“We need to find free, coherent and uncompromising speech on the international scene” | EUROtoday

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Lhe first days of 2026 may have left little respite. If lengthy historical past will maybe keep in mind these years as these of a change of period, marking the top of the post-1945 worldwide order, 4 episodes of this return shake up our conceptions of sovereignty. They expose in flip our weaknesses, our contradictions, our renunciations, and in the end confront us with our future and our values.

In Venezuela, we’re passive and contradictory spectators of the arrest of Nicolas Maduro. Some condemn American interference, however tolerate that of narco-states which poison our societies. We discuss struggle in all circumstances, however refuse to see the unprecedented scale taken by state drug trafficking: an undeclared struggle, which hits our households and our younger individuals and thrives within the shadow of our democracies. Under these situations, how can we declare blind legalism towards the regulation itself? Because Maduro was additionally disadvantaged of diplomatic immunity, because of lack of recognition by the worldwide neighborhood after the electoral frauds of 2018 and 2024, and below an arrest warrant for state drug trafficking, corruption and arranged crime.

How can we summon General de Gaulle towards the sovereignty of the Venezuelan individuals, when the Gaullian conception of sovereignty is strictly the identical as democracy? According to its phrases, it’s “the people exercising their sovereignty without hindrance”. At the underside of its pondering and its motion, we at all times discover a excessive concept of ​​man and the human situation, within the service of which the first vocation of the State is to “build an order such that the freedom, security and dignity of each person are exalted and guaranteed”which is an absolute antithesis of the Venezuelan case.

Short-sighted response

Let us subsequently cease diverting worldwide regulation from its important functions. Its vocation shouldn’t be to guard dictators from their individuals, however to represent a device for cooperation and de-escalation between sovereign States. What this episode additionally demonstrates is that our present authorized frameworks – whether or not nationwide, European or worldwide – are not sufficiently tailored to the brutality of the approaching world.

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https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2026/01/24/bruno-retailleau-il-nous-faut-retrouver-une-parole-libre-coherente-et-intransigeante-sur-la-scene-internationale_6663940_3232.html