France

Emmanuel Macron’s vow to press ahead with plans to bring back national service for France’s youth has taken many by surprise. The French president’s insistence that the scheme would be mandatory is also something of a shock, contradicting remarks made last week by Florence Parly, the minister of the armed forces, who appeared to suggest the service would be voluntary. Not so, according to a government spokesman, who said ‘it will be universal…and it will be obligatory’. So how has this announcement been greeted? In Britain, such news would inevitably be met with howls of outrage from certain quarters. In France, however, Macron’s plans have, for the most part, been greeted warmly.

In January 2016, Nicolas Sarkozy was honoured by British Jews at a ceremony in London. The former French president was thanked by Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldsmith for his support during a decade that had seen an upsurge in anti-Semitism across France. ‘France right now is the main battleground between hope and fear for the future of Europe, especially for the Jewish community’, said Goldsmith. Two years on, and Britain has also become a battleground for Jews. Anti-Semitic attacks are now at record levels in the UK, according to a report released this week, with 2017 witnessing a 34 per cent rise in violent assaults against Jewish people. Holland and Belgium have also

Why the big fuss about the 100 eminent Frenchwomen, including Catherine Deneuve, who have criticised the #Metoo movement as a puritan backlash? Their viewpoint, expressed in a letter to Le Monde, is little different to the one expressed by their president in November, when Emmanuel Macron spoke out against sexual violence and harassment but warned against a culture of ‘denunciation’ where ‘each relationship between men and women is suspicious.’ In reminding France that they are ‘not a puritan society,’ Mr. Macron was tacitly drawing comparisons with the Anglo-Saxon world, long seen by the French (and other Latin countries) as prudish in sexual relations. Macron was subsequently criticised by some French

Laurent Wauquiez has done the easy part. It was never seriously in doubt that the 42-year-old was going to win last night’s contest to elect the new leader of Les Républicains, a position vacated by François Fillon after his humiliating presidential campaign in May. But now for the real test: challenging the hegemony of Emmanuel Macron. In the six months since he became the youngest president of the 5th Republic, the 39-year-old Macron has invaded centre-right territory. Not only that but he’s made off with several high-profile Républicains, including Prime Minister Édouard Philippe and Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire. An opinion poll last month revealed that his economic reforms have made him

Six months into his presidency, Emmanuel Macron looks untouchable. He has conquered the unions, and his political opponents are a shambles – none more so than the Socialists. Just how divided they are was demonstrated earlier this month when a vicious war of words erupted within the French left. The cause was Islam, an issue that has been agitating Socialists for decades. When the first Socialist president of the Fifth Republic, François Mitterrand, was elected in 1981, his government was initially a friend of Islam. As the eighties wore on though, some on the left became alarmed at the demands being made of the Republic: prayer rooms in factories and the right to pray

One of the must-have applications for smartphones in France is called C’est la Grève, which helpfully shows all the strikes ongoing at the moment, and those to come, with useful regional breakdowns. It’s indispensable for le planning and proof that French developers understand how to tailor digital products to local market demands. At the moment at the top of the list on my C’est la Grève app is a national and general strike this Thursday, which promises to be a key moment in what looks like an increasingly desperate effort to bring down Jupiter, Emmanuel Macron, president of the republic. The French left, when they are not ripping each other to