“In prison, there is nothing to see, and nothing to do.” So said Nicolas Sarkozy, one-time president of France. You’d imagine, based on that sentence, that he wouldn’t have enough material to write a book about his time in prison but you’d be very wrong. “Nicolas Sarkozy, The Journal of a Prisoner” is 216 pages long. As Sarkozy spent 20 days behind bars, that means each day gets a whopping 11 pages of, well, nothingness.
Sarko, 70, was imprisoned after being found guilty of allowing a “close collaborator” and “unofficial intermediaries” to try to obtain funding from Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in Libya for his 2007 presidential run. That made him the first former French head of state to end up behind bars since Nazi collaborator Philippe Pétain.
The ex-president didn’t have to mix with the general prison population, however. He was separated from the other inmates, and two bodyguards occupied a neighboring cell to ensure his safety. So it was less “prison sentence” and more “lads holiday but the weather’s bad so you can’t go outside.”
A teaser quote from the book claims that “silence … does not exist at La Santé” and that noise “is alas constant.” But fear not: Our hero refused to be defeated, writing that “like [in] the desert, inner life strengthens in prison.” Touching stuff from a man whose inner life likely consists of resenting taller men.
The Irish presidential election campaign was thrown into disarray in October by an AI-generated deepfake video of candidate Catherine Connolly announcing her “withdrawal” from the race.
“It is with great regret that I announce the withdrawal of my candidacy and the ending of my campaign,” a deepfake version of Connolly could be heard saying in the video. Connelly hadn’t quit the race and is now Ireland’s president, replacing Michael D. Higgins, who remains the only former head of state with an ambient poetry album in his discography.
The Connolly deepfake at least sounded plausible, which is more than can be said for the AI-generated clips posted by the king of subtlety himself, Donald Trump.
Trump reposted an AI-generated video of him flying a fighter plane emblazoned with the words “King Trump” and dumping brown sludge on to protesters, in what appeared to be a retort to the No Kings protests against his second presidency.
Trump this year also posted a deepfake video of Chuck Schumer, the U.S. Senate minority leader, calling his fellow Democrats “woke pieces of shit.” The video also had a racist depiction of Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic U.S. House leader, dressed in a fake moustache and a sombrero set to mariachi music. Stay classy.
[Golf commentator’s voice] “Oh no, Ursula von der Leyen’s had a quadruple bogey on the par 3 4th hole.” That’s golf jargon for “she’s had a complete disaster” — which is what happened to the European Commission president when she went to Turnberry, Donald Trump’s Scottish golf course, to discuss trade tariffs.
It was a last-ditch effort to fend off Trump’s threat to raise tariffs on most EU goods to 30 percent and you could argue that it worked because the U.S. ended up imposing a 15 percent tariff on most imports from the bloc.
But 15 percent is still very high and went down about as well as a Liz Truss mini-budget.
François Bayrou, one of France’s many, many prime ministers of 2025, slammed the accord as an act of “submission” to Washington, and Germany’s main industry lobby, BDI, said it sent “a fatal sign” regarding the future of transatlantic trade.
It was an odd year for von der Leyen and never more so than when it was reported that her plane lost access to GPS signals while approaching Bulgaria’s Plovdiv airport, and so the aircraft circled for an hour before the pilot landed using paper maps. Brussels and Sofia were quick to blame Russia, calling it “blatant interference.” Turns out that maybe none of that actually happened!
The Romans considered it, Charlemagne revived the idea, Mussolini dreamed about it, and Berlusconi campaigned on it. But none of them actually built it: The bridge on the Messina Strait non s’ha da fare.
Enter Italy’s transport minister and man who definitely enjoys having a powerful woman as a boss, Matteo Salvini. He will get the bridge done and label it as a defense-related expense. No ifs, no buts. First stone cast by Christmas, you can take that to the (not too big to fail) bank.
Well, Italy’s court of auditors might disagree. In fact, they branded his proposal “insufficient and in some cases incorrect,” and put it on ice. Salvini insists it’s all just a minor setback, the kind of hiccup that happens when a grand political vision collides with, er, bureaucratic efficiency.
In the meantime, Italians wait with the same hopeful resignation they bring to train delays, football failures and tax deadlines. And until this administrative labyrinth results in an actual bridge, locals will keep doing what they’ve always done: Take the ferry and debate whether the bridge is coming “soon,” “never,” or “only if the moon aligns with the budget law.”
At least the tradition is solid, even if the infrastructure isn’t.
Renovating Brussels’ Schuman roundabout has now lasted longer than most European coalitions, three popes, and at least one Kardashian marriage. The works began in fall 2023 and were supposed to wrap up in 2026, which was adorable in hindsight. As anyone who’s ever waited for a delayed Brussels tram knows, time here is less a linear progression and more a philosophical suggestion.
So the Brussels region’s caretaker government has written to Europe’s top brass — von der Leyen, Costa, Kallas, Metsola and even the Committee of Regions, which is a real thing — to beg for help filling a €3 million hole in the project’s budget. The steel canopy planned for the center of the square is apparently so pricey that it might be cheaper to re-roof the entire Berlaymont instead.
The pitch? Asking EU institutions to chip in would be a “powerful signal” of their commitment to the city. Which is one way of saying: Please pay for our mess before this becomes an archaeological site. The region can’t sign off on the extra funds because it doesn’t technically have a functioning government, which is classic Brussels energy.
If they miss the June 30 tender deadline, costs may increase yet again. At this point, the only thing rising faster than the budget is the chance the works will outlast the EU itself.
Waiting for Schuman to be finished feels less like urban planning and more like “Waiting for Godot” — except Godot at least occasionally sends word he’s “on his way.”