The far right in France has never been closer to power than now, leading into this Sunday’s elections.
With the very existence of the European Union in question, the stakes could not be higher. Can Marine Le Pen, the “French Donald Trump,” win?
French polls say the answer is no.
A terror attack in Paris has hit France like a seismic shock only three days before voting begins in a presidential election where anything seems possible, even the end of the European Union.
A gunman shot three policemen on Champs-Elysées Thursday evening, killing one and wounding two, before being shot dead. The government says the attack was “of a terrorist nature.” The shooting took place as the candidates were just going on the air to make their final televised appeal to voters.
Far-right populist Marine Le Pen and neophyte centrist Emmanuel Macron are slight favorites in the April 23 first-round vote to ultimately elect a French president. Meanwhile, the world is nervously awaiting a possible “Frexit” — French withdrawal from the EU — after the UK’s “Leave” vote on Brexit and Donald Trump’s election in the United States.
From nouveau réalisme to biting satire, gritty noir, and postmodern sci-fi, these are graphic novels that will stay with you long after the final page.
If the United States and France both elect a female president in upcoming elections, the new heads of state will be worst enemies.
That’s because the French woman trying to smash the glass ceiling is Marine Le Pen – France’s “Donald Trump.” As US president, Hillary Rodham Clinton would oppose everything she stands for.
The bodies of French Muslim women have become a battleground.
Anne Hidalgo, the first woman mayor of Paris in its two thousand year history, didn’t appreciate the joke a fellow mayor made behind her back at the building site of a new rapid transit line.
The men eagerly gathered around her, quipped Philippe Pemezec, acted like they were going to get blowjobs.
So she named and shamed him. “Let’s grow your audience,” she wrote in an open letter posted on twitter, “so that everyone can enjoy your sense of humor, your worldview and your dignified conduct as mayor.”
There are few francophile Americans – you could probably fit them on a bus – who know exactly what they’re celebrating on “Bastille Day.”
Whose law will rule the Internet: French or American?
An epic struggle is underway. The World’s Search Engine has collided with the French Exception. It’s the Internet’s Right To Know (everything) versus a citizen’s Right To Be Forgotten (sometimes). The stakes are high.
Nuit Debout (“Up All Night”) began as demonstration against changes in France’s labor laws. It has since unleashed a seismic social shock, evoking memories of the spring that shook the world 48 years ago.
The moment will hit you if it hasn’t already: President Donald Trump. Président de la République française Marine Le Pen.
It can happen (t)here. Still not likely. But possible.
