Gavin Mortimer

'Let's all get behind Les Bleus for victory!' tweeted Emmanuel Macron shortly before France and Morocco met last night in Qatar in the semi-final of the World Cup. 'Without ever forgetting that sport brings us together above all in the respect and friendship between our two nations.' A worthy sentiment from the president but not everyone listened: certainly not some of the Moroccan fans in the Al Bayt Stadium, who greeted the playing of the La Marseillaise with a cacophony of whistling.   As for the match itself, the French did to Morocco what they had done to England in the quarter-final, punishing the profligacy of their opponents with two clinical strikes in a pulsating contest.

Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron rekindled their bromance on Saturday, swapping tweets prior to England’s World Cup quarter-final clash with France. It was a bit of fun, diplomatic joshing, but Sunday morning will have felt a whole lot sweeter for the president of France.  He is a genuine football fan, not something that can be said of the Prime Minister, but Macron also knows how important this World Cup is for a France mired in economic and social woe. The same was true for England, and Sunak must have cursed Harry Kane more than most as he ballooned the ball over the bar from the penalty spot.   The World Cup was the last chance to end a disastrous year for the Conservative party on a positive note.

One of my most delightful sporting experiences was watching the 2018 World Cup match between England and Tunisia in a Parisian bar. My English friend and I were heavily outnumbered by Tunisians but we were made to feel welcome in a festival of dancing and singing. Even when Harry Kane scored a late winner it didn’t dampen the spirits of the young Tunisians, many of whom were beer-drinking women.  I imagine they celebrated long into the night last week when Tunisia beat France in the World Cup, a shock victory that was greeted with good-natured joy by Tunisians across France.  Another North African nation has also been making its mark in Qatar, and Morocco’s defeat of Spain on Tuesday took them into the quarter-final of the World Cup for the first time.

The French have adopted a ‘when in Rome’ approach to the World Cup in Qatar, refraining from virtue-signalling their disapproval of their host's beliefs. As their captain, Hugo Lloris,  put it last week: ‘When we are in France, when we welcome foreigners, we often want them to follow our rules, to respect our culture, and I will do the same when I go to Qatar, quite simply. I can agree or disagree with their ideas, but I have to show respect.’ Of all western countries, France expects those who settle from different cultures to adhere to Republican values, particularly that of laïcité (secularism). This is in contrast to the multiculturalism of the Anglosphere where the prevalent philosophy is one of cheerful tolerance.

On the Sunday that Britain honoured its war dead, France remembered its fallen from the terrible evening of 13 November, 2015. One hundred and thirty Parisians were massacred at various venues across the capital. A subsequent investigation revealed that two of the Islamist terror cell had entered Europe from the Middle East by blending in among migrants. A year after the Paris atrocity, Monika Hohlmeier MEP, the European Parliament's chief negotiator on a new European terrorism law, outlined the EU’s determination to keep its citizens safe from future attacks. Hohlmeier placed particular emphasis on tightening the 'great deficiencies that became visible at the EU's external borders over the last months'.

France has adopted a different approach to the World Cup in Qatar than most of its European rivals. While the likes of England, Denmark and Germany will virtue signal their disapproval of the Gulf State’s views on various issues, France is set to remain silent.   Their captain, Hugo Lloris, the Tottenham goalkeeper, has said he won’t be joining other European skippers in donning an anti-discrimination armband during the tournament. ‘When we are in France, when we welcome foreigners, we often want them to follow our rules, to respect our culture, and I will do the same when I go to Qatar,’ explained Lloris. ‘I can agree or disagree with their ideas, but I have to show respect.

Rishi Sunak's remarks about curbing illegal Channel immigration are certainly bullish, but whether he translates words into action will make or break his political career. How many other busted PMs have over-promised on this issue?  Sunak told the travelling press corps on a flight to Indonesia, where the G20 summit is being held, that tackling the Channel small boats crisis is his 'absolute priority'. Other than the Autumn statement, Sunak added, nothing has occupied him more in recent weeks than what he described as ‘illegal migration’ between France and Britain.   Admitting that there are no short-term solutions, the PM nonetheless struck a positive note speaking to journalists.

Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron met on the fringes of Cop27 in Egypt on Monday and the Prime Minister emerged ‘confident and optimistic’ that a solution will soon be found to the Channel migrant crisis.  Sunak should be careful he doesn’t suffer the same fate as Boris Johnson, who made vigorous noises in 2019 about eradicating illegal immigration and then proved utterly incapable of fulfilling his pledges.   If the PM is serious about finding a solution to the migrant crisis he’ll require more than just the cooperation of the French President. He’ll need to hold talks with the EU, the Albanian government and Giorgia Meloni.   So far this year approximately 40,000 migrants have crossed the Channel in small boats.

In May 2000 a French newspaper published an article which declared that ‘The Albanian mafia is corrupting Europe’. Le Parisien reported on an official Interpol document that described a ‘perfectly organised’ criminal network emanating from Albania, with its tentacles spreading west. Drugs, prostitution, gun-running and illegal immigration were the pillars of this syndicate, which had strong links with the Italian and Turkish mafias.  The Interpol report noted that 40 per cent of the heroin dealers arrested in Austria the previous year were Albanian, and Le Parisien reminded its readers that recently prostitution networks in the cities of Nice, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Metz and Nancy had been run by the Albanian mafia.

In the three years since its landslide victory in the 2019 election, the Conservative party has shed nearly seven million voters. The astonishing statistic was revealed in a report by the centre right think-tank Onward, released on the same day Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister; at least he’s in no doubt as to the scale of his challenge. To stave off disaster, Onward’s Will Tanner (a former adviser to Theresa May while she was PM) said the Tories must aim to hit a ‘sweet spot’: by appealing to the six in ten voters who are ‘left of centre on the economy, but…socially and culturally conservative’. This year Marine Le Pen’s National Rally found that sweet spot among the French electorate, winning 89 seats in the parliamentary elections.

One in four Italians who voted at last month's election backed Giorgia Meloni’s conservative Brothers of Italy party – that is 7,302,517 men and women. Second in the general election was the centre-left Democratic party with 5,356,180 votes with 19 per cent. In other words, Meloni’s victory was resounding. Coming as it did after the brief premiership of the unelected Mario Draghi one might even call it a victory for democracy. Yet the western reaction to Italy electing its first female prime minister was overwhelmingly cold and aloof.

A penny for the thoughts of Emmanuel Macron on Saturday when it seemed Boris Johnson might once more occupy No. 10. Hasta la Vista, baby. Oh Mon Dieu, non! Macron’s opinion of the former PM is on record, and the French in general were aghast at the prospect of Boris back in charge. One newspaper asked its readers in an online poll if they would welcome a second dose of Johnson: of the 240,000 people who responded, three-quarters said no. There was a time when BoJo was all the rage in France. In the summer of 2021 he was more popular than Macron – not hard, admittedly, given his unpopularity in many quarters – but eventually the French concluded that their president was right: Johnson is a clown. The events of recent weeks have bemused the French.

Last Sunday I marched through Paris with tens of thousands of disgruntled Frenchmen and women. I was there to observe, not holler and sing like those around me, a mix of Socialists, Communists and Greens. They had much that they wanted to get off their chest: the cost of living, ‘climate inaction’, the war in Ukraine, the state of the health system and their opposition to social security reform. On Thursday it was the right who marched in Paris, led by Éric Zemmour, on the streets to voice their anger about the horrific murder of a 12-year-old in Paris. They see it as symptomatic of an immigration system they claim is broken.