Frace Bowed? Anne-Elisabeth Moutet on the rise of French Populism | Danube Politics

Gavin Haynes

Anne Elisabeth Moutet is a storied French correspondent and British one. She worked for France Soir, was a Paris reporter for the London Sunday Times, then head of the Telegraph’s Paris bureau. For decades, she has explained France to Britain, and occasionally Britain to France. Anglo-Gallic bi-cultural through her heritage, she has been a frequent visitor to the Danube Institute down the years. Today we want to ask her about these two countries - and the curious similarities in the situation both find themselves in. Mature social democracies, ex colonial powers, now facing the same cultural and economic malaise. Anaemic growth. Extraordinary budgetary overreach. Above all, a sense that politics itself no longer works. Presidents, Prime Ministers, they come and go. They enter office on loose wave of optimism, and leave a few years later, trailing public opinion ratings far underwater. Both systems define themselves in opposition to each other. The French elect their king, who rules centrally, with sweeping powers. Meanwhile, the British Prime Minister is first among equals, with power distributed through ministers and regions. Yet both find themselves running out of road in the same way at the same time, as the electorate plumbs new depths of despair. Is one still more successful than the other? Should Brits envy France’s dirigiste aerospace industry? Should the French be eyeing up the Britain’s finance sector? How can either win against a rising China and AWOL America? From Macron’s imperial turn to the rise of the National Rally to the touching French belief in civil servants as avatars of excellence, Anne-Elisabeth is the great explainer to the English speaking world, and we are privileged to have her with us. Welcome to the show.

Ne maradjon le legfrissebb híreinkről!

Frace Bowed? Anne-Elisabeth Moutet on the rise of French Populism | Danube Politics

Danube Institute