It seems to be official now: French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde will seek the top job at the International Monetary Fund. The IMF has traditionally been run by a European, while the World Bank has been run by an American. Read the rest of this entry »

The Arab Spring is bringing unexpected consequences to the EU. The increasing influx of migrants from Tunisia and Libya has created a dispute between Italy, the country through which most migrants enter the EU, and France, the country where most of them want to go due to their knowledge of the language and the many Tunisians already living in it. Read the rest of this entry »

According to a report by Europol, the EU’s joint police body, the economic crisis and the Arab revolutions have the potential to increase the risk of terrorist attacks in the European Union by far-left, far-right and Islamists groups. It has been noted that in the Arab revolutions Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have become observers and had not had influence in the events. Read the rest of this entry »

In this world of tragedies, wars and disasters, the French government, ubiquitous in its involvement abroad, is also keeping busy at home in a different way. One could say that Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to save women that live in France from being abused. In some cases without taken into account if the women agree with some of the measures or not. Read the rest of this entry »

It is rather curious to see how some countries attract the attention of the world, sometimes in a positive way, some times in a negative way. One could say that what happens in them, specially what happens to the lives of the civilians in those countries is left to the whim of a few powerful nations which can decide to help or not in case of revolts that many times become horrific. Such is the case of two African nations: Libya and Côte d’Ivoire. Read the rest of this entry »

Sarkozy might be quite involved in the Libyan war, but at home he had a beating this past Sunday in the second round of the local elections which took place to elect around half of the town councils in France. The conservative party of Sarkozy lost in part due to the unpopularity of the president and his cost-cutting measures, including in national education. Sarkozy is largely perceived as being too cozy with corporate interests. Read the rest of this entry »

Why everyday we hear a different approach about the no-fly zone over Libya from the U.S. government? We went from wanting to establish one to yesterday’s state department lack of support to today’s volte-face. Read the rest of this entry »