Could the Chinese embassy be an opportunity for Britain?
Keir Starmer has formally approved the largest Chinese embassy ever built in Europe. The chosen site, Royal Mint Court, opposite…
France’s bistros are dying
Emmanuel Macron says France’s traditional bistros should be granted Unesco world heritage status. Speaking at the Élysée this week, the…
Trump’s Greenland grab would expose Europe’s ultimate weakness
As Donald Trump weighs up taking control of Greenland, Britain and the EU has fallen back on a familiar strategy:…
The New Year’s Eve fire shattered the myth of Swiss invulnerability
This was not supposed to happen in Switzerland. In a country where disasters are meant to be engineered out, risk…
France is becoming used to gratuitous violence
France seems to be witnessing more gratuitous attacks and stabbings. On Boxing Day afternoon, in the middle of central Paris,…
Paris is a city afraid
The New Year’s Eve concert on the Champs Élysées has been cancelled for security reasons. Paris was supposed to host…
Violence is being normalised against the National Rally
Jordan Bardella has been physically attacked twice over the past five days. Flour was thrown over him at an agricultural…
The report that lays bare France’s Islamist networks
Bruno Retailleau, France’s former interior minister, has with his Senate group just published the toughest report on Islamism in a…
France’s integration nightmare
France has spent decades telling itself the same comforting story: that the children and grandchildren of Muslim immigrants would become…
Why Trump is freezing out Five Eyes allies
The most powerful intelligence alliance in the world is breaking up. In January, Donald Trump restricted intelligence-sharing on Russia and…
The fall of Europe’s public service broadcasters
Europe’s public broadcasters were created to stop propaganda. Born in the wreckage of war to protect democracy from lies, they…
The French state is ashamed of its rose queens
Every summer in small French towns from Créon in the Gironde to Salency in the Oise, a young woman dressed…
The tragedy of the Shein takeover of Paris
The most glamorous department store in Paris, the BHV Marais, a vast art deco landmark stretching along Rue de Rivoli…
Britain’s trains are dangerously exposed
Europe has seen this nightmare before. On 21 August 2015, a gunman armed with an AK-47-style assault rifle, a pistol…
Macron has declared war on free speech
Emmanuel Macron says Europeans should stop relying on social media for their news and turn back to traditional public media.…
Should mocking Brigitte Macron be a crime?
Ten people have gone on trial in Paris accused of harassing France’s First Lady, Brigitte Macron, online. The defendants, eight men…
The Louvre heist shames France
Thieves broke into the Louvre in Paris shortly after it opened on Sunday morning and stole nine invaluable relics from France’s crown…
Macron survives again – but at what cost?
Sébastien Lecornu’s government has survived a no-confidence vote – but only because Emmanuel Macron shelved the pension reform that once…
Macron has to choose: humiliation or defeat?
Emmanuel Macron’s presidency is imploding, squeezed between enemies he can no longer outmanoeuvre. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and Jean-Luc…
In reappointing Lecornu, Macron is clinging to power
Emmanuel Macron has reappointed Sébastien Lecornu as prime minister, a loyalist whose government collapsed in mere weeks, and whose resignation…
Could Marine Le Pen save Macron’s presidency?
Emmanuel Macron is cornered, his presidency unravelling under relentless pressure. From left and right, there are demands to dissolve the…
How the judiciary took down Nicolas Sarkozy
A Paris court has sentenced France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy to five years, three of which must be served behind…
French town halls are weaponising the Palestinian flag
As Emmanuel Macron took to the global stage to recognise Palestine at the UN, over 80 defiant left-wing mayors back…
Sébastien Lecornu is Macron’s last hope
Emmanuel Macron has named Sébastien Lecornu, a loyal confidant, as France’s new prime minister after François Bayrou’s resignation. At 39,…
Marine Le Pen is calling the shots now
Emmanuel Macron projects authority, but he’s trapped. After the collapse of François Bayrou’s government yesterday evening, Macron faces a divided…
