Gavin Mortimer is a British author who lives in Burgundy after many years in Paris. He writes about French politics, terrorism and sport.
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The first round of voting in France’s municipal elections has laid bare the country’s deep fractures. In a turnout of 56 per cent yesterday, none of the parties emerged dominant ahead of this Sunday’s second round, but the results underlined the mainstream support now enjoyed by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and Jean-Luc Melenchon’s la
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A French soldier was killed on Thursday evening in the Erbil region of Iraq. In announcing the death of chief warrant officer Arnaud Frion, President Emmanuel Macron said he ‘died for France…engaged in the fight against Daesh [Islamic State]’. France has deployed hundreds of soldiers to Erbil – the Kurdistan region of Iraq – as part of
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Humiliated, disparaged and the object of global scorn for their lily-livered incompetence. But enough about the England rugby team. Last week was also deeply embarrassing for Sir Keir Starmer and his government. As President Donald Trump said of Britain’s Prime Minister: ‘This is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with.’ One might say something similar about Steve Borthwick, England’s head
French President Emmanuel Macron’s approval rating rose by six points last week. It will likely continue to climb following his visit to the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier on Monday. The pride of the French navy recently arrived in the eastern Mediterranean to protect Cyprus, and Macron was in his element as he strode across
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It is not just Donald Trump who believes Keir Starmer has failed to channel Winston Churchill. Now Cyprus have given the Prime Minister’s leadership a tongue-lashing. Kyriacos Kouros, the country’s high commissioner to the UK, has drawn unfavourable comparisons between the responses of France and Britain to Iran’s drone attack on the RAF base on
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As of Monday, migrants arriving in Britain no longer have the right to claim permanent asylum. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has changed the rules so that now migrants will be eligible only for temporary refugee status. Asylum seekers’ applications will be reviewed every 30 months, and they could be returned to their country of origin
America’s war on Iran has revealed much about its allies. Israel is as steadfast as ever, as secretary of war Pete Hegseth pointed out on Monday. Australia and Canada have also made clear their unequivocal support for the military action. Russia, for all its malevolence, does not have the means to stoke civil unrest in
An editorial in Friday’s Le Figaro (France’s equivalent to the New York Times) is headlined “Mélenchon or the moral suicide of the left.” The same statement could be applied to Britain’s Green party. Their open pandering to the Muslim vote in Thursday’s Gorton & Denton by-election was arguably a new low in British politics. It
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An avalanche in the French Alps claimed the lives of two skiers this week. In total, 30 skiers have lost their lives in one of the most deadly Alpine winters in memory. Like the majority of victims this season in France, the skiers had ignored avalanche warnings and ventured off-piste. Among the fatalities are two British skiers who were caught in
Washington’s warning last week about the spread of far-left violence in France did not go down well in Paris. In an interview on Sunday, France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot accused America of wading into a matter that “concerns only our national community”. This doesn’t surprise conservative commentators in France who have coined the phrase “Red
Police in France arrested nine people on Tuesday evening in connection with the death of a 23-year-old student in Lyon last Thursday. Most of those in custody are members of the “Young Guard,” an extremist splinter group of Antifa. Among them is reportedly a parliamentary assistant to an MP from Jean-Luc Melenchon’s La France Insoumise
Did Mariah Carey mime or not when she headlined the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Milan? That was the main takeaway from last month’s jamboree. Organizers have since suggested that the US singer did indeed lip-sync to Domenico Modugno’s “Nel Blu, dipinto di Blu” and the song that followed, her very own, “Nothing is Impossible.” “The technical, logistical and organizational complexities of an Olympic ceremony
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The news in France over the weekend was dominated by the resignation of Jack Lang as head of the prestigious Arab World Institute in Paris. In more ways than one, Lang is France’s answer to Peter Mandelson, a figurehead for the bourgeois left and a figure of loathing for those on the other side of
The French IT giant Capgemini has put its US subsidiary on sale because of its association with the work of ICE in America. All hell broke loose last week in France after it was revealed by the state broadcaster that Capgemini’s software was being used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify foreigners on US
Investigators from the Paris prosecutor’s cyber-crime unit raided the offices of X in the French capital on Tuesday in what Elon Musk described as a “political attack.” The raid was part of an inquiry into whether X, which Musk has owned since 2022, has violated French law. In particular, the prosecutor’s office said it was
Europe has come up with a way to hit back at Donald Trump. What began last week as a suggestion that the continent’s soccer nations should boycott this summer’s World Cup has grown into a popular campaign. As the New York Times reported earlier this week, the man who first floated the idea was Oke
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Two British men were arrested by French police in Calais on Sunday night. In a statement the Pas-de-Calais prefecture said the pair were detained ‘during an identity check while they were posting a video on social media’. Prosecutor Cecile Gressier said the men, aged 50 and 35, were in custody on suspicion of ‘participation in
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Amid the distractions of Donald Trump and Davos, France’s state-owned railway operator decided last week was the opportune time to slip out some news. Welcome to ‘Optimum’, the new and exclusive area of the train where kids are not welcome. Business people and misopedists travelling to and from Paris on the weekday high-speed TGV services
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32 min listen
On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Gavin Mortimer reports on the battle between the EU and farmers; John Campbell explains Lord Haldane’s significance to politics today; reviewing Polar War by Kenneth R, Rosen, Mark Piesing ponders who will rule the arctic; and, Daisy Dunn celebrates the history of poems on the underground. Produced and presented
It was a weekend of mixed emotions for the European Union. There was the news from Donald Trump that he will impose a 10 percent tariff on eight European countries in retaliation for their opposition to his plans to take control of Greenland. But on a brighter note, the EU finally signed the Mercosur trade
