English Club

By John V. Whitbeck, international lawyer who has advised the Palestinian negotiating team in negotiations with Israel.

Three American writers spent a fortnight in Besançon in May on the invitation of the University of Franche-Comté.

 «We share French feminist indignation at the deliberate and opportunistic confusion of seduction and sexual violence», write a group of feminists in an international petition in support of the rights of the victims of sexual violence, and in particular the plaintiff in the case of sexual assault for which Dominique Strauss-Kahn was charged in New York this month.

On April 29th 2011, American writer was interviewed by Christine Marcandier, somewhere in a Paris Café.

By John Von Sothen. In light of the Dominique Strauss Kahn affair, everybody is taking polls nowadays. There's polls on who will now lead the Socialists, polls on whether people think DSK is guilty or whether it's a set up; polls on whether the French press should pry more into the private lives of politicians. There's even a poll gauging who's more persona non grata at Cannes: DSK or Lars von Trier.

The move to calculate happiness and well-being among populations in terms other than GDP demands caution in both approach and interpretation, argues Dr. Enda McCaffrey of Nottingham Trent University, who senses a certain mauvaise foi in such government initiatives.

By Alexander Görlach, editor of German online magazine The European. German defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, 39, resigned last week after revelations that he plagiarized his PhD by using the internet. "Zu Googleberg" was, according to opinion polls, Germany's most popular minister, and the scandal is a major blow to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party ahead of key regional elections this month.