Macron should be a clever statesman and pardon Le Pen
Marine Le Pen’s conviction for embezzlement, coupled with the court’s imposition of a five-year ban on running for public office, matters well outside of France.
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Opinion
Latest reporting and analysis on opinion.
Ice-cold calm needed on tariffs and not journalists’ urge to report ‘war’
Perhaps the most sensible thing said in the hysterical particle-accelerator that was world opinion following President Trump’s announcements on tariffs came from…
Europe locked in past strategies while US makes radical break
Before the First World War, European countries decided what happened to the rest of the world.
How Europe is squeezing itself in a two-front war
In Europe, scary days are back again. The old continent is facing a two-front war, the most inconvenient position one can imagine.
EU pauses corporate reporting, worldwide companies not yet under Brussels’ thumb
On April 3, the European Parliament ratified a decision to stop the clock on scheduled corporate reporting and compliance requirements – most notably the Corporate…
Spain still scrabbling around for meaning and values in dust of Civil War secularism
The template for the conduct and outcome of all public controversy, both in Spain and elsewhere, should be the YouTube footage of the “notorious” kiss by the…
America’s Hemispheric Turn?
Donald Trump’s real foreign policy vision in his second term remains an intriguing puzzle.
US foreign policy? You have to wonder if America is even trying
Ah, the United States and foreign policy—a tale as old as time, or at least as old as Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points.
A history of French political convictions: lack of ethics or overheated politics?
The conviction for embezzlement of French Rassemblement National leader Marine Le Pen invites concern that the French are setting off down the same road of politicisation…
Unelected judge and prosecutor make Le Pen a martyr
How does this all end?
French judge dismantles democracy to ‘protect’ it from the will of the people
In the puppet comedy film Team America, the counter-terrorist protagonists defeat a group of Islamic terrorists in Paris, accidentally destroying the Eiffel Tower,…
Le Pen: the will of the people of France is now irrelevant
Liberals and judges everywhere will be rejoicing at the elimination of Marine Le Pen from the presidential race for the Élysée, the former because they will happily…
The EastMed Pipeline, Greece, Cyprus and Israel: do not let cowardice kill it again
The Eastern Mediterranean is at a crossroads, and the EastMed Pipeline - linking Greece, Cyprus, and Israel in a defiant energy pact - stands as a promise and a…
Trump knows what he’s doing, tariffs are a honeytrap to lure industries to the States
Is there any rhyme or reason to what seems like the latest episode of "Tariffs Gone Wild"?
Listen to Vance’s warning: why the cordon sanitaire belongs to the past
To prevent German citizens from fleeing the workers’ paradise in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the communists built a so-called ‘Anti-Fascist Protection…
It’s too early to jump to conclusions about US foreign policy
The advent of Donald Trump’s second presidency has brought a considerable level of disruption to US foreign policy in a very short space of time.
US says ‘No more money’, South Africa is a failed and racist government
President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio's expulsion this week from the United States of the South African ambassador, Ebrahim Rasool, is another delightful…
It was always just the US: Europe, a continent unwilling to prepare for war
Europe as a political, cultural and economic entity does not deserve to survive.
Are Europe and the US headed for a divorce? Or would that be folly?
If the United States and Europe were a married couple, you would probably say they are headed for a divorce.
Turkey’s turmoil and the taboo question: is Islam compatible with democracy?
Turkey’s democratic façade collapsed on March 19, when Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu - the West’s secular poster boy - was snatched from his bed in the middle…
Algeria tells France they are not taking back violent migrants and France is powerless
A fiery Western leader on immigration is desperate to deport a series of violent criminals southward to a country the West once had great influence over—but that…
No more soldiers: European big debt for defence, yet young men are vanishing
One of the biggest problems in today’s politics (at least in the West) is the tendency by politicians to compartmentalise everything.
Turkey and the EU’s defence dilemma: a partner too far?
Europe’s security mechanism is not at its best.
Lessons from Minsk II for the Ukraine peace talks
The road to peace in Ukraine is extremely difficult and perhaps also very long, despite president Trump’s initial hopes.
Where is democracy? Unelected establishment judges now stand against elected populists
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a right-populist walks into office. The unelected judiciary says, “We’re investigating you!”
Germany, better to dream of Bismarck, shake off the Greens and SPD
From all indications, the proposed fiscal agreement in Germany between the Christian Democrats (CDU-CSU) and the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens is an inadequate…
What can we learn if we listen to a Russian officer’s muscular call to arms?
The invasion of Kursk was a disaster, indeed remains a disaster as Ukrainian men continue to be ground down as I write these words.
Armies that do real fighting do not employ women as infantry or submariners
The recent inquest into the suicide of a young female soldier in the British Army nearly four years ago has generated vast amounts of adverse-publicity for the army.
Genocide in Syria wipes out the last surviving heirs of European civilisation
As the West postures as the global guardian of human rights and democracy, it turns a blind eye - or worse, lends direct support - to the ongoing ethnic cleansing…
EU defence proposal is just a debt-union, not a serious course correction
It is not entirely without irony that the “The Most Successful Peace Project in the History of Mankind” is currently planning the continent’s most ambitious…