The first French presidential election I ever followed closely took place in 1974, and it was a captivating affair. I remember the television debate between the standard-bearer of the moderate right, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, and the Socialist party candidate, François Mitterrand; Giscard d’Estaing landed a decisive blow on his adversary when he declared: “Vous n’avez
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The writer is chief economic strategist at Netwealth The Bank of England reaches the milestone of a quarter-century of independence in early May. After some initial benefits, it is hard to claim that the experience has been an unbridled success. There are strong reasons this milestone should trigger a fundamental rethink of the Bank’s remit
If Twitter’s board initially thought Elon Musk’s offer to buy the social media company for $43bn was just a stunt, it has now found itself on the defensive on multiple fronts. After the world’s richest man revealed on Thursday how he plans to fund his takeover bid, Twitter’s directors are under pressure to come to
This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: Introducing: the FT Climate Game Marc FilippinoGood morning from the Financial Times. Today is Friday, April 22nd, and this is your FT News Briefing. [MUSIC PLAYING] Elon Musk really wants to own Twitter, and he’s putting his money where his mouth is. Richard
Martin Sandbu’s articles on the reconstruction of Ukraine and its EU accession (“Ukraine needs an ambitious new Marshall Plan from Europe”, Opinion, April 11; and “Kyiv and the west must start planning for the peace they want now”, Opinion, March 14) are full of insight. As he says, there must be gains to be made
Reading Gideon Rachman’s column “Patriots vs globalists is the new battlefield”(Opinion, April 19) it occurs to me, as an economist, that nationalism vs globalisation resembles a typical decision in finance. It is a trade-off between risk and return. Nationalists, as in economic autarky, seek to avoid the risks from problems beyond their control but at
The World Health Organization has urged pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer to be more transparent about the pricing of its antiviral drug Paxlovid after recommending the medicine to treat Covid-19. The global health body, under new guidelines, recommended Paxlovid for people who developed mild or moderate symptoms but were at the highest risk of developing a severe
Boris Johnson is to order another delay to the introduction of post-Brexit border checks on goods entering Britain from the EU, in an admission that piling new costs on imports would exacerbate the cost of living crisis. Full checks on imports from the bloc were supposed to come into effect on July 1, but the
Boris Johnson has vowed that he will not retreat on his green agenda in spite of claims by parts of the Conservative party that the cost of developing renewable energy is driving up electricity bills. The UK prime minister, while on a trip to India, said the government was tackling the cost of living crisis
Boris Johnson will offer increased defence co-operation to Narendra Modi during talks in New Delhi on Friday, in a bid to break India’s reliance on Russian weaponry. The UK prime minister will hold out the prospect of closer military ties in talks with his Indian counterpart on the final day of his visit. He has
The UK government is preparing legislation that will give ministers sweeping powers to tear up the post-Brexit deal governing trade in Northern Ireland, risking a fresh confrontation with Brussels. Two people with knowledge of internal discussions said prime minister Boris Johnson and foreign secretary Liz Truss had in principle signed off on plans to put
US government debt sold off on Thursday as investors priced in more aggressive policy tightening by the Federal Reserve this year after chair Jay Powell said that a jumbo interest rate increase would be considered at the central bank’s May meeting. Powell, in a panel discussion at the IMF on Thursday said that it was
The governor of the Bank of England said he was concerned about the risks of persistent inflationary pressure from a strong labour market, even though he expects economic activity to slow over the rest of the year. Speaking on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in Washington on Thursday, Andrew Bailey
The water industry regulator for England and Wales has appointed a new chief executive who has pledged to address the sector’s poor performance on sewage pollution at a time of mounting public anger. David Black, who has served as interim chief executive of Ofwat for the past 12 months, will take the post on a
Playground, the vastly impressive debut feature of Belgian director Laura Wandel, was released there last year as Un monde, a world. Both end up meaning the same thing. The English title pinpoints where much of the film takes place; the French what it feels like for the brother and sister whose story it is. He
America looms over Audrey Diwan’s Happening. The film is set in Angoulême, south-west France, but the year is 1963, and the students here are besotted with the transatlantic exports of chewing gum and rock’n’roll. Now, in 2022 this bold, clear-eyed drama, which won the top prize at last year’s Venice Film Festival, is about to
The life of Ennio Morricone — composer of transcendent themes for Spaghetti Westerns, award-winners such as The Mission and countless more — might have been a movie by the age of 18. That would have taken us to 1946, a world of drama already unfolded for a boy from Rome who had wanted to become
Melissa Aldana’s cultured, light-toned tenor saxophone is steeped in the winding pathways, dynamic contrasts and harmonic thickets of contemporary narrative jazz. Raised in Santiago, Chile, she graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2009, and, based in New York, is a fixture in international jazz. This quartet gig, an early evening full-house show, presented music from
It should be no surprise that a beauty business is a dab hand at putting a good face on things. Nutrition, beauty and logistics group THG’s cut to its profit margin outlook for this year came with something to pretty it up: the confirmation that it had received “indicative proposals from numerous parties” to buy
Tycoons, bankers and bosses are vying for control of Generali, Italy’s largest insurer. This acrimonious and, at times, personal battle has divided the Italian financial establishment. The outcome will matter far beyond this tight circle. Generali is worth about €30bn, employs roughly 75,000 people and serves approximately 67mn customers. Construction tycoon Francesco Caltagirone leads rebels