Salut!

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 Each president takes office promising to reform outdated or arguably unaffordable practices and each runs into France's parallel democracy, the resistance of the street.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

He’s Queens Park Rangers. I’m Sunderland. His football writing deserves to go viral

 

My friend and fellow Sunderland supporter Pete Sixsmith is the main reason Salut! Sunderland, the fan site I launched in 2007, was so good (and why it is so sorely missed after the new owner let it go to rot). If Pete commends another football fan site, it is likely to be worth a visit and he ordered me to look at this piece by Clive Wittingham, whose Loft For Words is the must-go web place for QPR fans.

Just now, they’re having a miserable time, an experience Sunderland followers know only too well. Our club is doing rather well and last week heaped more unhappiness on QPR by winning 3-0 at their place.

Normally I would have been there. Loftus Road is the second nearest senior ground to me, just two bus rides away (I can walk to Brentford’s dinky little new stadium). My younger daughter played for the QPR women’s team, joining just one year too late to take part with the other girls as super-extras in Bend It Like Beckham. I had friends in the home end on Tuesday. But I couldn’t go and made do with the substandard Sky red button option. 

Clive’s report may have hurt to write but was a joy to read, especially if you support Sunderland, of course, but perhaps also if you just appreciate top-quality, wholly irreverent football writing. It had Pete and I laughing out loud.

For the full works, excellent photos included, go to the LoftforWords link:  https://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/59613/something-about-a-massacre-on-february-14--report

Here are chunky extracts ….

 

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Monty’s and Indian/Nepalese cuisine: bouncing back from an unfair defeat

 

 

When it comes to Indian food, I have grown to be a bit choosy.

The proliferation of basic curry and tandoori houses around Britain means that standards have, in my own view, fallen. It is much easier than used to be the case to eat badly and/or feel ripped off. You can dine very well indeed but that often means splashing out on posh Indian. 

When I lived and worked in Paris, and my duties as The Daily Telegraph's correspondent covering all things French included a blog for the paper's newish website, I embarked on a leisurely and haphazard search for France's best Indian restaurant.

It was a popular initiative among readers and, even more so, to me. In this strictly professional cause, I ate at the newspaper's expense at just the right number of places, once even taking the TGV down to Angoulême to check out a recommendation.

Then, just over seven years ago, I compared experiences at two restaurants, both long established and both familiar to me: the Gandhi in Saint-Tropez and Monty's just around the corner from Ealing Broadway station in West London.

It was a deeply flawed exercise, the outcome influenced by a rare disappointment at Monty's, and Gandhi came out marginally on top. 

 

Rishi, Boris, Keir etc: those wacky Brexit positions in full

Understanding Brexit and all the different positions people take on this most important subject can be tricky. Here is a cut-out-and-keep guide 

 

With renewed thanks to the Danish cartoonist Jens Hage 

Salut!’s Christmas Day message: glad tidings amid the gloom

 

Today is a day to be enjoyed.

And Salut! hopes its small band of readers - the folk music site Salut! Live gets many, many more and might even entertain you - have a great Christmas Day.

My pal Pete Sixsmith foregoes Sunderland games each Christmas to show there is professional life after a teaching career 

 

There are things we can try to forget for one day.

Forget the attacks ministers and media cheerleaders have made on ordinary people, most of them performing important duties of behalf of everyone, for attempting to defend or improve working conditions and negotiate fairer pay.

Forget, if we can for a day, Putin and his squalid invasion, a Hitleresque adventure he crazily justifies as countering neo-Nazis in Ukraine.

Forget the incompetence, misconduct and dubious relationship with the truth that have characterised a good part of the Tories’ 12 years in power. The Government’s default disclaimer - ´´global headwinds’´, ie the pandemic and war - diverts blame from its own failures and the role of Brexit, which makes every problem others face that much worse for the UK.

Forget Sir Keir Starmer’s ploy of pretending the stench of Brexit can somehow be turned by his magic wand into the sweetest of scents. 

Actually, don’t forget and certainly don’t forgive any of that.

But do try to make the most of the festive season, notably today and the New Year revelries. And remember the good things: the flawed wonder that is the NHS and its magnificent staff, people in public and other essential services, volunteers at homeless refuges and food banks, all those giving their time, effort, skills and sometimes their lives to make the world a better place.

Salut! wishes you all a happy Christmas and the best the new year can bring.