Why France’s National Identity Debate Backfired

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 initiative to term

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Sarkozy vs. Strauss-Kahn: Sex as a Weapon?

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

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Will France Americanize Its Legal System?

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.

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Could Seven Dead Monks Upset President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Bold Plans To Remake France’s Legal System?

When the severed heads of seven French Trappist monks were found in a remote mountainous region of Algeria in May 1996, it was natural to assume the murders were the latest gruesome act by jihadists in their long-running and bloody campaign against the Algerian government.

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France’s Labor Paradox

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.

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Afghanistan and NATO: Why Europe May Not Be Up to the Fight

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 States and Europe has grown so big that in some places battlefield communication between NATO forces and their US allies has become difficult

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