Why France is a target for Russian spies
Last week was a good time to bury bad news in France. While French and international media were focused on…
Britain should resist French pressure for a joint defence plan
On Friday President Emmanuel Macron welcomed Volodymyr Zelensky to the Elysée with great fanfare. The Ukrainian president was in Paris…
France is tiring of Macron’s gimmicks
President Emmanuel Macron and his freshly installed Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, appointed a new French cabinet this week. It is…
Can ‘mini Macron’ rescue France’s president?
France’s Emmanuel Macron, the Fifth Republic’s youngest president, has just appointed its youngest prime minister, 34-year-old Gabriel Attal. The former socialist…
Is Airbus a metaphor for Britain’s relationship with the EU?
A French member of the board of Airbus – the giant European aircraft and aerospace group – once told me…
The French elite have realised that Marine Le Pen might win
You can tell that French elections are in the air because legal proceedings are being taken against a leading figure…
Could the world go to war again?
Armistice Day is an appropriate moment to reflect on why democracies triumphed in the two world wars that blighted the…
Why is France so fascinated by the royals?
As King Charles’ state visit to France begins, it is clear that France is not as republican as it claims.…
How Africa fell out of love with France
The death of Françafrique
There is not much for Macron to celebrate on this Bastille Day
In January this year, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak outlined his five priorities for Britain against a hazy timetable. Meanwhile in…
The French riots threaten the state’s very existence
How dangerous are riots to the very existence of the French state? Most commentators avoid the question and concentrate on causes.…
Will Macron be forced to raise French taxes?
The inevitable is at last beginning to dawn on Emmanuel Macron. The extravagant spending spree initiated after the violent and…
Did France invent cricket?
As the First Ashes Test begins at Edgbaston it is fitting to recall England’s oldest cricket adversary: France. The Marylebone…
Macron’s muddled foreign policy
Even the French reports of President Macron’s state visit to China last week were unflattering. The highly choreographed ceremonies with…
A Sixth Republic in France is unlikely
France is confronted by a serious social crisis, morphing into a grave political crisis, which could become a regime crisis.…
Could the markets force Macron to back down on pension reforms?
Is Emmanuel Macron reaching his Liz Truss moment when financial markets finally determine his future? On 20 March Moody’s ratings…
Is Macron dreaming of Aukus becoming Fraukus?
When silhouetted against the symbolism – as French media proudly insist – of King Charles choosing France for his first…
Macron’s France is a tinderbox
On 22 March 1968 the slow burn that would eventually flare into France’s ‘May ‘68’ began. The radical student movement…
Is Macron really saying the France-Afrique is finished?
On 2 March in Gabon, West Africa, President Macron declared that ‘the days of France-Afrique are over’. Since the early nineteenth century the…
Europe’s centre of gravity is shifting towards Poland
The President of the United States of America flies into Poland this month. Not to Germany or France or even…
What Germany can learn from Japan about the new world order
The end of the second world war saw the defeated aggressors Germany and Japan accept moral capitulation and begin new…
Britain’s Ukraine strategy could reap dividends for Brexit
Ever since at least the French revolution it has been in Britain’s strategic interest to ensure no single power or…
All is not well in Macron’s France
The relationship entertained by French elites to their homeland is very different from their English counterparts. ‘England is perhaps the…
Brexit’s critics are strangely quiet about the European parliament scandal
The corruption scandal embroiling the European parliament and the European Union’s institutions at the highest level is shaping up to…
Macron’s humiliating climbdown over Aukus
Guess who turned up in Bangkok this week at the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting? The forum, which includes the…
