Pariscope

Les grandes vacances, the long summer holidays in France, are the last moment of respite before a roller-coaster four-round election cycle.

Europe must finally accept that trade disruption is becoming the norm rather than the exception. The Third Gulf War is only the latest reminder.

Without their common currency, EU member states would have struggled to absorb the economic shock of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. 

Vladimir Putin’s ill-judged war against Ukraine has weakened Russia—turning it into a junior partner of China and triggering Europe’s rearmament. Trump’s frontal assault on European democracy will rebound against the United States in a similar way.

It’s not only EU policies—from trade to defense—that are becoming more Gaullist. European voters’ feelings toward the EU are also becoming more French.

Geography and economics mean that even under a President Marine Le Pen, France could not walk away from European and German security.

Germany’s incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz shares many of French President Emmanuel Macron’s talents, but also many of his faults.

Europe’s days as the happy junior partner of the US empire are gone. The time has come to build a sovereign Europe.

Extending France’s nuclear umbrella to the whole of Europe is an old idea which time has come.

Migration statistics have been low for decades, yet French politicians continue to fret about the country being taken over by foreigners. That is because rallying against migration is a way for the far-right to mobilize voters against France’s non-white and Muslim population.

The far right and the far left want to throw France into chaos to force President Emmanuel Macron to resign. But they are unlikely to get their way, at least for now.

President Emmanuel Macron is installing the first government dependent on the far-right in France’s post-war history. But paradoxically, the country may take a step toward ending the risk of a Le Pen power grab.