French-American Foundation Weekly Brief highlights political, economic and cultural news stories related to France and French-American relations as well as trans-Atlantic and European issues.
French President François Hollande returned from vacation on Sunday, August 19, and called on lawmakers to return to work to address the various issues facing France, notably financial measures to confront the European debt crisis, and to continue to act upon the platform that brought him to victory in May, Le Monde and 20 Minutes reported.
France
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French President François Hollande returned from vacation on Sunday, August 19, and called on lawmakers to return to work to address the various issues facing France, notably financial measures to confront the European debt crisis, and to continue to act upon the platform that brought him to victory in May, Le Monde and 20 Minutes reported. As reached his 100th day in office on Monday, August 13, the first part of his tenure was met with mixed reviews, as covered by Deutsche Welle and NPR. L’Express reported that polls continued to show a relatively high approval rating, while Le Point criticized the president’s first acts as president as “symbolic, vengeful and dangerous.”
President François Hollande said on Tuesday, August 14, that the government would use all means necessary to stop further violence after a riot broke out near Amiens the night before. Youths in the outskirts of the northern city reacted violently to the forceful arrest of a man for reckless driving, Global Post, TIME and BBC reported. The riot, which saw at least 17 police officers injured and about $1.2 million in property damages, followed a violent incident in the southern city of Toulouse, leading experts to question whether the ongoing tension between disenfranchised youth and security forces could lead to a wider outbreak, as has been seen in France several times in the past decade, according to The LA Times and Marianne 2. Le Nouvel Observateur explored the problem of “banalization” of such recurring violence, while The Guardian looked at the need for security forces to create a less abrasive rapport with the youth populations faced with sub-par housing, high unemployment and social stigma.
As security returned to the fore in political discourse, Interior Minister Manuel Valls announced on Thursday, August 16, that France would create 500 posts for police and gendarmes each year beginning in 2013. President François Hollande had called for a total of 1,000 additional security positions to be created annually during his presidency, Le Nouvel Observateur and Le Monde reported.
Le Nouvel Observateur published excerpts from the work, “Rien ne se passe comme prévu” (Nothing Happens as Predicted), a political portrait providing an intimate look into the campaign of now President François Hollande to be released on Wednesday, August 22. Author Laurent Binet, winner of the 2010 Goncourt Prize for a first novel, was given complete access to Hollande on the campaign trail beginning in summer 2011, just as playwright Yasmina Reza had been granted leading up to 2007 victory of former President Nicolas Sarkozy before producing the controversial “L'Aube le Soir ou la Nuit” (Dawn Evening or Night), as covered by The Telegraph and Ouest-France.
The Catholic Church in France caused controversy with an Assumption prayer to be read across France on Wednesday, August 15, that evoked the Virgin Mary to support “traditional” families in France. This was in response to calls by the Socialist government to extend more rights, including marriage and adoption to same-sex marriage, and also to explore legalizing euthanasia, L’Express and The Chicago Tribune reported. The practice of setting a prayer specifically for France and its people was once common practice but had dwindled since the mid-20th century, according to Libération.
United States
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Illegal immigrants across the nation lined up on Wednesday, August 15, to fill out the “Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” form following a decree by President Barack Obama to grant a deferral of deportation of at least two years to working and student immigrants who entered the United States illegally before the age of 16, Le Figaro and CNN reported. Officials estimate that the temporary reprieve could apply to about 800,000 immigrants of a population of 11.5 million illegal immigrants predicted to be in the United States, according to Le Monde.
President Barack Obama warned on Monday, August 20, that any usage or detected transportation of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad would be a “red line” that could trigger an American military intervention in the war-torn nation, TF1 and The Telegraph reported. Heightening a stance on a conflict that the United States, like much of the international community, has hesitated to act upon in the 17 months since violence began in the Middle Eastern state – and leading to at least 23,000 deaths – Obama said that any threat of chemical weapons would “change the equation” in the extremely sensitive geopolitical implications of the ongoing conflict, as covered by Libération and The Seattle Times.
The Energy Information Administration announced on Friday, August 17, that the United States had dropped to its lowest level of carbon dioxide emissions in two decades, as the level of CO2 released into the atmosphere had dropped nearly 8 percent for the first quarter of 2012 compared to that a year prior, while CO2 emissions dropped 2.4 percent between 2010 and 2011, 20 Minutes. Government officials credited the decline in CO2 emissions on the emergence of cheap natural gas, causing power plants – the primarily cause of CO2 in the atmosphere – to move away from dirtier coal, according to the AP.
The Academic Ranking of World Universities released on Wednesday, August 15, by China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University once again placed Harvard University atop the list of the 500 best universities worldwide, as it has since beginning its annual ranking in 2003, Le Monde and The Economic Times reported. Harvard was followed by Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Tokyo being the only non-U.S. institutions to make the top 20. France placed 20 universities – one less than in 2011 – on the list. The highest ranked French university was University of Paris-Sud 11 at 37th, the second highest for continental Europe behind the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, which was ranked 23rd.
Business & Economics
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As France and Germany struggle to ward off the recession that has swept across Europe, second-quarter figures showed that the eurozone’s two largest economies were faring slightly better than anticipated but not well enough for optimism. Stocks and the Euro both rose slightly as Germany saw a GDP growth of 0.3 percent from the first to second quarter of the year, surpassing the anticipated 0.2 percent, while France held on for its third consecutive quarter with zero growth while a contraction of 0.1 percent had been anticipated, according to The San Francisco Chronicle and Forbes. As France’s politicians return to work this week, President François Hollande will begin with a trip to Berlin on Thursday, August 23, to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the two continue to explore possibilities to lift Europe from the ongoing debt crisis, Le Point and The Financial Times reported. CNBC predicted that both the eurozone’s top economies would likely slip into recession in 2013, as the eurozone struggles to address the mounting tension on how to address the debt of several member nations, notably Greece.
An official from the Greek Finance Ministry announced on Monday, August 20, that the debt-ridden nation would be able to reimburse €3.2 billion in bonds held by the European Central Bank that would soon be come due, as the nation sold more than 4 billion in three-month treasury bills last week, The Economic Times reported. Greece faces continued pressure as eurogroup president Jean-Claude Juncker is set to arrive in Athens on Wednesday, August 22, to discuss the conditions of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, as covered by 20 Minutes. The Finance Ministry has also announced that the nation’s coalition government was confident it would reach the necessary €11.5 billion in budget cuts for 2013-2014, which would permit future bailout payments to be approved by the troika, anticipated to visit Greece in early September, according to Les Echos and The Washington Post.
Officials from the European Central Bank said it was premature of German magazine Der Spiegel to say that the eurozone’s main bank would buy debt of nations as a means of blocking high interest rates, Le Point and The New York Times reported. The ECB said the magazine had reported on yet-to-be-decided policies as the eurozone looks to contain the impacts of debt in several nations, particularly those such as Italy and Spain, which are looking at unsustainable return rates on debt bonds, though ECB president Mario Draghi said earlier this month that the institution would cautiously be willing to buy bonds for such nations, a practice opposed by the German Bundesbank.
As Apple anticipates the release of several new products including the iPhone 5, the computer giant became the most valuable public company in history as a high close of more than $633 per share drove the company’s value up to $622 billion, surpassing the record set by competitor Microsoft of $619 billion set in 1999, Le Figaro and The Week reported. The company, still considered undervalued by many analysts, has rebounded after stocks dropped 4 percent in one day following an earnings report in July which showed that the company fell short of projected earnings.
International
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After four months, United Nations observers left Syria on Monday, August 20, as the diplomatic mission now led by Lakhdar Brahimi was overshadowed by the provision of intelligence and weapons from international allies to the conflict-ridden nation’s rebel factions, as covered by BBC and The Christian Science Monitor. An expert panel for the United Nations concluded for the first time on Wednesday, August 15, that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and its allies had committed crimes against humanity in the ongoing conflict that has claimed more than 23,000 lives in 17 months, a description which the panel also applied to Syrian rebels though with considerably less frequency, NPR, Le Monde and Le Point reported. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called for the departure of Assad while on a visit to Jordan on Thursday, August 16. Tensions have spread beyond Syria, notably in neighboring Lebanon, as refugees fleeing Syria have made their way throughout the region, according to TF1, Le Nouvel Observateur and The LA Times. Al Jazeera looked at a series of kidnappings involving 20 Syrians and a Turkish national.
South Africa’s police commissioner reported on Friday, August 17, that 34 people died and 78 were wounded when police opened fire upon protesting workers who approached security forces armed with machetes the day before near a platinum mine, The New York Times reported. About a fourth of workers returned to work at the mine on Monday, August 20, as managers seemed to take little action to appease complaints about the meager salaries earned by the miners that were at the root of the demonstration turned violent, according to Le Nouvel Observateur.
In an ongoing diplomatic morass, Ecuador granted on Thursday, August 16, political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who had sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in June. This promptly incited the United Kingdom to announce it would block any attempt by Assange to leave British territory, promising to follow through on its obligation to extradite Assange to Sweden, where he faces charges of rape and sexual assault, Le Point, The Guardian and Le Monde reported. Assange appeared for a speech from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy, calling on the United States to end the “witch hunt” of WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website that released more than 250,000 diplomatic cables from U.S. embassies around the world, as covered by BBC and L’Express.
Tensions flared between Japan and China as the latter demanded on Wednesday, August 15, the release of 14 Chinese demonstrators detained on the uninhabited Japanese-controlled Senkaku isles, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and La Dépêche reported. With harsh responses from both China and South Korea, Japan incited continued tension as a number of activists arrived on one of the isles to plant Japanese flags on Sunday, August 19, RFI reported.