Hungry for a story, the media have had a lot of fun and sold a lot of copy chronicling the miscues, the (largely calculated) outrageousness, and headline grabbing antics of French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, while watching his slide toward a Fifth-Republic record (since 1958) for executive unpopularity. And on rare dull days, more than likely one of Sarkozy's ministers will utter something contentious/inept/inflammatory to keep the show well-paced. More recently a few voices have warned (...) more>>

The French debatosphere has heated up recently not only over how could the national soccer team play so terribly or what is the President thinking of when he proposes that the new public TV czar be appointed by...the President (see "Behind the Glitz and the Gaffes" in this section), but also over a bill being debated in the Senate to legalize certain instances of surrogate motherhood. Hearings included expert testimony by two philosophers, Elizabeth Badinter and Sylviane Agacinski, both of (...) more>>

Since 2000 a prize for the best work by a French economist under 40 years old has been jointly awarded by the Cercle des Economistes and the Economy section of the the French daily Le Monde. Besides a cultural fascination for early achievement and youthful genius, what does a look at laureates and finalists tell us about French economics (or about the prize)? According to Le Monde, in its presentation last month of this year's edition of the Young Economist Prize, the "French touch" on (...) more>>