Matthew Fraser 🇪🇺
@frasermatthew
Followers
9,458
Following
4,635
Media
8,183
Statuses
200,393
I will show you fear in a handful of dust. University professor in Paris. Priors: newspaper critic, columnist, EIC, television presenter. Agent: J.P. Marshall.
Paris
Joined February 2009
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
オリンピック
• 561044 Tweets
Christianity
• 187077 Tweets
Cène
• 76784 Tweets
#TENatWATERBOMBBUSAN
• 68498 Tweets
DDAY YOU BETTA CATCH UP
• 67779 Tweets
隅田川花火大会
• 67485 Tweets
WTWGWS x MILKLOVE
• 64901 Tweets
ONE WORLD ONE SKY
• 63977 Tweets
世界遺産
• 60416 Tweets
佐渡金山
• 47043 Tweets
#男子バレー
• 42457 Tweets
バレー男子
• 33610 Tweets
#Olympics2024Paris
• 26356 Tweets
ニッポン
• 24082 Tweets
Vakko
• 22178 Tweets
#アークナイツハニバ2024
• 18259 Tweets
#withMUSIC
• 15941 Tweets
Patrick HK Walk Vlog🫨
• 14417 Tweets
Charlie Hebdo
• 14121 Tweets
フルセット
• 12347 Tweets
モンテス
• 10710 Tweets
A case study on what is wrong with tabloid journalism in Britain: This Daily Mail story reports that a Lib Dem council in Surrey is close to collapse due to massive overspending. Fact: the Lib Dems are only recently in control, all the overspending happened under a Tory council.
143
3K
9K
Keir Starmer will set out legislation to axe hereditary peers from the House of Lords, removing the remaining 92 blue-blooded peers and ending one of the biggest anachronisms in British democracy.
736
1K
8K
France's interior minister Gérald Darmanin has ordered that all foreigners who commit anti-Semitic acts be expelled immediately from the country. Three have already been expelled.
399
1K
7K
Paris has tripled parking rates for SUVs. Parking 6 hours will costs 225 euros instead of the current 75 euros. The new rates, which come into effect on Oct. 1, apply in the central arrondissements I to XI.
100
644
4K
I can confirm that we are 'lazy' in France. Another term for it is 'quality of life'.
177
372
3K
@rickygervais
Hope he's found, prosecuted, and incarcerated. I was at least glad to learn from a BBC report that the dog was not injured.
76
44
2K
Catastrophic week for the
#Paris
council: ordering the dismantling of book stalls for the Olympics, then massacring century-old trees in late July when few will notice. The four trees in the Montparnasse square below are gone. Pretext: assessing risk for our 'security'. Shameful.
67
510
1K
As the Guardian explains here in an impartial manner, the Woking council under the Tories got entangled in dodgy property deals and made carelessly extravagant spending decisions. Nothing to do with the Lib Dems.
6
225
848
The Berlin Wall surrounding the Eiffel Tower. It’s sad to see this close up, a decade ago this was trees and ponds and open spaces, I walked the dogs right under the tower. What a wonderful world indeed…
57
145
560
I'll take French secularism, thank you.
Women just arrived at the Clark County election department. They tell me they’re praying justice will be done and that righteousness prevails.
12K
3K
16K
18
84
461
The headline writer new perfectly well what he was doing. The headline could have read: “Woking council” or “Surrey council”. But no, they put “Lib Dem council”. Disgraceful.
6
50
470
In case you don't know her, this is Mathilde Panot, a radical left MP in France. She believes France is a police state. She obviously has never visited a real police state.
En République, le peuple aura toujours le dernier mot !
Joyeux
#14juillet2023
à toutes et tous.
3K
818
2K
28
121
461
Just had my Covid jab, stepping out of my doctor’s office to this view.
36
12
455
Emmanuel Macron live on television announcing that, when this crisis is over, the French state will make a massive long-term investment in the nation's hospital and health system and its workers.
13
121
448
Extraordinary how the prospect of hosting the Olympic Games will push cities to commit horrendous acts of self-mutilation. And when the Olympics are over, the hideous scars remain visible.
5
61
453
You couldn't make this stuff up, it's like a Netflix drama... Valérie Pécresse, rolling her up sleeves, arrives at party headquarters to evict Eric Ciotti.
Après plusieurs sommations, c’est finalement Valérie Pécresse qui arrive au siège LR pour y déloger Éric Ciotti. Exit le GIGN.
1K
2K
14K
10
71
443
Something I cannot understand: the obsession in Paris with cutting down century-old trees. Now it’s the trees at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. To make room for trinket shops. When is this going to stop?
@LaTourEiffel
#Paris
#arbres
#saccageparis
Voici comment
#AnneHidalgo
va massacrer le site de la Tour Eiffel en abattant 42 arbres, dont certains centenaires, pour installer à la place des bâtiments commerciaux. Il faut tout faire pour arrêter ce projet, un des plus gros
#saccageparis
à venir.
174
2K
3K
35
196
406
Listening to French radio, Parisians are being urged to remote work from home during the Olympics due to public transport saturation. This is feeling like complete strangers throwing a party in your house and asking you to remain in the basement until the festivities are over.
22
126
408
Major revelation here.... It is becoming daily more apparent that Johnson is weak, lazy, disorganised – and out of his depth.
32
200
395
The attacks in Vienna last night should put an end to absurd arguments that French specificity (France's "secularism") explains the motivations of Islamist terrorism. Radical Islamists are at war against the entire modern project and its liberal, rational and universalist values.
16
113
387
For those interested in debates about France,
@CarolineFourest
is an articulate and intellectually rigorous voice, critic of radical extremes on left and right, defender of universal values.
Militantisme, réseaux sociaux, minorités, « tenaille identitaire »...
Interview de l’essayiste
@CarolineFourest
, qui dresse un bilan exhaustif et nuancé de la France actuelle.
37
151
520
13
95
388
Moved house yesterday, still in the 7th arrondissement. Not Quai d'Orsay overlooking the Seine, but happy with the new place. When I look out my windows, I see the top of the Eiffel Tower and (below) James Joyce's apartment at 2 Square de Robiac, where he lived from 1925 to 1931.
25
17
393
So the UK is shutting down British Council offices around the world because "income from English-language teaching and exams plummeted during the pandemic". But a country's soft power isn't meant to be profitable, it's a diplomatic strategy, not a business.
#BritishCouncil
29
112
361
My students worked with Cillian Murphy in Paris at UNESCO during the Youth Forum, they said he was incredibly modest, unassuming and friendly with everyone, no celebrity aura at all.
9
33
364
New report reveals scale of Trump's debt and it's breathtaking: $1.8 billion owed to more than 150 institutions
17
440
331
This front page of the leftist paper Libération appears to call on readers to vote for Le Pen if the choice is between her and Macron. More proof that the far-left and far-right invariably end up holding hands.
84
121
308
The Daily Mail tabloid version of the story with the mischievously partisan headline.
11
45
323
Agree with everything Emmanuel Macron is saying in his live television interview: Russia is France's adversary, it is already cyber-attacking France, the security of Europe is at stake in Ukraine, Putin will not stop there, he's a menace for the whole of Europe.
#Macron20h
9
60
321
Private Eye was on to the Woking council, and its leader Ray Morgan, back in 2018.
2
58
302
The new rates target vehicles that are "trop lourds, trop encombrants, trop polluants" -- too heavy, too big, too polluting. Weight is the applicable measure; the goal is to penalise big and dangerous vehicles that pollute.
5
16
301
The Paris council has ordered the dismantling of the bookseller stalls along the banks of the Seine before the Olympics.
💬 "On va être effacés, gommés, chassés"
600 boîtes de bouquiniste devraient être démontées et retirées pour les Jeux olympiques de Paris
909
2K
2K
38
131
268
The father of 17-year-old
#Nahel
has suddenly surfaced (with a lawyer). Hicham Hammouti, who never knew his son, spent four and a half years in prison for drug trafficking. Now he's suing on behalf of the son he never knew.
44
97
265
@BEERG
True. Removing the hereditary principle is long overdue. But there remains the issue of cronyism and corruption.
15
16
274
@MrEwanMorrison
I know the USA isn't a popular model to follow these days, but this Scottish law would be struck down as unconstitutional in the United States.
17
8
269
Must say I agree, I walk my dogs almost every day through Place de la Concorde, it's starting to look like a Roman ruin, vestiges of a vanished civilisation.
«La place de la Concorde est très dégradée» : les Parisiens déplorent un manque d’entretien
➡️
50
225
496
7
89
257
Here's the boy I'm going to see at the Paris SPA shelter on Saturday, 10-year-old Djery. His owner was hospitalised but nobody in the family wanted him, so he was dumped in the shelter. Hoping he will get along with Hector, doing a test walk with both on Saturday.
40
13
266
A younger Jean-Luc Mélenchon fiercely denouncing Islamic dress for women, describing it as "degrading" and a "provocation" that has no place in the French Republic. He seems to have changed his mind on this question. Note that
@CarolineFourest
is on the panel.
17
104
263
Walking the dogs, crossing the bridge at Trocadéro, what a sad grotty place this has become, pickpockets and swindlers everywhere, preying in naive tourists, so depressing to see this.
40
83
256
A year ago the city of Paris removed a Voltaire statue on the Left Bank. Accused of taking it down for ideological reasons, the Paris council denied this, saying it was removed for "cleaning". Yet a year later, Voltaire is still missing. The statue has an interesting history.
10
117
241
A photo taken from Avenue Rapp in 1920, and a photo I took this evening from the same spot while on a walk with Hector and Djery.
6
35
246
This woman grudgingly got vaccinated because it's the rule in France. She's against the vaccine because it might cause "cardiac" problems. The journalist points out that she's smoking a cigarette.
#FFS
14
58
241
Then and Now: A Parisian woman standing at the corner of avenue Bosquet and rue Edmond-Valentin, circa 1889; and Hector and Djery at the same corner this morning.
#Paris
13
35
242
Just saw a tweet in French using "mansplainer" as a verb. Let's see if I can conjugate that: Je mansplaine, tu mansplaines, il mansplaine, vous mansplainez, nous mansplainons, ils manplainent. Imperfect subjunctive: que je mansplainasse, que tu mansplainasse, qu'il mansplainât...
20
51
232
Hector welcomes the new member of the family: 10-year-old Djery (right), who we brought home today from the Paris SPA shelter where he’d been abandoned after his owner was hospitalised. Djery is a good boy who is settling in nicely to his new home in the 7th arrondissement.
45
9
233
Scandal in Brittany: In the town of
#Carnac
, an archaeology site of 39 neolithic stone menhirs was destroyed to make way for a DIY retail store, Mr Bricolage. Consternation and outrage in the French media.
Morbihan: 39 menhirs de Carnac détruits pour construire un magasin de bricolage
90
96
122
19
108
234
My boy Hugo (at left, with Hector behind) lost his battle with spleen cancer that spread to his lungs. He left us peacefully at home early this morning. Hugo was rescued from a Los Angeles shelter in 2013 and spent six wonderful years living in Paris. He was a lovely little man.
97
7
228
I see British tourists are being warned by the UK Foreign Office not to visit France. I'm just heading out now for a walk with the dogs, will post a video as evidence that Paris is not in flames.
41
41
231
Les chasseurs obtiennent l’interdiction aux promeneurs de pénétrer le dimanche dans une forêt. Je rêve...
52
404
219
Depressing to see
#JeNeMeFeraiJAMAISVacciner
trending in France. Unbelievable. Totally pathetic.
30
31
213
American university students calling for the... Caliphate. Do they know what the Caliphate is? The world is going insane.
38
65
218
@sharonstone
@bumble
Reminds me of the Philip Glass story, when he was broke and driving a NY cab to earn extra money. A passenger, noticing his name tag in the taxi, leaned forward and said, “Do you know that you have the same name as a famous composer?”
2
7
212
New Yorker cartoon by Tom Toro. "No, thanks. Reading is my escape."
5
52
208
Watching CNN, John Kerry saying: "President Joe Biden will trust in God, and he will also trust in science to guide our work on Earth to protect God's creation." Good to see a commitment to science, but the language is still very heavy on religion. You never hear this in France.
29
27
201
On the Seine banks this afternoon, Hector and I found ourselves at the same spot where Edward Hopper painted the Pont Royal and Louvre in 1909.
#Paris
5
26
196
Listening to French radio, a political pundit commenting on Liz
#Truss
describes her as "la Girouette de fer" — not "la Dame de fer" (Iron Lady), but an "iron weathercock", turning and spinning according to the direction of the wind.
14
62
194
Hate to bang on about this, but in Europe you cannot get hired in an ordinary job without EU citizenship (definitely in academia), but seems an American can be hired into a key position at the top of the EU bureaucracy without EU citizenship. It's an astonishing derogation.
14
46
193
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” — Voltaire.
#humanism
4
54
188
If you live in France, buy
#honey
made-in-France. French honey producers are going under because French consumers are buying cheap imported honey from China, Romania and Brazil that is cut with glucose syrup.
Concurrence des producteurs étrangers : l’appel à l’aide des apiculteurs
1
8
21
32
64
192
A look inside the mind of an anti-vaxxer in France: “Ma santé m’appartient”… Yes, your health belongs to you, but this is a contagious disease and we’re in the middle of a global pandemic. What’s so hard to understand?
13
43
188
Here's the article in
@Variety
magazine about my new book, In Truth: A History of Lies from Ancient Rome to Modern America.
16
63
186
In Place de Furstemberg, an iconic location in Paris, the oldest tree (back left) is now gone, reduced to a stump. It had to be destroyed for our "security", of course...
8
66
186
@NathanJRobinson
I personally don't like tweets in novels, unless they are used very sparingly. On the other hand, epistolary novels used to be the fashion, when people communicated by letter writing. Doubtful one would point out that they consisted of pages and pages of "fictitious letters".
24
4
180
A man on a ladder fixing a lampadaire on the Alexandre III bridge more than a century ago; and a photo I took this afternoon at the same spot.
#Paris
6
38
180
Saw this on FB: Apparently NYC has banned dogs in subway trains unless they fit inside a bag. New Yorkers are wonderfully pragmatic with workarounds.
7
25
187
Nice line in this story: "You can’t cheer Parisians by telling them the Olympics will make their city the centre of the world. Paris already thinks it is the centre of the world." True.
6
26
180
Listening to French politicians and commentators on radio, they have given up on America as a catastrophically fractured society, arguing that Europe now has to build its own future without America. That conclusion will be harder in Britain, which is breaking away from Europe.
8
57
173
Early evening walk with Hector, the surface of the Seine like a sheet of ice, perfect reflections of the clouds and Eiffel Tower.
4
30
174
My 10-year-old boy Hugo (at right in photo, with Hector) received bad news at the vet today. A scan showed spleen cancer, spread to his lungs. The vet says nothing can be done. Hugo is on cortisone and seems fine. I now must spend quality time with him while he's still with us.
77
6
175
Now the iconic Place de Furstenberg. Can someone who lives nearby please go and check to see what has been done?
30
39
169
British tabloid journalism descending to new lows. Would like to see an interview with the newsroom dickheads who put together this front page.
37
28
174
@rebwriteswrongs
Walked away from full-time job on a national newspaper to earn a doctorate in Paris. Had no idea what was in the future, but young enough not to worry. The PhD turned out to be a wise move, long term — today I'm a university professor.
6
1
170
Walking Hugo & Hector, the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay appear to be safe, at least for now.
#Paris
#CrueSeine
6
74
165
French MP Aurore Bergé, who is Macron's party leader in parliament, has proposed to table a bill inscribing respect for abortion rights in France's constitution.
Droit à l'avortement: proposition de loi LaREM pour inscrire "le respect de l'IVG" dans la Constitution
437
224
1K
29
49
163
In the Surrey press in 2021, local Woking residents were calling for an investigation to council mismanagement, but without success. Interesting detail in this story: the Woking council leader moved to Scotland.
2
38
166
At Edward VII's funeral in 1910, his beloved dog, a fox terrier called Caesar, marched behind the king's coffin in the procession.
5
29
162
At the Alexandre III bridge, a photo taken in 1946; and a photo I took this afternoon on a walk with Hector. Note the sceptre held by the boy has been broken off. There are four "Lion conduit par un enfant" stone statues (circa 1897) on the bridge. (1946 photo via
@ParisAMDParis
)
3
36
155
The young man, 24 year old Henri, who fought off the Syrian knife assailant in
#Annecy
. He is on a pilgrimage of Catholic cathedrals throughout France and just happened to be in Annecy this morning.
8
30
157
An unexpected twist... The Freedom of Russia Legion, which describes itself as an anti-Kremlin militia seeking to liberate Russia from Vladimir Putin, has seized control of a village in Belograd.
3
26
156
Rien ne va plus, Paris est une ville impraticable. La plus belle ville du monde est maltraitée, mal aimée, mal gérée.
8
54
159
How a
@washingtonpost
columnist propagates a lie. She claims here that Macron “wants to give Muslim kids ID numbers to go to school.” Where is the evidence for this? This false claim was made elsewhere and quickly corrected. No school ID system in France targets Muslim children.
8
46
154
Le Pen is not performing well, her mind is not sharp enough for debate at this level. Macron however is making the tactical mistake of treating her with condescension and disdain. He should forget her and speak to French voters with conviction and sincerity.
#debatmacronlepen
15
20
156
@Channel4News
"a man colliding with a bus"...? more like "reckless bus driver running down pedestrian" in Reading.
5
9
149
In Los Angeles, intolerance in front of the Museum of Tolerance.
So anti-Israel protestors found out Gal Gadot was helping screen the video of 10/7 atrocities at the Museum of Tolerance in LA tonight.
They showed up and are now apparently attacking Israel supporters there.
2K
4K
11K
5
42
151
My favourite street beggar in Paris, the old man who sits in front of Carrefour City supermarket in rue de Rennes, he minds the dogs of shoppers who go inside, they hand him the lead and he sits with the dog until the they return and pay him. To my mind, almost a proper job.
10
15
152
On the subject of cherished French words, whatever happened to ‘vachement’? When I first moved to Paris in the 1980s, it was the fetish word of an entire generation, you couldn’t have a conversation without hearing ‘vachement’ several times. Today you rarely hear it.
58
16
155