It was launched by President Nicolas Sarkozy's government three months ago with much hype and patriotic ebullition — a series of 100-plus town hall meetings across France to debate what it means to be French in the 21st century. And even after opponents on the left and right alike criticized the initiative as a Machiavellian way of casting immigrants, their French-born children and especially Muslims as a threat to France's national identity, government officials defiantly took the ...

Nicolas Sarkozy and Dominique Stauss-Kahn were never friends — one conservative, the other Socialist, their political ambitions setting them on a collision course. Yet, soon after Sarkozy's 2007 election as President of France, he surprised most people by nominating Strauss-Kahn to be Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, a heartening reach across party lines. Others, however, saw a more devious motive: Sarkozy was moving his most potent challenger to the IMF's Washington, D.C. headquarters and depriving ...

France's investigating magistrates have been a central pillar of the country's Napoleonic justice system for over 200 years. Acting as independent, neutral investigators into crimes, they collect evidence that is then used by justice officials to either try or dismiss a case. Feared and respected, hailed and derided, the juge d'instruction has been immortalized in literature and film. French novelist and playwright Honor de Balzac once described his role as that of the "most powerful man" in ...

The United Nations' dramatic military operation in the Ivory Coast civil war came at a crucial juncture in the struggle between the country's two Presidents. Over the weekend, forces supporting Allassane Ouattara, the man recognized as president by most of the international community, arrived at Abidjan, the city where both Ouattara and his rival Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent, were holed out. The Ouattara troops had marched in from their northern strongholds, where they had been rebel troops ...

The 10-day-old coalition waging military strikes against Muammar Gaddafi's forces converged in London on Tuesday for the first time since it began bombing Libya on March 19, in order to thrash out how the campaign could edge, push or coax Gaddafi out of power after nearly 42 years of stifling dictatorship. In a frenzied round of closed-door meetings, hosted by British Prime Minister David Cameron, officials from across Europe and parts of the Arab world attempted to ...

Since the end of World War II, the U.S. dollar has enjoyed a unique and powerful position in international trade. But perhaps no more. Before boarding a plane on Saturday to meet President George W. Bush, French President Nicolas Sarkozy proclaimed, "Europe wants it. Europe demands it. Europe will get it." The "it" here is global financial reform, and evidently Sarkozy won't have to wait long. Just hours after their closed-door meeting had finished, Bush and Sarkozy, along ...

President Nicolas Sarkozy may have triumphed over the millions of protesters and strikers who opposed his effort to raise the retirement age in France by two years. But his law to keep people working longer and paying into the pension system longer won't succeed unless he persuades French bosses to play along; they have a nasty habit of dumping employees older than 50. Bonne chance, Mr. President . Virtually no one in France contests the logic of the law, which Sarkozy ...

Barack Obama arrived in Strasbourg on Friday for this weekend's NATO summit enthusing about the military organization, which he described at a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy as "the most successful alliance in modern history." That it may have been. But Obama's praise contrasts starkly with the scathing assessment of the state of NATO, now 60 years old, by European military analysts, who say that the gap in military capability between the United ...

An infant falls to his death from a second-story window while his parents are making love. The mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is consumed with grief and guilt. She's hospitalized and sedated for days and weeks before her husband (Willem Dafoe), a therapist, insists she return home. He gets rid of all her medications. He will be her partner and her grief counselor, and he will see her through this, if only she will place her trust in him. Not a ...

It should come as no surprise that Iran wants to shunt France out of a deal to enrich its nuclear fuel abroad. Dividing its enemies and isolating the more hawkish among them has been a hallmark of Tehran's diplomacy, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy routinely plays the tough cop with Iran, threatening and goading its leaders and urging U.S. President Barack Obama to take a tougher line. On Tuesday, Iran struck back with a humiliating slap-down, insisting that ...