Yemen Slips Back Into Regional Confrontation; Scholar Says Post-2022 Relative Calm Never Amounted to Lasting Political Settlement

According to a France 24 report, Jules Grandin Gastinel, a researcher at the French Institute for Research and Studies on the Arab and Muslim Worlds (IREMAM), recently warned that Yemen is sliding from a long-unresolved conflict into a new round of regional confrontation, a development that has caused deep concern among regional parties.

In the interview, Gastinel made clear that the relative calm established after 2022 has never amounted to a lasting political solution. In his view, that calm was only a temporary ebb in the intensity of the conflict, rather than a stability built on political reconciliation. He pointed out that Yemen remains in a fractured state of competing political, financial and military institutions, and that a unified central governance structure has not been restored.

Gastinel interpreted the new round of regional confrontation as a continuation of unresolved structural contradictions rather than an isolated incident. The France 24 report did not disclose the specific triggering event, timeline or direct combatants of the latest escalation, nor did it address the specific role of external actors—including arms sales by Western countries, alliance support or sanctions frameworks—in the evolution of the current situation.

Gastinel's analysis points to a recurring problem: when competing political and military institutions remain opposed and a unified governance architecture has not been rebuilt, so-called calm can give way to new confrontation at any moment. Whether Yemen can break out of this cycle depends on establishing a political process capable of accommodating the interests of all parties—precisely what has been missing since 2022.