France

My post-lockdown resolution: drink more Alsace

8 May 2021 9:00 am

Freedom approaches. Should we be humming ‘Va, Pensiero’ or ‘O Welche Lust’ — perhaps both. Thinking of Fidelioreminds me of…

My clairvoyant GP

1 May 2021 9:00 am

‘Willie or bum?’ I said to Catriona on the motorway. Everything in my recent medical career has been introduced via…

Is France losing its war on terror?

28 April 2021 4:44 pm

A political storm has swept France in recent days. It follows the publication of an open letter by twenty retired…

The banalisation of Islamist terror bodes badly for the West

25 April 2021 7:54 pm

Another day, another Islamist murder in France – this time, a 49-year-old policewoman fatally stabbed in the neck by a…

Mon dieu! Our French residency permits have arrived

17 April 2021 9:00 am

For EU nationals living in Britain and wanting to legally remain after Brexit, a letter or an email was enough…

Starmer's Labour is following the French Socialists into oblivion

9 April 2021 6:27 pm

Why does Keir Starmer seem set on following the example of the French Socialist party, and leading Labour into electoral…

The real problem with Macron’s elite school

9 April 2021 1:56 am

President Emmanuel Macron announced today the closure of the notorious École Nationale d’Administration, the elite finishing school for the senior…

Macron's Napoleon complex

4 April 2021 4:15 pm

May 5th this year will be the two hundredth anniversary of Napoleon’s death on Saint Helena, the tiny island in…

A new blossoming: David Hockney paints Normandy

3 April 2021 9:00 am

In 2018 David Hockney went to Normandy to look at the Bayeux Tapestry, which he had not seen for more…

Why I’m glad to see the back of Call My Agent!

3 April 2021 9:00 am

For the past few weeks I have been binge-watching the Netflix series Call My Agent! (or Dix pour cent, as…

France accuses Britain of vaccine 'blackmail'

27 March 2021 3:17 am

In some ways you have to admire the sheer shamelessness of the French government. To spend the start of the…

My thrilling rendezvous with the sausage lady

20 March 2021 9:00 am

One day last week we did a wine run up to Manosque in the foothills of the Alps, leaving early…

Is the US to blame for the far-left takeover of France's universities?

19 March 2021 10:46 pm

There is a belief in some quarters of the Anglosphere that the French are too wise to succumb to what…

Nights – and wines – to remember in Paris

13 March 2021 9:00 am

Some friends claim to be making marks on the wall to count the days until liberation. Ah, the forgotten delights…

Two for the road: We Are Not in the World, by Conor O’Callaghan, reviewed

13 March 2021 9:00 am

A father and his estranged 20-year-old daughter set off across France, sharing the driver’s cabin of a long-haul truck. This…

My €25 Covid jab surprise

13 March 2021 9:00 am

Around the time that poor M. Macron was casting televised aspersions on the AstraZeneca jab, I was offered one by…

Are Switzerland and France really ‘Islamophobic’?

11 March 2021 5:30 pm

Is Switzerland ‘Islamophobic’? Critics of the country’s decision to outlaw face coverings think so. The ‘Burqa ban’, which passed into law this week…

Which countries still haven’t had a single case of Covid?

6 March 2021 9:00 am

French lessons France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced to three years in jail, with two of them suspended, for…

The provocative writer who could be the next French president

6 March 2021 9:00 am

The French journalist who could unseat President Macron

The beauty of French nurses

6 March 2021 9:00 am

I was supine on the slab and a nurse was rigging me up via wires and tubes to machines and…

Barnier and France fear Brexit Britain’s next moves

5 March 2021 10:48 pm

Michel Barnier – still officially the EU’s Brexit taskforce leader – gives few interviews. As a Savoyard and keen mountaineer,…

Nicolas Sarkozy and a very French corruption scandal

2 March 2021 4:10 am

Nicolas Sarkozy, 66, President of France from 2007 to 2012, currently a valued member of Emmanuel Macron’s informal council of…

English beef: the sinister side to France’s mistrust of Britain

27 February 2021 9:00 am

The sinister side to France’s mistrust of the ‘Anglo-Saxons’

Why I need to become a French citizen

27 February 2021 9:00 am

After weeks of living in the 18th century, going everywhere on foot and encountering few other souls, I drove to…