Western Europe Archive

On Dec. 10, a coalition of nationalist parties on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica swept elections for the regional assembly, defeating traditional parties and French President Emmanuel Macron’s new centrist movement. Immediately after their victory, the nationalists called for talks with Paris over more autonomy. In an email interview, Andre Fazi, a lecturer in political science at the University of Corsica, discusses the roots of Corsican nationalism and the implications of the nationalists’ electoral triumph both for the island and for France. WPR: What are the main driving forces behind nationalism in Corsica, and how have they evolved in […]

The month of November saw a marked increase in the phenomenon known in Japan as “ghost ships”—North Korean fishing vessels that wash ashore or into Japanese waters, often empty or filled with the remains of deceased sailors. It seems like a fitting image for a visit taking place half the world away in Brussels, where U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived yesterday for a European trip that will see him continue on to Austria and France. The parallels apply on a number of levels. Tillerson himself has been considered the political equivalent of a dead man walking—rumored to be […]

Is Germany about to retreat from the world? Berlin has become an essential advocate for liberal internationalism in recent years. But it may turn inward again. Germany has long been a payer rather than a player at the United Nations and other multilateral institutions. While disbursing large quantities in foreign aid, and cautiously experimenting with stabilization missions in the Balkans and Afghanistan, Berlin generally avoided taking a real leadership role in global affairs. The priority for Berlin was always Europe, and that remains the case. But as Germany has become more powerful within the European Union, it has discovered that […]

BERLIN—Two months after Germany’s federal elections, the country is on the brink of an unexpected political crisis. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats, or CDU, and their sister party, the Christian Socialists, or CSU, ran first in the vote, but they finished without an outright majority. Since election night, they have been casting about for coalition partners—a process that has proven surprisingly more difficult than political pundits anticipated. The alternatives, if Merkel can’t form a coalition, are either for the CDU/CSU alliance to rule as a fragile minority government or, more likely, for new elections to take place. The latter […]