France

Wednesday

Ben Judah

De Gaulle or nothing: lessons from the General

The first time I set foot in the White House as a Labour political adviser, in spring 2024, to see a then all-powerful Jake Sullivan as the US National Security Adviser, I went as an Atlanticist. By my final visit to the West Wing in January, accompanying David Lammy as his aide to see J.D. Vance, I was an Anglo-Gaullist. In between lay the humiliation of Chagos, twists and turns over Ukraine, surprise American strikes on Iran and the realisation that our closest ally, the superpower we had built our entire security around, had become erratic, emotional and unpredictable. When Labour came to power, I truly believed the country had been suffering mainly from Tory problems. I learnt the hard way that our instability stemmed mostly from British problems. And this brought me to Gaullism.

Martin Vander Weyer

Making Tax Difficult: another Whitehall farce

Welcome to the new tax year, with its overflowing hamper of half-baked, growth-eating, enterprise-crushing Labour measures. And if you happen to be one of the 4.4 million self-employed who scrape an independent living despite rising costs and red tape, welcome to what must surely be one of Whitehall’s longest-running but least funny sitcoms, Making Tax Digital (MTD). If your income from self-employment (or rents as a landlord) exceeds £50,000 a year, you must henceforth submit quarterly digital updates to HMRC; next year the threshold will drop to £20,000. You’ll have less time to pursue your trade but your costs will rise, because you’ll need new software and more professional advice.

Tuesday

Catriona Olding

The joy of meeting ‘randomers’

Provence Life was complicated when I fled to Provence in November 2014 with no job and very little money. At first a comedian friend and his wife lent me their second home. The intention was to stay for six months, recover from a traumatic marriage break-up and write a book about my father, who was a giant (7ft 4in) and had for a spell in 1938 toured Nazi Germany and England as part of a world-famous revue. I was also planning to learn copy-editing in the hope that when I got back, I could get a job as the oldest-ever publishing intern. But in those days I didn’t even have a laptop and since money was running out, I had to abandon both ideas and find work.

Tuesday

Joshua S. Treviño

Iran and the crisis in the European mind

The politics of the Iranian war feature an observable gap between interest and action for nearly all parties. The Americans possessed overwhelming casus belli versus Iran for nearly half a century, and did not act upon it until three weeks past. The Iranians possessed none against America for just as long, but exerted themselves with religious fanaticism to bring this war upon themselves. The Arab autocracies of the Persian-Gulf region find themselves under direct attack from the Iranians, but do not respond in kind. The Chinese observe a core strategic proxy and key commodities supplier taken off the chessboard – for the second time in under 90 days – and refrain from direct engagement.

Europe

Wednesday

Gavin Mortimer

Revenge of the cheese-eating surrender monkeys

From our US edition

French President Emmanuel Macron’s approval rating rose by six points last week. It will likely continue to climb following his visit to the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier on Monday. The pride of the French navy recently arrived in the eastern Mediterranean to protect Cyprus, and Macron was in his element as he strode across the deck of the carrier. A photograph of the occasion appeared in the New York Times underneath the headline: "France Is Sending a Large Naval Force to the Middle East." The last time there was a great conflagration in the Middle East, France was very much on the sidelines Macron was helicoptered onto the Charles de Gaulle from a press conference at an air base in Cyprus.

Alice Jolly

Fractured loyalties: The Tribe, by Michael Arditti, reviewed

Michael Arditti’s impressive and immersive family saga begins in Salonica (now Thessaloniki) in 1911 and follows the fortunes of the wealthy, powerful Carrache family who are part of the Sephardic Jewish community. They have lived in the city for two centuries and employ more than 1,000 people. The father of the family, Jacob, is ‘a well-known liberal’ who ‘would never compel his children to do anything against their will’; but he is outraged by his daughter Esther’s flirtations with socialism. So what will happen when he discovers his son Leon’s relationship with a nightclub singer? He also worries about his other three children: Ruben is reckless, Bella is artistic and Irène is overlooked.

Monday

Gavin Mortimer

European culture is being Americanized

Did Mariah Carey mime or not when she headlined the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Milan? That was the main takeaway from last month’s jamboree. Organizers have since suggested that the US singer did indeed lip-sync to Domenico Modugno’s “Nel Blu, dipinto di Blu” and the song that followed, her very own, “Nothing is Impossible.” “The technical, logistical and organizational complexities of an Olympic ceremony are not comparable to a live performance by a single artist,” said a spokesperson for the organizing committee.    Was there also a linguistic complexity in the decision? Perhaps Carey didn’t feel confident singing live in Italian in front of 75,000 spectators in the San Siro Stadium, plus the 9.

Une bouteille de beaujoulais nouveau à côté d'un repas McDonald's, France, 1994. (Photo by Robert DEYRAIL/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

Thursday

Jane Stannus

The glorious versatility of Dijon mustard

From our US edition

Not just salami, air conditioning and dental fillings: among their many contributions to civilization, the Romans also gave us Dijon mustard. Somewhere about the 4th century, it seems, the vinegar makers of Dijon were granted the right to use the exclusive mustard recipe composed by Palladius, son of Exuperantius, Prefect of the Gauls (or so Samuel Chamberlain informs us in his Bouquet de France of 1952). Palladius was one of those fascinating Roman gentleman-farmers who are also poets and scientists. He owned farms in Italy and Sardinia and had a particular interest in fruit trees. He penned a popular treatise on agriculture that stayed on the best-seller (or at least most-read) list until well into the Middle Ages.

Tuesday

Alexander Larman

Serge Gainsbourg would not survive modern France

Yesterday marked the 35th anniversary of the death of Serge Gainsbourg at 62 from a heart attack. The only real surprise is that he ever made it to such an age. Gainsbourg, whose unlovely but strangely beguiling countenance can best be likened to a garden gnome left outside in the rain for too long, was a performer and composer who epitomised French popular music of the 1960s and 1970s in all its bizarre contradictions. Compared to such wholesome British figures as Cliff Richard and Tom Jones, Gainsbourg was a seedy, almost sinister figure whose demeanour gave off an odour of stale aftershave, Gitanes and day-old red wine.  That he was also a songwriter of genius who has influenced countless other musicians – everyone from Jarvis Cocker and Radiohead to R.E.

Friday

Gavin Mortimer

British politics is turning French

From our US edition

An editorial in Friday’s Le Figaro (France’s equivalent to the New York Times) is headlined "Mélenchon or the moral suicide of the left." The same statement could be applied to Britain’s Green party. Their open pandering to the Muslim vote in Thursday’s Gorton & Denton by-election was arguably a new low in British politics. It wasn’t just Israel and so-called Islamophobes who were targeted (in Urdu) in their campaign leaflets and videos, so was India. Le Figaro’s scathing critique of the left-wing populist leader Jean-Luc Melenchon was written as a reaction to his visit to Lyon on Thursday evening. A fortnight earlier 23-year-old Quentin Deranque had been kicked to death in Lyon, allegedly by a far-left mob.

Wednesday

Charles Moore

Am I a Zionist?

The death of Quentin Deranque is strangely under-reported here. He was a 23-year-old beaten up in Lyon on 12 February by supporters of the main party of the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise (FI). He had been part of a group escorting what the BBC website calls ‘far-right feminists’, helping them protest against the visit to a university by a far-left politician. There was a fracas in the street with masked opponents connected with the Young Guard, a leftist FI-related group declared illegal last year. Deranque died of his injuries two days later. One of those arrested is a special adviser to an FI deputy.

Wednesday

Gavin Mortimer

France can no longer ignore the menace of left-wing violence

Police in France arrested nine people on Tuesday evening in connection with the death of a 23-year-old student in Lyon last Thursday. Most of those in custody are members of the "Young Guard," an extremist splinter group of Antifa. Among them is reportedly a parliamentary assistant to an MP from Jean-Luc Melenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI). For many years Melenchon – along with swathes of France’s left-leaning mainstream media – have turned a blind eye to the activities of the Young Guard They are being questioned about the events that led to the death of Quentin Deranque. Hours earlier Deranque, a nationalist, had been providing security to a feminist group who were protesting about the appearance of Rima Hassan at the Institute of Political Studies in Lyon.

Thursday

Gavin Mortimer

Why Emmanuel Macron has declared war on X

Investigators from the Paris prosecutor's cyber-crime unit raided the offices of X in the French capital on Tuesday in what Elon Musk described as a "political attack." The raid was part of an inquiry into whether X, which Musk has owned since 2022, has violated French law. In particular, the prosecutor’s office said it was investigating complicity "in possession or organized distribution of images of children of a pornographic nature... sexual deepfakes and fraudulent data extraction by an organized group." X has denied any wrongdoing. Musk and the former chief executive of X, Linda Yaccarino, have been asked to attend hearings in April. Yaccarino, who left the company last year, echoed Musk’s declaration, accusing France of waging "a political vendetta against Americans.

macron x

Monday

Gavin Mortimer

Should trains have child-free carriages?

Amid the distractions of Donald Trump and Davos, France’s state-owned railway operator decided last week was the opportune time to slip out some news. Welcome to ‘Optimum’, the new and exclusive area of the train where kids are not welcome. Business people and misopedists travelling to and from Paris on the weekday high-speed TGV services will no longer have to tolerate the under-12s. The operator, SNCF, justified its ban on children by stating it would enhance the travelling experience of those who cherish ‘exclusive comfort in a fully dedicated first-class carriage, with seating arrangements designed to preserve your privacy, for a calm journey, ideal for working or relaxing’.

Saturday

Ian Maxwell

Nicolas Sarkozy’s inside story from Parisian prison

From our US edition

Nicolas Sarkozy’s prison memoir is a slender book about a short sentence that nonetheless makes for compulsive reading. It is unintentionally comic, occasionally moving and almost always politically calculating. This, despite the weight of its author’s self-importance, moral evasions and intermittent self-awareness. Sarkozy, 71, was sentenced to five years for criminal conspiracy linked to Libyan money in his 2007 presidential campaign. He served less than three weeks in Paris’s La Santé prison before being released under judicial supervision to finish his punishment at home, pending an appeal to be heard in March. He used the time efficiently, producing more than ten pages of writing a day. The result is a compact 200-plus-page chronicle of noise, bad showers and damaged pride.

sarkozy

Wednesday

Gavin Mortimer

The EU vs the farmers

It was a weekend of mixed emotions for the European Union. There was the news from Donald Trump that he will impose a 10 per cent tariff on eight European countries in retaliation for their opposition to his plans to take control of Greenland. But on a brighter note, the EU finally signed the Mercosur trade agreement with several South American countries. The European Commission hailed it as the creation of ‘a free-trade zone of roughly 700 million people’, one which they promise will save EU companies more than €4 billion a year in customs duties. Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission president, said: ‘We choose fair trade over tariffs, we chose a productive long-term partnership over isolation.

Friday

Gavin Mortimer

Is Steve Bannon right about Jordan Bardella?

From our US edition

Marine Le Pen returned to a court in Paris on Tuesday as her appeal began against her five-year ban from political life. The leader of the National Rally was disqualified in March last year after she was found guilty of misusing €4 million ($4.6 million) of funds from the European Union. She claims she is the victim of a political witch-hunt, a view supported by President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D Vance. The appeal will last a month and the verdict is expected in June. If Le Pen is successful she will be able to run in the presidential election in April 2027. If she fails, however, it will be her protege, 30-year-old Jordan Bardella, who will represent the National Rally.

jordan bardella

Friday

Gavin Mortimer

The French obsession with Epstein

From our US edition

The ongoing revelations about the rich and famous who rubbed shoulders with Jeffrey Epstein are receiving extensive coverage in France. Print and broadcast media have pored over the details of the deceased sex offender and the famous names contained in the Epstein files, from princes to presidents to pop stars. There is a French connection to Epstein in model scout Jean-Luc Brunel, who was alleged to have trafficked girls for the pedophile financier. He was arrested at Charles de Gaulle Airport in 2020 and was found hanged in his prison cell two years later. But overwhelmingly what the French media have described as l’affaire Epstein is an Anglo-Saxon sex scandal. ‘Isn’t a certain tolerance for infidelity what the French have given the western world, along with great wine?

James Tidmarsh

France’s bistros are dying

Emmanuel Macron says France’s traditional bistros should be granted Unesco world heritage status. Speaking at the Élysée this week, the French president vowed to help save the country's traditional cafes. "This is a fight that we want to take on, because our cafés and bistros aren’t just selling croissants, baguettes and traditional products – they’re also on the front lines of preserving French craftsmanship and know-how," Macron told a group of French bakers at the annual Epiphany cake ceremony. France doesn't need to list its bistros. It needs to decide whether it still wants them Macron is right about what the bistro represents. For generations, it has been a shared meeting place as much as a commercial one; somewhere to linger and belong.

Wednesday

Gavin Mortimer

George Clooney has been seduced by a French fantasy

Bonjour and bienvenue to the Clooneys. Gorgeous George, his wife Amal and their eight-year-old twins have been granted French citizenship. The Hollywood actor has long had a deep streak of Europhilia, owning luxury properties in Berkshire and Lake Como, Italy, as well as his pad in Provence. Located near the village of Brignoles, the Clooneys’ €9 million wine estate spans 425 acres, including an olive grove, swimming pool and tennis court. In an interview last month with a French radio station, 64-year-old Clooney declared (in English) that ‘I love the French culture, your language, even if I'm still bad at it after 400 days of courses’. He also praised France’s privacy laws, citing them as the principal reason he and his wife want to raise their children there.