Category: International Chronicles

On 30 July 2020, the Council of the European Union (EU) adopted sanctions - a travel ban and assets freeze - against individuals and state bodies from Russia, China and North Korea who have engaged in cyber attacks against European companies or institutes. In theory, such a decision is welcome. This is the first time … Lire la suite de The Unfortunate Mania for International Sanctions

In Brussels, on 21 July 2020, after long and hard negotiations, the leaders of the European Union (EU) Member States adopted an economic recovery plan unprecedented in the history of the old continent. Based, for the first time, on common debt, it provides for €750 billion in loans and grants to EU economies. The European … Lire la suite de The Green Europe of Teddy Bears

Xi Jinping, president for life of the People's Republic of China, is a strategist. He acts with a long time horizon. His supreme goal is to place his country in first place in the world by 2049, in order to celebrate with dignity the hundredth anniversary of the capture of the Middle Kingdom by the … Lire la suite de The Sino-Iranian alliance, a major turning point

Our armed forces are in the spotlight this July 14, 2020, as they march through the centre of Paris. They are the only European forces to be fighting.  More than 5,000 French soldiers are engaged in Operation Barkhane, which, since 2014, seeks to eradicate armed jihadist groups in the Sahel. They are destabilising three former … Lire la suite de The French army; to do what?

On July 5, 2020, the day after the Americans celebrated the 224th anniversary of their declaration of independence, a small, excited crowd in Baltimore toppled a statue of Christopher Columbus. What did these activists reproach the Genoese navigator for? His courage? His audacity? His vision? His taste for study? His entrepreneurial spirit? Probably not. It … Lire la suite de Should we rename Washington DC?

The Franco-Russian dialogue "of trust and security", as the Elysée Palace calls it, was relaunched on 26 June 2020 by a video-conference summit between Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron. This dialogue was initiated by the French President when he invited his Russian counterpart to Brégançon on 19 August 2019. The Head of State decided to … Lire la suite de A window of opportunity with Russia

Almost a generation has passed since the Islamist attacks of 11 September 2001 in New York and Washington. At the time, because of a comparable number of American victims, analysts around the world compared this attack to that of 7 December 1941 at Pearl Harbour. But it took the United States less than four years … Lire la suite de Islamism is spreading around the world

  Twenty years ago, the Chinese still admired French industry. They envied us for our 4 A's. Alstom, Alcatel, Airbus, Areva. Today, they only envy us one A. It's Airbus, from which they're trying to extract technological secrets by any means possible. Only a generation ago, Alcatel was the world's most successful telecommunications company. It … Lire la suite de We need an industrial strategy

    Created by Canadian Finance Minister Paul Martin in 1999 to bring together finance ministers from the world's top 20 economies, expanded by President Sarkozy in 2008 to include heads of state and government, the G-20 is a useful institution. It is an instrument that can help to heal or even anticipate global financial … Lire la suite de The four winners of the Osaka G-20

On June 26, 2019, in a welcome historical coincidence, the two leaders most capable of mediating between the US and Iran will meet face-to-face in Tokyo to put an end to the current dangerous escalation that risks setting the Middle East on fire. Emmanuel Macron, on an official visit to Japan, will have plenty of … Lire la suite de Iran-USA: Macron and Abe must act, quickly!