The reality is that since the fall of Gaddafi's regime, there hasn't been a single day of peace. Once NATO left and journalists returned to their home bureaus, the situation has steadily worsened. The disarmament plan and the reintegration of militias into the army have failed.

The relationship between France and its former north African Colony Algeria is one tainted by a difficult and bitter colonial past. The two countries' shared history is often the backdrop to fierce debates at the official and societal levels.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and France's newly-elected President Francois Hollande, two of the most influential characters in global politics,...

The European Union as it stands today is as much a political and cultural failure as much as it is an economic failure. To be eurosceptic is to be sceptical of the European Union, not to be anti-European.

Francois Hollande was sworn in as French President on Tuesday morning, the fist socialist to hold the position in 17 years. Hollande secured the pr...

We had two major elections in Europe last weekend and yet the column inches devoted to Sarkozy losing to Francois Hollande completely and utterly eclipsed the reports from Greece.

Enough French citizens believed that it was time for a change and Hollande now has five years to show France the change for which its citizens are longing. If he is able to pull it off, people will remember him more for being a great president than, rather than an accidental one.

Even by the dismal standards set by so many European rightwing governments in the last decade or so, Nicolas Sarkozy was a uniquely repellent politician. Brash, vulgar, ostentatious, ruthless and arrogant, his appetite for power was untempered by any moral scruples.

Having won the first round of the French presidential elections with 28.63% of the vote the leader of the Parti Socialiste François Hollande has dislodged UMP incumbent Sarkozy with the backing of 51.7% of the French electorate who turned out at a level of 80.2%.

Sixteen years after Mitterrand's death, the ghost of the first (and, before now, only) left-wing President of the Fifth Republic looms as large as ever. Over the past weeks, as once more the spectre of a Socialist in the Elysée has haunted Europe, commentators have dredged up the radical programme introduced by Mitterrand on his 1981 election.

Hollande has marketed himself as the ‎candidate of 'change', the central concept in his slogan and the recurrent leitmotif of his speeches, ‎banking on Sarkozy's unpopularity and on the feeling that France needs a new, alternative vision.‎

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has had a stormy confrontation with socialist rival Francois Hollande in their only televised head-to-head debate, as...

More than 70% of cash raised by a tax on financial transactions proposed by the European Commission (EC) would come from the UK, a House of Lords comm...

By the time this blog is online, the UK will be in the midst of a very important day of voting.

France, and the rest of Europe, is still at a crossroads. The path that Hollande could lead his country down could be the road to ruin.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has come out fighting in his attempt to secure a second term. Although beaten into second place after the first round of voting, he issued a strong declaration to his supporters that 'the fight begins now'. He will need to galvanise his support as there had been fears amongst his party that he would be knocked out in the first round.