A delayed start to a performance of La Traviata at the Bastille Opera may not seem like the stuff of politics, but it made headlines in France. The Saturday night show went ahead an hour late, but by the…
The 70th anniversary of D-Day also commemorates the beginning of the end for the Third Reich occupation of France. Starting with the Normandy landings of June 6 1944, Allied troops began to turn the tide…
As far as Marine Le Pen is concerned: “The people have spoken.” The leader of the Front National, which has taken 25% of the French vote in the European Parliamentary elections claims her party is now…
As Europe wakens to a wave of newly elected right-wing Members of the European Parliament, our multi-racial continent needs to understand what are the psychological roots of this movement. We have some…
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…
The extent to which the Dominique Strauss Kahn scandal is still a raw wound in France has been made very clear after Abel Ferrara’s Welcome to New York was screened in Cannes – out of the main film festival…
To date, approximately 500 jihadi fighters in Syria have come from France, making it the leading European supplier of insurgents to the Syrian conflict. In response, the French authorities have adopted…
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…
Marine Le Pen called the results of last weekend’s French local elections an “earthquake” – co-opting a phrase used about her father’s accession to the second round of the presidential elections in 2002…
In late February 2014, it was discovered that Nicolas Sarkozy’s close aide during his presidency, Patrick Buisson, had secretly recorded hundreds of hours of conversations with the then-president and others…
In a quite extraordinary French legal judgement, five Michael Jackson fans have successfully sued the former King of Pop’s doctor for the impact his part in Jackson’s death had on their own lives. The…
More than 2,000 people are feared killed since violence intensified in the Central African Republic (CAR) in early December of last year. Much of the violence erupted between the Séléka alliance of armed…
Jean-Marie Charon, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)
The French press pack has entered uncharted territory. With President Francois Hollande caught in the glare of the paparazzi’s camera flashes leaving the house of the actress Julie Gayet, Closer magazine…
Charles Wyplosz, Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)
The news from France has not been good over the last few years. Poor economic growth, stubbornly high unemployment, plant closures on the rise, strikes (not new, really), voter disenfranchisement and the…
François Hollande joins a long tradition of French Fifth republic Presidents who have had affairs. Widespread attachment to France’s privacy laws, and a press corps that generally agrees with them, combined…
Political commentators are beginning to tire of saying that things can’t get any worse for French Socialist president François Hollande and his government. And yet, catastrophe after catastrophe, things…
While Barack Obama was getting the cold shoulder from Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg late last week, the mood was a great deal more cordial at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris as US secretary of state, John…
The French love a good street protest, to the point where it could be thought of as a national sport. And there has been no shortage of people on French streets making their views felt recently. But there…
The issue of same-sex marriage in Australia is again part of the national debate, after Independent MP Tony Windsor announced he was in support of a referendum on the question to be held in parallel with…
Research Fellow at the University of the Free State, South Africa and Assistant Professor in the History of International Relations, Utrecht University
Professeure de management stratégique, directrice des programmes du MSc Arts & Creative Industries Management à Paris et de la partie française de l'Institut Franco-Chinois de Management des Arts et du Design à Shanghai, Kedge Business School