The Economist, 10 September 2010
“The incredible shrinking President,” headlines The Economist. For the London weekly, Nicolas Sarkozy was once Napoleon on horseback, but now he is only a pair of legs and a bicorne hat in the shadow of his attractive wife. What’s gone wrong? In 2007, Sarkozy “dared to tell the French what they did not care to hear: that they should work more, take more risks, promote more ethnic minorities, be nicer to America.” But now, as millions of French march against his “timid” pension reform, “Mr Sarkozy seems to be a shadow of the reformer he once was on economic affairs and a caricature of the tough-cop leader on social matters.”
The leader of Greece’s leftist alliance SYRIZA is the new bright hope of Greek politics. Steering a course between pragmatism and the rhetoric of class warfare, he has unsettled Berlin, and not just those who back Angela Merkel's austerity policies. 
Europe’s economic woes have forced us to try to understand the secret Olympian world of global finance. But now that we pay more attention to bond yields and stability mechanisms, isn’t it clear that the experts up on their lofty peaks don’t know what’s going on either? 
This year’s Eurovision Song Contest is hosted by Azerbaijan, a country that is far from being a model democracy. An Estonian journalist takes a critical look at the deferential treatment enjoyed by the regime in Baku. 