<![CDATA[EL PAÍS]]>https://english.elpais.comSun, 03 May 2026 14:40:30 +0000en1hourly1<![CDATA[Joschka Fischer, former vice-chancellor of Germany: ‘Putin will not stop; he will continue to advance westward’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-04-23/joschka-fischer-former-vice-chancellor-of-germany-putin-will-not-stop-he-will-continue-to-advance-westward.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-04-23/joschka-fischer-former-vice-chancellor-of-germany-putin-will-not-stop-he-will-continue-to-advance-westward.htmlThu, 23 Apr 2026 11:41:03 +0000There are images that never fade from a country’s memory, from its political and popular consciousness. One of them is that of Joschka Fischer (Gerabronn, Germany, 78 years old) wearing sneakers and being sworn in as a minister in the state of Hesse in 1985. For the first time, the Greens, a grassroots movement born a few years earlier, entered a regional government. It was a turning point. Thirteen years later, Fischer would become vice-chancellor and foreign minister in the first federal government with the Greens, allied with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s Social Democratic Party.

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]]>Gene Glover<![CDATA[Trump becomes a toxic asset for Europe’s far right ]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/2026-04-20/trump-becomes-a-toxic-asset-for-europes-far-right.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/2026-04-20/trump-becomes-a-toxic-asset-for-europes-far-right.htmlMon, 20 Apr 2026 09:34:41 +0000When Donald Trump returned to power in early 2025, and he and his supporters intensified their calls in support of Europe’s far right, that message sounded like a blessing within that ideological camp.

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]]>OLIVIER MATTHYS<![CDATA[How could it have happened? The fundamental question about Nazism that continues to haunt Germany]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2026-04-15/how-could-it-have-happened-the-fundamental-question-about-nazism-that-continues-to-haunt-germany.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2026-04-15/how-could-it-have-happened-the-fundamental-question-about-nazism-that-continues-to-haunt-germany.htmlWed, 15 Apr 2026 09:37:15 +0000How could it have happened? That is the question. German historians, like Captain Ahab with the white whale, continue to obsessively pursue it. More than 80 years after the end of Nazism, they still haven’t found a definitive or complete answer.

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]]>brandstaetter images<![CDATA[Berlin is rearming, and its neighbors are weighing the risks and benefits of the new German hegemony]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-04-01/berlin-is-rearming-and-its-neighbors-are-weighing-the-risks-and-benefits-of-the-new-german-hegemony.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-04-01/berlin-is-rearming-and-its-neighbors-are-weighing-the-risks-and-benefits-of-the-new-german-hegemony.htmlWed, 01 Apr 2026 14:34:21 +0000The Victory Column is one of the few monuments to Germany’s former power that remained standing after World War II. From its summit, the golden angel that Wim Wenders filmed in Wings of Desire overlooks the city. Below, the statues of the stern Prussian field marshals Roon and Moltke, and that of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, still stand, a lasting symbol of Germany, or perhaps an anachronism.

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]]>Liesa Johannssen<![CDATA[Europe is making progress in designing its own new security architecture ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-02-16/europe-is-making-progress-in-designing-its-own-new-security-architecture.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-02-16/europe-is-making-progress-in-designing-its-own-new-security-architecture.htmlMon, 16 Feb 2026 13:55:11 +0000The Munich Security Conference produced multiple signs that major European countries are willing to build new frameworks for cooperation in the defense sector, both in the conventional and nuclear sphere. Among the most notable developments are the start of talks between Germany and France on extending the French nuclear umbrella — announced on Friday by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz — as well as the unequivocal expressions of intent to deepen cooperation between the EU and the United Kingdom, voiced on Saturday by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

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]]>WPA Pool<![CDATA[The United States and Europe gauge the depth of their rift in Munich]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-02-13/the-united-states-and-europe-gauge-the-depth-of-their-rift-in-munich.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-02-13/the-united-states-and-europe-gauge-the-depth-of-their-rift-in-munich.htmlFri, 13 Feb 2026 09:43:33 +0000The first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency has opened the biggest rift between the United States and Europe since the forging of the transatlantic bond at the end of World War II. The first blow was struck in February 2025 by Vice President J.D. Vance at the Munich Security Conference. Vance caused astonishment by arguing that the greatest danger to Europe was not Russian missiles, but European leaders themselves, whom he accused of undermining democracy and censoring far-right ideas.

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]]>Leah Millis<![CDATA[Horden: portraits of family, death, and dreams in an English mining town]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2026-02-06/horden-portraits-of-family-death-and-dreams-in-an-english-mining-town.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2026-02-06/horden-portraits-of-family-death-and-dreams-in-an-english-mining-town.htmlFri, 06 Feb 2026 15:24:10 +0000As a child, Ed Alcock listened to the story of his great uncle Kendon’s death at the age of 17. “It happened at the bottom of the mine,” his mother, Sheila, told him one day. “He had been working there since he left school. A section of the gallery sank and a heavy crane fell on him, crushing him and causing head injuries. They took his body out of the mine, but he never regained consciousness.”

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]]>Ed Alcock<![CDATA[The evolution of Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister standing up to Trump ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-02-02/the-evolution-of-mette-frederiksen-the-danish-prime-minister-standing-up-to-trump.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-02-02/the-evolution-of-mette-frederiksen-the-danish-prime-minister-standing-up-to-trump.htmlMon, 02 Feb 2026 12:22:31 +0000As 2025 drew to a close, Mette Frederiksen, 48, was facing a rough period. Her party, the Social Democrats, had just suffered a painful defeat in the municipal elections. For the first time in more than a century, they had lost the Copenhagen mayoralty. The Danish prime minister’s government — a coalition with centrist and center‑right parties — “looked like a funeral procession on its way to its own political burial,” a commentator on the TV2 network said. No one was certain she would be able to remain in power after the elections scheduled for 2026.

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]]>MOHAMMED BADRA<![CDATA[Goodbye to the US? Not yet in Ramstein, home to the largest American base in the world]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-01-31/goodbye-to-the-us-not-yet-in-ramstein-home-to-the-largest-american-base-in-the-world.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-01-31/goodbye-to-the-us-not-yet-in-ramstein-home-to-the-largest-american-base-in-the-world.htmlSat, 31 Jan 2026 04:00:00 +0000“Hallo!” “How are you?” “English?” “Deutsch?” Languages ​​mingle at Da Nino restaurant, and so do the people. About 20 friends and acquaintances, German and American, have come here to have a good time and cultivate transatlantic friendships. A challenging task today.

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]]>Boris Roessler<![CDATA[Denmark strengthens its position against Russia in the Baltic with eyes on Greenland ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-01-13/denmark-strengthens-its-position-against-russia-in-the-baltic-with-eyes-on-greenland.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-01-13/denmark-strengthens-its-position-against-russia-in-the-baltic-with-eyes-on-greenland.htmlTue, 13 Jan 2026 11:10:51 +0000A Danish tourist island, roughly the size of Ibiza, is preparing in case an enemy decides to attack. More soldiers have arrived in recent months. New hangars are being built at the military base. Last week, 11 new armored vehicles were deployed, intended to deter any invasion attempt. Denmark is a small country and doesn’t want to risk a nuclear power seizing a piece of its territory.

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]]>Minsterio danés de Defensa<![CDATA[How Trump can take Greenland: ‘The easy way or the hard way’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-01-12/how-trump-can-take-greenland-the-easy-way-or-the-hard-way.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-01-12/how-trump-can-take-greenland-the-easy-way-or-the-hard-way.htmlMon, 12 Jan 2026 10:58:07 +0000Whether “the easy way or the hard way,” Donald Trump wants to “do something” about Greenland, an autonomous territory that has been part of the Kingdom of Denmark for more than two centuries. In Copenhagen, the Danish capital, and in Nuuk, Greenland, authorities are taking this threat seriously. They are studying historical precedents (Alaska, Louisiana, the Virgin Islands) and parallels in other parts of the world (Venezuela, Crimea, the Marshall Islands, Panama). They are dusting off old treaties. They are speculating about how the president of the United States might seize the Arctic island. They are proposing solutions. And unease is growing among local leaders.

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]]>Ebrahim Noroozi<![CDATA[Denmark is preparing for the unthinkable: ‘In Greenland, there’s nothing to bomb’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-01-08/denmark-is-preparing-for-the-unthinkable-in-greenland-theres-nothing-to-bomb.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-01-08/denmark-is-preparing-for-the-unthinkable-in-greenland-theres-nothing-to-bomb.htmlThu, 08 Jan 2026 11:17:15 +0000When they woke up on Saturday to the news that the United States had illegally entered Venezuela to capture its president, Nicolás Maduro, many in Denmark thought that their time had come: they could be next.

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]]>Guglielmo Mangiapane<![CDATA[Merz tries to replace Macron at the helm of Europe ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-12-21/merz-tries-to-replace-macron-at-the-helm-of-europe.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-12-21/merz-tries-to-replace-macron-at-the-helm-of-europe.htmlSun, 21 Dec 2025 04:00:00 +0000Friedrich Merz is effectively taking over the virtual seat of European power that Emmanuel Macron has occupied for years. The summit on the future of Ukraine, held on December 14 and 15 in Berlin, reinforced the German chancellor’s leadership and signaled the French president’s waning influence.

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]]>Annegret Hilse<![CDATA[AfD, a key pawn for Trump in Europe, strengthens ties with Washington]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-12-19/afd-strengthens-ties-with-washington-as-a-key-pawn-for-trump-in-europe.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-12-19/afd-strengthens-ties-with-washington-as-a-key-pawn-for-trump-in-europe.htmlFri, 19 Dec 2025 10:36:35 +0000There was a party in Germany that everyone else considered an outcast. Its positions were marginal and, for many, anti-democratic, tainted by the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century. The story is German, but it happens in other European countries as well.

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]]>Omer Messinger<![CDATA[The world is experiencing a new era of impunity 80 years after the Nuremberg trials]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-11-23/the-world-is-experiencing-a-new-era-of-impunity-80-years-after-the-nuremberg-trials.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-11-23/the-world-is-experiencing-a-new-era-of-impunity-80-years-after-the-nuremberg-trials.htmlSun, 23 Nov 2025 04:00:00 +0000Courtroom 600 of the monumental Nuremberg Palace of Justice is disconcerting at first glance. It is smaller than the visitor imagines upon opening the door. The furnishings are different from those that existed during the trial of the Nazi leadership at the end of World War II, 80 years ago.

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]]>Galerie Bilderwelt<![CDATA[Niklas Frank, son of a Nazi criminal hanged at Nuremberg: ‘I am against the death penalty, except for that of my father’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-11-20/niklas-frank-son-of-a-nazi-criminal-hanged-at-nuremberg-i-am-against-the-death-penalty-except-for-that-of-my-father.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-11-20/niklas-frank-son-of-a-nazi-criminal-hanged-at-nuremberg-i-am-against-the-death-penalty-except-for-that-of-my-father.htmlThu, 20 Nov 2025 13:15:39 +0000Niklas Frank can’t shake off his father, the Nazi war criminal Hans Frank. He never will. He compares him to a goblin, an evil spirit clinging to his shoulders, refusing to let go. He’ll always have him with him.

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]]>Aliona Kardash<![CDATA[The unsuspecting grandson of Heinrich Himmler on Spain’s Costa del Sol]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-11-08/the-unsuspecting-grandson-of-heinrich-himmler-on-spains-costa-del-sol.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-11-08/the-unsuspecting-grandson-of-heinrich-himmler-on-spains-costa-del-sol.htmlSat, 08 Nov 2025 04:00:00 +0000Henrik Lenkeit, a Christian pastor and life coach living on Spain’s Costa del Sol, woke up one summer day in 2024 with his usual worries and life much as it always had been; more or less predictable. Within hours, everything changed, and he became a different person. A year later, this German national who is married to a Mexican citizen and a father of three, recounts his story in fluent Spanish.

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]]>García-Santos<![CDATA[Germany seeks deal with the Taliban to expedite expulsion of Afghan migrants]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-11-03/germany-seeks-deal-with-the-taliban-to-expedite-expulsion-of-afghans-with-criminal-convictions.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-11-03/germany-seeks-deal-with-the-taliban-to-expedite-expulsion-of-afghans-with-criminal-convictions.htmlMon, 03 Nov 2025 12:08:28 +0000Realpolitik is a German word, and sometimes no country practices it with fewer qualms than Germany. Chancellor Friedrich Merz has opened negotiations with the Taliban in exchange for Afghanistan agreeing to repatriate immigrants from that country who have been convicted of serious crimes in Germany.

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]]>CLEMENS BILAN<![CDATA[Global anti-feminist backlash gains ground after decades of equality gains]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-11-01/global-anti-feminist-backlash-gains-ground-after-decades-of-equality-gains.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-11-01/global-anti-feminist-backlash-gains-ground-after-decades-of-equality-gains.htmlSat, 01 Nov 2025 04:40:00 +0000History never advances in a straight line. Although, as Martin Luther King said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Progress always moves in fits and starts: two steps forward, one step back. This is also the case with women’s rights and equality.

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]]>Wiktor Szymanowicz<![CDATA[A drone in the Wesolowski’s house]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-09-11/a-drone-in-the-wesolowskis-house.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-09-11/a-drone-in-the-wesolowskis-house.htmlThu, 11 Sep 2025 09:15:17 +0000The war was always close to this village in an area of lakes, forests and fields, on the borders of Poland. These are the “bloodlands,” as historian Timothy Snyder called them, the slice of Europe where Hitler and Stalin murdered millions of people between the early 1930s and the end of World War II. We don’t really have to go back that far. The village of Wyryki is a few kilometers from the border with Belarus, and Ukraine is not far either. In this region, on the front lines of NATO and an EU that feel Russia’s breath on its neck, the sounds of Polish and allied fighter jets in the air have been familiar since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

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]]>Jakub Orzechowsk<![CDATA[Putin tests Warsaw, the EU, and NATO with violation of Polish airspace]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-09-10/putin-tests-warsaw-the-eu-and-nato-with-violation-of-polish-airspace.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-09-10/putin-tests-warsaw-the-eu-and-nato-with-violation-of-polish-airspace.htmlWed, 10 Sep 2025 17:58:04 +0000Russia’s western neighbors, Europe, and NATO have been waiting for this for a long time: the moment when Vladimir Putin goes beyond Ukraine, attacks an allied country, and tests the strength of the Western alliance. It could happen with a more or less covert attack on one of the Baltic states. Or with an airstrike on a country like Poland. Would the allies respond in defense of the attacked country? Or, to avoid an escalation of the war, would they temporize with Moscow and abandon the principle of mutual defense?

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]]>WOJTEK JARGILO<![CDATA[‘Mein Kampf’: a century of radioactive potential ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-07-18/mein-kampf-a-century-of-radioactive-potential.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-07-18/mein-kampf-a-century-of-radioactive-potential.htmlFri, 18 Jul 2025 13:31:23 +0000The book has the power to terrify a century later. The red cover. The Gothic letters. The title: Mein Kampf. Eine Abrechnung (My Struggle. A settling of scores). The author: Adolf Hitler. His photo is inside, not on the cover as in later editions. He appears in profile, with a dark background, like a character in an expressionist film – perhaps Fritz Lang’s thriller M. First volume, first edition: July 18, 1925. It’s just a book but it’s also something else. The Nazi manifesto. A handbook. A bible, even. Perhaps the most influential piece of writing of the 20th century. The one that would sell 12 million copies in Germany alone, the one that the Nazi regime gave to newlyweds and the one that Germans burned, buried in the garden, or hid in the attic after the war. The one that this journalist now has before him. He touches it carefully, turns a few pages and says:

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]]>Sean Gallup (GETTY IMAGES)<![CDATA[Israeli philosopher Omri Boehm: ‘I fear an all-out war that will also make life in Israel impossible’]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-07-06/israeli-philosopher-omri-boehm-i-fear-an-all-out-war-that-will-also-make-life-in-israel-impossible.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-07-06/israeli-philosopher-omri-boehm-i-fear-an-all-out-war-that-will-also-make-life-in-israel-impossible.htmlSun, 06 Jul 2025 03:30:00 +0000It was the first time that Omri Boehm, 46, had returned to Germany after the speech he was to give in Buchenwald to mark the 80th anniversary of its liberation from the Nazis was suspended due to pressure from the Israeli embassy. It was at the beginning of April. Now, in June, he was back at “the scene of the crime.”

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]]>Patricia Sevilla Ciordia<![CDATA[When the Nazis wondered whether Franco was Jewish ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-06-02/when-the-nazis-questioned-whether-franco-was-jewish.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-06-02/when-the-nazis-questioned-whether-franco-was-jewish.htmlMon, 02 Jun 2025 13:28:22 +0000Nazi Germany was curious about the origins and character of Francisco Franco, the general who led the coup in the Spanish Civil War and to whom Berlin had already provided invaluable military support. It was the end of 1936. So when a Bolivian diplomat who was an admirer of Adolf Hitler contacted the German authorities to tell them that their Spanish ally was probably Jewish, the antisemitic regime took note.

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]]><![CDATA[Chancellor Merz’s international challenge: Make Germany ‘independent’ from the US or maintain the link despite Trump]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-06/chancellor-merzs-international-challenge-make-germany-independent-from-the-us-or-maintain-the-link-despite-trump.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-06/chancellor-merzs-international-challenge-make-germany-independent-from-the-us-or-maintain-the-link-despite-trump.htmlTue, 06 May 2025 14:31:13 +0000One could follow an itinerary through the city of Berlin, traversing the scenes of the intimate relationship between the United States and Germany, and it would be easy to conclude that this is a world threatening ruin. It would begin at Tempelhof Airport, today an urban park. Between June 1948 and October 1949, the United States launched an airlift to break the blockade that the Soviet Union had imposed on the western sector of the city. The tour would continue at City Hall in the Schöneberg district, which at that time was the administrative seat of all of West Berlin. On June 26, 1963, two years after the communist regime built the Berlin Wall, John F. Kennedy delivered his famous speech from the building’s balcony. “Ich bin ein Berliner,” he said. “I am a Berliner.” The itinerary would end at the Brandenburg Gate, which, during the Cold War, divided the city, Germany, Europe, and the world. On June 12, 1987, another American president, Ronald Reagan, urged the then-Soviet leader: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Two years and four months later, the Berlin Wall fell.

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]]>Jon Arnold<![CDATA[How the historical memory of Nazism (partly) explains the success of the far right in Germany and Austria]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-03-03/how-the-historical-memory-of-nazism-partly-explains-the-success-of-the-far-right-in-germany-and-austria.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-03-03/how-the-historical-memory-of-nazism-partly-explains-the-success-of-the-far-right-in-germany-and-austria.htmlMon, 03 Mar 2025 18:25:45 +0000The far right is on the rise in Europe, and it is most successful in countries that avoided taking responsibility for the crimes of National Socialism after World War II. Just look at the map of the elections on 23 February in Germany and those of 29 September, 2024, in Austria. Nationalist-populist parties are hegemonic in what was, until 1990, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and in Austria. Both are territories that, unlike West Germany, for decades considered that the history of the Nazis did not concern them.

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]]>Anadolu<![CDATA[Conservative leader Merz only needs Social Democrats to form coalition in Germany]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-02-24/conservative-leader-merz-only-needs-social-democrats-to-form-coalition-in-germany.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-02-24/conservative-leader-merz-only-needs-social-democrats-to-form-coalition-in-germany.htmlMon, 24 Feb 2025 09:22:17 +0000Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats, winners of the German general election, will be able to form a coalition government with only the Social Democrats as junior partners, without needing to include the Greens to obtain a majority of seats. The final vote has left the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance out of the Bundestag by a few hundredths of a percentage point. If this new left-wing populist party had made it into the chamber, it would have complicated the arithmetic for putting together majorities and would have forced Merz, against his will, to negotiate a three-party coalition to become chancellor.

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]]>RONALD WITTEK<![CDATA[Pablo Picasso, from suspicious foreigner to French national treasure]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-11-08/pablo-picasso-from-suspicious-foreigner-to-french-national-treasure.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-11-08/pablo-picasso-from-suspicious-foreigner-to-french-national-treasure.htmlMon, 08 Nov 2021 16:06:28 +0000It could be considered a flagrant case of cultural appropriation before the expression entered common use: the story of how the Spanish artist Pablo Ruiz Picasso ended up being one of France’s greatest artistic glories.

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]]><![CDATA[Leni Rienfenstahl, ‘Sun and Shadow’: Hitler’s filmmaker stripped bare in new documentary]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-01-25/leni-rienfenstahl-sun-and-shadow-hitlers-filmmaker-stripped-bare-in-new-documentary.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-01-25/leni-rienfenstahl-sun-and-shadow-hitlers-filmmaker-stripped-bare-in-new-documentary.htmlSat, 25 Jan 2025 04:30:09 +0000Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) dreamed of making a documentary that would be on a par with those she had made in the 1930s for Adolf Hitler. The tyrant and mass murderer had been dead for several years, and the filmmaker of the admired and disturbing Triumph of the Will and Olympia had been exonerated by the new authorities despite her obvious involvement with National Socialism, but she was unable to secure projects up to par with those she had directed during the height of National Socialism.

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]]><![CDATA[Alice Weidel: The unlikely leader driving the far-right AfD to new heights]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-01-13/alice-weidel-the-atypical-leader-driving-the-far-right-afd-to-new-heights.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-01-13/alice-weidel-the-atypical-leader-driving-the-far-right-afd-to-new-heights.htmlMon, 13 Jan 2025 17:55:25 +0000She is a woman in a party dominated by men. She lives with another woman from Sri Lanka, with whom she has two children, yet she is surrounded by leaders who champion the traditional family model of a man and a woman, while rejecting immigration. She is a politician from West Germany, yet leads a party that is most successful in the East, where its most vocal base resides. As a liberal economist with a cosmopolitan career, she heads a movement rooted in Germany’s old nationalism — an ideology that, due to the country’s history, unsettles many both within and outside its borders. On stage, she is a powerful speaker who calls for the “remigration” of foreigners, but in personal encounters, she comes across as almost timid, as if she did not quite believe the role she now plays on the national and international stage. She is an apparent moderate leading a party that, unlike its counterparts in France and Italy, has only become more radical over time, rather than softening its message.

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]]>MARTIN DIVISEK<![CDATA[Musk and Putin’s dual interference in Europe ]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/2025-01-06/musk-and-putins-dual-interference-in-europe.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/2025-01-06/musk-and-putins-dual-interference-in-europe.htmlMon, 06 Jan 2025 15:07:00 +0000Interference in western politics is no longer just coming from Russia. There is another figure bent on meddling in the European democratic process. And his interference is causing nervousness in a number of capitals in the run up to the general elections in Germany, the EU’s most powerful economy and populated country.

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]]>Patrick Pleul<![CDATA[Germany, chronicles of an imaginary nation ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-12-25/germany-chronicles-of-an-imaginary-nation.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-12-25/germany-chronicles-of-an-imaginary-nation.htmlWed, 25 Dec 2024 04:00:00 +0000Jenny Erpenbeck spent the night the Berlin Wall fell, November 9, 1989, in the manner of Fabrice del Dongo, the protagonist of The Charterhouse of Parma who found himself amid the chaos of the Battle of Waterloo, yet was completely unaware that it was taking place around him. Erpenbeck had met up with some friends that night and slept at one of their homes, where there was no television or telephone. She didn’t hear about what had happened until the next morning on the radio. A definitional moment of humanity took place just a few blocks away, and she missed it.

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]]>© Estate Sibylle Bergemann / OS,© Estate Sibylle Bergemann / OSTKREUZ<![CDATA[Angela Merkel: ‘I am worried, we have to protect freedom’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-11-30/angela-merkel-i-am-worried-we-have-to-protect-freedom.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-11-30/angela-merkel-i-am-worried-we-have-to-protect-freedom.htmlSat, 30 Nov 2024 04:05:00 +0000One day, she fell silent. This is not the norm for political leaders. She was everything. Chancellor of Germany between 2005 and 2021, re-elected four times and, in the meantime, political, economic, and health crises. She left on her own two feet, deciding not to run again. She never lost. On December 8, 2021, she handed over power to her successor and did not speak publicly again, except on exceptional occasions. In effect, she disappeared.

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]]>Caterina Barjau<![CDATA[Alice Schwarzer, journalist: ‘We are facing profound changes in the relationship between the sexes. It’s dangerous’]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2024-11-10/alice-schwarzer-journalist-we-are-facing-profound-changes-in-the-relationship-between-the-sexes-its-dangerous.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2024-11-10/alice-schwarzer-journalist-we-are-facing-profound-changes-in-the-relationship-between-the-sexes-its-dangerous.htmlSun, 10 Nov 2024 04:00:00 +0000Alice Schwarzer, who has been among the most famous and influential German feminists since the 1970s, is seated at a café in the Berlin neighborhood of Wilmerdorf. After more than an hour of conversation, she offers a wry smile: “Before you sits a cancelled person!” Schwarzer (Wuppertal, 81 years old) says that in Germany, they have stopped inviting her to talk shows. Her opinions on the war in Ukraine are no longer well-received, even though, she says, they are those of the majority. Many people who previously admired her are puzzled by these views, as well as her thoughts on immigration and trans rights.

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]]>Patricia Sevilla Ciordia<![CDATA[Annie Ernaux wins the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-10-06/annie-ernaux-wins-the-2022-nobel-prize-in-literature.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-10-06/annie-ernaux-wins-the-2022-nobel-prize-in-literature.htmlThu, 06 Oct 2022 16:24:09 +0000The French writer Annie Ernaux, 82, has won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature. The award, granted by the Swedish Academy, also comes with a cash prize of 10 million Swedish krona (around $911,000) and will be handed out in December.

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]]>INMA FLORES<![CDATA[Matt Dillon at 60: ‘Some doors close because you get older, but others open. You can’t replicate life experience’]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-07-13/matt-dillon-at-60-some-doors-close-because-you-get-older-but-others-open-you-cant-replicate-life-experience.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-07-13/matt-dillon-at-60-some-doors-close-because-you-get-older-but-others-open-you-cant-replicate-life-experience.htmlSat, 13 Jul 2024 04:05:00 +0000“Don’t go there,” warns Matt Dillon, when we ask about his age. He’s only joking, because, over the course of more than an hour-long conversation with EL PAÍS — on a May day in the bar of a Paris hotel — at least two things will become clear. The first is that Dillon — who was a teen idol in the 1980s and an attractive grunge figure in the 1990s — has embraced his 60 years without hangups.

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]]>Ward Ivan Rafik<![CDATA[France stops the far right]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-07-08/france-stops-the-far-right.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-07-08/france-stops-the-far-right.htmlMon, 08 Jul 2024 07:45:16 +0000France has said no to the far right. The cordon sanitaire put in place by the left and the center of French President Emmanuel Macron made it possible for Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) to be decisively defeated in Sunday’s snap election, in which the left-wing coalition New Popular Front (NFP) was the surprise winner.

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]]>Yara Nardi<![CDATA[Europe and the US commemorate D-Day (and suddenly World War II no longer seems so remote) ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-06-05/europe-and-the-us-commemorate-d-day-and-suddenly-world-war-ii-no-longer-seems-so-remote.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-06-05/europe-and-the-us-commemorate-d-day-and-suddenly-world-war-ii-no-longer-seems-so-remote.htmlWed, 05 Jun 2024 13:53:54 +0000D-Day. So far away in time, and yet so close at the same time. Here, on the beaches of Normandy, the past is almost physical: the same fine sand, the changing tides, the sky, now blue, now rain-filled, and the wind. But the past does not let itself be trapped: how can we really begin to imagine what happened on this very spot on the morning of June 6, 1944?

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]]>Samuel Aranda<![CDATA[Anne Hidalgo, the mayor managing paradoxes of Olympic proportions]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-29/anne-hidalgo-the-mayor-managing-paradoxes-of-olympic-proportions.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-29/anne-hidalgo-the-mayor-managing-paradoxes-of-olympic-proportions.htmlMon, 29 Jan 2024 19:13:47 +0000Abroad, Anne Hidalgo is often seen as an environmental pioneer, someone who, as mayor of Paris, has built hundreds of kilometers of bike lanes and is inventing the metropolis of the future. In France, and in its capital — shimmering and always splendid to outsiders — it is something different. There is a part of the electorate and the political spectrum that simply does not buy it. In some cases the rejection is visceral. They accuse her of poor management and consider that the city has become dirtier, uglier, and more inhospitable on her watch.

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]]>Luis Grañena<![CDATA[French tensions loom over preparations for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games ]]>https://english.elpais.com/sports/2023-07-27/french-tensions-loom-over-preparations-for-the-paris-2024-olympic-games.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/sports/2023-07-27/french-tensions-loom-over-preparations-for-the-paris-2024-olympic-games.htmlThu, 27 Jul 2023 14:39:48 +0000A truce has been called. France is keeping its fingers crossed that, when the Olympic Games open in a year’s time, calm will reign. The riots earlier this summer in the banlieue — the multicultural and impoverished city suburbs populated by generations of immigrants from the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa — and a winter of protests against pension reform have been a wake-up call.

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]]>PASCAL ROSSIGNOL<![CDATA[The security threats looming over this summer’s Olympics in Paris]]>https://english.elpais.com/sports/2024-04-08/the-security-threats-looming-over-this-summers-olympics-in-paris.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/sports/2024-04-08/the-security-threats-looming-over-this-summers-olympics-in-paris.htmlMon, 08 Apr 2024 17:58:44 +0000Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris Olympic Games organizing committee, can sleep easy. At a lunch with journalists in an Italian restaurant on the northern outskirts of Paris a few days ago, he was asked what worried him a few months before the opening ceremony on July 26. He simply responded: “For me, personally, not much.”

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]]>Benoit Tessier<![CDATA[Paris prepares for the ‘banlieue’ Olympics]]>https://english.elpais.com/sports/2023-12-16/paris-prepares-for-the-banlieue-olympics.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/sports/2023-12-16/paris-prepares-for-the-banlieue-olympics.htmlSat, 16 Dec 2023 18:21:18 +0000They feel disregarded. Abandoned. Here, everything is far away. Paris is a strange territory. They are looking for work and accumulating rejections. They have the wrong names. Live in the wrong neighborhoods. They are three friends; three children of immigration; three boys who one cold Saturday in December walk among highways, elevated tramways and vacant lots through the impoverished outskirts north of Paris that next summer, for the duration of the 2024 Olympic Games, will become the center of the universe.

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]]>Samuel Aranda<![CDATA[Judith Butler, philosopher: ‘Feminists who don’t repudiate the right-wing, anti-gender movement are complicit’ ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-05-11/judith-butler-philosopher-feminists-who-dont-repudiate-the-right-wing-anti-gender-movement-are-complicit.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-05-11/judith-butler-philosopher-feminists-who-dont-repudiate-the-right-wing-anti-gender-movement-are-complicit.htmlSat, 11 May 2024 03:40:00 +0000From afar, they are imposing. The impact of their work on public debate has been enormous, rare for someone from academia. With their cryptic prose, they have become a symbol, with worshipers and enemies alike projecting themselves upon them. Dr. Judith Butler — who uses they/them pronouns — is one of the most influential intellectual figures of our time. Up close, at the door of La Coupole — the old brasserie frequented by writers and artists on the Parisian boulevard of Montparnasse — the 68-year-old appears small and fragile. During their conversation with EL PAÍS, however, Butler reveals a mind of steel. They are implacable; nothing gets by them.

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]]>Samuel Aranda<![CDATA[What if pro-Palestinian protests cross the Atlantic? France and the UK fear contagion]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-05-03/what-if-pro-palestinian-protests-cross-the-atlantic-france-and-the-uk-fear-contagion.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-05-03/what-if-pro-palestinian-protests-cross-the-atlantic-france-and-the-uk-fear-contagion.htmlFri, 03 May 2024 08:18:44 +0000What if the protests on American campuses extend to Europe? That scenario still seems far off. But in France and the United Kingdom, students have already begun to occupy campuses. And political and academic authorities fear contagion, although for now the movement, which also affects Italy, is limited.

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]]>Owen Humphreys<![CDATA[Gaza protests at US universities deepen divisions among Democrats]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/elections/2024-04-30/gaza-protests-at-us-universities-deepens-division-among-democrats.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/elections/2024-04-30/gaza-protests-at-us-universities-deepens-division-among-democrats.htmlTue, 30 Apr 2024 12:31:13 +0000The breakdown in negotiations between the authorities at Columbia University in New York and representatives of the students who have been camped on the premises for the past 10 days in solidarity with Gaza — and who on Monday received an order to clear the encampment — has exacerbated a phenomenon sweeping higher education centers in the United States. The protests, which were initiated at Columbia and quickly spread to other universities from coast to coast, is reminiscent of the outcry against the Vietnam War and, as those protests did in 1968, it is now affecting the political sphere. Pressure has come not only from Republican members of Congress — the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, visited the campus last week in support of Jewish students — but also from some Democrats ahead of the presidential election in November, with the protests threatening to cost President Joe Biden even more support at the polls: 21 Democratic representatives have called on Columbia to dismantle the encampment, while other members of the party have shown solidarity with the students. In addition to the external front of criticism over Biden’s support for Israel from tens of thousands of voters of Arab and Muslim origin in March’s Super Tuesday primaries, the rift in the Democratic ranks threatens a new vote drain in November. In the early hours of Monday morning into Tuesday, Columbia students occupied a building, Hamilton Hall, after school administrators began suspending students who refused to leave the encampment.

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]]>Caitlin Ochs<![CDATA[The middle class turns out the lights in France]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-03-16/the-middle-class-turns-out-the-lights-in-france.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-03-16/the-middle-class-turns-out-the-lights-in-france.htmlSat, 16 Mar 2024 10:34:18 +0000There are names, brands and places that shine and fascinate us until, without knowing how or why, one day they begin to look gray, and the next day no one remembers them anymore. The activist and writer Cory Doctorow coined the word “enshittification.” With this crude expression, Doctorow was alluding to the slow decline of digital platforms like Facebook. He could just as well be talking about the crisis of the French clothing chains that flourished in the 1980s and 90s, and which have lost their luster over time.

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]]>Edward Berthelot (GETTY IMAGES)<![CDATA[Historian Michel Pastoureau: ‘If a Roman arrived in 2024, he would be surprised to see so much navy blue’]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-03-12/historian-michel-pastoureau-if-a-roman-arrived-in-2024-he-would-be-surprised-to-see-so-much-navy-blue.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-03-12/historian-michel-pastoureau-if-a-roman-arrived-in-2024-he-would-be-surprised-to-see-so-much-navy-blue.htmlTue, 12 Mar 2024 17:05:47 +0000The historian Michel Pastoureau was a special child. “I had colorful whims,” he says. Once, his parents bought him a jacket to go to a wedding. He wanted a dark navy blue one. His mother decided on a lighter shade. It was a bad experience. “At the wedding I had the impression that everyone was looking at me because my blue jacket wasn’t dark enough.” Another time, his father was going to buy him an adult bicycle, but it was yellow, and he had always had green bicycles. Yellow? Impossible. It had to be green. Result? “I was left without a bicycle.”

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]]>Manuel Braun<![CDATA[What’s at stake with the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange? ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-02-26/whats-at-stake-with-the-extradition-of-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-02-26/whats-at-stake-with-the-extradition-of-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange.htmlMon, 26 Feb 2024 15:15:06 +0000It’s not just Julian Assange’s future that is at stake if he ends up extradited to the U.S. for allegedly violating the Espionage Act of 1917. It’s the future of press freedom, according to the editors of the newspapers that published the U.S. foreign policy revelations in 2010, leaked to them by the organization Assange founded, WikiLeaks.

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]]>ISABEL INFANTES<![CDATA[Michel Wieviorka, sociologist: ‘Jews are the scapegoat par excellence’]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-02-22/michel-wieviorka-sociologist-jews-are-the-scapegoat-par-excellence.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-02-22/michel-wieviorka-sociologist-jews-are-the-scapegoat-par-excellence.htmlThu, 22 Feb 2024 23:24:28 +0000Members of this French sociologist’s family died in the Holocaust. Anti-Semitism is not something abstract for him, it is history and family memory. But Michel Wieviorka was lucky enough to grow up in another era, in a secular and progressive, cultured and republican environment in the post-war period. And throughout his life he has “almost never” been personally confronted with hatred of the Jews. When asked what place his Judaism occupies in his identity, he says: “It’s not what generally comes to mind first, but I don’t hide it. I don’t minimize it.”

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]]>Manuel Braun<![CDATA[The European countryside shows its strength]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-02-06/the-european-countryside-shows-its-strength.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-02-06/the-european-countryside-shows-its-strength.htmlTue, 06 Feb 2024 23:39:14 +0000Those in power fear them. Most of their fellow countrymen view farmers with a mix of curiosity and respect. They number only about 9 million or 2% of the European Union’s (EU) population, and they generate only 1.4% of the bloc’s GDP. But they have a level of influence that other social movements and sectors of the economy could only dream of having. What is more, they are using it.

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]]>Samuel Aranda<![CDATA[Camus, untouchable? A new book accuses him of being a colonialist and rekindles the controversy with Sartre ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-01-30/camus-untouchable-a-new-book-accuses-him-of-being-a-colonialist-and-rekindles-the-controversy-with-sartre.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-01-30/camus-untouchable-a-new-book-accuses-him-of-being-a-colonialist-and-rekindles-the-controversy-with-sartre.htmlTue, 30 Jan 2024 15:37:45 +0000Everything comes back, even if it is wrapped in different clothes. In the France of Emmanuel Macron and the — perhaps unstoppable — rise of Marine Le Pen, the dispute regarding the revolution and the left-wing totalitarianism that marked the French intellectual life of the mid-20th century and that confronted Jean-Paul Sartre with Albert Camus is back, too.

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]]><![CDATA[Macron moves against lame duck syndrome with appointment of Gabriel Attal]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-10/macron-moves-against-lame-duck-syndrome-with-appointment-of-gabriel-attal.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-10/macron-moves-against-lame-duck-syndrome-with-appointment-of-gabriel-attal.htmlWed, 10 Jan 2024 12:27:39 +0000Emmanuel Macron does not want to suffer the same fate as his predecessors François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac. The French president is reluctant to finish his second and final mandate with no strength or influence, while hostilities are flaring up in his entourage in the race to succeed him in 2027. The socialist Mitterrand became seriously ill and died shortly after leaving the Elysée Palace. The conservative Chirac was called the “lazy king.” By choosing the young and dynamic Gabriel Attal on Tuesday to replace veteran technocrat Élisabeth Borne as prime minister, just weeks after the immigration law divided his government and his party, it is as if the French president is saying: “I am here, I still exist!”

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]]>POOL<![CDATA[Macron appoints youngest ever prime minister: Gabriel Attal, ‘child prodigy’ of French politics]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-09/macron-appoints-youngest-ever-prime-minister-gabriel-attal-child-prodigy-of-french-politics.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-09/macron-appoints-youngest-ever-prime-minister-gabriel-attal-child-prodigy-of-french-politics.htmlTue, 09 Jan 2024 16:00:23 +0000Gabriel Attal, who was named the new prime minister of France on Tuesday, is a political prodigy. At the age of 22 he was already an advisor in a ministry. At 29, he was secretary of state at the Ministry of Education and Youth. Later he was government spokesperson, minister of public accounts, and until now he was the education minister. On Tuesday, President Emmanuel Macron appointed him to succeed Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, making him the youngest individual to hold this position under the Fifth Republic, the constitutional regime founded in 1958 by General De Gaulle. His name is already being mentioned as a potential successor to Macron in the Élysée Palace.

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]]>LUDOVIC MARIN<![CDATA[Do tough immigration policies represent a victory for the extreme right, or are they the antidote to extremism? ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-12-29/do-tough-immigration-policies-represent-a-victory-for-the-extreme-right-or-are-they-the-antidote-to-extremism.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-12-29/do-tough-immigration-policies-represent-a-victory-for-the-extreme-right-or-are-they-the-antidote-to-extremism.htmlFri, 29 Dec 2023 18:12:55 +0000Everything is ready at the Suzanne Valadon Institute — named after the famous French painter — to accommodate 120 people who were previously sleeping on the street. Many of them are new immigrants. Folding beds in classrooms and removable showers have already been installed.

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]]>Álvaro García<![CDATA[Macron’s controversial immigration law gets passed despite rare internal dissent]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-12-20/macrons-controversial-immigration-law-gets-passed-despite-rare-internal-dissent.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-12-20/macrons-controversial-immigration-law-gets-passed-despite-rare-internal-dissent.htmlWed, 20 Dec 2023 09:54:22 +0000France’s new immigration law, adopted on Tuesday with the votes of the right and far right, has opened one of the biggest crises in President Emmanuel Macron’s ranks since he came to power in 2017. The most repressive measures included in the law, such as the tightening of foreigners’ access to social benefits, call into question some principles that, for years, the centrist president has staunchly defended.

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]]>JOHANNA GERON<![CDATA[Hugo Micheron: ‘The jihad has shifted from terrorist cells to families’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-12-19/hugo-micheron-the-jihad-has-shifted-from-terrorist-cells-to-families.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-12-19/hugo-micheron-the-jihad-has-shifted-from-terrorist-cells-to-families.htmlTue, 19 Dec 2023 18:13:11 +0000Hugo Micheron, one of the brightest in a long line of French Arabists, recently published La colère et l’oubli (Anger and oblivion, in French), a history of European jihadism in which he explores a landscape still marked by ignorance and prejudice. The French professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (also known as Sciences Po) combines field research in prisons and local communities with a robust theoretical framework.

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]]>Manuel Braun<![CDATA[The failure of Macron’s immigration bill puts the president’s inclusive ‘en même temps’ ideology in crisis ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-12-14/the-failure-of-macrons-immigration-bill-puts-the-presidents-inclusive-en-meme-temps-ideology-in-crisis.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-12-14/the-failure-of-macrons-immigration-bill-puts-the-presidents-inclusive-en-meme-temps-ideology-in-crisis.htmlThu, 14 Dec 2023 15:53:15 +0000Some have already written the obituary. Not that of French President Emmanuel Macron, who has more than three years before finishing his second and last mandate. Rather the obituary is for his stock phrase, en même temps, that expressed his pragmatism — his ability to see all sides of an issue without ideological apriorisms.

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]]>Caroline Blumberg / POOL<![CDATA[The pop star and the revolutionary: The myth of the Goldman brothers]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-12-11/the-pop-star-and-the-revolutionary-the-myth-of-the-goldman-brothers.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-12-11/the-pop-star-and-the-revolutionary-the-myth-of-the-goldman-brothers.htmlMon, 11 Dec 2023 19:50:26 +0000They were brothers and they couldn’t be more different. The Goldmans — icons of a moment in French history and society — are topical again, thanks to a book and a film.

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]]>Michel ARTAULT<![CDATA[Gilles Lipovetsky, philosopher: ‘Luxury used to be the rarest, most beautiful, and the most expensive. Today it is also bad taste, ugly, vulgar, and even obscene’]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-12-05/gilles-lipovetsky-philosopher-luxury-used-to-be-the-rarest-most-beautiful-and-the-most-expensive-today-it-is-also-bad-taste-ugly-vulgar-and-even-obscene.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-12-05/gilles-lipovetsky-philosopher-luxury-used-to-be-the-rarest-most-beautiful-and-the-most-expensive-today-it-is-also-bad-taste-ugly-vulgar-and-even-obscene.htmlTue, 05 Dec 2023 15:35:19 +0000Gilles Lipovetsky has little interest in luxury. He says it right away, in the spacious living room of his apartment in Grenoble, with views of the city and the Alps. But, at the same time, he is passionate about it. “In all my youth I did not have a bedroom or a bathroom,” says the French thinker. “That’s probably why the absence of luxury doesn’t bother me. I can live without it.” He can live without it, yes. But not without thinking about it. Not without doing what he has done all his life. Applying his fine-tuned radar not to the past, but to the world in which he has lived. Observing. Capturing the zeitgeist. And luxury does not explain our times, as we will discover during the conversation. It also explains humanity.

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]]>Ed Alcock<![CDATA[Marjane Satrapi, illustrator and filmmaker: ‘Iran is experiencing the world’s first feminist revolution’]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-12-03/marjane-satrapi-illustrator-and-filmmaker-iran-is-experiencing-the-worlds-first-feminist-revolution.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-12-03/marjane-satrapi-illustrator-and-filmmaker-iran-is-experiencing-the-worlds-first-feminist-revolution.htmlSun, 03 Dec 2023 03:00:00 +0000Marjane Satrapi returns. After years away from comics — the art that brought her massive praise from both critics and the public — the author of the acclaimed Persepolis has returned to drawing and writing. “There was something important to say,” Satrapi explains, in the living room of her home in Paris. The 54-year-old Iranian-born graphic novelist hosted EL PAÍS on Tuesday, November 28. “Drawing is the human being’s first [artistic] expression, before writing.”

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]]>Eric Fougere - Corbis<![CDATA[Pacts, conspiracies and betrayals: The best-loved restaurants of politicians and elites from Paris to Bogotá]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-12-01/pacts-conspiracies-and-betrayals-the-best-loved-restaurants-of-politicians-and-elites-from-paris-to-bogota.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-12-01/pacts-conspiracies-and-betrayals-the-best-loved-restaurants-of-politicians-and-elites-from-paris-to-bogota.htmlFri, 01 Dec 2023 21:10:14 +0000Some of the best-known restaurants in the world have been more important to a country’s politics than its gastronomy — establishments where the ruling class dines with discretion, or risks precisely the opposite. From Paris to Buenos Aires to London, these restaurants have welcomed guests ranging from paramilitary assassins to ousted politicians and newly elected presidents. Pacts have been signed and coalitions broken over their fine linen tablecloths. For some powerful patrons, their most-loved place serves as a kind of talisman or second office, with the added benefit of serving excellent food.

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]]>Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt (Afp / <![CDATA[There’s no extremist wave hitting democracies: it’s a steady undercurrent]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-28/theres-no-extremist-wave-hitting-democracies-its-a-steady-undercurrent.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-28/theres-no-extremist-wave-hitting-democracies-its-a-steady-undercurrent.htmlTue, 28 Nov 2023 15:01:14 +0000It’s not a wave: it’s a steady undercurrent. Over the past decade, the advance of ultranationalist, populist or far-right candidates in Europe and the Americas has had its ups and downs. The latest acceleration took place this past week, with Javier Milei winning Argentina’s presidency and Geert Wilders’ party triumphing in the legislative elections in the Netherlands. These victories — just a few days apart from each other — occurred in two very different countries. Yet, they represent a similar trend.

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]]>Remko de Waal<![CDATA[Revival of the ‘bouillons’: the cheap, noisy eateries triumphing in inflation-ridden Paris ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-11-25/revival-of-the-bouillons-the-cheap-noisy-eateries-triumphing-in-inflation-ridden-paris.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-11-25/revival-of-the-bouillons-the-cheap-noisy-eateries-triumphing-in-inflation-ridden-paris.htmlSat, 25 Nov 2023 16:08:12 +0000The formula is infallible: affordable prices (something rare in Paris), decent food and vintage furniture. And very fast service. The soup? €1. The stew? €1.50. The caramelized cream? €3.20. You can get a whole meal for the equivalent of $10. In a city where eating for less than €20 ($22) is increasingly becoming a pipe dream, the new gastronomic fever is bouillons. A bouillon is a broth, while bouillons are restaurants that have their origins in the 19th century, serving, in addition to broth, typical French dishes.

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]]>Samuel Aranda<![CDATA[Ridley Scott’s ‘Napoleón’ has few fans in France: ‘A very anti-French film’]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-11-23/ridley-scotts-napoleon-has-few-fans-in-france-a-very-anti-french-film.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-11-23/ridley-scotts-napoleon-has-few-fans-in-france-a-very-anti-french-film.htmlThu, 23 Nov 2023 23:17:00 +0000A Brit telling the story of the French Cesar. A tale that begins with a mistake (Napoleon Bonaparte attending the beheading of Marie Antoinette, which didn’t happen) and ending with an unfurling of the number of the deaths he left in his wake across Europe (subtext: he was a forerunner of Hitler and Stalin). Even worse: the Empereur and the rest of the protagonists speak in English. What could go wrong?

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]]>Juanjo Martín<![CDATA[The West hardens its tone with Netanyahu over bombing of civilians in Gaza]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-13/the-west-hardens-its-tone-with-netanyahu-over-bombing-of-civilians-in-gaza.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-13/the-west-hardens-its-tone-with-netanyahu-over-bombing-of-civilians-in-gaza.htmlMon, 13 Nov 2023 11:50:49 +0000The West is hardening its tone towards Israel due to its bombings on civilians in the war against Hamas. Every day, there is more public criticism. And the pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is greater.

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]]>EVELYN HOCKSTEIN<![CDATA[Karim Benzema, a French obsession]]>https://english.elpais.com/sports/2023-10-30/karim-benzema-a-french-obsession.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/sports/2023-10-30/karim-benzema-a-french-obsession.htmlMon, 30 Oct 2023 19:22:47 +0000Karim Benzema has often been called the mal-aimé, the “unloved one” of French soccer. After Zinedine Zidane and until the emergence of Kylian Mbappé, he was the greatest French soccer player of his time, but he has never become a universally accepted idol like the other two. It was as if he didn’t quite fit. When the issue was not about his reserved personality, it was because he did not sing La Marseillaise (the French national anthem) at international matches. When it was not because he said that Algeria (where his parents are from) was his country, his “heart,” it was because of more serious matters such as a blackmail case involving a sex video of Mathieu Valbuena, a fellow player on the national team. Neither he nor his fellow citizens bonded with each other. It is as if the player were a mirror of some national neuroses.

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]]>Aurelien Meunier<![CDATA[Clotilde Leguil, psychoanalyst: ‘Giving in is not consenting’]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-10-25/clotilde-leguil-psychoanalyst-giving-in-is-not-consenting.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-10-25/clotilde-leguil-psychoanalyst-giving-in-is-not-consenting.htmlWed, 25 Oct 2023 20:15:29 +0000Clotilde Leguil (Paris, 55) strolls down the Boulevard du Montparnasse one October afternoon. On one corner, stands La Closerie des Lilas, the legendary brasserie, and in the background, the Luxembourg gardens. Samuel Aranda captures her amid the silent comings and goings of anonymous Parisians — each with their own secret lives, their own troubles. Leguil, a philosopher and psychoanalyst, has developed an eye for what lies beneath, the underlying humor of our times. In L’ère du toxique (which translates as The toxic era in English), her recently published book in French, she boldly uses such an omnipresent word — ‘toxic.’ This is a dissection of another modern-day issue: consent and its limits. Leguil was inspired by some demonstrative collages painted on the city’s street walls that conveyed a “fair and profound” message, she said during the interview, prior to the walk along Montparnasse: “Giving in is not consenting.”

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]]>Samuel Aranda<![CDATA[When literature and documentaries warn about incestuous sexual abuse]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-09-26/when-literature-and-documentaries-warn-about-incestuous-sexual-abuse.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-09-26/when-literature-and-documentaries-warn-about-incestuous-sexual-abuse.htmlTue, 26 Sep 2023 16:12:51 +0000There is a moment, in actress Emmanuelle Béart’s documentary about incestuous child abuse, in which a woman named Norma explains that as a child her grandfather raped her. And with her confessions she leads the actress herself and the viewer into a nauseating abyss, similar to the one that literary testimonies such as those of Christine Angot and Camille Kouchner have revealed in France in recent years.

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]]>VALERY HACHE<![CDATA[Stéphanie Roza, philosopher: ‘Being in favor of degrowth is anti-progressive, there are countries that need to grow’ ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-09-24/stephanie-roza-philosopher-being-in-favor-of-degrowth-is-anti-progressive-there-are-countries-that-need-to-grow.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-09-24/stephanie-roza-philosopher-being-in-favor-of-degrowth-is-anti-progressive-there-are-countries-that-need-to-grow.htmlSun, 24 Sep 2023 06:00:00 +0000Stéphanie Roza, 43, is a leftist by origins, by family and by conviction. At the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the Paris-born philosopher specializes in the Enlightenment and the history of socialism.

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]]>Manuel Braun<![CDATA[Charlotte Gainsbourg opens the doors to her father’s mythical house: ‘For me, it was a burden for 32 years’]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-09-14/charlotte-gainsbourg-opens-the-doors-to-her-fathers-mythical-house-for-me-it-was-a-burden-for-32-years.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-09-14/charlotte-gainsbourg-opens-the-doors-to-her-fathers-mythical-house-for-me-it-was-a-burden-for-32-years.htmlThu, 14 Sep 2023 23:09:32 +0000To access Serge Gainsbourg’s Parisian house – which will open to the public for the first time on September 20 – you must first go through a metal door. To the right, another door leads to the living room. It’s like entering a space where time has stopped.

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]]>Alexis Raimbault<![CDATA[The abaya triggers a new battle for secularism in France]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-07/the-abaya-triggers-a-new-battle-for-secularism-in-france.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-07/the-abaya-triggers-a-new-battle-for-secularism-in-france.htmlThu, 07 Sep 2023 15:28:17 +0000Noise in the political sphere, calm in the classroom. The ban on the abaya, the traditional tunic in some Muslim countries, considered an indication of religious or cultural identity, has come into force this week in French schools amid an intense debate on secularism and its application in the education system. The Council of State must decide by September 7 whether the measure is legal and respects fundamental freedoms.

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]]>STEPHANE MAHE<![CDATA[‘Preferendum:’ Macron’s innovative solution to move France beyond political crisis]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-08-31/preferendum-macrons-innovative-solution-to-move-france-beyond-political-crisis.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-08-31/preferendum-macrons-innovative-solution-to-move-france-beyond-political-crisis.htmlThu, 31 Aug 2023 11:44:44 +0000Preferendum: this is the popular neologism at the beginning of the political year in France. Lacking an absolute majority in the National Assembly and in the absence of parliamentary allies that would allow him to govern in comfort, Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday reached out to the leaders of the opposition, from the extreme left to the extreme right. The French president convened a marathon meeting in which, among other proposals, recourse to a referendum was tabled. But Macron’s idea was innovative: a preferendum, a consultation with multiple questions, akin to holding several referendums at once.

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]]>POOL<![CDATA[The great predator of luxury: this is how Bernard Arnault built his LVMH empire, valued at $500 billion ]]>https://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2023-06-06/the-great-predator-of-luxury-this-is-how-bernard-arnault-built-his-lvmh-empire-valued-at-500-billion.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2023-06-06/the-great-predator-of-luxury-this-is-how-bernard-arnault-built-his-lvmh-empire-valued-at-500-billion.htmlTue, 06 Jun 2023 12:47:56 +0000Bernard Arnault always wanted to win. As a child, he was the first in class. Later on, he was the one who passed the most difficult exams to enter the most demanding university programs. He learned to play the piano well but they say that, once he realised he wasn’t going to be the best at the instrument, he gave it up.

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]]>Chesnot (GETTY IMAGES)<![CDATA[Michelle Perrot: ‘Many women felt comfortable with the division of male and female roles’]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-07-27/michelle-perrot-many-women-felt-comfortable-with-the-division-of-male-and-female-roles.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-07-27/michelle-perrot-many-women-felt-comfortable-with-the-division-of-male-and-female-roles.htmlThu, 27 Jul 2023 17:16:49 +0000Despite her advanced age, historian Michelle Perrot continues to walk up and down stairs. The physical stairs of an old Parisian building near the Luxembourg Gardens, stairs that she usually prefers to the elevator. She climbs mental ladders too: from the past to the present (and the future), from history to anthropology and literature, with an agility that at any age would be exceptional and at hers is disconcerting. Perrot, together with Georges Duby, is the co-author of the monumental History of Women in the West and a pioneer in this field. She has just published (in French) Le temps des féminismes (The time of feminisms) in collaboration with the journalist Eduardo Castillo. Her energy is far from exhausted. Now she is preparing an essay, on those very stairs: as a symbolic space, a reflection of life, full of dangers, a place of encounters and social visions.

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]]>Manuel Braun<![CDATA[The director general of UNESCO: ‘The return of the US will strengthen the organization’]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-07-14/the-director-general-of-unesco-the-return-of-the-us-will-strengthen-the-organization.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-07-14/the-director-general-of-unesco-the-return-of-the-us-will-strengthen-the-organization.htmlFri, 14 Jul 2023 10:13:33 +0000The return this week of the United States to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) represents a step forward for multilateralism at a time of rivalry between powers and contempt between some international institutions. The move will immediately represent a multimillion-dollar injection of funds for the Paris-based organization. And it can rebalance power relations with China, which takes advantage of any retreat by the rival power to reinforce its own global influence.

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]]>Antoine Gyori - Corbis<![CDATA[France evaluates damage after riots: more impact on image than on economy]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-08/france-evaluates-damage-after-riots-more-impact-on-image-than-on-economy.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-08/france-evaluates-damage-after-riots-more-impact-on-image-than-on-economy.htmlSat, 08 Jul 2023 15:38:05 +0000A week ago, the manager of the Fnac store in the Créteil-Soleil shopping center, on the outskirts of Paris, saw looters arriving. He pulled down the shutters and evacuated customers through the back door. In the evening the book and electronics store suffered a new assault. “They stole phones and computers,” Joseph recalls. And books? The manager laughs: “No, unfortunately, no.”

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]]>PATRICK HERTZOG<![CDATA[Young man arrested for riots in France: ‘I did it to show courage, to be recognized’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-05/young-man-arrested-for-riots-in-france-i-did-it-to-show-courage-to-be-recognized.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-05/young-man-arrested-for-riots-in-france-i-did-it-to-show-courage-to-be-recognized.htmlWed, 05 Jul 2023 08:46:32 +0000“I’m sorry.” These two words are repeated at the end of many of the hasty trials, known as comparutions immédiates, that are being held in courts across France. On trial are the people who took part in the riots sparked by the death of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk, who was shot dead by a police officer near Paris.

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]]>NACHO DOCE<![CDATA[The rage of the ‘banlieue’ flares tensions in France again]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-30/the-rage-of-the-banlieue-flares-tensions-in-france-again.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-30/the-rage-of-the-banlieue-flares-tensions-in-france-again.htmlFri, 30 Jun 2023 21:55:42 +0000Just when France seemed to be calming down after a winter of political crisis and protests against pension reforms, tensions flared up again, reopening an old wound that never seems to fully heal. The wound is in that part of French society called the banlieue – the multicultural and impoverished city suburbs populated by generations of immigrants from the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. Often treated as second-class citizens, they harbor a simmering resentment towards French institutions, especially the police.

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]]>BERTRAND GUAY<![CDATA[Ana Garbín Alonso: Identity of ‘anarchist Madonna’ revealed 87 years after iconic Spanish Civil War photo]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-28/ana-garbin-alonso-identity-of-anarchist-madonna-revealed-87-years-after-iconic-spanish-civil-war-photo.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-28/ana-garbin-alonso-identity-of-anarchist-madonna-revealed-87-years-after-iconic-spanish-civil-war-photo.htmlWed, 28 Jun 2023 13:44:27 +0000She was a nameless woman standing on a barricade in Barcelona in 1936, a red-and-black flag framed behind her. Her image was printed on posters and books, murals were painted of her, and she became an icon of the Spanish Civil War. Her identity was unknown, as was that of the photographer. Five years ago, the first enigma was solved: the photographer was Antoni Campañà, a recognized name but a minor one in the history of local photography. She remained anonymous: an almost abstract idea — of the Civil War, of anarchism, of revolution — rather than a flesh-and-blood person. Until now.

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]]><![CDATA[The Europe that has been created by another war: a 1,700-mile-long journey through a rattled continent ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-25/the-europe-that-has-been-created-by-another-war-a-1700-mile-long-journey-through-a-rattled-continent.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-25/the-europe-that-has-been-created-by-another-war-a-1700-mile-long-journey-through-a-rattled-continent.htmlSun, 25 Jun 2023 22:32:37 +0000There is no escape. No matter how far we venture from the front — and until the last day of the journey from east to west across the continent — the war doesn’t stop sending signals. It refuses to let go — it wants to destroy the illusion of a Europe in eternal peace, a Europe in which words such as “trenches” or “nuclear bombs” are relegated to the history books. Now, it’s as if we’re beginning to look at a different future: that of a permanent post-war era.

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]]>Samuel Sánchez<![CDATA[UN deems international financial system ‘outdated, dysfunctional and unfair’ during Paris summit for debt relief for Global South]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-23/un-deems-international-financial-system-outdated-dysfunctional-and-unfair-during-paris-summit-for-debt-relief-for-global-south.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-23/un-deems-international-financial-system-outdated-dysfunctional-and-unfair-during-paris-summit-for-debt-relief-for-global-south.htmlFri, 23 Jun 2023 14:25:24 +0000The problem is serious, but there is enormous ambition. There is a sort of miniature UN, or a Parisian Davos, aspect to the two-day meeting that French President Emmanuel Macron has convened in Paris with the aim of seeking answers to the multiple crises that are rocking the poorest countries. Suffocating debt, coupled with the environmental crisis, is dragging many of these nations into a downward spiral from which they cannot pull themselves out without external assistance.

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]]>EMMANUEL DUNAND<![CDATA[Kiddy Smile: ‘Dance is the basis of everything, it should be learned from kindergarten’]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-06-22/kiddy-smile-dance-is-the-basis-of-everything-it-should-be-learned-from-kindergarten.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-06-22/kiddy-smile-dance-is-the-basis-of-everything-it-should-be-learned-from-kindergarten.htmlThu, 22 Jun 2023 18:04:54 +0000Kiddy Smile is a dancer, DJ, and designer. He is also a famous for voguing, a dance created by drag queens and trans women from racial minorities in New York in the early 1980s. The dance style imitates the poses of the models in fashion magazines and martial arts moves to disco or house music. Son of Cameroonian immigrants, Kiddy Smile grew up in a slum near Paris, and today he has a home in that city and another in Barcelona. On June 24, he is taking his show to the Canal Street musical cycle, at the Teatros del Canal in Madrid, on the eve of the city’s Pride festival.

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]]><![CDATA[The secret of the taco: modern, multicultural France’s fast food phenomenon]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-06-20/the-secret-of-the-taco-modern-multicultural-frances-fast-food-phenomenon.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-06-20/the-secret-of-the-taco-modern-multicultural-frances-fast-food-phenomenon.htmlTue, 20 Jun 2023 14:43:25 +0000In the country of haute cuisine, and in the suburbs of one of its most renowned gastronomic cities, a dish was born at the beginning of this century that typifies modern France: tacos. From there, it has become almost a national dish.

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]]>Samuel Aranda<![CDATA[France seeks explanations for the horror of Annecy and celebrates its heroes]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-10/france-seeks-explanations-for-the-horror-of-annecy-and-celebrates-its-heroes.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-10/france-seeks-explanations-for-the-horror-of-annecy-and-celebrates-its-heroes.htmlSat, 10 Jun 2023 14:25:23 +0000This is the story of a city and a country horrified by a crime committed for no apparent reason, and simultaneously dazzled by the courageous acts of several citizens who prevented a massacre. It is partly the story of Abdalmasih and Henri. One is Syrian; the other, French. The former is in custody for stabbing several young children on Thursday in a park in Annecy, a placid and prosperous town in the French Alps. The second is resting in a house in a residential neighborhood of that same city as he tries to assimilate what happened in the last few hours.

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]]>OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE<![CDATA[President of French National Assembly: ‘The far right’s ideas remain as radical as ever, we must not drop our guard’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-05/president-of-french-national-assembly-the-far-rights-ideas-remain-as-radical-as-ever-we-must-not-drop-our-guard.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-05/president-of-french-national-assembly-the-far-rights-ideas-remain-as-radical-as-ever-we-must-not-drop-our-guard.htmlMon, 05 Jun 2023 15:54:32 +0000It happened a little over a year ago: for the first time, legislative elections in France saw a far-right group, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN), become the chief opposition party in the country’s National Assembly. Suddenly, after decades in which the far right had been on the outside looking in, the RN had enough seats – 89 – to form an official group in parliament. And it took its place in France’s lower house pledging to establish itself as a trustworthy, respectable party.

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]]><![CDATA[French resistance fighter reveals execution of 47 German soldiers in 1944]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-29/french-resistance-fighter-reveals-execution-of-47-german-soldiers-in-1944.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-29/french-resistance-fighter-reveals-execution-of-47-german-soldiers-in-1944.htmlMon, 29 May 2023 12:51:15 +0000The secret remained hidden for almost 80 years. Nobody said a word. It was nothing to be proud of; it was better to forget it had ever happened. Those who participated in or were present at the execution of 47 unarmed German soldiers, at the end of World War II in the Massif Central in southern France, kept silent all their lives. Some did not even tell their wives or children. Did they feel any regret? “A little, but that’s life,” says Edmond Réveil in the first-floor living room of his small house in Meymac, a village of 2,500 inhabitants in the rural, mountainous region of inland France. At 98, Réveil greets visitors standing, walks up and down stairs and maintains an enviable physique. He also preserves the memory of that day.

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]]><![CDATA[Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat reconcile in Paris]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-05-20/andy-warhol-and-jean-michel-basquiat-reconcile-in-paris.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-05-20/andy-warhol-and-jean-michel-basquiat-reconcile-in-paris.htmlSat, 20 May 2023 01:43:53 +0000There couldn’t have been two more different American artists. On one hand, there was the pop art genius – the 50-something son of Slovak immigrants who captured the zeitgeist of the 1960s. And, on the other, the 20-something child of a Haitian and a Puerto Rican, who became the king of street art in the 1980s.

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]]><![CDATA[Omar Alshogre, Syrian dissident: ‘Under torture they forced me to say I had killed policemen... I was 15 years old’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-17/omar-alshogre-syrian-dissident-under-torture-they-forced-me-to-say-i-had-killed-policemen-i-was-15-years-old.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-17/omar-alshogre-syrian-dissident-under-torture-they-forced-me-to-say-i-had-killed-policemen-i-was-15-years-old.htmlWed, 17 May 2023 10:30:41 +0000“I have lost my father, my brothers, and I spent three years in these prison cells, but even so, this revolution is worth making: we have monsters in power,” says Omar Alshogre, 27. He is inside a room in Sciences Po, the prestigious political science institute in Paris, commenting on an exhibition of photographs by César, the pseudonym of a former Syrian military police photographer who left the country in 2013 with 55,000 images documenting the crimes against humanity of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Alshogre knows what he is talking about: he was arrested during the protests at the beginning of the so-called Arab Spring revolts against Al-Assad and was inside those prisons between 2011 and 2015. He was still a teenager, and he survived. Alshogre now splits his time between the United States and Sweden and is in charge of detainee affairs at the Syrian Emergency Task Force, an American non-profit group. “When they arrest you and take you to prison, they interrogate you and ask you questions that are impossible to answer,” the conversation begins. “For example, how many police officers have you killed in your life, Marc?”

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]]><![CDATA[Macron dogged by protests after signing French pension reform into law]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-21/macron-dogged-by-protests-after-signing-french-pension-reform-into-law.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-21/macron-dogged-by-protests-after-signing-french-pension-reform-into-law.htmlFri, 21 Apr 2023 12:58:05 +0000Wherever he goes, he is followed by boos and heckles. French President Emmanuel Macron was expecting this response after he signed his controversial pension reform into law on Saturday. The law — which raises the retirement age from 62 to 64 — has sparked mass demonstrations across the country, and is opposed by seven out of 10 French people. The protests that met Macron provide some indication of how difficult it will be for him to meet his promise to soothe tensions within 100 days.

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]]><![CDATA[Macron, now what?]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-16/macron-now-what.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-16/macron-now-what.htmlSun, 16 Apr 2023 20:15:46 +0000“Mission accomplished.” French President Emmanuel Macron could quote U.S. President George W. Bush’s speech on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln after the invasion of Iraq, 20 years ago. In his case, he would be right. Macron enacted early Saturday morning the unpopular law that will raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, the flagship project of his presidency. And so he fulfilled an electoral promise and vindicated his will to transform France, despite the high political and social cost.

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]]><![CDATA[Marine Le Pen: ‘If Russia wins the war, it will be catastrophic... if Ukraine wins, it will mean WWIII has been unleashed’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-13/marine-le-pen-if-russia-wins-the-war-it-will-be-catastrophic-if-ukraine-wins-it-will-mean-wwiii-has-been-unleashed.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-13/marine-le-pen-if-russia-wins-the-war-it-will-be-catastrophic-if-ukraine-wins-it-will-mean-wwiii-has-been-unleashed.htmlThu, 13 Apr 2023 10:42:13 +0000“If I were president...” Marine Le Pen begins. Then she immediately corrects herself: “When I am president...” Unrest in France over the government’s pension reform has reinforced the chances of an election victory for the leader of the National Rally (RN), heir to the far-right party founded half a century ago by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. If Marine Le Pen were to face the incumbent Emmanuel Macron in a presidential runoff vote today, she would win with 55% of the ballots compared to 45% for the current president, according to a poll by the Elabe institute. At the last presidential election, in 2022, Macron prevailed with 58% support compared to 42% for Le Pen. Since last June, the RN has been the leading opposition group in the National Assembly, with 89 lawmakers who always wear ties ― the men, at least ― and who make a point of trying to avoid stridency, if not always successfully.

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]]><![CDATA[Michel Houellebecq loses lawsuit to block release of sex film]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-03-31/michel-houellebecq-loses-lawsuit-to-block-release-of-sex-film.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-03-31/michel-houellebecq-loses-lawsuit-to-block-release-of-sex-film.htmlFri, 31 Mar 2023 17:13:24 +0000The story seems straight out of a Michel Houellebecq novel. It’s all there: abundant depravity, existential angst, pornography and contemporary art. But perhaps it’s a bit more prosaic: the story of an aging man going through a rough patch who gets tangled up in a bad situation.

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]]><![CDATA[Laurent Berger, leader of France’s top union: ‘The Le Pen rocket has lifted off; now we have to prevent it from going into orbit’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-03-29/laurent-berger-leader-of-frances-top-union-the-le-pen-rocket-has-lifted-off-now-we-have-to-prevent-it-from-going-into-orbit.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-03-29/laurent-berger-leader-of-frances-top-union-the-le-pen-rocket-has-lifted-off-now-we-have-to-prevent-it-from-going-into-orbit.htmlWed, 29 Mar 2023 09:17:21 +0000Alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, the trade unionist Laurent Berger is the most decisive actor in the battle for pension reform in France. Any solution to the political and social crisis that the country is experiencing will surely go through the leader of France’s first union and the president of the French republic.

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]]><![CDATA[France, a democracy in crisis]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-03-21/france-a-democracy-in-crisis.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-03-21/france-a-democracy-in-crisis.htmlTue, 21 Mar 2023 09:20:33 +0000Less than 10 minutes had passed since the French government survived two no-confidence votes in the National Assembly, and the streets were already in uproar. Just under a mile from the National Assembly, in front of Napoleon’s tomb in the landmark complex Les Invalides, the people had passed their sentence. “We also want to impose ourselves by force,” chanted hundreds of mostly young protesters, as almost as many police officers watched from a distance.

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]]><![CDATA[Are French people lazy?]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-03-20/are-french-people-lazy.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-03-20/are-french-people-lazy.htmlMon, 20 Mar 2023 11:51:59 +0000Are French people lazy? The answer to this question is quick and simple: no. Or no more or less lazy than Americans, Spaniards or Canadians.

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]]><![CDATA[France braces for more unrest after Macron passes pension reform by decree]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-03-17/france-braces-for-more-unrest-after-macron-passes-pension-reform-by-decree.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-03-17/france-braces-for-more-unrest-after-macron-passes-pension-reform-by-decree.htmlFri, 17 Mar 2023 09:14:31 +0000France has entered a moment of political and social unrest. French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to pass his unpopular pension reform via decree — instead of putting it to a vote in the National Assembly — has placed him and his government in a precarious position.

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]]><![CDATA[Le Pen emerges as political winner in battle for pensions in France]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-03-10/le-pen-emerges-as-political-winner-in-battle-for-pensions-in-france.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-03-10/le-pen-emerges-as-political-winner-in-battle-for-pensions-in-france.htmlFri, 10 Mar 2023 15:11:02 +0000The fight over a highly unpopular pension reform has redrawn the political landscape in France. According to various polls and experts, the person who can benefit the most from the unrest is Marine Le Pen – the leader of the far right, who has been defeated in runoff elections by President Emmanuel Macron in 2017 and 2022.

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]]><![CDATA[Macron’s ‘balanced’ immigration bill fails to win over France’s right or left]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-02-02/macrons-balanced-immigration-bill-fails-to-win-over-frances-right-or-left.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-02-02/macrons-balanced-immigration-bill-fails-to-win-over-frances-right-or-left.htmlThu, 02 Feb 2023 16:54:27 +0000France, which is posting one of its lowest unemployment levels in a decade and a half, is preparing to debate a new immigration law that will allow for the hiring and regularization of undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers in sectors suffering labor shortages. The bill, which was presented before the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, also seeks to expedite the deportation of foreign nationals with criminal convictions, or those who are considered to represent a “serious threat to public order.”

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]]>Valeria Mongelli<![CDATA[Nobel winner Mario Vargas Llosa inducted into Académie Française]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-02-10/nobel-winner-mario-vargas-llosa-inducted-into-academie-francaise.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-02-10/nobel-winner-mario-vargas-llosa-inducted-into-academie-francaise.htmlFri, 10 Feb 2023 12:50:12 +0000The Spanish-Peruvian writer and Nobel Prize for Literature winner Mario Vargas Llosa joined the Académie Française on Thursday in a ceremony that was one of the most important events in the cultural life of the country and also in the history of this hallowed institution, founded by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635: never before had anyone been allowed to join who had not published a single book in the French language, whose defense and preservation is the organization’s raison d’être.

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]]>EMMANUEL DUNAND<![CDATA[Ukraine war reveals underlying tensions in Franco-German relationship]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-01-30/ukraine-war-reveals-underlying-tensions-in-franco-german-relationship.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-01-30/ukraine-war-reveals-underlying-tensions-in-franco-german-relationship.htmlMon, 30 Jan 2023 12:23:10 +0000There are moments in history that have a convulsive effect and change the face of entire continents. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, launched almost a year ago, is one of those moments. According to the essayist Luuk van Middelaar, February 24, 2022, is a date comparable to the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. And, as was the case in 1989, the events of 2022 and 2023 have shaken the foundations of one of the foundation blocks of the European Union (EU): the Franco-German alliance.

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]]>CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON