Stanley Pignal (@spignal) / X

Stanley Pignal

28.9K posts

Stanley Pignal

@spignal

ARCHIVED ACCOUNT. I AM POSTING AT BLUESKY. Charlemagne columnist & Brussels bureau chief, The Economist. Past stints in Paris, Mumbai, London. Français.

Brussels

medium.com/@spignal/stanl…

Joined November 2008

Stanley Pignal
@spignal
Jul 11, 2022
Bored youth summertime vandalism at its best: flicking the switch on businesses that keep their lights on all night in the midst of an energy crisis.
bil le creusois
@bil_le_creusois
Jul 9, 2022
Éteignez la lumière !!!!!
00:00
Stanley Pignal
@spignal
Jun 12, 2024
I'm afraid if I go to bed now I'm going to miss two decades of French politics before tomorrow morning.
1.5M
Stanley Pignal
@spignal
Mar 3, 2022
This is magnificent. It makes no sense until it makes perfect sense. Nobody outside Indian TV can produce this level of chaos.
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Stanley Pignal
@spignal
Feb 24, 2022
Two countries with a McDonalds now in open warfare. In 1996 Thomas Friedman had posited it shouldn't happen: if a place was rich enough to have Big Macs, its people had too much to lose from war. It was archetypal of a time when we thought the End of History was in sight.
Stanley Pignal
@spignal
Mar 1, 2022
Marine Le Pen's party is binning its 8-page electoral tract, which features a picture of her shaking hands with Vladimir Putin. Apparently that's not a vote-winner any more! 1.2 million copies had been printed.
Cette photo Le Pen-Poutine qui gêne au RN
From liberation.fr
Stanley Pignal
@spignal
Jun 4, 2022
Macron's line about not humiliating Russia drives Eastern Europeans crazy. As one official from the region put it to me: "If France thinks Putin needs to save his face, it can always send him more Botox". Deliciously catty, I thought.
Stanley Pignal
@spignal
Feb 27, 2022
At the rate Germany is overhauling this week, Berlin will adopt baseball at its national sport by Wednesday, just before moving Oktoberfest to October.
Stanley Pignal
@spignal
Oct 10, 2023
I would watch a sitcom about a meeting of EU officials where they discuss how to build a European aircraft carrier.
Laura Kayali
@LauKaya
Oct 10, 2023
EU commissioner @ThierryBreton says at a defense conference in Brussels there will eventually be a need for a European aircraft carrier.
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Stanley Pignal
@spignal
Mar 15, 2021
If you vaccinate 100,000 people over the age of 50 today rather than tomorrow, you save 15 lives, according to a French analysis. Germany has 1.7m AstraZeneca doses that are now not being administered. Delay all of those by a week, you're up 1785 deaths.
Stanley Pignal
@spignal
Feb 14, 2022
Lavrov saying he "met Putin" is like Ryanair saying they "fly to Paris" when the planes land in Beauvais.
Stanley Pignal
@spignal
Jul 4, 2022
French diplomatic staffing 2022 is a foreigner's pronounciation nightmare-- Incoming EU minister: Laurence BOONE Outgoing EU minister: Clément BEAUNE Continuing diplo adviser: Emmanuel BONNE
Stanley Pignal
@spignal
Nov 21, 2023
You would laugh quite hard a decade ago if someone told you the European Commission by 2023 would rate Greek and Spanish public finances above those of Germany or the Netherlands. (Per @business)
457K
Stanley Pignal
@spignal
Apr 20, 2024
If I was 50 years old in Italy, I'd start wondering who will pay my state-funded pension. You need either economic growth, acceptance of high migration or healthy demographics. Italy has none of the three. What will give?
891K
Stanley Pignal
@spignal
Sep 5, 2022
First names of the last four finance ministers— France: Bruno, Michel, Pierre, François Germany: Christian, Olaf, Peter, Wolfgang Italy: Daniele, Roberto, Giovanni, Pier Carlo Britain: Kwasi, Nadhim, Rishi, Sajid