Emmanuel macron

The protest movement against Emmanuel Macron’s Covid passport, which comes into full effect today, continues to grow in France. On Saturday over 200,000 men, women and children took to the streets, more than twice the number that demonstrated when the protests began on July 17. As a veteran of the Paris protests, I’ve found one of the most interesting aspects to be the reactions of passers-by as the cortège files through the streets of the capital. Some clap, some look on in contempt, others shout words of encouragement and a few hurl terms of abuse.

A manager of an attraction park in France was reportedly assaulted on Sunday after he denied entry to a customer. It's alleged the man lost his rag when he was turned back because he didn't have a valid Covid passport. It is unlikely to be the last such incident. In the space of a fortnight, the atmosphere in France has turned toxic. A hospital in Saint-Étienne was invaded on Monday by 60 demonstrators, mainly medical professionals, opposed to the measure that will force them to vaccinate or be suspended without pay. That is also a strike at a Lyon hospital that will start tomorrow. Elsewhere cinemas, theme parks and fitness centres have been labelled 'collaborators' for their participation in the government's Covid Passport scheme.

From St Tropez to La Rochelle to Deauville, there is a familiar sight this summer in many of France’s most popular coastal resorts. A year after the wearing of masks outside was made mandatory they are back, and French and foreign sunseekers are forced to muzzle under a broiling sun. It was only a month ago that the government relaxed the rule on the wearing of masks outdoors, but that was before a rise in cases caused by the Delta variant. Most of the infected are the young and unvaccinated, hospitalisations are stable and deaths remain minimal: there were 11 in the last 24 hours, compared to ten last Saturday.

What a celebration of diversity I witnessed in Paris on Saturday as tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through the capital. Organisers put the figure at 50,000, the government at 18,000; I'd say the former is the more accurate estimation. It took two hours to walk the one and three-quarter miles between the start of the march, in the Place du Palais Royal, to its terminus at the Place Pierre Laroque outside the Ministry of Health. In total, and again depending on your source, between 114,000 and 150,000 people demonstrated across France on Saturday to protest against the planned introduction of the 'Pass Sanitaire', France’s vaccine passport. All ages, sexes, classes and colours were represented.

One Saturday in March, I attended an anti-lockdown rally in central Paris. I was there partly out of journalistic curiosity but also out of solidarity with those Frenchmen and women who believed it was high time life returned to normal. What struck me was the similarity between the protestors and those I had walked with in 2018 in the early weeks of the yellow vest movement in Paris — overwhelmingly middle-aged blue-collar workers. The yellow vests famously had no leader because it was a protest movement that arose not out of any strong political conviction but from what the French call ras-le-bol: despair at what was perceived as an arrogant and out-of-touch political class who seemed intent on punishing the poorest in society.

Nothing went as predicted in France's regional elections. Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National did not win a single region and Emmanuel Macron's La République en Marche failed to grow roots in local government, or even act as a kingmaker. All incumbent regional candidates were re-elected, sometimes with quite a comfortable margin. Does this mean we are back to the good old left-right divide in French politics? Regional elections are not national elections, of course. Abstention reached a record high in this election and voters from RN and LREM have shunned the regional vote more than left-wing and conservative voters.

Joe Biden wants to use his visit to Europe for the G7 summit and the Nato meeting to rally democracies to take on the autocratic threat posed by Russia and China. But in a sign of how difficult that will be, Emmanuel Macron made clear last night that ‘the line I’m advocating for France, and I hope for Europe, is not to be made a vassal by China nor be aligned with the United States on this subject.’ He has also said that China should not be a Nato priority. If Nato is to stay relevant, it will have to become more involved in the effort to contain China This is a mistake. If Nato is to stay relevant, it will have to become more involved in the effort to contain China, as I say in the magazine this week.

Boris Johnson is more popular in France than Emmanuel Macron, which might not be a high hurdle to overcome, since Macron is rather generally unloved. Except Johnson is not just marginally more popular, but massively so. Indeed, the French seem to like him even more than the British. And he’s popular right across the French political spectrum, from the extreme right to the extreme left. Chouette! According to a study in the news magazine Le Point, 51 per cent of French voters have a favourable opinion of the Prime Minister, at least 10 points clear of recent polls assessing the popularity of the President.

In October last year Emmanuel Macron had a long list of around 300 to 500 names drawn up. These were no ordinary figures but rather a number of renowned French immigrants who were being lined up as candidates for new street names and statues. Among their number was Martinican philosopher and activist Frantz Fanon, Moroccan war veteran Hammou Moussik, and the Egyptian French singer Dalida. And yet the man behind the scheme, Pascal Blanchard, is arguably more interesting than any of the names on the list.

The stand-off between France and Britain has escalated into something altogether more serious. Yesterday, the French maritime minister called for Jersey’s electricity supply to be cut off in response to a dispute over fishing rights. Egged on by French officials, around 80 boats began blockading the port of St Helier this morning in a move that is reminiscent of Ursula von der Leyen’s aborted plans for a hard Irish border to stop the flow of vaccines into the UK. Now there are scenes of British Navy vessels approaching the fishing boats as French ships chart a course for the Channel island. Some on the Continent are claiming that the stand-off has been manufactured by Boris Johnson to deflect from his various scandals ahead of today’s elections.

Britain's favourite Frenchman, Michel Barnier, is in the Calais region today where he will address a conference about his part in Brexit and perhaps give a further indication as to his presidential aspirations. The EU's chief Brexit negotiator was described in yesterday's Le Figaro as the man who can 'unite the right' and in doing so present a credible alternative to Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in 2022. Barnier presides over a political initiative called Patriotes et européens and he explained its concept to Le Figaro: 'Patriot and European, this means that I believe in the force of the nations, the respect of national identities and France as a country of influence at the head of the European nations.