Bayrou Peters Out, Villepin Starts Up
The Socialists have announced that they will file a censure motion against Prime Minister Bayrou. This was a demise foretold months ago when Bayrou first proposed the idea of a […]
Macron’s Gambit Accepted
I wrote about Putin’s willingness to discuss Ukraine with Macron on my Substack.
Lecornu Sauvé des Eaux, but Russia Submerges the West
Today the National Assembly passed the social security budget by the narrow majority of 247-234 with 93 abstentions. Sébastien Lecornu secured the abstention of most Greens by making a last-minute […]
The Prisoners’ Dilemmas
I make no pretense of attempting to describe the tortuous and tortured National Assembly “debate” over the budget. The whole exercise has been a case study in the weaknesses and […]
Les deuxième gauches
Raphaël Glucksmann has shown a bit of his hand. Having until now declined overtures from the Hollande wing of the Socialist Party, he finally gave in and appeared with the […]
Will They or Won’t They?
So there will be no Zucman tax, not even in watered-down form, but the principal questions remain: Will a budget be approved? Will the government fall to a censure vote? […]
Review of Brandon Bloch, Reinventing Protestant Germany: Religious Nationalists and the Contest for Post-Nazi Democracy
Reviewed by Philip Decker Brandon Bloch has written a superb new history of Germany’s twentieth century, told from the perspective of a large, heterogenous cast of Protestant theologians, intellectuals, judges, […]
Reprieve
Eventually, even the blind man can read the handwriting on the wall. Despite his stubbornness, Emmanuel Macron knows how to read, and recognizing that the end was nigh, he finally […]
If at first you don’t succeed …
Chers amis, my powers of punditry are exhausted. Why would Macron re-appoint Lecornu, who failed to form a government less than a week ago? Has Bruno Retailleau agreed this time […]
Regime Crisis?
Today, Édouard Philippe called on Emmanuel Macron to resign (after passage of a budget) and call an early presidential election, gladdening the heart of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who declared that LFI […]
Now what?
The Lecornu government is no more, only hours after being named. I will waste no words on what went wrong: Lecornu was doomed from the beginning, because neither he nor […]