Both Marine Le Pen and her niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen soared to surprisingly easy first-round victories. Read more from The Local here: One is a pragmatist: a 47-year-old lawyer by training who has steered France’s far-right National Front (FN) from pariah status to mainstream. The other is an ideologue: her 25-year-old niece, a Roman Catholic traditionalist whose easy […]
Europe “Facing Its Destiny”
France’s hardline PM Manuel Valls is supervising a nationwide crackdown featuring emergency measures that allow police to act without fear of judicial oversight. So far a countrywide sweep has produced over 1,000 searches and the seizure of over 200 weapons. It is “tough- talking” PM Valls and not President Francois Hollande who is orchestrating the French […]
Kurds Defeat ISIS on the Ground
Bernard-Henri Lévy is one of France’s most famed philosophers, a journalist, and a bestselling writer. Here he discusses ISIS and how the Kurds have “routed IS’s rabble army without a fight. … the IS hordes are much braver when blowing the heads off defenseless young Parisians than when facing real soldiers of freedom.” The international […]
Paris Reality
“Stay out of the area around the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris.” This explicit warning was given to Debbie and me by a local French friend years ago before our initial trip to Paris. It has been reported that on the evening of 13 November there were three suicide bombings […]
“Islamic Invasion of Europe”
Reuters reports: Tens of thousands of people, many fleeing war and Islamic State in Syria, are trying to get to Germany where Merkel has said they will be allowed to stay. Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders called the wave of refugees pushing into Europe an “Islamic invasion,” [he continued] “Masses of young men in their […]
Greek Myths
Greece wants to be prosperous without being competitive. It wants to run a five-star welfare state with a two-star economy; modernity without efficiency or transparency; wealth without work. Greece wants control over its own destiny—but it also wants someone else to pick up the check. In what the WSJ’s Bret Stephens calls a flight from […]
Scottish Labor Party Massacre
Daniel Larison explains in the American Conservative that the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) may grab every seat in the House of Commons in next week’s election. In the span of just five years, the Labour Party has gone from dominating Scotland in national elections to becoming a footnote. The rot may have set in long […]
Germany Halts Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia
Deutsche Welle breaks news that Angela Merkel has decided that a recent vote by 78% of Germans to stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia was enough to convince her. Arms sales to Saudi Arabia will be halted. DW reported that Saudi Arabia paid Germany $400 million for weapons in 2013. From DW: Germany’s national security council, […]
Trading the Renminbi (RNB) in Switzerland
Dateline Switzerland: A new renminbi trading hub will be established in Zurich, Switzerland, giving Swiss traders the ability to make and clear direct trades with Chinese traders. The deal follows shortly after a Free Trade Agreement was signed by the two countries in 2014. Swissinfo writes: The agreement suggests that a Chinese commercial bank may also […]
Eurosceptic “Earthquake”
Democrats as well as Republicans in Washington had better be listening. It is not only the Europeans who are fed up with deaf, entrenched politicians. A worldwide revolt is in full force, and Americans will have an opportunity to speak up and clean house this fall. BBC reports on the earthquake in Europe. Eurosceptic and […]