Salut!

Rishi, Boris, Keir etc: those wacky Brexit positions in full

Understanding Brexit and all the different positions people take on this most important subject can be tricky. Here is a cut-out-and-keep guide 

 

With renewed thanks to the Danish cartoonist Jens Hage 

Salut!’s Christmas Day message: glad tidings amid the gloom

 

Today is a day to be enjoyed.

And Salut! hopes its small band of readers - the folk music site Salut! Live gets many, many more and might even entertain you - have a great Christmas Day.

My pal Pete Sixsmith foregoes Sunderland games each Christmas to show there is professional life after a teaching career 

 

There are things we can try to forget for one day.

Forget the attacks ministers and media cheerleaders have made on ordinary people, most of them performing important duties of behalf of everyone, for attempting to defend or improve working conditions and negotiate fairer pay.

Forget, if we can for a day, Putin and his squalid invasion, a Hitleresque adventure he crazily justifies as countering neo-Nazis in Ukraine.

Forget the incompetence, misconduct and dubious relationship with the truth that have characterised a good part of the Tories’ 12 years in power. The Government’s default disclaimer - ´´global headwinds’´, ie the pandemic and war - diverts blame from its own failures and the role of Brexit, which makes every problem others face that much worse for the UK.

Forget Sir Keir Starmer’s ploy of pretending the stench of Brexit can somehow be turned by his magic wand into the sweetest of scents. 

Actually, don’t forget and certainly don’t forgive any of that.

But do try to make the most of the festive season, notably today and the New Year revelries. And remember the good things: the flawed wonder that is the NHS and its magnificent staff, people in public and other essential services, volunteers at homeless refuges and food banks, all those giving their time, effort, skills and sometimes their lives to make the world a better place.

Salut! wishes you all a happy Christmas and the best the new year can bring.

 

Macron's 2022 nears end with comforting embraces for Mbappe, mixed balance sheet for France

 

 

Where else but Qatar to start a review of France and Emmanuel Macron's year? The mix of emotions on show at the end of a thrilling World Cup final no one really deserved to lose offered a useful metaphor. My thanks to the editor of The National for consenting to reproduction of my work here ...  

 

Amid high drama in Qatar, the faces of Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe firing the imagination of a watching world, an eventful year for France was reflected in other images capturing the changing moods of President Emmanuel Macron.

In Mr Macron’s expressions could be seen unbridled exhilaration at France’s comeback from being two goals down, the despair of ultimate defeat, grudging respect for the Argentine opposition and warm consolation for the deflated players, Mbappe in particular.

France was no longer top of the world in football. After the trophy-winning World Cup exploits of 1998 and 2018, finishing second in Doha was a slip from heady heights mirrored in at least one other aspect of the President’s experience of 2022.

 

UK policy: nurses should shiver and starve to defeat Putin

Sad but true: many Conservatives say or maybe would say if asked that they naturally support - as a fundamental democratic right - the right of workers to withdraw labour. I have never met a Conservative who supports this or that strike ... my analysis for The National

 

In a world seemingly imagined by Nadhim Zahawi, chairman of Britain’s ruling Conservative party, Vladimir Putin sits glumly at his preposterously long table in the Kremlin.

 

The news from London is bleak. Just as Mr Zahawi had urged, British nurses have accepted a pay offer they regard as desultory, thus sending a “clear message” to the Russian president that his warmongering, and weaponising of energy supply,are doomed to failure.

 

Mr Putin realises the game is up. His “special military operation” – or, as others see it, murderous invasion of neighbouring sovereign territory – must end forthwith, whatever the damage to personal and national pride.

 

Jean-Marie Le Pen and the dark legacy of 50 years of far right agitation

Rassemblement National (National Rally) was the Front National of Jean-Marie Le Pen's creation until four years ago. As France's main far-right movement marks, as quietly as it can, today's 50th anniversary of its birth, there are shudders of disgust or at least distance among France's new intake of 89 MPs, forming the biggest single opposition party.

'I would not have joined the FN in 1972,' Alexandre Loubet, an MP from Moselle tells Le Figaro. 'I come from Debout La République [another populist, rightwing party, but without FN's toxic image] and consider myself a social Gaullist,' says Anne-Sophie Frigout, from Marne. Philippe Lottiaux, down here in the Var, assures me the RN of Le Pen's estranged daughter, Marine, is neither extreme nor right.

I respectfully disagree.

As Emmanuel Macron pointed out in this year's presidential election campaign, her crackpot idea of banning Muslim headwear would have criminalised, among so many others, Latifa Ibn Ziaten, a relentless campaigner against extremism whose son, a Muslim soldier, was one of the seven victims of Mohamed Merah, a terrorist killer, 10 years ago. That alone tells us a lot.

This is my Comment piece for The National on the anniversary the far right, for that is what is still is, would sooner forget ...

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Image of Jean-Marie Le Pen by staffpresi_esj

Macron, Franco-Algerian ups and down and a glancing blow at Liz Truss

As my consoeur at the London-based website French Morning put it today, Emmanuel Macron did not expect to be drawn into the Tory and therefore No 10 succession contest. Liz Truss's crass comment in Norwich ensured that he was.

His rapier-like riposte, so much more elegant than her Little Englander spot of frogbashing, came during a three-day official visit to Algeria, which I explained for The National. See - or even hear - the item at this link or read it below, where it is reproduced with the editor's customary consent ...

When a president takes a sizeable delegation on a visit to a country with a shared and troubled history, it is fair to assume the agenda is unusually long or complex.

If the entourage numbers more than 90, assumption turns to certainty.

So it was for France’s Emmanuel Macron when he crossed the Mediterranean to Algeria last Thursday. Accompanying him were senior ministers, business chiefs and religious leaders among others.

 

A magnet for the French in London becomes another casualty of Brexit

On social media, I get quite cross about Brexit.

 

'Spot-on', my fellow-Remoaners say; 'pompous, condescending' is the harsher Brexiter verdict.

 

I aim for greater objectivity when writing for The National and other publications. But if it is a piece for Comment pages, I am naturally allowed to express or imply an opinion... like here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lured by Beatlemania and tantalising images of Swinging London, young French people looking for new experiences began flocking to the UK in the 1960s.

 

Many of those travelling to the capital wanted to stay. Needing help with accommodation, jobs or study opportunities, they headed for the bustling West End and the Charles Peguy centre.

 

Now, after six decades of assisting French people trying to find their feet in a new country, the centre has closed. It is another casualty of Brexit.

While the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has also played a small part, the causes for closure lie principally with the hard Brexit Britain chose as its departure route from the EU.

 

A mischievous caricature of Leave supporters shows obsessively flag-waving Little Englanders thriving on conflict with foreigners, especially the French.

 

While this is an exaggeration, it is unlikely that the staunchest “go it alone without Europe” advocates will shed tears over the centre’s demise.

In place of the entente cordiale, the famous accord signed in 1904 with the aim of fostering smoother Anglo-French relations, there is now mutual distrust.

 

Francoise Hardy did rather a lot for the entente cordiale in the 1960s. She hated 'Tous les Garcons ..." but was quite pleased with this

 

 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson may be on his way out of 10 Downing Street but his government has picked fight after fight with France, the triggers ranging from fishing rights and immigration to the horrendous delays seen at Dover as holidaymakers try to cross the English Channel to Calais. Ministers claim, often without justification, that it’s all the fault of France or the EU. In the golf club analogy that is commonly used, Paris and Brussels say Britain acts as if it thinks cancelling membership should not stop it playing whenever it wishes.

 

Brexit’s opponents insist that for all the promises of “sunlit uplands” for a Global Britain freed from EU shackles, there is little sign of benefit and ample evidence of loss.

 

Persistent claims that leaving the EU facilitated the UK National Health Service’s successful coronavirus vaccination programme are in dispute.

Membership of the EU encouraged but did not oblige a collective response to the virus. In any case, neighbouring countries quickly caught up after a sluggish start.

 

The Anglo-EU row over the so-called Northern Ireland protocol, designed to protect Ireland from a hard border that would almost certainly threaten a fragile peace, has already led to the withdrawal of European funding for UK scientific research.

 

The UK has admitted its actions would involve a “specific and limited” breach of international law, reneging on a deal freely signed with the EU and acclaimed by Mr Johnson. While Brussels fumes, Britain accuses the EU of intransigence for failing to agree on a protocol rewritten to suit London (and the minority among Northern Ireland voters who backed Leave).

See how it appears at The National (which consents to the reproduction of my work at Salut!: https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2022/07/29/a-pillar-of-anglo-french-ties-has-become-yet-another-casualty-of-brexit/

 

“Blame Brexit” has become a cliche of everyday life. UK exporters and importers deplore the added bureaucracy, delays and costs of continuing to trade with a massive neighbouring bloc. Aviation, agriculture and hospitality say ending freedom of movement has caused severe labour shortages. Whitehall either minimises the disruption or denies responsibility.

 

Britain has dropped out of the Erasmus programme that enabled a two-way traffic of students funded for academic exchanges. The replacement Turing scheme is one-way and excludes potentially crippling tuition fees.

 

Some Brexiters now say they always knew it would take time, perhaps decades, for gains to appear. Sovereignty, they say, was the paramount issue. Whether such a nuanced justification was properly explained to, or understood by, the narrow majority that voted Leave in the 2016 referendum is open to doubt.

 

All of which leaves the Charles Peguy centre as just another example of the collateral damage caused by a bitter political and cultural divorce.

Peguy was a young French poet and writer, killed in battle in the First World War. One of his works, The Portico of the Mystery of the Second Virtue was a favourite poem of Charles de Gaulle, who was to become the enduring symbol of French resistance in the Second World War and subsequently the country’s president.

 

Since opening in 1964, the centre named after him has advised tens of thousands of French visitors, mostly young, to London.

 

My wife and her best friend from school in provincial France, having worked as au pairs in northern England but wishing to settle for a while in London, went there for help in locating affordable accommodation. “All the French students coming to Britain knew of the Charles Peguy centre and we all gravitated towards it,” my wife recalls.

 

But the centre is now counted among what French Morning News London, an online source of news and information for French expatriates, calls the “heavy consequences” of Brexit.

 

“Covid stopped people travelling but now that’s more or less back to normal,” says Thibault Dufresne, director of the Centre for International Exchanges in France, which had run the London centre since the 1980s. “But sadly the impact of Brexit that has forced closure.

 

“London, the UK, used to be very attractive to young French people who wanted to gain experience of work and learn the language.

 

“With an identity card and the UK being next door, it was so easy. You could find a job in 24 hours and quickly move on to something better. Now that they need sponsorships and visas, it has become almost impossible for most.

 

“We held back on a decision for a couple for years hoping there might be some easing of restrictions, maybe to allow young people to come for six months or a year. But it hasn’t happened.

 

“It’s been a great adventure since 1964. The centre was the place to go for French speakers in London and we’re very sad that it has come to end.”

 

The beneficiary of Britain’s flagging appeal to Europe’s youth is Ireland, still in the EU, still participating in Erasmus and still offering freedom of movement. It is difficult to escape the thought that London – the city that Mr Johnson as its mayor acclaimed as a model of cosmopolitan harmony – has lost part of its soul.

 

Le Pen's far right en fête as the 'Macron adventure' takes a wrong turning

 

Last week, I said a hung parliament was the likeliest outcome of the French legislative elections. I was also resigned to the far right doing well in my part of France, the Var. In both cases I was proved right.

 

What do the results - frankly a catastrophe for Emmanuel Macron and his unpopular centrist project - say about France? I can stomach the success of the leftwing/Green alliance Nupes (while not seeing it as having much of a future) rather more easily than the disconcerting level of support for Marine Le Pen.

 

I realise that decent, if deluded, people voted for her party in the same way that decent, if deluded, people voted for Trump and Brexit. Yet it fills me with dismay that I live among, rub shoulders with, until recently played badminton with inhabitants of the classic Le Pen territory of uncomplicated racism and xenophobia.

 

Here's my analysis for The National, a piece that necessarily aimed to rise above personal opinion ... 

After the seismic electoral event that removed legislative authority from French President Emmanuel Macron, far-right leader Marine Le Pen had every right to appear before adoring supporters beaming with jubilation and pride.

Her National Rally movement (RN) dramatically increased its share of parliamentary seats from eight to 89.

It was an achievement greater than even she had expected. And it effectively dismantled the “republican front” in which voters of opposing political persuasions have traditionally buried differences to deny power to her party.

France's election season reaches its climax with shocks in store

 

A pleasant afternoon to the village of Bormes-les-Mimosas, for a medieval fair, produced an unexpected if brief encounter (described here) with Eric Zemmour, whose studied xenophobia excites some in France while appalling others.

 

That was a week before those in France who care enough to vote began choosing members of parliament. Despite the fawning of starstruck visitors who also spotted him, Zemmour failed at the first hurdle just as he had done in the presidential elections.

 

No room for civilised gloating; there's good reason to fear his voters will switch to another far-right candidate .... my piece for The National

 

The disconcerting reality Macron's victory concealed

I took another look at the French presidential elections and analysed what it may all mean for next month's follow-up polling for the Assemblée National, France's parliament. My thanks to the editor of The National for permitting my article's reproduction here ... 

 

 

The re-election of French President Emmanuel Macron on April 24 may have seemed straightforward enough to anyone following events from outside the country. But that victory, with 58 per cent of the vote, was far from emphatic enough to heal divisions in a torn and troubled country.

The harsh reality that must be pondered as France approaches another election, to decide who runs parliament, is that the result concealed a hidden majority: people unimpressed by Mr Macron’s centrist presidency.

While 18.7 million people voted for him, almost 27 million did not. They were split more or less equally between those who preferred the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen, and those who abstained or deposited blank or spoiled papers.