John Lichfield
@john_lichfield
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Veteran correspondent on all things French and European. Tweets on 🇫🇷,🇪🇺,🇬🇧,🐟,🚂&⚽️.
Paris, France
Joined April 2017
You have to find humour in the French elections where you can. Marine Le Pen's far right party has just announced that its candidate in Belfort in eastern France will be a hard right TV commentator from the hard right C-news channel. His name is Guillaume Bigot.
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I’m reliably told there is a good (or bad) reason why Priti Patel and Boris Johnson refuse to allow Ukrainian refugees to apply for UK visas when they arrive in Calais. The reason? To block legal applications by asylum-seekers from other countries. 1/8.
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The price of everyday rudeness. Seen in a Café in Clécy, Calvados. I wonder if they sell any at € 1.10.
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Fish thread. Having read the Brexit deal, I believe B. Johnson misled the nation on Thurs when he said Britain could catch “all the fish that it wants ” in UK waters in 5 years’ time. The clear presumption in the text is that EU fleets will have similar access after 2026.1/12.
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Scoop. Britain faces dearer electricity and occasional black-outs if it bans EU fishing boats from its waters after 2026. This de facto power over the UK power market is handed to the EU in the post-Brexit deal which MP’s will wave almost unread through parliament today. 1/10.
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Only in France, part 439. Here is a 24 hr refrigerated Vending machine with garlic, rillettes de canard, honey, onions etc in Brittany. Just in case you feel like cooking at 2.45am.
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Since it's 6th June and few Britons have been able to come to Normandy this year, I brought flowers from my garden to Jack Banks, the youngest casualty of the battle of Normandy. He was 16 but lied about his age to join the Durham Light Infantry. He would have been 92 yrs old.
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Returned to my village in Normandy after a month in Paris to find that I had been given a hamper as an "ancien" of the commune (awarded to everyone over 60 because there could be no Xmas party this year). I thought I had missed out because I was away. A neighbour kept it for me.
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France is extremely accurate in its daily reporting of Covid-19 deaths (much more so than UK) judging by the latest “excess mortality” figures issued by the French statistics agency, INSEE. The figures also reveal that one third of France has scarcely been touched by C19. 1/10.
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Another 6 June with few British visitors to Normandy. My wife and I brought flowers to the grave of Jack Banks, 16, the youngest British soldier to die in WW2. He fought with the Durham Light Infantry but came from Darwen, Lancs. He was 14 when he lied about his age to join up.
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They could go to the Calais UK visa office and submit an asylum application. That’s the last thing the Home Office wants, I’m told. It would expose the cynicism and hypocrisy of Patel’s “two-tier” borders policy. 3/8.
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They will avoid the high tariffs that would have followed No Deal. But they will still be faced with cumbersome health checks now that the UK is leaving the seamless European single market. Conclusion: we have been sold a basket of stinking mackerel and red herrings. 12/12.
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Looking at juicy bits of the EU-AstraZeneca contract, it seems to me that AZ emerge as the main culprit in this miserable dispute. They promised EU to use UK factories if needed; they promised UK they wouldn't. Like someone going on E-bay and selling the same bicycle twice. 1/3.
BREAKING The European Commission AstraZeneca contract has been published. It's below, follow the PDF link.
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So Boris Johnson’s claim on Christmas Eve - that the UK will be “free to catch and eat as much fish as it likes from UK waters” after 2026 – is a slippery fib. We can close our waters but we would pay a heavy price for doing so in tariffs on fish exports to the EU. 9/12.
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One month on and M&S at Porte Maillot in Paris still largely cut off from the UK. A great British success story in France looks likely to be destroyed by Brexit. There are many, many other less visible victims.
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Olivier Veran the health minister has announced a new French record of over 400 000 vaccinations between yesterday evening and this evening. No small print but that means over 1m jabs in 3 days. And yet both French and UK media still talk as if French vax rollout is failing.
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Double "remontada" for France tonight. French total 1st anti-Covid vaccinations AND complete vaccinations overtook the UK totals on the same day. France 1st vaxes 47,786,706. UK 47,737,142. Fr complete vaxes 42,040,493. UK 41,942.036. 1/2.
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The French are exceptionally critical of their government's handling of the Covid-19 crisis. Unfairly so, I say in
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One week after I alerted the world to the great, post-Brexit, Marks and Spencer food shortage in Paris, how is the Porte Maillot M&S doing?.Oh.
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Someone who has been directly involved in UK visa operations in the past points out to me that any UK visa office in Calais would, in theory, be open to non-Ukrainian applicants (ie the Calais boat people from Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere|). 2/8.
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Almost 400,000 vaccinations in France today. Overall, they are now only 200,000 short of the target of 10m first injections by 15 April. Barring earthquakes they should exceed the target tomorrow, 7 days early.
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Non-fish people look away. Huge amounts of conflicting info is dished out on UK/EU fish catches in “UK waters”. It’s late in the game but I decided to look again at the “real” figures, as established by Dr Ian Napier for the Uni of the Highlands and Islands. 1/13.
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Weekly French vaccination thread. Headline: “France overtakes UK in daily rate of first vax doses shock….”.Yes, it's true, at least over the last few days. Context is needed, however. Just as the Daily Mail or Daily Express always provide don’t they? 1/12.
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If a visa office opens in Calais, it would become easier for the “Calais migrants” of all nationalities to make applications. This would be be long and tortuous, no doubt, but it might at least discourage people from risking their lives in small boats. 5/8.
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Vaccine gloating in UK is sickening. At this stage UK seems to have enough doses to jab everyone 5 times. What does it profit Britain if it vaccinates its whole population but the virus rages, and mutates, elsewhere? 3/3.
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In Paris it’s a company called TLS Contact in the 9th arrondissement. Applicants fill in an on-line form before going to a “collection point” where they hand over their passport. It can be many weeks before their passport is returned – sometimes with visa, often without. 8/8.
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Tory mp says British boats will have sevenfold increase in fish quotas after Brexit. On least generous calculation we get 40% of all fish at present. Sevenfold increase would mean 280% of catch. Perhaps we would throw them back and catch them again. Twice.
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Antoine Dupont, captain of the grand-slam winning France rugby team, is one of 50 French sportsmen and women who have appealed to French voters to reject Marine Le Pen and vote for Emmanuel Macron.
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Lucie who ? France has invented the Andy Warhol politics of the surreal. Everyone gets to be candidate for PM for 15 minutes. Me for The Local France
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This policy is based on saying 1) asylum applications will only be processed if made officially while still abroad (but we will make that as hard as possible). 2) anyone who arrives “illegally” without having submitted an application will be jailed. 4/8.
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Impossible to overstate importance/scale of Eur 500bn Franco-German plan to reconstruct EU regions/industries worst hit by the Covid crisis. The Marshall Plan? The Merkel/Macron Pan is THREE times bigger. More debt? Not for the recipients. The aid will come as grants. 1/10.
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The French government's emergency, state funded unemployment pay of 84% of normal wages is now being claimed by 5,000,000 people, a quarter of all private sector employees. Most generous scheme of its kind in the world.
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Fisheries, we were told, would be a big Brexit winner. No it won’t. On this deal, the UK industry will certainly lose more from Brexit (no more frictionless access to the EU market) than it gains (incremental, extra quotas over the next 5 years). 4/12.
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Nonetheless – despite paying lip-service to the horror of drownings etc – the Home Office is, I’m told, determined to keep visa operations away from Calais to discourage the asylum seekers already camped out there. 6/8.
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It IS huge that France has recalled is ambassadors from the US and Australia because the US-Aus-UK subs deal blew an old Aus-French deal out of the water with no warning. But why has Paris not recalled UK ambassador? Suggests Macron thinks UK only a minor partner in treachery.
France has recalled its ambassadors to the United States and Australia amid a backlash over a deal to supply submarines, the French foreign minister says - PA. That's huge.
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Happy national day to the most obsessively unhappy people in the world. May you come to learn that France is not the worst of all possible Frances and to scorn the people who tell you otherwise.
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Weekly French vaccination thread. The French roll-out, still described as “stuttering” or “glacial” in UK media (and even some Fr media) continues to boom. Over 500,000 doses (1st/ 2nd) were given yesterday, a record. Fr should exceed its 10m 1st jabs 15 April target by 2m. 1/12
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Hooray I'm one of the 14m people fully vaccinated in France.
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The Home Office says that visa/asylum applications can only be made at a “recognised centre” but such centres are hard to find and use. In Fr, as in other countries, collection of applications/biometric data (but NOT the final decision) has been hived-off to private companies 7/8.
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In other words, if we take more fish after 2026, we might have nowhere to sell the extra fish we have already won. The deal recognises, in effect, what some people have been saying for years. Like it or not, the UK fishing industry is tangled up with Europe. 11/12.
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The UK fish industry will have to pay a high price in EU import tariffs if that access is withdrawn. Overall… the deal falls far short of the exaggerated “sea of opportunity” promises made to UK fishermen. 2/12.
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Want to read why the French are angry with Jersey? Or would you rather believe what you read in the Express?.Me on the "whelk war".
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France 2022. Not the France facing ethnic/religious civil war that Éric Zemmour will falsely describe tonight at an election rally in Lille. It's a lovely day on the Champs Élysées and 5 girls of a variety of ethnic backgrounds are showing off their hip-hop skills to passers-by.
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Weekly French vaccination thread. What a confusing week. Confusion is bad, especially in France where anti-vax feeling is rife. And yet I’m going (for once) to defend France's vax effort from the more hysterical criticism (especially in the UK). 1/12 .
British tabloid journalism descending to new lows. Would like to see an interview with the newsroom dickheads who put together this front page.
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So France made its 20m first jabs by 15 May target with a few hours to spare.
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Jersey has blinked in the whelk war. Limits on French catches suspended until July. Talks resume. This is Jersey coming into line with Guernsey 's helpful approach. I'm puzzled though. Express, Mail sd last Thurs was greatest naval victory since 1805.
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Oh dear. Marine Le Pen was already short of money but she now has 1.2m campaign brochures on her hands including a chummy picture with her spiritual leader, V. Putin.
Info @libe : gros embarras au @RNational_off qui a fait imprimer à 1,2 million d’exemplaires un tract de 8 pages à la gloire de la candidate @MLP_officiel. Manque de bol, sur le tract figure cette photo avec Poutine. ⤵️
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June 2026 will be exactly a decade after the Brexit referendum. The ERG has noticed this fish-electricity link but played it down in its statement last night. The UK is “taking back control”. Nothing can be permitted to disturb that narrative. 10/10.
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How can this be? The Spectator, which is scrupulous about facts, told us that the French economy was in ruins. The official French stats agency says France will grow by 6% this year and recover all its Covid losses by the year's end. Which to believe? @afneil.
Covid-19 : l’économie française devrait retrouver à peu près son niveau d’avant crise dès la fin de l'année selon l'Insee.
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Weekly French vaccination thread. Good news, v good news, on the French vaccine programme. Bad news is also available, including a devastating surge of the UK Covid variant. But it is NO LONGER TRUE to say, as much media habitually says, that Fr. vax prog is shambolic etc 1/12.
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After spending a week in my home town, Stoke, I think something is missing from Twitter’s great electoral post-mortem. The new English divide is not North or Midlands versus the South. It is City v Town; Metropolis v periphery. The same in France with the Gilets Jaunes.
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Typically dishonest UK govt statement confusing licences for all EU boats with small fleet of Fr boats whose rights they refuse to recognize. This could be solved in 5 mins with good will on all sides. Numbers involved are tiny but not to Fr fishers whose livelihood is at stake.
This UKG figure of 98% is deliberately misleading. It applies to all EU boats in all UK waters. But the dispute is about a special right granted to 🇫🇷 boats to fish close to Eng & Jersey coasts where they've fished for centuries. Fr says 50% licence apps have been refused. Not 2%
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The great M and S Post-Brexit sandwich famine of 2021. Sign in the Marks and Spencer at Porte Maillot in Paris today. "Because of new govt regulations on trade between the UK and France , we received no shipments from the UK today."
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Last French Covid Thread of 2021 . I spoke last week of a very big Omicron wave about to crash onto France. That wave is upon us. There have been over 200,000 new cases in each of the last two days, bringing the 7-day average to 121,566, up more than 125% in a week. 1/15.
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Something has been bugging me for days about the French Covid vaccination programme. The published figures don’t add up. They don’t explain why France has local shortages of vaccines and has postponed all “first jabs” in three big regions next week. 1/14.
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Coincidence? Not at all, my source says. The link is “more than implicit”. The energy deal “ends by default” unless both sides agree to extend it. If the UK bans, or severely restricts, EU boats in British waters from June 30, 2026….easy access to EU energy will also end. 5/10.
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Don't often get angry. Me in the Local on the smallness of the people who say they speak for my country .
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The trade deal enshrines a link between continued EU access to British waters and UK frictionless access to the EU power grid and gas network. This has scarcely been noticed though it was mentioned and brushed aside by last night’s statement by the ultra-Brexiteer ERG. 2/10.
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Some object to me saying the French vax programme is booming and could overtake the UK total by mid Aug. This is not a criticism of the original UK rollout. It's a defence of Macron's decision to coerce the vax shy in Fr. But the UK vax drive HAS slumped.
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Here is the important part of Macron's interview wiith Al Jazira today. "No these are cartoons are not the view of the French government. I can understand that they shock people. But France defends the right of free expression . Nothing in these cartoons justifies violence.".
Je n'accepterai jamais qu'on puisse justifier la violence. Nos libertés, nos droits, je considère que c'est notre vocation de les protéger.
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Short fish thread . There is confusion about the number of missing French fishing licences at the centre of the greatest Franco-British spat since 2003 (or maybe since 1898 or, some stubborn historians insist, 1066). Here is a brief attempt to crunch the stats. 1/6.
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Read this and weep. Fishers, farmers, truckers an exporters in Britain should put on their yellow (and blue) vests and march on Downing Street to protest against the mutation of the Great Brexit Lie (It will all be fine) into the Great post-Brexit lie (it's all fault of the EU).
For EU - Because HMG continues to misrepresent deal it struck to public & blame EU for its consequences. EU finds gap between Govt's rhetoric & reality unreal. This is killing trust. Reduces influence of more moderate member states that are open to addressing problems in TCA 2/5.
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A 16 point victory - 58-42 - for Macron. Wow! Exactly half the 32 point win that he had in 2017. Still wow! He is the 1st Fr president to be relected for 20 years and first in the Fifth Republic to be re-elected without losing de facto power in a parliamentary election first.11/2.
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France pulverised its vaccination record today, over 672,000 jabs in one day, including 506,000 first doses.
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There is no excuse for the calamity visited on the UK shellfish industry by Brexit. This is what I wrote for The Obs almost a year ago. If I could predict it from Paris where were the UK govt and bombastic voices in other parts of UK fisheries industry?.
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How to get aboard a crowded train during the French transport strikes.
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My wife and I and Zoe, our electric car, are starting another electric Tour de France today. Nominal range 300k's. Indicator says 100% and 350k's available (always higher when it's hot). First stage, Calvados to the Loire. Plan to do 2,000k's to the SW and back in 7 days.
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It’s not difficult to catch the present British government in a lie. Here is one to add to the list. It concerns one of my pet subjects – fisheries. Anyone with an intolerance to fish politics should leave here. 1/8.
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To those who persist in saying French vaccine effort is STILL "chaotic, feeble" etc. France managed almost 300,000 jabs today - 297,869 to be exact, 254,143 1st shots and 43,726 2nd ones. That's still far behind UK rhythm but about as many as current supplies to France permit.
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Here is an excellent riposte to some of the wilful or ignorant nonsense from people who should no better accusing Macron of being anti muslim or playing the anti muslim card. Op-ed by a dozen or French muslim leaders praising Macron's approach.
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Non-fish people look away. Here is my reply to a dishonest kettle of fish dumped on Parliament yesterday by the British government which purportedly “clarified” numbers at the heart of the UK-French dispute about fishing licences. 1/11.
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Let me take off my journalist’s and put on my blue French beret with yellow stars. After all the doubts and nonsense of recent weeks (of course I never doubted Macron would win, hem hem) this is a wonderful night for France and for Europe. 2/2.
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Weekly French vaccination thread. France will hit its 15 June target of 30m 1st doses today – 3 days early. Another record was set this week with an average of 580,000 doses a day. For the 2nd week in succession, France vaxxed at a higher daily rate than the UK (450,826). 1/12
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OK, the figures can be qualified in various ways. But Fr/UK have almost same populations. Fr is slightly smaller. Remember how the Fr rollout was mocked by UK media in Jan? The tortoise has overtaken the hare. UK effort was amazing in the early days. It's been dawdling for weeks.
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The energy part of the agreement allows the UK virtually unchanged access to the continental electricity and gas markets. But that expires on exactly the same date as the fish deal - 30 June, 2026. After that (guess what?) there are “annual negotiations". 4/10.
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It was widely reported in recent weeks– initially I think by @tconnellyRTE – that the EU was using its energy market as leverage for a better deal on fishing. As far as I can tell no one has yet pointed out that this leverage is now enshrined in the deal signed by Johnson. 8/10.
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Third utterly mendacious and, stupid Spectator article about the EU or France in a few days. Can it be a pattern?.
The crap starts in the first paragraph: Apparently the UK was frozen out of the single market. Who knew? . Later on, it suggests forming an alternative European bloc to the EU that involves the Swiss. Yeah maybe we could call it the European Association for Free Trade or summink
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Almost 1m French people made vaccination appointments after President Macron announced in a TV address last night that restaurants, cinemas, long distant trains etc would only be open to people with health passports from August.
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@WestminsterWAG @carriesymonds Absolutely right. Just as the Daily Mail was kind to pregnant Princess Meghan.
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First…the length of the deal. The 5 and 1/2 years of cuts in EU quotas/increases in UK quotas, are laid out in annexes to the main treaty. The last column says “2026 onwards” In other words, the presumption is there will be no further cuts in EU quotas after that date. 5/12.
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An 82% fall in UK fish/ sea food exports to EU in January. People, including me, were abused by Fishing for Leave etc when we predicted something like this. Never has an industry been so lied to by government AND by its own leaders. Anyone spotted a "sea of opportunity" yet?.
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That price would mostly be borne by the UK fisheries industry itself which relies heavily on exports to the EU market. The extra fish which UK has been given in the deal include some cod/haddock (that we like) but many more saithe/ hake (which we mostly sell to Fr and Sp). 10/12.
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The headline quota compromise - reducing EU catches in the UK 200 mile zone by 25% over five and a half years – is balanced enough. But different fishers will study the small-print with delight OR anger. Some EU quotas will be cut more than others. 3/12.
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Does this matter? Yes it does. Britain is a net importer of electricity from the EU through cables to Fr, NL and B. About 7% of total UK demand comes through those connectors. European prices are generally below UK prices. We also import European gas. 6/10.
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Me for Politico in praise of the invisible achievements of the EU. as revealed by Brexit, to those willing to see.
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Conclusion: the UK has a fish case but not the overwhelming case presented with slanted figures. EU boats, which have fished “UK waters” for centuries, should accept a Brexit cut. But there is no moral case for destroying large parts of the Fr/Irl/Dk/NL/B fishing fleets. 13/13.
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Start of the 4th week after Brexit and the 17 M&S food shops in Paris have still received no shipments from the UK. Global Britain.
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Weekly vax thread. Usually this Saturday thread is about the French vax programme. I’ll come to that; lots of news on that. But I’ll start with the biggest news of the day – the bizarre UK govt U-turn forcing quarantine on travellers returning to England from France. 1/12.
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Dear Darren of Plymouth,. This footage, which you present as happening today, is from many months ago. It's clearly on the Champs Elysees in Paris. There was no demo there today. If trouble is really brewing in France, why do you have to lie in this way?.
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The appointment of a black historian, Pap Ndiaye, as education minister in the new French government has provoked a rapid expulsion of toys from prams by Marine Le Pen, Eric Zemmour and others on the French Right and Far Right. Racist? Not them. 1/2.
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After the 3-day clot pause, we were told the French would refuse AZ jabs. Not so, it appears. Of 30 people offered AZ instead of Pfizer in Douai in N France yesterday, only 3 refused, says Le Monde. On Fri, when AZ shots resumed, 50,000 were given in 4hrs.
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Brexit shell-shock to UK shellfish exports. Why did no one talk about this before now? Well, some did, like me in The Guardian 16 months ago. I was accused by Fishing for Leave and others of making it up
A #brexit Q: a 🚛 makes multiple stops, picking up 🦞 and 🦀 at each -see story below. Does it need a new Export Health Certificate at each stop? And does each stop invalidate the cert issued at the last one? @ColdChainShane @AnnaJerzewska
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Bloomberg reported in Nov.: “Without a (UK-EU energy)deal, costs for British consumers could go up by £2bn.” The UK could “ lose 7% of its electricity supply and would struggle to find an easy replacement. It could even lead to rolling blackouts at times of peak demand.”. 7/10.
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This is from an official Macron campaign twitter account. Playing dirty? If you like. But also telling the truth which is more than can be said about many attacks on Macron.
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TENTATIVE CONCLUSION: France has made mistakes in coping with Covid-19 but prevented the disease from spreading. Its daily reporting of C19 deaths seems to be reliable. Without the big outbreak in S. Alsace, caused by one church gathering, French figs might be v. different. 9/10.
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What on earth was the reason to reverse late on a Friday the recent decision that UK-vaccinated travellers could return from France without quarantine? My guess is… The Belarussian tribute act now governing UK wanted to look tough. Bashing France is always a good standby. 6/12.
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The whelk war: what's it all about? I go for The Observer to hear the French side of the argument. It turns out that some of the protesting fishing boats last Thursday were from Jersey - not from France. They're also furious with the Jersey govt.
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