Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.
The film “Amadeus” details the rivalry between two composers, Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — our Brussels-based readers may have heard of the latter thanks to a restaurant specializing in ribs named after him in the city center.
Both have talent. But will the older Salieri be able to keep down the younger man? Spoiler alert: There’s no Brussels-based ribs joint called Salieri.
Anyway, next week will see the modern equivalent of this rivalry come to a head — though with fewer violins and much more migration rhetoric — when French far-right leader Marine Le Pen will find out if she can run in the country’s 2027 presidential election, or if young upstart Jordan Bardella will get the gig.
On July 7, an appeals court will decide whether to uphold Le Pen’s conviction for embezzling EU funds and the accompanying five-year ban on holding electoral office. And if unable to run, she has said Bardella will be the party’s candidate in next year’s race. But whoever can’t run in the election will surely be furious? Le Pen was born into the far right and has made it to the second round of two presidential elections, while Bardella has been putting in the hard yards as of late.
Thank goodness the far right doesn’t have a reputation for infighting!
Whoever wins, though, will have an immediate common enemy — in addition to Brussels and footballer Kylian Mbappé: a teenage boy with a Super Soaker.
This week, the French right lost its collective mind about Hamza, aged 14, who has become a social media star because of his antics along the banks of Canal Saint-Martin in Paris.
Videos show Hamza firing his water pistol at cyclists, drivers and police officers. He’s also been filmed shoplifting (bad), and pushing people into the canal (also bad) during the heat wave (maybe less bad — unless you can’t swim, then very bad). When cops tried to detain him, he climbed in the back of their patrol car, crawled out the other side and dove into the canal like James Bond — though drinking an Orangina instead of a martini.
The left has likened Hamza to Gavroche, the likable street urchin from Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. The right has likened him to a trouble-making thug who represents everything wrong with the world. And I’ve likened him to Scrappy-Doo (in French, Scrapidou-Doo?) from Scooby-Doo.
There’s an entrepreneurial side to young Hamza too, which should appeal to the right wing. He’s been stopping cyclists and threatening to soak them unless they pay him €2, earning him the nickname Hamza La Douane (Customs Hamza). It’s like ICE in the U.S. — if it was staffed entirely by shirtless teens.
Rumors that the EU is trying to get Hamza to donate his collection of €2 coins to help boost the next long-term budget were unconfirmed at the time of writing.
CAPTION COMPETITION
“If he uses the phrase ‘strategic autonomy‘ one more time …”
Can you do better? Email us at pdallison@politico.eu or get in touch on X @POLITICOEurope.
Last time, we gave you this photo:
Thanks for all the entries. Here’s the best one from our mailbag — there’s no prize except the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far preferable to cash or booze.
“I’m leaving office before you, so you owe me €50.”
by Patrick Burke
