sophiepedder.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

I seem to have provoked 🔥between @alastaircampbell2.bsky.social and Rory Stewart by asking why Rory never has a positive word to say about 🇫🇷 politicians, starting with Macron and Attal (PS: For the record, I never defended Macron’s decision to dissolve Parliament!) open.spotify.com/episode/5aBC...

submitted 2 days ago • 3 comments

Dominique de Villepin, of the famous 2003 UN speech against military intervention in Iraq, has launched a political party with a view to running for the French presidency in 2027 leparisien.fr/politique/do...

submitted 4 days ago • 4 comments

Impressive to hear 🇫🇷 presidential hopeful Gabriel Attal hold his own in English on Leading with @alastaircampbell2.bsky.social + Rory Stewart. “My dream is that my generation will be the one that sees the U.K. rejoining the EU” says Attal “I think it’s possible” alastaircampbell.org/2025/06/140-...

submitted 6 days ago • 2 comments

Macron’s opening comments at this evening’s emergency National Defence and Security meeting at the Elysée in Paris: “No purely military response can have the desired effects” Diplomatic talks are needed to ensure Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons and to avoid escalation

submitted 6 days ago • 2 comments

No reaction yet from Macron. This from Barrot, 🇫🇷 foreign minister, expressing “preoccupation”. France participated “neither in the strikes nor their planning”. Urges restraint and a return to talks

submitted 7 days ago • 4 comments

“The French government will more than double its stake in debt-laden satellite operator Eutelsat, in a state-led €1.35bn capital raising that will see Paris strengthen its hold on OneWeb, Europe’s answer to Elon Musk’s Starlink.” on.ft.com/45yreq4

submitted 9 days ago • 6 comments

Dassault salesman at Le Bourget today

submitted 8 days ago • 2 comments

The only accessory motorists in France really need 🥖⬇️ The remodelled electric Renault 5 classic. So stylish a French luxury group poached the car firm’s boss economist.com/europe/2025/... from @economist.com

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Macron’s trip to Greenland yesterday wasn’t only a defiant message to Trump. It was also a message to Europeans, about strategic autonomy economist.com/europe/2025/... from @Economist

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Why are girls still falling behind in maths? A new French study shows how fast the gender gap emerges (first signs after four months), and at how young an age (first year of primary school) economist.com/graphic-deta... from @economist.com

submitted 16 days ago • 4 comments

Bombshell boomtowns: Europe’s forgotten cities now facing a boom due to increased defence spending A report from France, Germany and Poland, with @vendeline.bsky.social and Maria Wilczek economist.com/europe/2025/... from @economist.com

submitted 18 days ago • 1 comment

Macron will go to Greenland, on his way to see Trump at the G7 in Canada www.lemonde.fr/internationa...

submitted 22 days ago • 2 comments

Why Trumpworld loathes Europe. In part, Europe is caught in US culture wars. Trumpism is also bad history. The EU wasn’t set up to “screw America” as Pres Trump claims. European unity was pushed by America as a way to avoid WW3. My column, The Telegram economist.com/internationa...

submitted 25 days ago • 9 comments

This is of course the right thing to do, for France and for Europe. But French public finances are under real strain. What Macron hasn’t said is what the French government should spend less on to get to 3.5%, let alone higher still

submitted 29 days ago • 1 comment

Listening to Macron at IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. Criticises “double standards” & “equidistance between Russia & Ukraine” in LatAm, Africa, Asia. If Russia allowed to take territory what happens in Taiwan, Philippines? Also cites risk of “free pass” to Israel

submitted 29 days ago • 4 comments

Trust in European Union at highest since 2007, poll shows reut.rs/4k9VQ5z

submitted 31 days ago • 4 comments

Worth noting the long and careful trajectory of France’s “right to die” bill, which the National Asembly passed yesterday by 305 votes to 199 against. It is the result of years of public debate, including a citizens’ assembly, and then a free parliamentary vote. Difficult subject, exemplary method

submitted 32 days ago • 3 comments

Secular France’s adult baptism boom. How to explain an unexpected surge in Catholic fervour economist.com/europe/2025/... from @economist.com

submitted 33 days ago • 3 comments

Our cover this week @economist.com

submitted 37 days ago • 2 comments

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to track leaders’ diplomatic phone calls to their peers. The French presidency can’t say how often Macron speaks to Trump because he just has him on speed dial

submitted 43 days ago • 0 comments

Macron took the nuclear-sharing debate one step further in his marathon TV appearance last night, stating that France was open to discussing the stationing of 🇫🇷 nuclear warheads in other allied European countries on.ft.com/4jOcabW

submitted 46 days ago • 1 comment

King Charles has invited Emmanuel Macron for a state visit to the U.K. on July 8-10…ahead of Trump 🇬🇧🇫🇷

submitted 47 days ago • 4 comments

Powerful moment: leaders of France (Macron), Germany (Merz) and U.K. (Starmer) arrive in Kyiv together, to be joined by Poland’s leader (Tusk) In support of Ukraine In defiance of Russian aggression Together as Europeans, west to east 🇫🇷🇩🇪 🇬🇧🇵🇱🇪🇺🇺🇦

submitted 50 days ago • 2 comments

Macron, Merz, Starmer and Tusk, together, en route tonight for Kyiv ⬇️

submitted 50 days ago • 1 comment

Really interesting to watch France’s embrace of new European diplomatic formats. Today foreign ministers from the Weimar 3 🇫🇷🇩🇪🇵🇱 (Ben Haddad for 🇫🇷) are joining the Nordic Baltic 8 in Denmark for their annual meeting. Pragmatic and flexible alliances are becoming the new normal

submitted 62 days ago • 2 comments

Why France is a far healthier country than America, despite spending a whole lot less of its GDP on healthcare economist.com/europe/2025/04… In @economist.com

submitted 65 days ago • 6 comments

Our cover this week

submitted 65 days ago • 9 comments

Some chatter out there suggests that France might revert to ambiguity over Russia under US pressure. This seems like nonsense. Let’s look at what Macron has been saying in recent weeks Today he said that Putin should “stop lying” “There’s one aggressor: Russia. There’s one aggressed: Ukraine”

submitted 65 days ago • 8 comments

Trump has pushed the U.K. and France more closely together than at any point since Brexit. Starmer and Macron have moved on, seized the moment, and are publicly displaying this new cooperation in ways that are properly heartening 🇫🇷🇬🇧

submitted 70 days ago • 4 comments

Important to see these 3 European counties 🇫🇷🇬🇧 🇩🇪 working closely together today in Paris for the US/Ukraine talks. NSAs Bonne 🇫🇷, Powell 🇬🇧 and Plotner 🇩🇪 met separately first with Yermak 🇺🇦 and then Witkoff 🇺🇸. All meet together this afternoon, along with Rubio and Witkoff 🇺🇸 after their lunch with Macron

submitted 72 days ago • 2 comments

Now confirmed: Macron will meet Rubio and Witkoff for talks at the Elysée tomorrow. Also on Thursday: 🇫🇷 defence minister Lecornu will visit Washington DC to see Hegseth. France is trying to persuade the US not to play Russia’s game in Ukraine

submitted 73 days ago • 13 comments

Things are getting pretty tense between France and Algeria. After Algiers expelled 12 🇫🇷 diplomats, French foreign minister Barrot has just announced that France is expelling 12 Algerian diplomats from Paris and calling back its ambassador for talks

submitted 74 days ago • 3 comments

Oh boy. Paris pro-war ahead of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq? Tell that to Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin, and all those in 🇫🇷 at the time scornfully accused of being “cheese-eating surrender monkeys”

submitted 74 days ago • 6 comments

What 🇫🇷 PM François Bayrou said this morning about 🇫🇷 public finances is absolutely right. France has excessive public spending, debt and taxation, and fails to live within its means. The trouble is, this has been true for a long time. The last time a 🇫🇷 government balanced its budget was in 1974

submitted 75 days ago • 1 comment

Europe is now the land of the free economist.com/europe/2025/... from @economist.com @spignal.bsky.social

submitted 79 days ago • 7 comments