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Economy

A Hybrid For Hollande's Champs-Elysées Inauguration Parade

LES ECHOS(France)

PARIS – François Hollande, the French President-elect, has chosen the car he (or rather, his chauffeur) will drive down the Champs-Elysées on Inauguration Day.

While outgoing President Nicolas Sarkozy favored the Vel Satis by Renault five years ago, his Socialist successor picked the hybrid DS 5 by Citroën in a "metallic grey" for the May 15 parade, Les Echos reports. The car is made in France, more precisely in the factories of the eastern city of Sochaux, a symbolic choice in the face of more and more French manufacturing jobs being outsourced abroad.

The 43,000-euro vehicle is also a hybrid, functioning with either diesel or electric power – a nod to both environmentalists and the French nuclear industry. In any case, according to the French business daily, the choice represents the pinnacle in "product placement" for the brand..

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Geopolitics

U.S., France, Israel: How Three Model Democracies Are Coming Unglued

France, Israel, United States: these three democracies all face their own distinct problems. But these problems are revealing disturbing cracks in society that pose a real danger to hard-earned progress that won't be easily regained.

Image of a crowd of protestors holding Israeli flags and a woman speaking into a megaphone

Israeli anti-government protesters take to the streets in Tel-Aviv, after Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defence Minister Yoav Galant.

Dominique Moïsi

"I'd rather be a Russian than a Democrat," reads the t-shirt of a Republican Party supporter in the U.S.

"We need to bring the French economy to its knees," announces the leader of the French union Confédération Générale du Travail.

"Let's end the power of the Supreme Court filled with leftist and pro-Palestinian Ashkenazis," say Israeli government cabinet ministers pushing extreme judicial reforms

The United States, France, Israel: three countries, three continents, three situations that have nothing to do with each other. But each country appears to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown of what seemed like solid democracies.

How can we explain these political excesses, irrational proclamations, even suicidal tendencies?

The answer seems simple: in the United States, in France, in Israel — far from an exhaustive list — democracy is facing the challenge of society's ever-greater polarization. We can manage the competition of ideas and opposing interests. But how to respond to rage, even hatred, borne of a sense of injustice and humiliation?

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