Inside France: Far-right police raids, Tour fever and French spelling

Local France

12-07-2025

Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It's published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.
So unfair?
After Marine Le Pen's
conviction for embezzlement
back in March, a left-wing British paper ran a column exhorting people to stop gloating about her travails. To which I would reply 'but gloating is fun'.
If you are a fellow gloating fan, this has been a good week for it, as her far right Rassemblement National party is now the subject of
two more criminal investigations
- one into campaign financing in France and one related to alleged misuse of European Parliament funds by the group that RN was part of. Meanwhile, the European Court of Human Rights
rejected a plea by Le Pen
to get involved in her own legal case.
RN leader Jordan Bardella, reacting to a police raid on the party's Paris HQ, said: "Never has an opposition party been subjected to such relentless persecution under the Fifth Republic."
That sort of ignores the fact the following political parties in France have all been subject to similar police raids as part of various enquiries over the last decade; the centre-left Parti Socialiste, the right-wing UMP (now Les Républicains), centrist MoDem and the hard-left La France Insoumise.
Police also raided the office and home of then health minister Olivier Véran when the Covid inquiry was launched in 2020.
In fact these police raids are a standard part of an investigation launch in France, designed to stop people or businesses shredding paperwork that may be vital to the inquiry. They look dramatic but don't necessarily mean that anyone is guilty of anything. For example the Covid inquiry, five years later, has
concluded that Véran and two of his fellow former ministers have no case to answer
.
But don't let that get in the way of your sob story, Jordan . . .
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Touring France
This has been the week when France goes bike crazy as the Tour de France begins. I have pretty much zero interest in cycling, but it's hard not to get swept up in the atmosphere that the Tour generates, especially if it comes past your home.
As John Lichfield
points out in his column this week
, the Tour is more or less unique among major global sports events in that it comes to you and it's free.
That alone may explain its popularity, but of course it also has deep cultural resonances in France - although perhaps not every local business along the route needs to get involved in Tour-themed decorations.
Pendant ce temps là, à Valenciennes.
pic.twitter.com/uM9Fa9LijA
— Dans la Musette (@DansLaMusette)
July 6, 2025
READ ALSO
:
7 reasons to watch the Tour de France (even if you have no interest in cycling)✎
Obviously the best thing about the Tour, however, is that it employs a man whose actual job is to go ahead of the
peloton
and convert 'cock and balls' graffiti into cute cartoons of rabbits and butterflies before the TV cameras arrive -
meet Patrick, the
effaceur de zizis
(willy eraser)
.
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Spelling mistakes
This week a reader sent me a link to a very funny sketch about the insane complexity of French spelling - which has 12 different ways of spelling the sound 's' - by two Belgian linguists and comedians.
There's also an interesting dive into the history of the Academie française and the political reasons why it became so prescriptive and French spelling so elaborate (and likely to catch out language learners).
It ends with a deathless quote from an Academie member who
wrote in 1673
that French spelling is complicated in order to distinguish "people of letters from ignoramuses and simple women".
The full sketch is 18 minutes long (and in French) but well worth it if you have the time.
Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It's published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.