WorldcrunchStay informed on France with Worldcrunch. In-depth coverage of French politics, economic trends, societal changes, and cultural events with expert translations. Highlights include Paris, Lyon, Marseille, French cinema, gastronomy, modern literature, and cultural events.
Despite sometimes heated debates and increasing regulations, the king of short-term rentals has never performed as well as in this post-COVID period. The announcement this week of a whole set of new features shines the light on one of the digital era’s great success stories.
Jordan Bardella may become the first far-right prime minister in France since World War II. Is this good news for Vladimir Putin?
Impoverished by decades of intensive farming, soils are losing their capacity to store carbon and retain water. Today, alternative farming methods try to offer a solution to the problem, but the results are far from ideal.
There is a striking paradox: the European elections, which were expected to cause a seismic shift, ended in relative continuity in most places. The crisis erupted where it was least expected: in France, snap elections could have serious consequences in the whole of Europe.
As the upcoming French and American elections show, the Western democratic model is being put into question — both externally by revisionist powers, and internally.
The G7 countries meeting in Italy are examining a proposed $50 billion loan to Ukraine, a way of preempting possible future obstacles: Trump in the U.S. and the far-right in France. The wildcard is Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to dissolve Parliament and call special elections caught his international partners by surprise. The stakes are high, especially for Ukraine.
Comparisons between the wars in Europe and the Middle East tell us a lot about the standpoint of those who compare. They also signal to a new world order that has yet to be shaped.
Olaf Scholz has refused to dissolve Germany’s parliament, even though his coalition suffered a major defeat at the European elections. The Chancellor’s weakened position comes at a bad time for Europe, where the union’s other major power, France, is also in a fragile state.
Can the surge of the far right in Europe pave the way for Donald Trump’s victory in the United States in November? Or will a majority of Americans reject a convicted former president running for office? Though political patterns are hard to detect, young voters play an important role in what comes next, writes political scientist Dominique Moïsi in French business daily Les Echos.
There’s the risk both for over and underestimating the unprecedented gains of far-right parties in the European elections.
Participants in the D-Day commemorations will issue a new transatlantic declaration reaffirming common values. The risk is that they will try to save the West — rather than try to reinvent a world with greater fairness and economic equity.
In his latest film, Cambodian-born filmmaker Rithy Panh examines the Khmer Rouge regime’s manipulation of foreign opinion. A universal and highly topical lesson on how to distance oneself from ideologies and their illusions.
From Ukraine to the South China Sea, images of war are highly reminiscent of the horrors of the past. As the world marks 80 years since the Normandy landings of World War II, geopolitical analyst Dominique Moïsi wonders if history is bound to repeat itself.
Two weeks ahead of the Ukraine conference in Switzerland, Volodymyr Zelensky blamed China for sabotaging the meeting at Russia’s behest. Urkaine’s president may use the upcoming D-Day memorial to raise the stakes with his own allies.
The Israeli Prime Minister appeared on French television to try to convince European audiences of his war aims. But his main weakness is his lack of vision for the “aftermath”: he has nothing to offer the Palestinians.
The French president wants to convince Vladimir Putin to halt military deployment around Ukraine. But some in Moscow believe the Russian president is only interested in negotiating with the U.S. about the wider global balance of power.
Long neglected in our homes, toilets are undergoing a revolution through both technological and design innovations. As we spend on average more than a year of our lives on them, consumers are increasingly looking for something more than purely functional.
At the Paris Olympic Games, Omega, the official timekeeper of the competition, promises unprecedented precision timekeeping. The science of sports timekeeping is undergoing an unprecedented acceleration. Victory must be fair.
The arrival of a child is rarely discussed publicly by female bosses. A number of them told Les Echos about special time in their lives, and revealed some tips on how to juggle their professional and private lives.
In Germany, support for the far-right AfD party is dwindling while its French counterpart, the Rassemblement National of Le Pen, is leading the polls. Opposed trajectories that stem from very different approaches: German radicalization vs. French “dédiabolization.”
With the current edition in full swing, we take a look back at Cannes history, with a little help from the photographic archives of INA, France’s public audiovisual institute. This 1962 episode features icons, heartthrobs and rising stars …
Paris has accused Azerbaijan of meddling in the unrest in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia. But in this new hybrid war of influence, external actors don’t create problems, they amplify them.
The Russian president is in Beijing on Thursday and Friday, his first foreign trip since his re-election. Beijing and Moscow have their differences, but share the same long-term objective of changing the international order.
Ahead of Notre Dame Cathedral’s reopening in December 2024, a proposal by President Macron to replace six 19th-century stained glass windows with new panels has sparked outcry. Yet stained glass is not new to controversy in France, where even Matisse, Chagall, Garouste and Soulages have managed to unite the sacred and the contemporary.
Some 61 years ago, the Cannes Film Festival was off to a feathery start, courtesy of the Master of Suspense himself.
Each year, millions of French people take to the saddle more or less regularly, making horse riding the country’s third most popular sport, and the most popular for women. The sport will get special attention at the Paris Games.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was taken to task by hostage families during his Memorial Day speech on Monday — just the latest sign of the deep divisions in Israeli society as the war enters its eighth month, with no vision for the future.
Clothing companies in France have a habit of simply ignoring larger-sized women. But led by a new generation of designers, some of them inspired by first-hand frustrations, the sector is finally showing signs of change.
With strikes on Moscow’s fleet in the Black Sea, Ukraine has undermined the Russian capacity to slow down Ukrainian grain exports. It’s a pivotal triumph, which nonetheless can’t hide Kyiv’s losing ground on the front line on a regular basis.
The competing May 8 and May 9 World War II victory celebrations, and an upcoming D-Day snub to Vladimir Putin, show how uncertain the future appears right now. Perhaps even more uncertain than the Cold War.
By visiting Serbia and Hungary, two countries that will soon be linked by a railroad built and financed by China, Xi Jinping is showing that he has not given up on cultivating special friendships on the continent, even if it undermines relations with Europe’s more influential leaders.
While Paris aims to host the greenest Olympics this summer, the French company Rebond is working to make soccer balls, typically pumped up with petrochemicals, more environmentally friendly by using bio-sourced and recyclable materials.
The Chinese president is in France for the 60th anniversary of French-Chinese diplomatic relations. He will play up Europe’s independence from the United States, but behind the smiles will be the war in Ukraine and the Russian-Chinese “friendship.”
Images of recent student-led, pro-Palestinian protests across the world are reminiscent of the demonstrations of solidarity in support of Vietnam, that rocked campuses some 50+ years ago. But beyond the same indignation fueling the demonstrations, the context, and potential political repercussions, vary greatly.
Driven by advances in artificial intelligence, the development of human-shaped robots is accelerating on both sides of the Pacific. China see it as a way of accelerating modernization of its industrial base, while American venture capitalists are betting on their mass adoption in warehouses and factories.
Even more so than laughter, smiling is the human trait par excellence. It’s a real language — but can we learn to understand it? Or to cultivate it? The rewards could be high, and not just to boost morale: Smiling could increase life expectancy.
The French President and the German Chancellor, joined by their wives, dined together in a top Parisian restaurant on Thursday evening; a “private” meal at a decisive moment for “Europe in mortal danger,” as Emmanuel Macron repeated in a new interview.
A recent bilingual edition of Shakespeare’s complete works has turned new attention to the English playwright’s lasting (but not always appreciated) influence on French literature.
Injustice and inhumanity comes in many forms and places in the Middle East, including the Iranian regime’s death sentence for the rapper Toomaj. Why can’t those protesting the deaths of civilians in Gaza take a moment to try to save this innocent life as well?