After riots in Paris, the smoke is clearing over the city
One of the few consolations left to Parisians since the lockdown (“le confinement”), which began on 17 March, is that for most of April the days have been sunny and bright. In the southern part of...
View ArticleParis’s post-lockdown blues
Even before the phased end to lockdown was announced on 11 May, the severe restrictions in France had been loosening. The true day of “liberation” came, however, on Tuesday 2 June: this was when after...
View ArticleMacron and the Muslim world
The moment the coffin of Samuel Paty was carried by republican guards into the Cour d’Honneur of the Sorbonne in the early evening of 21 October was especially poignant. Paty, a history and geography...
View ArticleLife without liberty: how Covid turned Paris into a city of fear
In the early evening of Wednesday 20 January, as I was locking up my office in a neighbourhood in southern Paris, I walked straight into a group of four heavily armed soldiers who were coming down the...
View ArticleFrance’s silent majority: How a political class was left behind
In Paris, most non-essential businesses and café terrasses reopened in mid-May and you can now eat, drink or shop wherever you like. People are no longer required to wear masks in outdoor spaces and...
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Éric Zemmour: the “TV-friendly fascist” who thinks he can be France’s next...
In 2011 Éric Zemmour, the author, broadcaster and provocateur, was found guilty of inciting racial hatred, and in 2018 guilty of inciting hate against Muslims. Another court case is pending over his...
View ArticleMichel Houellebecq and the soul of France
It is hard to think of any writer in the English-speaking world equivalent to the cultural and political phenomenon that is the French novelist and provocateur Michel Houellebecq. When Houellebecq...
View ArticleThe evolution of Marine Le Pen
I watched the first-round results of the French presidential election come in on Sunday night (10 April) in an Algerian-owned bar in southern Paris. The prelude had been the thrilling Premier League...
View ArticleEmmanuel Macron’s win can’t hide a fractured France
Although the outcome was entirely predictable, by the time the decisive results were announced at 8pm on Sunday 24 April, the re-election of President Emmanuel Macron was still a historic event. This...
View ArticleFrance and the fatwa
The near-fatal stabbing of Salman Rushdie in the US on 12 August dominated the headlines in France as soon as the news broke. From the television networks, major newspapers and magazines to local...
View ArticleThe new Spanish civil wars
A few months ago I took a high-speed train from Madrid to Córdoba, and then travelled by bus through the mountains to Granada. My ultimate destination was the Alhambra, the exquisitely designed fort...
View ArticleEmmanuel Carrère: “I need to be honest about myself. Otherwise, why write?
One of the most persistent themes in the writings of Emmanuel Carrère is the elusive strangeness that lies never too far below the surface of everyday life. One of the best examples of this is...
View ArticleParis is an open prison
These recent weeks have been the strangest in the nearly two decades I have lived and worked in Paris. This includes the terrible year of 2015, which began with the massacre at the offices of the...
View ArticleHow a bestselling novel reveals French sympathy for Putin
One of the more extraordinary literary successes in France last year was a debut novel called Le Mage du Kremlin (“The Wizard of the Kremlin”) by the political scientist Giuliano da Empoli. The book...
View ArticleLetter from Marseille: the lawless metropolis
The best place to take in Marseille is from the esplanade of the Notre-Damae de la Garde basilica. The church, crowned by a golden statue of the Virgin Mary, stands nearly 500ft high on a limestone...
View ArticleThe rotten heart of the French republic
The atmosphere in Paris on Sunday 2 July was subdued. It was a serious contrast to the previous five nights, when escalating violence and disorder spread across the country following the 27 June...
View ArticleHow the far right seduced France’s Gen Z
In France, the youth far right has its own neologism: the Fachosphère. Not unlike the manosphere and online alt-right communities across the West, the term denotes a subculture of young influencers who...
View ArticleHas the French civil war crossed the Channel?
Watching the recent riots in England from France has been a strange experience. The similarities between the violence erupting on the provincial streets of England and the anger that convulsed over all...
View ArticleCan Michel Barnier save Emmanuel Macron?
At the end of a long summer of whispers, rumours and stalled negotiations, Emmanuel Macron has pulled off yet another dramatic surprise by announcing that the 73-year-old Michel Barnier will be his...
View ArticleThe atrocity exhibition
To be in Paris on the night of 13 November 2015, when 130 people were killed by an Islamist commando group, who within a few hours launched attacks on the Stade de France, the café terraces of the...
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