Gavin Mortimer is a British author who lives in Burgundy after many years in Paris. He writes about French politics, terrorism and sport.
When an Islamist extremist charged into his school in Arras, northern France, with a knife, Christian Berroyer could have hidden away. Instead, the caretaker decided to confront the killer. ‘I grabbed a chair without thinking and I went outside,’ said Berroyer. Asked why he did what he did, Berroyer said he was ‘just doing his
Last year, a French broadcaster asked if Belgium was in danger of becoming a narco state. The question was posed in light of the news of the cocaine flooding into the country and the growing influence of Belgium’s drug cartels. Others believe that Belgium most closely resembles an Islamic state. The former Belgian senator
For a man so keen to thrust himself onto the international stage, Emmanuel Macron has been surprisingly quiet over the last fortnight. At the beginning of 2022, the President of France shuttled across Europe in an attempt to avert conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Though his diplomatic efforts were criticised in some Anglophone quarters, Macron earned
On Monday evening a service of remembrance was held in Arras cathedral in northern France. The congregation was there to pay its respects to Dominique Bernard, the teacher who was murdered by an Islamist at his school last Friday, not far from the cathedral. The service was led by Bishop Olivier Leborgne. ‘We don’t have
Rarely has the publication of a book been so providential. The Teachers Are Scared was released in France last Wednesday, written by Jean-Pierre Obin, a former teacher who rose to become the General Inspector of France’s National Education. Two days later, Dominique Bernard was stabbed to death in his school in Arras. The man
Emmanuel Macron’s appeal for France to unite has not been heeded. Barely 12 hours after the president made his address on primetime television, a 20-year-old of Chechen origin stabbed a teacher to death and wounded two others in a high school in the northern city of Arras. The assailant, now in custody, is reported
Emmanuel Macron addressed France on television on Thursday evening. It was an opportunity for the president to reiterate his support for Israel in its war against Hamas, but also to call for his country to remain united. As Macron spoke to the nation, police in Paris were using tear gas and water cannons to
The political class in France have rounded on Jean-Luc Mélenchon for his failure to condemn Hamas’s attack against Israel. The far-left firebrand, a Gallic Jeremy Corbyn, reacted to Saturday’s massacre of Israeli civilians by Islamist terrorists with a tweet: ‘All the violence unleashed against Israel and Gaza proves only one thing: violence only produces and
The European Parliament hosted an event in Brussels last week entitled ‘Close Guantanamo’. It was hosted by two Irish left-wing MEPs, and among the invites were representatives of Cage, which has been described by the French government as an ‘Islamist’ organisation, an allegation Cage denies. Cage was briefly infamous in Britain in 2015 when its
Pakistan has told all unauthorised Afghan migrants that they must leave the country by the end of October. Imagine if France announced in the wake of a terrorist attack that it was expelling all Algerians. There would be uproar across the world The announcement was made on Tuesday, and affects as many 1.7 million men,
Is there a plot afoot to oust Giorgia Meloni as Prime Minister and replace her with someone more to the progressive left’s taste? There have been rumours in the European media that Meloni’s government is teetering and that it ‘could fall and make way for a technocrat government.’ The audacity of Germany is breathtaking In
There are said to be six million rats in Paris. I met one last week when I was retrieving some winter clothes from a bag in my cellar. Neither of us was particularly keen to make the other’s acquaintance. Such a brief encounter may not please the Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. In the
Last Saturday in Paris a police officer leapt from his car and levelled his handgun at a baying mob. The thugs backed off long enough for the policeman and his colleagues to make good their escape. The chief of the Paris police, Laurent Nunez, praised the officer’s ‘sang-froid’ in successfully extracting his team from
Suella Braverman is right. The United Nations Refugee Convention is no longer fit for purpose. As the Home Secretary will explain today in an address to the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, the convention makes a mockery of genuine refugees. ‘Simply being gay, a woman or fearful of discrimination’ is enough
Pope Francis spent the weekend in Marseille where he admonished Europe for their attitude towards migrants. Specifically, the Pontiff took to task those who used words such as ‘invasion’ and ‘emergency’ when discussing the millions of migrants who have arrived in Europe in the last decade. ‘Those who risk their lives at sea do not
King Charles arrived in Paris today on the first stage of a three day state visit to France, a country his mother adored. The French media view the trip as a chance to repair Anglo-French relations, which according to the front page of Liberation have been ‘strained since Brexit’. The general tone of the
It is Keir Starmer’s misfortune that he arrives in Paris today for a meeting with Emmanuel Macron at the moment Europe faces one of its gravest challenges of recent years. More than 11,000 migrants have landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa in the last week, an unprecedented influx that has exposed the deep divisions within
Emmanuel Macron was in Lille on Thursday evening to watch France defeat Uruguay as the Bleus made it two wins from two in the Rugby World Cup. The president was photographed swigging from a bottle of beer, just your normal rugby fan enjoying the game. Rugby fans and their president have little in common. He
It is almost three years to the day since Ursula von der Leyen gave her inaugural State of the Union address in Brussels. The newly elected President of the European Commission touched on many subjects on September 16, 2020, among which was the migrant crisis, ‘an issue that has been discussed long enough’. It was
In May this year 87,000 asylum applications were lodged with the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA). This was a 24 per cent increase on the number of claims made in May 2022. Syrians, Afghans, Ivorians and Guineans were heavily represented among those making claims, but there was also a remarkable number of South
