Snippets on Strauss-Kahn

As International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn sits in the Rikers Island jail following an arrest on allegations of rape, world media has been of many minds about what it means, and what to expect. They vary in what the predict and project, but all seem to bear the same breathless anticipation for what's around the corner.

Here are a few:

The Wall Street Journal's The Source reports that, contrary to fears, DSK's arrest has not led transatlantic markets to tank.

French political parties are scrambling to find firm footing in the lead-up to the country's presidential elections next year, and Sarkozy's has issued a (characteristically audacious) statement that the Socialist Party has lost “the moral part of the battle for the presidency,” the New York Times says.

Would-be successors to the notoriously womanizing public figure include the Swiss Josef Ackermann, the German Thomas Mirow, the Briton and former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the Frenchwoman Christine Lagarde. Some European leaders, including Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, have argued that for the traditionally European-led organization, only a European should be considered, so as to continue to steer the Old Continent out of the debt crisis currently embroiling the European Union's monetary standing.  

The IMF has had a heavy, and generous, hand in the bailout process of the eurozone's worst-faring countries, and many in Europe fear their IMF help may dry up if one of theirs is not in control. This piece also notes that, "for the first time, there is a genuine possibility that the I.M.F. position could go to an official from a faster-growing non-Western country, reflecting the shifting global economy" (NYT also). 

EUobserver writes that two EU ministers who are both women -- Austrian finance minister Maria Fekter and Spanish senior official Elena Salgado -- have moved for Strauss-Kahn to step down, so as to preserve the image of the IMF and to take into account the "extraordinarily serious" nature of the allegations.

Presseurop reports via Mediapart that as "a harsh reminder of reality," the IMF boss, despite being "one of the most influential, most powerful, most popular men in the world," still has to "answer for his conduct as an ordinary citizen."  

Euronews covers the sore subject of Strauss-Kahn's damning portrayal in US media, which stands in stark contrast to the 'Guigou Law' passed in France last year to reinforce the presumption of innocence by banning the show of charged persons in handcuffs or being escorted by police. The law was named after the politician who drafted it, the Socialist Elisabeth Guigou.

“I found that image to be of unimaginable brutality, violence and cruelty,” said Guigou, in Global Post.

Germany’s Libya Abstention and the World: What Now?

         Germany’s March 17^th decision to abstain from the United Nations vote for a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over Libya has unleashed a firestorm of international criticism – as well as open skepticism on the country’s current and future fitness for leadership on the world stage. The tumultuous last few weeks have observers voicing three primary concerns on whether Germany should (or even could) assume the world leadership position it claims to want: 1) a paradox, both in policy and in image, 2) battered confidence on the part of its foreign partners, and 3) an uncertain future in global leadership.

         Germany’s actions are paradoxical at national, European and international levels. The country long followed draconian foreign-affairs strictures such as “never alone” and “never again Auschwitz,” which guided the country since it emerged, shuddering and ashamed, from its losing role in World War II. After abstention, these tenets seem, at least in the immediate, to have largely been cast aside – with no alternatives proposed to replace them. Equally problematic are the polling results of German opinion on Libya: Reuters reported in April that a whopping 71 percent of Germans support international intervention in the country. According to a contributor at the online Atlantic Community, 65 percent of Germans – essentially, many of the same voters – would disapprove of German participation therein. The country shows a sort of diplomatic allergy to the often ugly business of conflict prevention. Berlin still insists it wants a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, but after its ill-considered abstention, its Western UN allies will surely be loath to grant such a diplomatic trump card to a partner increasingly seen as unreliable.

         The battered confidence in Germany’s recent diplomacy is perhaps best reflected by the United States and France. (...)

Germany Slammed by French Left, Domestic Press on Libya Vote

The French left has damning words for German foreign policy. The country, which recently decided to abstain from armed intervention in Libya in a March 17 UN Security Council vote, has since faced withering rebukes from the international community. 

Jean Quatremer, a star writer of the left-leaning newspaper La Libération, takes a decidedly EU-focused approach to his criticism, dismayed that "the [European] Union must, therefore, stay confined to what's humanitarian..." He echoed the words of new foreign minister Alain Juppé, who on Wednesday lamented, "must we resign ourselves to the EU remaining a humanitarian NGO?" He also quoted ex-foreign affairs minister Hubert Védrine, who lamented while in office that the EU must not grow into a kind of "giant Switzerland." When the Libé's top name aligns with the center-right French government's official voice on foreign affairs, Germany faces a uniformly hostile neighbor, which will also rally outside opinion into France's camp and against Germany's.

Der Spiegel, Germany's best-known English-language newspaper, has little better to say about the response to Libya by Angela Merkel and the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle. In an article written collectively by Spiegel staff, the newspaper presents a symbolically potent show of solidarity against their government's latest foreign affairs calls.

"The general sense of consternation," they emphatically write, "raises the question of whether this government is simply out of its depth when it comes to foreign policy." They signal that Germany missed a great opportunity to forge a "yes, but" alternative. The team quotes a German diplomat's accusation that his government is guilty of "historical cynicism," and they surmise that "Merkel's administration now welcomes any bad news from Libya that suggests its partners were wrong to intervene." 

And as if Merkel thought it would alleviate anything, Germany unveiled a conciliatory gesture to send more surveillance planes to NATO operations in Afghanistan as a way to free up allied materiel and military hardware for the Libyan campaign.

France, Libya and Laïcité

The scholars Jonathan Laurence and Justin Vaisse weigh in on the recent about-face by European leaders over mutliculturalism. The article's thrust is that the moves made by Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron are 'tacking to the right' in order to drain far-right voters toward their bases, and that such bald ploys only serve to undo decades of effort at integrating Europe's Muslims. These and other leaders only "savage a straw man" in attacking multiculturalism, and shoot themselves in the foot in the process. Below is a snapshot of the article's multiple thematic threads.

"The anti-immigrant opinions first voiced in late 20th-century Europe increased in intensity during the terrorism jitters of the 2000s and have been reinforced by burgeoning anti-Islam sentiment during the 2010s. What's happening is that the deleterious political impact of the 2008-2009 economic crises is now being felt, and the result is a sizeable populist wave throughout Western Europe.

This wave generally takes the form of extreme right parties -- even though some of them, like in the Netherlands and Britain, incorporate liberal elements like the defense of gay rights and women's rights. (The English Defence League has both Jewish and gay branches.) All of these populist movements, however, have one feature in common: they are explicitly anti-Islam. Just as anti-Semitism was the common denominator of populist movements in the 1930s, the single-minded focus on Muslim immigration has become the defining trait of anti-establishment parties in today's Europe. The logical effect is to push the center-right parties to the right, for fear of losing their constituency.

And tack right they have. In Germany, Merkel's speech was designed to catch up with the national debate sparked by Thilo Sarrazin's bestselling book, Germany Does Away With Itself,  as well as with an assertive nativist wing of her governing coalition. Sarrazin, a former Bundesbank board member originally from the Social-Democrat SPD party, has sold more than a million copies of his book, which denounces the dumbing-down of Germany through Muslim immigration. In Britain, Cameron must keep an eye on his populist wing as well as the British National Party. In the Netherlands, Prime Minister Mark Rutte is cracking down on headscarf wearing and other behavioral signs of Muslim religiosity among state employees and unemployment check recipients in exchange for the parliamentary support of Geert Wilders's anti-Islam faction. In France, Nicolas Sarkozy, who successfully courted voters from Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front in 2007 by broaching the theme of "national identity," kept the flame alive with an official debate on the subject in 2009 and another on the wearing of the burka in 2010. This spring, his UMP party announced yet another debate on "Islam and laïcité" -- as France calls its official policy of religious neutrality.

 The laïcité debate follows on the heels of Sarkozy's aggressive maneuvering in the Libya crisis and may try to bring the French voice on Islam closer to home, in a sense. If the French populace can engage with high-profile political figures and thinkers on the current events of the Muslim world and how they might think about these things as a country, a laïcité discussion may center the discordant voices on whether France should be as active as it currently is. EurAmerican follows religious trends closely, so watch this space for more on how this debate develops in France and elsewhere.

Sarkozy Names Juppé Foreign Minister After Alliot-Marie Disappoints

French president Nicolas Sarkozy replaced foreign minister Michele Alliot--Marie last night after a storm of criticism at home in the wake of the Middle East and North African turmoil. Her replacement is defense minister and former prime minister Alain Juppé. 

Here's more, just in from Bloomberg:

"Sarkozy’s address last night and Cabinet shuffle follow a troubled month. His approval ratings fell to a record low and he was criticized by opposition parties, French diplomats and members of his own party for not firing Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie after it was revealed her Christmas holiday in Tunisia overlapped with the beginning of anti-regime protests.

Alliot-Marie quit yesterday following criticism over her Jan. 11 statement during the Tunisian revolt that her government was ready to provide advice to local police on crowd control. Alliot-Marie, who served as a minister for the past nine years, was also criticized for accepting two flights in a private plane from an associate of then-Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

"France’s voice had to be heard in the world … and Michele Alliot-Marie’s voice wasn’t audible anymore,” Fillon said. Polemics about Alliot-Marie ”became dangerous for France,” he said."

 

To Young French, London Means a "Gateway to Globalization"

This week's Economist describes the cross-section of French who pull up stakes and move to London, seeking work, adventure and the chance to master English. 

The archetype of this exodus, explains the piece, is the French "banker with children at the Lycée Francais in [the upscale neighborhood] South Kensington... who misses the food and weather of home." Indeed, The City's status as a global financial and business hub, not to mention its lower tax rates on income and personal wealth, make it an enticing destination for ambitious French who have money or want to make it. Many London-based French complain of the strictures of their often upper-class social codes and expectations, which they are free to customize or discard completely through a new life in the British capital. 

The international smorgasbord of London offers an intoxicating feast to those seeking cultural and culinary adventure. "It's hard to go back once you have tasted the internationalism here," explains one Gallic expat. A senior official from the French consulate likewise dubbed the city a "gateway to globalization"  for mobile and willing French professionals. Some of these are fleeing the economic doldrums of Ireland, where they had gone to launch business and careers; reluctant to head home, they're giving themselves a second chance in the UK. And language is a key draw for French of all social strata, and many lower-middle- and middle-class strivers elect to work summers or longer stints as waiters, au pairs and odd-jobbers in exchange for increased fluency in the language of Shakespeare.

One detail of the article's Franco-centric globalization deserves underscoring: In the 2012 elections there will be for the first time a representative in France's Assemblée Nationale -- equivalent to the U.S. House of Representatives -- for all French citizens living in the UK and Northern Europe. The capital for the French diaspora in this part of the world is London by overwhelming numbers: the same French consulate approximates the Hexagon's population in London as some 400,000, perhaps the capital's largest minority nationality.

Watch this space for more on the French député for London and European points north, as well as Franco-British developments on either side of the Channel.

Turkish Disenchantment with Europe and the West

This article from Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish national and 2006 Nobel laureate in literature, merits a partial re-post from a (rare) EurAm link to The New York Review of Books. Pamuk underscores Turkey's bilateral relationships with France and Germany, couching these into telescoping perspectives on the European Union, "Europe generally," to borrow his apt phrase, and the West at large. 

His view is primarily that of a capital-C Culture angle: he sprinkles references to it throughout the piece, shooting as high as the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, as low as Gauloises cigarettes. Pamuk is the intellectual's intellectual, forever able to flaunt his consecration by the Nobel kingmakers. What follows is a surveying of the global landscape from a Turkish vantage point, synthesized from a breadth of subject awareness enviable by any opinion leader.

"That Turkey and other non-Western countries are disenchanted with Europe is something I know from my own travels and conversations... There are also the emotional responses whose significance can best be explained by the example of relations with France. Over the past century, successive generations of the Turkish elite have faithfully taken France as their model, drawing on its understanding of secularism and following its lead on education, literature, and art. So to have France emerge over the past five years as the country most vehemently opposed to the idea of Turkey in Europe has been heartbreaking and disillusioning. It is, however, Europe’s involvement in the war in Iraq that has caused the keenest disappointment in non-western countries, and in Turkey, real anger. The world watched Europe being tricked by Bush into joining this illegitimate and cruel war, while showing immense readiness to be tricked. [italics EurAm]

When looking at the landscape of Europe from Istanbul or beyond, the first thing one sees is that Europe generally (like the European Union) is confused about its internal problems. It is clear that the peoples of Europe have a lot less experience than Americans when it comes to living with those whose religion, skin color, or cultural identity are different from their own, and that many of them do not warm to the prospect: this resistance to outsiders makes Europe’s internal problems all the more intractable. The recent discussions in Germany on integration and multiculturalism—particularly its large Turkish minority—are a case in point.

As the economic crisis deepens and spreads, Europe may be able, by turning in on itself, to postpone its struggle to preserve the culture of the “bourgeois” in Flaubert’s sense of the word, but that will not solve the problem. When I look at Istanbul, which becomes a little more complex and cosmopolitan with every passing year and now attracts immigrants from all over Asia and Africa, I have no trouble concluding that the poor, unemployed, and undefended of Asia and Africa who are looking for new places to live and work cannot be kept out of Europe indefinitely. Higher walls, tougher visa restrictions, and ships patrolling borders in increasing numbers will only postpone the day of reckoning. Worst of all, anti-immigration politics, policies, and prejudices are already destroying the core values that made Europe what it was.

In the Turkish schoolbooks of my childhood there was no discussion of democracy or women’s rights, but on the packets of Gauloises that French intellectuals and artists smoked (or so we thought) were printed the words “liberté, égalité, fraternité” and these were much in circulation. “Fraternité” came to stand for the spirit of solidarity and resistance promoted by movements of the left. But callousness toward the sufferings of immigrants and minorities, and the castigation of Asians, Africans, and Muslims now leading difficult lives in the peripheries of Europe—even holding them solely responsible for their woes—are not “brotherhood.”

One can understand how many Europeans might suffer anxiety and even panic as they seek to preserve Europe’s great cultural traditions, profit from the riches it covets in the non-Western world, and retain the advantages gained over so many centuries of class conflict, colonialism, and internecine war. But if Europe is to protect itself, would it be better for it to turn inward, or should it perhaps remember its fundamental values, which once made it the center of gravity for all the world’s intellectuals?"

 

Pension Reform Mobilizes French of All Ages

The crisis in France is coming to a boil as mass protests against retirement benefit reform throttle the country. The malaise is now spreading to all generations, as shown through the nascent student movement rising up in solidarity with those fighting to preserve their once and future pensions. (See video from Euronews here.)

The genesis of the demonstrating is President Nicolas Sarkozy's move to up the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62, a result of aching public coffers that are weathering recovery from the global economic crisis only with extreme duress. The pension cuts have met ferocious resistance and has generated nearly a full week of open-ended general strikes. 

Multiple reports of car fires and clashes with police have ricocheted throughout Europe as troublemakers mix with demonstrators, some still in high school, to join the anti-reform groundswell. 

Young people expressed both anger over the reform, seen in much of the country as draconian, and fears over recession-time prospects in the transition from their status of student to job seeker.

In a separate but no less serious development, French oil refinery workers have jumped on the bandwagon for the resistance by refusing to work while motorists of all stripes panic over how their fuel is to last. The oil industry lobby estimates that shortages will be felt by mid-week if no major change takes place.    

... Roger Cohen of the International Herald Tribune counters, "this reform is a no-brainer. Come on, France, get real!"

UPDATE: "France, the Unions and Fiscal Reality," 10/19/10. 

Young Immigrants, Old Kurmudgeons: EU Demographics & Decline

Demographer Jean-Claude Barreau weighs in on Europe's immigration debate and population decline (which dovetails nicely with my last post on women's issues and fertility in France). Responding to a recently published demographic study by Eurostat, the European Commission's statistics bureau, Barreau puts forth several dubious conclusions, notably that

"The European Commission has proposed only one solution: immigration. This is a potential solution, but if it is the only one, immigration will result in the substitution of a Europe’s population. Without a sufficient number of indigenous children, we will be unable to integrate children that have arrived from elsewhere. When a schoolroom or a neighbourhood no longer has any indigenous children, integration becomes impossible."

Barreau's perspective is of an inherently French-republican sway. He also reveals himself a strongly anti-immigration advocate, making the arching assumption that readers agree on what an "indigenous" citizen is or should be.  His words belie an unspoken laziness that can sometimes characterize how Europeans approach their role in the integration process, insinuating that the onus is on migrants to make the effort -- often herculean, and unassisted -- for streamlining into their adopted societies.

Nor does Barreau grant credence to the pattern by which immigrant neighborhoods, even when overwelmingly composed of foreign-born residents, still usually manage to integrate. One needs only look at the byzantine ethnic quilt that is New York City: the Big Apple positively teems with immigrant children, who develop a culture that may not be recognizably American, but is certainly not of the old country, either. 

The rubbing-together of these neighborhoods provides the heat that brings the famous "melting pot" to simmer (which is real, even if it doesn't always work smoothly), infusing the common culture of the host land with that of the immigrants who come to populate it. 

Barreau's dreaded image of an all-immigrant classroom is precisely what one sees in many New York City schools. Yet those kids still learn English, still mix with the dominant culture and values, and still forge a way toward a national identity with vibrancy and perpetual innovation. So long as immigrant kids live in a host country and stay there, they'll form their own culture, which will belong in the place from which it sprung and might be furthermore celebrated as a cultural product of value. (Think Junot Diaz, Wyclef Jean, Zinedine Zidane and so many others.)

It may be that opinion leaders like Barreau chafe not at today's immigrant waves, and those sure to reach the shores of Europe in the future; perhaps what truly galls his camp is the inevitable change that will come when new migrants bring new vitality to a continent unwilling or uncompelled to reproduce... And what new dynamism will owe its birth to those unlike the aging experts, who can't see their likeness in Europe's crystal ball?

France, Its Women, Their Children: A Disjointed Paean from the NY Times

Several days ago the New York Times published a compelling article on the status of French women, especially as it concerns their child-raising practices. Its author, Katrin Bennhold, has written extensively on women's issues as part of a series published in partnership with the International Herald Tribune. Her piece is, predictably, of a staunch pro-feminist bent. It's also trenchant and largely well-done, yet Bennhold yields to the powers of cliché (or her editor) in profiling French women as the super-sexual beings they are assumed to be, both at home and abroad.

The piece begins with what would surely bewilder the sensibilities of the American heartland, and not a few courtesy-minded Europeans. The lead exhorts the reader to ask him or herself, "could anything be more French?" than the image that follows it, describing a state-subsidized post-birth program of "vaginal gymnastics," "electric stimulation devices" and "nimble squeezing," all for the purpose of "making love again soon and making more babies." 

An accompanying series of photographs shows a woman doctor, in a tight blouse and short skirt, sitting with crossed legs prominently displayed... with one hand between the legs of a patient on her back. The association of French femininity and overt sexuality -- and the casually provocative illustrations of her doctor's visits -- perpetuates just the kind of stereotypes that have badgered women in the feminist era, and does little to foster the respect for them that men are asked (or demanded) to concede. 

This certainly violates the all-important French civic ideal of "la discrétion," the rigorous protection of privacy that dictates many of the related codes and norms of France's art de vivre.

I'll break tone here and give a personal but no less valid case-in-point. In college, I became friends with a French female while she was studying abroad in the U.S. Less than a week after her arrival to a leafy, middle-American (and overwhelmingly conservative) college campus, she became the unwilling recipient of blatant appeals by male students asking for sex. Flabbergasted, she asked several of her would-be partners, 'Why are you asking me?' The single response was repeatedly given, "Well, I heard you were French..."

This anecdote reflects the greater cross-cultural fallout of French femininity as it's been projected in the mass media age. With no apparent sense of irony, Bennhold's article gives nods of feminist respekk to icons from Simone de Beauvoir to Brigitte Bardot. The latter is hardly a torch-bearer in the feminist march of progress; after all, she launched to fame playing the über-sultry lead in 1956's And God Created Woman, in which she spent a great deal of time semi- and fully nude, and completes the film in a ten-minute-plus tantric dance holding her skirt above her head.

-- But let's get back the article: We read on to learn about France's aggressive family-promotion programs and the playing-out of those programs in modern French family life. Bennhold praises the invaluable public service of the "école maternelle," a no-cost daycare scheme available everywhere. The schools allow women the logistical ability to work full-time. While the author praises the system's convenience, she nuances with an interviewee's quip that the schools are "called 'maternelle' for a reason," and that French women are compelled by tradition to juggle a double-load of home and work life. 

Another of Bennhold's interview subjects was Valérie Toranian, the editor-in-chief of Vogue Magazine's French edition. Toranian had this to say about the harried pace many French women struggle with:

 

“French women are exhausted,” said Toranian. [...] “We have the right to do what men do — as long as we also take care of the children, cook a delicious dinner and look immaculate. We have to be superwoman.”

This argument and others from the piece are legitimate. The author is not immune to over-reach, however, as evidenced by arching claims like "French women appear to worry about being feminine, not feminist, and French men often display a form of gallantry predating the 1789 revolution." She supports this thrust by quoting Bernard Henri-Lévy (known in Europe by the rockstar shorthand "BHL"), the pseudo-serious philosopher playboy who laid it on, like, real intellectual when he said, “France is an old Gallic macho country.” 

Grounding an argument on BHL's respectability is not the way to win over American readers, as media force Garrison Keillor has argued ascerbically and hilariously.

Let's circle back to the casually provocative tone of the article. What's prevalent is the careless reference to female anatomy, found at the piece's very beginning, which probably turned off more readers than just me. One wonders how many moderates reading the article browsed over the tangy lead, then didn't finish, assuming the rest would follow in the same spirit. What kind of feminism is to be promoted, if the rules for dialogue are not those that apply to men? What happens when men talk about their bodies -- or, come floods, women's bodies -- with an attitude that teeters on indecency? The answer, of course, is sexist and inconsiderate interaction between men and women -- and it goes both ways -- which I'm sure many women and quite a few men can relate to, either in the example of the French student above or in personal experience.

Transatlantically speaking, what happens when the notion of Bardot-like French-women-as-sexpot, or at least very-fertile in Bennhold's case, hits the public debate across the pond? Things like the caveman-esque pick-up line, and the conflicted mother-career woman. Or both. 

Maybe what we need is balance: women should be not be pressured to work, or stay at home; men could acquaint themselves with the carpool and dirty dishes. And common courtesy would go a long way to smoothing gender equality's progress in the meantime.

On EU Foreign Corps, EU Officials Optimistic, Others Very Skeptical

           The locomotive of the European Union’s nascent diplomatic corps has been picking up speed, with a ribbon-cutting at the service’s new Washington site on Sep. 29^th, and officials in Brussels promising it will be ready to roll before the planned start of December 1st. But critics on both sides of the Atlantic have expressed major doubts as to whether the world can expect an EU foreign agency that can chug its weight.

            Created after the landmark Treaty of Lisbon in December 2009, the European External Action Service (EEAS) will seek to unify the EU’s voice in world diplomatic affairs. Its chief architect, Lady Catherine Ashton, sits as the EU foreign affairs chief and one of several vice presidents of the European Commission. Another key figure is João Vale de Almeida, the EU ambassador to the United States, who has been promoting a strongly optimistic view on the EEAS starting off well this winter.

EU Officials: New Service? No Problem

            The EU’s new service will offer a “a more reliable, more credible, and a more results-oriented partner” to the United States, Almeida pledged in a September interview with Washington’s The Hill newspaper. A Portuguese national and longtime deputy to European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso, Almeida arrived in Washington in July amid talk of a “wider mandate” for his ambassadorship.

           

            “My ambition is to move beyond what exists today, to build a stronger and even more positive EU-US agenda with solid bilateral and global pillars,” Almeida said in an August press release, before presenting his credentials at the White House. He promised “an agenda that unlocks the full potential of our economies, promotes joint action in foreign policy, and enhances our capacity as global partners."

            Almeida’s words obliquely addressed critics’ concerns about the EU’s readiness to operate a new diplomatic structure—and a big one at that. As a branch of the Brussels-based European Commission, the EEAS will comprise 8,000 officials, with 800 more EU diplomats dispersed among the agency’s 136 foreign embassies. On budget, the latest estimates from the Devex newswire put the EEAS’ funds at $620 million. (...)

Roubini on European Recession : "Hangover"

The economist fabled to have predicted the global financial crisis shoots from the hip on European recovery -- and describes a still-dire bill of economic health for the Old Continent. Nouriel Roubini, professor at New York University, dubs the European condition a "hangover" and one sure to continue galling livers for a good while to come.

The professor employs a host of disparaging idioms in his take on the EU's present status, decrying 1) the policies that "stole demand from the future," 2) the laughable "stress tests" (quote marks his) that only "kicked the can down the road,"  and 3) the lingering "fundamental problems of the eurozone." He singles out sitting EU president and Belgian head of state Yves Leterme as "unable to keep his own country together, let alone unite Europe."

He also dismisses the notion that the EU bail-out created anything beyond transient relief. Though Brussels policy heads managed in May to slap together a rescue fund, risk spreads have returned to their pre-bail-out levels for several European countries. Roubini sniffs that operatives "fudged" this summer's round of financial "stress tests" for European markets, serving to pep up world markets' frail confidence only temporarily -- a move that is already beginning to wear thin.

Even the sunniest eurozone example, Germany, suffers Roubini's ire, and he shrugs off that country's supposed promise as the EU's post-crisis front-runner:

"Even Germany’s temporary success is riddled with caveats. During the 2008-2009 financial crisis, GDP fell much more in Germany – because of its dependence on collapsing global trade – than in the United States. A transitory rebound from such a hard fall is not surprising, and German output remains below pre-crisis levels."

In what may bear nightmarish implications,  the "double dip" recession so feared throughout the world may actually be taking root as we read his words.

"Indeed, the latest data from Germany – declining exports, falling factory orders, anemic industrial-production growth, and a slide in investors’ confidence – suggest that the [double dip] has started."

His forecast on current and future European politics provides little sustenance for optimists. He cites a litany of bummer political events ranging from Angela Merkel's recent shallacking in German regional elections, to unlikely odds that Sarkozy will initiate real (Roubini says "cosmetic") structural reforms in France -- and that is concurrent with sobering competition prospects from the Socialist Party's presidential likely, one Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Similarly unpopular leaders also face grim predictions across the EU's southern belt, from the vulnerable Presidents Silvio Berlusconi (Italy) and Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (Spain), to the bete noire of EU fiscal cohesion, George Papandreou (Greece).

If all that wasn't enough, Roubini finishes by going for broke on two scenarios for the eurozone's future. The first, the "best" case scenario (though hardly a good one) says the monetary bloc limps on some years longer. The second -- this is the 800-pound gorilla whose presence EU public officials from across the 27 states refuse to entertain -- predicts that "the eurozone will break up, owing to a combination of sovereign debt restructurings and exits by some weaker economies."

US Congress, Anonymous Official Step in to EU Roma Row

When the EU-neglectful United States Congress interjects, it's serious. Democrats Benjamin Cardin (MD) and Alcee L. Hastings, and another official insisting on anonymity have criticized France's deportations of the Roma as a "shell game" for minority migration laws that have often played against the country's Muslim population, the largest in Europe. See the full story from EUobserver.

French Fast Food Goes Hallal

Hmmm.

Sarkozy Calls for Expanded G20 Powers, Secretariat

In an annual ambassadors' meeting in Paris yesterday, Sarkozy set the tone for the G20 meeting in Seoul set for November, and for the upcoming French presidency of the G20 starting January 2011. (Full text, in French, here.) 

The French president urged closer exchange rate integration among developed nations, and moving for a G20 secretariat to better coordinate the bloc's goals. He also suggested the group expand its ambitions toward tackling broader issues such as climate change and development.

These objectives stem in part from Sarkozy's earlier decision not to call for a new Bretton Woods, as he had originally sought.

Sarkozy Joins Lellouche's Call for All-EU Emergency Response Team

French President Nicolas Sarkozy joined the call last week to create an all-EU crisis response team to stem the destruction of disasters all over the world. 

The recent series of emergencies, from floods in Pakistan, the forest fires in Russia, to January's earthquake in Haiti -- and now the predicted flooding in the China-North Korea border region -- has attracted increasingly global attention on disasters. The international community is generating widespread discussion on the appropriate role for non-local governments in disaster relief. (...)

Lellouche Calls for EU National Guard, Belies Economic Backstory with Russia

In the wake of Russia's devastating forest fires, Pierre Lellouche, French minister for the EU, called this week for an EU-wide "crisis response force" to better deal with potential catastrophes. This begs a comparison to the National Guard, as the most similar body is known in the United States. 

The minister cited the Haiti earthquake disaster and last summer's fires in Greece as proof of the necessity in creating a federal EU crisis response detail to handle natural and other disasters as they erupt. (...)

Islam, Immigration and Official Response in France and the US

This just in from blogger and Figaro journalist Valérie Samson: a report from Deaborn, Michigan, on the US' largest concentration on Muslims and their feelings vis-à-vis their adopted (or for the younger generations, home) country. Available here in either French or English.

Art Goldhammer weighs in on Sarkozy's recent moves on immigration. For an example and first-person perspective, watch the police break-up of a protest by illegal immigrants (see video here). Today's Guardian (UK) describes Sarkozy's administration as "characterized by increasingly widespread social disorder."

French Police Forcibly Break Up Demonstration -- Global Immigration Debate Boils Ever Hotter

In the Paris suburb of La Corneuve on Monday, police forcibly evicted a group of mostly African immigrant squatters who were protesting the demolition of the building where they lived. French online newsgroup Mediapart posted the above video of the chaos. Note: this video contains scenes of physical and emotional duress that may shock viewers.

Reports following the event varied wildly. Police from the local Seine-Saint-Denis precinct released a statement claiming the eviction was carried out in "relatively good conditions," reports CBS News' World Watch department. But local Socialist Party official Stéphane Troussel chose far more damning words.

"Faced with his failure in the suburbs, it is tempting for [French President] Nicolas Sarkozy and his government to abandon working-class neighborhoods or to try and rein them in through showy and highly publicized security operations," he said to news channel Somalia24.

The Corneuve eviction comes at a time of high-heat global immigration polemics, from the debate on Turkish accession into the EU to the highly controversial Arizona law that would seem to legalize racial profiling against Hispanic-looking people in the US. Tensions continue to mount, as the no. 2 Senate Republican, Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) calls for no less than a repeal of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees American citizenship to all those born in the US -- regardless of citizenship status of the newborn's parents.

1:40PM -- This just in: Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli OKs immigration status checks by police in his state (and my home state)... Will VA become a de facto Arizona on the immigration question? AND: The Huffingon Post puts up this editorial riff on anti-mosque sentiment in America. Reminds me of my piece on the minaret construction row in Switzerland from EuropeanAffairs.org.

French vs. English and the EU

Blogger and Harvard professor Art Goldman has added this post about the wan status of French language in EU policy circles. The following is from a New York Times article on the announcement of European foreign policy chief Lady Catherine Ashton's plans to take French courses this summer.

"French was once the unchallenged lingua franca of European integration. Until 1995, French had the monopoly in the European Commission press room, where Anglophone journalists had to address their questions to English spokespeople in French. 

"That position became unsustainable when Sweden and Finland joined the bloc in the mid-1990s, followed by 10 East European countries in the last decade. In many of these countries, English is the second language, with French well down the list. 

"According to the European Commission, the number of documents it sent for translation with English as the original language was 72.5 percent in 2008, the same as the year before. The proportion of original texts in French dropped to 11.8 percent in 2008 from 12.2 percent in 2007. (...)"

These and other indicators suggest a clear decline of French in official spheres. In what seems a tellingly robust display of counter-measures, the Permanent Representation of France in the EU has an entire web page devoted to representing the strength of French language in Brussels and other European capitals. But just in case, Brussels policymakers can still sign up for free French courses geared specifically for them. And for the rest of us mortals, there's always the Alliance Française.