Contemporary France. News, Politics, Films, Books
Jan Masaryk served as the foreign minister of Czechoslovakia, mostly in exile, from July 1940 on–after Munich and the Nazi Occupation, during World War II, and then through the Liberation as part of a Communist-dominated new government. His term was ended by his sudden death …
She had it all. Valérie Trierweiler was beautiful. She was a political journalist for Paris-Match. She divided her time between a home in the country in L’Isle Adam, forty kilometers from Paris, and her high-profile work in the capital. She was married to a fellow …
Macron is heading for a 2022 election for another five year term. He believes he has eighteen months to accomplish something solid before the campaign takes over. His agenda seems stalled. His party was just walloped in the nationwide municipal elections on June 28. So …
Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, from Shutterstock.com There have been world-wide protests about the death of George Floyd, but in France these protests also have a local connection. In 1986 Malik Oussekine, a 22-year-old student, was beaten to death by police. Thirty years later, in 2016, Adama Traoré, …
On May 18, 2020, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel, in a joint press conference, announced a plan to mitigate the enormous debts and economic losses suffered by European nations in fighting COVID-19, and thus to guarantee the strength of the eurozone and its members. What …
French prosecutors announced on Monday, May 11, 2020, that they have opened an investigation into former President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing on the charge of sexual assault (agression sexuelle), an action that had allegedly occurred on December 18, 2018. The complainant is reporter Ann-Kathrin Stracke of …
Trick question: With what country does France share its longest land border? Answer: Brazil; 800 kilometers. French Guiana (Guyane française) is one of the remnants of France’s first colonial empire (those territories acquired before the French Revolution), and it chose to remain with France after …
“A paradox: the candidate designated by the socialist primary did not want to be the candidate of the socialists, but rather of an alternative alliance of the left wing of the Socialist Party and the Ecologists.” This perhaps sounds like a thinly disguised parable about …
Retirement reform is a third rail in French as it is in American politics. In both countries, the issue is the same: will old age be synonymous with poverty? And the generational aspect (Pay as You Go), that is to say the idea that current …
