A series of short posts highlighting interesting points arising during the final countdown to the French presidential election. (I) – Storm in a “Whirlpool” It’s what we call “l’entre deux tours” (between the two rounds) of the French presidential election. And I can just sit back behind my computer and relax. All I […]
Democracy
Am I Dreaming, Or Is Turkey About To Leave The EU?
If I talked to you about a country that just had a dubiously run referendum, the result of which was so close, as to be invalid for such a huge constitutional change, you would probably be thinking of Turkey. If I then told you that the leader of this country will organise elections with the […]
France Can Accept The Truth, But Cannot Stand The Lies
Mes enfants, it’s fast approaching squeaky bum time in France, with the first round of the 2017 presidential election due on the 23rd April. The political situation in France is, as I see it, similar to that of 2002, when far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of present-day Marine, reached the second round to everybody’s […]
Read All About It: “In The Media We Trust?”
The British Press: Responsible but not guilty? When the offices of the French satirical journal Charlie Hebdo were gruesomely attacked in January 2015, the world was shocked, and rightly so. The attack focused on the press, one of the most sacred institutions of our democracies. The terrorists also challenged something that most of us […]
Democracy Menaced by…Democracy
It’s ironic that former prime minister David Cameron put forward a referendum on Europe that now threatens the very nature of the parliamentary democracy that let him propose it in the first place. Of course, whether Cameron had any choice in the matter remains subject for debate. But the fact of the matter is that […]
Politicians Have Taken the UK to the Brink of Extremism
Having left the UK in 1984, I am beginning to wonder if my motherland is not the outward looking and relaxed land that I thought it was. I love the UK, don’t get me wrong. I can assure you that, on the 24th June, I was one of the most upset persons in the EU, […]