Democracy Factual television news has vanished in France, crushed under the weight of permanent pundits, decorative special correspondents and ever-present political guests. This ousting owes nothing to an ideological conspiracy and everything to simple accounting: commentary costs a hundred times less than fieldwork. There’s no point mourning a golden age that never existed, though; the news broadcast of 1985 was no better, merely reverent toward power instead of chattering for the ratings. The public, for its part, isn’t innocent in this drift: it tunes out the moment you dig deeper, it flares up the moment people start trading insults. Institutional servitude yesterday, market servitude today, and in between, the viewer was never the point.
Democracy Three days without bank transfers, two years to renovate a five-million-euro rural bridge, eleven months to repair three escalators at Châtelet, two weeks without internet in Saint-Marcellin. These situations are no longer accidents: they have become the cruising speed of a country that has lost its ability to do things fast and at a reasonable cost. At the root of this paralysis, four structural causes that reinforce one another; cascading subcontracting, administrative layering, the asymmetry of privatisation, devouring bureaucracy. A million euros has become the minimum unit at municipal scale, a billion at national scale, and the citizen ends up taking out a Starlink subscription to get what the State, the operators and the local authorities no longer know how to guarantee. A methodical slide and a way out, on condition of shortening decision chains and rehabilitating local doing.
Democracy Le multiculturalisme ne peut pas fonctionner dans le cadre d’une démocratie libérale. Ce n’est pas une question de dosage, de bonne volonté ou de moyens. Appelons ça une loi, si le mot gêne les puristes : une tendance lourde, une constante empirique que trois continents et un siècle d’expériences reproduisent sans exception. Putnam l’a démontré malgré lui : plus un quartier est culturellement diversifié, moins les individus se font confiance, pas seulement entre groupes différents, mais au sein de chaque groupe. Quand le “nous” commun s’effondre, les individus retournent à leur appartenance primaire, l’élection devient un recensement ethnique, et le perdant ne reconnaît plus la légitimité du vainqueur : il conteste celle du système.
Democracy France’s parliamentary inquiry into public broadcasting reveals a pathology deeper than the usual burial of a scandal: under a 1958 ordinance, its own hearings can legally vanish from public view, and relaying them can become a criminal offense, if the final report is never adopted. Transparency turns out to be a reversible concession. The curtain falls, the lights go out, and all of it perfectly legal: the system is working exactly as it was designed to.
Surveillance and civil liberties In 2002, Switzerland adopted the LSCPT, a law meant to reconcile surveillance with respect for fundamental rights. Twenty years later, that balance has shattered: expanded surveillance powers, a Parliament routinely bypassed, and international pressure are redrawing the digital landscape. Behind the protective rhetoric, an insidious drift has taken hold, turning Switzerland from a vault for civil liberties into a weak link in global surveillance.
Economy France’s 2025 budget is shaping up to be unbalanced once again, deepening a colossal debt already past 3 trillion euros. With the government threatening to invoke article 49.3 to force the bill through, it is long past time to ask the obvious question: how can we accept a burden like this on future generations? Our political leaders need to answer for it and stop gambling with the country’s future.