Art Goldhammer’s Blog

As the United States devolves into kakistocracy and Kiev trembles under the threat of massive Russian retaliation for the first use of long-range American and British missiles against Russian territory, […]

The circus is over, France has a government, and the government has presented its budget. It is a budget of harsh austerity, which seeks to cut expenditure by 80 billion […]

The French left is now doomed to opposition for the foreseeable future. This is perhaps not the worst place to be, given the fractious nature of the new minority-majority, which […]

Yes, indeed, the process of nominating a prime minister in France has been a rollicking circus worthy of Barnum and Bailey, and the nomination this morning of Michel Barnier therefore […]

The “Olympic truce” did nothing to clarify the French political situation. Now that President Macron has definitively rejected the New Popular Front’s prime minister-designate, Lucie Castets, an epidemic of bad […]

Édouard Philippe announced yesterday that he is running for president, although the election is still almost three years away. Or is it? As the seriousness of the current political impasse […]

Yaël Braun-Pivet has been reelected president of the National Assembly, narrowly edging out the NFP candidate André Chassaigne with the help of votes from the newly rebaptized Droite Républicaine, ex-LR. […]

The New Popular Front briefly reinvigorated the left with enthusiasm for the idea of stopping the radical right in its tracks and, with luck, achieving major social advances, including a […]

The Socialists, Greens, and Communists have agreed to propose Laurence Tubiana as the NFP’s candidate for prime minister, but LFI has rejected the proposal as “not serious.” On the contrary, […]

Blocages is too mild a word for the paralysis that has gripped the French political class since last Sunday’s election. It’s not just the tripartite division of the National Assembly that […]

The New Popular Front seems well on the way to following the old Nupes into oblivion. The four parties have been unable to agree on the name of a future […]

Yesterday was a day full of revelations. First, we learned that Jordan Bardella, deprived of the chance to become France’s next prime minister, will instead become the president of Patriots […]

What is one to make of all the posturing among the deputies newly elected to la Chambre introuvable? The Mélenchonistes look like amateur poker players going all in on a pair of […]

My reaction to the stunning election results is now up at The New Republic. Thanks for reading.

No, I haven’t been stunned into silence by yesterday’s amazing and worrisome result. I’ve written an article for The New Republic: here’s the link. In the meantime, I want to […]

This electoral sequence certainly has not provided the “clarification” President Macron hoped for when he dissolved the National Assembly, but it has cleared up a few things on the left. […]

The outcome of Sunday’s second round remains unpredictable. The désistements have made it even more improbable that the RN will win an absolute majority … unless, of course, voters decide not to […]

This morning on France Inter, Marine Le Pen stated in no uncertain terms that Jordan Bardella would become prime minister only if the RN wins an absolute majority: “Why take […]

It’s the morning after the election, but the dust has only partially settled. Even with the rapid désistements of candidates willing to abide by traditional “republican discipline,” the ultimate outcome is not […]

Emmanuel Macron, who may have imagined himself in de Gaulle’s shoes when he dissolved the National Assembly, might consider now coming before the French and announcing, “Je ne vous ai […]

Still reeling from Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in last night’s US presidential debate, I awoke this morning to an email from a Belgian friend with a link to the latest […]

In its successful effort to de-demonize itself, the RN has certainly benefited from the comparison with Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia in Italy. Like the RN, the FdI is a party […]

It’s hard to escape the impression that the New Popular Front coalesced around a name more than anything else. This was François Ruffin’s stroke of genius: to substitute a phantasmagorical […]

Upon dissolving the parliament the president said that it would lead to “clarification” of the political landscape: “The masks will fall,” he added. But clarity remains elusive. Indeed, the dissembling, […]

Is the center making a comeback? Harris is projecting the RN to win 220-250 seats, the New Popular Front 135-165, and Renaissance 125-130, half of its current 250 but still […]

A word much in the air these days is sursaut. It was a favorite of General de Gaulle’s, but it’s hard to translate into English. One dictionary suggests “surge,” which rarely […]

President Macron’s professed purpose in dissolving the National Assembly was to achieve a “clarification” of the political picture in France. People had supposedly become confused about what they were supporting. […]

Readers of a certain age may remember when the Communist Party of the Soviet Union described its inscrutable inner workings as “democratic centralism.” Within hours of its joyous birth, France’s […]

The Socialists, Communists, Greens, France Insoumise (LFI), and Place Publique have reached an agreement on a new Popular Front and will present a single slate of candidates in the first […]

I have a new article up at The New Republic. (There’s a problem with this link, which should be fixed shortly, however.) Here are a few additional thoughts. In the […]

The result was no surprise. The response was. But it shouldn’t have been. The polls had predicted a landslide victory for Jordan Bardella and the Rassemblement National for months, and […]

Tony Barber of the Financial Times has kindly cited one of my posts here. Barber includes a recent poll of présidentiables ranked by favorability, which alarmingly places Le Pen and Bardella […]

Yes, I know, the next presidential election is still eons away, but le bal des prétendants was already well under way when the orchestra struck several false notes. First, it was revealed […]

Last week President Macron surprised everyone by suggesting that some European countries might send troops to Ukraine if necessary to prevent a Russian victory. Perhaps that’s putting what he said […]

Emmanuel Macron is putting the resistance fighter Missak Manouchian in the Pantheon but has disinvited the Rassemblement National from the ceremony. The RN intends to make its presence felt anyway […]

5. Politics In a broad survey piece like this, I can’t cover party politics across Europe in any detail. Even summarizing political developments in the countries I follow closely is […]

This is the fourth part of a series of posts on the state of the European Union. 4. The Environment Environmental concerns have transformed politics in Europe more profoundly than […]

3. Economy For most of its history, economic issues have dominated the politics of the European Union at both the national level and the European level. Unfortunately, those two debates–national […]

This is the second installment of a series of posts on the European Union, the first of which appeared here yesterday and dealt with security. Today’s topic is: Immigration European […]

Having been charged by The Tocqueville Review with the task of contributing a reflection on the state of the European Union as a prelude to the European parliamentary elections, I […]

In his inaugural speech to the National Assembly today, French prime minister Gabriel Attal used the word “rearmament” 14 times, “poverty” only once. He indicated that his government would be […]

France has a new prime minister but not yet a new government. Perhaps the delay is intended to wring the full benefit of Gabriel Attal’s popularity from his nomination before […]

Laurent Fabius, who presides over the Constitutional Council, presented that body’s ritual New Year’s wishes to President Macron today. Macron, who availed himself of the same day to jettison his […]

In next year’s European elections the French Left will be represented by no fewer than five political parties: La France Insoumise, the Socialists, the Communists, the Greens, and the Parti […]

For a change of pace, this post will consist of a book review. Cole Stangler, a French-American journalist who covers French labor and politics for a variety of publications, has […]

It’s almost indecent to talk about the disintegration of the French Left while the disintegration of the Middle East is ongoing. While it would be an exaggeration to say that […]

Continuing the theme of my previous post, “Staying in the Game,” I want to comment today on another of President Macron’s strategies for keeping the political debate centered on himself, […]

La rentrée politique has arrived. I hope you’ve all had an excellent summer. I thought I’d break my long silence by taking note of Emmanuel Macron’s effort to remain relevant […]

Bavure policière, the conventional journalistic euphemism for the unauthorized police violence that has so often triggered the kind of uncontrollable popular violence that France has witnessed for the past four […]

Emmanuel Macron has decided to honor the Resistance leader Missak Manouchian by placing his remains in the Panthéon. An Armenian immigrant, Manouchian led the FTP-MOI (Franc-Tireurs et Partisans de la […]

Michel Rocard was the father of the so-called Second Left and erstwhile hope of French social democracy. His once-bright star has all but faded today. The journalist Jean-Michel Djian recently […]

I’ve just returned from a couple of weeks in France. I am not carrying in my bags the outline of a latter-day “Retour de l’URSS.” I can’t claim that my […]

President Macron, France’s erstwhile Jupiter, has been on the road this past week flogging his wares like an old-time VRP (for those too young to remember: VRP = voyageur représentant […]

Contrary to my (low-confidence) expectations, the Conseil Constitutionnel approved the reform bill with only minor changes (removing sweeteners that had been added to mollify the opposition in full knowledge that […]

Yesterday President Macron celebrated his re-election victory in achieving pension reform. I almost said “re-election” because the speech laid out a program for the years ahead as if his presidency […]

Germans have never warmed to Emmanuel Macron, even in the early days when he was busily trying to patch up the Franco-German “couple.” But the couple now appears to be […]

Ivan Krastev has an interesting article in today’s FT (paywalled) in which he reflects on what he takes to be an overdramatization of the stakes of elections and/or reforms in […]

Escaping his troubles at home, Emmanuel Macron is visiting China. The visit has two distinct and some would say quite contradictory goals: on the one hand, France wants to do […]

The future of the pension reform bill remains in suspense for another week, until the Conseil Constitutionnel renders its decision on the provisions of the law itself as well as […]

I reflect on the current protests in historical context with historians Rafe Goldfarb and Antonio de Francesco on Emmanuel Laurentin’s radio broadcast/podcast Le Temps du Débat (April 3).

A TV station in Toronto invited me to opine on the resistance to French pension reform. I’m sure I managed to say enough to displease people on all sides.

Occasionally I write about matters other than French politics, so I’m taking the liberty of posting this recent review here. It discusses Chris Miller’s excellent book Chip War, and though […]

As he has done in previous regime crises, Emmanuel Macron is again promising a “new method” of governing. Unfortunately, nobody is listening, and a new “listening tour” is not likely […]

It came down to the wire, and in the end the president simply did not have the votes. Nor did he have enough arm-twisting clout to persuade the fence-sitters whose […]

Emmanuel Macron came to power as an ambitious young visionary who (rightly) divined a concentration of force in the center of the political spectrum–a force that supposedly relegated to the […]

Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National has stormed the French National Assembly with a politeness offensive, adopting unaccustomed decorum as a strategic weapon. Meanwhile, La France Insoumise, true to its moniker, […]

Today’s mobilization against the government pension reform proposal was massive: 1.2 to 2 million people in the streets, public transport disrupted, schools and factories closed, etc. But the demonstrations remained […]

My article on “The Democracy of the Spectacle” is freely available here. This is part of the Tocqueville Review‘s tribute to Olivier Zunz, with whom I collaborated on several Tocqueville […]

The evolving French Left has reached a curious juncture. Olivier Faure, who staked his and the Socialist Party’s future on a risky alliance with the mercurial Jean-Luc Mélenchon, appears to […]

So great is the presumed power of the French presidency that every mere mortal who has filled the post–sat in Jupiter’s seat, as it were–has left it diminished. A president […]

Pension reform: the perpetual big enchilada of French political life for the past 30 years. Yet another round was to have been the centerpiece of Macron’s second term, first scheduled […]

Les Républicains have chosen their new leader: Eric Ciotti. After Valérie Pécresse’s flameout in the presidential election, the choice was no doubt inevitable. It is nevertheless dismaying to have the […]

La France Insoumise awoke today to a new leadership, designated by itself without internal debate. Debates and votes are after all such messy affairs, and there’s always the danger that […]

Emmanuel Macron is back in the United States for his second state visit. This time there will be no presidential arm-wrestling or lint-picking, and the speculation will not focus on […]

Emmanuel Macron staked out a claim to the political center without ever calling it that. “Ni droite ni gauche” pointed to a centrist position but avoided any suggestion that it […]

The 2022 presidential election marked the end of France’s old party system. The former mainstream parties of the right and the left garnered less than 10 percent of the vote […]

The president finally reacted to the results of Sunday’s election. His speech was short and largely devoid of content. Although the posture was confident, the prescriptions were vague: “Ma seule […]

I’ve published an article in The American Prospect on the legislative elections.

Although the definitive results are not yet in, one thing is already clear: President Macron has suffered a major defeat, while Jean-Luc Mélenchon has fallen considerably short of the goal […]

Yesterday I wrote that a) la NUPES would not win a majority in the legislature but b) would win enough votes to deprive Macron of an absolute majority, and that […]

The rise of la NUPES has sharpened the generational divide in French politics.  Le Monde reports that an IPSOS-Sopra Steria poll conducted before the first round shows Macron’s Ensemble! taking […]

No, I’m not referring to the Boston Celtics. By “green machine” I mean the coalition of forces responsible for several important votes in the European Parliament today. MEPs rejected several […]

This year’s legislative campaign, which will culminate on Sunday in the first of two electoral rounds, is perhaps the strangest I have witnessed in more than half a century of […]

When you’re wrong, it’s best to fess up. I said that la NUPES would be lucky to get 100 seats. Current projections have the Mélenchonistas gaining 195-230 seats! Macron’s Ensemble […]

I’m in France for the first time in 2 1/2 years. I’ve spoken to many people in the past week who have tried to convince me that I’m underestimating the […]

Emmanuel Macron is firmly at the controls of the aircraft, but its destination remains unclear. After three weeks of flying in circles, the pilot-in-chief settled on a new government but […]

Elsewhere on this site you’ll find an excellent set of reviews of Martin Conway’s Western Europe’s Democratic Age: 1945-1968. Of the immediate postwar period Conway writes: But Communism no longer […]

L’unité fait la force, as the saying goes. Has Jean-Luc Mélenchon achieved the impossible, unifying the fractious French left as never before? Has he single-handedly revived the hope of a […]

The dust has barely settled from the presidential election, but the legislative campaign is in full flood, with rumors swirling everywhere in the accelerating currents. Macron has “put a target […]

There is no such thing as one-party democracy. Alternation in power must exist as a possibility. While Emmanuel Macron’s decisive victory on Sunday was unequivocally a victory for French democracy, […]

Here’s my article on the election results in The New Republic. Here are a few additional thoughts. The republican front, said to have collapsed, still exists and remains fairly robust. […]

In politics, they say, a week is a long time. Had I written this post a week or two ago, I would likely have entitled it “On the Brink” rather […]

I sum up the debate for The New Republic.

The much-awaited debate will take place tomorrow. The candidates have haggled over every aspect. By common agreement the studio will be kept at a chilly 19° C. to guard against […]

France Insoumise voters were asked to express their preference for the second round on the party Web site. 215,292 did so, and 37.65% said they would cast a blank protest […]

Jean-Luc Mélenchon is entitled to a little crowing. He outran his polls and improved his position slightly compared with 2017. But in negotiations with the Greens and Socialists over a […]

Athens put Socrates to death for leading its youth astray, and ever since some who aspire to the title “philosopher” have sought to demonstrate their worthiness to be Socrates’ successors […]

Most commentary on the election has concentrated on the personalities and policies of the candidates. What little attention has been devoted to deeper structural changes in French society has tended […]

I emerge briefly from behind the blog to discuss the election on Korean television.