Gavin Mortimer

France has partly seen sense on face masks

28 August 2020 8:34 pm

I went for a long walk last night in Paris. I chuntered most of the way, only breaking off to…

World Rugby's trans women ban is a wise idea

26 August 2020 7:42 pm

By the time I was 15, I had put two rugby players in hospital. I broke the arm of one…

Why face masks weren’t compulsory during WW2

15 July 2020 6:42 pm

Britain has been here before when it comes to furores about face masks. Exactly 80 years ago the same argument…

Churchill once challenged BBC intolerance

19 June 2020 5:17 pm

Winston Churchill: hero or villain? That was the question the BBC asked on its website on 10 June. It caused…

Britain could learn from France's coronavirus approach

11 May 2020 7:24 pm

If there is a God, He’s not French. Last night I was on the balcony of my apartment in Paris…

Emmanuel Macron is experiencing the calm before the storm

1 May 2020 5:12 pm

Today marks the third month of my confinement in my fifth floor apartment in Paris. As I wrote all those…

Paris’s banlieues are burning once again

22 April 2020 6:24 pm

One of the persistent misconceptions of the riots that swept through France in the autumn of 2005 is that they…

France won't be fooled by Macron's radical reinvention

15 April 2020 7:25 pm

A couple of hours before Emmanuel Macron addressed France on Sunday night I received a meme on WhatsApp from a…

Liberté, égalité and fraternité are being put to the test in France

4 April 2020 12:29 am

When I left my apartment for my morning run today I saw that someone had scrawled on the courtyard in…

Is France being pushed to breaking point?

30 March 2020 8:46 pm

As France prepares to enter its third week of confinement the Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, has warned that ‘the fight…

Boris can learn from Churchill as he battles coronavirus

28 March 2020 2:46 am

As Boris Johnson self-isolates for seven days after testing positive for coronavirus, he must follow the example of his hero,…

Marine Le Pen has the most to gain from France's coronavirus crisis

19 March 2020 11:13 pm

Any hope that the two week ‘confinement’ imposed by President Macron would heal France’s deep divisions has vanished as swiftly…

Can Macron halt the rise of Islamic extremism?

25 February 2020 1:51 am

Emmanuel Macron has unveiled his plan to combat the rise of Islamic extremism in France. Stressing that his fight was…

British police must learn from France in dealing with Extinction Rebellion

19 February 2020 10:06 pm

I’ve always been a fan of the French police, in part because when I lived in the south of the…

We should be wary of our spooks’ complacency about Huawei

30 January 2020 2:49 am

I might be feeling more confident about the government’s decision to give Huawei a limited role in building Britain’s 5G…

Whatever happened to ‘Je Suis Charlie’?

10 January 2020 10:56 pm

Five years on from the horrific Charlie Hebdo massacre in which a dozen people lost their lives, politicians have been busy…

Islamists have opened a terrifying new front in their war with France

6 January 2020 11:51 pm

France has endured an appalling series of Islamist terror attacks in recent years. One might feel a sense of relief…

Corbyn may be a goner but his ideology is as strong as ever

27 December 2019 6:00 pm

East Germans had a name for their version of ‘woke’ culture’; it was Zersetzung, or ‘decomposition’ in English. It was…

France, not Britain, is the real angry and divided nation

23 December 2019 8:00 pm

Remember when Boris Johnson met Emmanuel Macron for the first time as Prime Minister? It was in August and, as…

My fear about the next generation of jihadists

2 December 2019 11:19 pm

I’ve just finished reading William Manchester’s absorbing memoir about the Pacific War. ‘Goodbye Darkness’ is a reminder of just how…

Boris could learn from Macron’s approach to extremism

16 November 2019 8:00 pm

Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron have more in common than just a desire to ‘get Brexit done’. The pair also…

Poppy-wearing politicians must do more to help war heroes

9 November 2019 1:35 am

It will be a sight for sore eyes on Sunday when leaders of the two main parties lay their wreaths…

Emmanuel Macron will regret his failure to crack down on Islamists

8 October 2019 1:11 am

It beggars belief that Mickaël Harpon was employed as a computer expert in the intelligence department at police HQ in…

Labour is following in the doomed footsteps of the French left

27 September 2019 7:57 pm

The left no longer exists as a coherent political force in France. Embarrassed in the 2017 presidential election, the Socialist…

The French city zones where police rarely escape unscathed

12 September 2019 7:11 pm

In December 2015, Donald Trump claimed parts of the French capital were no-go zones for the police. ‘Paris is no…