Drug gangs are sliding France into anarchy — and it could happen here by the boatload
I was late and as I dashed onto the platform at Victoria, the train for Paris was pulling out.
I began to run, sprinting down the concourse, urged on by a uniformed man in the guard’s van. “That’s it,” he cried, “now, throw me your bag.”
I did and then leapt for the carriage. He caught me and made sure I was propelled in and not out.
It was utterly mad and would have given any passing ‘elf ‘n’ safety oik a dicky fit (if I can use that term – and I’d say no one is more qualified).
But I made it to Paris, where I was meeting a girlfriend. We spent the next few days discovering what was then the world’s loveliest city (lately, it has been going downhill).
We drank in Montmartre and got ripped off, I dare say, by those men who cut out your silhouette from cardboard with uncanny speed and accuracy.
We ate in bistros, family-run places where they serve traditional and delicious food, and visited galleries and museums and puttered down the Seine in a tourist boat.
Then we set off for the other France, the real France. The young woman, who was to become my wife, was brought up in the Loire Valley in the west of that beautiful country.
Here we visited fairytale Renaissance chateaux, such as those at Amboise and Chenonceau, built from tufa, the almost pure white limestone that abounds along the Loire.
We bought baguettes and ham, cheese and sausage and a bottle of wine and sat on a hill above Fontevraud Abbey, the most spiritual place I have ever been, where the English King Henry II, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine and their son Richard the Lionheart are buried.
But those times are past and that country is sadly disappearing.
I love France, almost as much as I love Great Britain. It is a country with three mountain ranges, two seas, a history inextricably linked with ours and a culture that helps to define the continent of Europe.
But it is sliding into anarchy, led by drug gangs emboldened by their power and wealth and the impotence of the government and police to stop them. France, to judge by a story in this week’s Sunday Times, is fast becoming a narco-state.
The ST tells of a young rugby player, Nicolas Dumas, 22, who was shot in the head with a Magnum revolver as he queued to enter a nightclub in Valence, two hours north of Marseilles.
He initially survived in a coma but later died. A bouncer and a young woman clubber were also shot but survived.
Police believe the shooter was trying to intimidate the club owners, whom he and a gang were trying to extort. Such violence is happening everywhere, from Rennes in the northwest to Grenoble, on the edge of the Alps in the southeast.
The Marseilles-based drug gangs, who are said to be making €350 billion a year, are spreading their tentacles into the furthest corners of the old France.
Bruno Retailleau, the new hardline interior minister, has warned of France “going down a path of ‘Mexicanisation’ or ‘cartelisation’ if you prefer”. He wants to give police anti-drugs departments more power and resources.
He talks of shutting businesses that launder drug money; of kicking traffickers out of their homes and taking away their benefits; of setting up special drug courts.
Meanwhile, the Sunday Times reports that 300 friends, family and team-mates of Dumas, who had no link to his killers or any other gang, stood in the hospital hallways to clap in his memory.
Could it happen here? You bet. With every boatload of migrants that arrives to join their disaffected generation already here, the risk rises. It is only a matter of time before we face the same problems as France.
*****
I know a thing or two about lunch. As a Sunday newspaper journalist, I enjoyed the hours between 1pm and 3pm more than almost any others.
It was a time to chew over not just some decent scran, but also some ideas, strategies, potential pitfalls for the week ahead.
Sometimes my companions would be colleagues, in which case we would be in a pub or wine bar, running a tab; other times it would be a contact, perhaps a politician, who would get the full restaurant treatment and be expected to offer a story in return for his expense account treat.
None of us needed advice on how to conduct these transactions. Lunch was long and often – and accompanied by wine. But it didn’t have to follow the louche pattern suggested by comedian Arthur Smith… “Lunch isn’t lunch unless it starts at one o’clock and ends a week later in Monte Carlo.”
Nor did we follow the example of City journalist and sometime restaurant reviewer Damien McCrystal, who once went through £16,000 worth of fine wines in one sitting with chef Marco Pierre White and a couple of pals.
Political journalists, probably due to their proximity to the trough where our leaders like to dip their snouts, were experts in the midday conventions.
One political editor in my time, challenged by the managing editor over the size of his expenses, pleaded that he had been lunching a Cabinet Minister.
“Well, couldn’t you at least order the house wine?” he was asked.
“I didn’t come into journalism to drink house wine,” replied the political editor.
He would have got on well with Hugh Corcoran, chef-patron at the Yellow Bittern, a recently-opened restaurant in north London.
Corcoran, who is from Belfast, has taken to Instagram to lecture a whole new generation on the etiquette of lunch. “You are there to spend money,” he chides them.
Whereas we would devour several courses with a decent bottle, Corcoran says: “It is now apparently completely normal to book a table for four people, say, and then order one starter and two mains to share and a glass of tap water.”
He further advises: “At the very least, order correctly, drink some wine and justify your presence in the room.
“And in the case that a plate of radishes is enough for you and your three friends for lunch, then perhaps an allotment would be a better investment than a table at a restaurant.”
I’m not entirely sure Corcoran has got the hang of this hospitality lark. His restaurant, which he opened with two co-founders – Oisin Davies, a bookseller, and Lady Frances von Hofmannsthal, daughter of the late Lord Snowdon – only opens for weekday lunches.
It is cash only, doesn’t take reservations online and doubles as a bookshop. He also charges twenty quid for cottage pie and £6 for those radishes, according to a picture of his blackboard menu in The Times.
Yes, the day of the boozy trencherman has passed. But nothing much else has taken its place. I wish Corcoran well but if he carries on sticking it to his patrons, I give his new venture weeks, rather than months.
*****
If you have to put up with a Subway sandwich and a bottle of water for lunch, make this when you get home. It’s my recipe for ratatouille and it’s delicious, cheap and good for you.
Peel an onion and chop it into half-inch dice. Slice two cloves of garlic. Sweat it all in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil.
While they soften, chop an aubergine into half-inch dice (keep all your vegetables this size) and cover it with water. After a few minutes, drain the aubergine chunks and pat them dry with a towel. They are like sponges and the water they retain will prevent them soaking up too much oil.
Next, chop two courgettes, cutting out the seedy bit in the middle. Add them to the onions and garlic and fry for a few minutes. If you need more oil, add some.
Now the aubergine goes in. Give it a good stir then chop a roasted, peeled red pepper. You can prepare this yourself if you want to but I get mine from a supermarket jar. Put it in with the other vegetables.
Peel and chop three or four tomatoes and add to the mixture, along with a generous teaspoon of tomato puree let down in some hot water.
Add a couple of sprigs of thyme, bayleaf and parsley stalks tied together into a little bundle with twine, along with some basil if you like (it’s a dish from Provence, after all). Finally, season well with salt and ground black pepper and simmer for 30-40 minutes.
It will serve four as a side dish and if there’s any left, put it in an omelette or scrambled eggs. It is also delicious cold.
*****
Strolling through our cheese market on Sunday, I came across a band of Morris Men doing one of their slightly bonkers dances. Hankies were waved and bells tinkled as they entertained a growing crowd.
Then they began clacking sticks together to the annoyance of a passing dog, which barked its displeasure.
As the dance ended, they all threw their sticks to the ground. The dog seized his chance and snaffled one. But one of the Morris Men was equal to the challenge and grabbed the other end.
There followed a tug of war that kept the crowd in gales of laughter. One of the dancers told them: “If you liked what you saw, put a couple of coins in the hat. If you didn’t, you can pay us to go away.”
On reflection, I wonder if the dog episode happened entirely by chance.
*****
All the talk in the past couple of weeks about James Norton – he stars in a new film about the scientists behind the first test-tube baby and he is also in a Netflix drama about the Guinness family – reminded me of his greatest triumph.
No, not Happy Valley, though he was wonderful in that too, but McMafia, a BBC series crafted from journalist Misha Glenny’s book that delved into the joined-up world of organised crime.
I watched it again (it’s still on iPlayer) and it remains one of the best things I have ever seen on television. Norton plays investment banker Alex Godman, son of an exiled Russian oligarch, who is slowly, inexorably drawn into his father’s old life of crime and violence.
Brilliantly acted and hugely expensive to make, it shone a light into the murky worlds of London’s oligarchs, corrupt bankers and smiling killers in hand-made suits.
There was talk of another series. Oh, I do hope so.
*****
Quasimodo was running down the street chased by a group of kids. “For the last time,” he said, “I haven’t got your football.” – Bernard Manning
RICHARD DISMORE
19 November 2024
