Robert Sebbag is a doctor working with the infectious and tropical diseases department of the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, and has devoted his career to fighting pandemics such as SARS, Ebola, and now the coronavirus. He has also worked with the French-American humanitarian aid organization Action Against Hunger, the International Red Cross, and French pharmaceutical laboratory Sanofi. He believes that...
Must we save lives by confining citizens and thus bring the economy to a halt (the French stance), or would it be better to restart the economy at the risk of prolonging and aggravating the pandemic (Donald Trump’s approach)? Both, writes Guy Sorman. Here we are, all on the same level, all nations and social classes alike, exposed to the...
No one could have predicted the global swell of emotion inspired by the fire in the Paris cathedral, a year ago today. The French are generally so divided and there are few regular churchgoers. And yet they suddenly found themselves united in collective mourning. Condolences flooded in from all over the world as if every French person had lost a...
The Covid-19 pandemic will transform the economic map of the world, writes Guy Sorman. "We will see a reindustrialization of the West, a retreat by China, and a certain degree of economic deglobalization." History may not repeat itself, but it sometimes stutters. Exactly nine years ago, a tsunami in Japan destroyed Fukushima’s nuclear plant and disabled the core of Japanese...
According to a report on anti-semitism in Europe ordered by Ronald S. Lauder, former U.S. ambassador to Austria and president of the World Jewish Congress, France is the most dangerous place to be Jewish today. In fact, responds Guy Sorman, there is in this regard a strange back-and-forth between France and the United States. The oldest recorded antisemitic slurs date from Ancient...
The U.S. Senate has acquitted Donald Trump on Wednesday after a long impeachment trial, a little-known process in France. For the third time in about fifty years, the French are discovering the American procedure of the impeachment of the president of the United States: Richard Nixon in 1974, Bill Clinton in 1998, and now Donald Trump. One Democrat, two Republicans. As...
France has taken longer than North America to address the sexual misconduct of its artists. Revered in France but boycotted and subjected to legal attacks in the United States for the 1977 rape of an underage girl, Roman Polanski had never had cause for concern in the country where he fled. However, this is no longer the case. While his latest...
French scholar Benjamin Haddad heads up the Future Europe initiative for Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council, specialized in U.S. foreign policy. He is the author of Paradise Lost: Europe in the World of Trump. France-Amérique: The French often place responsibility for American isolationism on Donald Trump, but your book explains that the movement began with Barack Obama… Benjamin Haddad: The positions...
The French cultural world has been shaken to its core by the sexual misdemeanors of director Roman Polanski and the admissions of pedophilia by writer Gabriel Matzneff. Both men considered that their talent put them above the law and the common norms of decency in our societies. Victims are now speaking out. While their predators saw them as muses, they...
The French-American relationship is passionate, whatever the subject, writes Guy Sorman. There is love and hatred on both sides, without nuance and sometimes without understanding. I will begin with a personal reminiscence. In 1985, I was teaching economics at Stanford University in California. Occupying the office next to mine was none other than Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate, preeminent spokesman for...
America has clearly reverted to its original isolationist doctrine. NATO has fallen; Europe must now learn to fend for itself. The United States is no longer the protector of the world order, and this global retreat is not just down to Donald Trump. He certainly accelerated the phenomenon by allowing Russia and Syria to annex neighboring territories, by withdrawing from...
Many U.S. states have legalized marijuana, while France is timidly preparing to authorize its medicinal use. But is this cautiousness justified? Marijuana is a perfect illustration of the radical difference and rivalry between French and American societies. It should be noted that the very idea of prohibition comes to us from the United States, beginning with the prohibition of alcohol,...
Two days before Bastille Day, the French national day, I was prompted to do a Google search for “bastille day celebrations usa,” which returned over 248,000 results. A 2018 map revealed some 200 celebrations taking place from California to Maine and Florida, and at many points in between. As an educator with a lifelong affection for French language and culture,...
The French do not celebrate the Fourth of July, America’s Independence Day; they may not even know what it means. Americans, on the other hand, are familiar with what they call Bastille Day, an expression that, strangely, does not exist in French. This enthusiasm for the Storming of the Bastille is not shared by all French people — the Revolution,...
On July 14, Americans celebrate Bastille Day. On this day, the French celebrate more than their National Day or the anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille: They celebrate the everlasting spirit of the 1789 Revolution. “The French are better at fighting revolutions than making reforms”, wrote Alexis de Tocqueville in his notes in 1848. As a Deputy of the Manche...
Why do the French and American flags share the same colors? Is it a coincidence? No one knows who designed these two flags, but there are a few clues. For the thirteen original colonies marked by British culture, and whose officers, most notably George Washington, had served in the occupying army, blue, white and red were already familiar shades used...
The ambassador of France in the United States since 2014, Gérard Araud retired on April 19. Before stepping down, he shared his experience with France-Amérique. The full version of his "diplomatic testament" is to be published in the May issue of our magazine. After being appointed ambassador of France to the United States, I presented my credentials to Barack H. Obama...
In an effort to reply to demands from the Yellow Vest movement, Emmanuel Macron has launched a major national debate that has so far had some success. The initiative is similar to one suggested by Louis XVI before the French Revolution, when citizens were invited to present “grievance books” to the king. The French have a soft spot for revolutionary...[Subscriber]
Can we still teach Mark Twain, whose hero is referred to as a "nigger," now that the word has been banished? What about Hergé's comic books and their grotesque depiction of women, Jews, Blacks, and Arabs? In the United States, as in France and other countries, populist movements are shaking up intellectual and political norms. New leaders are announcing that...[Subscriber]
The Gilets Jaunes (“yellow vests”) movement which started 12 weeks ago has revealed a fracture in French society. Guy Sorman believes it is time for the government to react, and suggests two major reforms: massive investment in elementary education and the introduction of a “negative income tax.” Overall, the Gilets Jaunes are right, although they do not know why and...[Subscriber]
The Parisian riots of May 1968 were hatched in the city’s cafés, just like the ones in June 1832, March 1871, and February 1934. But the "yellow vests" movement has broken away from this historical precedent. For the very first time, the uprising was born on social media before spilling out onto the street. In 1962, Marshall McLuhan published The...[Subscriber]
