Gavin Mortimer

There is a deadline today in France. It was set by Marine Le Pen last week for Michel Barnier. Show me you’re serious about respecting me and my party, she told the prime minister, or I will bring down your government. The ultimatum, ostensibly at least, concerns Barnier’s budget for 2025, and the ‘red lines’ that Le Pen demands must not be crossed if she’s to desist from supporting the left’s vote of no confidence. The sanctimonious hypocrisy of the French elite never ceases to amaze There have already been concessions of Barnier’s part, notably his withdrawal last week of a tax on electricity and a promise to reduce state medical aid.

When the history of the twentieth century is written, one of the questions that will puzzle historians is the sanctification of Angela Merkel, whose memoir is published today. Merkel was Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2015, and chosen as the third most powerful person in the world by  Forbes in 2016. When she stepped down as Chancellor in 2021 after 16 years in power, she was described by the BBC as someone who ‘has given her country what it expects from a leader: a voice of calm in a turbulent and shifting world’. In its tribute to Merkel, the Washington Post described her as ‘one of the savviest and most powerful leaders in the world’.

Jaguar's disastrous makeover has left many people wondering if it isn't April Fool’s Day. It's not, of course. After 89 years of success with pale, stale males, Jaguar – which is relaunching as an electric-only brand – has decided a new clientele is in order. Jaguar is gambling on attracting a younger, urban Progressive customer Its logo, written as JaGUar, 'seamlessly blend(s) upper and lower case characters in visual harmony', the company claims. Jaguar's managing director, Rawdon Glover – who gives his pronouns on LinkedIn as 'he/him' – declared that ‘the time for us to take small, conservative steps has gone’. Jaguar wants new customers, who will ‘be younger than before, affluent, urban, looking for exclusivity’.

Paris prosecutors last week recommended that Marine Le Pen be jailed and banned from public office for five years. The court also wants similar sentences for 24 members of the party who, along with Le Pen, are accused of misusing public funds. The prosecutor accuses Le Pen of using money intended for EU parliamentary aides to instead pay staff who worked for the party between 2009 and 2016. The defence’s argument is that it’s hard to differentiate between what constitutes EU work and party work as the two often overlap. The judges will study the evidence and a verdict is expected in early 2025.

European farmers have called for a day of protest in Brussels on Wednesday, 48 hours before the EU is expected to sign the Mercosur trade deal. The agreement, which has taken two decades to negotiate, will give Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay access to EU markets. It will be good for the German car industry, and disastrous for European farmers, particularly smaller farms. The president of one farmers’ union in France, Véronique Le Floc’h, has said the deal will likely lead to the ‘death’ of French farming.

There has always been a touch of snobbery in the way the French elite regard American politics. The word one reads and hears most often in the mainstream media is ‘vulgarity’. This is particularly true of Donald Trump, who is abhorred as much by the right-wing press as by the left. ‘Trump, vulgarity on the loose,’ was the headline in a recent article in the centre-right Le Figaro. This snootiness is long-standing, but it became more acute two decades ago during the war in Iraq. France’s refusal – correct, as it turned out – to join George W. Bush’s ‘coalition of the willing’ led to a torrent of abuse in Washington. The French were labelled ‘cheese-eating surrender monkeys’ and in some restaurants French fries were rechristened ‘Freedom Fries’.

The United Nations this week criticised France for refusing to allow women and girls to wear a Muslim headscarf on the sports field. In a report published on Monday, a panel comprised of what the UN called ‘independent experts’ concluded that France’s measures banning women from wearing hijabs in sports were ‘discriminatory’. The experts said that the measures ‘infringe on individuals’ [French athletes’] rights to express their religion, identity and beliefs, as well as their right to participate in cultural life’.

A French MP was apprehended by police in Paris last week as he bought 1.35 grams of the designer drug ‘3-MMC’ from a teenager dealer. Andy Kerbrat, who is a member of the far-left La France Insoumise, admitted this on Tuesday and confessed to being addicted. The reaction from most MPs was largely sympathetic. He’s not the first parliamentarian to have admitted his use of narcotics. Last year Emmanuel Pellerin, a member of Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, confessed to cocaine use and a senator was arrested by police after he was accused of drugging a female MP as part of a plan to carry out a sexual assault (he has denied any wrongdoing).