International attention to our human rights record has spilled over into the business press as the Financial Times quizzed EBRD boss Odile Renaud-Basso about “authoritarian turns” in the bank’s top markets, including Turkey, Belarus and Egypt. The bank wants to “help countries move in the right direction,” the former head of the French treasury said, adding that “developing the private sector is also a way to support the development of the economy and civil society.” The vast majority of EBRD’s involvement in Egypt is not aid, but direct investment in high-potential businesses — most of them private-sector or creating openings for private companies — that aim to generate a return for EBRD while also strengthening the economy and civil society here. “If you cut off all financing I’m not sure that you will support the evolution of the country — and the democratic evolution of the country,” Renaud-Basso said of Egypt.

French and other international media also led with human rights in their coverage of the Sisi-Macron meeting yesterday (Le Monde | France24 | Reuters | Financial Times | VOA). Meanwhile, the New York Times’ opinion section is home to a piece calling on the Biden administration to change its policy on Egypt as a means of setting an example for other countries, and the AP covers a decision to extend the pre-trial detention of rights researcher Patrick Zaky.

On a less somber note: Variety interviews director Marwan Hamed about Kira and El Gen, which he’s billing as the “most expensive” film in Egyptian cinema history. The story is based on Ahmed Mourad’s book 1919, about resistance to the British occupation. The magazine also sits down with Lift Like a Girl director Mayye Zayed to discuss much-lauded observational documentary on Egypt’s weightlifting women.