France

Behind the biggest recent upsets in Western politics lurk two influential advisors: one a scruffy far-right American ideologue who has become a household name; the other a clean-cut Frenchman just over 30 who has always avoided the limelight – until now. Without Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s campaign boss in the final stages of the election, the US president might be promoting golf resorts and picking fights on Twitter full-time now, not running the United States. While in France, Emmanuel Macron’s extraordinary election victory in 2017, six months after Trump’s, would not have been possible without the discreet work of Ismael Emelien. Trump and Macron are often portrayed as the ying

Why aren’t we Brits talking about the revolt just across the English Channel? Our silence on the gilets jaunes and their spectacular, sustained rebellion against the increasingly tyrannical rule of Emmanuel Macron has become pathological. There’s been barely any BBC coverage, no words of solidarity from Corbynistas, not a peep from the trade union movement. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary French people have marched, raged and clashed with the Macron government and Britain looks the other way. It’s bizarre. Our disregard deserves an explanation. This weekend was Act 24 of the gilets jaunes revolt. Named after the yellow vests that all motorists in France must have in their vehicles, the

‘Great edifices, like great mountains, are the work of centuries,’ wrote Victor Hugo in Notre-Dame de Paris. ‘The man, the artist, the individual, is effaced in these great masses, which lack the name of their author. Human intelligence is there summed up and totalised.’ The foundation stone of the cathedral of Our Lady of Paris was laid 850 years ago, but it was the work of generations, and took 200 years to complete. It soon became one of the greatest churches in Christendom and, as such, was ripe for desecration by the Jacobin fanatics of the French Revolution. In 1793, its altar was torn out in a ceremony that was

Chinese president Xi Jinping came to France and is taking home 300 Airbus jetliners, a large consignment of frozen chickens and a wind farm. A great triumph for France, declared Emmanuel Macron. And for Macron? Never mind that many of the planes will be built in China. Or that Airbus is no longer a French company but an international one, although headquartered in Toulouse. Or that the hens are unlikely to be free range. It’s hard to argue with a cheque for £30 billion. Or to stop a politician taking credit for a deal that’s been in the works for years. To cement his triumph, Macron hosts Xi today at

Back in December, Emmanuel Macron was a man on edge. His poll numbers were spiralling down the toilet; hundreds of thousands of French who felt alienated from their government were taking to the streets to shout down the French elite in cities and towns across the country; and fires were burning all around Paris. Police officers and protesters-turned-rioters were on the frontlines trading rocks and rubber bullets, resulting in hundreds (if not thousands) of arrests. Macron, the blue-eyed, fresh-faced technocratic politician who marketed himself during the 2017 presidential contest as the Fifth French Republic’s aspiring saviour, was left twiddling his thumbs in the presidential mansion wondering how to address the

Who needs the Comédie-Française when there is Emmanuel Macron in the Élysée? France’s recall last week of its ambassador from Italy for consultation was pure theatre on the part of the president. And it was a decision more for the benefit of his domestic audience than for the coalition government in Rome. In a statement explaining why Christian Masset had been ordered home, the foreign office said that for several months France has been subjected to outrageous statements that have created a ‘serious situation which is raising questions about the Italian government’s intentions towards France.’ France blamed the recall on Luigi Di Maio, the Italian deputy prime minster, who flew to