 matches, compared to 64 previously.
The growing weight of Saudi Arabia will also be scrutinised, with the tendency of the host country of the 2034 World Cup to inject more money into football potentially redrawing its contours. Finally, the use of video assistance refereeing (VAR), which profoundly changes the pace of matches, will surely fuel many more controversies.