The French Dispatch

EU home affairs ministers recently held an emergency video summit on the Ceuta crisis, but by the time they met, nearly all 72,000 people who crossed from Morocco last Thursday had already been sent back. Not one made it to the EU mainland.

And as is usual when there are incredibly ridiculous political situations in the EU, Dave Keating and I sat down yesterday for a Substack Live to unpack what happened and why it matters. Here’s what stood out:

* The obvious question: why, if the evidence is to be believed that Moroccan authorities let 72,000 people cross in the first place, was this point never raised

* The summit looked more like damage control than a real response, papering over a clear lack of EU unity

* Morocco wasn’t mentioned once, reportedly because Spain didn’t want to risk retaliation from Rabat

* On the ground in Spain, Dave found fury at what people see as a total absence of EU solidarity

* In another piece I wrote in The French Dispatch , I broke down the case that this was a hybrid attack by Morocco, and that European governments are choosing to pay Morocco off rather than investigate or retaliate

And of course, it wouldn’t be a Dave and Julien episode if we didn’t touch upon American intransigence: we discussed the leaked US State Department memo suggesting Washington could back rival claims to European overseas territories, including Ceuta and the Falklands, as retaliation for Europe staying out of the Iran War.

Let us know what you thought, read our other articles, and remember to subscribe!

I had the great pleasure to head to Prague this week to take part in the 2026 GLOBSEC Forum, and had the chance to catch up with a friend of the Dispatch, Dave Keating from Gulf Stream Blues, for a live video recorded on the sidelines.

As you’ll hear in this video, Thursday set the tone for the whole event.

A session featuring former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and former US Defence Secretary Mark Esper addressed Europe’s new security reality, which is the polite way of saying: what happens when you can no longer assume Washington has your back.

Both men agreed the dependency had gone on too long. Rasmussen pushed for a formalised Coalition of the Willing within NATO; Esper preferred expanding the existing Joint Expeditionary Force rather than risk further fracturing the alliance.

They found common ground on Ukraine’s NATO membership, arguing for the German 1955 model, with Article 5 applying only to government-controlled territory. Rasmussen went further, making the case that Europe had thrown away its best leverage during the Iran conflict by immediately declaring it wasn’t its war.

What was harder to watch was the broader conference atmosphere around US-EU relations. The official discourse from established politicians was notably managed: resilient partnership, shared values, transatlantic cooperation intact. However, the audience did not seem persuaded, and it appeared that there was a gap between what the podium says and what the people in the seats actually believe, and Prague made that visible.

Later that afternoon, I was on stage with French Minister Delegate for European Affairs Benjamin Haddad, ECFR director Mark Leonard, and others for a panel on whether Europe’s institutions are actually built for the moment they keep claiming to be rising to. That conversation was rather less diplomatic. Haddad made the case for optimism, but tied it to delivery on the single market and the upcoming Multi-annual Financial Framework.

Others on the panel were less patient: the argument that Europe has spent years being passive where it needed to act and hyperactive where it needed to restrain itself landed with some force.

The question of whether Brussels can reform fast enough to matter before the moment passes did not receive a comfortable answer.

So, ladies and gentlemen, Donald Trump’s war on Iran is continue to splutter, with America having failed to remove the Iranian regime, inflaming tensions across the Middle East, and actively creating a scenario that is sending oil and gas prices skyrocketing.

Not only this, but Donald Trump has managed to create a situation where he is now pushing to remove sanctions on Russia, and is actively berating European leaders for refusing his petulant demand for a third Gulf War.

So I sat down with Dave Keating from Gulf Stream Blues so that we could chat about France’s role in leading the European rejections of Trumps demands, how the Europeans are all positioning themselves ahead of the upcoming Council summit, and what we can expect.

We also talk about Macron’s strategic pivot as he reaches the end of his presidency, what we can expect from America, and why Donald Trump has genuinely pushed his so-called allies too far.

Let us know what you think, and forgive our being sabotaged by the Substack Team’s recording studio, which has wrought untold havoc on our geopolitical opinions and caused a small delay in the audio.

And if you want to check out my previous discussion following the opening salvo of the American-Iranian war, check out my video with Annelise Riles from Everyday Ambassador

So, as you may all have heard, the world is on fire right now, with Donald Trump having launched a war against the Iranian regime and Europeans having a messy and divided response to the intensifying crisis.

Not only this, but French President Emmanuel Macron launched himself into an expansive review of the French nuclear doctrine, calling for an increase in the number of nuclear warheads, and an expansion of the French umbrella towards our European allies.

Which is why I’m pleased that I finally got the chance to sit down with Professor Annelise Riles from Everyday Ambassador to break down exactly why this major situation is such a grave moment in modern history, what we’ve seen thus far, and where exactly we expect this to all go.

Let us know what you think, and whether you’d like to see more conversations between us, and if you like what you heard from Annelise, give her substack a follow, she does excellent work and is well deserving of your time.

So, another European Council meeting has come along and caused a massive uproar, so what better time to run a Substack live to discuss the topic and go through the finer points of the meeting’s agenda.From Middle East diplomacy to European Security, to finally touching upon the topic of supporting Ukraine’s defensive war against a revanchist, imperialist Russia, we go through everything that happened in this discussion and what it means for Europe.

So, Zack Polanski, the leader of the British Green Party and prospective British Prime Minister, has declared that he will try to do what no one else has done before him: convince Russian President Vladimir Putin, known for his imperialism and revanchist foreign policy, to give up his Nuclear Weapons. Which is definitely not going to happen, so in the face of a lot of the reactions and questions I’ve had to this situation, here’s a quick reaction.

As I mentioned in the video, please let me know what you think about this situation and if there’s a topic you’d like me to explore.

As you guys know, France has been going through a turbulent time, with a level of political instability that we haven’t seen since before World War Two, when the political instability led to us not being able to react to Nazi Germany and eventually being occupied.

So, with the second Lecornu government now trying to push towards a budget of some kind, Dave Keating (Gulf Stream Blues) and I (the editor of your favourite newsletter, The French Dispatch) sat down to do a quick Q&A:

We cover:

* The nitty-gritty of the ongoing French political crisis

* What chances Sébastien Lecornu and his government have of succeeding

* How long Lecornu 2 will survive

* The French budget procedure

* What the chances of a French budget for 2026 are, and

* How this will effect Europe.

For the timeline of events leading up to today’s Substack live, check out the following explainers and videos in chronological order:

As always, if you have any questions, drop them below, and otherwise, we hope you enjoyed the chat!

Took a quick break from my cold to give a (not-so-quick) update on the current French political situation, with a particular focus on:

* Lecornu’s final negotiations

* Upcoming legislative elections

* The reason why Edouard Philippe wants Macron to resign

* The strategies being deployed by French extremists

* The current polling situation

As always, remember to like, subscribe, and if you enjoyed this, consider supporting The French Dispatch with a paid subscription!

Right, first of all: new format!

Due to popular demand, I’ll be hosting a weekly European update, in the form of these Substack live sessions, starting today, where I’ll cover the biggest stories from the European Union and our continent.

This week, we cover the Copenhagen meeting, and particularly:

* The EU is putting its money where its mouth is on Ukraine, and EU defence and security

* Europeans moving to cut red tape in defence and security

* How Green goals have clashed with defence needs

* The financial frameworks that could and are being mobilised to fund the future of European defence and EU Strategic Autonomy.

Now, as I mentioned during the video, let me know what you think! I’m also open to turning this into a weekly Q&A to answer your key questions on European affairs and politics.

And as always: don’t forget to subscribe, like, and share this post!

So we’re back, and no longer working on our holidays! Dave Keating and I sat down to talk about:

* Trump’s royal visit

* The horrors of American politics and Jimmy Kimmel being censored by the American government

* What it could take to wake Europeans up from their American subservience

* Von der Leyen’s State of the EU speech, and whether her calls for independence and courage mean anything when she’s not showing those things herself?

* EU changing it’s stance on Israel