Gavin Mortimer is a British author who lives in Burgundy after many years in Paris. He writes about French politics, terrorism and sport.
The cry of ‘aux barricades’ is reverberating around France as the country’s political elite rush to form a Republican Front. There is diversity in the ranks of those lining up to prevent Marine Le Pen reaching the Élysée. Communists, Capitalists and past presidents and prime ministers have mobilised for Emmanuel Macron ahead of the second
So it’s Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen once again, and for many millions of French that is a deeply depressing prospect. There were violent protests in the Brittany city of Rennes shortly after the result of the first round of voting was announced, as an estimated 500 people vented their anger against ‘fascism’ and
Jean-Luc Mélenchon is on the march once more, rising up the polls and laying bare the ineptitude of the Socialist party. While their candidate in the presidential election, Anne Hidalgo, is stuck on two points, Mélenchon is on 17, behind only Marine Le Pen, on 23, and Emmanuel Macron on 26. It was a similar
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In this week’s episode: Is Putin guilty of war crimes? For this week’s cover piece, The Spectator’s Editor Fraser Nelson looks at the risks and rewards of labelling Vladimir Putin and Russian soldiers war criminals. He joins the podcast, followed by Michael Bryant, the author of A World History of War Crimes, who writes in
As soon as Emmanuel Macron was sure that Joe Biden had won the American election, he tweeted: ‘We have a lot to do to overcome today’s challenges. Let’s work together!’ There was no effusive tweet this week from the Élysée when 54 per cent of Hungarian voters re-elected Viktor Orban as Prime Minister for a
Things are going from bad to worse for Emmanuel Macron, and for the first time political commentators in France are considering the possibility that he might not win a second term. The latest poll, carried out for Le Figaro, has him one point ahead of Marine Le Pen in the voting intentions of the people
Emmanuel Macron is worried. This wasn’t how he had envisaged the election. A month ago the president of France held a staggering 18 point lead in the polls and, as he looked over his shoulder in the home straight, he could barely make out Marine Le Pen in the distance. Now the gap is four
Not for the first time in France the death of a Jew is dominating the news, and not for the first time there are whispers of an attempted cover-up. Several candidates in Sunday’s election have paused from their campaigning to air their views on the death of Jeremy Cohen, a 31-year-old who was struck by
Emmanuel Macron welcomed the faithful to Paris on Saturday at a rally in the west of the capital. I know the venue well; it is the home of the Racing 92 rugby club and many a time I’ve sat in the indoor arena, roaring my approval at a bone-crunching tackle. The hollering on Saturday was for
The latest poll has France’s socialist candidate Anne Hidalgo on 1.5 per cent. This is the party that won the presidential election a decade ago. Britain’s Labour party should look at the French socialists and be very afraid. This is what happens when a political party turns its back on its core electorate and instead panders
When the attacks commence it’s clear that Marine Le Pen’s enemies are unnerved. For months – actually make that five years – few have viewed the leader of the National Rally as a serious contender for the 2022 presidential election. I include myself among that number, having declared on Coffee House in September 2017 that Le
It has been a torrid few days in France. In the early hours of Saturday morning, a former Argentine rugby international, Federico Aramburú, was shot dead on a chic Paris street after an altercation in a bar. The suspect is a notorious far-right activist who allegedly told Aramburú that he didn’t belong in France. On
Emmanuel Macron unveiled his campaign manifesto in a carefully orchestrated press conference on Thursday and his pledges to cut taxes and reform the welfare system dominated the headlines on Friday morning. But the president also touched on defence, promising that spending – €32.3 billion when he came to power in 2017 – will rise to
A short war in Ukraine would not suit Emmanuel Macron. The longer it lasts the longer the president of France can project to his people the image of the implacable wartime leader. So far so good. If the polls are to be believed, next month’s presidential election is a foregone conclusion; the latest poll has
When my brother was an infantry officer in the early 1990s the soldiers under his command were hard men. Most hailed from the north-east of England; in an earlier era they might have mined coal for a living. They smoked and drank and swore, and they were superb soldiers, as they proved in South Armagh
The first British volunteers have arrived in Ukraine to ‘do their bit’ in thwarting the Russian invasion. According to reports in this morning’s newspapers, four serving soldiers are among them. Liz Truss must be heartened. The Foreign Secretary recently declared her support for any idealistic Briton wishing to head east to fight ‘for democracy’. Others
At the time it probably felt like a good idea for Marine Le Pen’s campaign team. A photo of her shaking hands with Vladimir Putin, taken when she met the Russian president in Moscow in 2017, would emphasise to the electorate that she was a serious player on the world stage. The photo was included
Since Russia invaded Ukraine last week the western media has focused on little else. In Britain this concentration is understandable: the country has finally come out of Covid and there is a large gap to be filled on the airwaves and in the newspapers. Not so in France, still encumbered by Covid restrictions, where in
Has the New York Times found a new bête noire? It was for a number of years Britain, damned for having had the temerity to leave the European Union. As Steerpike noted, the Sceptered Isle became a ‘plague-riddled, rain-drenched fascistic hell-hole’. But now it is the turn of France to receive a finger-wagging from the
Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Moscow last week was reminiscent of a trip made by Charles de Gaulle to the Russian capital in November 1944. Neither man left much of an impression on their host. Macron, after six hours of talks with Vladimir Putin, failed to persuade the Russian president to de-escalate the situation on the
