On his working holiday at the Fort de Bregancon, the splendid Mediterranean retreat of French heads of state, Emmanuel Macron may be focusing some thought on a winning strategy for next year’s presidential elections.
But a revival of intense debate about the extent and limits of a key pillar of the French republican ideal – freedom – also deserves his attention.
Mr Macron, fighting to keep Covid-19 under control amid rising infection rates, especially in coastal areas popular with tourists, has thrust himself to the heart of the discussion.
At play are the competing demands of individual liberty and collective responsibility, leading to more than a suspicion of double standards on how far the freedom of expression should reasonably go.
Over the past three weekends, a relatively small but growing band of demonstrators has taken to French streets to condemn the president’s policy of demanding proof of vaccination for entry to cinemas, museums, restaurants and other public spaces, and access to transport. Even more controversially, those working in health care must be jabbed by September 15. The threat of dismissal has been lifted but those refusing to comply face having their pay stopped.
The protests assemble disparate forces: far left and far right, anti-vaccination militants, former gilets jaunes (the yellow-vest anti-government movement that evaporated as the first lockdown began) and people who honestly believe liberty is under threat. As invariably happens in France, peaceful protests are infiltrated by hoodlums intent on vandalising property and attacking police.
After a sluggish and at time confused start, France’s vaccination roll-out has gathered impressive pace. Mr Macron’s tough stance has sharply boosted the take-up and this week he turned to Instagram and TikTok to invite questions from young people.
The hope is that the benefits of vaccination, including less severe symptoms if infected, will outweigh the effects of persistent spread of the virus. The fear is that in the name of freedom, enough people will remain hostile to jabs to prolong the crisis.
Central as Covid-19 is to government thinking, Mr Macron has other obstacles to clear if he is to persuade voters he is a president for Monsieur et Madame Tout le Monde – in other words everyone, not just the rich he is accused by leftwing critics of favouring.
In an offshoot of the debate on freedom, legal proceedings have been launched on his behalf against Michel-Ange Flori, a street artist from the southern port of Toulon, for posting a picture depicting him as Adolf Hitler.
The comparison is not only offensive but as grotesquely wrong-headed as the adoption by some protesters of yellow stars, a symbol of the hideous Nazi occupation of France in the Second World War, to illustrate the supposed suppression of freedom under Covid-19 rules.
Lawyers for Mr Macron and his party, La Republique en Marche (Republic on the Move), claim the portrayal of him as the Fuhrer amounts to a public insult.
And so it does. But let us pause for a moment. Would “public insult” not also accurately describe the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons mocking Islam and the Prophet Mohammed? Yet Mr Macron could not have been more resolute in its defence. “We will not give up on cartoons and drawings, even if others back down," he said after the killing last October of Samuel Paty, a teacher who had innocently used examples to illustrate a class discussion on free expression.
An overwhelming majority of French Muslims undoubtedly share the general disgust at a murder of singular senselessness and brutality, committed by a radicalised 18-year-old misfit of Chechen origins. But they also bitterly resent contemptuous representation of their faith for public amusement.
Many feel it is entirely valid to oppose both the Macron caricature and the objectionable cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo. Others argue that true freedom of expression includes the right to offend and that neither should be forbidden.
Perhaps a reasonable middle course is to respect both the right to publish contentious material, provided it does not incite hatred and violence, and the right to take offence short of resorting to unlawful reprisals.
The least acceptable option, surely, is to pick and choose. Can anyone, even a president, fairly invoke the law to challenge one tasteless affront to decency while passionately defending the other?
France is not alone in having to grapple with difficult questions on where the line is crossed between legitimate criticism or ridicule and unacceptable insult.
In an age of social media, users feel empowered to shoot from the hip without necessarily engaging the brain.
As a Briton who also possesses French citizenship and divides time between the two countries, I detect echoes from across the English Channel. In the UK, Brexiters and Remainers toss appalling vitriol at one another. Fascism is so randomly used as a term of abuse that it no longer shocks. Anti-vaxers and anti-lockdown elements, and those who broadly accept the weight of scientific thinking, could be from different planets.
But unless the campaign against health passes and obligatory vaccination gathers significantly more strength, Mr Macron is entitled to feel he will be elected or rejected in April next year on the basis of how well he is judged to have handled the economy, managed a health crisis and coped with everyday concerns about immigration, security, pensions and public services.
Opponents on the far right and conventional left and right will roundly attack his record on all fronts. But differences on freedom in its various forms, while notionally a cherished principle, are perhaps unlikely to swing a presidential vote.
This does not mean, however, that the issue is unimportant. Mr Macron gives every impression that he cares how he is seen not only within France but beyond its borders. His reputation would suffer no harm if he drew the sting from charges of hypocrisy by ordering as discreet a burial as possible of pointless legal action against Michel Ange-Flori.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
PAKISTAN SQUAD
Abid Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Shan Masood, Azhar Ali (test captain), Babar Azam (T20 captain), Asad Shafiq, Fawad Alam, Haider Ali, Iftikhar Ahmad, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Hafeez, Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Sarfaraz Ahmed (wicketkeeper), Faheem Ashraf, Haris Rauf, Imran Khan, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Hasnain, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Afridi, Sohail Khan, Usman Shinwari, Wahab Riaz, Imad Wasim, Kashif Bhatti, Shadab Khan and Yasir Shah.
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- Technology expert in robotics and automation: Dh20,000 to Dh40,000
- Energy engineer: Dh25,000 to Dh30,000
- Production engineer: Dh30,000 to Dh40,000
- Data-driven supply chain management professional: Dh30,000 to Dh50,000
- HR leader: Dh40,000 to Dh60,000
- Engineering leader: Dh30,000 to Dh55,000
- Project manager: Dh55,000 to Dh65,000
- Senior reservoir engineer: Dh40,000 to Dh55,000
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Uefa Champions League, last 16, first leg
Tottenham Hotspur v Borussia Dortmund, midnight (Thursday), BeIN Sports
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Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
War 2
Director: Ayan Mukerji
Stars: Hrithik Roshan, NTR, Kiara Advani, Ashutosh Rana
Rating: 2/5
Farage on Muslim Brotherhood
Nigel Farage told Reform's annual conference that the party will proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood if he becomes Prime Minister.
"We will stop dangerous organisations with links to terrorism operating in our country," he said. "Quite why we've been so gutless about this – both Labour and Conservative – I don't know.
“All across the Middle East, countries have banned and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood as a dangerous organisation. We will do the very same.”
It is 10 years since a ground-breaking report into the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins.
Among the former diplomat's findings was an assessment that “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” has “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
The prime minister at the time, David Cameron, who commissioned the report, said membership or association with the Muslim Brotherhood was a "possible indicator of extremism" but it would not be banned.
RESULTS
Women:
55kg brown-black belt: Amal Amjahid (BEL) bt Amanda Monteiro (BRA) via choke
62kg brown-black belt: Bianca Basilio (BRA) bt Ffion Davies (GBR) via referee’s decision (0-0, 2-2 adv)
70kg brown-black belt: Ana Carolina Vieira (BRA) bt Jessica Swanson (USA), 9-0
90kg brown-black belt: Angelica Galvao (USA) bt Marta Szarecka (POL) 8-2
Men:
62kg black belt: Joao Miyao (BRA) bt Wan Ki-chae (KOR), 7-2
69kg black belt: Paulo Miyao (BRA) bt Gianni Grippo (USA), 2-2 (1-0 adv)
77kg black belt: Espen Mathiesen (NOR) bt Jake Mackenzie (CAN)
85kg black belt: Isaque Braz (BRA) bt Faisal Al Ketbi (UAE), 2-0
94kg black belt: Felipe Pena (BRA) bt Adam Wardzinski (POL), 4-0
110kg black belt final: Erberth Santos (BRA) bt Lucio Rodrigues (GBR) via rear naked choke
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Brief scores:
Toss: Sindhis, elected to field first
Kerala Knights 103-7 (10 ov)
Parnell 59 not out; Tambe 5-15
Sindhis 104-1 (7.4 ov)
Watson 50 not out, Devcich 49
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
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Started: established in 2016 and launched in July 2017
Based: Singapore, with offices in the UAE, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand
Sector: FinTech, wealth management
Initial investment: $500,000 in seed round 1 in 2016; $2.2m in seed round 2 in 2017; $5m in series A round in 2018; $12m in series B round in 2019; $16m in series C round in 2020 and $25m in series D round in 2021
Current staff: more than 160 employees
Stage: series D
Investors: EightRoads Ventures, Square Peg Capital, Sequoia Capital India
Evacuations to France hit by controversy
- Over 500 Gazans have been evacuated to France since November 2023
- Evacuations were paused after a student already in France posted anti-Semitic content and was subsequently expelled to Qatar
- The Foreign Ministry launched a review to determine how authorities failed to detect the posts before her entry
- Artists and researchers fall under a programme called Pause that began in 2017
- It has benefited more than 700 people from 44 countries, including Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Sudan
- Since the start of the Gaza war, it has also included 45 Gazan beneficiaries
- Unlike students, they are allowed to bring their families to France
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The Voice of Hind Rajab
Starring: Saja Kilani, Clara Khoury, Motaz Malhees
Director: Kaouther Ben Hania
Rating: 4/5
Dubai works towards better air quality by 2021
Dubai is on a mission to record good air quality for 90 per cent of the year – up from 86 per cent annually today – by 2021.
The municipality plans to have seven mobile air-monitoring stations by 2020 to capture more accurate data in hourly and daily trends of pollution.
These will be on the Palm Jumeirah, Al Qusais, Muhaisnah, Rashidiyah, Al Wasl, Al Quoz and Dubai Investment Park.
“It will allow real-time responding for emergency cases,” said Khaldoon Al Daraji, first environment safety officer at the municipality.
“We’re in a good position except for the cases that are out of our hands, such as sandstorms.
“Sandstorms are our main concern because the UAE is just a receiver.
“The hotspots are Iran, Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq, but we’re working hard with the region to reduce the cycle of sandstorm generation.”
Mr Al Daraji said monitoring as it stood covered 47 per cent of Dubai.
There are 12 fixed stations in the emirate, but Dubai also receives information from monitors belonging to other entities.
“There are 25 stations in total,” Mr Al Daraji said.
“We added new technology and equipment used for the first time for the detection of heavy metals.
“A hundred parameters can be detected but we want to expand it to make sure that the data captured can allow a baseline study in some areas to ensure they are well positioned.”
Match info:
Leicester City 1
Ghezzal (63')
Liverpool 2
Mane (10'), Firmino (45')
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
MATCH INFO
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Starring: Mahmoud Bakri, Aram Sabbah, Mohammad Alsurafa
Rating: 4.5/5
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