Carla Bruni-Sarkozy: The Accidental Empress of Soft Power By Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk PARIS—The last time an Italian-born woman caused this much diplomatic fluttering in Europe, she arrived with dowries, cannon fire, and a Papal blessing. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy merely showed up in 2008 with a guitar, a Dior coat, and a back-catalogue of ex-lovers that…
PARIS—Somewhere between the foie-gras-scented corridors of the Palais de l’Élysée and the slightly less fragrant holding cells of the Palais de Justice, Nicolas Sarkozy has completed his improbable metamorphosis: from hyperactive “bling-bling” president to convicted felon with an ankle bracelet aesthetic. The French Supreme Court last week upheld his three-year sentence—one year custodial, two suspended—for…
It turns out the French didn’t just export champagne, existentialism, and an allergy to work-life balance; they also shipped us Nicolas Sarkozy, the pocket-sized president who now stands convicted of corruption like a cautionary bobble-head doll for the global political class. From Brasília to Beijing, the verdict handed down in Paris last year was greeted…
**The Accidental Empress: Brigitte Macron and the Global Theater of Political Spouses** In an era where the personal is perpetually political, Brigitte Macron stands as perhaps the most unlikely figure in the global power pantheon—a former literature teacher who found herself married to France’s youngest president and, by extension, to the relentless scrutiny of an…
PARIS — While Emmanuel Macron was busy explaining to pensioners why their retirement age now matches the half-life of uranium, another French institution was quietly choosing its next high priest: the head coach of Notre-Dame de Paris. Yes, the cathedral—charred, scaffolded, and currently more steel exoskeleton than house of God—has hired a “coach.” Not for…
Paris, Thursday — The French government has fallen faster than a soufflé in a wind tunnel, and the rest of the world, nursing its own political hangover, is watching with the kind of sympathetic grimace usually reserved for a friend who just face-planted on the dance floor. Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne handed in her resignation…
PARIS—From the banks of the Seine, the French government is once again demonstrating its uncanny knack for turning political theater into high art—think Molière with spreadsheets, or Racine rewritten by accountants who’ve read too much Kafka. While the rest of the planet debates whether democracy is dying of natural causes or being actively smothered with…
