France
Will bromance bloom between Trump and Jordan Bardella?
Life has never been so good for Jordan Bardella, the 30-year-old president of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. A recent…
Paris is a city afraid
The New Year’s Eve concert on the Champs Élysées has been cancelled for security reasons. Paris was supposed to host…
Portrait of the week: Downfall of a duke, double-decker trains in the Chunnel and no more chocolate Penguins
Home Prince Andrew said he would no longer use his titles, including as Duke of York, or his honours; his…
French parents do it better
I arrived in Paris as an au pair in 2022. I was in my early twenties and armed only with…
Yoga is slow-motion pole-dancing for grannies
It’s hard work being rich. I gave up trying years ago. You must waste money on everything, even the basics,…
In reappointing Lecornu, Macron is clinging to power
Emmanuel Macron has reappointed Sébastien Lecornu as prime minister, a loyalist whose government collapsed in mere weeks, and whose resignation…
The luxury of French prisons
Nicolas Sarkozy, former president of the French Republic, has been convicted and sentenced to five years for a ‘criminal conspiracy…
Nutrition is a bogus creed
Time to think about my diet. A test kit arrives from the NHS screening team who want to inspect a…
Letters: French universities still offer a proper education
Unhappy Union Sir: John Power is correct about George Abaraonye, the president-elect of the Oxford Union (‘Violent opposition’, 20 September).…
Beware the restless, shifty liars
I have only been to Alexandria once, some years ago, when Hosni Mubarak was still in power, but it struck…
Kemi Badenoch’s North Sea plan is just another soundbite
‘We’re going to get all our oil and gas out of the North Sea’ was certainly a winning line for…
A tale of two Martins
Provence The canicule broke yesterday, heralding the end of high summer. Wild figs and mulberries litter the path, filling the…
Britain is having its own gilets jaunes moment
‘I heard you want your country back. Ha, shut the fuck up!’ So yelped rap-punk duo Bob Vylan on stage…
The human stories of slavery
With a new history of slavery and the slave trade in the Islamic world just published, I am under strict…
Why France hates Macron
One of the pleasures of spending the summer in France is that I can turn aside from our national problems…
Medics make the worst patients
Provence Apart from three Covid years, the German rock cover band Five and the Red One (named, so they say,…
Was the car finance judgment fair?
I must modestly doubt that the Supreme Court justices took account of my 12 July column in their ruling on…
Is this the man who can defeat France’s Islamists?
When France played Algeria in their national stadium, the Stade de France, in 2001, the French player Thierry Henry said…
Monaco, the people-watching paradise
I’m lying on a sun lounger in Monte Carlo and there are so many women with extended blonde hair, hornet-stung…
How I got under Macron’s skin
The journalist Jonathan Miller, a cherished Spectator contributor, died last week at his home in Occitanie, France. Below is an…
The French sculptors building the new Statue of Liberty
At a miserable-looking rally for the centre-left Place Publique in mid-March, its co-president, MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, made international headlines calling…
What history doesn’t tell us
The trouble with history is that it is topiary. History is what’s left after the unwanted foliage has been clipped…
Britain is heading the way of France
The backlash against Keir Starmer has begun. Some senior figures within the Labour party have criticised the Prime Minister’s warning…
Why it might be best if US stock markets go on falling
It gives me no pleasure to say I told you so. ‘If [Donald Trump] is prepared to cause mayhem in…
