This needn’t be France’s Brexit moment, says its business envoy
Pascal Cagni explains why foreign investors should not panic
THE EUROPEAN Parliament elections and the first round of the snap election called by President Emmanuel Macron in response have left no doubt that extreme political parties are in the ascendancy in France. The hard-right National Rally (RN), which is in pole position after the first round, with 33% of the vote, promotes “national preference” for French citizens in housing, jobs and benefits, and for French companies in procurement. The extremes of French politics—including parts of the left-wing New Popular Front alliance that came second in the first round, with 28%—peddle a Eurosceptic agenda. Given such risks to France’s central role in the EU, some are even asking whether the country is sliding towards a “Frexit”.
Explore more
More from By Invitation
Keep the code behind AI open, say two entrepreneurs
Martin Casado and Ion Stoica argue that open-source models will power innovation without compromising security
Not all AI models should be freely available, argues a legal scholar
The more capable they are, the greater the risk of catastrophe, reckons Lawrence Lessig
Neil Kinnock on the post-war-like challenges facing Keir Starmer
A lack of social cohesion compared with 1945 makes them even more daunting, says the former Labour leader and Starmer confidant
A prominent donor on why the Democrats shouldn’t anoint Kamala Harris
A competition to replace Joe Biden would better serve the party, and the country, argues Joe Ravitch
Halt the Olympics to save the planet, pleads a sports historian
David Goldblatt thinks pausing the spectacle might jolt the world into grasping the severity of the climate challenge
Rachael “Raygun” Gunn on the new sport that will invigorate the Olympics
The Australian breaker hopes we’ll all soon be talking about B-Girls, B-Boys and double airflares