This video is gold. The Norwegian Consumer Council is hitting back against the crappy tech that is making things increasingly shitty. vimeo.com/1168468796

We love to see it! Sithamparappillai Jegatheepan, a Sri Lankan baker who arrived in France in 2003, has just won best baguette in Paris. He wins €4,000 and a year-long contract baking for Macron www.leparisien.fr/paris-75/la-...

Survivors of Mohamed Al Fayed's abuse are fighting to have their cases recognised as trafficking similar to the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein. Requests to the Met have gone unheeded so they are pinning their hopes on a French investigation. My piece for The Observer: observer.co.uk/news/interna...

🚄✈️Why is it still so hard to choose train over plane? On long-distance routes, choosing the train can feel borderline heroic. It’s often more expensive, takes longer, and you often miss connections. We asked @[email protected] what needs to change to make rail the obvious choice. THREAD:

It started with an article that described women as a net deficit to the economy. Emma has spent years researching how the entire way we think about economics is geared against women. I loved talking to her about the arguments she makes in her book, 'Deficit':

This week, I have written about the massive punch-up at a nougat stand at the Salon de l'agriculture. If you've ever wanted to see a fight involving a nougat knife, watch the video. millefeuilleparis.substack.com/p/come-for-t...

Oh noooooon

Consumers are obsessed with food miles because it is easy to understand - why are my bananas from so far away? But moving fruit in bulk on ships is far from the biggest cost involved. It can also be more environmentally friendly than organic food grown nearby www.worksinprogress.news/p/notes-on-p...

Utterly floored by every interview of Gisèle Pelicot’s, and her ability to speak about the terrible things that happened to her with such eloquence. And what a much-needed right it is in the world that she has been able to find love again. ‘Hope is allowed’ www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

It’s got cannabis policy! It’s got vintage ski video recommendations! It’s unfailingly a good read, and I can say this because I’m not responsible for writing it:

Important listening this week.

Love and support you always, Cincinnati Enquirer (support local media), but esp today This is a Midwest daily paper. About as middle of the road as you can get & they understand that this is an objective, straight news headline, in the context of a planned Trump/GOP onslaught in Springfield, etc

(seen a bunch of people sharing this/talking in general about how "normal" Mamdani is but imo this doesn't show a normal person, but an *exceptionally* skilled communicator - a normal person wouldn't react like that to having a speech interrupted by a child! give him his due!)

Lots in this episode for anyone who’s interested in how we make our podcasts, as well as anyone who’s interested in socks and/or owls

Important reporting from @katyinparis.bsky.social: millefeuilleparis.substack.com/p/a-man-just...

Essential reading from @katyinparis.bsky.social. El Hacen Diarra died in police custody this month, after video shows officers beating him on the street and screaming that he was being strangled. Very few people are talking about it. millefeuilleparis.substack.com/p/a-man-just...

An important story by @katyinparis.bsky.social aris.bsky.social about a death at the hands of the French police that has too easily been ignored. "You’re strangling me," El Hacen Diarra told police, in the latest echo of Eric Garner's "I can't breathe". millefeuilleparis.substack.com/p/a-man-just...

This week I wrote about El Hacen Diarra, who died in police custody in Paris; about why his death is not front-page news; and about why we do not need to understand his death through the prism of what is happening with ICE in the US. millefeuilleparis.substack.com/p/a-man-just...

Had the time of my life co-hosting with my favourite Luxembourger @ninaism.bsky.social this week

Have you got questions about how we make The Europeans? We're recording a Q&A episode next week, so we'd love to hear them! Drop your questions below, or even better, email us a voice memo so we can hear your voice on the podcast :) hello (at) europeanspodcast.com

This newsletter is honestly the read you need after the week that it’s been — it’s got nuns, it’s got Czech tearoom vibes, and it’s got incredible gifs

British crown was world’s largest buyer of enslaved people by 1807, book reveals

This week we speak to the UK gov minister negotiating a post-Brexit 'reset' with the EU. As @dominicinamsterdam.bsky.social points out, the fact that he even wants to speak on a pan-European podcast shows how times have changed. But will the reset really go beyond anything symbolic? Listen:

This week in my newsletter: I figured out how the Paris electoral system works so you don't have to (Actually, if you've got a vote in these elections you unfortunately still have to, but I hope this newsletter makes that process a bit less painful) millefeuilleparis.substack.com/p/the-paris-...

I realise this isn't the main story, but can we talk about Emmanuel Macron's apparent allergy to punctuation?

Any other former prime ministers wanna come on our podcast? Or present prime ministers, we’re not fussy

Kind of love this as a retirement hobby

Single glazing! Lift etiquette! Kissing men on hoverboards! So fun to talk to Katy about the joy and madness of working inside Paris's only proper skyscraper.

This week on my newsletter: can anything be done to make the tour Montparnasse, which has blighted the Paris skyline since 1973, a little bit less hideous? With input from @meganclement.bsky.social, who is full of delightful stories about working inside it substack.com/home/post/p-...

WHAT A FUN START TO THE YEAR. The one bright spot is that The Europeans is back.

We're back for a brand-new year of podcasts about European politics, European culture and Europe's place in the world. What under-covered issue do you think we should be talking about in 2026?

Fantastic review of Nicolas Sarkoy's toe-curlingly awful 'prison diaries' observer.co.uk/news/interna...

Our latest newsletter is out! Writing about the life lessons we can learn from 1990s opera legend Luciano Pavarotti was not on our 2025 bingo card, but hey, a lot of things weren't. europeanspodcast.substack.com/p/lessons-fr...

A little bright spark in the winter gloom: A citizens' initiative designed to allow women in EU countries with draconian abortion laws to get care *elsewhere* in Europe has passed in the European Parliament. The European Commission will now have to respond www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/pres...

Please don’t blame us for hiding from the world this week and discussing Relatively Festive Things Only. I think you’ll enjoy the ice rink scandal, if you haven’t heard about it

This week I wrote about parcel collection points, an institution I'm very fond of, going spectacularly wrong due to a confluence of Black Friday, Xmas and everyone thinking it would be convenient to pick up their internet shopping from the same mall millefeuilleparis.substack.com/p/the-highs-...

anyway yeah, I put Arguably Too Much Thought into why "sales connes" - what Brigitte Macron called those feminists - can't really be translated or understood as "dirty bitches", and why it matters www.thenewworld.co.uk/marie-le-con...

This week I wrote about parcel collection points, an institution I'm very fond of, going spectacularly wrong due to a confluence of Black Friday, Xmas and everyone thinking it would be convenient to pick up their internet shopping from the same mall millefeuilleparis.substack.com/p/the-highs-...

Nemo, the Swiss singer who won Eurovision in 2024 has announced that they are returning their trophy in protest at Israel's continued participation in the song contest. Their message to the European Broadcasting Union: "Live what you claim."

We’ve got East German history. We’ve got soup recipes. We’ve got mind-bending physics. It’s our European book round-up of the year! open.substack.com/pub/european...

This 🇫🇷 Christmas advert for the Intermarché supermarket is so charming and also pokes gentle fun at the French image as a nation of voracious carnivores . . . Made by a Montpellier-based animation studio

How many times do we need to point this out? By appeasing the far right, you do not weaken it. You strengthen it. While weakening your own position. There's a vast amount of academic research showing this. But Labour will not listen. www.theguardian.com/law/2025/dec...

New on my Substack: the juicy Parisian expenses scandal you probably haven’t been following open.substack.com/pub/millefeu...

Quite breathtaking story - military grade drones at Dublin airport which flew on the path Zelensky's plane took. The drones reached the flight path of his plane exactly the time it should have been there, but just missed it because Zelensky arrived ahead of schedule:

Europeans are waking up this morning to find the new US National Security Strategy (quietly) released. And what it has to say on Europe could not be clearer. On the „stark prospect of civilizations erasure“ for example. 👇

The second edition of our newsletter is out! It’s free, fun, and extremely European. 🇪🇺 Featuring Radio Free Europe, cultural recommendations and the Polish President’s office quivering over “🌈😈🦄𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕣𝕠𝕣 𝕠𝕗 rAinBoW RuLiNgS ⚖️ 💖” open.substack.com/pub/european...

🚨 NEW EPISODE 🚨 If the winter blues have got you down, these 2 things might lift your spirit: (1) the Christmas section at your local Lidl, and (2) the news that a same-sex marriage in one EU country must be recognised in another. We dive into that ruling. www.europeanspodcast.com/all-episodes...

Coverage of migration last week repeatedly referenced people emigrating – implying either white flight, that young people were heading overseas, or the rich were in mass exodus. The reality: emigration of British citizens is flat. Non-EU citizens are leaving. www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-t...

Newsletter #2 is out today. This week, the politics and psychology of the massive and gross road that encircles Paris, and why it's so hard to do anything about it millefeuilleparis.substack.com/p/should-we-...