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…
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…
To have one leader investigated for serious misconduct may be regarded as misfortune; to have two come under investigation looks like carelessness. But the International Monetary Fund finds itself in that…
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…
Jean-François Copé, the leader of France’s Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), stepped down last month after a scandal over funding for Nicolas Sarkozy’s losing presidential campaign in 2012. The…
Dominique Strauss-Kahn is back. On Thursday May 16 he took a major part in a prime-time documentary about the Euro – where he criticised Nicolas Sarkozy’s response to the 2008-9 economic crisis. The following…
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…
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…
Participation is commonly viewed as the cornerstone of liberal democracy. In Europe, however, the decades since the 1980s have been marked by falling participation and increased disillusionment with institutional…
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…
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…
Liberté, égalité, infidélité. The three stout pillars of the French constitution. Mitterrand, Chirac, Sarkozy, and now François Hollande: it’s a grand tradition – and if you tot their conquests up they…
For followers of British politics the narrative is familiar: populist right-wing party champions withdrawal from the European Union and a harder line on immigration and suddenly start pulling out remarkable…