Jonathan Miller

Jonathan Miller

Jonathan Miller, who lives near Montpellier, is the author of ‘France, a Nation on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’ (Gibson Square). His Twitter handle is: @lefoudubaron

Vaccine wars: the global battle for a precious resource

39 min listen

Why has the vaccine rollout turned nasty? (00:45) What’s the sex abuse scandal rocking France’s elite? (16:55) Have artists run out of new ideas? (28:35) With Daily Telegraph columnist Matthew Lynn; science journalist and author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 Laura Spinney; Spectator contributor Jonathan Miller; journalist Anne-Elisabeth Moutet; Dean Kissick, New York

Jonathan Miller

#MeTooInceste: has France’s code of silence finally been broken?

Montpellier Accusations of child abuse against Olivier Duhamel, now 70, ex-vice-president of Sciences Po university and of the secretive Siècle (Century) club of Parisian movers and shakers, have cast a dark shadow on the legacy of the soixante-huitards, the baby boomers who occupied the Sorbonne in 1968 and went on to rule (and ruin) France.

Emmanuel Macron’s desperate New Year wishes

Emmanuel Macron was not quite his cock-a-doodle-do self in his New Year’s Eve broadcast to the French people. This, the fourth presidential broadcast of the plague year, saw Macron, in black suit and black tie, resembling a small-town funeral director attempting to conjure optimism. Macron promised a France on the comeback by the spring, with

France couldn’t care less about Boris’s Brexit deal

The reaction of the French commentariat to the Brexit partnership agreement will be largely one of extreme irritation that the traditional Christmas Eve dinner was so crudely interrupted. Any initial response to the deal has been rather abbreviated. Nobody has read the fine print. The usual pundits are out of town. Brexit has never been

Macron’s Covid war goes from bad to worse

Politicians whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make ridiculous. On Tuesday evening, as the deaths attributed to Covid-19 reached 50,000, Emmanuel Macron, president of the Republic, again commandeered French television channels to announce his latest strategy to end the national lockdown. He claimed to be making himself perfectly clear as his timetable for

France vs Islamism: how does Macron hope to prosecute his war?

Montpellier France is under attack. Two weeks ago, Samuel Paty, a middle school teacher, was decapitated in a leafy suburb of Paris after showing his students cartoons of the prophet Mohammed published by Charlie Hebdo in 2015. Last week, there were three killings at the Basilica of Notre-Dame in Nice, and after that, an Orthodox

France’s catastrophe

President Macron’s first lockdown turns out to have been a failure. So, now there is to be a second lockdown. Macron’s announcement last night of a new ‘confinement’ on ‘the whole national territory’ until 1 December ‘at a minimum’ is bitter medicine for the French, and for Macron himself. Three difficult weeks are forecast for

Terror in the Republic: the beheading of Samuel Paty

The decapitation of middle school teacher Samuel Paty, 47, by an Islamist in a suburb of Paris yesterday is not just another tragedy and blow to French morale — it is also a reminder of why Emmanuel Macron feels exposed on the issue of what he calls ‘Muslim separatism’. Channelling the Spanish civil war slogan

Will the French forgive Macron for cancelling dinner?

I spent Saturday night with a dozen French blue bloods, hautes bourgeoises and banquiers at a hunting chateau on the banks of the Hérault river. It was an enchanting autumn evening. We finished pre-dinner apéros and as we were called to table by the ancient retainer (the last servant remaining, after decades of Republican depredations),

Tiphaine Auzière and the panic inside the Élysée

Will the presidency of Emmanuel Macron open the door to a political dynasty in France? He has no children, so that’s a problem. But wait. There’s Brigitte Macron, who has three. Albeit, all from the union she abandoned to marry Emmanuel, her pupil. Meet the youngest of Mme Macron’s three children, Tiphaine Auzière, 36, a

Will Macron’s new sidekick help him get re-elected?

It is just over three years since the election of Emmanuel Macron to the presidency of France. All of Gaul is united against him. All? No! From a village in the foothills of the Pyrenees, in a remote corner of Occitanie, Jean Castex, the irréductible mayor of the tiny commune of Prades (population 6,124), has

Is Macron Boris’s best friend now?

If Emmanuel Macron is intending to extract a pound of flesh from the United Kingdom as the price of Brexit, that’s certainly not the optic he projected today. On his visit to London, he deployed the French air force to fly over the capital in formation with the RAF in a display of entente cordiale

Macron has lost the coronavirus war

France is to be locked down until 11 May, and possibly longer. Whether the credibility of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency can survive that long is now in question. Macron’s state broadcast on Monday evening was billed in advance as Churchillian but this president does not do inspiration. His message was defensive and grim, with elements of incoherence.

Coronavirus is pushing Macron’s government to breaking point

Montpellier, France Last week, the French were amused at Anglo-Saxon hoarding of toilet paper, known vulgarly here as ‘PQ’ — papier cul. Now France itself has tested positive for panic. Supermarkets across the country have been under siege, shelves stripped bare of loo roll and much else. The government has already requisitioned all supplies of

Lockdown, and the hardships ahead

31 min listen

It’s the first few days of a national lockdown, so have humans been hubristic in not expecting something like this to happen (1:10)? Over in France, is President Macron dealing with this any better (11:05)? Last, is there any point in being a historical novelist in the age of Hilary Mantel (19:10)?

Le bromance: Macron has fallen under Boris’s spell

Montpellier When Emmanuel Macron was elected just over two and a half years ago, his ambitions stretched a long way. He described the presidential role as being like Jupiter, and believed that the momentum that took him to the Elysée would excite forces far beyond France’s borders. He hoped to deliver a ‘European renaissance’ that

What do the French elite make of Boris Johnson?

So, what do the French make of Boris Johnson? Ridicule, contempt and inevitable comparisons to President Trump characterise the reaction of the media and political classes here, who are simply incapable of understanding the appeal of a politician operating outside the blob. Le Monde this morning had little to say about Britain’s new prime minister

The rise and fall of Emmanuel Macron

It was Morten Morland who drew the first comparison between Emmanuel Macron and the story of the emperor’s new clothes. His cartoon is a deadly allegory, and not just for the vanity of Macron. Because the point of the story is not just that the emperor is a vain idiot, but that those who pretend