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POLITICS

Meet America’s new Ambassador to France

An experienced diplomat who formerly worked in Belgium, the USA's new Ambassador has arrived in Paris.

Published: 9 March 2022 16:32 CET
Meet America’s new Ambassador to France
Photo: Par User: Mouloud47 / Wikipedia Commons

France’s new US Ambassador is no stranger to US-European relations, having served as Ambassador to Belgium for four years.

An experienced diplomat and a fluent French speaker, Denise Campbell Bauer, 58, was based in Brussels between 2013 and 2017 after being nominated to the position by Barack Obama – for whom she had raised millions of dollars for his two presidential campaigns.

A noted advocate for women in politics, in 2019, she was executive director of the ‘Women for Biden’ campaign group for Joe Biden’s ultimately successful bid for the Presidency.

She is a former TV journalist and has worked with the American Red Cross. 

She was nominated for the post of Ambassador to France and Monaco by President Joe Biden in July, and confirmed by the Senate during a marathon series of votes in December. She presented her credentials last month.

Announcing her nomination, the White House said in a statement: “Denise Campbell Bauer is an experienced diplomat, non-profit leader, and advocate for women’s voices in politics and policy. 

“She served as the United States Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium from August 2013 until January 2017, where she led one of the largest embassies in Europe and earned a reputation for her collaborative leadership style, high ethics standards, and crisis management skills.”

She takes over the post at a critical time in global politics, with the US and EU nations co-ordinating sanctions against Russia, following the invasion of Ukraine.

She succeeds Trump nominee Jamie McCourt, who left in January. Chargé d’affaires Brian Aggeler has managed the embassy in the short intervening period.

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EDUCATION

Sweden’s Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

Sweden's opposition Social Democrats have called for a total ban on the establishment of new profit-making free schools, in a sign the party may be toughening its policies on profit-making in the welfare sector.

Published: 18 April 2024 16:09 CEST
Sweden's Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

“We want the state to slam on the emergency brakes and bring in a ban on establishing [new schools],” the party’s leader, Magdalena Andersson, said at a press conference.

“We think the Swedish people should be making the decisions on the Swedish school system, and not big school corporations whose main driver is making a profit.” 

Almost a fifth of pupils in Sweden attend one of the country’s 3,900 primary and secondary “free schools”, first introduced in the country in the early 1990s. 

Even though three quarters of the schools are run by private companies on a for-profit basis, they are 100 percent state funded, with schools given money for each pupil. 

This system has come in for criticism in recent years, with profit-making schools blamed for increasing segregation, contributing to declining educational standards and for grade inflation. 

In the run-up to the 2022 election, Andersson called for a ban on the companies being able to distribute profits to their owners in the form of dividends, calling for all profits to be reinvested in the school system.  

READ ALSO: Sweden’s pioneering for-profit ‘free schools’ under fire 

Andersson said that the new ban on establishing free schools could be achieved by extending a law banning the establishment of religious free schools, brought in while they were in power, to cover all free schools. 

“It’s possible to use that legislation as a base and so develop this new law quite rapidly,” Andersson said, adding that this law would be the first step along the way to a total ban on profit-making schools in Sweden. 

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