France

A political storm has swept France in recent days. It follows the publication of an open letter by twenty retired generals to Emmanuel Macron. In their declaration, originally published on an obscure website and then reproduced in conservative magazine, Valeurs Actuelles, the officers warned that Islamist terrorism was pushing France towards civil war. The reaction among the political class was predictable. Marine Le Pen invited the signatories (1,000 in total) to join her National Rally party, while the government condemned the letter as 'irresponsible'. It promised action if any serving soldiers or gendarmes have put their name to to it. Some on the left want a criminal investigation launched, accusing those behind the letter of 'provocation and disobedience'.

Another day, another Islamist murder in France — this time, a 49-year-old policewoman fatally stabbed in the neck by a Tunisian man screaming 'Allahu Akbar.' She was murdered in her own station, in Rambouillet, 25 miles south of Magnanville, where in 2016 an Islamist stabbed a husband and wife police couple to death in front of their three-year-old child. In the intervening years there have been numerous police officers killed by men of a similar ideology, to the point now where the brutal slaying of a female officer slips down the news pecking order after just one day. Such is the acceptance in France of Islamist terrorism. C'est la vie. What’s striking, now, is the lack of outrage. The murder did not even lead the French television news.

Many years ago I married into a family of the French working-class. They came from Aveyron, La France Profonde, and most were dyed-in-the-wool socialists. But at a barbecue in the summer of 2002 one, Fabien, admitted that he had cast his ballot for Jean-Marie Le Pen in the recent election. A quarrel ensued but the young man stood his ground. His car had been broken into three times in a matter of months and the police in Marseille had shown no interest. Voting for Le Pen was Fabien's protest at the police indifference to petty crime. Twenty years later and it is no longer unusual to discover young people who vote for Le Pen’s daughter, Marine.

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.

President Emmanuel Macron announced today the closure of the notorious École Nationale d’Administration, the elite finishing school for the senior civil servants and politicians who have wrecked France. Perhaps nothing could serve France better than burning down its Strasbourg campus and salting the earth, but there’s less to this than meets the eye. This is the third time he’s announced this. Statism is the religion of ENA, which explains why its brilliant graduates have conspicuously failed to create a single Google, Amazon, Facebook or Apple.

In some ways you have to admire the sheer shamelessness of the French government. To spend the start of the year slagging off the AstraZeneca vaccine before threatening the seize those very same jabs showed a degree of brazenness that excelled even the usual French standards. But to accuse the UK of blackmailing Paris and her European neighbours must be the peak of Gallic gall.  The French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian spoke to a radio show this week in which he criticised the UK's vaccine programme. He told listeners: 'You can't be playing like this, a bit of blackmail, just because [the UK] hurried to get people vaccinated with a first shot.' He then denounced the British government's plan to ensure that it...

There may be a touch of the Monday blues for Emmanuel Macron this morning as he scans the headlines in France. A new poll reveals that vaccine scepticism in his country has reached record levels, thanks to his recent belittling of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Sixty-one per cent of those canvassed expressed their doubts about the vaccine, up 18 per cent from last month. Only 23 per cent said they had confidence in the AstraZeneca jab. In contrast, 75 per cent of British people have faith in the vaccine. But if the French are increasingly reluctant to be vaccinated, they are determined to enjoy the arrival of spring – Covid restrictions or not. In Marseille yesterday around 6,500 people danced and partied at a street carnival, many of them wearing fancy dress.