Follow Philippe Legrain on Twitter Follow Philippe Legrain on YouTube Follow Philippe Legrain on Facebook Email me
By Philippe Legrain ADD YOUR COMMENT
Warning: Use of undefined constant shareonfacebook - assumed 'shareonfacebook' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/customer/www/philippelegrain.com/public_html/wp-content/themes/pristilo/archive.php on line 41

Celebrate Emmanuel Macron’s victory, but beware of pitfalls ahead. Populism is far from dead. My latest column for Project Syndicate

Posted 11 May 2017 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain ADD YOUR COMMENT

I was interviewed by Colm Ó Mongáin on RTE’s This Week about the French election. Listen here. (Starts at 12:30)

Posted 07 May 2017 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain ADD YOUR COMMENT

I was interviewed about the French presidential election in the Spanish newspaper La Razón by Angel Nieto. Read it here.

Posted 07 May 2017 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain ADD YOUR COMMENT

My pre-election piece (in Swedish) on Emmanuel Macron and what’s at stake in the French presidential election for SvD.

Posted 07 May 2017 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain ADD YOUR COMMENT

I was interviewed about the French elections by Spanish newspaper La Razón. Read it here

Posted 14 Apr 2017 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain ADD YOUR COMMENT

The French and German views of the eurozone are irreconcilable. Rather than press for a fiscal and political union, the eurozone needs to accommodate national differences more. My column for Foreign Policy here

Posted 31 Jul 2015 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain ADD YOUR COMMENT

I was interviewed by Atlantico.fr about the European Commission’s decision to grant the French government two more years to bring its deficit down to 3% of GDP.

Posted 27 Feb 2015 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain ADD YOUR COMMENT

I was interviewed by Romaric Godin in the French newspaper La Tribune

Posted 10 Oct 2014 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain 1 COMMENT

France’s draft plan to ban on wearing the burqa would involve a fine of €150 for wearing the full veil, Le Monde reports. Anyone forcing a woman to wear a full veil faces up to a year in prison and a €15,000 fine. Meanwhile, Belgium’s draft law would make it a crime to wear clothing […]

Posted 30 Apr 2010 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain ADD YOUR COMMENT

In Britain, the government is today publishing its long-awaited citizenship, immigration and borders bill. It proposes that prospective citizens should have to "earn" British citizenship after going through a probationary period. I have written a critique of the earned-citizenship proposals here. I debated whether Britain still needs immigration in a recession of Radio Five Live […]

Posted 15 Jan 2009 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain ADD YOUR COMMENT

1. Nine young children and six adults have died, with four more in a very serious state, in the latest tragic attempt by Africans to reach Europe. Full article in Spanish at El Pais; photos here. 2. The European Parliament has passed a motion demanding that the Berlusconi government stop collecting the fingerprints of gypsies […]

Posted 11 Jul 2008 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain ADD YOUR COMMENT

France is home to 5 million Muslims, but not a single Muslim member of parliament. So much for the success of France’s supposedly religion- and colour-blind republic. Sarkozy’s controversial justice minister, Rachida Dati, is the first figure of Muslim origin to hold senior ministerial office in that country. She is young, female, of North African […]

Posted 08 Jun 2008 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain 1 COMMENT

French president Nicolas Sarkozy is planning a Europe-wide crackdown on immigration when France takes over the reins of the EU in the second half of this year, according to documents seen by the FT. Not content with mismanaging France, it seems, Sarko is now determined to sow discord throughout Europe. Coming from the son of […]

Posted 30 May 2008 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain 5 COMMENTS

Nicolas Sarkozy won last year’s French presidential elections on an anti-immigration platform designed to curry favour with the voters of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s racist National Front. Since his election, he has tightened France’s immigration laws. His talentless lackey of an immigrant minister, Brice Hortefeux, loves talking tough about how France will deport Africans who dare […]

Posted 12 Jan 2008 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain ADD YOUR COMMENT

It is a measure of how low expectations have sunk that France’s Socialist Party (PS) is celebrating after winning scarcely more than a third of the seats in the country’s newly elected National Assembly. Pollsters had been forecasting electoral oblivion; instead, the PS merely received a drubbing at the hands of President Sarkozy’s victorious UMP.

Posted 18 Jun 2007 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain 2 COMMENTS

Immigrants from Mali with fake residence permits have been discovered working at one of President Sarkozy’s official residences.

Posted 16 Jun 2007 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain 1 COMMENT

As a French frigate returned the bodies of 18 drowned African migrants it had fished out of the sea near Malta, France’s new immigration minister, Brice Hortefeux, was full of fury.

Posted 03 Jun 2007 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain 2 COMMENTS

Anyone in the US, Britain or elsewhere who believes that expelling people is an easy way to reduce illegal immigration  should read this excellent article in Saturday’s Guardian about France’s flailing drive to deport illegal immigrants. In a chilling echo of the Second World War, when many brave French families hid Jews from the Gestapo, […]

Posted 06 Nov 2006 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain ADD YOUR COMMENT

The French government’s climbdown has been hailed as a “great victory for the people”. It is nothing of the sort.

Posted 11 Apr 2006 in Blog
By Philippe Legrain 2 COMMENTS

Over a million people took to the streets of France on Tuesday in protest at prime minister Dominique de Villepin’s proposed new employment law, with another national strike called for next Tuesday. Students and trade unions are bitterly opposed to the plans to make it easier for companies to hire and fire young workers. They […]

Posted 30 Mar 2006 in Blog