Reporting from Paris

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When Professor Thomas Piketty talks about taking back control of our economic system, he is referring to the stark disparities in global wealth distribution: between the ultra-rich and the rest of us and between the industry-rich Global North and the resource-rich Global South. This is not a sustainable balance and one that could ultimately lead to the kinds of crises seen during the Great Depression, two World Wars, and the 2008 mortgage crisis, he continues. Taxing billionaires is one of his proposed solutions.

Piketty first proposed a billionaire’s tax about a decade ago; a similar measure is now being put forward in California where voters will effectively decide on the issue in the mid-term November 3rd ballot. For the professor, the controversial tax reform is a key part of his proposed new world economic order, as outlined in the recently published Global Justice Report – a collective research effort carried out with the participation of around 40 researchers affiliated with the World Inequality Lab.

In this interview with the Editor-in-Chief of Reporting from Paris, Shellie Karabell, Piketty discusses his ideas for billionaire’s taxes and sets out a new vision for creating global economic progress in the 21st century.

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As Fred Hoffman, National Secretary and Spokesperson for Democrats Abroad France says, “Every US citizen has the right to vote, and there’s still time to do it for the upcoming mid-term election November 3.”

Confusion Creates an Obstacle

The confusion over who can vote and where has heightened this year as the Trump administration has sought to cut down on alleged voter fraud. That has amplified the confusion many US citizens share about casting a ballot from abroad and doesn’t understand how elections are run.

“US elections are run by the state,” Hoffman points out. “And voting from abroad is different from absentee voting, it comes under the same jurisdiction as overseas military voting.” Voters from abroad can request an electronic ballot from their state election commission, which can then be printed out, completed, and returned by mail or in some cases by fax or email, depending on the state’s election commission.

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Information and assistance for voting from abroad at these links:

* Vote from Abroadwww.votefromabroad.org

* Federal Voting Assistance Programwww.fvap.gov

* Military and Overseas Voters (UOCAVA)www.eac.gov/uocava

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Pope Leo XIV’s four-day visit to France involved visits to Paris, Lourdes, and Metz before returning to Rome. The Air France A321 was temporarily renamed “Cité du Vatican” (Vatican City), and the coat of arms of the Vatican City State were affixed to the aircraft’s exterior.

We spoke with the Air France flight crew and operations team handling the Pope’s flights and arrangements between venues shortly after the A321 with the papal delegation and journalists arrived in Lourdes. (Click below to read our preview of the Pope’s visit.)

La Rentrée is that period in France when summer vacation ends and everyone heads back to work. People still try their best to hang on to that summer vibe by dining out a bit more than usual, meeting friends for a drink on a café terrasse, or sneaking away for a couple more weekends before the end of September.

But they can’t avoid the fact that normal life has crept back up on them. For journalists reporting on France, it’s the moment to look at what is likely to make the news in the coming months and make plans to cover it all.

To find out more, Reporting from Paris deputy editor Elaine Cobbe speaks to Eleanor Beardsley, Paris correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR); Victor Mallet, senior editor on the Financial Times world desk; and François Picard, host of the France 24 Debate.

Elaine Cobbe is an award-winning print and broadcast journalist based in Paris. A former foreign correspondent with CBS News, she has covered many of the major international stories of the past three decades, including the conflicts in Iraq, Kosovo, and Rwanda, and terror attacks in Paris, Brussels, and Barcelona. A regular commentator on French and international politics for news outlets in France and her native Ireland, she is also a researcher and trainer in journalism and trauma. Elaine is a committee member of the Anglo-American Press Association of Paris.

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France has been hit by a series of heat waves this summer that began in May. There have been searing temperatures across the country. At one point, it was hotter in Brittany and Normandy in northwestern France than down on the Mediterranean coast.

The summer has also seen wildfires in many parts of France, particularly in the southwest and the south, but also in the forest at Fontainebleau outside Paris. What can be done about it? Can “fire modeling” help?

Reporting from Paris deputy editor Elaine Cobbe speaks to Aurélien Costes, a fire scientist from Bordeaux, and Météo France weather forecaster Olivier Proust.

Elaine Cobbe is an award-winning print and broadcast journalist based in Paris. A former foreign correspondent with CBS News, she has covered many of the major international stories of the past three decades, including the conflicts in Iraq, Kosovo, and Rwanda, and terror attacks in Paris, Brussels, and Barcelona. A regular commentator on French and international politics for news outlets in France and her native Ireland, she is also a researcher and trainer in journalism and trauma. Elaine is a committee member of the Anglo-American Press Association of Paris.

France is sweltering through another wave of unprecedented heat. So how are people dressing to keep au frais?

Loose-fitting and natural fibers, says one. That way, it you catch a breeze, “it’s fabulous”. Choose cotton, linen, silk, says another. Look at how desert people dress: they’re not in swimwear, they cover all parts of the body. Nothing is ‘fitted’. And how about a light scarf? “It seems a bit mad in 40°C but it just gives a bit of shade.”

Hear these tips and more during Edie Twells-Eastwood’s walkabout under the blazing southern sun!

Once the home of the Duc d’Orléans, the Palais-Royal and its gardens were a hotbed of anti-royalist discussions in the years leading up to the French Revolution. Free from the authority of the Paris police, revelers from all walks of life debated, drank, gambled, and generally misbehaved, without fear of rebuke or worse. The ideas discussed had been around for a while: questioning the divine right of kings to rule; advocating the right to self-determination. France had supported the successful American quest for such independence a few years earlier. Now, France would launch its own revolution.

Reporting from Paris Editor-in-Chief Shellie Karabell talks with Edith de Belleville, author, lawyer, tour guide and professor.

[videographer/editor: Celine Marchand]

As the popularity of self-catering city holidays took off, property investors snapped up places across the French capital, turning former family homes into luxury rentals – at twice or even three times the previous rent.

The main thrust of the city’s crackdown on the sudden housing shortage has been to reduce the number of holiday lets and make the business less attractive to property owners.

Local taxes and social charges have also increased, in a bid to encourage more owners to return the properties to long-term rentals.

Property manager Gail Boisclair, who runs Perfectly Paris has seen the rental market change but is not convinced that current measures can really solve the housing crisis nor reduce overtourism.

For Paris residents, the average monthly rental for an unfurnished apartment is €40 per m² but that can vary between €35 and €52 per m² depending on the arrondissement. Depending on what kind of lease a vacation rental owner uses, they can ask considerably more for short-stay lets.

When he was running for office, the new mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire promised to go after owners of buildings deliberately left empty for part or all of the year. These include secondary residences, apartments used for vacation lets, but also entire buildings owned by large companies who deliberately leave them empty, secure in the knowledge that the value of the building will increase, even without any rental income.

Boisclair believes going after those companies would do more to increase the long-term housing offer than driving out people who have a secondary home in Paris that they let occasionally to tourists.

One of Grégoire’s promises that both Boisclair and Béatrice Dunner of the Association for the Defense of Montmartre believe is imperative, is a move to protect smaller shops and businesses from the open rental market, where big chains or luxury brands can afford to pay more and thus push up prices, driving out local grocery shops, hardware stores or bookshops.

Reporting from Paris reached out to City Hall for comment but had received no reply at time of publication.

Airlines directly account for 2.5 percent of global energy-related CO2 emissions. That number increases to 4 to 6 percent when non-CO2 effects are included. The industry has an aspirational commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050, and airlines are actively deploying such measures as buying more energy-efficient aircraft, deploying new technologies, and developing Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). It’s a long-term challenge.

Krishnan Narayanan, Chairman and Partner in SkiesFifty, an investment firm dedicated to sustainability in the aviation industry, spoke with Reporting from Paris Editor in Chief Shellie Karabell about developments in sustainable aviation.