Salut!

Napoleonland: a match for Mickey Mouse?

There is a museum at Waterloo, outside Brussels, where - on my one visit some years ago - you could buy, in the little shop, any number of Napoleon mementos but nothing whatsoever relating to Wellington. This seemed unfair since the latter, to the best of my knowledge, won.

But perhaps it reflected relative interest in the two commanders, at least in or near France.

Which may augur well for Yves Jégo and his ambitious project for a Napoleon theme park outside Paris, the site of the battle of Montereau, Bonaparte's final military victory.

Will it work? Will anything come of the plan in any case? We shall see ... this is how I reported it for The National ..

Allez hop le Carnival. Just don't sing Streets of London ...

"Monsieur, monsieur, s'il vous plaît."

An Alpine odyssey: when a Sunday spin in France leads to Italy

There was little to choose between the Alps, French version, and the Alps, a l'Italienne. But a Sunday drive that began in Barcelonnette, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, led inadvertently across the border to within 60 miles of Turin.

Could Mohamed Merah's evil sway the French election?

Image made available generally by France 2

At the end of a painful week, indeed fortnight, to be in France, I am left with three pressing thoughts:

* when I wrote 1,700 or more words on what connects France and Algeria, for last weekend's anniversary of the Evian treaty leading to independence, I had no idea I would then write several thousand more in the days to follow

* if the tragedy of Toulouse and Montauban had one tiny redeeming feature, it was that it showed impressive unity of thought on the part of French Muslim and Jewish leaders

* how fitting that Mohamed Merah had so little time to wallow in the selfish glory of having killed, in a manner as cowardly as it was savage, defenceless children, a teacher (the father of two of them) and off-duty soldiers. Until two hours before he was cornered in his flat, when he made that phone call to France 24, much of the world assumed he was just a psychopathic racist with a violent hatred blacks, Jews and - yes - Arabs. It hadn't gone quite to plan for Merah

The implications for the French presidential elections are not, in reality, among my most pressing thoughts. But this article was requested and reflects my impressions of what Merah's killing spree, and France's response, may mean. I am not among Sarko's greatest admirers and surprised even myself with my assessment. And I do not expect everyone to agree with it ...

France and Algeria: from marching for equality to aspiring to la Beurgeoisie

Image: Stefano

Here is the second of my two reports* on the 50th anniversary of Algerian independence from France.

The first part was posted yesterday, March 18, which is the date of the 1962 Evian treaty in which Gen Charles de Gaulle's negotiators and the FLN (Front de Libération nationale) agreed to end the war.

Today is the anniversary of ceasefire. In the months that followed, the accord was ratified in referendums in both countries, though violence, by the OAS, a far-right French group that opposed independence, and the FLN also continued.

My second article looks at the troubled peace in which, with the exception of those who find routes to success, French citizens with Algerian (and other Maghbrenin) roots feel disenchantment with society ...

Bon anniversaire, l'Algérie algérienne

Image from the 2010 World Cup: mekfouldji abdelkrim

Perhaps the appropriate toast would be Evian water. In France, we've had wall-to-wall media coverage of the event and today is the day: the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Evian treaty.

Eating, loving and waiting in Paris, city of food, romance and beauty

When Bill Taylor travels, the camera goes with him and generally captures the feel and substance of the places they have seen.

Inside the Greek tragedy: (2) forget blazing summers, we'd freeze without euros

Image: Davis Doherty

My friend from the North, who appears here as Michael Brown, an alias I have chosen at his request, concludes his account of life in crisis-hit Greece, where he lives with his Greek wife. Part one - - appears at this link ...

Inside the Greek tragedy: (1) the country Sarko and Merkel moved mountains to save

Image: apαs

Salut! is about everything and evreywhere, not just France or the UK. But in a way this story combines those countries with Greece: the narrator is English, an old friend from the North, and lives in Thessaloniki, where he and I dined a few years on a meal he recalls as including deep fried courgettes. And France, of course, has one of the banking sectors most exposed to the mountains of Greek debt. I called my friend Michael Brown for the purposes of the piece I distilled for The National* from his account of life in a country that has hit the rocks even if, for now, it bounced off again. This is part one of his story in full ...

Whooping it up at 90 in Mont Saint-Jean

So the last experience of England was a 90-minute delay for our ferry and lengthy queues at the Costa cafe, where a lone employee muttered mutinous thoughts as he struggled to take orders, prepare drinks, receive payment and clear up. Our first experience of the Var was a glorious full moon (the one you see above was one I made earlier).

In between, there was a pause in the Sarthois village of Mont Saint-Jean.