Europe

The editorial in today’s Le Figaro heralds the dawn of a 21st century Entente Cordiale and the newspaper carries an interview with Rishi Sunak. Speaking ahead of today’s Anglo-French summit in Paris, Sunak says he wants to ‘open a new chapter with France’.   Le Figaro pins the blame for the deterioration in relations between the two countries since the last summit in 2018 on the British, specifically Boris Johnson and his ‘anti-French populism’. The French believe that is now a thing of the past with Sunak in No. 10. This conveniently overlooks the fact that if Johnson was the bête noire of the French, Emmanuel Macron hasn’t exactly been the most diplomatic

On 22 March 1968 the slow burn that would eventually flare into France’s ‘May ‘68’ began. The radical student movement known as ‘22 March’, with Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Dany le Rouge) at its heart, was unaware its actions on this day would lead to riots and the eventual paralysis of the French state after workers joined them. History does not repeat itself, it echoes. Even then, echoes from the past do not necessarily produce the same effects, no matter how many revolutions France has known. Nevertheless, 55 years later on this 7 March, France will be paralysed by widespread rolling strikes and demonstrations against President Macron’s proposed legislation to extend the retirement age from

After months of delay, the Hungarian parliament finally started the process of approving Finland and Sweden’s Nato membership this week. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party announced that it would back the two countries’ membership bids, but with Hungary the only country besides Turkey to have dragged its heels on the issue, he is again being accused of being the black sheep of the EU.  If western powers have an enemy in Orbán, it is arguably one they created themselves Orbán claims that despite his personal endorsement of Finnish and Swedish Nato membership, his ‘MPs aren’t very enthusiastic.’ ‘Serious discussions’ are needed to persuade his disgruntled party members, he says, even though his MPs

On 2 March in Gabon, West Africa, President Macron declared that ‘the days of France-Afrique are over’.  Since the early nineteenth century the African continent has emblazoned France’s aspiration to international power status. Like any empire it provided natural resources. It also provided manpower. Unlike other imperial powers with surplus domestic populations to deploy, France’s demography was stagnant at 40 million from the 1840s until the 1940s. Africa provided troops for her armies (tirailleurs sénégalais) to compete with Germany’s demography and growing forces. Even after the troubled decolonisation in the 1960s Africa continued to provide cheap labour to a thriving French domestic industry. France’s Francophone African empire – combined with its south-east Asian colonies

There is much excitement among western Europe’s chattering classes after Elly Schlein was elected the new leader of Italy’s left-wing Democratic party. It is the first time that a woman has led the Italian left. The Guardian quoted the 37-year-old as saying her party will now be ‘a problem’ for Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s conservative PM.  On the contrary. Schlein’s elevation to party leader is an electoral gift for Meloni, whose sex is the only thing she has in common with her new foe. Schlein has not drawn any lessons from the collapse of the French Socialists Meloni was raised by a single mum in a working-class district of Rome and

‘Look at the dates.’ That’s what I am told as I enter the State Elders Room in Tallinn. I’m here to interview the woman dubbed Europe’s new Iron Lady – Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. The walls in the room between her office and the cabinet room are lined with portraits. A small plaque beneath each one records the dates of their birth and, more significantly, death. The first shows that its subject died in 1941. The next I notice also reads 1941. So too the third. And the fourth. The story is soon clear. Each of those elders of this now proud independent wealthy European state died fighting in

Silvio Berlusconi has been acquitted of paying bribes worth €10 million (£8.9 million) to female guests at his notorious bunga bunga parties in return for false testimony. The verdict brings to an end a series of trials that dragged on for well over a decade – and while the 86-year-old has ‘won’ this case, the damage has been done. The political effect of the bunga bunga trials as they were called has been devastating, as has the impact on the lives of those involved. They set in train a series of events that included the forced resignation of the media tycoon in November 2011 as Italy’s prime minister and made him, and Italy, a

France’s President Macron has raised hackles time and again with his interventions on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. For all his grandstanding bombast though, he has often raised the policy dilemmas that the West really ought to be discussing. Most recently, he warned, while returning from the Munich Security Conference, that active efforts to topple Vladimir Putin would be a mistake, because someone more dangerous would succeed him. Discussions about Russia’s future after Putin – and the advisability of outright seeking to unseat him – are in many ways a touchstone about attitudes towards Russia. For those who believe that, because they are not resisting, the majority of Russians are actively

Emmanuel Macron and Giorgia Meloni are no strangers to having a spat. The first was last autumn, about migrants; this time they have fallen out over Ukraine.  The Italian prime minister made no secret of her irritation with the French president last week on discovering he had invited Volodymyr Zelensky to Paris. It was, declared Meloni, ‘inappropriate’ for Macron to host the Ukraine president for dinner last Wednesday at the Elysee. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz received an invite too, which evidently antagonised Meloni even more.  ‘There were two European leaders, there were 25 missing,’ reflected the Italian PM. ‘When it comes to Ukraine, what interests us above everything else is

A notable feature of how the French public view the war in Ukraine is that the strongest support for its continuation is among voters who identify as Centrists and Socialists. Those most in favour of a peace settlement are backers of the left-wing Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the right-wing Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour. A poll in December revealed that 69 per cent of the former and 77 per cent of the latter would prefer that negotiations take precedence over the delivery of weapons to Ukraine, a number that rose to 88 per cent among Zemmour loyalists. These dropped to 57 per cent for Socialists and 60 per cent for

Do not take too seriously the demand of Roger Karoutchi, a Républicain who rejoices in the title of deputy speaker of the French Senate, that the mortal remains of Napoleon III, the last Emperor of France, be repatriated from Farnborough, in Hampshire, where they have lain in an immense sarcophagus since 1879, to Metropolitan France itself. ‘He is the only reigning sovereign who is buried abroad,’ Karoutchi complains. This business of moving Napoleon comes up from time to time, but there is no chance of it happening. The body, which is guarded by fierce Benedictine monks who have never forgotten or forgiven the murder of the Carmelite nuns beheaded by French

Macho Italy’s first woman prime minister Giorgia Meloni has now governed for 100 days and I cannot help but notice the enormous elephant in the room: the failure of the global media even to acknowledge, let alone apologise for, how wrong they were to warn the world that Italy was on the verge of a far-right, ergo fascist, take-over.   During the election campaign and immediate aftermath the crème de la crème of the world’s media were chock-a-block with warnings that Meloni and her party – Brothers of Italy – were the equivalent of a Biblical plague of locusts in jackboots about to engulf Italy and from there Europe.   These awful people were the heirs to the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, we

Another 1.2 million people took to the streets in France yesterday to protest against Emmanuel Macron’s plan to push back the age of retirement from 62 to 64. His prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, insisted at the weekend that his pension reforms are non-negotiable. We’ll see about that, was the response of the people, who for the second time in a fortnight demonstrated en masse.   But they are protesting about much more than just the pension reform. This is the culmination of six years of ras-le-bol (despair), the word one hears most frequently from the demonstrators. I have seen it countless times scrawled on placards, banners and on the yellow vests

The end of the second world war saw the defeated aggressors Germany and Japan accept moral capitulation and begin new international lives as liberal democratic and largely pacifist states bent on cooperation not coercion. But over the last few years an increasingly unsettled international order has emerged to test the pacifism of the fourth and third largest economic powers. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has finally cajoled a reluctant Germany out of its semi-neutral stance. As war returned to the European continent, Berlin has bowed to Western pressure to release its Leopard tanks to a martyrised Ukraine. No longer virgo intacta, Berlin has forfeited its 80 year state of innocence.  Japan has reacted

At long, long last, it might seem that things are coming to a head. After a year of phony excuses, ridiculous claims and constant back-peddling, some of Nato’s bigger nations are planning to give Ukraine some fairly modern main battle tanks. Not very many. And not exactly soon. But I suppose it’s the thought that counts.  Events are moving chaotically, and fast. But as things stand, the United States is mulling the delivery of 30-50 Abrams tanks – America’s primary workhorse. Germany has implied that it will, at some point in the future, supply a handful of Leopard tanks. As has Poland – no doubt a larger number. Norway will give up

There was another protest in Paris on Saturday. According to the organisers, Jean-Luc Melenchon’s La France Insoumise, 150,000 turned out on a crisp winter’s afternoon to opposeEmmanuel Macron’s pension reform. The French President wants to lower the retirement age from 64 to 62. But independent analysis put the numer at the protest at 14,045. It was the latter. I was there. I’m now something of a seasoned observer of the French street protest. From Yellow Vests to Covid Passports, and from the far right to the far left, I’ve rubbed shoulder with all manner of disgruntled French citizen. Yesterday’s protest was one of the jollier. I wouldn’t go so far as

After yesterday’s abrupt and humiliating departure of Germany’s defence minister, Christine Lambrecht, beleaguered chancellor Olaf Scholz has today appointed her replacement. If you were expecting a stellar appointment, prepare to be disappointed. If, however, you have followed Scholz’s pilgrim’s progress on the war in Ukraine closely, then you can enjoy the sensation of your low expectations being met.  The new hire in question is Boris Pistorius, a stalwart of Scholz’s Social Democratic party (SPD). He has never held military rank. He has never held national office. He is a former mayor of Osnabrück, and was, until his elevation to the federal cabinet, the minister of the interior and sport for the

Difficult though it may be to believe, there is chaos at the top of the German government over its mishandling of the war in Ukraine. Germany’s defence minister, Christine Lambrecht of the Social Democratic party, has quit her post after the most extraordinary series of unforced errors.  The war has brought all of this to a head. It has exposed Europe’s lax security and complacency. But German defence has been in a league of its own for many years. Over the course of the war, there has been no end to the amount of troubling information that has emerged.    German authorities so underrated the chance of war, the country’s intelligence chief

When the Sunday newspaper, Le Journal Du Dimanche, recently published its annual list of France’s fifty most popular personalities, politicians barely got a look in. Only two made the cut: Emmanuel Macron, at number 35, and Marine Le Pen, at 48. When the list was first published in 1988 the president of France was François Mitterrand, ranked third, one of fifteen political figures that year.  Frédéric Dabi, the head of IFOP, the polling company responsible for the annual list, explained that its changing composition was telling. ‘It is a reflection of the society’s mistrust towards its politicians,’ he said, noting that conversely admiration for scientists, sports stars and comedians had