Lionel Laurent

This week the leaders of Europe, Japan and Canada are getting a reminder of their “middle power” status in spades. President Donald Trump, eager to flex his geopolitical UFC muscles after an inglorious Iran campaign, is pressuring allies to fall in line on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. And China, whose export engine threatens to hollow out what’s left of European industry, is rebuffing more robust attempts to get it to play fair on trade.

France, like other countries in Europe, is seeking strategic autonomy as it leans on AI’s promise in boosting software development.

If there’s one foreign-policy issue on which Europe could have claimed frontline status, it’s Iran. But those days are over. The nuclear deal signed by major European powers a decade ago lies in tatters. This year’s ill-fated US war on Iran saw continental allies relegated to the sidelines while suffering its economic consequences. And although the US-Iran talks were announced with fanfare in Versailles, that’s about it for European Union involvement, even if NATO’s Mark Rutte says the bloc is “

The most severe heat wave ever recorded is making even the Greens more accepting of the dreaded AC.

France’s 2027 presidential election is increasingly looking like a shoo-in for the far right, or at least a hard-fought scrape by the center. But what if something closer to a “Mamdani moment” is in store?

An appeals court decision on the far-right leader’s 2025 conviction for embezzlement will determine her political future

The economic turnaround in Europe’s south since the dark days of last decade’s sovereign debt crisis is well-known. Yet Spain’s growth boom is still hitting new milestones. Annual gross domestic product recently vaulted past South Korea to join the $2 trillion club. Its growth is outpacing the G7’s and unemployment is at its lowest since Jan. 2008. Should we start to worry? After all, the last time the country’s prospects were this sunny, it was due to an unsustainable property bubble that burst

Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage, populist firebrands who’ve led their far-right parties to unprecedented poll leads in France and Britain, have made last-ditch public appeals to save their careers amid funding scandals. They both risk failure. But their actions say a lot about the politics of victimhood in the Donald Trump and Brexit era.

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The far-right leader doubtless senses it’s her last shot at a presidency she’s already tried and failed to win three times.