Earthquake metaphors have had strong currency, both political and journalistic, in the aftermath of May’s European Parliament (EP) elections. The most spectacular tremors were those caused by the British and French far-right. Each came first in their national competition, each gained a quarter of the national vote.
Read MoreFrançois Hollande at his inauguration, May 15th, 2012 by John Gaffney One year ago today, during François Hollande’s inauguration as the seventh President of the French Fifth Republic, it poured with rain all day long. Inexplicably, no one offered him a raincoat or the protection of an umbrella. He spent the day’s ceremony drenched to…
Read Moreby John Gaffney Last month saw the broadcast of Laurence Rees’ acclaimed The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler on BBC2, of which there is also an accompanying book. The stunning spectacle of mass hero-worship in the Third Reich is compelling, in particular, the sight of unbridled joy at these mass rallies. This is even more…
Read Moreby John Gaffney France’s ‘Valériegate’ seems trivial, yet will possibly turn out to be one of the most important and problematic events of François Hollande’s presidency, in terms of the way both his presidency and his image are perceived from now on. On 6 May 2012, Hollande was elected President of the French Republic, beating…
Read Moreby John Gaffney There’s a cartoon character that all French children watched in the ’70s and ‘80s, Calimero. He was a little black chick who, ever provoking trouble, always ended up defeated and complaining, “it’s really so unfair!” when in reality, he was usually the architect of his own misfortunes. At times, towards the end…
Read Moreby John Gaffney It is the received view – a view that took root that fateful evening at Fouquet’s restaurant, the evening of his victory over his Socialist rival, Ségolène Royal, in May 2007 – that Nicolas Sarkozy as President between 2007 and 2012 betrayed Charles de Gaulle’s République de Grandeur, replacing it with a…
Read MoreIn France, since the European elections of May 2014, and Marine Le Pen’s breath-taking 25 per cent of the vote – to the ruling Socialists’ paltry 13 per cent – she has said very little. She does not need to; between them, the left and the right are opening up a royal road for her to go through to the second round of the presidential elections in 2017.
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