Gavin Mortimer

Emmanuel Macron has lost a friend in Keir Starmer. The French President paid tribute to the outgoing British Prime Minister last week, describing him as a man of ‘dignity, decency and courage’. When one door closes another one opens, and while Starmer was organising the removal vans, Macron was welcoming Giorgia Meloni to the Côte d’Azur. Last week’s Franco-Italian summit was the first of its kind since 2020; Meloni was elected prime minister two years later. For Macron, she posed a threat to European ‘values’ because her party had its roots in postwar fascism Her victory did not go down well with Macron and his centrist government.

Norway plays the Ivory Coast tomorrow afternoon in the first knockout phase of the soccer World Cup, and one suspects the New York Times will be backing the Norsemen. The Gray Lady has gone gaga for Norway’s "Viking Row," a synchronized routine where fans mime the rowing of a Viking longboat to the bang of a drum. It’s caught on among the Norwegian players as well as politicians back in Norway, who performed the row in parliament last week. For the last two weeks the NYT has been publishing breathless pieces about the zany Norwegians and their Viking antics. “The 'Viking Row' is in full flow” was one headline on June 18; five days later they described how it "has taken the World Cup by storm." And their editorial office from the sound of things.

Britain and France have rewritten the ‘one in, one out’ migrant deal nearly a year after it came into effect. The treaty, described as ‘groundbreaking’ by both countries last summer, has struggled to stem the numbers of migrants heading from France to England in small boats. It soon became apparent that the deal contained a loophole that enabled a handful of deported migrants to return to Britain in the back of a lorry. The Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has agreed with her French counterpart, Laurent Nuñez, to close this loophole by tweaking the treaty to stipulate that its terms apply to any returning migrant regardless of whether they enter a second time by boat or by vehicle.

France kick off their World Cup campaign today against Senegal – and it seems almost inevitable that, win or lose, there will be ugly scenes on the streets of France during the tournament. Shops were looted, cars burned and police officers attacked by mobs In some cities, a curfew have been imposed. Clermont and Toulouse have ordered all unaccompanied under 16s to stay indoors between the hours of 10pm and 5am. The curfew applies only to certain matches, those judged to be ‘high-risk’; these include all France matches and some involving Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. Jean-Luc Moudenc, the centre-right mayor of Toulouse, justified the curfew by pointing to the “incidents during the Champions League final”.

The Sudanese man who is in custody in Belfast settled in the city after travelling through Paris and Dublin. In 2023, he was given asylum by the British Home Office. That same year, Sudan descended into civil war, a conflict that continues to rage with appalling accounts of barbarity. On the one side are the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and on the other the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Caught in the middle are civilians, particularly women and children, who are being abused by both sides. Earlier this year, the UN’s Human Rights Council accused combatants of displaying ‘utter disregard for human life’. Schools, hospitals and markets have been targeted indiscriminately, and ‘bodies of Sudanese women and girls have been weaponised to terrorise communities’.

France has maxed out on migrants. It’s a message that Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party has been pushing for years, but it’s one now endorsed by the government’s Justice Minister. In an interview with a newspaper at the weekend, Gérald Darmanin declared that the Republic has ‘reached the limits of our capacities for integration and assimilation’. Darmanin believes that a three-year suspension of legal immigration is the answer, and in particular he wants a crackdown on the policy of family reunification. Introduced in 1976, the policy allowed migrants – mainly from North Africa – who came to France to work to also bring their family. ‘We must put an end to immigration as it exists today,’ said Darmanin.

France is ready to elect its first openly gay president. That is the belief of Gabriel Attal, who discusses his homosexuality in the memoir that was published yesterday. Attal became the first gay prime minister of the Republic when he was nominated by Emmanuel Macron in January 2024. At 34, he was also the youngest, a man described as a ‘mini Macron’. Attal is busily promoting his oeuvre – En Homme Libre (As a Free Man) – with media interviews and book-signing appearances. He told one radio station yesterday that being gay was ‘not at all’ a barrier to becoming president. ‘Our country is more open and tolerant than it realises,’ declared Attal.

Belgium is becoming the new point of departure for the gangs who traffic migrants across the Channel to England. It is reported that small boats are being launched from the Belgian coast, which then sail west to France, collecting migrants as if they were passengers waiting for a bus. The Belgian towns of Middelkerke, Nieuwpoort, De Haan and De Panne have all been identified as launch sites for migrant boats. According to Frontex, Europe’s border security agency, they began noticing a change in the smugglers’ tactics at the start of this year. Last year, there were no recorded cases of small boats setting out from the Belgian coast but in the first two months of this year, five vessels were detected.