James Tidmarsh is an international lawyer based in Paris. His law firm specialises in complex international commercial litigation and arbitration.
It remains to be seen whether Trump’s ceasefire between Iran and Israel will hold, but on the other side of the world he has showcased his deal-making prowess in a very different conflict. In a few days, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo are set to sign a peace agreement, under US auspices, to
An imam at the Grand Mosque of Massy, just outside Paris, has threatened to issue a fatwa against former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, head of Macron’s party Renaissance, for his proposal to ban the hijab for girls under 15. In a video that has gone viral in France, the imam declared that Attal is ‘pushing
The French government is preparing to ban all screen time for children under the age of three. The measure, announced by the Minister of Labour, Health, Solidarity and Families, Catherine Vautrin, will form part of a broader national plan to combat screen use among the very young. Due to be launched in the autumn, the
Faced with a cost-of-living crisis, rising delinquency, failing public services, and riots in the suburbs, the French government has finally sprung into action – it’s banning smoking outdoors. Not entirely, of course, just in places where children might be. The new rules, coming into force in July, prohibit lighting up in any space ‘frequented by
Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, is being lined up for one of the world’s most powerful humanitarian jobs: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. With Emmanuel Macron’s backing, she hopes to swap the Hôtel de Ville in Paris for Geneva, taking charge of a $10 billion global operation that defines who counts as stateless,
A taxi drivers’ strike has plunged Paris, Marseille, and other big cities into chaos. Approximately 5,000 taxi drivers have taken to the streets, blocking motorways, torching pallets, and clashing violently with police. On Boulevard Raspail in Paris, police repeatedly confronted protestors with clouds of tear gas. Airports and train stations have been blockaded by angry
Brussels makes one thing better than anywhere else: regulation. Reporting duties, due diligence checks, ESG disclosures, and endless frameworks for climate and labour compliance – if it can be mandated, Brussels has a directive for it. Now Brussels has outdone itself with a directive that makes companies legally liable for the behaviour of every entity in
Bruno Retailleau has done something nobody expected. He has made himself the most serious contender for the French presidency, not by campaigning, but by governing. In a government few thought would last, under a president widely seen as disengaged and more focused on foreign stages than domestic affairs, Retailleau has taken the hardest job in
France’s interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, and his party Les Républicains (LR) are moving to end the decades-long monopoly on providing legal advice held by left-leaning NGOs inside migrant detention centres. A new Senate bill seeks to strip NGOs such as Cimade and France terre d’asile of their exclusive role providing legal assistance to undocumented migrants awaiting expulsion. In
Emmanuel Macron turned this week to France’s shadowy Freemasons for support. In a speech delivered to the secretive Grande Loge de France, he asked for their help to defend the Republic’s core values, and urged them to stand up to extremes, by which he means Le Pen’s National Rally. Macron needs to stabilise the political
Bruno Retailleau, the hardline French Minister of the Interior, has issued a confidential circular to regional prefects with a simple instruction: tighten the rules on naturalisation. For decades, France has handed out its passport to people who may speak French, but have little understanding of French history or values, and, in some cases, entered the
A controversial and wildly popular right-wing television star says that he orchestrated a ‘prank’ that he was about to jump into the French presidential race. Cyril Hanouna is a foul-mouthed and hugely influential television star. His politics are messy, his delivery erratic, but he has a vast audience and momentum. He’s anti-woke and talks a
Doctors are sounding the alarm. Across France patients are unable to get appointments and wait times in hospital emergency departments have been known to stretch to more than two days. In Nantes, such was the backlog that four people died in emergency rooms over just a three-week period while waiting to be admitted. This is
Cardinal Robert Sarah from Guinea in West Africa has been named among the potential successors to Pope Francis and the prospect is sending a jolt through the French establishment. He has accused the West of betraying its Christian roots and described mass migration as a form of ‘self destruction’. He has spoken of immigration as
Dog theft in France is soaring. Animal protection groups estimate that up to 70,000 dogs are stolen each year – nearly 200 a day. The scale of the problem is staggering, and it’s getting worse. Small, high-value breeds are the main targets. French Bulldogs, Pugs, Chihuahuas and Siberian Huskies are among the most frequently stolen.
Donald Trump has opened a new front in his trade war with China, deploying a family confidant to Kinshasa to challenge Beijing’s control of critical minerals. Almost unnoticed amid the tariff battles, Trump is working to reclaim the mineral supply chains that power the modern world – starting in the Democratic Republic of Congo at
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,
