France
French racism is not the problem
Last week we learned that a woman in a park in Skegness was dragged into the bushes and raped by…
The French riots threaten the state’s very existence
How dangerous are riots to the very existence of the French state? Most commentators avoid the question and concentrate on causes.…
The beauty of rosé and roses
What an idyllic setting. We were amidst the joys of high summer in England, with just enough of a breeze…
The Franco-Prussian war changed the map of Europe – so why are we so ignorant about it?
Rachel Chrastil describes how Bismarck, relying on Gallic pride to provoke the war he wanted, ensured that France would fight without a single ally
Wikipedia does more justice to this fascinating story than this film: Chevalier reviewed
Chevalier is a biopic of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, whom you’ve probably never heard of, as I hadn’t. He…
The Britishness of Bordeaux
Burgundy or Bordeaux? We were discussing that unending question during dinner over the weekend. I think that there is only…
Haunted by Old Russia: Rachmaninoff’s lonely final years
Exiled from Russia and often denigrated in America, Rachmaninoff lived in a fug of unbearable, impenetrable sadness, says Paul Kildea
Can Macron get through the day without insulting the Brits?
The editorial in today’s Le Figaro heralds the dawn of a 21st century Entente Cordiale and the newspaper carries an interview…
The murder of Lola and the failure of Marconism
Last Friday, a beautiful 12-year-old Paris girl named Lola failed to come home from middle school. Later that evening, her…
My battle with an ant
At eight o’clock in the morning a nurse injected me with a radioactive marker and told me to go away…
My three-night retreat with the nuns
We were four round the little table in the nunnery kitchen: a 90-year-old German lady and her man; a nun…
Marine Le Pen wants France to become the next Sweden
While Emmanuel Macron spent Sunday in London honouring the memory of the late Queen Elizabeth, Marine Le Pen marked her…
The inconvenient truth about France’s forest fires
Montpellier Last month the Prime Minister of France, Elisabeth Borne, visited the south-west of the country to offer her support…
Zemmour is his own worst enemy
Eric Zemmour is back. The bogeyman of French politics spent the summer licking his wounds after his far-right Reconquest party…
What kompromat does Trump have on Macron?
Did Donald Trump have kompromat on Emmanuel Macron within the secret files seized by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago Xanadu?…
Could Macron trigger British blackouts?
‘We are living the end of an era of abundance,’ according to Emmanuel Macron, ‘the end of the abundance of…
Europe’s new migrant crisis
Earlier this month I spent a week in Sicily, driving south from Palermo to Agrigento and then east to Syracuse…
Why was Henrietta Maria, Charles I’s beautiful wife, so reviled?
On 15 June 1645, as Thomas Fairfax’s soldiers picked over the scattered debris on the Naseby battlefield, they made a…
What’s the point of the NHS if it doesn’t work?
We left prepared. Bottles of water, protein snacks, phone chargers, portable Scrabble (even the teenagers can look at the internet…
Liberté, égalité, nudité: France’s new sexual politics
France’s new sexual politics
Europe’s looming energy wars
This summer marks a truce. But if, as expected, Liz Truss becomes prime minister, it is almost inevitable that tensions…
My debt to Boris Johnson
Back in 1997 when I was narked on by a fellow journalist (Simon Walters, currently of the Times, then of…
The hidden benefit of an electric car
Hello, and welcome to episode one of What’s in My Frunk?, the first in an occasional Spectator series of news…
The joy of a children’s choir
All afternoon I had been horizontal next to an electric fan, sometimes sleeping, sometimes awake and sometimes halfway between those…
