Macron
Macron's Covid crackdown is a risky bet
Will the French accept compulsory vaccination against Covid? Health passports to get on a plane or train? Children of 12…
France's silent majority has rejected Macron – and Le Pen
I popped down to the Salle du Peuple on Sunday to see how the voting was going in the departmental…
France’s Covid stoicism has put Britain to shame
I feel like a teenager again. Tonight I’m allowed out until 11pm. What’s more, I’m permitted to go inside my…
Why is Macron feigning outrage at the Danish spying scandal?
The feigned outrage in Berlin – but mostly in Paris – at the USA’s proxy use of Denmark’s intelligence services…
France is paying a heavy price for Macron's vaccine catastrophe
The United States is growing at such a blistering pace the Federal Reserve may have to raise interest rates. In…
Why French soldiers are moving against Macron
Emmanuel Macron was in Strasbourg on Sunday where he addressed the Conference on the Future of Europe. This is where…
France’s military wages war on Macron’s values
On 21 April 1961 France’s most senior generals staged a putsch in French Algiers, still an integral part of France.…
The real problem with Macron’s elite school
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
May 5th this year will be the two hundredth anniversary of Napoleon’s death on Saint Helena, the tiny island in…
Could the Sputnik vaccine end Russia’s rift with the West?
Accounts differ. But it would appear that during a wide-ranging conference call earlier this week, the leaders of France and…
Barnier and France fear Brexit Britain’s next moves
Michel Barnier – still officially the EU’s Brexit taskforce leader – gives few interviews. As a Savoyard and keen mountaineer,…
EU leaders’ vaccine sniping backfires
The eyes of the world have been on Britain’s vaccination programme in recent months, as the UK government embarked on…
We could all pay the price for the EU's foolish vaccine nationalism
I’m a card carrying, Europe-loving, wishy-washy centre-left liberal. It therefore pains me to point this out: the EU in general,…
France's Covid response is a source of national shame
France is the only permanent member of the UN Security Council not to have developed a coronavirus vaccine, and it…
Macron’s vaccine ‘citizen panel’ is doomed to fail
France has a problem when it comes to the coronavirus vaccine. Emmanuel Macron’s administration has so far only given out…
Will Macron start an EU Covid chain reaction?
The Elysée palace has just confirmed that French President Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for Covid-19, after developing symptoms this…
Emmanuel Macron’s great Brexit gamble
There is an intriguing pattern in our relationship with European integration. A Frenchman vetoed our attempt to join. A Frenchman…
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…
Paris’s banlieues are burning once again
One of the persistent misconceptions of the riots that swept through France in the autumn of 2005 is that they…
Could coronavirus lead to Frexit?
Is France flirting with the idea of Frexit again? Coronavirus is currently provoking a chorus of ‘reprendre le contrôle’ (take…
Is France being pushed to breaking point?
As France prepares to enter its third week of confinement the Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, has warned that ‘the fight…
France’s downward spiral of coronavirus repression
In France there is a palpable sense of administrative and political panic in how to deal with the coronavirus epidemic.…
Can Macron halt the rise of Islamic extremism?
Emmanuel Macron has unveiled his plan to combat the rise of Islamic extremism in France. Stressing that his fight was…
The French city zones where police rarely escape unscathed
In December 2015, Donald Trump claimed parts of the French capital were no-go zones for the police. ‘Paris is no…
Notre Dame is an architectural nullity
Notre Dame is only important from a Shakespeare’s-birthplace point of view. Architecturally it is a nullity beside the cathedrals of…
