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I fear that we are all going to have to learn a lot about Mali and the Sahel—and fast. It is rapidly becoming the latest front in the war on terror. Or, to be more precise, the West’s attempt to prevent the emergence of ungoverned spaces that can be exploited by Al Qaeda and its offshoots. The New York Times today has a good primer on the challenge facing the French in Mali: “The French are fighting to preserve the integrity of a country that is divided in half, of a state that is broken. They are fighting for the survival of an interim government with no democratic legitimacy that

The crisis in Mali is yet another unintended consequence of the Arab Spring. Specifically, they are a result of the revolution in Libya, where Tuareg rebels who supported Gaddafi were forced to flee after his downfall. Heavily armed and regrouping in Mali, they created the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) which effectively ended the government’s control over the north. Jihadist groups aligned with al-Qaeda then swooped in and established a semi-autonomous Islamic state in the north. As they pushed south it looked as if they might capture all of Mali, prompting interim President Dioncounda Traore to ask for French assistance. Francois Hollande responded by launching Operation Serval with overwhelming

Today is not April the first; but the European Union has indeed won the Nobel Peace Prize. It is a bizarre decision given what is going on in Europe right now. Watching the reaction of the Greek crowd to Angela Merkel on her visit there this week, it was hard not to worry that the European project was now a threat to peace and stability on the continent. To be sure, France and Germany have not gone to war again since 1945. But to chalk that up solely to the European Union is a profound misreading of history. I suspect that the decision to award the prize to the European

Valéry Giscard d’Estaing is an energetic 86-year old. When we meet in Paris, for the first interview he’s given since the Socialists took power earlier this month, the former French president is fresh off the plane from a hunting trip in Namibia. Soon, he’ll hop on another flight bound for China, where he heads a think tank.   Giscard still holds the record for being the youngest president of the Fifth Republic – he was 48 when he took the keys to the Élysée. But there’s another claim to fame he’ll be glad to have relinquished – until Sarkozy’s defeat, he was the only recent leader not to win a

This afternoon, it’s even clearer that the French and Greek elections are a significant moment in the life of the Eurozone. It’s not just the nervous market reaction to yesterday’s results, but also the way how the supranational debate has now changed. More so than ever, there are now two clear oppositional fronts. On one side, broadly speaking, are those who say that austerity is a prerequisite for growth. On the other, those who say that austerity must be relaxed for growth to arrive. It’s a situation dripping with black humour. When David Cameron kept Britain out of Europe’s fiscal pact a few months ago, it was portrayed as a

Tonight’s election results mark the next challenge to the euro. In France, the Socialist candidate François Hollande has won. Having campaigned on changes to the fiscal compact, Hollande will have to deliver something on this front. But Angela Merkel, with her own elections next year, will not want to agree to anything that appears to be a watering down of the pact. I doubt, though, that there’ll be that much market reaction to Hollande’s victory. City sources say that it has been priced in for while and that there is an expectation that Hollande will merely accept some window-dressing about growth being added to the agreement. But what could set

Holland and Hollande; they’re the non-identical twins that are causing palpitations across Europe today. Holland, because the country’s Prime Minister yesterday resigned after failing to agree a package of cuts for his country’s budget. Hollande, because he’s the socialist candidate set to win the presidential election in France, probably eroding that country’s commitment to fiscal consolidation in the process. The markets quivered in fear at this morning’s headlines — and what they mean for the eurozone — even if they have, in some parts, slightly recovered since. It’s all another reminder that the Eurocrisis just isn’t going away — neither for countries such as France and the Netherlands, nor for

Who on earth does Nicolas Sarkozy think he is? The answer, of course, is President of the French Republic. And from that position — and propelled by the Toulouse shootings and doubtless by the imminent election — he has chosen to expel a number of people from the Republic whose views, actions and teachings are deemed inimical to the State. Sarkozy gave the order yesterday and a couple of hours later the men were on planes back to their countries of origin. As the Times reports, the Algerian Islamist Ali Belhadad was flown back to Algiers and Almany Baradji, an imam, was sent back to Mali. The French Interior Ministry

There was an element of bafflement in the early BBC coverage this morning of the welcome news that police have identified and surrounded the suspected killer of seven people, including Jewish children, in Toulouse. To some people’s surprise, the BBC correspondent remarked in the early reports, the suspect turned out to be a Muslim, Mohammed Merah. So the entire tone of the Corporation’s coverage of the killings turns out to have been misplaced. Ever since the dreadful news that a gunman had attacked a Jewish school in Toulouse after killing three French soldiers, the overriding assumption on the part of the Corporation was that, unless the killer was merely unhinged,