Like father, like son? French right seeks saviour in Louis Sarkozy
After years in the wilderness, the French centre-right believes it may have found a saviour in the form of a young anglophone liberal with intellectual aspirations and a high-powered wife.
He also happens to have a familiar name. Louis Sarkozy is the son of Nicolas, France's strongman president between 2007 and 2012, whose shadow still hangs over the country's political class despite being convicted of corruption in two separate cases.
Louis Sarkozy was mostly brought up in the US after Cécilia Attias, his mother, walked out of the Élysée Palace in 2007 and left the then head of state for a Franco-Moroccan PR specialist based in New York.
He has returned to France with an ill-disguised ambition to play a prominent public role.
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The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
US military parade has global counterparts in democracies, monarchies and totalitarian regimes
The military parade to mark the Army's 250th anniversary and its convergence with President Donald Trump 's 79th birthday are combining to create a peacetime outlier in U.S. history. Yet it still reflects global traditions that serve a range of political and cultural purposes. Variations on the theme have surfaced among longtime NATO allies in Europe, one-party and authoritarian states and history's darkest regimes. France: Bastille Day and Trump's idée inspirée The oldest democratic ally of the U.S. holds a military parade each July 14 to commemorate one of the seminal moments of the French Revolution. It inspired — or at least stoked — Trump's idea for a Washington version. On July 14, 1789, French insurgents stormed the Bastille, which housed prisoners of Louis XVI's government. Revolutionaries commenced a Fête de la Fédération as a day of national unity and pride the following year, even with the First French Republic still more than two years from being established. The Bastille Day parade has rolled annually since 1880. Now, it proceeds down an iconic Parisian route, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. It passes the Arc de Triomphe — a memorial with tributes to the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars and World War I — and eventually in front of the French president, government ministers and invited foreign guests. Trump attended in 2017, early in his first presidency, as U.S. troops marched as guests. The spectacle left him openly envious. 'It was one of the greatest parades I've ever seen,' Trump told French President Emanuel Macron. 'It was military might, and I think a tremendous thing for France and for the spirit of France. We're going to have to try and top it.' The British set modern ceremonial standards In the United Kingdom, King Charles III serves as ceremonial (though not practical) head of U.K. armed forces. Unlike in France and the U.S., where elected presidents wear civilian dress even at military events, Charles dons elaborate dress uniforms — medals, sash, sword, sometimes even a bearskin hat and chin strap. He does it most famously at Trooping the Colour, a parade and troop inspection to mark the British monarch's official birthday, regardless of their actual birthdate. (The U.S. Army has said it has no specific plans to recognize Trump's birthday on Saturday.) In 2023, Charles' first full year as king, he rode on horseback to inspect 1,400 representatives of the most prestigious U.K. regiments. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, used a carriage over the last three decades of her 70-year reign. The British trace Trooping the Colour back to King Charles II, who reigned from 1660-1685. It became an annual event under King George III, described in the American colonists' Declaration of Independence as a figure of 'absolute Despotism (and) Tyranny.' Authoritarians flaunt military assets Grandiose military pomp is common under modern authoritarians, especially those who have seized power via coups. It sometimes serves as a show of force meant to ward off would-be challengers — and to seek legitimacy and respect from other countries. Cuba's Fidel Castro, who wore military garb routinely, held parades to commemorate the revolution he led on Dec. 2, 1959. In 2017, then-President Raúl Castro refashioned the event into a Fidel tribute shortly after his brother's death. Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, known as 'Comandante Chávez,' presided over frequent parades until his 2013 death. His successor, Nicolás Maduro, has worn military dress at similar events. North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un, who famously bonded with Trump in a 2018 summit, used a 2023 military parade to show off his daughter and potential successor, along with pieces of his isolated country's nuclear arsenal. The event in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square — named for Kim's grandfather — marked the North Korean Army's 75th birthday. Kim watched from a viewing stand as missiles other weaponry moved by and goose-stepping soldiers marched past him chanting, 'Defend with your life, Paektu Bloodline' — referring to the Kim family's biological ancestry. In China, Beijing's one-party government stages its National Day Parade every 10 years to project civic unity and military might. The most recent events, held in 2009 and 2019, involved trucks carrying nuclear missiles designed to evade U.S. defenses, as well as other weaponry. Legions of troops, along with those hard assets, streamed past President Xi Jinping and other leaders gathered in Tiananmen Square in 2019 as spectators waved Chinese flags and fighter jets flew above. Earlier this spring, Xi joined Russian President Vladimir Putin — another strongman leader Trump has occasionally praised — in Moscow's Red Square for the annual 'Victory Day' parade. The May 9 event commemorates the Soviet Union's role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II — a global conflict in which China and the Soviet Union, despite not being democracies, joined the Allied Powers in fighting the Axis Powers led by Germany and Japan. A birthday parade for Hitler Large civic-military displays were, of course, a feature in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy before and during World War II. Chilling footage of such events lives on as a reminder of the dangers of authoritarian extremism. Among those frequent occasions: a parade capping Germany's multiday observance of Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday in 1939. (Some far-right extremists in Europe still mark the anniversary of Hitler's birth.) The four-hour march through Berlin on April 20, 1939, included more than 40,000 personnel across the Army, Navy, Luftwaffe (Air Force) and Schutzstaffel (commonly known as the 'SS.') Hundreds of thousands of spectators lined the streets. The Führer's invited guests numbered 20,000. On a street-level platform, Hitler was front and center. Alone.
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Reeves faces welfare revolt after Labour rebels rejected an 'olive branch' designed to head off a Commons mutiny over benefit cuts
was on collision course with Labour welfare rebels last night after they rejected an 'olive branch' designed to head off a Commons mutiny over benefit cuts. The Chancellor is facing a ferocious backlash from her own MPs over plans to trim £5 billion from the benefits bill. More than 100 Labour MPs have warned party whips they could vote against the plan to restrict eligibility to disability benefits. Ministers are trying to contain the rebellion by suggesting possible concessions. Under one proposal, those affected would continue to receive their benefits for a further 13 weeks to give them more time to find a job. The compromise is set to be included when the legislation needed to push through the cuts is published next week. But leading rebels dismissed the idea. Poole MP Neil Duncan-Jordan said the proposal was 'not a concession' as it was already included in a government consultation on the cuts. Mr Duncan-Jordan, a long-time anti-poverty campaigner, said the cuts would 'make disabled poorer'. He added: 'No amount of warm words mask the reality - cuts don't create jobs they create austerity. I'm voting No.' Fellow rebel Rachel Maskell said: 'I'll have to vote against something which will cause such harm to my constituents - too many lives will be put at risk if they press ahead.' Ms Reeves used the £5 billion package of benefit cuts to help balance the books when she gave her spring statement on the economy in March. Without them she would have been at risk of breaking her own fiscal rules set just five months earlier. Economists say the cuts will hit 1.2 million people, with those affected losing an average of around £4,500 per year each. The government's own impact assessment suggested the changes would drive 250,000 people into poverty, including 50,000 children. But Ms Reeves signalled she will not back down further, despite her recent U-turn on cuts to the winter fuel allowance. Ruling out a climb down, she said reform was needed to prevent the welfare system becoming unsustainable. 'It is important we reform the way the welfare state works so there is a welfare state there for people,' she said. 'We are the only developed country where the number of people in the labour market is lower than it was before Covid. The number of economically inactive people of working age is rising.' The Chancellor said sickness benefits are forecast to rise sharply despite the cuts, with official estimates suggesting they will reach almost £100 billion a year by the end of the decade.
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Tax hikes will force retailers to push up prices, cut jobs and halt shop openings retail chief warns Rachel Reeves
has been warned that further tax hikes will cause retailers to push up prices, cut jobs and halt shop openings. The latest alert was issued by Andy Higginson, the chairman of JD Sports and the British Retail Consortium industry group. He said 'all' retailers have already been left 'looking to reduce their labour forces' following a barrage of tax rises this year. And now firms fear another raid after the Chancellor's spending review on Wednesday. Concerns that bosses are set to be hammered at the next autumn Budget were ignited after Ms Reeves said she had failed to shrink the public spending 'envelope'. Major retailers, including Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsbury's, have already axed staff. Firms have had to grapple with higher cost pressures in the wake of measures introduced in the Chancellor's autumn Budget. A sharp rise in employer national insurance contributions (NICs) and a big hike in the national minimum wage mean retailers face a £5 billion higher bill after the Budget, according to the British Retail Consortium. Firms have also been disappointed by the Government's lack of urgent action to reform business rates. Mr Higginson told Radio 4's Today programme: 'You have seen immediately the impact of the changes made in April, the slowdown that has come straight through to the economy.' He warned that in the end the Government's tax hikes 'do work through' the supply chain, meaning consumers pay more. Describing the influx of rises introduced in April as a 'tax on jobs', Mr Higginson added: 'All the retailers I know have been looking to reduce their labour forces.' It comes as dismal employment figures published this week revealed UK payroll numbers have shrunk by 276,000 over the past seven months. But in recent days, the Chancellor and Prime Minister have claimed that Labour has 'fixed the foundations' of the economy.
