The French are prone to street protest. This seems indisputable. But there must be something more, something that explains a practically endemic frustration. And this something could be related to the fact that France feels special, like a unique beacon of light in the world. The supposed French identity, constructed, like all others, in the 19th century, is based on the invention of grandeur.

France is trying to shield itself to avoid situations of chaos and violence once again this Saturday, when another day of major mobilizations is expected. The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, has chosen the strategy of a firm hand to stop the riots: limiting the right to demonstrate. The French head of state asked the prefects this Thursday to ban all demonstrations for the coming days—and especially, looking ahead to Saturday—that are not called by the unions. Macron considers any protest that does not have the unions behind it "illegitimate." "The general instruction is that there should be no demonstrations in the coming days," the President of the Republic explained.

“It is getting dark in the land of lights”. Someone wrote this on a window of a ground floor in a Paris street. What is happening is not a moment of collective rage, but the consequence of a presidential model absolutely detached from the citizenry. We can go into a thousand details and speculations, but the chaos that France is currently experiencing expresses the failure of President Emmanuel Macron. Six months before the end of his term, his political figure has run out of breath and is now only lashing out senselessly. It is the culmination of arrogance. Of a character who has not understood that the presidency of the Republic neither grants impunity nor is above the citizenry, to whom it must be accountable. And what has happened is that the president's insolence, the self-complacency that illuminates him, has created the sensation that France was neglected. And in part it is true. But above all, it is the inability to understand and address the concerns of the citizens that has trapped the president. And it seems as if he still does not want to realize it.

The week begins marked by the landscape after the battle this weekend in France.

For a month now, French students have been blocking high schools and demonstrating in the streets. The protests began to demand more resources for the education system, but for days now, the students' demands have been a total amendment to Macronism and the austerity budget proposed by the executive of Sébastien Lecornu. This weekend, students and workers joined in a large mobilization across the country against the rising cost of living and the lack of response from the administration. The rage erupted with 90 demonstrations and more than 500 protests, which ended in serious riots across the country, vandalism of public buildings, and looting of shops. We speak with Oriol Bartomeus, director of the Institute of Political and Social Sciences at the UAB, about the political moment France is experiencing and the implications of the protests with only a few months left until the crucial presidential elections.

France woke up on Sunday in a state of shock after the riots caused a degree of destruction not seen for many years in the country's main cities, starting with the capital, Paris. The Parisian City Council has admitted that law enforcement was overwhelmed, on a day when between 550,000 and 800,000 protesters were counted across the country and there were about 2,000 arrests. The outburst of rage began to brew during student protests a few weeks ago and has quickly spread to other layers of society, who see their standard of living becoming lower and, in parallel, public services becoming weaker. The result is the shocking images of this weekend, with a town hall in flames, that of Limoges, and the looting of luxury shops in the heart of Paris in the face of police helplessness. A police force, by the way, that was also in the spotlight for the excessive use of force against students.

After Saturday's outburst of rage, tension between police and protesters returned to the streets of several French cities this Sunday. In Toulouse, Lyon, Rennes, or Lille, hundreds of people took to the streets again in protests organized through social media, and in Paris, some of the scenes that turned the streets of the French capital into a battlefield on Saturday were repeated. The epicenter was once again the Place de la République, and there were also renewed looting incidents in some shops, although fewer than during Saturday's events.

Student protests in France are no longer just those of high school students. This Thursday, university students joined various demonstrations called throughout the French state, and more and more sectors are supporting the adolescents' mobilizations. Unions and student and teacher organizations have called for a new day of major mobilizations for October 13, and on November 5, the major French unions are also calling for a day of protest.

France has been experiencing historic student protests for three weeks. Students are blocking educational centers, clashing with the police, and thus paving the way for other sectors of the population who, suffocated by the cost of living and dissatisfied with the budget prepared by Sébastien Lecornu's executive, are pointing toward broader mobilizations throughout the French state during October.

Emmanuel Macron is one of the most influential leaders within the European Union, but, as the Americans would say, a truelame duck –who will no longer run in the French presidential elections of April 18, 2027, and who faces an extreme right led by Marine Le Pen that is leading the polls. Pedro Sánchez is not a lame duck because he will run again in the elections, but he is also at the end of his term, and with polls that give victory to the PP and Vox. In this context of mutual weakness, Emmanuel Macron will be in Spain this Tuesday and Wednesday on his last visit as President of the French Republic and with the idea of being a culmination of a progressive rapprochement between the two countries. In this context, King Felipe VI has asked him from the Royal Palace that the European Union take responsibility for the border with Ceuta.

Investment in the space sector is key to security and independence. With this argument, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, requested this Thursday that the European Union invest "on a large scale" in this sector. In her speech at the International Space Summit being held in Paris, which aims to boost European space autonomy, the head of the European executive warned that space is strategic and that current investments "will determine the competitiveness" of the community bloc in the future. The global space economy is expected to almost triple by 2035, to 1.8 trillion dollars.

This Tuesday, July 14, was the last Bastille Day for President Emmanuel Macron, and the one that best synthesizes his military program. The Élysée wanted to prepare a "massive" army parade with a dual objective: to show that French troops are "ready for combat" and that Europe is preparing for a "strategic awakening". The traditional deployment of the armed forces along the Champs-Élysées took place after this Monday a new summit of the Coalition of Volunteers for Ukraine was held, formed by the 37 countries willing to send soldiers there once a ceasefire with Russia is signed.

A few months before leaving the Elysée, Emmanuel Macron wants to set the idea he has been pursuing for years on track: Europe must militarily emancipate itself from the United States and work together for its security and defense. Donald Trump's arrival at the White House gave impetus to the idea, and the war in Ukraine has contributed to European countries working together to defend themselves, albeit with still unencouraging results.

At least 18 people were injured in two explosions this Tuesday in Damascus, the capital of Syria, during the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron. Among the injured there would be four police officers, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency. The visit of the French president is the first by a European head of state since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

Donald Trump appeared triumphantly on the stage of the G-7 summit in the French city of Évian. In the closing press conference, he stated that, with the memorandum of understanding agreed with Iran, the United States had achieved "everything they had set out to do and much more." As usual, he boasted that the U.S. military is the most powerful in the world and assured that they could have continued bombing Iran for weeks or even years, but that he stopped it to avoid "an economic catastrophe." Hours later, he signed the agreement in a solemn place: the Palace of Versailles. In front of the host, Emmanuel Macron, and some cameras, Trump stamped his signature on the document on the table of the state banquet that the French president had offered in his honor. In theory, the agreement was to be signed this Friday in Switzerland, but at this time it is unknown if Trump will do it, if his vice president Vance will go, and if Iran will send someone of importance. What is certain, however, is that Trump has already signed it.

Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, began this Monday his second visit to the Principality of Andorra. The French co-prince assured that he had discussed the decriminalization of abortion with Josep-Lluís Serrano Pentinat, the bishop of La Seu d'Urgell and the other co-prince, and with Xavier Espot, head of government, and suggested that during the speech he will give this Tuesday in Plaça del Poble he will refer to it: "We will talk about all the topics and I will also refer to it tomorrow in my speech," he remarked.

1. French politics is gripped by the threat of the far right, a threat that is spreading throughout Europe in the form of fears of a widespread rise in neo-fascism. This anxiety is in keeping with the logic of times in which the right seems to accept the drift towards post-democratic authoritarianism, and neo-fascists capitalize on it with the classic game of copycats. For some time now, the names of Marine Le Pen—given her pending criminal case—and Jordan Bardella have been mentioned as potential presidential candidates. However, this weekend's municipal and regional elections, while not decisive, have highlighted the gap between rhetoric and reality, giving France signs that might suggest the reactionary movement is not as potent as it seems, provided the right doesn't lend it a hand.

Fifteen years after the Fukushima accident, Europe is once again betting on nuclear energyUntil now, only a few member states—especially France, the European Union's leading nuclear power—had advocated for increased nuclear energy production and investment in the sector. Brussels had remained largely neutral, although in 2022 it yielded to French pressure to include nuclear power as a non-polluting energy source, classifying it almost as green energy. Now, however, the European Commission has fully aligned itself with France and believes that nuclear power must be expanded. "Europe made a strategic error by turning its back on a reliable, economical, and low-emission energy source," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her address at the nuclear energy summit held this Tuesday in Paris. The head of the EU executive and French President Emmanuel Macron have demonstrated their unwavering support for nuclear energy. Macron has called for more investment in the sector, especially now that the international geopolitical context is complex and dependence on hydrocarbons "can be an instrument of pressure and destabilization." The wars in Ukraine and Iran have made the vulnerability and energy dependence of many countries more evident, exposing them to escalating oil and gas prices. Nuclear energy accounts for 10% of the world's electricity production, with some 450 reactors spread across about thirty countries; France alone has 56.

Faced with a turbulent geopolitical landscape, France is embarking on a nuclear rearmament program. President Emmanuel Macron has announced that the country will increase its nuclear commanders—Macron clarified that the number will not be made public—and will acquire a new, state-of-the-art nuclear submarine. The announcement is not directly linked to the new war in the Middle East: the French president has been preparing France's rearmament for months. the desire to protect themselves from countries like Russia in a new global environment full of "risks and threats," where the United States is no longer a reliable partner."An increase in our arsenal is indispensable," the President of the Republic declared on Monday in a speech from Île Longue (Finistère), the secret military base where France has its four submarines capable of launching nuclear weapons. For the President, the key is deterrence: "The essential thing is that no adversary can even consider the possibility of an attack against France without the certainty of suffering damage from which it could not recover." However, Macron warned that he would use his nuclear arsenal if the country is attacked. "I will never hesitate to take the necessary decisions to protect our vital interests. No state, however powerful, could escape. No country could recover," the President of the Republic stated. Today's speech was one of the harshest and most bellicose that Macron has ever delivered. He did it in the middle of the nuclear military base, with a large, real submarine as a backdrop. "Just one of our submarines, like the one behind me, carries an attack power equivalent to the sum of all the bombs that fell on Europe during World War II," he boasted. It was one of the French nuclear submarines, which have a power equivalent to about a thousand times the power of the first nuclear bombs.

Three months later of his appointment as French Prime MinisterSébastien Lecornu has achieved what the two previous prime ministers failed to do: pass the budget and provide a degree of political stability in France. His arrival as prime minister It was very controversialBut he has been able—against all odds—to provide the country with a budget essential for its economic stability and to avoid a vote of no confidence. The two motions rejected Monday night by the National Assembly were the final obstacle for the budget. "We can turn the page," summarized a Macronist deputy.