This is much worse than Munich






In Munich in 1938, Chamberlain and Daladier made the wrong decision, but they were driven by honorable motives. Chamberlain was weak but wanted to preserve short-term peace at all costs; Daladier was entirely lucid, but he had taken a look at the state of preparation of the French forces and wanted to buy time to … Read more




The path wrongly taken






The dominant discourse right now is “Calm down, this is just the normal game of democracy”. Actually, “this” is not the normal course of democracy. Everyone has experienced the disappointment of a favored candidate losing. The result of Tuesday is something else, not seen before in our lifetime: the triumph of indecency and the rout … Read more




Europe asleep (a key-not)






This week, Informatics Europe, the association of European computer science departments and industry research centers, is holding its annual ECSS event, bizarrely billed as “20 years of Informatics Europe”. (Informatics Europe was created at the end of 2006 and incorporated officially in 2011. The first ever mention of the name appeared in an email from … Read more




Descente aux enfers






[English version forthcoming.] Que peut-on faire ? Un pays vieux d’un millénaire et demi est en train de se suicider. Pour tentant que soit le désespoir, il est encore temps d’agir. Le pire scénario, c’est la menace de la gauche. Ce qu’il restait de sociaux-démocrates s’est prosterné devant une bande d’extrémistes décidés à détruire toute … Read more




Upside down






What is going on? In the US, the leading presidential candidate is a vulgar crook, a serial business failure and convicted business fraudster; more ominously, he acts like a vassal to Putin. His first term was an endless string of catastrophes, including the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his compatriots through gross mismanagement. And … Read more




The “NATO expansion” canard






Are you not tired, too, of those endlessly repeated arguments that, sure, it was not very polite of Putin to invade Ukraine, but you have to understand the situation, it’s all the fault of NATO’s aggressive westward expansion which, you know, was provoking the Russians! You see this argument everywhere on social networks and also … Read more




Toute la rage du Monde






Un chef d’état donne une conférence de presse ; par exemple Emmanuel Macron, président de la république française, le 17 avril dernier. Les journaux publieront des commentaires louangeurs ou critiques, mais en premier lieu, si ce sont des journaux d’information, ils rendront compte de ce qui a été dit. Leur manchette sera du genre de … Read more




Macron and Borne: profiles in courage






The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and prime minister, Elizabeth Borne, are showing incredible political courage in promoting an indispensable reform of the pension system. The international press (with the exception of one recent reasonable Washington Post editorial) has largely taken the side of the strikers, explaining sententiously that the proper answer would be to tax … Read more




Le courage de Macron






(An English variant will appear tomorrow.) La presse nationale et internationale est déchaînée contre Borne et Macron. Les extrémistes et factieux de tous bords jurent de “mettre le pays par terre” (comment, au passage, peut-on accepter ce genre de langage de la part d’un responsable “syndical”?). Toute la classe politique sait bien sûr que la … Read more