Tag Archives: Marine Le Pen

I’m writing this from Rome, where Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi just stepped down as leader of the centre-left Partito Democratico. Italian politics, once again, faces chaos.

Renzi previously resigned as Premier, having lost a botched referendum on constitutional change last December. Once tipped as Italy’s political savior, the 42-year old former Mayor of Florence must now win a renewed leadership battle if he is to restore his political credibility.

TELEGRAPH SPECIAL FEATURE: The heat rises in France’s banlieues

November 22, 2014

Telegraph Articles, Writing:

“It was hot, so hot,” Mady tells me, staring into the distance. “Everywhere, stuff was burning – cars, vans, buildings. That’s what I think of when I think of the riots. I think of the heat”.

Mady Traoré is 24. Born in France, of Malian parents, he lives in Clichy-sous-Bois. About 15 miles north of Paris, Clichy is probably the most notorious of the French banlieues – the often rundown estates on the outskirts of the country’s big cities, inhabited largely by second- and third-generation immigrants from North and West African former colonies.

TELEGRAPH FEATURE: How the fall of France could cement the rise of Ukip

November 2, 2014

Telegraph Articles, Writing:

“I wouldn’t hold French shares,” said Nigel Farage with a wink, belying his previous life as a stockbroker. “The country is in real trouble,” the Ukip leader told me at an investment conference in London last week. “As someone who loves France, it gives me no pleasure to say that”.

While Farage casually dishes out advice to sell French stocks, he knows only too well that, for all his admiration of Gallic gastronomy and tabacs, the singular weakness of the French economy, and related political fall-out, is playing into his hands.
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