Gavin Mortimer is a British author who lives in Burgundy after many years in Paris. He writes about French politics, terrorism and sport.
What with the wall-to-wall media coverage of the coronavirus pandemic it had rather slipped one’s mind that there are other serious issues confronting Europe, but France got a bloody reminder at the weekend. On Saturday, a knifeman ran amok in the south-eastern town of Romans-sur-Isere, killing two people and wounding five. According to eyewitnesses, the
When I left my apartment for my morning run today I saw that someone had scrawled on the courtyard in large chalk letters ‘Tenez Bon, Les Voisins‘ (Hang in there, neighbours). It could have been a message for the whole country. France is flagging after two and a half weeks of complete lockdown and the
As France prepares to enter its third week of confinement the Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, has warned that ‘the fight has only just begun’. Coronavirus has claimed 2,606 French lives to date, but at a press conference on Saturday evening Philippe said: ‘The first 15 days of April will be even more difficult than the
As Boris Johnson self-isolates for seven days after testing positive for coronavirus, he must follow the example of his hero, Winston Churchill, in heeding the advice of his doctors. It was on the counsel of his chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, that the Prime Minister subjected himself to a test, which augurs well for the
There was a touch of schadenfreude as I heard that Britain has followed France, Italy and several other European countries in locking down. In the last week or so there have been a number of articles about how Britain would never impose on its people the draconian measures taken by Emmanuel Macron and others because
Seventeen per cent of Parisians have fled the city since President Macron ordered France to be confined, as part of his ‘war’ strategy to defeat coronavirus. The lockdown, which began on Tuesday, is for two weeks but on Friday the government indicated that it will likely be extended into April as France struggles to contain
Any hope that the two week ‘confinement’ imposed by President Macron would heal France’s deep divisions has vanished as swiftly as food on the supermarket shelves here. There is growing anger in the provinces at the sudden arrival of thousands of well-heeled Parisians, who have fled the capital for their second homes. Many seaside residents
I missed Emmanuel Macron’s address to the nation last night. I popped to the supermarket, guessing (correctly) that the queues of earlier in the day would have dissipated with most people at home in front of their television sets listening to what their president had to say. I stocked up on essentials – wine, cheese
I’ve been writing a diary for 26 years and 2020 is shaping up to be a vintage one. I thought 2019 would be hard to beat, what with Brexit, Greta and Labour’s implosion, but this year I’ve been feeling like Samuel Pepys as the 21st century answer to the bubonic plague sweeps the world. The
Ah, Paris, the city of love, the city of light, the city of larceny. Theft, burglary, pickpocketing, assault and homophobic acts are on the up, and even the city’s Procureur, the public prosecutor Rémy Heitz, has admitted the stats ‘aren’t good’. No, they’re not. Theft, for example, increased by 15 per cent in 2019, up from
Emmanuel Macron has unveiled his plan to combat the rise of Islamic extremism in France. Stressing that his fight was not against the religion but political Islam, ‘which has no place’ in the Republic, the president outlined a series of measures in a speech last week. Notably, his plans involve an end to the hosting
I’ve always been a fan of the French police, in part because when I lived in the south of the country I played rugby in a team that contained a couple of coppers who told me stories of what they had to deal with on a daily basis. But I’m also a little partial to
I might be feeling more confident about the government’s decision to give Huawei a limited role in building Britain’s 5G network, ‘on the advice of intelligence agencies’, were I not reminded of the effectiveness of British spooks by the recent appearances of Alexandre del Valle on French radio. Del Valle is the author of numerous
Emmanuel Macron lost his cool during a walkabout in Jerusalem’s Old City on Tuesday and television cameras captured the moment for posterity. “Everybody knows the rules,” shouted the president of France, directing his wrath at Israeli security officials. “I don’t like what you did in front of me. Go outside!” The confrontation took place outside
Two years ago I wrote on this platform that France is the most ‘dangerous European country for Jews’ – and so it remains. Anti-Semitic attacks in 2018 soared by 74 per cent on the previous year and the figures for the beginning of 2019 have revealed a 78 per cent increase on the same period
Five years on from the horrific Charlie Hebdo massacre in which a dozen people lost their lives, politicians have been busy showcasing their sanctimony. Socialist mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo urged people ‘never to forget’ the price the cartoonists paid for the courage. Yet only last week, Hidalgo used Twitter to express her ‘profound shock’ at
France has endured an appalling series of Islamist terror attacks in recent years. One might feel a sense of relief that the country escaped relatively lightly last Friday. That will, of course, be no consolation to the family of the man who was killed by 22-year-old Nathan C, a recent convert to Islam, who stabbed
Boris Johnson may have received a lukewarm reaction from Emmanuel Macron to his emphatic election victory last month but one French politician was cock-a-hoop at the result. Shortly after the scale of the Conservative win was clear, Marine Le Pen tweeted her delight, declaring that ‘the crushing victory of Boris Johnson shows that neither manoeuvring nor
East Germans had a name for their version of ‘woke’ culture’; it was Zersetzung, or ‘decomposition’ in English. It was a form of psychological warfare deployed against citizens suspected of ‘subversive incitement’. There were several techniques to Zersetzung but probably the most effective was what the Stasi described as the ‘systematic discrediting of public reputation’ by
Remember when Boris Johnson met Emmanuel Macron for the first time as Prime Minister? It was in August and, as the Guardian made clear to its readers, it was the French president calling the shots. The newspaper illustrated its point with a photograph of the two leaders at their lecterns, the French president looking statesmanlike
