Salut!

Tobias Ellwood: drama and poignancy in 'one man’s forlorn efforts to save another'

The National* asked me to profile Tobias Ellwood, one of those who went vainly to the aid of Pc Keith Palmer after he was stabbed by the Westminster attacker Khalid Masood (only the last of several names used by a violent criminal who began life as Adrian Elms) ...

Among the images that flashed across the world after the London terrorist attack, photographs of Britain’s Middle East minister Tobias Ellwood tending a dying policeman have become engraved on countless minds.

His forehead, hands and suit bloodstained, the former army captain is seen kneeling by the side of PC Keith Palmer, who had been stabbed after the assailant, Khalid Masood, breached the perimeter fence of the Palace of Westminster.

Surrounded by emergency teams, the minister placed his hands on the constable’s chest, attempting mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and tried to staunch the flow of blood from his wounds. And in some pictures, his dejection on realising the 48-year-old officer is beyond further help, is plain.

French presidential election struggles to rise above sleaze and suspicion

Not so many weeks ago, it seemed an astonishing aspect of the French presidential election that the second, decisive round on May 7 might well be reached with neither of the main parties - the Parti Socialiste or Les Républicains, roughly Labour - Conservatives) present. Now, we have a race in which two of the three frontrunners face potentially serious criminal proceeedings. The French conservatives (Gaullist supporters of Les Républicains) care a lot; the far-right Front National takes it in its stride. I will write here about the competing programmes in due course. Here, for now, is my look (for The National*) at the scandals that turn this campaign into l'exception française.

Since this piece was written, incidentally, the position of M Fillon and the Transparency International charter has changed. He wrote, belatedly, to set out some general thoughts on transparency in public life without, as far as the organisation is concerned, properly answering its point-by-point questionnaire ... ...

Sunny places for shady people. I even miss Antibes when in Brexitland

The murderous Westminster attack happened the day before I flew back to London for a week.

The threat of terrorist atrocities has been a feature of life in the capital for most of the time I have spent here since moving down from the North East in 1973 so I am hardly going to start fretting about it now.

Everyone should take appropriate precautions but the sad reality is that this is a random phenomenon; never forget the poor man who texted "I'm safe" from Brussels airport only to be killed in the next bomb blast, on the Metro.

Martin McGuinness: a balanced view of his journey from guerrilla warfare to peacebroking

When I awoke to news that Martin McGuinness, formerly a senior IRA commander with - I'd say - much blood on his hands but later a peacemaking politician, I wondered whether I would end up writing today about his transition from the terrorist leader who grew attracted to the dual approach of the Armalite and ballot-box to mainstream politician with an important role in obtaining and maintaining a flawed peace in Northern Ireland.

I met him a few times while covering the Troubles and cannot say I ever warmed to him any more than I approved of his murderous activities or thought for a second he was right to claim the IRA had some historic mandate to wage war. It was from others, veterans of the earlier stages of the conflict, that I heard of his boast to have made Stroke City (Londonderry/Derry) look like a city bombed from the air with minimal civilian deaths. It was a debatable claim, in any case, and some of those who also reported on the Troubles - with their "good riddance" messages on social media today - continue to regard him as a bloodthirsty terrorist, pure and simple.

In the end, I was not called upon to write about McGuinness's death at 66. But my friend and former colleague, Chris Ryder, who is rightly regarded with huge respect by those who appreciate fair and incisive coverage of Irish affairs, posted these words at Facebook and kindly consented to their reproduction here. I find it a decent and properly balanced appraisal ...

Abdelghani Merah's march against extremism ends on a bitter-sweet note

A lot of people have read my reports in the The National, Abu Dhabi and at this site, as well as in the French media about the long trek across France made by a Abdelghani Merah to condemn the sort of extremism that led his brother into terrorism.

Abdelghani's marathon, with its echoes of the 1983 March of the Beurs against discrimination, ended in Paris yesterday, 40 days and - on his final count - 1,009km after he set off from Marseille. As you shall read, not everyone appreciated his arrival occurring on an anniversary of immense sadness.

He chose March 19 quite deliberately, believing it to offer a strong symbolic message, five years to the day since his brother Mohamed committed the most wicked of all his evil acts, the cold-blooded murders of two Jewish brothers aged six and three and an eight-year-old girl at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse.

The father of two of the children, a rabbi and teacher, was also killed. The girl was the last to die, chased by her murderer into the school courtyard, caught by the hair and callously shot (with a second gun, the first having jammed).

Les affaires Fillon/Le Pen: the woeful state of French politics

The French presidential election campaign grows stranger and stranger by the day. The defeated would-be socialist candidate, Manuel Valls, cannot bring himself to back the man who beat him, the much more leftwing Benoit Hamon. Has he been promised a placed in the government the centrist Emmanuel Macron, originally an outsider but now the best hope of keeping Marine Le Pen out of the Elysée, must somehow form if he wins? Can François Fillon really overcome public disquiet at the criminal charges hanging over him>? Do Front National supporters even care about those potentially facing Le Pen? What a mess and here's how I sought to brief readers of The National* on the historical backdrop to some of that mess ...

Who could imagine that General Charles de Gaulle, a towering figure of modern French history and father of the fifth republic dating from 1958, would ever have faced criminal charges?

Too much! Saint-Tropez de trop

J'aime l'hiver a Saint-Tropez. In shop after shop, business after business, a sign bearing that slogan - and, often enough, another announcing fermeture annuelle - was displayed.

And why not? At the prices they feel entitled to charge, for no matter what goods or services, they must surely earn enough in the summer to see them through the winter without the need to head off to the mountains to replicate their trade for the skiers. It is also beyond doubt that this beautiful corner of France becomes more beautiful still when there are not hordes of peoples and, especially, when there are empty berths along the exquisite harbour front.

Scandal, 'political immaturity' and intrigue as France's presidential election gets messier

Come back François Hollande. All, or at least some, is forgiven. The thought is laughable, of course, but it has been on a few lips in France as the 2017 presidential election descends into the mess we see today. Not every woman in his life would see the outgoing head of state as irreproachable, and he has been no great shakes at the Elysée, but he has always seemed a decent enough politician. And that seems to set him apart in this country. It is not prerequisite for seeking or holding office in France to have been convicted of criminal offences in the past or face possible or actual charges now. It also seems no barrier. Here* I try to pull together all the current strands of an extraordinary contest ...

As the French presidential election veers from scandal to farce, the beleaguered centre-right candidate François Fillon is desperately fighting to stay in the race despite being enfeebled by imminent criminal charges and the mass defection of supporters.

Beleaguered Fillon, upstart Macron and Lepennish Le Pen create French farce

It changes daily. Since I wrote this comment piece for The National*, itself a substantial update on when I first submitted it a couple of days ago, François Fillon's wife Penelope has broken her silence ('we did nothing wrong', 'François should fight to the end' sort of thing), Fillon drew thousands of supporters to a Paris rally and even had a birthday, his 63rd. Will he hang on, will be forced to stand aside? If he sticks it out, does he face electoral humiliation? Time will tell ...

AND YET A FURTHER UPDATE: Juppé rules himself out. Fillon acclaims his Trocadéro show of support - hundreds of thousands, he says, more like tens of thousand but still impressive - and the intrigue goes on ...

Abdelghani Merah, the terrorist's brother marching against extremism - and to cleanse the family name

From Le Progrès, a newspaper published in Lyon

With the help of Father Christian Delorme, the priest mentioned in this story, I was able to contact Abdelghani Merah* during the Burgundy stage of his remarkable one-man march across France. Abdelghani seems a noble and courageous man but his family name is stained by association with the murders committed by a younger brother, crimes their sister acclaimed and in which another brother was allegedly an accessory ...

The brother of one of France’s most notorious terrorists is walking almost the length of the country as part of a personal campaign to combat indoctrination, extremism and hatred.

Inspired by "the march of the Beurs", a celebrated anti-racism trek in 1983, and by his own love of France, Abdelghani Merah, 40, will have covered more than 1,200 kilometres in nearly six weeks by the time he reaches Paris on March 19.