Arthur Goldhammer

Este archivo solo abarca los artículos del autor incorporados a este sitio a partir del 1 de febrero de 2007. Para fechas anteriores realice una búsqueda entrecomillando su nombre.

‘Demonstrations against France’s supposed ‘anti-Islamic’ stance erupted in Bangladesh, Qatar, Lebanon, and other majority Muslim countries.’ A Palestinian protester with a poster of Emmanuel Macron. Photograph: Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, minced no words in his recent diatribe against his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron. “Macron needs mental treatment,” Erdoğan said. This blast from Ankara came in response to Macron’s announcement of a series of measures intended to “reform” the practice of Islam in France and end “Islamic separatism” – proof, to Erdoğan, that Macron had “a problem with Islam”.

Then, just five days later, on 29 October, a newly arrived Tunisian immigrant killed three Christians at prayer in Nice. France had yet again been the victim of “an Islamist terrorist attack,” Macron proclaimed. He did not need to remind his countrymen of the beheading of schoolteacher Samuel Paty by another immigrant, this one of Chechen descent, in broad daylight two weeks earlier, or of the prior stabbing of two people outside the former offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.…  Seguir leyendo »

Sarkozy’s Reckless Political Encore

On July 2, France awoke to images of an unshaven and bleary-eyed Nicolas Sarkozy seated in the back of a police car after 15 hours of interrogation by the judicial police. Several officers accompanied the former president to a midnight confrontation with two examining magistrates, who informed him that he was then under formal investigation for “active corruption” and “influence trafficking.”

Three years earlier, all France was aghast at the indignity of the New York City “perp walk” inflicted on the International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn following his arrest on rape charges. Mr. Sarkozy’s “perp ride” found the French more divided: When asked in the wake of the allegations whether they would like to see a Sarkozy presidential candidacy in 2017, only 33 percent responded “yes.”…  Seguir leyendo »