Programming alert in the U.S.: Nicolas Sarkozy will be on “Charlie Rose” Wednesday night to talk about Segolene Royal, Jacques Chirac, Iraq, immigration, the 2005 Paris riots, Turkey’s EU bid, U.S.-French relations, and his “multipolar” view of the world today.

One excerpt: Nicolas Sarkozy: Madame Royal is … Continue Reading…

Two interesting articles out recently on Belarus highlight the difficulties experienced by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko following the recent spat over energy prices with Russia and the new round of introspection inside Russia itself on how things went wrong with Belarus and what Moscow should do now.

The first, by Jan … Continue Reading…

Today, Nicolas Sarkozy was in London, meeting with Prime Minister Blair to discuss bilateral and international relations. Beyond Jacques Chirac being annoyed by this, and forbidding other Ministers (and especially the Defense one, Michèle Alliot-Marie), to be part of this trip, Sarkozy showed that he actually can also make gaffes abroad. … Continue Reading…

On January 25, 2007, GMF’s Brussels office hosted  a seminar on the role and contribution that Central Europe can make in shaping the future Eastern policy of the European Union.  The public seminar was opened by Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg and followed by a panel … Continue Reading…

More evidence of a worrying trend across Europe emerged Saturday as Muslim and leftist groups joined forces yet again to snub Holocaust Memorial Day. Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported in its January 27 edition that some senior figures inside the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) had attempted to get the MCB … Continue Reading…

This weekend’s edition of the Wall Street Journal features an interesting profile of Gary Kasparov, former world chess champion and nemesis of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin. I recommend reading it. The article, by the paper’s deputy editorial page editor Melanie Kirkpatrick, provides a useful reminder that it is time to really … Continue Reading…

UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari formally delivered details Friday of a plan for the Serbian breakaway province of Kosovo to the so called Contact Group consisting of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the United States. The plans have not yet been made public but the general drift is likely to be towards increasing independence … Continue Reading…

On Friday afternoon, the Turkish-Armenian writer, intellectual, and journalist Hrant Dink was assasinated. Thanks to an extensive network of public cameras the suspect’s identity was quickly identified. Yesterday, the suspect’s father identified his son from the multitude of TV screens showing the footage extensively and provided his name to the … Continue Reading…

On Sunday, January 14th, Nicolas Sarkozy, current Interior Minister and head of the conservative party (UMP) was designated as an official candidate by 98,1% of the party’s members who voted (aprox. 70% turn out). He gave his first  campaign speech the same day.

Beyond the very lyrical nature of the speech, … Continue Reading…

The Financial Times has reported on new figures from the French government statistical service showing that French farmers are “getting steadily worse off compared with their fellow citizens and their European peers”. Such figures are grist to the mill of those calling for a strong defense of EU farm support from the internal pressure of the EU budget and the external pressure of the WTO’s Doha Round of multilateral trade liberalization negotiations. What such figures fail to show is the changing structure of farming in France as in other European countries and the likelihood that subsidies are actually accentuating inequalities. Continue Reading…