La société française est inquiète. Inquiète pour ses enfants, inquiète pour son avenir. Le malaise des jeunes est devenu un thème courant. Depuis un an, l'Académie des sciences morales et politiques a entrepris un travail de fond sur cette question dont elle publie aujourd'hui les conclusions dans un essai au titre sans appel : La France prépare mal l'avenir de sa jeunesse (Éditions du Seuil). Ce livre est le fruit de réflexions fondées sur les travaux scientifiques de chercheurs de la Rue d'Ulm, rassemblés autour du professeur Daniel Cohen.

Dans ce moment que chacun devine si important pour la France, si important pour l'avenir de chacune de vos familles, si important pour moi, plus que n’importe quel autre sentiment, ce qui m’étreint surtout c’est une émotion profonde. Cette émotion, j’aurais pu essayer de la qualifier, j’aurais pu l’exprimer dans un mot, j’aurais pu vous dire merci mais ce merci n’aurait pas été à la hauteur de ce que j’éprouve en cet instant. Il y a des sentiments qui sont si forts qu’il n’y a pas de mot assez grand pour les dire. Il y a des sentiments qui se ressentent tellement qu’on n’a pas besoin de les nommer.

French and European media reports in early December show that France's National Front (F.N.) leader Jean-Marie Le Pen could receive 15 percent of votes in France's presidential elections in the spring of 2007. In 2002, when Le Pen surprisingly proved that he was able to survive past the first round and challenged incumbent President Jacques Chirac, pre-electoral surveys credited Le Pen with around 12 percent of the votes.

As European nations debate the idea of accepting Turkey into their ranks, vestiges of the country's authoritarian nationalism--particularly its tendency to constrain free speech in the name of national honor and unity--have antagonized proponents of the European Union's accepted liberal values.

It looks increasingly likely that the ineffective Jacques Chirac will be forced to make way for his younger and more popular colleague to take his party’s presidential nomination in January 2007. Having openly flaunted his ambitions for some time, Mr. Sarkozy has used his many elected and appointed political offices to set out a powerful manifesto for the presidency. And for American strategic interests, it is a good one.

Jeudi dernier, le président de la République a annoncé la décision de la France de prendre ses responsabilités dans l'établissement de la paix au Liban-Sud. Je l'approuve pleinement. Je considère qu'il s'agit là d'un des axes essentiels de la politique étrangère de la France qu'il nous faudra maintenir au-delà des échéances électorales de l'année prochaine. Quel était en effet l'enjeu de cette décision ?

One hundred years ago this month, Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jewish army officer who had spent five years on Devil's Island for high treason and an additional seven years trying to clear his name, was absolved by France's Supreme Court. A few days later he was reinstated in the army, promoted to squadron chief, or major, and given the Légion d'Honneur

A French court ruling has reopened the country's wartime record and revived a question that has shadowed it for years: Who should be held responsible for the mistreatment and deportation of French Jews during World War II?

How quickly one forgets. It's been only four years since the last presidential campaign in France ended in near disaster when the far right xenophobic National Front party led by Jean-Marie Le Pen nearly won the election. This was largely due to the fractured Leftwing political parties, who scattered their votes among a plethora of candidates, ranging from the moderate socialists to extremist Trotskyites. Given that France's presidential election is carried out in two rounds of voting, or "tours," only the two candidates with the highest scores from the first tour, move on to the second.

Chirac and his chief Musketeer, Prime Minister Dominique Galouzeau de Villepin, have been caught in the act of some old-fashioned political skullduggery. And this time, it looks like someone has barred the doors.

France is an economic success story. It is the sixth largest economy in the world, the fourth biggest exporter of services and the third largest investor abroad. All the main macroeconomic indicators have improved in the past 12 months. 2005 was a year of record profits for the forty leading French corporations. Beyond well known consumer and luxury goods companies like L’Oréal and LVMH, French companies are international leaders in sectors such as nuclear technology (Areva) and communications (Alcatel). Not bad for a country of fewer than 63 million people who do not always enjoy a reputation for hard work.

La France a un problème avec ses musulmans, mais ce n’est pas celui qu’elle croit. L’embrasement des banlieues d’octobre-novembre 2005 ainsi que la vague d’arrestations dans les milieux jihadistes ont ramené l’Islam au centre des préoccupations françaises et ont donné du souffle à ceux qui brandissent la menace d’un monde musulman s’organisant à partir de l’islamisme politique.

In working-class Parisian suburbs like this one, heavily populated by North African immigrants, the word "Jew" is now a standard epithet. It appears in graffiti on middle school walls, neighborhood playgrounds and on the tongues of the young.

«Majesté, je dois beaucoup à votre père et, si vous le souhaitez, tout ce qu'il m'a donné, je m'efforcerai de vous le rendre». (...) Nous étions le dimanche 25 juillet 1999 au palais royal de Rabat, et le Maroc se préparait à enterrer Hassan II, décédé après trente-huit ans de règne absolu. (…) Maintenant, Mohammed VI savait pouvoir compter sur le président français. Jacques Chirac avait une dette à l'égard de son père. Il allait l'honorer en servant le fils.

Depuis 1964, la France dispose d'une dissuasion nucléaire autonome. Ce sont les enseignements de l'Histoire qui avaient conduit le général de Gaulle à faire ce choix crucial. Pendant toutes ces années, les forces nucléaires françaises ont assuré la défense de notre pays et ont largement contribué à préserver la paix.

For France, the good news is that these problems can be solved, principally be deregulating labor markets, reducing taxes, reforming the pension system and breaking the stranglehold of unions on economic life. The bad news is the entrenched cultural resistance to those solutions -not on the part of angry Muslim youth, but from the employed half of French society that refuses to relinquish their subsidized existences for the sake of the "solidarity" they profess to hold dear.

France could also help itself by dispatching troops to help battle the radical Islamists in Iraq, thereby sending a message to Muslims at home and abroad that France is on the side of those Muslims, the majority no doubt, who want to live in peace.

The resounding slogan of “liberty, equality, fraternity,” leaves no room for racism in the French state, in theory. In practice, over the two centuries since that slogan was coined, rulers of France have tried with varying success to fit two peoples—Arabs and Jews—into their grand design for the French nation and for its standing in the world.

On May 29th France will hold the second of ten national referenda on the EU constitutional treaty. The 25 EU governments have until November 2006 to ratify the treaty.1 Legally, if one of the governments fails to ratify the treaty, it cannot come into force. According to current opinion polls, there is a strong chance that France will vote No, which would probably kill off the treaty for good.

The French vote non to ratifying the European Constitution on May 29, there is no reason to imagine the EU won’t emerge from that experience stronger once again.