John Lichfield

3 weeks ago | thelocal.fr | John Lichfield

In 1894 an obscure Jewish French army captain was falsely convicted of espionage and treason. Alfred Dreyfus spent five years alone in a cage on Devil’s Island in the French Caribbean before he was pardoned and finally rehabilitated in 1906.  For many decades “the Dreyfus case” divided France. To the Catholic fundamentalist, antisemitic and ultra-patriotic Right, his guilt – no matter the lack of evidence - became an article of patriotic faith.

1 month ago | thelocal.fr | John Lichfield

We seem to be going through a period of “peak France”. Farmers with €200,000 tractors besieged the National Assembly this week; taxis blocked roads all over France. A pro-farmer law, scrapping some environmental rules, was rejected by the Assembly on Monday. So the farmers were furious? No, they were delighted and took their tractors home. Taxi unions won concessions from the government at the weekend. So the taxi-drivers were delighted? No, they were furious. The blockades continue.

1 month ago | thelocal.fr | John Lichfield

The French centre-right changes leaders as frequently as it changes names. According to Les Républicains, or whatever the movement is fleetingly called, each new beginning promises the resurrection of “Gaullism” as France’s dominant political force. The latest Messiah of the centre-right is Bruno Retailleau, 64, who started in politics as an anti-Gaullist and an extreme anti-European nationalist.

1 month ago | thelocal.fr | John Lichfield

France's most popular TV channel postponed one of its most popular programmes on Tuesday night to give three hours of air-time to an unpopular President. Viewers were supposed to watch Koh-Lanta, in which competitors seek to become the last survivor on a desert island. Instead they watched Emmanuel Macron struggle to escape the domestic, political isolation forced on him by a disastrous snap election 11 months ago. That election was a failed gamble; so was Tuesday’s marathon TF1 interview.

1 month ago | thelocal.fr | John Lichfield

Jean-Luc Mélenchon does not like journalists, especially British or American journalists. Interviews with him have a habit of exploding into insults after a few minutes. All credit then to Leila Abboud, the Paris bureau chief of the FT, who lasted more than three hours with the bad-tempered old fox in an interview published last weekend. She even managed to make the hard-left veteran appear likeable.