Salut!

Francois Hollande's 'mighty slap', Marine Le Pen's unlikely Muslim supporters

This is my report on the French municipal elections for The National, Abu Dhabi ...

Fréjus, France

As French voters delivered a mid-term humiliation to Francois Hollande’s socialist government, forcing his prime minister’s resignation, elections at the weekend also revealed a remarkable phenomenon: Muslims voting with the far right, anti-immigration Front National (FN).

Au revoir Jean-Marc Ayrault. Must we now say 'bonjour FN'?

Jean-Marc Ayrault resigned as prime minister of France today. So what, the world beyond France will say. News of the fate of prime ministers does not seem terribly important when it comes from republics.

A Var-bound odyssey via Dunkerque, Le Croisic and Le Puy-en-Velay

Seeing the strikingly coiffured Laurent Wauquiez, the mayor and MP for Le Puy-en-Velay, in one of those long French television discussions (on the local elections, naturally), was an early reminder of a pleasant overnight stop in his town on the southern edge of the Massif Central.

The march of France's extrême droite: spirit of 1789, or evil fascists?

Think back to the Second World War and Nazi Germany's occupation of France.

Not everyone, by a long shot, went along with it because they were instinctively or philosophically Nazis or wanted Germany to win the war.

Collaboration and acquiescence took many forms, from ordinary people trying to get through the war - as would have happened had Hitler occupied the UK and not just the Channel Islands - to enthusiasts doing everything they could in the Nazi cause.

Feminism and Islam in the West: Malala is not the only role model

Monsieur Salut est arrivé. I do have something to say about the Front National's chilling electoral advances in France - "we don't eat children" is the vaguely reassuring comment from the newly elected FN mayor of Hénin-Beaumont, Steeve (yep, that's how he spells it) - but here's something I wrote for The National, published today ...

Young British Muslim women seeking a role model need look no further than Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who was shot in the head by the Taliban for challenging its hostility to education for girls, and now lives in England.

Fair winds for France: hit the road, Jacques

That's it. One more do-do, as five-year-old Maya puts it, and we're off back to France. The long journey to the Var will be broken in Le Croisic, in the Loire-Atlantique, and I am more excited than age makes respectable.

Fair winds for France: blues to miss, Corrie to forget

Continuing my reflections on what I shall miss and not miss when I return to France at the end of this week ..

Call it a lapse in taste or just a boyhood crush but I once worshipped the country singer Skeeter Davis. I even liked Jim Reeves though only after he was killed in a plane crash.

Fair winds for France: what I'll miss - The George, Stamford - and what I won't

Hibernation in London is nearly over. On Saturday, Salut! begins the French portion of its year.

Over the past six months or so, there has been plenty to enjoy in London and Britain more widely. And plenty to make the ferry trip - Dover to Dunkirk, an unusual crossing chosen as a simple function of market forces (it's cheap) - feel overdue.

Let's start this mini-series in the stunning town of Stamford:

Tony Benn RIP: principled, charming and an outstanding orator

I liked Tony Benn. There, I've said it. Anyone who felt indignant when I wrote sympathetically about the death of Bob Crow earlier this week should perhaps move on to less controversial postings, of which Salut! offers plenty.

Benn, who has died at 88 having looked at death's door in all recent public appearances, embraced a political philosophy that was not everyone's cup of his beloved tea.

Bob Crow RIP: enemies form an orderly queue to pay tribute

Like many London residents, I have on occasion been known to curse Bob Crow, general secretary of the transport union RMT who has died at the cruelly early age of 52. I hate disruption to normal life, whether caused by strikes, spending cuts or bad weather.