Salut!

Adieu France's Olympic glory, re-bonjour French political chaos

This is how I looked back on an inspiring Olympics and forward to France's pressing need to sort out a hopelessly hung parliament and get a new administration up and running ... I wrote it for The National, which permits me to reproduce my work here

 

From the reflected glory of a successful Paris Olympics to the urgent need to salvage a viable new government from political turmoil, France is coming down to earth with an uncomfortable bump.

It was a smart call on the part of French President Emmanuel Macron to promise an “Olympics truce”, placing the unifying qualities of the Games ahead of nagging domestic and international issues.

Dating from Ancient Greece and a treaty signed by three city-state kings – Iphitos, Cleisthenes and Lycurgus – the truce originally provided for a laying down of arms, suspending incessant hostilities to allow spectators safe travel to and from Olympic events.

From the opening on July 26 to Sunday’s closing ceremony, its 2024 version in France has been impressively observed.

Courtesy: official Paris 2024 site

The dire state of French politics, the Nazi roots of the election frontrunners and reacquaintance with andouillettes

A look at the anticipated but still worrying outcome of the first round of the French legislative elections. They happened because President Emmanuel Macron made a spectacularly botched response to successes by the French far right in June's polling for the European Parliament .... this article appeared at my Substack pages, still free to view

 

At the school gymnasium where I play badminton in the French resort of La Londe-les-Maures, two of my three companions in any game of doubles can statistically be assumed to have voted for Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National in last Sunday’s legislative elections.

My return to France much delayed, I have been missing from the courts for months. But I hope to join fellow club members at the end-of-season soirée this weekend, the eve of the second and decisive round of voting.

Now it could be that badminton players are a species apart, too noble to contemplate supporting a party with such a sinister background, one still routinely described as l’extrême droite with the blessing of a constitutional court ruling. But that is not really likely so I must resist any temptation to throw shuttlecocks about in a rage.

 

Jordan Bardella: by BootEXE

Scruffy at Glyndebourne, a scruffy Farage defence of racists, Labour's scruffy Brexit attachment

It was a great afternoon and evening out, a relaxing walk around the gorgeous grounds of Glyndebourne before an exhilarating burst of Bizet, Carmen - first performed at the Comique Opera in Paris in 1875 but here presented by a cast wearing the clothing of 2024. I also found space at my latest Salut! Life post at Substack for one pop at Keir Starmer (his "make Brexit work" drivel appals me), another at Nigel Farage and warm praise for Killian Mbappe's call to French youth to reject extremism (by which he meant the far right) ...

Do accents matter? Plus thoughts on beautiful places and ugly politics

Anyone who comes to these pages regularly will have noticed that Salut! is not nearly as active as it was once. Plenty still happens at Salut! Live, for those who enjoy folk music, folk-rock and similar, but this site goes through long periods of silence. I have, however, launched another branch of the Salut! mini-empire. Salut! Life is the name I give my pages at a writers' platform known as Substack.

This is the link to those pages.

The idea of many, maybe most, people who hook up with Substack is to persuade readers their published work is worth paying to read. I am deeply grateful to the few readers who have taken out paying subscriptions and so, I know, are the good causes that I have been able to help as a result with some of the proceeds.

That said, I have deliberately made it possible for people to subscribe free of charge. This will continue for the time being and even when I move forward to greater dependence on paid subscriptions, I shall apply the paywall selectively, allowing free access to some of what I post.

This - and what follows here - is my latest Substack offering, covering two familiar topics: prejudice about regional accents and the alarming rightward drift of the Conservative party. I also found space for some words on the beauty of Sussex.

If you find enjoyment or stimulation in anything I had to say, please explore Salut! Life further...   

 

Sounds 'lower class northern'? Amelia Coburn and her record. Photo: Andy Johnson

As the West turns to ugly populism, can Labour rise above just not being Tories?

 

 

A century after Labour first made it into government at Westminster, a decisive new electoral victory is within grasp. 

 

 

When I think of Sir Keir Starmer's timid approach to a general election that cannot come too quickly, I think also of those brilliant but, sadly, soon-to-retire, folk-rock stars Oysterband. "We voted Labour," they wrote in album notes during the Blair years. "But we didn't inhale." 

 

 

In this Comment piece for The National, (for which Sir Keir is plain Mr Starmer), I describe how Britain, for now. Is sheltered from the grim populism sweeping the West (I include the alarming resilience of support for Trump in the US) ….. 

When so many European voters seem intent on drifting to the right or, without trace of embarrassment, even to the extreme right, it somehow feels odd to be contemplating a victory for the left in Britain.

If the polls are accurate, the UK’s Labour party is bucking a western trend. It is on course under Keir Starmer for an emphatic return to power when a general election is held later this year, after 14 years of office for the Conservatives – a period of despair and disappointment for many people. Some disgruntled Tories, perhaps with exaggerated gloom, even talk mournfully of the prospect of political extinction.

Portrait: Chris McAndrew

Gabriel Attal: should the French wonder how Le Boy Wonder will do?

 

French politics: a very special, sometimes frenzied sphere and one I enjoy writing about. Oddly enough, I didn’t initially propose an analytical piece to The National on the elevation of 34-year-ôld Gabriel Attal to the role of prime minister. I misjudged what interest there’d be given how how firmly real power in France resides in the presidency. The National came to me. This - which you can see in original form at the newspaper's site  - is the result …

 

The next time political pundits mock British Conservatives for having worked their way, with scant success, through so many prime ministers – five in their 13 years of power – they should perhaps cast a glance across the English Channel at France, where an unpopular President, Emmanuel Macron, has announced his fourth in just seven years of office.

Mr Macron’s choice as successor to the earnest but beleaguered Elisabeth Borne is the youngest to hold the office in modern times. Gabriel Attal, just 34, has enjoyed a meteoric rise to the top and is regarded as the best-liked member of the centrist government, even though the administration’s inability to win public hearts and minds suggests he is merely the figure voters dislike least.

In many ways, Mr Attal is the mirror image of the President who, for now, is also his cheerleader.

Image: Conseil de l'Union Européenne

Out with the old but will the new year be any better ?

Well 2023 was hardly a year to remember for good reasons. What will 2024 bring? In my piece for The National, I struggle to sound an optimistic note…. 

 

Amid the profound uncertainty, hopes and fears that dominate thoughts as Europe enters 2024, some predictions can be made with confidence and have the power to impose radical change on the continent and its way of life. 

 

Beyond reasonable doubt, the terrible suffering of Gaza, itself following the horrendous attack of October 7, will continue to cause not only deep shock but deep division across Europe. While there remains great sympathy for Israelis killed, maimed or bereaved by Hamas, millions are also appalled at a military response that seems as indiscriminate and frankly inhuman as terrorist atrocities. These divisions are sure to assume increasing prominence. 

When Irish eyes are unsmiling. The Dublin riots, Conor McGregor and the Irish diaspora`

My love affair with Ireland began some time before I first set foot in the country.

I became hooked on Irish music while attending and running folk clubs in the North East of England. I would go on to spend several happy holidays there, later making repeated visits - Northern Ireland mostly but also, often enough venturing south, as a reporter.

I have made Irish friends in many walks of life and almost always experienced a warm welcome on my travels to their land. But the times are changing.

Europe's current obsession with immigration is affecting attitudes throughout the EU as well as in Britain. The politicians seem too incompetent and unimaginative to act in an effective way that does not at the same time lose sight of the need for compassion and a sense of proportion.

Recent events in Dublin are instructive, as I attempted to show in this analysis for The National ...

 

 

 

The island of Ireland, where the stabbing of three children outside a Dublin primary school last week led to rioting, is beautiful, often troubled and historically a great exporter of people.

Definitions vary but the Irish diaspora numbers between an official estimate of three million, born in Ireland but residing overseas, and an astonishing 100 million, the higher figure covering everyone of known Irish ancestry scattered around the world. Ireland's population, even taking account of Northern Ireland, part of the UK, stands at just seven million.

Dublin burning. Image: CanalEnthusiast

 

France and anti-Semitism: when the right for once seems right, is the left left wanting?

My look at the strangely changing nature of French politics, in which the far right reinvents itself as defender of Jews while elements of the left seem, by comparison, anti-Semitic. But be careful. As I try to explain below, in this Comment piece for The National (to which my usual thanks for permission to reproduce), there is nothing simple about the divisions arising from the deadly Israel-Hamas conflict ....

On Monday, French police arrested eight youngsters, aged from 11 to 17, suspected of chanting slogans calling for the death of Jews in an unsavoury episode on the Paris Metro last month.

Filmed on October 31 by another passenger, the group also targeted the police, sexual minorities, and France itself, before mocking one woman brave enough to intervene. “We are Nazis and we are proud,” they chanted during a tirade of hatred that lasted no less than 10 minutes, just weeks after Hamas killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel.

Image of the Battle of Gaza 312BC: from The illustrated history of the world

Voltaire, Gaza and beyond: why authorities mind you speaking your mind

That's me done with Voltaire. He's a great starting point for any discussion of free speech. But you always have to remember he didn't say it. He certainly thought it, but he never actually said or wrote - as far as is recorded - the words routinely attributed to him. For one last time, I invoked the great French philosopher for just that sort of discussion (and thanks to The National for letting me reproduce my articles here) ...

 

Nicolas de Largillière