France

These are dispiriting times for France. The 6pm curfew and the closure of bistros and theatres have taken all the fun out of life. What is there to do in the evening but watch television? Last night viewers were subjected to a live political debate, what was regarded as the opening salvo to the 2022 presidential campaign. The long-suffering French have 15 more months of this. The debate pitted Gérald Darmanin, the Interior Minister, against Marine Le Pen of the Rassemblement National (RN). In the estimation of this morning’s Le Monde it was a ‘cordial’ encounter dominated by Islamism. Much was made recently of an opinion poll in which Marine

How is France dealing with its latest Covid wave? Not particularly well, if you listen to the director of epidemiological research at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Earlier this week Arnaud Fontanet, who sits on the French version of Sage, said that Macron’s approach risks repeating the ‘tragedy of the English’ as the Kent variant spreads across the country.  So how are those in the Élysée reacting? Macron shut all bars, restaurants and gyms back in October — but scientists like Fontanet want him to consider new restrictions. After all, France has been painfully slow at rolling out the vaccine, managing just 3.3 citizens per 100 compared to the UK’s one in five.  Seemingly

Emmanuel Macron has become the pantomime villain for much of the British press after his hissy fit last week in which he questioned the efficacy of the AstraZeneca jab. It was the latest in a series of snipes at the British that has made the French president the scourge of Fleet Street. ‘Bargain-basement Bonaparte,’ was how the Daily Mail described Macron, while the Sun plumped for ‘pint-sized egomaniac’. He’s none too popular among his own people, either, the figurehead of the French failure to be the only member of the UN Security Council incapable of producing their own vaccine. No wonder a recent opinion poll suggested Marine Le Pen is a stronger

The number of Brits who have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine hit 9.2million yesterday. But not everyone is impressed at the pace of the rollout. Step forward, France’s Europe minister, Clément Beaune, who has followed the example set by his boss Emmanuel Macron in criticising the British approach. The UK has taken ‘a lot of risks’ in its vaccine programme, Beaune told reporters:  ‘The British are in an extremely difficult health situation. They are taking many risks in this vaccination campaign. And I can understand it, but they are taking many risks. They have spaced – and the scientists have told us not to – they have

There is a council meeting in the southern French town of Ollioules tomorrow but one item has been removed from the agenda. The mayor, Robert Beneventi, will not now propose renaming the area’s Eucalyptus College after Samuel Paty. You’ll recall the fate of Monsieur Paty, beheaded just beyond the gates of his Parisian suburb school last October by a young Islamist enraged that the teacher had shown a caricature of the Prophet during a lesson discussing freedom of expression. Paty’s brutal death sparked revulsion around the world – save in Pakistan and Turkey – and in France there was a large rally in Paris. There were numerous placards proclaiming ‘Je

France is having a torrid pandemic with a succession of failures, from PPE equipment to vaccine invention, a stalled vaccination programme and now interminable and frustrating hesitation over a third lockdown. But we, and the French, should focus on the many things they do get right. Traducing Mark Antony’s speech to the Romans, it is time to praise France not to bury her. The ninth French-organised Vendée Globe – the world’s most gruelling 80-day, round the world solo yacht race – drew to a close in the small hours last night at Sables d’Olonne in the Vendée in western France. Its competitors, overwhelmingly French, have provided a dazzling example of

France is the only permanent member of the UN Security Council not to have developed a coronavirus vaccine, and it hurts. USA: two; UK: one; Russia: one; China: one, France nul points. To make matters worse, France also has an embarrassing international ranking in the number of its citizens it has vaccinated.  ‘France is the laughing stock of Europe’, cry a range of politicians and media. How is this possible in the land of Louis Pasteur, the French ask themselves? Even discounting Edward Jenner a century before Pasteur (whom France’s health minister graciously acknowledged), the French see this as the continuation of the country’s ‘déclassement’, a relentless historical decline from better days.

France has a problem when it comes to the coronavirus vaccine. Emmanuel Macron’s administration has so far only given out around 5,000 vaccines, and France has one of the lowest levels of trust in the coronavirus vaccine in the world, with only 40 per cent of the public saying they want to be inoculated. Faced with this trust deficit, Macron has proposed a 35-member ‘citizen panel’ to oversee France’s vaccination programme. The body, made up of a random selection of French citizens, will be responsible for monitoring and advising the government when it comes to the vaccine roll-out. Vaccines are the perfect storm for distrust of public authorities. Each recipient

Since leaving the EU on 31 December, Britain seems to have somehow avoided the apocalyptic scenarios outlined by those most opposed to Brexit last year. There have been, so far, no long queues of lorries at Dover; the lights have stayed on; and the nation’s supermarket shelves have remained full of food. It appears that Brexit has caused food shortages in one country though. Mr S was surprised to spot today, after all the dire prognostications about Britain’s own food supply, that one shop in France is struggling to get hold of essential grub. According to the news agency Reuters, Marks & Spencer has struggled to fill the shelves of

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 new economy jobs and a European recovery fostered by an ever more ambitious European Union. The reality is that much of the country is under a 6pm curfew. Everywhere, bars, restaurants and ski resorts are shut. Pension reform has gone. Unemployment, deficit and debt are massively up. There’s been close to a 10 per cent