Yellow Vests

LONDON — Thousands of people turned out to demonstrate against police brutality and racism in European cities like London and Paris on Saturday, after a week in which statues linked to slavery and colonialism were targeted across the continent and calls intensified for scrutiny of policing and of a history…

When European governments imposed lockdowns to stop the spread of the new coronavirus, in most cases opposition parties were relatively supportive. The gravity of the emergency and the speed of contagion tempered normal political competition. Consensus was not absolute and, in some countries, was rather fragile; yet, in the most…

As the United States tries to prevent public protest following the killing of George Floyd from spiraling into further violence, it’s tempting to think of French policing as an example to be followed. France’s long history of street protest, from the ritual to the insurrectional, dovetails with its history of…

The Brief offers opinions from the EURACTIV newsroom, and this piece represents the views of its author. Police brutality and racism are certainly present in Europe, and Europe participated in and profited from the slave trade. We invite you to read a response to this piece in a follow-up essay…

Cast your mind back to Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe's budget speech last October. There were warnings about the economic impact of any form of Brexit, but a budget surplus was predicted by the end of the year. Despite the looming General Election, Fine Gael resisted the natural political urge to…

Cast your mind back to Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe's budget speech last October. There were warnings about the economic impact of any form of Brexit, but a budget surplus was predicted by the end of the year. Despite the looming General Election, Fine Gael resisted the natural political urge to…

PARIS—The crowd that gathered in front of the city’s main courthouse demanded justice for a black man who’d died at the hands of the police. They chanted, “We Can’t Breathe” and brandished signs and scrawled graffiti slogans from the Black Lives Matter movement. The police used tear gas to disperse…

Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersPARIS—The crowd that gathered in front of the city’s main courthouse demanded justice for a black man who’d died at the hands of the police. They chanted, “We Can’t Breathe” and brandished signs and scrawled graffiti slogans from the Black Lives Matter movement. The police used tear gas to…

In Netflix's Inhuman Resources, Eric Cantona plays a middle-aged HR manager called Alan Delambre; after his job is retrenched, Delambre is forced into underpaid 'menial' wage-labour in the course of which he faces daily harassment. Twenty-five years ago, during a club football game, the French soccer star Eric Cantona unleashed…

Out-of-staters and professional nihilists have turned protests against George Floyd's death into chaos. A protester walks past military police in riot gear as they block protesters across from the White House on May 30, 2020 in Washington DC, during a protest over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black…