Western Europe Archive

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss European alarm over Donald Trump’s criticisms of NATO. For the Report, Sarah Hearn talks with Peter Dörrie about the prospects for global development in an era of populist retrenchment in the West. If you’d like to support our free podcast through patron pledges, Patreon is an online service that will allow you to do so. To find out about the benefits you can get through pledging as little as $1 per month, click through to WPR’s Trend Lines Patreon page. Listen: Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes […]

Earlier this month, protests broke out in Aulnay-sous-Bois, a northern suburb of Paris, after police allegedly raped a 22-year-old black man, known only as “Theo L.,” with a baton during an I.D. check. One police officer was charged with rape, and two with assault. Despite a visit by French President Francois Hollande to Theo’s hospital bedside in an effort to calm the situation, rallies and riots, some violent, spread across the suburbs of Paris where immigrant and immigrant-origin communities are concentrated. The protests soon made their way to central Paris, drawing thousands to Place de la Republique by the end […]

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Europe over the weekend in an effort to reassure nervous allies about America’s commitment to NATO and the trans-Atlantic relationship. First in Munich, at the annual security conference there, and then in Brussels, Pence delivered a message more in line with what Europeans are used to hearing about the American approach to the alliance. Like U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who preceded him last week in Brussels, Pence added a pinch of tough love to the healthy dose of soothing affection. Europeans will need to contribute more to their defense if they expect […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about workers’ rights in various countries around the world. Dockworkers in Spain announced a series of strikes yesterday to protest a government plan to allow ports to hire nonunion workers. The strikes are set to begin March 6, although talks continue between the government and the unions. In an email interview, Alexandre de le Court, a visiting professor at the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona and member of the UPF Research Group in Labor Law and Social Security Law (greDTiSS), discusses labor rights in Spain. WPR: How robust are […]

In November, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus warned that a growing gap between the super rich and the rest of the world’s population is a “ticking time bomb” that will lead to exploitation of the poor, immigrants and minorities. There is good evidence that time is running out to keep that bomb from going off. Economic fragility in the eurozone has fueled the rise of populist and nationalist parties in European elections since 2008. The refugee crisis confronting Europe compounded the swing. A wave of populist wins in 2016, from Brexit and Italy’s rejection of constitutional reform to the election of […]

When Donald Trump shocked the world by winning the presidency of the United States, just a few months after British voters opted to leave the European Union, the rise of rightist, anti-establishment populists started to look like an inexorable trend across the West and elsewhere. To be sure, the twin successes of right-wing, anti-immigrant insurgencies did energize like-minded movements in other countries. And yet, they also triggered another reaction—a paradoxical, if not altogether unpredictable response. Trump’s win, and to a lesser extent Brexit, made tangible the threat of what had until recently been dismissed as a curious fringe phenomenon. By […]

The French presidential campaign was already off to a surprising start, with dark-horse candidates having won both of the major parties’ primaries. It was thrown into further disarray two weeks ago by the scandal engulfing conservative Republican party candidate and erstwhile frontrunner, Francois Fillon, who is accused of paying his wife hundreds of thousands of euros in salary while he was a member of Parliament for work she never performed. Fillon has denied any wrongdoing and refused to bow out, but his candidacy, based in part on his reputation as a clean politician, has taken a severe hit. The scandal […]

The ongoing uncertainty over Brexit has raised many questions in Europe, starting with when negotiations between the European Union and the U.K. will even begin. But beyond the specifics of the negotiations, there is uncertainty over what Brexit will mean for European defense policy, a topic that has become all the more important now that U.S. President Donald Trump, who has questioned the United States’ commitment to NATO, is in office. In the wake of Brexit, officials in Brussels have called for stronger defense integration across the bloc, floated renewed plans for a permanent EU military headquarters, and proposed more […]