This year’s presidential campaign has thus far generated little excitement, but behind the scenes a remarkable party realignment seems to be well under way. This was underscored by three events […]

The results of the People’s Primary were announced yesterday on a platform full of young activists, none of whom seemed to be more than 30 years old: “Never trust anyone […]

Valérie Pécresse reportedly intends to devote the beginning of her campaign to “le régalien“: “Il ne faut pas lâcher cette thématique, au moins jusqu’à fin janvier, insiste le député Eric Pauget. Son […]

A new poll sheds light on the Pécresse electorate. It is essentially the Fillon electorate–older, more likely to be retired, more Catholic, and wealthier than the average voter–augmented by a […]

Just what the left needs: another presidential candidate. “Squabble among yourselves; leave me out of it,” said Jean-Luc Mélenchon. One can understand his frustration. Meanwhile, the Macroniste camp called attention […]

As I predicted in my previous post, Valérie Pécresse has obtained a significant “post-convention bounce,” while Éric Zemmour has slumped. A new IFOP poll has Macron at 25% and Pécresse […]

Anyone who follows French presidential elections knows that there is a regular pattern to insurgent candidacies. The first movement is triumphal and allegro. The crescendos build as the novel candidate […]

Renaud Muselier, the president of PACA, has quit Les Républicains. The reason: he believes that the party he helped to found has erased the line that used to divide it […]

The Financial Times has an article today on the replacement of Hervé Gattegno as editor of the Journal du Dimanche and Paris Match, allegedly at the behest of the owner of both […]

Ipsos, CEVIPOF, the Fondation Jean Jaurès, and Le Monde have combined to produce the clearest snapshot to date of the state of the French electorate in advance of the 2022 […]

The French party system, already fractured beyond recognition, has disintegrated even more in recent weeks. True, the Greens now have a candidate, Yannick Jadot, behind whom they have nominally united […]

The 2021 regionals are history. What to make of the results? First, the vast majority of voters continued to abstain. Second, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National suffered a severe setback. […]

The Guardian asked me to comment on last Sunday’s election. You can read the article here. Of course, the RN could still take PACA next Sunday, but the idea that […]

The headline that emerges from the first round of this year’s regional elections is that, once again, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National did not achieve the gains anticipated by many […]

As Macron’s government continues its crusade against “Islamo-leftism” in France’s universities—led by ministers Frédérique Vidal and Jean-Michel Blanquer—academics speak out against what they see as an assault against academic freedom […]

With the 2022 presidential election looming in the middle distance, it seems that everyone in France with the slightest modicum of presidential ambition is launching a trial balloon lately. The […]

Back in the fall of 2020, as the post-summer threats of Covid-19 were doing little to assuage the anxieties of the upcoming American presidential election, I received a message from […]

‘Tis the weeks after Christmas, in the year before the next presidential election, and ambitions are stirring throughout France and Navarre. Le Monde dutifully warns that the French left is in […]

Si Alexis de Tocqueville rendait à nouveau visite aux Etats-Unis aujourd’hui, il serait inquiet pour le sort de leur démocratie, avancent Aurelian Craiutu, contributeur à La revue Tocqueville, et Sheldon […]

Alors que les manifestations et les révoltes se multiplient au niveau mondial depuis deux ans, notre stagiaire Justin Saint-Loubert-Bié a interviewé Alain Bertho, professeur d’anthropologie à l’Université de Paris 8 […]

Yes, the Greens did very well in yesterday’s Covid-delayed second round of municipal elections. They captured some major prizes: Lyon, Marseille, Strasbourg, and, most surprisingly, Bordeaux. They retained Grenoble. They […]

Like I assume many are feeling these days, I’ve been somewhat at a loss to write about the Covid-19 crisis and what it might mean for contemporary democratic societies. This […]

  I staffed the polls as a volunteer Election Officer because I wanted to see democracy in action. Instead, I got an intimate understanding of one of its greatest failures. […]

Jacobin asked me to write a short article in response to the Florida Supreme Court’s decision that a 2018 constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to formerly incarcerated people does not apply […]

Italy voted for the European Parliament on Sunday, and out of the 28 countries that took part in this election, its polls were open the longest. Fears of a further […]

The EP election results in Hungary are an expression of three axes of current Hungarian political life. First, there is the tacit acceptance, if not clear-eyed approval, among many segments […]

Slowly but steadily, European politics is Europeanizing. While the last round of European elections seemed addled by disputes over the size of bananas and the color of passports, as the […]

This year’s European Union elections are arousing even less interest than usual in France. It’s not hard to understand why. European elections are always a referendum on the sitting president, […]

In December 2017, Austria got its new government, a coalition between the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), headed by the charismatic 31-year-old college dropout Sebastian Kurz, the world’s youngest head […]

“When France sneezes, Europe catches cold”: in these days, Count Metternich’s famous quip could arguably be extended to nearly all European democracies, whose precarious health reverberates on the whole Continent. […]

Gilles Perret has a new documentary out this week based on footage of Jean-Luc Mélenchon during his 2017 presidential campaign. The film, L’insoumis, has been predictably praised to high heavens as […]

  It’s a year and a half before the European elections of May 2019, which will be the voters’ first turn to give a verdict on the Macron presidency at […]