Harrison Stetler is a freelance journalist and teacher based in Paris.
Hungary’s hard-right premier Viktor Orbán is no longer in power. But he’s getting a belated victory as activist Rexhino Abazaj, known as Gino, is being extradited for trial over an alleged attack on fascists in Budapest.
The Trump administration wants a new sphere of influence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. US businesses are already rushing in, but many locals insist their mineral wealth should be for the Congolese themselves.
A new bill in France would criminalize slogans said to call for the destruction of Israel. In the name of combating antisemitism, establishment political forces want to muzzle criticism of Israel’s apartheid order.
First-round results suggest the French left can hold its ground in this month’s local elections. This positive outcome comes despite a campaign defined by an acrimonious civil war between the center-left establishment and France Insoumise.
French far-right activist Quentin Deranque has died from injuries sustained in a street battle with anti-fascist activists. Conservative media is using his death to whip up a moral panic about France Insoumise, painting it as a violent insurgent threat.
Billionaire Vincent Bolloré is known for his use of his media empire to promote Islamophobic pundits in France. Now the corporation he controls is buying up TV broadcasting and film across Africa.
Emmanuel Macron has been a president for the rich, but his faltering support has also left big business unsure if it can rely on his party. For many French capitalists, the answer is to build up ties with Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National.
France’s new prime minister has resisted calls to suspend Emmanuel Macron’s 2023 pension reform. While left-wing opposition parties want to undo Macron’s agenda, the president is defending his attacks on welfare as a prized legacy.
Crime in France has been on the decline for decades, especially among minors. But a moral panic about wayward youth is feeding legislation designed to jail more young offenders.
With Europe in ruins in 1945, Bertolt Brecht wrote that war “has been discredited for some time to come.” That period seems to be meeting its end, as European states push a new era of rearmament.
After raising the pension age and cutting taxes on the rich, now Emmanuel Macron’s government wants to scrap the Easter Monday and VE Day bank holidays. The plan is sure to face stiff resistance, with French workers unwilling to swallow further austerity.
As Paris’s deputy mayor, Ian Brossat massively expanded the French capital’s public housing stock. He spoke to Jacobin about the left-wing city hall’s record and what lessons it might have for Zohran Mamdani in New York.
One year since the New Popular Front won a surprise election victory, France’s left looks more divided than ever. This month’s Socialist congress showed how much the party is at loggerheads with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise.
Emmanuel Macron’s government is calling for a ban on one of France’s largest Palestine solidarity campaigns. The proposal is repression of free speech — and makes a mockery of Macron’s attempt to sound more critical of Israeli crimes.
The European Union has reimposed tight limits on states’ budget deficits — but with exemptions for military spending. After years of claims that austerity was over, we’re now seeing it used selectively to put limits on democratic choice.
A stabbing at a southern French mosque last Friday sparked terror and protest among France’s Muslims. Yet many top politicians refuse to speak of “Islamophobia,” instead leaning into far-right narratives of the Islamic danger to France.
Europe’s wealthiest individual, Bernard Arnault, is head of luxury goods empire LVMH — and has a lot to lose from a spiraling global trade war. His reported direct line to the Trump administration shows how the superrich are working to defend their billions.
French premier François Bayrou survived a confidence vote in February after promising fresh talks over pension age rise. But no change has been forthcoming — and calls for increased defense spending are pressuring pensions even further.
The pending deportation of Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil has also had echoes in France. Both establishment and far-right politicians are calling for Rima Hassan, a French Palestinian member of the European Parliament, to be stripped of her citizenship.
Dissatisfaction at established green parties and environmental NGOs has fed the rise of more confrontational forms of activism. The task can’t just be to raise awareness but to mobilize millions of people in fighting for their own interests.