Gavin Mortimer is a British author who lives in Burgundy after many years in Paris. He writes about French politics, terrorism and sport.
The first thing I heard when I switched on the French radio this morning was a Green activist berating the world for its lack of urgency in tackling climate change. That’s why, he explained, Youth for Climate France is organising a series of demonstrations this weekend, including one on Saturday in which Extinction Rebellion will
I’ve been in Bayeux this week. Not to admire the tapestry but to plant a cross on the grave of Private Thomas Bintley, one of the 4,144 British and Commonwealth servicemen who lie in the immaculate cemetery on the outskirts of the town. Bintley parachuted into Normandy on the night of 17 August, one of
It should come as no surprise that Britain’s city centres remain, in the words of CBI chief Carolyn Fairbairn, ‘ghost towns’, and nor is it a shock to hear a civil service union boss shoot down Boris Johnson’s plea for public sector workers to head back to the office. Safety first, said the union man,
One of the most craven moments in the recent history of the British media was an interview Sky News conducted with the French writer Caroline Fourest days after the staff of Charlie Hebdo had been massacred in January 2015. Fourest was a former columnist for the satirical magazine and a friend to many of the
I went for a long walk last night in Paris. I chuntered most of the way, only breaking off to nod a greeting to the handful of other maskless pedestrians. We’re a dwindling band, but there’s a camaraderie among us, a bond created by our refusal to give in to hysteria. It’s an eclectic club,
By the time I was 15, I had put two rugby players in hospital. I broke the arm of one and knocked the other unconscious. Both were legitimate tackles, I was just better developed: bigger, stronger and more aggressive than my opponents. I got my comeuppance in New Zealand when, as a 19-year-old, I launched
For once I find myself on the other side of the argument in agreeing that ‘Big Chief’, the erstwhile tomahawk-wielding mascot of the Exeter Chiefs rugby club, deserved to be axed. He was an affront to Native Americans, perpetuating the calumny that their ancestors were – to quote the Declaration of Independence – ‘merciless Indian savages’.
Britain has been here before when it comes to furores about face masks. Exactly 80 years ago the same argument was raging, with the country split between those who wanted the wearing of gas masks to be made compulsory on pain of financial penalty, and those who maintained it should be an individual choice. Unlike
Two well-known women were degraded last week as Britain continues to be ethically cleansed. The first was Nancy Astor, whose statue in Plymouth was dubbed with the word ‘Nazi’. The second was Baroness Nicholson, honorary vice-president of the Booker Prize Foundation, who was relieved of her duties after her views on trans issues and gay
Winston Churchill: hero or villain? That was the question the BBC asked on its website on 10 June. It caused outrage in some quarters, but was Auntie taking its revenge for the humiliation it suffered at Churchill’s libertarian hands during the second world war? In the summer of 1940, a movement was launched in Britain
If there is a God, He’s not French. Last night I was on the balcony of my apartment in Paris enjoying a celebratory ‘deconfinement’ bottle of wine; this morning on my first day of (partial) liberty there is heavy rain and high wind. So much for getting out and about on day one of post-lockdown
Seven weeks confined to a city apartment changes a man. Trees, for example, have never been a particular passion of mine but recently I’ve spent many happy moments studying the plane tree outside my bedroom window, and in particular the magpies’ nest therein. On Saturday a baby magpie emerged from the nest and edged tentatively
Today marks the third month of my confinement in my fifth floor apartment in Paris. As I wrote all those weeks ago, shortly after president Macron declared his ‘war’ on coronavirus, I had adopted a prisoner psychology to see me through what I suspected from the outset would be six weeks minimum of lockdown. I
One of the persistent misconceptions of the riots that swept through France in the autumn of 2005 is that they were solely the result of the deaths of two youths as they ran from the police. The deaths of the teenagers on October 27 in Clichy-Montfermeil provoked unrest in the north-eastern Parisian suburb but it
The mayor of Paris’s 20th arrondissement has asked residents of her neighbourhood to stop denouncing each other. ‘When it’s a question of violence against women or children, or selling drugs, I’m still all ears,’ said Frédérique Calandra this week. ‘But these calls stigmatising Parisians who wish only to get a breath of fresh for a
A couple of hours before Emmanuel Macron addressed France on Sunday night I received a meme on WhatsApp from a French friend. It was a game card for ‘Macron’s Aperitif Bingo’, the rules for which were simple: swigs of a drink of your choice would have to be downed every time the president said a
What with the wall-to-wall media coverage of the coronavirus pandemic it had rather slipped one’s mind that there are other serious issues confronting Europe, but France got a bloody reminder at the weekend. On Saturday, a knifeman ran amok in the south-eastern town of Romans-sur-Isere, killing two people and wounding five. According to eyewitnesses, the
When I left my apartment for my morning run today I saw that someone had scrawled on the courtyard in large chalk letters ‘Tenez Bon, Les Voisins‘ (Hang in there, neighbours). It could have been a message for the whole country. France is flagging after two and a half weeks of complete lockdown and the
As France prepares to enter its third week of confinement the Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, has warned that ‘the fight has only just begun’. Coronavirus has claimed 2,606 French lives to date, but at a press conference on Saturday evening Philippe said: ‘The first 15 days of April will be even more difficult than the
As Boris Johnson self-isolates for seven days after testing positive for coronavirus, he must follow the example of his hero, Winston Churchill, in heeding the advice of his doctors. It was on the counsel of his chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, that the Prime Minister subjected himself to a test, which augurs well for the
