France’s deep unrest
Today is the 232nd anniversary of the great French revolution. Time to take the temperature of the nation. The regional…
Why is Macron feigning outrage at the Danish spying scandal?
The feigned outrage in Berlin – but mostly in Paris – at the USA’s proxy use of Denmark’s intelligence services…
France needs Britain more than ever
‘What is grave about this situation, Messieurs, is that it is not serious’, was how General de Gaulle addressed his…
France’s military wages war on Macron’s values
On 21 April 1961 France’s most senior generals staged a putsch in French Algiers, still an integral part of France.…
Macron's Napoleon complex
May 5th this year will be the two hundredth anniversary of Napoleon’s death on Saint Helena, the tiny island in…
The EU's decline is self-inflicted
In 1991, at the height of the first Gulf War, the EU demonstrated to the world its divisions and helplessness,…
Barnier and France fear Brexit Britain’s next moves
Michel Barnier – still officially the EU’s Brexit taskforce leader – gives few interviews. As a Savoyard and keen mountaineer,…
The EU is struggling to poach the City's business
The latest salvos have been fired in the EU’s battle to drain the City of London’s financial business. Brussels –…
Might Macron lose to Le Pen?
The latest French opinion poll puts Marine Le Pen on around 26 per cent, ahead of President Emmanuel Macron on 23 per…
France's Covid response is a source of national shame
France is the only permanent member of the UN Security Council not to have developed a coronavirus vaccine, and it…
The EU is a divided house
What does 2021 hold for the European Union? At the end of 2020 Brussels has gone out of its way…
France would be foolish to veto a Brexit deal
Britain and France are heading for an almighty bust-up over Brexit. This morning the French junior minister for European affairs,…
Joe Biden isn't the president the EU thinks he is
For four years, president Donald Trump radicalised international relations. There was a shift towards the nation state and unilateralism, beginning with the…
Is Macron following in the footsteps of de Gaulle?
It can’t be much fun being a national leader these days. Be it the US, the UK, all are assailed…
Emmanuel Macron’s Trumpian transformation
This new world disorder is distorting our vision, so please excuse an apparently fatuous question. Is Emmanuel Macron turning into…
How Macron reacts to the Nice attack will be critical
The suspected terrorist attack in Nice’s Notre Dame Basilica this morning appears to be the third such incident in France in…
Why is Macron so determined to infuriate the rest of the world?
In the course of his three-and-a-half year presidency, Emmanuel Macron must have the record for the most number of international…
The EU is adrift and in search of an anchor
The EU has never been a serious global foreign policy player. Without a European army or a meaningful defence pact,…
How the EU is breaking its own Lisbon Treaty
That the European Union takes to the moral high ground on international law when it suits it is hardly new.…
Macron's Brexit swansong is about to unfold
At a solemn ceremony at the Panthéon to mark the 150th anniversary of the (re-)birth of the Republic, president Macron…
Macron's battle against the forces of French anarchy
This week France announced a €100 billion (£89 billion) stimulus package equivalent to 4 per cent of GDP over two years.…
The French are baffled by the BBC's Rule Britannia censorship
From 1940 to 1944, the Vichy regime set aside France’s 150-year-old rousing national anthem La Marseillaise for Maréchal nous voilà,…
Why are so many dictators former doctors?
Are we increasingly living under a ‘doctatorship’? The influence of the medical profession over our everyday lives – from personal…
What's up with Macron's Lawrence of Arabia stunt?
President Macron neither lacks chutzpah nor a lust for drama. His walkabout yesterday amid the devastation of Lebanon’s Beirut, following…
Covid-19 and the twilight of Britain and France
Is Covid accelerating the eclipse of France and the UK as ‘great powers’? For over two centuries Paris and London…
