Ranks of men in uniform are bombarded with Molotov cocktails, makeshift mortars, and small arms fire. Commando units prepare to infiltrate a smoke-covered urban fortress. A city burns under the watchful eye of the press, reporting on “a civil war”.…
Can Europe survive the age of strongmen?
The latest military assault by Azerbaijan’s oil-rich dictator Ilham Aliyev on tiny, democratic Armenia places the European Union, once again, in an awkward position. On the one hand, as EU leaders never cease to remind us, the continental bloc stands …
Will Macron call another election?
In April, Emmanuel Macron became the first French president for two decades to win a second term. Two months later, he became the first French president in 34 years to be denied a parliamentary majority. French voters frequently complain that …
The long march of the French Left
In the hit French television series, Le Baron Noir, unifying the Left is the holy grail of the main protagonist, Philippe Rickwaert. His main obstacle is Michel Vidal, the vain and uncompromising founder of Debout le Peuple, determined to steal …
Macron’s tormented second term
Chartres, Eure-et-Loir
The young parliamentary candidate strides down the street looking for people who are local and over 50. I follow. We meet mostly Americans, Germans, Italians, Dutch, Britons.
“See, we have been invaded by foreigners,” jokes Ladislas Vergne, 30, …
France is desperate for a king
When it comes to longevity of reign, one European monarch eclipses even Elizabeth II. Louis XIV took the throne in 1643 aged four and departed it 72 years later in 1715 (gangrene had ravaged his leg, thus beating various unmentionable …
Does France need a Prime Minister?
Two parliamentary candidates met the other day on the street of my nearest town in Normandy. Both first-time campaigners: one a politics student, aged 22, at the University of Caen; the other 61-years-old and already running the country.
I happened …
Can Mélenchon unite the French Left?
Every so often, the French like to scare themselves. They convince themselves that the political consensus of the past six decades is about to be torn apart. This year is no different.
A month ago, the opinion polls suggested that …
The man who could topple Macron
For a President who’d scored a decisive re-election in a country that supposedly wanted him out, out, OUT!, Emmanuel Macron’s Sunday night victory party on the Champ de Mars, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, was not just low-key; …
Why Macron is invincible
The crowd that gathered last night on the Champ-de-Mars, underneath the Eiffel Tower, to celebrate Emmanuel Macron’s re-election as President were waving flags — not all of them French. Half of the guests held aloft the blue-and-yellow banner of the …
Macron is the leader France deserves
When Charles de Gaulle, the man who invented the French presidency and still casts a shadow over his country’s politics, was 15, the teacher at his Catholic private school asked him to write an essay. The year was 1905, and …
France’s gerontocratic nightmare
The results of the first round of the 2022 French presidential elections give a surprising impression of order. Three poles, each with its own fairly simple socio-demographic and geographical structure, seem to emerge: the Macron vote, the Le Pen vote …
The Left should not vote for Macron
On May 6, 2017, the day Emmanuel Macron was elected president of France after trouncing Marine Le Pen, he made a promise to the French people: that the country would never again see a “far-Right” candidate reach the second round …
How Macron’s hometown betrayed him
Amiens, France
“I’m an Amiénois,” Emmanuel Macron boasted during a trip to his hometown in 2019. “I am a child of Amiens. And that can’t be taken away from me.”
Three years on, France’s head of state finds himself disowned. …
The poison in France’s veins
France does not feel like it is entering a season of political turbulence. It barely feels like it is going through an important election. Away from the headlines — the disintegration of the old centre parties, the renaissance of Jean-Luc …