Follow us

BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Twitch | Youtube

👋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.

If you enjoy reading articles written by high-level experts, then make sure to support the publication by liking, subscribing, and sharing it with your friends and colleagues, and consider taking a paid subscription.

Subscribe now

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.

Thank you for reading the French Dispatch! If you liked what you read, you should like this post and subscribe to the newsletter by clicking/tapping the button below:

Subscribe now

And if you’d like to contribute a coffee or two to help fuel my coverage of the wild world of politics, feel free to click on the picture below:

Follow us

BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Twitch | Youtube

👋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.

If you enjoy reading articles written by high-level experts, then make sure to support the publication by liking, subscribing, and sharing it with your friends and colleagues, and consider taking a paid subscription.

Subscribe now

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.

Thank you for reading the French Dispatch! If you liked what you read, you should like this post and subscribe to the newsletter by clicking/tapping the button below:

Subscribe now

And if you’d like to contribute a coffee or two to help fuel my coverage of the wild world of politics, feel free to click on the picture below:

If you enjoy reading articles written by high-level experts, then make sure to support the publication by liking, subscribing, and sharing it with your friends and colleagues, and consider taking a paid subscription.

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.

Thank you for reading the French Dispatch! If you liked what you read, you should like this post and subscribe to the newsletter by clicking/tapping the button below:

And if you’d like to contribute a coffee or two to help fuel my coverage of the wild world of politics, feel free to click on the picture below: