Salut!

France: its eternal beauty and intermittent beastliness

It is fair to say both countries of my dual nationality are important to me. They have exceptional if different qualities and glaring flaws.

Often, what I write about France is affectionate and admiring. Sometimes it is defensive, as when oafish attacks are aimed in its direction by the usual Little Engerlish suspects.

That’s how I introduced this article at Facebook. I went on to say it would be absurd to overlook the flip side, a country thoroughly uneasy with itself, large numbers of its people prepared to engage in or support casual disruption and even violence.

The spiteful sabotage by the anti-government CGT union of gas supplies to 100 restaurants is a case in point. Wholly blameless in the battle with the government and President Macron over limited pension reform, they should have been serving visitors to the Cannes film festival. The misguided, badly targeted action shows the far right is not alone in deserving reproach, as I seek to explain in this piece for The National …

 

Mayotte: immigration, misery and the legacy of French colonialism

I suggested to The National that current chaos in the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte - which in 2011 became France's 101st département - 1could be a good subject for my latest Comment piece. This is the result, reproduced with the editor"s consent ...   

 

 

Mayotte: residents of Kawéni, the biggest shanty town in France, lead miserable lives. Photo: Emily Cooper 

 

 

Sunderland's FA Cup glory vs (then) mighty Leeds, 50 years on

 

Forget coronations. This weekend is special because it marks the golden anniversary of arguably the greatest FA Cup final of all time.

As a lifelong Sunderland supporter, I desperately wanted a ticket. Phil, the sports editor of the Harrow newspaper where I was then working, promised faithfully he could and would get me one. He had 'great contacts' at Wembley. It would be a doddle.

Phil was also our neighbour in a company flat. His promise had been repeated as late as the eve of the final. On Saturday morning, May 5 1973, his flat was deserted. He was nowhere to be seen and nor was any ticket.

These are my recollections, helped along by those of Sunderland's goalkeeping hero, Jimmy Montgomery. and my great friend, Pete Sixsmith, who did get a ticket and also saw pretty much the whole of the cup run. I am grateful to the editor of The National (UAE) who consents to reproduction of my work here and to Jim Harker, who readily permitted the use of his magnificent drawing of the winning goal ...

 

 

 

 

Fifty years this weekend from the famous FA Cup final where unfancied, second-tier Sunderland defeated Leeds United, then a mighty force in English and European football, Jimmy Montgomery remembers his moment of goalkeeping glory as if it happened yesterday.

Marseille: a vibrant city and its deadly feuds

One of my favourite cities, Marseille, is never far away from the headlines and often enough for the wrong reasons. My piece for The National looks at the continuing series of gangland killings ...

France’s second and oldest city Marseille, with its rich but tumultuous history dating from its creation by ancient Phocaean settlers, has many faces.

There is the Marseille the tourists see: the magnificent Vieux Port; the exotic sights and scents of the North African market tucked behind the city’s main avenue, the Canebiere, and the rugged cliffs and hills of the nearby Calanques National Park.

Among its other faces is an uglier one that reveals itself in a relentless stream of gangland killings – the reglement de comptes or tit-for-tat assassinations committed in defence of drug territory or to avenge previous murders, and sometimes lesser provocations, by rival criminals.

 

                                                                               Image: Benh LIEU SONG

 

France: a beautiful country scarred by social unrest

France is in turmoil. Again. Each president takes office promising to reform outdated or arguably unaffordable practices and each runs into France's parallel democracy, the resistance of the street.

Emmanuel Macron has made his upheaval of the pensions system, which he claims is heading for calamitous deficits, the key feature of his second term. But in the absence of a parliamentary majority, has resorted to the controversial 49.3 decree that allows legislation to be pushed through parliament without a vote. This is how I assessed the crisis for The National, which permits the reproduction of my work here ...

 

 

In calm, precise tones she might use in lectures at her elite Parisian “grande ecole”, a student explained to a television reporter why she was smashing illuminated advertising signs during riots over President Emmanuel Macron’s contentious pension reforms.

“I think violence is unfortunately necessary,” she said, using a heavy implement to smash glass to cries of encouragement from others, unseen.

“I don’t attack cars or shop windows. I attack advertising.”

 

Roland Godefroy - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=127943623

 

Will the Sunak-Macron bonhomie survive the ´immoral’ new immigration policy?

 

As the BBC climbed down from its preposterous position on Gary Lineker, apologising to and reinstating him, I was finishing this comment piece for The National ....

 

Par President.gov.ua, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=119423950

 

 

 

Image: Lauren Hurley / No 10 Downing - https://www.gov.uk/government/people/rishi-sunak image, OGL 3, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=125849356

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shamima Begum: the only moral decision is to make her face UK justice

This is not a post that will bring me popularity. It's not meant to. It is the argument I make against the British Government's decision to strip Shamima Begum of citizenship, even though she has no other viable nationality, because as a child she ran off to join the Islamic State.

I do not in any way seek to minimise the horrific nature of that sickening death cult or to excuse Begum for any crime she may have committed. But I strongly believe that there is no moral or intellectual case for what the Government has done. Bring her back, punish her if it is proved that she has broken the law - as civilised neighbouring countries do in comparable cases  - and strive to ensure she is genuinely deradicalised or, if suspicion remains, monitored

My Comment piece for The National (which consents to its reproduction here)...

Photo, issued by the Met police, of the girls as they began their dark adventure in 2015. Shamima Begum is on the right

After the Champions League debacle, can Paris be trusted to host the 2024 Summer Olympics?

Well, can France be trusted? And it is not just the Olympics. Are we not entitled to ask the same question about this year's Rugby World Cup?

The answer, of course, should be an indignant “why not?”.

France is a beautiful, civilised, cultured country. Its glorious capital, where the 2024 Olympics will be held (rugby will be spread around the country), is renowned the world over as the City of Light or City of Romance. Pomp and ceremony is there to be admired in countless major spectacles. Organising an important sporting event should come naturally.

Then you remember that its success can depend to some extent on how crowds are managed - and you recall with a shudder what a dreadful mess Paris made of the Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid in May last year. I am not alone in suggesting the scandal of the Stade de France raised questions about French trustworthiness in running important sporting occasions; I have seen them canvassed in French media too.

As an independent report commissioned by Uefa has just found, it is in no way to the credit of French authorities - or indeed Uefa itself, as the competition organisers - that the match at the Stade de France did produce a disaster of Hillsborough-level proportions. It was a sinister debacle, the primary responsibility for which was found in the report to be the incompetence of Uefa.

But it is to the everlasting shame of France that two government members, Gérald Darmanin (interior minister, a role colloquially known as that of France's No 1 Cop, and therefore one of the most senior politicians in the country), and Amélie Oudéa-Castéra (sports minister and a former tennis pro), falsely and disgustingly blamed supporters of Liverpool for the dangerously chaotic scenes that occurred outside the stadium that evening.

 

«Menteurs», une banderole des supporters de Liverpool fustige Darmanin et Oudéa-Castéra https://t.co/hEcBfa3Xmp pic.twitter.com/O4adlOFDhg

— RFI – Sports (@RFIsports) February 22, 2023

Emma Mackey: from Le Mans to Le Booze

 

What do Emma Mackey, winner of the Bafta rising star award, and Mme Salut have in common?

Well, three things to be totally accurate. Both were born in Le Mans, both headed when young to northern England and both encountered the same cultural shock once there.

 

Emma Mackey

The Loftus Road massacre, a QPR fan's 'masterpiece' response and warm feelings about Sunderland

 

It is almost like the old days at Salut! Sunderland. The rebirth is very much a one-off but feels good while it's lasting.

Salut!'s football offshoot was a fan site that found an audience way beyond one club's already large fan base. By engaging with supporters of other clubs, usually via their own unofficial forums and blogs, we became quite well known and often respected far from Wearside.

Sadly, recurring technical problems and the expense of fixing them led to the site facing closure towards the end of 2019. Someone paid £500 - not quite enough to cover all those costs and others - to keep it live and assured the old codgers running Salut! Sunderland their beloved site was safe in fresh hands. A new editorial team was raring to go; great things were confidently expected.

What went wrong i have no idea. But after a desultory run of articles - just 16, on my count, between Jan 1 2020 and May 4 2020 - the successor site simply fell silent, save for some basic updates of the season-by-season stats. Most of the new content that had appeared covered aspects of the Sunderland women's  team and their opponents which, commendable as it was, seemed a pathetically weak way of keeping the flag flying. We had, in any case, published loads about the Lasses, too.

 

We burst back into life at the end of last week, reproducing here extracts from a Queens Park Rangers fan site's very long and extremely funny report of a match that ended QPR 0-3 Sunderland. "A masterpiece," was the verdict at the surviving Salut! Sunderland Facebook group, from Paul Dobson, himself a anzine editor (Sunderland's excellent A Love Supreme).

I alerted Loft For Words, the QPR site concerned, to what I had done and the response has been phenomenal. When I last looked, 2,750 Rangers fans had seen my post.

What follows is an encouraging series of messages left by a few or them (starting with my explanation). Thanks to all of them and to Clive Whittingham, who runs Loft For Words, for consenting to the extracts being published here in the first place.