Tag Archives: in-english

Is it possible to break out of the present three-tier democracy in France and more generally on a European and international scale, and rebuild a left-right divide centred on questions of redistribution and social inequality? This is the central issue of the current legislative elections in France. Let us first recall the contours of the three-tier democracy, as expressed in the first round of the presidential elections. If we add up the various candidates from the left-wing and ecological...

Let’s say it straight away: the agreement reached by the French left-wing parties under the label of the “New Popular Union” is excellent news for French and European democracy. Those who see in it the triumph of radicalism and extremism have clearly understood nothing of the evolution of capitalism and the social and environmental challenges we have been facing for several decades. In reality, if we look at things calmly, the transformation programme proposed in 2022 is rather less...

In the first round of the 2017 presidential election, four candidates had achieved between 20% and 24% of the vote: this means that many second rounds were possible and could have occurred, within a deeply fragmented political and ideological landscape. Until the last moment, the voters of 2022 also had to face considerable uncertainties, and in particular a choice between a second round between the extreme right and the right (Le Pen against Macron, which the vast majority of voters now...

So war is back in Europe, in its most brutal form. A country with 45 million inhabitants is being invaded by its neighbour with three times the population and eight times the weapons. Looking at it from a distance, one might be tempted to compare the situation to the border wars which opposed France and Germany three times between 1870 and 1945. Russia considers Crimea and the Donbass to be its property, as did Germany with Alsace and Moselle. However, there are several key differences....

The Ukrainian crisis has revived an old debate, namely, how to effectively sanction a state like Russia? Let’s say it straight away: it is time to imagine a new type of sanction focused on the oligarchs who have prospered thanks to the regime in question. This will require the establishment of an international financial register, which will not be to the liking of Western fortunes, whose interests are much more closely linked to those of the Russian and Chinese oligarchs than is sometimes...

How can we explain the rightward shift of the French political landscape? Even if the question is complex and admits of multiple answers, there is little doubt that the experience of Macronism in power bears an overwhelming responsibility. Let us be clear: the dispersion of candidates on the left and the discouraging effect on voters also contribute to explaining this situation. However, this explanation is insufficient. If we take the total of all the left-wing candidates (socialists,...

What can we learn from the new World Inequality Report 2022 published this week? The result of the contributions from over a hundred researchers from all continents, this Report, published every four years, allows us to examine the major fault lines in the world’s inequalities. Beyond the now well-known findings on the rise of income inequalities over the last few decades, three main new features can be identified, relating to wealth, gender and environmental inequalities. Let us start...

With less than five months to go before the first round, what can we expect from the French presidential election scheduled for next April? The question can be asked at two levels: that of the 2022 election, and the broader question of the place of the presidential election in the French political system. As far as the 2022 election is concerned, we have to admit that it is not off to a good start. Given the increasing tendency of the political landscape towards the extreme right-wing, an...

After the « LuxLeaks » in 2014, the « Panama Papers » in 2016 and the « Paradise Papers » in 2017, the revelations of the « Pandora Papers », resulting from a new leak of 12 million documents from offshore finance, show the extent to which the wealthiest continue to evade taxes. Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, there is no reliable indicator that the situation has improved over the last ten years. Before the summer, ProPublica revealed that US billionaires pay almost no taxes...

Twenty years ago, the World Trade Center towers were struck by aeroplanes. The worst attack in history was to lead the United States and some of its allies into a global war against terrorism and the ‘axis of evil’. For the US neo-conservatives, the attack was proof of the theses put forward by Samuel Huntington in 1996: the « clash of civilisations » was becoming the new way of interpreting the world. This publication was their oft-quoted favorite, just as the works published by Milton...