Salut!

Emmanuel Macron: the end of the honeymoon

If I had a French vote, I would have been tempted by Emmanuel Macron in the first round of the presidential elections because the choice otherwise ranged from uninspiring to downright worrying. It goes without saying he'd have got my vote in the deciding second round against the Front National's Marine Le Pen (her party's name stinks to such an extent that even she announced after the first round that she was a candidate, not its candidate). In the legislative elections, I'd have voted for the far left La France Soumise but only in the Essonne constituency where my niece-in-law was standing.

Having got Macron, though, France is beginning to wonder. It has been a decidedly mixed start to the presidency, as I outline in an opinion piece for The National* ...

Strong suspicions of arson after fires ravage the French Riviera

Yesterday, I wrote this at Facebook to explain the photo you see above, the early morning view from our home:

Accident or toerag arsonists? Either way, not a pretty sight to wake up to in south of France

And after the break: can Paris prosper at London's expense post-Brexit?

This is a package I put together for The National - which permits its reproduction here* - on where Paris finds itself and hopes to be as a result of the British public's coherent/brave/unwise/lunatic (select your own adjective) to leave the EU ...

Rivalry between London and Paris dates from long before the Brexit vote threatened to transform the competing economic attractions of the two capitals.

The cities are in almost perpetual dispute over which is the most visited in the world, citing different statistics or differing interpretations of the same figures.

G20 in Hamburg: my part in the class war

Let me make this clear: I am no huge fan of G20 and I support 100 per cent the right of people who feel strongly enough to demonstrate against its summits. I am even less a fan of rioting and violent direct action by those who feel they can sidestep democracy and impose their will on the street. I took no pleasure in saying as much in a comment piece for The National while reporting on the summit in Hamburg.

But here are some less confrontational images from my five days in the German city (check out all that I wrote here)...

Nice to Hamburg for G20: lost in country lanes, diddled on the forecourt, starved in flight

When I told Dieter, a German neighbour in France, I was heading to his home city to cover G20, he offered a sympathetic smile: "And I am staying here. Hamburg is the last place I'd want to be just now."

Dieter had a point. If you want some relaxation, don’t volunteer to report on potentially round-the-clock demos from a jumble of anti-capitalist, student fun-seeking, green campaigning and troublemaking hordes, while also trying to make sense of what is being discussed and decided by the world leaders present.

And don’t have my sort of day getting to the northern German city.

Olivane, Evan and the ugly face of Trump's America

Facebook profile photo: the quoted information comes from L'Ouest France, whose article (in French) can be found here

A young French couple, Breton students hoping to devote the summer holiday to 'Wwoofing' on an American ranch - the acronym stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms of or Willing Workers on Organic Farms and involves doing a few hours of unpaid work daily in return for food and accommodation - instead found themselves detained by Homeland Security at Philadelphia airport, interrogated, handcuffed and carted off to cells for 12 hours. Somewhere along the way, they were injected with some unknown product; then they were unceremoniously sent back to France. (I gather that 'wolfing', while perfectly legal in many countries and popular among students, is outlawed as 'undeclared labour' in the US, though the couple say they acted in good faith.)

We cannot be sure the wretched experience as described by Olivane Tilly and Evan Guélard - their story was initially reported without surnames, common practice in France, but I have been in touch with both since - is even an indirect product of the sheer nastiness that seems to guide Donald Trump's every move or his obsessive, ultimately fruitful search for a bunch of judges, any judges, willing to legitimise his dangerous, divisive follies. All we can take for granted is that the climate he has created will have emboldened officials to act as crassly and heavy-handedly as they wish.

In truth, there is probably no limit on the number of people, institutions or countries that our White House bruiser won't pick a fight with. For Bill Taylor, a product of County Durham who lived in New York (and wrote affectionately about his NYC days here) but later elected to become a Canadian citizen, it has gone from being a pantomime joke to good reason to avoid the USA ...