WorldcrunchFrance’s top business daily, Les Echos covers domestic and international economic, financial and markets news. Founded in 1908, the newspaper has been the property of French luxury good conglomerate LVMH (Moet Hennessy – Louis Vuitton) since 2007.
BERN – Switzerland may be set to become the world champion of shareholder democracy. Swiss voters gave overwhelming approval to the popular initiative against excessive corporate compensation — an initiative launched by Thomas Minder, an entrepreneur from the city of Schaffhausen. Some 68% voted in favor of Sunday’s ballot measure, and each local canton received […]
TALLINN – It’s 4 p.m., and night is already falling on Tallinn. The wind is freezing. Covered in snow, the old Soviet military barracks located on the outskirts of Estonia’s capital city look like the set of a Cold War movie. Uniformed soldiers occasionally cross the courtyard. You almost expect James Bond to suddenly come […]
OSLO – Before we even begin, it’s not pronounced “munch,” “mench” or even “manch” – it’s “moonk!” It’s a question of politeness, and also the locals are more likely to understand us if we pronounce his name correctly. In Olso, the artist is everywhere, just like his iconic masterpiece. Just like a spoiled child, Skrik, […]
PHNOM PENH – A few years ago this scene would have played out in China. More specifically, it would have played out in a Chinese coastal region to which millions of rural folks had arrived looking for work. A huge hangar, piles of fabrics of all colors at both ends, and some 200 heads lowered […]
TOULOUSE – Will we be forced to eat spiders, larvae, crickets and other creepy-crawlers in the near future? In the face of mounting demographic pressures, we may be faced with this question sooner rather than later. “With 20 billion cattle, twice the number of the 1980s, the earth has reached its maximum number of ruminants. […]
KANSAS CITY- It looks like the typical American neighborhood home: a flag out front, a terrace with a rocking chair and a barbecue in the backyard. But this ordinary Kansas City street contains a hidden treasure. It’s one of the first places to have access to “Google Fiber,” the super-fast broadband that is 100 times […]
PARIS – To infinity … and beyond! Within the next decade, if all goes according to plan, we Earthlings will have two crucial instruments at our disposal to probe the outer reaches of the universe. Doing so, will allow us to go back in time to the very birth of the universe, 13.7 billion years […]
PARIS – Founded in 1713, the Paris Opera Ballet is about to celebrate 300 years of innovations, while continuing to transmit its classical repertoire. This festive season, as always, the Ballet is a huge success. Whether it is for its 26 performances of the classic “Don Quixote” at the Bastille Opera; the 21 nights dedicated […]
PARIS – Do the Internet and digital devices make us happier and more efficient. Or do they just make us less intelligent? Two new books try to answer the question asked by Nichols Carr in The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains. Italian linguist Raffaele Simone and French philosopher Jean-Michel Besnier deliver […]
– Editorial – PARIS – A revolution is a riot that has succeeded. A riot is a revolution that has failed… For the second time since 1990, Algeria has missed another rendezvous with history, the Arab Spring. Like Saudi Arabia, it remained mostly extraneous to the unrest that overwhelmed the Arab world and led to […]
PARIS – As the end of the year approaches, it is difficult to escape the gift-giving madness. Santa has the family covered, of course, but the office is a different matter. Here, a postman replaces the old man with the red coat. The person who sent the present is rarely from Lapland – most often […]
GENEVA – The disappearance of many sailors has been blamed on something that doesn’t quite seem real: hallucinations, which have even prompted sailors to believe they had reached port and to climb over the railing of their boat. Loss of lucidity, loss of bearings – sleep deprivation can wreak havoc on a sailor’s mind, to […]
CALCUTTA– Captain Manpreet Jolly has not quite recovered yet. Nothing in his career at the Haldia port authority had prepared him for this. The captain was abducted by masked men in the middle of the night, and told at gunpoint to leave and never return to the port town. “We were at my assistant’s house […]
Lately, it seems like the whole world is finding fault with the French. Ratings agency Moody has downgraded France and the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the European Commission have all acknowledged that the country needs to undertake critical economic reforms to avoid decline. The so-called “Five Wise Men” […]
PARIS – What kind of haircuttee are you? Do you belong to the mute or the verbose category? At the hair salon, we apparently tend to be rather predictable. “About six out of ten people will just listen to what the hairdresser says. The others mainly need someone to talk to,” says Anthony Galifot, hairdresser […]
PARIS – One recent Sunday afternoon, a father sits on a park bench reading his magazine; all the while watching his six-year-old son Sébastien out of the corner of his eye, as he plays on the seesaw with the other children of his Parisian neighborhood. One of the children runs back to his mother, followed […]
PARIS – “An exceptional year for Bollinger champagne…” Considering the current economic situation, Jérôme Philipon’s comment is refreshing indeed. Even as the overall champagne market was down by 5% at the end of September, the family-run Bollinger producers predict record sales for 2013, says Philipon, the CEO of the champagne house. He expects a growth […]
PARIS – To look at them, you would never know the agony these young men, relaxed and self-assured, have endured. Drinking wine and eating blinis in their comfortable Parisian apartment, Nicolas (not his real name), Bertrand, Fabrice and Damien all tell a similar story. Raised in practicing Catholic families, and believers themselves, they have taken […]
PARIS – Ever seen a human scalp transformed into a drumhead? Or a shrunken head with its lips sewn shut to keep the dead from casting spells from beyond the grave? With their hair uncannily preserved, these centuries-old trophies seem to have retained all their eerie powers. They are some of the key pieces of […]
PARIS – In the United States, “China bashing” is in full swing. Denigrating China has been a mainstay of the American presidential campaign, in a time of economic one-upmanship between Washington and Beijing. During the final televised debate, devoted to foreign policy, Republican candidate Mitt Romney once again accused Beijing of manipulating its currency and […]
PARIS – The new tablets and smartphones have blurred the boundaries between businesses and their employees, partners and customers. The danger of computer piracy has never been so great. The threat is invisible but incessant, as the recent large-scale attack on British bank HSBC shows. In information technology, we live in a time of fantastic […]
Were they the “right rats?” The controversial study by Gilles-Eric Séralini of the University of Caen, on the toxicity of genetically modified NK603 corn and the weed killer Roundup, has raised a host of questions concerning the type of rodent used in the experiment. Is the Sprague-Dawley rat appropriate for two-year feeding experiments, when this […]
-Essay- PARIS – If we ask the French what they don’t understand about the U.S. elections, we are spoiled for choices. Having seen French commentary on the Obama-Romney duel, the most pointed area of incomprehension is “what it means to be an American Republican.” We just can’t seem to wrap our French brains around this […]
TBILISSI – A new French prime minister will soon be installed. But not in France – in Georgia, in the former Soviet Union. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has nominated Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire leader of the opposition, as prime minister. For those who didn’t know: Ivanishvili had been French by citizenship, not Georgian. Luckily for […]
-Essay- PARIS – Twitter is a great tool, capable of changing lives. It opens a window on the world, an embodiment of a new kind of digital solidarity. All the same, in the past few days, many people in France had an eye-opening experience as they discovered Twitter’s unsavory side. The anti-Semitic hashtag #unbonjuif (#agoodjew), […]
PARIS – Although Switzerland’s Art Basel is still incontestably the top fair for contemporary art, London’s Frieze, which took place last week at Regent’s Park, and Paris’s FIAC, which begins Thursday, are now sharing the second place on the podium. “Each fair has a different identity and energy. Paris is more established, while London is […]
-Analysis- PARIS – In Paulo Coelho’s book The Alchemist, the shepherd Santiago travels to the ends of the earth seeking a treasure that was close by all along. And sometimes, too, we find the key to understanding what is happening in our country today by reading about things far away. Two scholarly articles published last […]
Chinese routers from Huawei and ZTE are “a threat” for the United States, or even the world, according to a U.S. Congressional intelligence committee report made public on October 8. The committee suspects that these machines, which transmit Internet communications, could be working for the Chinese government. With this report, the American Congress has launched […]
PARIS – This time, it was definitely not a bug. Facebook has admitted to spying on all private conversations on its network, looking for Internet links being exchanged and for possible “criminal activities.” The admission opens the network up to many questions concerning privacy and legal rights. The Next Web, a popular technology site, found […]
-Analysis- In the financial press, Africa is now hailed as the “go-to” continent. It seems to be at the cusp of a golden age: its growth and direct foreign investment rates recall those of China at the beginning of the 2000s; South Africa has become one of the booming BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa). The continent also […]
-Analysis- PARIS – A specter is looming over France. That specter is called Qatar. Qatar’s announcement that it would invest 50 million euros in the impoverished suburbs outside Paris, an investment that will be matched by a fund partly financed by the French government and partly by the private sector, has sparked growing controversy. Some […]
One million CVs. That is how many resumes L’Oréal receives, year in, year out, in the 130 countries where the cosmetic giant has offices. From “job dating” on social networks to the avatars on Second Life, there have been various attempts to kill off the CV, but it keeps on being reinvented. Trends have come […]
PARIS – The price of luxury products is skyrocketing. The quasi-hypnotic appeal of some brands and the increasing number of extremely wealthy clients throughout the world is enabling luxury brands to hike prices to stratospheric levels year after year. A pair of John Lobb shoes, a Kelly Hermès bag, a kilo of Petrossian Sevruga caviar, […]
NEW DELHI – It was a long, hard summer in New Delhi — and it was made worse by the nice weather. In a country subject to monsoons (rainy season from June to Sept.), it’s when it doesn’t rain in July and August that the weather is considered bad. From this point of view, summer […]
PARIS – Pirates, spies, moles, thieves: those who want to steal the scientific treasures of French research laboratories had better be careful. With a new measure to protect the “nation’s scientific and technical potential,” in the next few months every organization, university and engineering school will be receiving instructions on how to protect themselves. Indeed, […]
PARIS – If you go by its website, Mars Kebab is the only fast-food restaurant in Paris that delivers sandwiches to the planet Mars. In the real world, Mars Kebab doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t keep it from having an excellent reputation on the web. Its promotional video has been viewed 105,000 times on YouTube, […]
PARIS – Is there a way that the countries of southern Europe can avoid sinking further into debt at unsustainable interest rates, without resorting to euro bonds, which Germany refuses to consider? Former IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn has an idea that he presented this past weekend at the YES (Yalta European Strategy) Forum which was […]
BORDEAUX – The sale of the Château de Gevrey-Chambertin at the end of August has revived the specter of France’s vineyards being transferred en masse into the hands of Chinese billionaires. However, in the Bordeaux region itself, these new investors seem to be rather well received by professionals in the field. Until August 22 of […]
SAINT-OUEN – At what age does gender inequality take root? As early as the crib, according to the staff at one nursery school in Saint-Ouen, in the northern suburbs of Paris. Bourdarias nursery school was the first pre-school establishment in France to adopt an anti-sexism policy, in 2009. France’s Minister for Women’s Rights Najat Vallaud-Belkacem […]
PARIS – The event was supposed to start on September 2 at 7 a.m. at the Josephine Baker swimming pool in Paris, on the banks of the Seine River. More than 3000 participants had signed up to take part in the swim that would take them up the Seine to the André-Citroën Park, west of […]