Anonymous

The recent protests in Iran—besides being the largest in the country since the Green movement took to the streets in 2009—have also fueled furious speculation regarding the protests' causes. This speculation has been as diverse as…
Read More...

It cannot be denied that 2016 was a dramatic year for the ongoing conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. More than 20 years of what amounts to political and literal military sniping had until 2016 seen little resolved in the ongoing…
Read More...

After a difficult summer, Azerbaijan and Armenia’s precarious conflict is in danger of erupting. It is an issue nearly impossible to research without sifting through nationalist propaganda on both sides; however, bilateral hostility has…
Read More...

In August 2016, as branches of the Turkish government faced significant restructuring following July’s botched putsch, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan picked retired Brigadier General Adnan Tanrıverdi as his top security advisor. Tanrıverdi,…
Read More...

Vilified versus idealized political correctness: the toxic dichotomous debate that has monopolized the current public political scene. Often associated with a left-wing and liberal agenda led by millennials, the conversation around…
Read More...

It is interesting to note that in Turkish there are two words for peace. The first, barış, denotes reconciliation and togetherness. The second, huzur, has connotations of tranquility and stability, but not harmony or justice. This latter is…
Read More...

It appears that in the weeks preceding the inevitable onslaught of a Trump presidency, soon to be former President Barack Obama is taking several steps to prepare the United States and the world for Trump’s confrontational approach to…
Read More...

“Today, I am conscious of the risks that would arise from an approach, such as mine, that would not gather up to a great extent.” This is how François Hollande announced that he would not run for a second five-year term. Who will then,…
Read More...

François Fillon (Les Républicains/LR) has now become the official conservative candidate for the 2017 French presidential elections. Winning the Republican primaries with 67% of the votes, he has outmatched the 33% of the Centrist Alain…
Read More...

Brexit, President-elect Trump and now François Fillon in the front row since the first round of the French Republican primaries. In each case, research institutes have failed to forecast the outcome. And it is not a triffling incident.…
Read More...

In North America and in France, it seems that we have come to a dramatic shift in politics. Indeed, President-elect Trump has shown that polls and surveys could be deceiving in the States, and as the French elections approach (today, Nov.…
Read More...

The Parisian concert hall Le Bataclan is officially reopening on November 12th 2016, one year after the massacre coordinated along the attacks at the Stade de France and in several streets of the Xth and XIth arrondissements. 130 people…
Read More...

Now this is something unusual in the French TV landscape. Beside their polemical investigation of French Islam in the show “Dossier TABOU” , the M6 channel has launched “Ambition Intime,” a reality TV show inviting the presidential…
Read More...

     When it comes to the dispatching of the Calais migrants throughout France, there seems to be two types of reactions. On the one hand, a supportive welcome, as in Cancale (Ille-et-Vilaine), Loudun (Vienne) or Pouilly-en-Auxois…
Read More...

      We do not vote willingly anymore. Rather, we try and block a specific candidate by voting for his opponent. In France, voters who fear a spectre of Hollande will vote for Sarkozy, while those who fear a rapprochement between…
Read More...

In an attempt to boost French tourism, Valérie Pécresse, the president of the Ile-de-France regional council, is currently dealing with the protests of student syndicates. As tourists now tend to avoid Paris because of the recent terrorist…
Read More...

With a mere 4% favourablity rating and the media disaster caused by the publication of the book Un président ne devrait pas dire ça (“A President Should Not Say That”, a collection of interviews given throughout five years to two…
Read More...

In just a couple of months, several civil servants, be it policemen or teachers, have been violently assaulted in the regions surrounding Paris. On October 13th a police unit came under mortar fire as they were investigating an unruly high…
Read More...

Outside of Ankara, construction crews work to build new military headquarters far removed from their old location next to the federal buildings. The move is one of many consequences of the unsuccessful coup attempt in Turkey last July.…
Read More...

At last, a consensus! Apparently, the republican candidates for the French primaries agree on one thing: the vital need for new prison cells. In 2016, there were 68,253 people for 58,311 only spaces. Poisson thus plans for 30.000 new ones,…
Read More...

The first TV debate of the 2017 French primaries took place this Wednesday, and it did two things: it maintained the Juppé/Sarkozy status quo while it propelled an as of now unknown candidate, namely Jean-Frédéric Poisson. At first…
Read More...

*French-to-English translations by the author* The start of the school year would not be a French one without another uproar sparked by the Ministry of National Education. After the spelling reform of last February (simplifying a…
Read More...

Fueled by the terrorist attacks and the refugee crisis, the French dispute about “national identity” is on everyone’s lips: burkini feuds this summer, fights between locals and immigrants in Corsica, controversy around the hijab at…
Read More...

As the first TV debate on the question of identity is approaching (October 13th), let us inaugurate this blog with Alain Juppé, currently the favourite of the seven republican candidates. His concept of “identité heureuse” (literally…
Read More...

Hello readers, This blog is dedicated to the French presidential primaries of November 2016, which shall designate the Republican candidate for the presidential elections in April 2017. As it now allows the general public to vote, such an…
Read More...

Saudi Arabia's mass executions in January were, paradoxically, not a message to Iran as much as a warning to a restive new generation in the Kingdom. Sheikh Nimr Al Nimr’s significance lies not in his theological credentials. He was not a…
Read More...

For ages, we in the democracies of the West have prided ourselves on our right to express our opinion on a variety of issues without constraint. Living under the protections afforded to citizens of democratic nations, we have regularly and…
Read More...