On July 26, a coup deposed Niger’s democratically elected president, the seventh in the region in three years. The ongoing conflict threatens to divide the region between pro- and anti-Western factions, spreading the new cold war to Africa.
An open letter by retired generals warns French president Emmanuel Macron that unless he clamps down on anti-racist movements, the armed forces will step in to "restore order." In a country with a long history of military coups, the spread of far-right talking points is undermining democracy.
The rise of the far right in post-industrial France has led many to declare the end of the old class politics. For CGT union leader Philippe Martinez, the battle isn’t over — organized labor just needs to adapt to new forms of employment.
Just months after emergency room staff went on strike to protest their lack of resources, Paris’s hospitals are having to skimp on masks and thermometers. We spoke to frontline health workers about how they’re coping with the pandemic — and how years of underinvestment is making their job harder.
French presidential candidates are meant to have equal access to the airwaves. But the buildup to this month’s election instead shows how unaccountable billionaire media owners can set the political agenda — and promote astroturf far-right candidates.
In Sunday’s mayoral elections, a united slate of left-wingers and Greens is set to win France’s second-largest city for the first time in decades. Faced with this challenge, the conservative establishment has radicalized, accusing the broad left of planning a "Cuban-style putsch" on the streets of Marseille.
In Sunday’s election, France’s neoliberalized Socialist Party slumped to a pathetic 2 percent support. Yet the overall left-wing vote increased — all thanks to Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise, whose transformative program inspired millions.
Emmanuel Macron’s government is giving French police more powers to issue on-the-spot fines, without going to court. France’s justice system is less and less based on a presumption of innocence — and multicultural, working-class areas are being targeted most.
Philippe Rio from Grigny, south of Paris, has been voted the world’s best mayor. He told Jacobin about the local social programs that have made his Communist administration a global success story.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died last month, attempted to forge an alliance between neo-fascists, apologists for French colonialism, and neglected working-class communities. Today this coalition threatens the foundations of the Fifth Republic.
In a wide-ranging interview, novelist Rachel Kushner, author of Creation Lake, discusses the aftermath of the revolutionary ’60s, the allure and brutality of American individualism, and why liberals long for naively romantic depictions of radical politics.
France’s Parti Socialiste is on the rise ahead of the EU elections, under lead candidate Raphaël Glucksmann. He’s appealing to disappointed Macron voters — but his campaign is also squarely aimed at killing off the alliance of France’s left-wing parties.
Emmanuel Macron has appointed Michel Barnier as France’s prime minister, after securing Marine Le Pen’s agreement. The creation of a government reliant on her blessing is another step in the far right’s march toward power.
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.
In the 1960s, leftist filmmakers from France to Japan revolutionized the documentary. Anti-fascism was not just the heritage of past generations but a message carried forward by the avant-garde on-screen.
Two years since his fuel tax hike was sunk by the Yellow Vests protests, Emmanuel Macron’s new climate law again exhorts the French to show “willpower” in the fight to “make the world great again.” But the law does nothing to impose limits on the most environmentally damaging businesses — instead blaming climate change on citizens’ failure to alter their habits.
Palestinian feminist Mariam Abudaqa was on a speaking tour in France when Israel destroyed her home in Gaza. France’s government tried to expel her — but, Abudaqa tells Jacobin, she refuses to stop telling the truth about Israel’s crimes.
France’s neoliberal golden boy is now flirting with religious identity politics.
Marine Le Pen's National Front tries to sow the seeds of chaos to make their far-right rhetoric appear more sensible.
Eighty-three years ago today, the Nazis unleashed a vicious pogrom known as Kristallnacht, using as their pretext the assassination of a Nazi official in France. The assassin: a 17-year-old German-Polish Jewish boy named Herschel Grynszpan.