'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

France to see Sarko-Sego face-off

I'm still in northern France. Today, our neighbors here in Lille and throughout the country went to the polls in high numbers, to participate in the first round of the...

French responses on the cartoons issue

I am delighted to publish here, in its entirety, a very informative and thoughtful comment recently submitted here by Christiane, who lives in a Francophone part of Switzerland. Christiane, thanks...

Eric Marliere on the French riots

Ace JWN commenter Christiane tells us that Le Courrier International has an interesting interview with a sociologist specializing in the life of the suburbs here. She even sent us a...

Riots in France persisting

The anger-fueled rioting in the banlieues (suburbs) around Paris and some other big cities in France has gone on every evening for the past ten days now. It seems very...

Gerard Prunier on 'la francophonie' under threat

I was pretty certain that my theory of the dangers of "the death-throes of la francophonie", or perhaps, more modestly, "la francophonie under threat", as described here yesterday, was not...

Lorsque des voisins tuent leurs voisins

Alors, je vois que jusque vers le fin de mon dernier message j'ai ecrit que peut-etre quand le monde de la francophonie se sent encircle, c'est bien possible que les...

France, wars, and churches

Today, I finished writing a CSM column, scheduled to appear Thursday, that draws a little on my experience of being here in a bustling and unified Europe. The question I...

A view from Europe

I arrived at Charles De Gaulle airport Monday morning, had a few hours wait for the flight to Bordeaux. I spent some time keeping my eyes open for well-known Francophile...

BLAMING THE FRENCH: This seems

BLAMING THE FRENCH: This seems to be one of the slightly underhanded tactics that's emerged from the Trio Con Brio summit over the weekend. It was certainly a fairly strong...