Emmanuel Macron Archives - Public Seminar

Democracy

Naked Oligarchy

How billionaires captured power and hollowed out democracy

June 19, 2025 • by Salvador Santino Regilme

The choice is stark: rule by the many, or rule by the billionaires who already act as if they own the world. Across the globe, extreme wealth has overpowered democracy. The world’s billionaires no longer merely influence politics; they dominate it. Behind the rhetoric of innovation and market efficiency lies a ...

Europe & Central Asia

The French Politics of the Pantheon and the Monumental Hypocrisy of Emmanuel Macron

How recognizing the heroism of past immigrants serves as cover for a nation’s anti-immigrant present

April 8, 2024 • by Mitchell Abidor

It was striking that a center-right president like Emmanuel Macron, who has recently hardened his position on immigrants and immigration, would grant such a high honor to two immigrant Communists. ...

Politics

Notre Dame and the Controversy over Fundraising for Its Restoration

An excerpt from Amy Schiller’s new book The Price of Humanity

November 29, 2023 • by Amy Schiller

The fundraising for Notre Dame’s reconstruction was simultaneously a triumph and a fiasco for philanthropy. It showed philanthropy’s unique ability to build and sustain things of everlasting importance. At the same time, it also demonstrated how those very triumphs are undermined by preexisting conditions of economic inequality....

Notre Dame and the Controversy over Fundraising for Its Restoration

Europe & Central Asia

Is Putin Bluffing in Ukraine?

Though many Russians are anxious about Putin’s new mobilization of citizens to fight in Ukraine, some are also preparing to survive a nuclear conflict

September 28, 2022 • by Anastasia Shteinert

Putin’s nuclear threats provoked immediate reaction among leaders of Western countries, including Ukraine. The world community is concerned about Russian tactical nuclear weapons intended for use on a battlefield. ...

Feminism

When Fascism Is Female

In Europe, right-wing feminism is on the rise—and nationalist women are taking power

August 31, 2022 • by Sophie Boulter

This fascist “fire” that Meloni references and kindles is burning throughout Europe, and she is not alone in tending to its flames....

The Right

Why a Far-Right Activist Slapped President Macron

France’s culture wars are being fanned by a racism that cannot be discussed in public—but that followers of Marine Le Pen understand all the same

June 30, 2021 • by Hannah Leffingwell

_____ French President Emmanuel Macron was greeted at a recent press event with a slap in the face. Damien T., the man who delivered the slap, was heard yelling “Montjoie! Saint-Denis!” and “A bas la macronie” the former being a Royalist battle cry, the latter translating as “Down with Macronism!” The reason ...

Why a Far-Right Activist Slapped President Macron

Feature

Domestic Violence and France’s Inaction

Emmanuel Macron’s unfulfilled promises to women

April 18, 2019 • by Alice Marie Ghislaine Aparicio

As a French citizen, I had to make an important decision in 2017: vote for our next president. There were 12 candidates, but I didn’t feel like I had much choice. If I wanted to see my chosen candidate elected, the possibilities narrowed to four options. Jean-Luc Mélenchon was offering ...

Feature

Simone Veil

A noble Frenchwoman is laid to rest in France’s Pantheon

August 8, 2018 • by Ronald Tiersky

On July 1 the mortal remains of French politician and historical figure Simone Veil were transferred from Paris’s famous Montparnasse Cemetery to be reinterred in the Pantheon, the national mausoleum where lie many of the country’s most outstanding personalities. During a solemn ceremony on the steps of the Pantheon, near the venerable Sorbonne ...

Feature

What Makes Something New Today?

On the compulsion to innovate

February 20, 2018 • by Santiago Zabala

Given our prejudice towards innovation, everything labeled as “new” captures our interest with the promise of genuine improvement. But are new politicians, technological discoveries, and works of art necessarily better than previous ones? As we enter 2018 we recall last year’s breakthroughs as improvements in politics, technology, and art. It is ...

Feature

An American in France on Sexual Harassment, Resistance, Bravery, and Pigs

Trump year 1

December 5, 2017 • by Jim Neal

Now is a precious moment, when the female body politic has risen with indignation and outrage at the inglorious misogynist Trump. Though he seethes with contempt for women, his hatred has emboldened rather than stifled them. He is losing. Across the nation walls of silence, non-disclosure agreements, fear and intimidation ...

Feature

Normalizing the State of Emergency

France’s recent anti-terror legislation

October 12, 2017 • by Rafael Khachaturian

This measure codifies what has been an ongoing state of emergency, originally enacted by the Socialist President Francois Hollande in the wake of the attacks of November 2015. Since then, the state of emergency has been extended six more times in the face of ten more attacks, reinforcing what has ...

Feature

You Can’t Always Get What You Want, or In Defense of False Choices

Žižek on Macron and LePen

May 5, 2017 • by Laura Nelson

“You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you’ll find you get what you need” -- Mick Jagger Blackmail is ugly. Political blackmail is more than ugly: it undermines the political as a distinct mode of human action, and transforms it into a manipulative battle of insult ...