Clubs. Mafia. Blowback. Syndicats. World Leader ? Libertés. Après le Grexit, le Brexit : après la tragédie, la farce. C'est le nouveau néologisme à la mode dans les milieux financiers et politiques, «Brexit». Une salade linguistique assez surprenante issue de «Grexit», lui-même désagréable mélange de «Greece» (Grèce) et «Exit» (sortie), cette fois agrémentée du B initial de «Britain», Grande-Bretagne. On tremble de voir arriver sur nos écrans et nos journaux les futurs «Spexit», «Itexit» ou, pire, «Frexit», avant le niveau ultime de la crainte universelle, «Gexit»... Spectre de Grexit Car depuis Grexit, ces affreux concentrés linguistiques traînent avec eux un cortège apocalyptique capable d'effrayer jusqu'aux adeptes les plus affirmés des sombres prédictions mayas (ou autres).
Grexit avait en effet été «inventée» pour faire frémir à l'idée d'une éventuelle victoire de Syriza, la coalition de la gauche radicale, lors des élections helléniques du 17 juin dernier. Situation habituelle Voici donc à présent Brexit. Angela Merkel mal placée pour les leçons Sortie négociée Mais admettons. Londres est déjà loin.
The medieval, unaccountable Corporation of London is ripe for protest. It's the dark heart of Britain, the place where democracy goes to die, immensely powerful, equally unaccountable.
But I doubt that one in 10 British people has any idea of what the Corporation of the City of London is and how it works. This could be about to change. Alongside the Church of England, the Corporation is seeking to evict the protesters camped outside St Paul's cathedral. The protesters, in turn, have demanded that it submit to national oversight and control. What is this thing? There are four layers of elected representatives in the Corporation: common councilmen, aldermen, sheriffs and the Lord Mayor. To become Lord Mayor you must first have served as an alderman and sheriff, and you "must command the support of, and have the endorsement of, the Court of Aldermen and the Livery".
The Lord Mayor's role, the Corporation's website tells us, is to "open doors at the highest levels" for business, in the course of which he "expounds the values of liberalisation". British have invaded nine out of ten countries - so look out Luxembourg. The analysis is contained in a new book, All the Countries We've Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To.
Stuart Laycock, the author, has worked his way around the globe, through each country alphabetically, researching its history to establish whether, at any point, they have experienced an incursion by Britain. Only a comparatively small proportion of the total in Mr Laycock's list of invaded states actually formed an official part of the empire. The remainder have been included because the British were found to have achieved some sort of military presence in the territory – however transitory – either through force, the threat of force, negotiation or payment. Incursions by British pirates, privateers or armed explorers have also been included, provided they were operating with the approval of their government.
Among some of the perhaps surprising entries on the list are: * Cuba, where in 1741, a force under Admiral Edward Vernon stormed ashore at Guantánamo Bay. Andorra Belarus.
Institutions. Régionalisation. Finance. Intelligence. Strange.