Gavin Mortimer is a British author who lives in Burgundy after many years in Paris. He writes about French politics, terrorism and sport.
The new year in Spain began much as the old one ended, with a huge influx of illegal immigrants arriving on its shores. Nearly 800 people from North and Sub-Saharan Africa landed on the Canary Islands between 6 and 8 January. That fleet of ten boats are an ominous sign of what Europe can expect
Emmanuel Macron has a problem and its name is not Elon Musk. It is interference of an altogether more dangerous nature, a brazen attempt to destabilise France. On Thursday, while Thierry Breton – until recently France’s commissioner in Brussels – called on the EU ‘to investigate Musk’s practices’, a reference to the American’s regular commentary on
A poll this week in France found that 78 per cent of respondents are in favour of proscribing the wearing of Muslim headscarves at universities and also for classroom helpers on school outings. The poll was conducted after comments by the Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, in a newspaper interview. ‘Helpers [on school trips] don’t have to wear
It was party time in Paris and elsewhere in France on Tuesday evening as hundreds of people celebrated the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen. The figurehead of France’s far-right died earlier in the day aged 96 and within hours a jubilant crowd had assembled in the capital’s Place de la République. Champagne was uncorked, fireworks
Europe’s leaders rounded on Elon Musk on Monday as the American tech billionaire continued to air his views on the state of the Old Continent. Although Musk – who in a fortnight’s time will be president Donald’s Trump efficiency tsar – has focused most of his ire on Britain, he’s also endorsed Alternative for Germany
Today marks ten years since two brothers walked into the office of Charlie Hebdo and shot dead most of the staff. It was punishment for the satirical magazine’s blasphemous treatment of the Prophet, according to the Islamist gunmen. The murders shocked the West. Millions of French men and women gathered across the country four days later, and
A poll in France has named Gisèle Pelicot as the country’s person of the year for the courage and dignity she displayed during the rape trial that transfixed the West in the autumn. The Independent newspaper argued last week that the Frenchwoman deserves to be named the world’s Person of 2024 – not Donald Trump – and Prospect magazine agreed, saying Pelicot has ‘gifted
Days before Christmas, the BBC published an article on its website headlined ‘Elon Musk’s curious fixation with Britain’. The broadcaster was anxious to discuss why Donald Trump’s right-hand man was taking such an interest in British affairs from across the pond. It turns out that Musk – who will be Trump’s efficiency tsar when he
Last Friday, America announced sanctions against Bidzina Ivanishvili, a Georgian tycoon who made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was imposing the punishment because Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream party was ‘undermining the democratic and Euro-Atlantic future of Georgia for the benefit of the Russian Federation’. Georgian Dream triumphed
Rugby union has always attracted a certain type, the ‘play hard, party hard’ sort. I remember a former teammate – a prop, perhaps not surprisingly – who could drink a pint of his urine in under ten seconds. An England prop, Colin Smart, once downed a bottle of after shave after a Five Nations match
Emmanuel Macron will deliver his traditional New Year’s Eve message to France next week, an event that one imagines is testing the skills of his speech writers. What to say after a year of unmitigated disaster? What is there for the French to look forward to 2025 other than more uncertainty, more insecurity and more
Nigel Farage was in fine fettle when he appeared on GB News on Tuesday evening. He boasted of his weekend in Florida, chewing the fat with Elon Musk, and made some characteristically bullish predictions for the future. A poll this month found that Reform has overtaken Labour for the first time and is now two
Justice was served on Dominique Pelicot today when an Avignon court found him guilty of raping his ex-wife, Gisèle, over a ten year period, and enlisting more than 50 other men to molest her as she slept. From 2011 to 2020, the 72-year-old Pelicot drugged his wife of 38 years and invited men he had met
It’s been a year to forget for Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz. The German Chancellor’s coalition collapsed last month and on Monday he lost a confidence vote in parliament. Elections are now likely in February. The President of France has had a few election issues himself, as a result of which Macron is on his
So farewell Michel Barnier, the man who will now be best remembered not as the suave face of the EU in the Brexit negotiations, but as the most hapless prime minister in the history of the Fifth Republic. That is assuming his successor, Francois Bayrou, isn’t ousted in under three months. The French media has
Emmanuel Macron has appointed the veteran centrist Francois Bayrou as his fourth prime minister of the year. First elected as an MP in 1986, Bayrou served as the Minister for Education in the 1990s under both the Socialist government of president Francois Mitterrand and the centre-right Jacques Chirac. In 2007 he launched a Centrist party, Mouvement
Emmanuel Macron will this afternoon host the leaders of France’s political parties as he searches for his fourth prime minister of the year. The last one, Michel Barnier, fell last week after just three months in office. Not everyone, however, has received an invitation to the Elysée Palace. Marine Le Pen is persona non grata
There was one person missing in Paris on Saturday evening as France celebrated the resurrection of Notre Dame cathedral. The original guest list included Ursula von der Leyen – but the president of the EU Commission was a no-show. According to whom one believes, Europe’s most powerful politician didn’t take her place in the pew
Donald Trump is in Paris today to attend the official reopening of the renovated Notre Dame cathedral. The president-elect has what could be described as a love-hate relationship with the French capital. He loves the place but it – more precisely its mayor and most of its right-on residents – hates him. This contempt first
Emmanuel Macron addressed the French people on Thursday night and once again ruled out the possibility he will resign before his mandate expires in 2027. As for appointing a new Prime Minister – his fourth this year – Macron said he would nominate Michel Barnier’s successor in ‘the coming days’. The big decisions concerning France
