Françoise Thom

The Russian economy, including its military-industrial complex, is showing signs of exhaustion. Prices are soaring, electronic components are in short supply and the labour shortage is becoming dramatic. Migrants from Central Asia often meet with a hostile reception and can hardly replace the tens of thousands of specialists who have left Russia. Is it for these reasons that Putin’s regime is trying to stop the war against Ukraine, but on its own terms, as Viktor Orbán’s initiative shows? According to Françoise Thom, it would be unfortunate if the West were to give in to pressure from the ‘peacemakers’, when the Moscow autocracy is itself at the end of its tether…
Demosthenes, undoubtedly the greatest orator of Antiquity with his Philippics, is still surprisingly relevant today. It should inspire us all. […]

L’économie russe, y compris son complexe militaro-industriel, montre des signes d’épuisement. Les prix flambent, les composants électroniques manquent et le manque de main d’œuvre devient dramatique. Les migrants d’Asie Centrale rencontrent un accueil souvent hostile et peuvent difficilement remplacer les dizaines de milliers de spécialistes qui ont quitté la Russie. Est-ce pour ces raisons que le régime de Poutine essaie d’obtenir l’arrêt de la guerre contre l’Ukraine, mais à ses conditions, comme en témoigne l’initiative de Viktor Orbán ? Selon Françoise Thom, il serait fâcheux que les Occidentaux cèdent aux pressions des « pacificateurs », alors que l’autocratie moscovite est elle-même au bout du rouleau. La lecture de Démosthène, qui fut sans aucun doute le plus grand orateur de l’Antiquité avec ses Philip-piques, est aujourd’hui encore d’une étonnante actualité. Elle devrait donc nous inspirer. […]

‘A snake changes its skin, but it doesn’t change its nature’. This old Russian saying is still relevant today and could be applied to the aggressive policies pursued by the Russian and Soviet powers throughout the 20th century. Françoise Thom explains here how the Kremlin and Putin ideologists are working today to break up our societies from within and transform our democratic countries into satellite regimes in Moscow’s thrall. By way of analogy, how can we fail to recall how, just after the end of the Second World War, the USSR took over all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe one by one, bringing straw men to power before lowering a veritable iron curtain over Europe by exercising a Communist dictatorship from within that lasted for half a century, until the Soviet Union collapsed. Today, Vladimir Putin’s regime is using the same levers to manipulate, both left and right, by appealing to nationalism, traditional values and anti-Americanism, in particular, in order to enslave us more effectively. Is France on the road to Putinisation? […]

In this essay, Françoise Thom analyzes the imperialist and expansionist drive of the Russian Empire, which persists in the Soviet and post-Soviet era. This messianic, expansionist, and militaristic propensity, reaching its peak under Putin, is inseparably linked to the autocratic matrix of Russian power. It is this matrix that Russia must rid itself of if it is to become a normal country, preoccupied with its own prosperity rather than the enslavement of others. European security depends on the eradication of Russian despotism.  […]

Russian propagandists accuse Europe of having forfeited its moral values and claim that Russia is now the repository of these values. This rhetoric resonates with some conservatives. In this essay, our author examines how, far from defending European “civilization”, the Putin regime has turned into “an apocalyptic sect led by a demented guru”. […]