France

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?

From our UK edition

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

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?

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

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.

Wednesday

Diane Cole

In defense of Renoir’s pretty pictures

Those who think it’s chic to dismiss Renoir have a rethink coming, courtesy of the absorbing, highly informative exhibit Renoir Drawings, now on view in New York. Not so long ago, the idea of ousting Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) from the canon of western art sparked a movement of sorts. “RENOIR SUCKS AT PAINTING,” proclaimed a protester’s sign at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 2015. The performance artist Max Geller had organized the demonstration to condemn Renoir as a purveyor of “treacle.” His female nudes objectified women, it charged; even when clothed, they smiled and blushed too prettily. Indeed, Renoir’s work held value only for the unsophisticated and its popularity represented the triumph of the cliché.

renoir
Roger Kimball

Flirting with Passetoutgrain, Burgundy Pinot Noir’s fun sister

In his History of the Franks, Gregory of Tours (c. 539-594) wrote one of my favorite opening sentences: “A great many things keep happening, some of them good, some of them bad.” Who can disagree? Gregory’s works are full of interesting morsels. Writing about the miracles of St. Julian, for example, he notes that a cask of wine that was left half empty was found “overflowing and forming a rivulet of wine across the floor. Although drawn from repeatedly, the cask remained full until the next day.” A good fellow to have around, that Julian. Gregory seems to have taken a keen interest in wine. He was one of the first people to opine about the wines of Burgundy. which he compared to storied Roman Falernian in 591. What do you suppose that wine was like?

Monday

Gavin Mortimer

Will bromance bloom between Trump and Jordan Bardella?

Life has never been so good for Jordan Bardella, the 30-year-old president of Marine Le Pen's National Rally. A recent opinion poll had him as the runaway favorite to win the 2027 presidential election. One man who believes in his credentials is the former president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. Now out of prison and promoting the book he wrote during his 20-day incarceration, the center-right Sarkozy said that Bardella reminds him of a young Jacques Chirac. Despite Sarkozy’s conviction for criminal conspiracy, he retains a large and loyal fanbase among the metropolitan boomer bourgeois, a demographic that the National Rally has traditionally struggled to attract.

bardella
Gavin Mortimer

France is becoming a nation of sexless puritans

From our UK edition

Bring back brothels! It’s not your typical political slogan, but Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has launched a campaign to reopen and regulate France’s brothels for the benefit of sex workers. In an interview last week Jean-Philippe Tanguy, one of Le Pen’s senior MPs, said his party would table a bill to reopen the brothels – known as maisons closes in France – which were closed in 1946. ‘The prostitutes would be empresses in their own kingdom,’ explained Tanguy. Le Pen’s party believes that regulated brothels would better protect sex workers from violence. But some on the left are outraged at the proposition. In an op-ed in the left-wing L'Humanité newspaper, 12 lawyers dismissed the idea as a ‘fascist project’.

Tuesday

Owen Matthews

What Ukraine really needs from Europe

If bear hugs were army divisions and brave words cash euros, Volodymyr Zelensky would have ended his tour of European capitals this week the best-armed and best-funded leader in the world. "We stand with Ukraine," vowed British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer after hosting a summit for Zelensky and top European allies at Downing Street on Monday. "We support you in the conflict and support you in the negotiations to make sure that this is a just and lasting settlement." Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared that "nobody should doubt our support for Ukraine" and added that "the destiny of this country is the destiny of Europe." France’s President Emmanuel Macron promised that Europe has "a lot of cards in our hands.

Saturday

James Tidmarsh

Paris is a city afraid

From our UK edition

The New Year’s Eve concert on the Champs Élysées has been cancelled for security reasons. Paris was supposed to host its usual spectacle. A free open-air concert at the Arc de Triomphe, video projections on the monument and the midnight festivities that once drew close to a million people. Instead, the concert has been scrapped. It will be replaced on national television with a prerecorded concert filmed weeks ago with a handpicked crowd to mimic a celebration Paris no longer believes it can safely host. A capital once famed for its public life now performs it under studio conditions. It marks the collapse of what used to be one of the simplest pleasures of Parisian life. For decades families and friends would spill out onto the streets on New Year’s Eve.

Tuesday

Gavin Mortimer

Are America’s women heading for the exit?

Life is apparently so disagreeable in Donald Trump’s America that 40 percent of women aged between 15 and 44 want to leave. That is four times higher than the 10 percent who wanted to quit the US in 2014. According to Gallup, which conducted the poll, nearly half the nation’s younger women have “lost faith in America’s institutions.” This disenchantment accelerated after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which enshrined the constitutional right to abortion. Younger American men are bearing up better. Only 19 percent share women’s distaste for the Donald, a 21 percent differential which is the largest recorded by Gallup since it began asking the question in 2007.

Women
Monet
Diane Cole

Monet’s Venetian moment

If you crave art that will envelop you, book a ticket, pronto, to Monet and Venice at the Brooklyn Museum. Enveloppe was the term the French impressionist artist Claude Monet (1840-1926) used to describe the “beauty of the air around” the objects and landscapes he painted. “Other painters paint a bridge, a house, a boat… I want to paint the air in which the bridge, the house, and the boat are to be found – the beauty of the air around them, and that is nothing less than the impossible,” he said.

Tuesday

Cockburn

A poultry affair at the White House

The call sheet for this afternoon’s event at the White House was as imposing as ever: WHO: The President Mrs. Melania Trump, First Lady of the United States Gobble, Turkey Waddle, Turkey Putin at 10, turkeys at 12, home to Mar-a-Lago for Thanksgiving by nightfall. A typical day in the Trump presidency. This year’s birds, Gobble and Waddle, hail from Wayne County, North Carolina, and will return to live out their days at North Carolina State University. Luckily they aren’t from Venezuela, else Pete Hegseth would have turned them into a cloud of red vapor and feathers already. Cockburn helped himself to a cup of hot apple cider from the White House staff and settled in at the back of the press area.

turkey

Tuesday

Dan Fox

Is this the end of the French croissant?

Occasionally, a French person reveals – without any malice or superciliousness – that they run on an alternative operating system from us Brits. And on an entirely different motherboard from our American cousins. Over the years of gathering supporting anecdotes, a surprising theme has emerged: butter. Take my first visit to Paris, more than 30 years ago. I innocently asked for butter with my croissant. Simple answer: “Non.” Naturally, I remonstrated. The waiter retorted: “A croissant eeez butter!” And, in fairness, he had a point. Upon biting into said viennoiserie, I had to concede: it was nothing like the dry grocery store versions I was used to. Moments later, a small pot of raspberry confiture was graciously placed on my table.

croissants
Gavin Mortimer

Did the Louvre robbers want to get caught?

It is more than a month since thieves stole the crown jewels from the Louvre and the chances of recovering the loot, worth an estimated €88 million, diminish with every passing day. The robbery was initially dubbed the “heist of the century,” a brazen theft in broad daylight as visitors strolled through the world’s most famous museum. There were up and down the ladder and in out of the museum in seven minutes, giving the impression that this was the work of villains well-versed in daring robberies. But soon details emerged that suggested the gang of four weren’t quite of the caliber of the thieves immortalized in the Hollywood movie Ocean’s Eleven.