Le Havre, France
At a political rally in the Normandy port town of Le Havre, an elderly man with flowing white hair and beard waves a tricolour gently in my face. On it is written “Ni Fascio, ni BoBo [bourgeois …
Will Macron call another election?
In April, Emmanuel Macron became the first French president for two decades to win a second term. Two months later, he became the first French president in 34 years to be denied a parliamentary majority. French voters frequently complain that …
The paranoia of French politics
In rural France there are strict rules about dinner party chat. No politics, no religion, no work. The safe topics are the production of artisan goat’s cheese, floods or droughts, and the career of Rafael Nadal, who, despite being born …
Can Mélenchon unite the French Left?
Every so often, the French like to scare themselves. They convince themselves that the political consensus of the past six decades is about to be torn apart. This year is no different.
A month ago, the opinion polls suggested that …
The man who could topple Macron
For a President who’d scored a decisive re-election in a country that supposedly wanted him out, out, OUT!, Emmanuel Macron’s Sunday night victory party on the Champ de Mars, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, was not just low-key; …
Why Macron is invincible
The crowd that gathered last night on the Champ-de-Mars, underneath the Eiffel Tower, to celebrate Emmanuel Macron’s re-election as President were waving flags — not all of them French. Half of the guests held aloft the blue-and-yellow banner of the …
Macron is the leader France deserves
When Charles de Gaulle, the man who invented the French presidency and still casts a shadow over his country’s politics, was 15, the teacher at his Catholic private school asked him to write an essay. The year was 1905, and …
France’s gerontocratic nightmare
The results of the first round of the 2022 French presidential elections give a surprising impression of order. Three poles, each with its own fairly simple socio-demographic and geographical structure, seem to emerge: the Macron vote, the Le Pen vote …
The Left should not vote for Macron
On May 6, 2017, the day Emmanuel Macron was elected president of France after trouncing Marine Le Pen, he made a promise to the French people: that the country would never again see a “far-Right” candidate reach the second round …
How Macron’s hometown betrayed him
Amiens, France
“I’m an Amiénois,” Emmanuel Macron boasted during a trip to his hometown in 2019. “I am a child of Amiens. And that can’t be taken away from me.”
Three years on, France’s head of state finds himself disowned. …
The poison in France’s veins
France does not feel like it is entering a season of political turbulence. It barely feels like it is going through an important election. Away from the headlines — the disintegration of the old centre parties, the renaissance of Jean-Luc …
The future is Marine Le Pen
Whatever happens in the second round of the French election, Marine Le Pen will be able to claim victory. If the polls are correct, as they were in round one, she will receive around 46% of the vote. But while …
America has captured France
France is no longer the country of Notre-Dame, nor the country of De Gaulle, where the Concorde was built and a broad middle-class prospered. To understand this moment of profound transition, you have to look past the results of last …
Macron rules over a political desert
Watching Emmanuel Macron hard on the campaign trail in the Northern France rust belt yesterday morning, mere hours after he’d scored a surprisingly decisive top place in the first round of the French presidential election, a question sprang to mind. …
How Marine Le Pen conquered Normandy
Here is a confident prediction about tomorrow’s first round of the French presidential election. In my lovely, peaceful village in the Calvados hills, Marine Le Pen will comprehensively top the poll. President Emmanuel Macron will come third or maybe even …