France
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…
The French scapegoat
On 15 June 1645, as Thomas Fairfax’s soldiers picked over the scattered debris on the Naseby battlefield, they made a…
Diary
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
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…
Letter from France
Back in 1997 when I was narked on by a fellow journalist (Simon Walters, currently of the Times, then of…
What’s in my frunk?
Hello, and welcome to episode one of What’s in My Frunk?, the first in an occasional Spectator series of news…
Low life
All afternoon I had been horizontal next to an electric fan, sometimes sleeping, sometimes awake and sometimes halfway between those…
Macron’s Russian oil plan is bound to fail
It will drain Vladimir Putin of funds for his war machine. It will bring down inflation. And it might even…
Low life
Nothing in the beach hotel was made of plastic. It wasn’t advertised as being a plastic-free hotel, but we noticed…
High life
It’s nice to be back on the old continent again, especially after getting within a couple of hundred yards of…
Boris is falling into the Macron trap
You can’t blame Boris Johnson for jetting off to Kyiv last week for another meet-and-greet session with Volodymyr Zelensky. He…
Could Macron lose his majority?
Last night was a poor one for the President. His Ensemble coalition appear neck and neck with La Nouvelle Union Populaire Écologique…
Macron vs the deep state
French diplomats are on strike today. But will anyone notice? Not to be immodest, I am especially well qualified to…
Blair is wrong: the future of Britain shouldn’t involve Macron
Tony Blair believes the way forward for Britain is to seek guidance from Emmanuel Macron. The former British prime minister…
How far will house prices fall? Frankly, don’t ask me
‘Forecasting is a mug’s game’ is a truism attributed to everyone from fantasy author Douglas Adams to former Bank of…
Chariot on fire
Eighty years ago, just after midnight on 28 March 1942, the British destroyer HMS Campbeltown crept up the estuary of…
Low life
After two nights at Le Grau-du-Roi (the King’s Pond) and a night spent within the medieval walls of Aigues-Mortes (Stagnant…
The madness of France’s burkini bust-up
To burkini, or not to burkini? This is the question that divides France in the run-up to the first round…
The French right is hopelessly divided
Here we go again. Exhausted by a presidential campaign that ultimately produced the same choice as in 2017 (and the…
Low life
So that’s it. Is a third world war possible? It’s already begun, opined a retired US general in the newspaper.…
Can anyone stop Emmanuel Macron?
If they weren’t insufficiently weary of politicians, the French will be invited to vote all over again for the Assemblée…
Low life
On the morning of my last day in England, I drew back a curtain and there in the garden, browsing…
Riven gauche
Can Mélenchon unite the French left?
Portrait of the week
Home Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, said Britain assessed that 15,000 Russians had been killed in the war against Ukraine…
