The Paris atrocities came just as Assad’s military position was improving. Can the dictator harness international fury at Islamic State to strengthen his position in Syria?
Much of the conventional wisdom among academics over the last decade or so has focused on the convergent trends in European government policies toward both migrants and asylum seekers. Spurred on by European…
We have now had time to digest the tragic events in Paris. The press has made its predictable set of news cycles in the last two weeks. They have covered the actual events themselves. Then, in America…
France has had a long and troubled relationship with its Muslim populations. French armies faced down Muslim leaders during the expansion of the country’s empire in Africa in the 19th century. And in the…
On September 28, 179 new members were elected to the 348 seats in the French senate. Gérard Larcher, a member of the centre-right UMP party, was chosen as the senate président, or speaker. Even though…
Nicolas Sarkozy has returned to mainstream French politics by announcing his plan to run for the leadership of the main opposition party, the centre-right UMP. He faces tough opposition from within his…
After the sudden dissolution of his government, French president François Hollande is edging ever a bit closer to the political abyss. His prime minister, Manuel Valls, has just formed a new cabinet, which…
Mario Draghi almost single-handedly rescued the Eurozone from disaster two years ago, by pledging to do “whatever it takes to preserve the euro”, so the appeal from the European Central Bank (ECB) chief…
When French president François Hollande rose to deliver the keynote address for the 70th anniversary of the D-Day Landings earlier this year, he set in motion an unprecedented five-year cycle of commemoration…
The wreckage of AH 5017 lies scattered in the Sahel near the border between Mali and Burkina Faso. As the black boxes of the Air Algérie flight head for France and Paris mediates the aftermath, the crash…
France’s relationship with the EU appears paradoxical given the contrast between the traditional pro-EU involvement of French elites and regular expressions of reticence, such as the opposition to the…
Rarely do local elections anywhere have such profound national resonance. In municipal elections on 30 March, France’s governing Socialist Party (PS) lost more than 150 towns and cities. The centre-right…
Why does the economic policy pursued or proposed by the Left in Europe often seem so pathetic? The clearest example of this lies just across the channel. France is subject to the same fiscal straitjacket…