How right-wing is Marine Le Pen?

Plus: the real reason for the arm-wrestling between the EU and Hungary; and the failure of Russian sanctions

Dear all,

I’ve been falling a bit back with the posts, so here you’ll find links to three articles I’ve written over the past few weeks.

In the most recent one I take a deep look at Macron and Le Pen’s track records and electoral manifestoes, to see if the labels we attach to politicians - left-right, progressive-conservative, etc. -, and the political compass we use to navigate contemporary politics, still make any sense.

In this other article, I explain the real reasons for the EU’s arm-wrestling with Hungary and Poland. Hint: it has less to do with culture-war issue than one may think, and much more to do with the age-old question of where sovereignty ultimately sits in the EU - in Brussels or in the member states?

Finally, in this article from a few weeks back, I explained why the Western sanctions - being based on economic orthodoxy (i.e. fantasy) - would totally fail in their aim of “crippling” the Russian economy, and would actually backfire on the West. Update: yesterday the ruble has surpassed pre-invasion levels.

Good read and good weekend,

Thomas Fazi