James Tidmarsh is an international lawyer based in Paris. His law firm specialises in complex international commercial litigation and arbitration.
The second passport used to be a backdoor: a legal hack for the well-advised, well-connected or well-heeled. You could acquire nationality in a country you’d hardly visited, without necessarily even speaking the language, and still find yourself welcomed with open arms – or at least waved through the fast-track lane at immigration. But that game
It was a rally for Marine Le Pen billed as a rendez-vous historique. In the end, barely a few thousand people showed up on Sunday afternoon in Paris. In a city where more than a million marched after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, and where hundreds of thousands protested against racism and police violence in recent
France’s media regulator, Arcom, has been asked to investigate the right-leaning news channel CNews over its coverage of Marine Le Pen’s conviction this week. The 24-hour news channel is accused of being too one-sided, too sympathetic to Le Pen, and too critical of the judiciary in its editorial response to the decision that knocked her
Marine Le Pen is fighting back, launching an all-out counterattack against a Paris court’s decision to suspend her from politics. ‘We won’t let the French people’s election be stolen,’ she declared at an RN meeting the morning after her conviction, calling the ruling a ‘nuclear bomb’ dropped because ‘we’re about to win’ the presidency. Time,
‘Every single political group, every single national delegation, has violated the same rule that Ms. Le Pen did – the employment of staff to work on non-EP related affairs.’ That was the reaction of Connor Allen, a former Parliamentary Assistant in the European Parliament, following Marine Le Pen’s disqualification from the French presidential race. Allen is
Marine Le Pen has been knocked out of the presidential race and disqualified from standing for public office after she was convicted of misappropriating public funds. She has been given a suspended prison sentence, will have to wear an ankle bracelet for two years, is barred from standing for office for five years, and has
Marine Le Pen, the frontrunner for the 2027 French presidency, could be sent to prison and banned from office as early as next week. Prosecutors allege that Le Pen and more than 20 National Rally (RN) members misused 2.5 million euros (£2 million) in EU parliamentary funds between 2004 and 2016 by redirecting them to
France’s churches are under attack, yet the media and political establishment are pretending not to notice. Last year, we saw blazes at historic churches in Rouen, Saint-Omer and Poitiers – each one another grim statistic in an escalating crisis. For years, we’ve seen Christian places of worship targeted in acts of arson and vandalism. Yet, until
The government has defended its controversial decision to relinquish control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius with an excuse so far-fetched it could be mistaken for a plot from a spy novel gone wrong. According to reports in the Telegraph, Starmer’s administration claims that the deal is necessary to secure the viability of the military base
Goma, a city of 1.5 million in Eastern Congo, has fallen to the M23 rebels, openly backed by Rwanda. Foreign governments are calling for the rebels to withdraw, and the UN Security Council has been holding crisis talks, but this is not the time to stop at diplomatic gestures: maximum pressure must be applied on
France’s 2025 census has ignited a predictable but exhausting row. The controversy centres on a seemingly innocuous question: ‘Where were your parents born?’ Cue outrage from the French left, who have called for a boycott of the question, declaring it racist and a dangerous gateway to discrimination. The fact is that many on the left
The French government on Wednesday declared war on X and on Elon Musk, directly threatening to ban the platform. Speaking on France Inter, Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s Foreign Minister, accused Musk of allowing X to become a platform for interference undermining European ‘public discourse’. Barrot demanded that the European Commission act with ‘the utmost firmness’. He
Another year, another protest. French farmers are at it again. France’s Coordination Rurale trade union is calling for another round of massive protests starting this week. Unions say that French farmers ‘won’t die in silence’. Cue tractors clogging motorways, hay bales set ablaze in front of government offices, and manure dumped on city streets. This time, the
Once one of France’s most respected publications, Le Monde is in crisis. Its newsroom is gripped by a climate of fear, where only left-wing and woke views are tolerated, and dissenters whisper their frustrations in the shadows. Once a beacon of intellectual rigour and fearless reporting, an investigation by its rival Le Figaro paints a damning picture
Earlier this year, Sciences Po’s feminist association, Décollectif Féministe, organised a ‘non-mixed’ meeting, which explicitly excluded men and white attendees. Intended as a ‘safe space’ for women of colour, the event sparked an immediate backlash. An MP from Marine Le Pen’s National Rally called it ‘racist and discriminatory.’ Ultimately, the meeting was cancelled before it took place, but it
In the remote Ludewa district of southern Tanzania, villagers scratch out a meagre living in harsh conditions. The roads are barely passable, clean water is hard to come by, and families live in rudimentary homes made from mud bricks. Preventable diseases like malaria, cholera, and dysentery plague the region, and health infrastructure is almost non-existent.
The latest move in Anne Hidalgo’s war on cars has left Paris motorists teetering on the edge of despair. Last week, the city’s left-wing mayor reduced the speed limit on the Périphérique, Paris’s critical eight-lane motorway, to a crawl-inducing 30 mph. For the thousands of suburban commuters who rely on it, it’s made the daily grind
Sir Keir Starmer, the man often dubbed ‘Mr. Rules’ for his reputation as a stickler for ethical conduct, now finds himself facing an ethics probe over undeclared gifts. The accusations concern luxury suits gifted to Starmer and dresses for his wife, Victoria, reportedly paid for by Lord Alli, a Labour peer and supporter. Starmer’s team
As the new school year begins in France, pupils across the country are putting on school uniforms for the first time in decades. In a pilot program spearheaded by the government, approximately one hundred schools across the country are testing whether uniforms can reduce bullying, improve classroom tranquillity, and foster equality. While some see uniforms
The UK is currently struggling with balancing migrant rights and public safety. Record numbers of foreign national offenders are currently still living in the country, unable to be deported. While the case of Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai – an Afghan asylum seeker who had previously murdered two migrants before entering the country, and who went on to murder a 21-year-old
