In announcing the army will be mobilized in anticipation of yet another demonstration in Paris by yellow-vested protesters — a regular weekend occurrence since November — French president Emmanuel Macron appears to be playing double or nothing. If the strategy…
Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger famously asked, “Who do I call if I want to call Europe?” Since the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, that question has been unanswerable because Europe never spoke with one voice. For the last dozen…
The French scholar Patrice Gueniffey, a specialist in the French Revolution and the leading contemporary authority on the Napoleonic era, refers to Walter Bagehot on the two essential requirements of any regime, dignity and efficiency. Without an aura of dignity,…
Emmanuel Macron addressed a letter today to the French people, inviting them to participate over the next couple months in a national debate on broad themes of public policy. The first-term president, under pressure from a tax revolt that has…
In the thick of a demonstration in Paris protesting the unfairness of it all, a French professional boxer assaulted a cop and sent him to the hospital and thence on a fortnight’s sick leave. Demonstrations by men and women wearing…
When in France in November with other leaders to commemorate a century since the close of World War I, President Trump was treated crudely by Emmanuel Macron, the French president, who, in front of an entire assembly of world leaders,…
As Americans ponder the lessons of the year gone by, worry about why their clothes don’t fit, weigh the virtues of fresh water vs. rye whiskey, and compare the benefits of tiddlywinks and free-style swimming, it dawns upon large swathes…
The French are a nation of incorrigible, rebellious frondeurs who resent those in power, whoever they might be. Sometimes the animosity turns viciously violent, as during the Jacquerie uprising of 1358, when overtaxed peasants went on a rampage against the…
Until earlier this week, French citizens were tearing through the ancient streets and magnificent boulevards of Paris, setting fire to everything in sight; pouring manure on French national treasures and generally defacing any symbol of French greatness they could locate….