Lionel Laurent

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

Europe’s benefitting from the US’ weakening grip on international students, but it will need reform and investments to change things longer term.

“The president of France is my friend, whoever it may be,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said a few months ago. But what if the next one turns out to be far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen, known for hostility to European integration, objecting to more aid for Ukraine and resisting corrections to the bloated state of France’s public finances?

Ten years ago, Australia’s main stock exchange decided its future lay in a radical shift to clearing and settling share trades using the blockchain. The idea was to exploit the useful bits of crypto technology, while steering clear of all the speculative mania around digital money. But it ended up just like Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse: costly, slow to implement and eventually shelved.

As they consider relocating, bankers are finding out that shopping for financial centers isn’t what it used to be.

“Onderdompelinglithografiebelichtingsinrichting,” the Dutch word for the devices made by ASML, is hard to say — which is apt considering how difficult it is to build these prized chipmaking machines.

In the London department store Selfridges, amid a stylish array of giant TV sets, smartphones and computing paraphernalia, a rectangular Walkman-sized cassette player sits in a glass cage like a museum exhibit. Only this isn’t an artifact from the 1980s – it’s a recent limited-edition model inspired by Elvis Presley and it retails for £159 ($212) for the full package, including the 1957 Elvis Christmas album.

The issue the LVMH chief failed to address is becoming a defining one for investors: succession

Last week’s Ceuta border crisis was unprecedented in terms of scale, with at least 67 reported deaths after around 60,000 migrants breached the boundary between Morocco and the Spanish enclave (with a population of around 80,000.) The aftermath may be unprecedented too, judging by the blame game erupting on a continent where far-right parties are riding high and several key countries are entering election season.

Ten years ago, Australia's main stock exchange decided its future lay in a radical shift to clearing and settling share trades using the blockchain. The idea was to exploit the useful bits of crypto technology, while steering clear of all the speculative mania around digital money. But it ended up just like Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse: costly,........