Gavin Mortimer is a British author who lives in Burgundy after many years in Paris. He writes about French politics, terrorism and sport.
February has not started well for the European Union. On the first day of the month, furious farmers surrounded the parliament in Brussels, chanting defiance and throwing eggs at the people they blame for demeaning their industry. On Saturday, a man stabbed three people at the Gare de Lyon in Paris. The suspect in custody
In a week full of symbolism in France, the most striking image was the sight of armoured cars blocking the path of tractors outside Paris. The city’s first great wall was constructed at the end of the 12th century on the orders of Philip Augustus, but here was a new wall, of armour, erected at
Dixmont, Yonne I am writing these words from my house in Burgundy. If I look over my shoulder out of the window I can see the house of my neighbour, a cereal farmer. If I look out to my right, across the fields, I can see the buildings of a cattle farmer. There is a
Paris will be under siege from 2 p.m. today as farmers intensify their protest action and attempt to cut off the capital from the rest of France. They have announced plans to blockade all roads leading to Paris with their tractors, a threat that prompted interior minister Gérald Darmanin to summon police chiefs to his
A friend of mine intends to vote for the National Rally in June’s European Elections. That in itself is nothing unusual – 13.2 million people voted for Marine Le Pen in the 2022 presidential election and 88 of her MPs were then elected to parliament in the legislative elections. What’s more unusual about my friend is
Gabriel Attal has only been in his job for two weeks but the youngest prime minister in the history of the Fifth Republic is already facing a series of crises. The most pressing issue for the 34-year-old premier is the farmers’ protest, which began last Friday when a blockade was erected on the A64 motorway west
The farmers of France are mobilising. Their anger will be an early test for Gabriel Attal; the countryside is unknown territory for the new prime minister, a young man raised in the affluent suburbs of Paris, like the majority of Emmanuel Macron’s government. The first dissent was on Friday in the south-west of France, in and
The row that has erupted at Katharine Birbalsingh’s Michaela school in north London highlights the difference in how Britain and France confront Islamic conservatism in education and wider society. Birbalsingh has displayed courage in imposing a blanket ban on all ritual prayer in the school, but nonetheless in France such displays of religiosity have been
The great and the good of this world met in Davos this week to tell each other how wonderful they are. But amid all the bonhomie and back-slapping there loomed the spectre of You-Know-Who. Donald Trump’s landslide victory in the Iowa caucuses was his first significant step towards a second term in the White House.
There has never been a more Parisian government than the one selected by Emmanuel Macron last week. Ten of its 15 ministers come from the capital, despite the fact that the Greater Paris region represents 18 per cent of the population. New prime minister, Gabriel Attal, is a Parisian, the MP for a district in
The French found out on Thursday evening that, under their new prime minister, nothing will change in the way their country is run. Gabriel Attal, the Boy Wonder who at 34 is the youngest premier of the Fifth Republic, unveiled his new cabinet – and there was a distinct lack of freshness. The controversial Gerald Darmanin
The French media has been busy marking the third anniversary of Britain’s official departure from the EU by gleefully reporting the sorry state of perfidious Albion. ‘The shipwreck of Brexit’ was the headline in Le Figaro, while France’s business paper, Les Echos, declared that the majority of Britons believe leaving the EU has been a
Emmanuel Macron has begun the new year by replacing one Socialist prime minister with another. Out goes Elisabeth Borne and in comes Gabriel Attal, who at 34 is almost half as young as his 62-year-old predecessor. Macron hopes that Attal will provide his ailing presidency with some youthful vigour after the disastrous 20 months of Borne’s
A cultural war has erupted in France over the iconic figure of Gérard Depardieu. The 75-year-old actor is considered one of the greats of the French cinema but he stands accused of multiple allegations of sexual violence and harassment. An investigation is currently ongoing into claims he raped a young actress several years ago. The
New Year’s Eve passed off peacefully in France give or take the odd incident. There were 211 arrests in total, announced Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, but overall the country saw in 2024 with good cheer. In the days leading up to the last day of 2023, there were ominous warnings from the government about
Robert Jenrick is right: the EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum is ‘not worth the paper it’s written on’. The former immigration minister, who resigned earlier this month, is not the first European politician to rubbish the treaty, which was unveiled on Wednesday with much fanfare. Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally
Where did it all go wrong for Emmanuel Macron? In his New Year’s Eve address of 2022, France’s president called on his people to demonstrate ‘unity, boldness and collective ambition’ in the year ahead. There would be challenges, he acknowledged, referencing the impending pension reform, but the president expressed his optimism that together they could
Marine Le Pen celebrated what she called ‘an ideological victory’ on Tuesday evening after Emmanuel Macron’s government finally had its controversial immigration Bill approved. It was a day of jubilation also for the centre-right Republicans, who had formed the bulk of the negotiating team that forced the government to toughen parts of the Bill to
One hopes that the arrest of seven suspected members of Hamas last Thursday by European police has embarrassed numerous politicians in the West. Those, like Daniele Obono, of the La France Insoumise (LFI) party, who described the terror group as a ‘resistance movement’ not long after they’d slaughtered 1,200 Israeli men, women and children back
It is a peculiarity of the age in France that the subject that most divides the political class is the one that most unites the people they govern. Immigration is the issue that needs to be urgently addressed, according to voters, a message they have been telling their politicians for years. In January 2013, a
