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What Europe Needs Now? Some French Arrogance

French President Emmanuel Macron has just set himself up as the European Union's would-be savior. Seen from a Swiss point of view, there's no better option out there.

Macron at the Sorbonne University on Sept. 26
Macron at the Sorbonne University on Sept. 26
Richard Werly

-Analysis-

PARIS — There's a lot to be said about the style and content of Emmanuel Macron's address on Europe on Tuesday at the Sorbonne University. The French president has a habit, for example, of talking at length and peppering his speeches with multiple intellectual references, and this one was no exception, with nods to writer Albert Camus, philosopher Emmanuel Mounier and Robert Schuman, one of the founding fathers of modern Europe. Listeners, it's fair to say, could be forgiven for being a bit annoyed or bored by Macron's style.

And yet, what he said at the Sorbonne was actually quite ambitious, certainly more so than how he said it. Seen from Switzerland, the Frenchman's proposals to create a European agency for breakthrough innovation, a new body to control the application of European policies and levy new taxes (including a European carbon tax), should lead to vigorous debates given how removed the ideas seem to be from the demands many European citizens are making for less, rather than more fiscal and bureaucratic burden.

French leaders have a tendency to be arrogant, as everybody knows.

But the determination and ambition shown by the 39-year-old leader, who was elected on his promise of a "transformed" France inside a Europe capable of reinventing itself, must first of all be praised. To gamble as he does on a democratic refoundation of the Community pact, just two days after a far-right party entered Germany's Bundestag, is as laudable in its boldness as it is essential in the face of continuous assault from Europhobic populists.

French leaders have a tendency to be arrogant, as everybody knows. That's the risk. But who else could reshuffle the cards of the European game, inside of a Union that's still stunned by the Brexit vote, the consequences of the financial crisis and the migrant crisis? What other leader directly elected by a majority of voters can claim the same legitimacy, when the old, traditional parties are always tempted, in France and elsewhere, to use Brussels as a convenient scapegoat?

The answer is: nobody.

Emmanuel Macron, thanks to the French system's verticality, is the only European leader in a position to lead the counter-offensive by shaking up European institutions that are recalcitrant to changes and thus quick to ignore the peoples that make their lives more complicated. Tuesday, at the Sorbonne, he laid out the blueprints. Now it's time to start building.

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The Weight Of Trump's Indictment Will Test The Strength Of American Democracy

The U.S. legal system cannot simply run its course in a vacuum. Presidential politics, and democracy itself, are at stake in the coming weeks and months.

The Weight Of Trump's Indictment Will Test The Strength Of American Democracy

File photo of former U.S. President Donald Trump in Clyde, Ohio, in 2020.

Emma Shortis*

-Analysis-

Events often seem inevitable in hindsight. The indictment of former U.S. President Donald Trump on criminal charges has been a possibility since the start of his presidency – arguably, since close to the beginning of his career in New York real estate.

But until now, the potential consequences of such a cataclysmic development in American politics have been purely theoretical.

Today, after much build-up in the media, The New York Times reported that a Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict Trump and the Manhattan district attorney will now likely attempt to negotiate Trump’s surrender.

The indictment stems from a criminal investigation by the district attorney’s office into “hush money” payments made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels (through Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen), and whether they contravened electoral laws.

Trump also faces a swathe of other criminal investigations and civil suits, some of which may also result in state or federal charges. As he pursues another run for the presidency, Trump could simultaneously be dealing with multiple criminal cases and all the court appearances and frenzied media attention that will come with that.

These investigations and possible charges won’t prevent Trump from running or even serving as president again (though, as with everything in the U.S. legal system, it’s complicated).

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