Contemporary France. News, Politics, Films, Books
Andréa Kotarac, born in 1989, grew up in Haute Savoie in southern France, an area bordering both Switzerland and Italy. His father was Serbian and his mother was Iranian. He studied law and had been an activist for most of his adult life, starting in …
Emmanuel Macron, as everyone knows by now, is determined to pass a retirement bill. During his first term, the Gilets jaunes movement delayed it for about a year, from late 2018 to late 2019; and when he returned to the issue (accompanied by the usual …
Jacques Sapir is an economist who specializes in Europe, the European Union, and especially in post-USSR Russia. Since the 1990s, he has served as an interpreter of the dramatic changes that have occurred since the collapse of the Soviet Union; he has also been a …
Les Républicains, formerly one of the two dominant parties in France (the other was the rapidly shrinking Socialist party) was pulled together in 2002 from various strands of the Gaullist, sovereignist, neoliberal, and traditionally conservative and Catholic right. At first designated as UMP (Union for a …
La rentrée marks the start of the school year in France–summer is over, everyone is back from vacation, Paris residents once again outnumber tourists. It also means the start of the political season. The political parties are holding their universités d’été, the summer conferences that allow …
Review: Laure Mandeville, Qui est vraiment Donald Trump? Paris: Équateurs/Le Figaro, 2016. Imagine we know nothing about Donald J. Trump beyond election day, 2016. What would we think of him? What would we think of him without the triple shocks of January 6, 2021, the …
Florian Philippot, who directed Marine Le Pen’s campaign for the presidency in 2017, recently praised Ségolène Royal, the Socialist Party presidential candidate in 2007. Why? Because Royal recently criticized Zelensky for faking Russian war crimes in Ukraine. [During her presidential run in 2007, Royal on …
The last few days in France were relatively quiet: the candidates were doing their final events, and the polls and news coverage stopped for a period lasting from Saturday midnight to 8 pm Sunday, as required by law. The French voted on Sunday; by 8 …
He’s a left-wing Catholic who founded an interfaith coalition. She’s an environmental activist who was reportedly brought to tears when she heard about the melting permafrost in Siberia. Just a couple of crazy kids who got together after the covid lockdown and decided to put …
