Raphaël Hadas-Lebel
Raphaël Hadas-Lebel, author of Hundred and One Words about the French Democracy, is Honorary Section President at France’s Conseil d’État and Professor at the Institut d'études politiques in Paris.
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2011-10-25
| The idea that a large number of voters should designate the presidential candidates of the major political parties was born in the US, and the French have long believed that such things were American to the core. But has the primary election now been successfully transplanted to Europe?... read |
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2011-05-16
| France has long been allergic to constitutional review of legislation, allowing ordinary citizens to seek redress only in 2008. In the year since that reform was implemented, the process is working remarkably well.... read |
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2009-06-08
| Confronting a crisis that undermines decades of free-market thinking, why did Europe's social-democratic parties nonetheless lose ground in the European Parliament elections? With right-wing governments embracing regulation and even state intervention – the cornerstones of leftist ideologies - the crisis, it seems, has destabilized Europe's long-standing ideological divides.... read |
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2008-06-04
| When Nicolas Sarkozy’s government spokesperson announced after this year’s first cabinet meeting that each minister’s performance would be assessed according to criteria set by a private auditing firm, he probably did not expect to elicit a fierce response. But he probably should have. ... read |
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2007-09-30
| Nearly 50 years after the creation of the Fifth Republic by General Charles de Gaulle, Nicolas Sarkozy wants to change France’s fundamental institutions. But, with a majority of the public supporting the Fifth Republic's main principles – such as direct election of the president and a strong executive – any institutional rebalancing is unlikely to alter the constitutional structure very much. ... read |
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2007-04-16
| One of the biggest surprises of the current presidential campaign is how “national identity” has surged to the forefront of the political debate. Moreover, the debate represents a serious challenge to thinkers who sometimes ridicule the idea of the nation itself, arguing that we now inhabit a “post-national” world.... read |
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2007-02-28
| Race has always been a provocative subject when the needs of science and statistics intersect with politics. Now that debate is once again heating up in France, as the planned introduction of “ethnic statistics” has caused a fierce dispute that touches the very heart of French republicanism. ... read |
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2006-08-28
| Ever since 2001, when France enacted a law requiring listed companies to reveal their executives’ pay packages, newspapers have had a field day denouncing greedy bosses. Not only are fixed salaries revealed, but so are bonuses, fees for serving on boards of directors, returns on stock options, pension packages, and other perks, such as corporate jets or chauffeur-driven cars. But executive remuneration has usually faded from view once the journalistic spotlight shifts elsewhere – that is, until now. ... read |
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2006-04-11
| It all began a year ago with the French “No” in the referendum on the European Constitution. It continued last fall with the wave of violence in the suburbs. Now, France has again brought itself to the world’s attention with weeks of street demonstrations against the “contract of first employment” (CFE) proposed by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to address high youth unemployment.... read |
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The Struggle for Secularism, Then and Now
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Raphaël Hadas-Lebel 
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It is a strange irony that France is poised to celebrate the centenary of the law of December 9, 1905, that separated church and state at the very moment disorders have been roiling its cities. But passions have always surrounded the roles of church and state throughout French even if no direct link can be established between the recent riots and the exercise of French laïcité.... read
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2005-12-01
| It is a strange irony that France is poised to celebrate the centenary of the law of December 9, 1905, that separated church and state at the very moment disorders have been roiling its cities. But passions have always surrounded the roles of church and state throughout French even if no direct link can be established between the recent riots and the exercise of French laïcité.... read |
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2007-09-30
| Nearly 50 years after the creation of the Fifth Republic by General Charles de Gaulle, Nicolas Sarkozy wants to change France’s fundamental institutions. But, with a majority of the public supporting the Fifth Republic's main principles – such as direct election of the president and a strong executive – any institutional rebalancing is unlikely to alter the constitutional structure very much. ... read |
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2006-04-11
| It all began a year ago with the French “No” in the referendum on the European Constitution. It continued last fall with the wave of violence in the suburbs. Now, France has again brought itself to the world’s attention with weeks of street demonstrations against the “contract of first employment” (CFE) proposed by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to address high youth unemployment.... read |
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2006-08-28
| Ever since 2001, when France enacted a law requiring listed companies to reveal their executives’ pay packages, newspapers have had a field day denouncing greedy bosses. Not only are fixed salaries revealed, but so are bonuses, fees for serving on boards of directors, returns on stock options, pension packages, and other perks, such as corporate jets or chauffeur-driven cars. But executive remuneration has usually faded from view once the journalistic spotlight shifts elsewhere – that is, until now. ... read |
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2007-02-28
| Race has always been a provocative subject when the needs of science and statistics intersect with politics. Now that debate is once again heating up in France, as the planned introduction of “ethnic statistics” has caused a fierce dispute that touches the very heart of French republicanism. ... read |
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2005-11-01
| Franz Müntefering’s resignation as chairman of Germany’s Social Democrats in the face of a challenge from his party’s leftwing has, like the divisive French referendum on the European Constitution this past May, exposed deep ideological cleavages – divisions not only about Europe, but about the very foundations of society and the economy. Behind the critiques directed at the EU and national governments as “not being social enough,” lurks an image of the Union as a trap that is forcing its members to bend to the fateful disciplines of the market, thus depriving national leaders of their ability to realize important social goals. This cleavage now seems set to shape not only Germany’s future coalition government, but the future of politics across Europe.... read |
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2007-04-16
| One of the biggest surprises of the current presidential campaign is how “national identity” has surged to the forefront of the political debate. Moreover, the debate represents a serious challenge to thinkers who sometimes ridicule the idea of the nation itself, arguing that we now inhabit a “post-national” world.... read |
-
2008-06-04
| When Nicolas Sarkozy’s government spokesperson announced after this year’s first cabinet meeting that each minister’s performance would be assessed according to criteria set by a private auditing firm, he probably did not expect to elicit a fierce response. But he probably should have. ... read |
-
2009-06-08
| Confronting a crisis that undermines decades of free-market thinking, why did Europe's social-democratic parties nonetheless lose ground in the European Parliament elections? With right-wing governments embracing regulation and even state intervention – the cornerstones of leftist ideologies - the crisis, it seems, has destabilized Europe's long-standing ideological divides.... read |
