Marine Le Pen is a savvier speaker than her firebrand father, but the National Front still embodies a xenophobic, racist, and anti-Semitic movement that seeks to lead France out of Europe and back down the road of narrow-minded populism.
Marine Le Pen is a savvier speaker than her firebrand father, but the National Front still embodies a xenophobic, racist, and anti-Semitic movement that seeks to lead France out of Europe and back down the road of narrow-minded populism.
After spending several weeks in France, the mood in France is far from being positive. A series of factors have contributed to some type of national negativism affecting any types of creativity and motivation to drive the country out of this crisis. Rightly so, France is not at its economic, financial and societal peak with […]
After spending several weeks in France for the holidays, it was not difficult the sense the current malaise floating over France. Despite the current economic difficulties, the malaise is mainly social. One of François Hollande’s platforms during his presidential campaign was to reunite all social classes, ethnic groups under one same roof; so far he […]
He simply could not resist. The addiction of power won over his pledge; Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy made his return to political life by igniting a new controversy over the lack of action of French President François Hollande in Syria. In a joint statement with Abdulbaset Sieda, president of the Istanbul-based Syrian National Council […]
17 years later the socialists are back in power. François Hollande was elected president of France on Sunday evening. He is the second socialist, after François Mitterrand, to assume the highest function of the state. Mr. Hollande defeated Mr. Sarkozy with 51.62% of votes. Interestingly, these numbers do not represent the reality of the votes of […]
In its latest issue, the weekly British magazine the Economist called Mr. Hollande, the Socialist candidate to the French presidency, the most dangerous man of Europe. Even though this statement is not only a smart marketing move, it appears out of line considering the behavior of Britain in Europe. Without launching an anti-British attack, it […]
Prior to the May elections, the Economist and other major media had François Hollande wining the presidency. One of the latest articles in the Economist argued that voting for Hollande was only a no-Sarkozy vote rather than a belief in Hollande’s abilities, skills, and programs. François Hollande has never held a post in any government. […]
Approximately every two, four, or five years depending on the country some sort of elections are taking place. Elections have been described as the epitome of democracy; yes, but only to a certain extent. Let’s face it, elections have simply become a nightmare as they too often remind citizens about the inaptitude of elected officials […]
As a French citizen and social scientist, I could not resist reviewing a very good article published by the excellent peer-reviewed journal, PS: Political Science & Politics. Two experts from the University of Montréal, Martial Foucault and Richard Nadeau, declared François Hollande winner of the 2012 French Presidential elections in their article “Forecasting the 2012 […]
These last several weeks Alain Juppé, French Foreign Minister, has been outspoken against the incompetence of the EU High Representative Catherine Ashton and the European External Action Service (EEAS). The latest attack was a letter sent by Juppé to Ashton on March 9th, wherein the French minister lectured Ashton on the shortfalls of the EEAS. […]
Vladimir Putin was elected President of Russia. What a surprise! One thing is quite certain, being elected was not the problem, the real dilemma for Putin may be to stay in power as long as he envisions it. Russian citizens are seriously concerned about the problems of representation, transparency, accountability, and most importantly ramping corruption. […]
“How can the world do nothing?” The massacre of the Syrian people has taken place for too long now with no end in sight. In addition to the atrocious violence perpetuated by the Al-Assad regime, American and French journalists, Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik, lost their lives several days ago leading to international public outcries. […]
S&P finally downgraded France’s credit rating several weeks ago, along with a few other EU Member States. The decision could undeniably cost Sarkozy the reelection in May 2012; many believe Sarkozy is solely responsible for the downgrade. But May 2012 is still far away from a political standpoint. Since his election in 2007, Sarkozy has […]
This end of year has been quite tumultuous in Europe: European citizens are in the street, rating agencies threaten to downgrade the rating of some members of the Eurozone, the race to elections is going full speed in several EU countries, all this taking place in a dire economic and political climax. The political debate […]
This year has been all about Greece. The troika, meaning the IMF, ECB, and Commission, have been working on containing the Greek crisis and limiting the contagion to the rest of the Union and ultimately to the global markets. The outcomes of the meeting over the weekend are a new bail-out plan and more ‘haircuts.’ […]