Professor John Keiger is the former research director of the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge.
Is Emmanuel Macron reaching his Liz Truss moment when financial markets finally determine his future? On 20 March Moody’s ratings agency strode into France’s explosive pensions reform turmoil. While keeping France’s rating at Aa2 ‘stable’ it nevertheless warned that President Macron’s constitutional sleight of hand denying the National Assembly a vote on the bill risked undermining
When silhouetted against the symbolism – as French media proudly insist – of King Charles choosing France for his first state visit at month’s end, this weekend is very much an Anglo-French affair. On Friday, Rishi Sunak and seven ministers visited Paris – a first for five frosty years – for a Franco-British summit with
On 22 March 1968 the slow burn that would eventually flare into France’s ‘May ‘68’ began. The radical student movement known as ‘22 March’, with Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Dany le Rouge) at its heart, was unaware its actions on this day would lead to riots and the eventual paralysis of the French state after workers joined
On 2 March in Gabon, West Africa, President Macron declared that ‘the days of France-Afrique are over’. Since the early nineteenth century the African continent has emblazoned France’s aspiration to international power status. Like any empire it provided natural resources. It also provided manpower. Unlike other imperial powers with surplus domestic populations to deploy, France’s demography was stagnant
The President of the United States of America flies into Poland this month. Not to Germany or France or even the UK. There is great symbolism in this gesture, which goes further than Washington merely showing solidarity to the front-line states in Russia’s war against Ukraine. It is emblematic of a trend which has seen
The end of the second world war saw the defeated aggressors Germany and Japan accept moral capitulation and begin new international lives as liberal democratic and largely pacifist states bent on cooperation not coercion. But over the last few years an increasingly unsettled international order has emerged to test the pacifism of the fourth and
Ever since at least the French revolution it has been in Britain’s strategic interest to ensure no single power or group of powers dominates the continent of Europe. Britain’s motives were always military and, as an international trading nation, commercial. Today the Russian invasion of Ukraine presents the UK with a strategic opportunity to stymie
The relationship entertained by French elites to their homeland is very different from their English counterparts. ‘England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality’, wrote George Orwell in 1945. That derisory sentiment continues today among Britain’s urban elites. French elites by contrast – though they can be highly
The corruption scandal embroiling the European parliament and the European Union’s institutions at the highest level is shaping up to be its biggest to date. Belgian police have arrested Eva Kaili, a vice-president of the parliament, and three others in an investigation into alleged bribes involving spectacular sums in cash, allegedly from Qatar, to influence EU
Guess who turned up in Bangkok this week at the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting? The forum, which includes the US, China, Australia, Japan, Russia, but not France, was visited by none other than President Macron. ‘You must be asking yourself what a French president is doing here’, he charmed in English. Macron claimed to
Some supporters of the EU might struggle with the concept, but Europe is about much more than just what unfolds in Brussels. The EU’s 27 states may be a large part of Europe, but the two are not coterminous. Nor, more importantly, do they all have the same interests. The newly created European Political Community
Since Brexit, Britain and France appear to have drifted apart. Leaders from both countries have engaged in an on-off war of words. But despite these political fractures, Britain and France have actually come to resemble each other more closely than ever. It is now difficult to differentiate the economic, financial, social and political conditions that exist on both sides of
The tribute paid by France to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has been heartfelt, fulsome and moving. French media across the board have paid generous homage, as though to one of their finest, to Britain’s longest serving monarch – surpassed in world history only by Louis XIV acceding as a babe-in-arms. This vicarious Panthéonisation was
It’s a platitude that France and Britain are rivals and have been for centuries. But, since the 1904 Entente Cordiale, the rivalry is more a question of competition than conflict. Always, in the darkest hour, each sided with the other, even if post-war they didn’t fully recognise the other’s contribution. Britain congratulated itself over the
Is ‘Le Bromance’ really back on? Boris Johnson suggested as much at the G7 summit in Bavaria this week, where he strolled arm-in-arm with Emmanuel Macron. Yet when one considers the breadth of subjects the two avoided in their discussions – no Northern Ireland Protocol, cross-Channel migration, or Aukus – it is hard to believe the basis of
The single headline across the front page of the centre-left daily Libération said it all: ‘La Gifle’. But much more than a slap in the face, Emmanuel Macron has taken a heavyweight sock in the jaw. With only 245 seats for his ‘Ensemble!’ grouping, the French president is a country mile from having a parliamentary
Emmanuel Macron should get a new historical advisor. He continues to repeat – this time at his Kyiv press conference on Thursday – that Russia must not be humiliated following its invasion and war against Ukraine. Politicians indiscriminately pluck at historical examples to justify controversial policies. For Macron, the aftermath of the First World War serves as
In the French presidential elections, and now in the legislatives that will close on Sunday evening, the one issue kept under the carpet is finance. Neither the centrist Macronista grouping ‘Ensemble!’, nor the far-left Corbynista-like Nupes coalition of Jean-Luc Mélenchon has updated the electorate on how their manifestos are to be funded. And yet over
A lot happened in France last night. After a lacklustre performance, long disillusioned supporters were unable to summon any enthusiasm for Paris Saint Germain football team’s French league championship success. Emmanuel Macron was re-elected French President beating Marine Le Pen 58.5 to 41.5 per cent and the official disco party celebration organised beneath the Eiffel Tower finished
It has been a truism since the nineteenth century that international affairs do not decide French elections. Yet last week, only three days into the run-off campaign, Marine Le Pen gave a press conference setting out her foreign and defence policy vision. At heart, it’s a classic Gaullist project. Even if she loses, it could
