Roger Cohen

Squeezed by the far-right National Rally party and the left, President Emmanuel Macron faces a country that may prove ungovernable.

A surprise decision by President Emmanuel Macron to hold a snap election appears to have backfired badly, giving the National Rally a decisive victory.

The U.S. presidential debate and Sunday’s snap election in France have emboldened nationalist forces that could challenge NATO and undo the defense of Ukraine.

President Emmanuel Macron’s governing style has always been intensely top-down. But with far-right nationalists in France closing in on power, some believe he may have gone too far this time.

After a big loss in voting for the European Parliament, President Emmanuel Macron has gambled on new elections in France.

In France, as in the United States, feelings harden against immigrants, and President Emmanuel Macron and President Biden take note.

An attack on a 12-year-old Jewish girl is inflaming an already tense and divisive situation.

An overwhelming outpouring of tributes felt like a quest for some anchor in shared memory.

The French president called on people of good will to come together to defend the Republic in the snap election he decided to call.

The announcement by the head of the Republicans was a historic break with his party’s policy as dismay spread over a snap election.

The president has challenged voters to test the sincerity of their support for the far right in European elections. Were the French letting off steam, or did they really mean it?

The president’s decision, on the eve of the summer Olympic Games that begin in Paris in July, ushered in a period of deep political uncertainty in France.

Under Emmanuel Macron, “culinary diplomacy” is back on the menu, with a lavish dinner fortifying an old alliance at a tense historical moment.

The friendship between France and the U.S. endures. But tensions have mounted over the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, and how Europe can step out of America’s shadow.

Charismatic and clean cut, shorn of the Le Pen name, the young National Rally leader took his party to its blockbuster showing in European elections on Sunday.

Veterans of the pivotal battle of World War II are disappearing. Europe, facing new conflict, recalls what their comrades died for.

Already braced for uncertainty about the U.S. election, countries in Europe and Asia are now even more unclear about the future of American diplomacy.

The environment will come first as France tries to revitalize the global image of its cuisine.

Not on its own, in all likelihood. But it reflects a growing, global exasperation with Israel that might eventually lend momentum to a two-state solution.

Political violence and polarization stalk Europe today, with ominous echoes of the past.

The ruthless assault that freed a prisoner and set off a manhunt has turned attention to a multibillion-dollar drug trade fueling gang warfare.

The French authorities said that armed assailants had attacked a prison convoy, killed two guards and freed an inmate.

The flame will be carried on a 79-day journey across France and its territories, culminating in Paris with the start of the Olympic Games on July 26.

The French president took Xi Jinping to his childhood haunts high in the Pyrenees, hoping to forge a bond. If only the weather had cooperated.

Talks in Paris with President Macron produced a call for an “Olympics truce” this summer but no concrete progress on Beijing putting pressure on Russia.

The Chinese leader has carefully chosen three countries — France, Serbia and Hungary — that to varying degrees embrace Beijing’s push for a new global order.

Anti-immigration parties with fascist roots — and an uncertain commitment to democracy — are now mainstream.

In a major speech, France’s president returned to a familiar theme, warning that “Our Europe is mortal” if it does not become more self-sufficient.

A new Apple TV+ series dramatizes the years Benjamin Franklin spent in France, leveraging diplomacy and guile to secure his nascent country’s future.

Farm protests are changing not only Europe’s food system but also its politics, as the far right senses an opportunity.

Aya Nakamura’s music is one of France’s top cultural exports. But reports that she might perform at the Paris Games have prompted fierce debates over identity and language.

The leaders of France and Germany tried to heal an increasingly public rift over their approach to the war, holding talks alongside Poland’s prime minister on support for Kyiv.

A fraught relationship has recently turned bitter, with insults and barbs threatening European unity at a critical moment.

The French president attempted to forge a united front on a harder line against Russia. But few were persuaded.

The French president’s openness to Western troops in Ukraine signaled a quest for military resolve. But some allies felt blindsided.

The new prime minister wants to succeed President Macron. But first he must see off the far right and define himself before a restive public.

Former President Nicolas Sarkozy of France saw an appeals court uphold his conviction for illegally financing an election campaign, but he received a lighter sentence.

Robert Badinter, the former minister who abolished the death penalty, was honored in Paris after his death on Friday, but members of the far left and right were told they were unwelcome.

Israel, Hamas, the United States, Qatar and Egypt are involved in negotiations, which will go on for days. Officials called them promising, but an accord did not seem imminent.

Diplomats said France had presented a proposal aimed at ending the strikes and skirmishes along the border between Israel and Lebanon.

He spent decades as an esteemed defense lawyer but was best known as the justice minister who enacted a 1981 law abolishing capital punishment.

As the war grinds on in Gaza, settler attacks are rising — and Palestinian anger is growing.

Two women from an environmental group threw pumpkin-colored soup at the artwork, which is behind bulletproof glass at the Louvre and did not appear to sustain damage.

The government announced measures to quell the anger, including the scrapping of a fuel tax increase, as thousands of tractors blocked highways across the country.

The far right is intent on exploiting the spread of anger across Europe in an agricultural sector that feels alienated.

With a decisive turn toward youth and conservative ideas, the French president sets a path for his reshuffled government.

The president also said during a televised appearance he would fight to the last to prevent the far-right leader Marine Le Pen from succeeding him.

Gabriel Attal, 34, replaces Élisabeth Borne in a cabinet shuffle that President Emmanuel Macron hopes can reinvigorate a term marked by drift and division.

In bitter debates from Israel to Africa to America, invoking a brutal history has become a powerful accusation.

In a conflict marked by complete incomprehension on both sides, the ability to see each other as human has been lost.

Thousands of Israelis were attacked on the morning of Oct. 7, after Hamas gunmen surged into southern Israel from Gaza. Many survivors remain traumatized by the experience.

The Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israel and a surge in acts of antisemitism have awakened a repressed horror in Jewish populations across the continent.

Long derided as naïve, even traitors, the bridge builders between Israelis and Palestinians sense opportunity in the aftermath of the Hamas attack.

In this massacre of its youth, Israel’s 75-year-old quest for some carefree normalcy met the murderous fury of those long-oppressed Palestinians who deny the state’s right to exist.

The attack by Hamas forces Israel once again to confront the conflict that has haunted it since the creation of the modern state.

Democracies have to adjust to a changed world, but the challenge before them is to do so without losing their essential values.

The front-runner in the parliamentary vote has pledged “not to send a single cartridge” to neighboring Ukraine, a sign of the flagging European support for a victim of Russian aggression.

After 17 years in France, Tharshan Selvarajah has yet to apply for citizenship. But he has made bread for President Emmanuel Macron.

The long-contested, now beloved French singer’s home is open to the public, with everything exactly as it was on the day he died in 1991.

Prosecutors recommended charges against Marine Le Pen that could potentially bring a 10-year jail term and a 10-year ban from public office. Paris magistrates will decide whether to proceed.

When the French education minister declared that the abayas favored by some Muslim women “can no longer be worn in schools,” he stoked a fierce debate over the country’s secular ideals.

Clément Beaune, who had a double coming out as a gay man with Jewish roots, wants to be mayor of Paris, revive the center-left and build the united Europe he cherishes.

After a tumultuous year, the French president is meeting with his opponents in hopes of building bridges. But few seem interested in working with him.

Remarks by Nicolas Sarkozy have raised fears that Europe’s pro-Putin chorus may grow louder as Ukraine’s plodding counteroffensive puts pressure on Western resolve.

Vladimir Putin wants to lead Russians into a civilizational conflict with the West far larger than Ukraine. Will they follow him?

For many in the crowd, including hundreds who could not fit in the mosque to mourn the teenager killed by a police officer, his story felt familiar.

Society is increasingly divided between a law-and-order faction and those who see racism in a pattern of police killings or mistreatment of minorities.

Protests over the fatal police shooting of a teenager come as President Emmanuel Macron seeks to restore a sense of calm after his pension overhaul ignited turbulence in the streets.

This was featured in live coverage.

Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the founder of the paramilitary Wagner Group, has been driven to fury by a mismanaged war in Ukraine. He turned on his creator, before apparently reversing course.

Attacks from Ukraine have killed at least a dozen Russian civilians and displaced thousands. But they have not fundamentally changed the calculus for Vladimir Putin.

The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been held at the notoriously harsh Lefortovo jail since his arrest on March 29 during a reporting trip to the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been held at the notoriously harsh Lefortovo jail since his arrest on March 29 during a reporting trip to the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

But the French president did not yield on the pension change that has roiled the nation. Labor unions declined to meet for talks, and vowed massive protests on May 1.

Criticism of the French president’s performance in Beijing has been scathing among some allies, who saw him as cozying up to Beijing.

Allies don’t always see things the same way, as Emmanuel Macron’s cozy visit to Xi Jinping made abundantly clear.

It is not clear that the Chinese and French leaders — much less Russia and Ukraine — have compatible terms for talks or peace, and Mr. Xi has not publicly agreed to pressure Moscow to negotiate.

This was featured in live coverage.

This was featured in live coverage.

President Emmanuel Macron of France spoke of the need for a “shared responsibility for peace and international stability.”

Speaker Kevin McCarthy became the most senior elected official to meet with a Taiwanese president on American soil since the United States established diplomatic relations with Beijing.

The French president hopes Beijing can be useful in pressing Russia to end the war in Ukraine. How exactly is not clear.

A Netflix series dramatizes the efforts of Varian Fry, an American who helped save some 2,000 people from the Nazis without his government’s support.

After ramming through a law raising the retirement age without a full parliamentary vote, the French president faces something approaching a constitutional crisis.

President Emmanuel Macron of France, in his first remarks since pushing through a rise in the retirement age, was firm and unapologetic.

Amid protests in the streets and in Parliament, the French leader shows no sign of scrapping a law that raises the retirement age.

Two no-confidence votes failed to oust the cabinet of President Emmanuel Macron over a new law raising the retirement age to 64 from 62.

The motion in the National Assembly threatened to oust the cabinet after it pushed through a law raising France’s retirement age without a vote.

This was featured in live coverage.

President Emmanuel Macron saw his decision to push through a change in the retirement age as necessary, but the price may be high.