Salut!

Penelope Fillon and Joëlle Randall: first ladies of France and Durham?

Penelope Fillon

This is not intended to persuade François and Penelope Fillon, future president and first lady of France unless the odious Front National gets in their way, that an exclusive interview should be accorded to Monsieur Salut, one of the Anglo-Saxon world's most Francophile commentators on France and French affairs. But should that be the outcome, tant mieux

Is motorsport really sport? Rosberg and Hamilton's F1 duel answers the question

Pictures, from the 2015 24 Heures, courtesy of my nephew-in-law Guillaume Bonnin

In all the years I have been visiting my city-in-law Le Mans, I have not attended the 24 Hours. It is not a deliberate omission from my life's experiences, though nor have I ever considered making a special trip there to be present. Fast cars are not really my thing. But I have at least reconsidered* a long-held prejudice against applying the S word to the people who drive them competitively ...

Motorsport is a word that is occasionally dismissed, by a certain kind of snob, as self-contradictory.

On my earliest exposure to fast men in fast cars, I was that snob. It was my first visit to the French city of Le Mans, home of the woman who was to become my wife, and I was taken to the course of the famous 24 Hours race, not for the event but for the trials that preceded it.

After Brexit and Trump, Le Pen next ? But Fillon is a tough obstacle for her to overcome

How Libération sees François Fillon

International Business Times asked me to look at the mood of the French as the centre-right Les Républicains go about choosing their candidate for next year's presidential elections. Alain Juppé led the opinion polls for the first round only to be beaten by François Fillon, with Nicolas Sarkozy beaten into third place, eliminated from the contest ...

France is coming to terms with the reality that the man it has propelled towards pole position for next year's presidential elections is precisely the kind of political figure whose reforming ambitions have been repeatedly frustrated by popular resistance.

The late surge that established François Fillon as favourite to win Sunday's decisive second round of the centre-right primaries seems at odds with the spirit of the age. After Brexit, the election of Donald Trump as president-elect of the US and the steady march of populist parties in much of the West, the former prime minister more obviously represents the ancien regime.

Suriyah Bi: a 'proud British Muslim' and her fight for justice

As I said to the people whose school fired Suriyah Bi, half a century in journalism has persuaded me there are usually two sides to any story. They smiled, sent me a bland statement and left me guessing as to what theirs might be ... with no further ado, beyond saying I found Ms Bi's version of events hard to disbelieve, not least in the absence of that 'other side of the story', here is how I describe it for The National* ...

A "proud British Muslim" is fighting her dismissal as a teaching assistant after she objected to special needs children aged 11 and 12 being shown footage of 9/11 victims jumping to their deaths from the twin towers.

Naked racism or simple stupidity? Meet the Trump supporters who insulted Michelle Obama

Pamela Ramsey Taylor, right, with her offensive message and subsequent apology: she also published thanks for the heartening support she has received

Here is a teaser: how can you call a black woman an "ape in heels" and not have racist intent?

Actually, to be wholly accurate, the phrase used by Pamela Ramsey Taylor, while still employed as the Clay County Development Corporation director in West Virginia, was "a Ape in heels". Her English-as-a-mature-student course has not yet reached the correct use of upper case letters and the indefinite article.

Forget Trump, Le Pen, Farage and other modern horrors. Enjoy Hampstead Heath

To be honest, I have just a feeling someone beat me to this image, and did so on canvas rather than by pointing a mobile phone at it and hoping for the best.

But it was a view that struck me yesterday as we wandered, trudged, slid around Hampstead Heath and was by no means the only feast for the eyes on a not-too-chilly November afternoon in London.

World exclusive: meet a Trump voter who can think

Talk about double whammies. A left-leaning (sometimes steeply, though the incline depends on the issue), Sunderland-supporting opponent of Donald Trump interviews an American who is not only pro-Trump, as in voted for him, but has at least flirted with the idea of regarding Newcastle United, from the dark side of the Tyne-Wear divide, as his Premier League team of choice.

Randolph Mann and I met through ESPN FC, where I write about Sunderland, and became Facebook friends. When I posted a whimsical Facebook entry suggesting ripping up the US constitution and keeping Obama for a third term, he told me in no uncertain terms: "No, sir."

But this was followed by thoughtful points with which I could disagree without losing respect for their author. Now as much the world tears out hair at the decision of the USA electorate to send Trump to the White House - a decision made by electoral college but not popular vote - I thought it would be interesting and useful to raise some of my own misgivings with Randolph. He readily agreed and this is the resulting conversation by e-mail,

There is not the slightest hope Randolph and I would ever agree on much. But I detect a sense of humour; he raised no objections to the kind of headline I proposed, which obviously overlooks the fact that not all Trump voters can possibly have been hate-filled rednecks with an aversion to joined-up writing. I think Randolph and I could thrash out our differences amicably over a few beers ...

Jean-Pierre Chevènement: our quest for a French Islam

You may already have seen my article on the current state of French relations with its large Muslim community one year on from the Paris attacks. It is drawn from the pages of The National* and my article was the front-page 'Long Read' for this weekend's Review section. There was a companion piece, based on an interview with Jean-Pierre Chevènement, a veteran of French government, who has been appointed first head of the Foundation for Islam in France., Here it is ...

Beyond and before the Bataclan: France's struggle one year after Paris massacre

How Mon Quotidien, published for 10/14-year-olds by my friend François Dufour, covered the massacre of November 13 2015

This coming weekend, a year ago as I enjoyed a pleasant evening in Lille after two days observing the Jungle at Calais, a bunch of psychopathic hoodlums with a death wish but masquerading as fanatical, religiously inspired martyrs brought carnage to the streets of Paris. No matter that one of the supposedly pious Charlie Hebdo killers had said something like 'we don't kill women', these gangsters from Brussels, France and the Middle East blazed away and murdered whoever they could regardless of gender, age, faith. I worked hard on this appraisal* of where France stands in its relations with its Muslim population Europe's largest, and even then scratched only at the surface ...

A year ago on Sunday terrorists inflicted massive bloodshed in the heart of Paris with a series of barbarous attack that sullied the name of Islam. The Bataclan nightclub would be the scene of the greatest loss of life in three years of atrocities, including the murderous rampage at Charlie Hebdo magazine. More would follow.

Did he win because we called him 'Trump' and Clinton 'Hillary'?

I've been wondering since yesterday whether to reproduce my contribution to The National's excellent coverage of the Trump victory. But it was cut, for space or at least I hope, to fit its page design and it didn't seem right to publish the pre-edited piece (you can see it as published here). As soon as I saw Bill Taylor's Facebook post, of which this is an unedited reproduction, I knew my dilemma - wanting Salut! to have something, not sure what - had been resolved ...