Hello and welcome to Spectator Out Loud.

Every week, a few of our favourite writers read out their articles from the latest issue.

This week we're going to be joined by Jonathan Miller, Matthew Lynn and Melissa Kite.

First, it's Jonathan Miller,

who talks about France's COVID passport revolt. Here he is. Three weeks ago, 100,000 demonstrators turned out on the streets of France to protest President Emmanuel Macron's new law to require vaccination passports to get on a train,

eat at a restaurant, visit a shopping centre, or even drink a cup of coffee on a terrace.

A week later, the number had more than doubled. And last Saturday, it doubled again.

One police union estimated that close to 500,000 had turned out,

although as usual the Interior Ministry claimed a much lower number.

Enormous demonstrations were staged not just in Paris,

but in more than 150 cities and towns

across France, as well as in the overseas territories of Guadeloupe and Reunion.

All this in the middle of the sacred summer holiday season when French demonstrators usually take a break.

On the current trajectory, one million could be on the

streets by September, and with eight months to go before the first round of the presidential election,

Macron and his ministers have kindled a national revolt. It could be as prolonged and divisive

as a revolt of the yellow jackets, the Gilles-Jones,

which was only finally extinguished in March 2020 by the first wave of COVID.

Macron's ministers seem to be pouring petrol on the flames.

This week, the health minister insulted protesters as a magma of anti-vax, anti-science and anti-state activists.

With the connivance of tame media, they painted protesters as dangerous, ultra-right-wing extremists, even as anti-Semites.

Anyone outside of France can be forgiven from misreading the mood here.

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