Gavin Mortimer

The good news for the French police is that three of the four people suspected of carrying off the ‘heist of the century’ at the Louvre last month are in custody. The bad news is that the crown jewels they stole, worth an estimated €88 million (£76 million), have yet to be recovered. Given the audacity of the robbery, committed on a Sunday morning as the museum opened its doors to the public, it was assumed by many that the theft was the work of seasoned professionals. The profile of those arrested paints a different picture: they are petty criminals, hailing from Seine-Saint-Denis, the impoverished department north of Paris. The DNA they left at the scene of the crime enabled police to put names to prints very quickly.

Ten people have been on trial this week in Paris, accused of transphobic cyberbullying against Brigitte Macron. France’s first lady, the wife of Emmanuel Macron, pressed charges after a claim that she was in fact a man went global. Some of those in the dock have apologised for spreading the allegations online but others have said that it’s just a bit of harmless fun and that in a free country one should be able to say what one likes. This argument was dismissed by Brigitte Macron’s lawyer, Jean Ennochi, who said: ‘They all talk to you about freedom of expression, defamation, they completely deny cyberbullying [and] mob harassment.’ Prosecutors have demanded suspended prison sentences ranging from three to twelve months for the accused.

This week has been a tale of two presidents. On the one hand there is Donald Trump, who has masterminded a peace deal between Israel and Hamas which, the world hopes, will end the conflict in Gaza. Even Trump’s long-standing detractors acknowledge his role in bringing the warring parties to the negotiating table. "Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed to this breakthrough," explained the BBC. It hasn’t been such a good week for Emmanuel Macron. On the contrary it’s been the most humiliating few days of his eight and a half years in office. On Monday his Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, tendered his resignation after 27 days in office. It was the shortest premiership in the 67 years of the Fifth Republic.

In a sensational development, Sébastien Lecornu has resigned as prime minister of France. His departure, after 27 days in office, makes the 39-year-old the shortest reigning premier of the Fifth Republic. Lecornu’s resignation is a humiliation for him, for France and for Emmanuel Macron. The president has now worked his way through seven prime ministers in eight years, a Fifth Republic record he shares with Francois Mitterrand. He, however, presided over France for fourteen years. The catalyst for Lecornu’s departure was the new government he unveiled on Sunday evening The catalyst for Lecornu’s departure was the new government he unveiled on Sunday evening. He has promised a ‘break’ with Macron’s centrism, but when he announced his government it was anything but.

France will today officially recognise the state of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. In justifying his decision, Emmanuel Macron said that recognition ‘is the best way to isolate Hamas’, adding: ‘Now is the time to act – not tomorrow, not in ten years. If we don’t move, the conflict will only deepen, and the hope of peace will vanish.’ Some are cynical about the timing of the President's decision. ‘Emmanuel Macron is into performative politics,’ says Pierre Lellouche, who was a (Jewish) minister in Nicolas Sarkozy's government. ‘He's going to New York to make people forget the chaos reigning in France’. Macron’s declaration flies in the face of public opinion.

One million people protested in France yesterday. That was according to the trade unions, who organised the day of industrial action. The police estimated the number of demonstrators at half a million, 309 of whom were arrested for various misdemeanours. There were skirmishes between police and protestors in numerous cities across France, but the most significant incident was in Paris when a group of demonstrators gained entry into the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Among those protesting were nurses, pharmacists, air traffic controllers, transport workers and teachers. Next Friday it is the turn of farmers to take to the streets.

When Charles Kushner took up his appointment as American ambassador to France this summer, his first official visit was to the Shoah Memorial in Paris. As a child of Holocaust survivors, he tweeted, “fighting anti-Semitism will be at the heart of my mission.” So it has proved. Last month, Kushner published a letter in the Wall Street Journal in which he accused Emmanuel Macron of insufficient action in the face of soaring anti-Semitism in the Republic. The ambassador was summoned for a dressing down. He didn’t attend as he was on vacation Kushner also castigated the French President for his imminent recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Eric Zemmour will be in London on 13 September at the invitation of Tommy Robinson. In a message posted on X, the leader of France’s Reconquest Party said he will ‘stand alongside the hundreds of thousands of Britons demonstrating against the submergence of our countries.’ Zemmour is an advocate of the ‘Great Replacement’ theory Robinson is the organiser of what is being billed as a ‘Free Speech Festival’ in central London. It aims to bring together three movements: UTK (Unite the Kingdom), MEGA (Make Europe Great Again) and MAGA (Make America Great Again). Various left-wing groups, among them Socialist Worker and Stand Up to Racism, are encouraging their members to congregate in the capital on the same day for a counter-demonstration.

A decade ago today, on 31 August 2015, Angela Merkel made the unilateral decision to open Europe’s borders. The rallying cry of the German Chancellor has gone down in history: 'Wir schaffen das' – ‘We can do this’. If we can’t, she added, ‘if Europe fails on the question of refugees, then it won't be the Europe we wished for’. Merkel was motivated by conflict in the Middle East, notably in Syria and Iraq, but her invitation to seek refuge in Europe was seized on by many others. Of the estimated 1.3 million people who flooded into Europe in 2015, there were vast numbers of Afghans, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Nigerians, Moroccans, Algerians and Eritreans. And they kept arriving. Between 2015 and 2017, Germany accepted 1.4 million migrants.