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Harrison Stetler is a freelance journalist and teacher based in Paris.
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.
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.
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.
France’s Parti Socialiste abstained in a confidence vote this week, allowing Emmanuel Macron’s allies to push through an austerity budget. Even as the president’s popularity flounders, the establishment center left chose to prop up his rule.
During its genocidal campaign in Gaza, Israel has repeatedly flouted the rulings of international courts. While Western states indulge Israeli impunity, a coalition of states backed by left-wing parties is spearheading action to hold Israel to account.
France’s interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, was chosen as a sop to the far right — and now he is tightening rules on migrant regularization. Emmanuel Macron’s government is increasingly serving Marine Le Pen’s policy agenda before she even reaches power.
On Thursday, France’s Parti Socialiste refused to back a motion of no confidence in François Bayrou’s government. It sold out its left-wing allies for feeble concessions, renewing the party’s dismal record of tailing neoliberal centrists.
On Friday, veteran liberal François Bayrou was announced as Emmanuel Macron’s new prime minister. Macron has again formed a government without a majority in parliament — and its planned budget cuts seem likely to face fierce opposition.
Last week, France’s left-wing parties tabled the no-confidence vote that felled conservative premier Michel Barnier. Now the Parti Socialiste threatens to break from the left-wing alliance in favor of a coalition with Emmanuel Macron and the center right.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is embroiled in an embezzlement trial that could see her barred from public office. After long demanding such bans for corrupt politicians, she now casts herself as victim of a judicial conspiracy.
Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich, a self-proclaimed fascist, is set to appear at a fundraising gala in Paris on Wednesday. Authorities have refused calls to block his visit — even as they silence public displays of solidarity with Palestine.
Mario Draghi’s report on rebooting the European economy has excited supporters of a more integrated EU. The former central banker challenges past pro-austerity dogma — yet takes it for granted that scaled-up private corporations offer Europe’s path to success.
Now starting his 41st year in jail, Lebanese communist Georges Abdallah is Europe’s longest-held political prisoner. French authorities keep finding pretexts to deny his release, trampling on civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism.