Catégorie : International Chronicles

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!

  We've never seen this in Hong Kong before. Neither during the time of British colonization (1841-1997), nor in the current period of the 'One Country Two Systems' connection to China (HK with its own judicial, economic and political system; Beijing looking after defence and foreign affairs). The population took to the streets on a … Lire la suite de Xi was right to back down in Hong Kong

On June 6th 2019, celebrating the 74th anniversary of their landing in Normandy, the Great Western Allied Powers had invited Germany to the festivities. But no invitation had been sent to Moscow. Yet it was the Russian army that destroyed 80% of Hitler's divisions during the Second World War (with the support of Western equipment … Lire la suite de Does the West wish to offer up Russia to the Chinese?

On June 2nd, 2019, on an official trip to Switzerland, the US Secretary of State said that the United States was ready to talk to Iran "without preconditions". This is an important statement, capable of initiating a pathway to peace between the two most militarily powerful nations in the Persian Gulf. As absurd as it … Lire la suite de Iran-America: how to avoid war