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This week

• 📢Glucksmann goes solo for 2027

• 🇬🇷Macron: France will stand by Greece if threatened

• 🇮🇷Macron reassures public on energy shortages

📢Glucksmann goes solo for 2027

So, to start the week off, we have yet another candidacy announcement for the 2027 Presidential elections, this time coming from centre-left MEP Raphaël Glucksmann (Place Publique).

Speaking on Thursday 23 April, Glucksmann made it clear that he would refuse to participate in a left-wing primary, in order to avoid a situation where “the left will speak to the left, as usual” and instead, “build a political offer” that would win over more people.

A part of his anxiety around this situation is that, in his view, the left operates in a bubble, while their toughest opposition will go around them and speak to the people who actually vote.

“The left will talk to the left, as usual” MEP Glucksmann said of any potential primary. “At the same time, you will have Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Jordan Bardella, who will campaign by talking to the French.”

However, while he joined hands with actors from the Ecologists and the Parti Socialiste to call for a “credible and mobilising project” ahead of the next elections, and has been actively calling for a common platform with substance that answers the ongoing challenges facing the French, Glucksmann has only one red line:

“There is no possibility of an alliance or a primary election with La France Insoumise because our political positions differ.”

And while Glucksmann has said that it’s “not the moment” to declare his candidacy, there’s a not insignificant number of watchers who have seen some major similarities in how Emmanuel Macron initially launched his political movements back in 2016.

🇬🇷Macron: France will stand by Greece if threatened

Moving on to the international scene: Emmanuel Macron was visiting Greece this week, where he reiterated French support for its fellow European Union member state and reinforced the EU’s mutual defence clause.

Firstly, speaking at an event titled ‘Challenges for Europe: The Way Ahead’, hosted by the newspaper Ekathimerini, the French President underlined that France had and would continue to come to Greece’s defence whenever necessary.

In saying this, he highlighted recent instances when France had come to the aid of European states, such as the Greek-Turkish standoff in 2020 and the defence of Cyprus earlier this year.

And during this conversation, both leaders underlined the need to further develop European coordination in defence and to push for Strategic Autonomy. Macron, as is his style, pushed for Europeans to “produce European and buy European” while reducing regulations that undermine the EU’s ability to do so.

This aligned with the broader message of his visit: that Europe needs to strengthen its ability to defend itself, and that we need to remember that our Mutual Assistance Clause is “not just words” but a concrete mechanism.

“On article 42, paragraph 7, it’s not just words, we know that for us, it ⁠is clear ‌and ‌there is no room ‌for interpretation or ‌ambiguity,” Macron said, going on to describe the MAC as “stronger” than NATO article 5 as he believes that “[Donald Trump’s] US approach will last.”

And this was, in part, why the informal council meeting took place in Cyprus on 23-24 April, which we’ll discuss this coming week over on Dépêche.

🇮🇷Macron reassures public on energy shortages

To close off the week, Emmanuel Macron attempted to reassure citizens on Saturday, 25 April, by saying that no shortages were expected as a result of the ongoing American-led war on Iran.

This statement was made following a comment on Friday by the head of TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanné, at the World Policy Conference hosted by IFRI, where he claimed that if the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz lasted for “two or three more months,” France would enter “an era of energy shortage.”

Naturally, this made the Elysée and Matignon less than happy with Emmanuel Macron being questioned on this statement in Athens. The French President responded that France is “not facing the worst-case scenario you described, which is not the most likely outcome at present and which I am not in a position to comment on.”

With the French government doing what it could to not only resolve the crisis in the Strait from its side but also to avoid any panic that could lead to a run on the gas pumps, the rapid response was to be expected.

Macron even went as far as to call on people to avoid creating political fiction due to this potential panic response:

He went on to underline that “at this stage the situation is under control … [and] does not make us envisage any shortage” while reiterating calls for “a complete reopening, in accordance with international law, to freedom of navigation, without tolls [of] the Strait of Hormuz.”

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This week

• 🇱🇧French soldier killed in Lebanon

• 🇮🇷Macron and allies push to open Hormuz

🇱🇧French soldier killed in Lebanon

So to start off the week, some sad news;

This week saw a French peacekeeper being killed and three others wounded after a UN patrol came under attack in Southern Lebanon.

With all four being part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), they came under small-arms fire while on Patrol, which Emmanuel Macron blamed on Hezbollah, the Iran-backed radical paramilitary group.

A UN spokesperson blamed the attack on “non-state actors” and urged all parties to “respect the cessation of hostilities and to cease fire”. Meanwhile, the Lebanese government announced it would bring the perpetrators to action as Hezbollah calls for nobody to jump to conclusions.

🇮🇷Macron and allies push to open Hormuz

This past Friday, Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer chaired a video conference with 30 European, Asian, and Middle Eastern leaders with one simple goal: to organise a multinational force that would be deployed to the Strait of Hormuz and stabilise the situation, once Donald Trump’s Iran-US-Israel war is over.

With Donald Trump’s misguided geopolitical mess having begun on February 28, Iran quickly shut down the strait the moment fighting broke out. This was done both to apply pressure to America through direct economic punishment and through international reaction.

As a result of all this, global energy prices have spiked over the last two months and Trump’s America looks even more isolated than ever. To make things worse than the shaky ceasefires being put in place, the US is now running its own blockade on Iranian ports as a reaction to the Iranian blockade of the Strait.

Europe, as a result of America’s war, is staring down inflation, food shortages, and the prospect of grounded flights as jet fuel dries up. Iran did announce on Friday that it would reopen Hormuz for the duration of the ceasefire, which Macron acknowledged “goes in the right direction,” but the French President made it clear that’s not enough.

Macron also drew a hard line against any deal that would effectively turn a global waterway into a private tollbooth to the financial benefit of any one country: “We all oppose any restrictions or system of agreements that would, in effect, amount to an attempt to privatise the strait and, of course, any toll system.”

French Foreign Minister, Jean Noël Barrot, added further justification to the coalition by highlighting the damage that was being caused by the ongoing Crisis: “The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has major consequences for the global economy, and therefore for the daily lives of French citizens and French businesses"

Starmer confirmed that around a dozen countries are ready to contribute assets to a defensive mission to maintain the strait’s opening, with military chiefs set to meet next week at the UK’s Northwood headquarters. A broader London summit on Hormuz is expected to follow shortly after.

Germany’s Friedrich Merz, who has shown an initial reluctance similar to Ukraine, said Berlin is “willing in principle to take part”, while adding that Germany is “still very far from that.” French officials were also unambiguous on one point: Washington, as a belligerent in the conflict, should have no role in this mission.

This will be due to a lack of trust in the American president and the American political system right now, and a desire to avoid any unnecessary inflammatory actions by an increasingly unstable Donald Trump.

The Élysée framed the whole effort as a “third way between maximum US pressure on Iran and a resumption of war.” With over 20,000 seafarers trapped on hundreds of stranded ships, the stakes are not abstract, and the damage to global economies and oil routes continues to escalate.

For Europe, it’s also a moment to prove it exists diplomatically and geopolitically, with the US government actively going out of its way to repeatedly sideline its European allies, continuing to argue that Europeans are weak and subservient to other global powers.

And for the Americans, it’s also a strong opportunity for an off-ramp to be provided by the Europeans that Trump & co. have mocked and spat on repeatedly for years, with the war having achieved nothing but rolling back the hard-fought wins of the Obama negotiations, and impoverishing the world.

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Donald ‘#TACO’ Trump has once again chickened out, backing down from his threats to erase Iran’s 2500-year-old civilisation last night if the Iranian government didn’t capitulate.

Which of course, they didn’t, instead putting forward a ten-point peace plan to end the American-Iranian war that would amount to a complete and utter American capitulation, and would solidify Iran’s position as the regional hegemon.

So, realising that once again his geopolitical skills are non-existent and you can’t just be a bully to a foreign state in quite the same way you can be to young or vulnerable individuals, Donald Trump has chickened out, and here we are.

And as discussed in the Dépêche of the day, Donald Trump continues to reinforce the anti-American and illiberal order.

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With Hungary heading to the polls in six days, on Sunday, 12 April 2026, Viktor Orban is growing increasingly desperate as he faces an almost certain defeat to Péter Magyar after 16 years in power.

For Europeans, these elections offer the prospect of a Hungary and a European Union finally free of Orban’s disruption, and the end of the autocratic regime that has enriched him, his oligarch friends, and Vladimir Putin. It promises an end to the Hungarian veto, which has hamstrung the European Union and prevented us from advancing our project, becoming stronger, and improving the prosperity of our citizens.

And as has been underlining, this is one of the first post-truth elections, which is why we’re taking a look at Viktor Orban’s attempted false flag in Serbia.

After explosives were found on a pipeline carrying Russian gas from Serbia into Hungary, Orban and his allies aggressively pointed the finger at Ukraine and attempted to undermine Magyar’s campaign, before Serbian intelligence killed the conspiracy with one small comment.

And of course, as you can imagine, this is all because his party, Fidesz, is looking at the end of their dominance in Hungary.

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This week

• 🇮🇷French ship passes through Strait of Hormuz

• 🧑‍⚖️MEP Rima Hassan arrested for terrorism apologia

• 🇯🇵🇰🇷Macron scores wins across Japan and Korea

🇮🇷French ship passes through Strait of Hormuz

So, to kick the week off: this week saw a ship pass through the Strait of Hormuz, potentially the first in the five weeks of the American-Iran war, and it happened to be a French-owned ship.

Now, while we don’t know exactly how this occurred or whether any discussions happened between the Quai d’Orsay and the Iranian regime, which is unlikely but not impossible, the reality is that this does fit into what Iran has said outside of any deals.

In public releases, Iran has claimed that “any non-hostile vessels” could use the waterway, and with Emmanuel Macron having consistently said that France would not be dragged into Donald Trump’s war, but would instead take part in any peaceful efforts to open the strait, and aside from this, focus on defending French assets in the region, it’s very likely that this has led to French ships being left alone by the Iranian regime and their allies.

What we do know for sure is that any ships successfully passing through the Strait have to sail “unusually close” to shore and go to extra lengths to prove their safety as they travel through the Iran-approved corridor.

Whether this will do much to stem the incoming oil crisis is anyone’s question, however.

🧑‍⚖️MEP Rima Hassan arrested for terrorism apologia

Rima Hassan is an MEP whom many people know for her almost exclusive focus on the Israel-Palestine war, her high level of activity across Europe and the Middle East, and her participation in several pro-Palestine flotillas.

She is also known for taking inflammatory political positions, having stated that the October 7th attacks were “legitimate”, reportedly participating in a pro-Hamas rally, being the target of aggressive harassment campaigns, doxxing her harassers, being doxxed herself, and being targeted with death and rape threats.

So, this recent news of her police summons finds its place fairly well within the La France Insoumise MEP’s story.

On the 2nd of April, Rima Hassan was taken into custody as part of an investigation into “apology for terrorism”, linked to a tweet she made referring to the 1972 Lod Airport Massacre.

For those who don’t know: the Lod Airport Massacre was a mass shooting, committed by the Japanese Red Army, that led to the death of 26 innocents and injuries to 70 more. This included 17 Christian pilgrims from Puerto Rico.

In the above tweet, which was apparently rapidly deleted, Rima Hassan quotes one of the survivors, Kōzō Okamoto:

“I dedicated my youth to the Palestinian cause. As long as there is oppression, resistance will not only be a right, but a duty.”

Now, the simple fact is that Rima Hassan is someone who has made her entire career revolve around the Israel-Palestine conflict, and very likely knew exactly who she was quoting and what he did, so it’s very hard to believe Hassan wasn’t aware of what she was doing. On top of this, she quickly deleted the tweet after receiving her police summons.

But the story takes an even stranger turn.

Rima Hassan apparently turned up at the second judicial police district in Paris with a small amount of synthetic drugs in her bag, which will add a further step to this judicial act.

In response to all of this, Rima Hassan has gone on the offensive, claiming that she is the “subject of real judicial and political harassment because of and exclusively because of my political opinions.” She also claims that she was carrying two pieces of CBD in her bag for medical purposes, with one appearing to have traces of synthetic drugs, and her lawyer followed this by stating that a urine test had been completed and showed no drug use.

She also went to Twitter to defend herself with a series of posts laying out her side of the argument:

Now, following this situation, Rima Hassan has two pending court hearings for “public apology for a crime or misdemeanour” and “public and direct provocation without effect to commit a crime or misdemeanour.”

However, the problem is that this situation will simply continue, and nothing will change the incredibly divisive nature of Rima Hassan’s political practices, which we need to remember are those of an MEP for La France Insoumise, the far-left party known for engaging in violent rhetoric and aggressive populism.

Nor will this change the extremely violent reaction that this behaviour receives from the far-right, as seen during the most recent far-right protests of a Hassan event in Lyon that led to fights between two extremist groups and then the lynching of Quentin Deranque.

Unfortunately, we’ve reached a stage in French politics where many actors will go out of their way to be as polemical as possible, as aggressive as possible, discredit any attempts to hold them to societal or legal standards, and create discord because, quite simply, it works.

Whether we’re talking about the far-left or the far-right, things will only get worse as we head into the Presidential elections in just over a year, which is exactly why we need to stay vigilant as societies, continue to defend sensible, coherent discussions around explosive political discussions and situations, and as extreme as this may sound to some, defend rule of law in our countries to ensure that people don’t encourage violence or discord.

This must, of course, include space for legitimate discussion and critique of states like Israel, especially with political initiatives such as their new death penalty law ringing alarm bells globally.

🇯🇵🇰🇷Macron scores wins across Japan and Korea

To finish up the week, President Emmanuel Macron wrapped up a four-day visit to Japan and South Korea, strengthening ties between France and the two Asian powers, and securing meaningful progress toward his goal of creating a wider coalition of middle powers.

The trip ran from 31 March to 3 April, framed around the G7 summit Macron is hosting in Évian this coming June, and came at a moment of Trump-fuelled chaos. With the US war against Iran having almost entirely shut down the Strait of Hormuz and sending energy prices surging, all of Washington’s allies have been asking themselves whether they can actually rely on the Americans.

This question has given Macron a strong opening to pursue his signature efforts to achieve “strategic autonomy” and build a “coalition of independents,” including countries like Brazil, India, and Canada, united by a shared commitment to international law and diplomacy.

He made this argument everywhere: in front of business leaders, to global journalists, alongside Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, and to students at Yonsei University in Seoul, who received him with enthusiasm more commonly associated with K-pop acts.

And this seems to have worked.

In Japan, the two sides signed around sixty agreements covering civil nuclear energy, space cooperation, and rare earths, with a 2+2 meeting between foreign and defence ministers producing a commitment to expand joint military exercises.

In South Korea, Macron’s first-ever visit marked the 140th anniversary of bilateral relations, and with the rise of South Korea’s defence industry, which has been signing contracts across Europe since the start of the war in Ukraine, the meeting was clearly long overdue and very well timed.

Macron also used the trip to position France and Europe as predictable, rules-based partners for Asian states, a pointed contrast with a US administration that launched a war in the Middle East without consulting allies.

And while America is now paying the price for the instability wrought by Donald Trump, France and Europe appear to be benefiting from their reliability and stability.

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So, for more than a few years now, I’ve been receiving regular requests to do more audio-visual content, more short-form content, and more briefs explaining the day-to-day politics in Europe, the United States, and the wider world.

And so I’m happy to announce that a new project will be coming to The French Dispatch, the Dépêche, bringing you, my dear readers, more regular, rapid, raw briefs to keep you updated on what is happening in the world around us.

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So, ladies and gentlemen, Donald Trump’s war on Iran is continue to splutter, with America having failed to remove the Iranian regime, inflaming tensions across the Middle East, and actively creating a scenario that is sending oil and gas prices skyrocketing.

Not only this, but Donald Trump has managed to create a situation where he is now pushing to remove sanctions on Russia, and is actively berating European leaders for refusing his petulant demand for a third Gulf War.

So I sat down with from so that we could chat about France’s role in leading the European rejections of Trumps demands, how the Europeans are all positioning themselves ahead of the upcoming Council summit, and what we can expect.

We also talk about Macron’s strategic pivot as he reaches the end of his presidency, what we can expect from America, and why Donald Trump has genuinely pushed his so-called allies too far.

Let us know what you think, and forgive our being sabotaged by the ’s recording studio, which has wrought untold havoc on our geopolitical opinions and caused a small delay in the audio.

And if you want to check out my previous discussion following the opening salvo of the American-Iranian war, check out my video with from

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👋Hey guys, Julien here. The French Dispatch is a reader-supported publication, and both our coverage of current affairs as well as our ability to bring you more news and information on the world around us is entirely funded by paid subscriptions and donations.

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So, as you may all have heard, the world is on fire right now, with Donald Trump having launched a war against the Iranian regime and Europeans having a messy and divided response to the intensifying crisis.

Not only this, but French President Emmanuel Macron launched himself into an expansive review of the French nuclear doctrine, calling for an increase in the number of nuclear warheads, and an expansion of the French umbrella towards our European allies.

Which is why I’m pleased that I finally got the chance to sit down with Professor Annelise Riles from Everyday Ambassador to break down exactly why this major situation is such a grave moment in modern history, what we’ve seen thus far, and where exactly we expect this to all go.

Let us know what you think, and whether you’d like to see more conversations between us, and if you like what you heard from Annelise, give her substack a follow, she does excellent work and is well deserving of your time.

Everyday Ambassador

Northwestern law professor + anthropologist convening conversations on peace, borders & how to tend divides with grace. Thought leader interviews + research-based methodology + community. For globally-minded readers ready to be everyday ambassadors.

By Annelise Riles

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So, another European Council meeting has come along and caused a massive uproar, so what better time to run a Substack live to discuss the topic and go through the finer points of the meeting’s agenda.

From Middle East diplomacy to European Security, to finally touching upon the topic of supporting Ukraine’s defensive war against a revanchist, imperialist Russia, we go through everything that happened in this discussion and what it means for Europe.

And if you want a deeper breakdown, check out my latest article for paid subscribers:

Don’t forget to subscribe if you enjoyed the live!

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So, the 16-Hour European Council summit has now come to an end, and the debate is raging on about whether Europe has succeeded, failed, whether our Union is collapsing or being strengthened, and whether the journalists should have been made to stay up all night drinking beers and coffees as our leaders debated our future.

At first glance, the December European Council looked reassuringly familiar: Ukraine, enlargement, migration, security, competitiveness. The usual choreography of unity, resolve, and carefully hedged ambition at a time of geopolitical crisis, transatlantic strife, and internal squabbling between member states.

Yet beneath the procedural calm, this Council meeting was highlighted as being a historic event, where Europe would be able to overcome several major geopolitical barriers and start throwing its weight around a little more.

It mattered precisely because it exposed something deeper and more uncomfortable: the EU’s governing reflex when confronted with long-term strategic responsibility under conditions of permanent political fragmentation.

This was not a Council that answered the question of where Europe is going, it was a Council that revealed how Europe moves when it cannot afford to stand still, but cannot quite agree on how to move forward. What emerged was not paralysis, but a distinctly European form of motion: incremental, legally cautious, politically defensive, and increasingly reliant on financial engineering rather than political consolidation.

The agenda was heavy because the moment was heavy, with Ukraine remaining a test not only of European solidarity but also of European endurance. The enlargement question continues to press against institutional limits that leaders are trying hard not to reopen publicly. Migration continues to corrode trust between capitals and play into the ongoing far-right culture war, all while defence and competitiveness hover between aspiration and delivery, seen as a litmus test of our ability to survive history itself.

And all of this unfolds against a backdrop of domestic fragility: elections, fiscal constraints, coalition politics, and a persistent fear of voter fatigue towards “European responsibility” as our former American allies under Donald Trump continue to assault our way of life.

This Council did not fail, and it’s important to underline this; however, it didn’t come out of the meeting smelling of roses either, and several major weaknesses and contributions were laid bare for the world, and particularly our enemies, to see.

So let’s dig into this

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The good

EUCO Agrees on Ukraine funding, the Union concretises common EU debt

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