Salut!

Macron, radicalisation and fighting Islamism without demonising Islam

By and large, Emmanuel Macron (photograph from the Elyseé Palace's official website) strikes me as being the best president France has had in decades.

 

I realise that isn't saying a great deal and certainly see that he has flaws: he can appear arrogant and dismissive of ordinary concerns and is, for such an intelligent man, occasionally clumsy with words. The charge of Islamophobia is absurd but some of his statements, during the recent controversy over the republication of cartoons Muslims find offensive, have been ill-judged. But he generally acts with a firmness, clarity and level of honesty too often lacking among modern political leaders. 

 

It is also important to recognise that the context of his recent declarations is the bloodshed and misery caused by hideous terrorist atrocities, even though it is utterly wrong to blame Muslims as a whole for the horrific crimes of those who claim to be acting in Islam's name. Now, Mr Macron and his government must act with care to demonstrate that their response to extremism is not capable of being misinterpreted. I explore these issues in my latest piece for The National, which the editor kindly permits me to reproduce here ... 

 

Charlie Hebdo: the gathering tensions in France behind a barbaric new attack

Try as I might, I could not persuade Maitre Lucie Simon, the lawyer for 'Youssef', the hero of the latest attack on Charlie Hebdo, to talk at any length to me, let alone put me in touch with her client.

 

His actions merited a wider world audience. Me Simon put the phone down (later explaining that she had tried three times being doing so to make it clear she did not wish to speak to me). Happy to report we're friends again - 'don't take it personally,' she tells me ... and after a lifetime of having uncommunicative people slam the phone down, I don't.

 

This is likely to be my last piece for The National from France before my big return to quarantine in the UK next week. When I say I cannot wait to be back, I mean back in France in early 2021 if our government of clowns (copyright Joe Biden) hasn't destroyed all foreign travel by then ...

 

A 25-year-old Pakistani immigrant has been charged with the attempted murder of two journalists stabbed outside the former offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo in an attack underlining a rising terrorism threat in France.

Prosecutors say Zaheer Hassan Mahmoud, who initially claimed to be 18 and to have arrived in France as a minor, admits carrying out the attack after being enraged by the magazine’s republication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

He allegedly made two reconnaissance visits in the days leading up to last Friday's attack in Paris but had no idea Charlie Hebdo had moved premises after the 2015 massacre of 12 people, including journalists, cartoonists and a Muslim police officer.

France: from Beirut to Ankara and the Maghreb, Macron positions himself as Europe's natural leader

This is how The National (UAE) treated my article reflecting on Emmanuel Macron's swift visit to Beirut after the catastrophic explosions - and other pressing concerns that have interrupted his holiday down the road from me.

I expected to be accused by Macron opponents  of being too kind to the president. I did not expect one of his supporters, Manuel Guillaumont, encountered par hasard at Twitter, to take issue with my analysis - 'interesting but ultimately weak ... nothing new'. In later exchanges, Manuel said Macron was actually stronger on domestic politics than many believed but was trying to strengthen a feeble or isolated role in world affairs even though the French cared little about such things.  

On doit oublier 2017 et bâtir un nouveau programme. De plus, la politique internationale intéresse peu les français et n'a pas à ma connaissance fait gagner ou perdre un président qui se représentait. Quant au respect, pour quoi que ce soit, c'est une valeur désuète.

— Manuel Guillaumont 🇫🇷🇬🇷🇮🇪🇷🇴 (@MGuillaumont) August 17, 2020

Needless to say, I acknowledge Manuel's criticism but also stand by my article. I am not a passionate Macron fan - and suffer from his Élysée press office's tendency to treat foreign journalists (OK, me and one or two others I know) with contempt - but consider him a good, strong president who stands head and shoulders, though not in physical stature, above Boris Johnson ...

France quarantine chaos: did Dominic Cummings plot it all in Barnard Castle?

I'm trying to imagine the small talk as Dominic Cummings sat with his wife and son by the Tees in Barnard Castle.

'You know, Mary, we've had to go through this Covid-19 ordeal. But it can work in our favour. When Brexit really starts to hurt, we can just blame the coronavirus.' Mary, not for the first time, was utterly starstruck.

'Darling, you're such a genius. I must get The Spectator to say so again'. Here, separated from an unduly long piece to be found here, is what else happened on that lovely Sunday as Dom endured a wholly justifiable family outing but only for the greater good of the country ...

Explained: Boris's attack on Brits coming home from France - and French coming at all

 

To the consternation of many of my friends, I have no personal dislike of Boris Johnson.

I first met him a long time ago, worked with him at The Daily Telegraph (when it was mostly a very good newspaper, whatever its politics) and was greeted heartily and by name on bumping into him twice when he was Mayor of London.

He's an excellent writer - his book on Winston Churchill may be flawed but is a great read - and, as you'd expect from someone born in New York, schooled in Brussels and having a  little Turkish ancestry, he is an internationalist (indeed a European).

But, of course, it all went wrong; the fierce ambition Boris possesses turned him into a flag-of-convenience Brexiter. He even claimed he'd 'Got Brexit Done' until the famous oven-ready deal turned out to be an illusion if not an outright lie to add to all others told by truth-challenged Leavers.

My own politics, left of centre with more time for Keir Starmer than Jeremy Corbyn without trashing the latter, are naturally some way distant from Boris's. And I think he is a wretched prime minister who considers economy with the truth to be just part of the trade.

His handling of the imposition of quarantine on people arriving from France has been a nightmare. He said he'd be 'ruthless' but not that this translated as being perfectly content to inflict horrendous inconvenience and possible loss of jobs, along with alarming disruption to plans for the new school term, with the least possible notice - all made infinitely worse by a crass ministerial gaffe.

Grant Shapps, the transport secretary in a government packed with incompetents, told Sky News the 4am Saturday deadline meant the quarantine would affect people arriving from Sunday. He tried to paper over the cracks and correct his idiotic statement but the damage was done. Among the army of Brits in France - I saw figures of up to 500,000 but imagine these include the many expats with no need or indeed wish to return - a fair number appear to have taken him at his word and either booked for some later time on Saturday or kept to such bookings already made.

The impact on people's lives is incalculable. People who had clung to the dream of a decent holiday, perhaps already paid for, even when their future employment was to say the least unsure, and whose children had to be prepared for school, understandably panicked. There was easy-to-predict chaos at air, sea and rail crossing points. Many paid exorbitant prices to get home; many more will have failed to make it in time. My daughter and granddaughter (see photo above) dodged this absurd measure by paying to bring forward their flight from Nice.

The sick man of Europe - with a record on Covid-19 worse than any EU country - was lecturing its nearest neighbour on rising numbers of cases there and inflicting draconian restrictions at the drop of a hat. Mass testing at ports of entry, with follow-up tests over the ensuing two weeks if necessary, would have been a fairer and more efficient response to concerns about the infection rate in France; instead, people not using their own transport are required to take buses, trains or taxis - spreading any germs as they go - before then, and only then, having to self-isolate. And many would be French, returning to the unwelcoming country they have made their home and enriched.  

If ever a government measure immediately affecting tens, scores, maybe hundreds of thousands of people has ever been implemented with greater stupidity and lack of decency, I'd like to hear of it.  But then, I have a good idea of how it came about. Please read on; it won't take long ...

John Hume laid to rest in The Town he Loved So Well. RIP a great son of Derry

 

Three fine products of Derry - "stroke city" for BBC Radio Ulster in days when many felt obliged to refer to it as Londonderry/Derry - were present in St Eugene's Cathedral for a momentous event on Wednesday.

 

Two were living and one, John Hume, a key architect of what Mo Mowlam, when Northern Ireland Secretary, called the "flawed peace", had just died aged 83. It was his funeral, with the number of mourners much smaller than the thousands who would have gathered but for Covid-19.

 

The others, admirable in their own ways, were Phil Coulter and Frank Gallagher. Frank, a man I am proud to consider a friend, directed the music for the service (it was the Hume family's express wish that he should do so).

 

Macron, Philippe and France's new PM Jean Castex: who is the fairest of them all?

Source: Presidencia de la República Mexicana / CC BY

Mirror, mirror on the wall ... did Emmanuel Macron, president of France, want rid of his prime minister, Edouard Philippe, at least in part because he was jealous of his far greater popularity?

Did Philippe want to stand down in any case? Which of them stands the better chance of warding off the menace of France's far right at the next presidential election in 2022? What can we make of Philippe's successor, Jean Castex? My confrere David Chazan quotes a French colleague today as describing 'an irritatingly ponderous slow delivery to answer his first PMQs'? I raise most of these questions in an opinion piece for The National (UAE), which kindly permits the reproduction of my work here ... 

Source: Perguillaume / CC BY-SA

Tall, lean and sporty, Edouard Philippe stood head and shoulders above the French President Emmanuel Macron, whose centrist government he led as prime minister.

The differing physical statures were matched in the opinion polls. Despite the Covid-19 crisis, itself following more than a year of restlessness on the streets during protests against austerity and pension reform, Mr Philippe retained broad popular support while the President struggled to rise above an approval rating of 30 per cent.

France and its truculent voters. They can give voice to their truculence on Sunday

Not much to do with French elections but I quite like the photo: Antibes after the market closes ...

In my own little 'commune', the mayor won 42 per cent of the votes in the first round of polling, way ahead of anyone else, and should therefore be expected to keep his position with ease in Sunday's run-off. But 'anyone else' - everyone else - has chosen to combine forces despite glaring differences of their own. So it's the devil you know versus devils you don't.

Not far away, in Cogolin, a woman who was aligned to the centrist Macron party, La Repubique En Marche,  has switched to the list headed by someone 'close to' the dreaded far-right mob of Marine - 'honest, I'm not as bad as my dad' - Le Pen. Her old man, a Macronist candidate, was in the paper threatening legal action to stop her dragging his family name through the mud. Hey ho or dis donc as they might say here. Coalitions and unlikely alliances are happening in bigger places as my piece for The National tries to explain ...

The French president Emmanuel Macron is widely expected to receive a significant blow on Sunday when municipal elections throughout the country give western voters their first post-lockdown chance to judge their leaders’ performance during the Covid-19 crisis.

With ecological issues increasingly important to electorates across the world, green candidates could be the main winners, joining left-wing parties in coalitions taking control of major cities including Marseille, Lyon and Montpellier.

Paris is likely, on the basis of most recent opinion polling, to remain in the hands of Anne Hidalgo, who represents the mainstream socialist party but has built a reputation as a mayor with strongly environmental credentials including ambitious new plans to remodel the celebrated Champs-Elysees avenue as the heart a traffic-free park.

La Haine antiflics; the French policeman's lot is not a happy one

Photo credit:  Thomas Bresson — own work ... https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75971045

Events since the wonders of modern media enabled the world to watch in horror the last moments of George Floyd have caused lots of people to think more deeply about racism, especially the institutional kind, and also the relationship between police and ethnic communities.

But misgivings about the way the forces of law go about their necessary work are not confined to issues of race as shown by a powerful documentary from the France 2 team that carries out the Envoyé Spécial investigations. It prompted me to offer analysis to The National, which kindly permits reproduction of my work here ... 

 

Image of Adama Traoré: Chris93

Coronavirus: France's desperate battle to prevent an Italian 'tsunami' of infection

The beautiful Promenade des Anglais in normal times. Image: W M Connolley - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11733

I raise my hat to colleagues at The National, Abu Dhabi, including Jack Moore and Taylor Heyman, who are having to work remotely when editing and posting content such as my update, also remotely from France of the steps being taken by French authorities to fight the spread of coronavirus and in particular to spare their country the horrendous fate of Italy. I have the editor's consent to reproduce my work at Salut! ....

France’s hardening approach to combating the coronavirus outbreak, with steep fines for defiance of strict limits on movement, reflects both concern at its rising death count and fears that the country cannot rule out suffering as severely as Italy.

In Nice, one of France’s front lines just 30 kilometres from the Mediterranean border crossing near Ventimiglia, health professionals say the risk of degeneration to Italian levels of infection – 53,578 cases and nearly 5,000 deaths, including a record day-on-day rise of almost 800 fatalities, on Saturday’s figures - is possible.

“Some talk of a tsunami,” says Dr Patrice Melia, a cardiologist, pointing out that the effects of the virus in France remain some way from their likely peak. France’s tally for infection stood on Saturday at 14,485 including 562 deaths.