Gavin Mortimer

To nobody’s great surprise, France’s Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, announced last week that the Covid Passport may have to be extended beyond 15 November – the initial expiry date of the government’s controversial measure, first introduced in July. I’ll hazard a guess that come April 2022 the French will still have to show their passport to enter cafes, shopping centres, sports clubs and cinemas. April, of course, is the date of the presidential election and Emmanuel Macron is banking on his response to Covid helping him to secure a second term. His belief is that the electorate, particularly the over-50s, will be reluctant to change presidents in the midst of a pandemic. Better the devil, and all that.

The protest movement against Emmanuel Macron’s Covid passport, which comes into full effect today, continues to grow in France. On Saturday over 200,000 men, women and children took to the streets, more than twice the number that demonstrated when the protests began on July 17. As a veteran of the Paris protests, I’ve found one of the most interesting aspects to be the reactions of passers-by as the cortège files through the streets of the capital. Some clap, some look on in contempt, others shout words of encouragement and a few hurl terms of abuse.

A manager of an attraction park in France was reportedly assaulted on Sunday after he denied entry to a customer. It's alleged the man lost his rag when he was turned back because he didn't have a valid Covid passport. It is unlikely to be the last such incident. In the space of a fortnight, the atmosphere in France has turned toxic. A hospital in Saint-Étienne was invaded on Monday by 60 demonstrators, mainly medical professionals, opposed to the measure that will force them to vaccinate or be suspended without pay. That is also a strike at a Lyon hospital that will start tomorrow. Elsewhere cinemas, theme parks and fitness centres have been labelled 'collaborators' for their participation in the government's Covid Passport scheme.

From St Tropez to La Rochelle to Deauville, there is a familiar sight this summer in many of France’s most popular coastal resorts. A year after the wearing of masks outside was made mandatory they are back, and French and foreign sunseekers are forced to muzzle under a broiling sun. It was only a month ago that the government relaxed the rule on the wearing of masks outdoors, but that was before a rise in cases caused by the Delta variant. Most of the infected are the young and unvaccinated, hospitalisations are stable and deaths remain minimal: there were 11 in the last 24 hours, compared to ten last Saturday.

What a celebration of diversity I witnessed in Paris on Saturday as tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through the capital. Organisers put the figure at 50,000, the government at 18,000; I'd say the former is the more accurate estimation. It took two hours to walk the one and three-quarter miles between the start of the march, in the Place du Palais Royal, to its terminus at the Place Pierre Laroque outside the Ministry of Health. In total, and again depending on your source, between 114,000 and 150,000 people demonstrated across France on Saturday to protest against the planned introduction of the 'Pass Sanitaire', France’s vaccine passport. All ages, sexes, classes and colours were represented.

One Saturday in March, I attended an anti-lockdown rally in central Paris. I was there partly out of journalistic curiosity but also out of solidarity with those Frenchmen and women who believed it was high time life returned to normal. What struck me was the similarity between the protestors and those I had walked with in 2018 in the early weeks of the yellow vest movement in Paris — overwhelmingly middle-aged blue-collar workers. The yellow vests famously had no leader because it was a protest movement that arose not out of any strong political conviction but from what the French call ras-le-bol: despair at what was perceived as an arrogant and out-of-touch political class who seemed intent on punishing the poorest in society.

On Sunday evening I met three left-leaning French friends for a picnic in a Parisian park. We'd hardly begun the pâté before they were arguing. One confessed that she hadn't voted in the second round of the regional elections. The other two were aghast. Why hadn't she done her duty as a good socialist? She had voted in the first round but she baulked at supporting a radical left-wing coalition comprising the socialists, the greens, the communists and the far-left France Insoumise. As it turned out, her vote wouldn't have made a difference. Valérie Pécresse, the incumbent centre-right candidate was comfortably re-elected in the Ile-de-France with 45.6 per cent of the vote, 11 per cent more than Julien Bayou, the Green candidate of the left-wing coalition.

I feel like a teenager again. Tonight I'm allowed out until 11pm. What's more, I'm permitted to go inside my local bar if it gets a little chilly late on. Merci, Monsieur Macron. I imagine every other adult in France is a little excited today as the country continues its return to normality post-Covid. The curfew, imposed at the start of the year, has been extended by two hours and restaurants and bars – whose terraces have been open for business since May 19 – are now able to open at full capacity. If all goes well the curfew will be lifted on June 30, as will the wearing of face masks outside. The French are funny about their masks. For a minority they've become a fetish, a comfort blanket in a world they can longer make sense of.

In May 2017 Emmanuel Macron struck a regal pose as he strode across the esplanade of the Louvre to address his followers on the night of his presidential election triumph. In the weeks that followed he was likened to Jupiter, Louis XIV, and Napoleon Bonaparte, as Charles de Gaulle once was, the president who declared that a leader should reign with 'cold dignity'. Fast forward four years and President Macron has just welcomed to the Elysée two YouTubers called Carlito and McFly, both of whom dressed down for the occasion with one appearing to have a tea cosy on his head.

I had my first jab on Wednesday, at a vaccination centre in the south of Paris, run by the fire service. The fireman who administered my vaccine shared my love of rugby and once the ice had broken I asked him what life was like as a firefighter (I've heard some terrible stories, of fire crews attacked as they worked). His district was relatively calm, he told me, unlike those of some of his colleagues. It's far worse, he added, for the police, many of whom at that moment were gathering in Paris at a rally attended by several politicians, including Gérald Darmanin, the Interior Minister. Ostensibly it was to remember two of their colleagues who were murdered in recent weeks in separate incidents, one by an Islamist and the other by an alleged drug dealer.

Emmanuel Macron was in Strasbourg on Sunday where he addressed the Conference on the Future of Europe. This is where the President of France is happiest, describing the utopia that he still believes can be achieved by the EU. He feels important and powerful and he is among like-minded people, such as David Sassoli, president of the European parliament, who declared: ‘This conference is for ordinary citizens. Europe is not just for the elites, nor does it belong to them.’ There's a touch of the Tony Blair in Macron's canine devotion to the EU, and it wouldn't be a surprise if the President accomplishes what eluded the former British prime minister and one day becomes the President of Europe. It would certainly be an easier life than running France.

A political storm has swept France in recent days. It follows the publication of an open letter by twenty retired generals to Emmanuel Macron. In their declaration, originally published on an obscure website and then reproduced in conservative magazine, Valeurs Actuelles, the officers warned that Islamist terrorism was pushing France towards civil war. The reaction among the political class was predictable. Marine Le Pen invited the signatories (1,000 in total) to join her National Rally party, while the government condemned the letter as 'irresponsible'. It promised action if any serving soldiers or gendarmes have put their name to to it. Some on the left want a criminal investigation launched, accusing those behind the letter of 'provocation and disobedience'.