The Economist UK - 27.07.2019

30 Europe The EconomistJuly 27th 2019

A

s far aslive spectator sports go, the

Tour de France has to be one of the

strangest. For hours, thousands of en-

thusiasts line the route under a baking

sun. Aficionados bring parasols, folding

chairs and picnics. At last, there is action

on the road. But it is the long caravan of

advertising vehicles which precedes the

racers. And then suddenly, in a flash of

lime green and yellow, the breakaway

cyclists, followed by thepeloton, or cy-

cling pack, pass. It all lasts a matter of

seconds. But then again the world’s most

famous cycling race is as much about the

geography and national identity of

France as it is about the sport.

The tour is thrilling the French this

year. For the first time in 34 years, a

Frenchman—either Thibaut Pinot or

Julian Alaphilippe—has a chance of

winning when the race finishes on the

Champs-Elysées on July 28th. For de-

cades, the French have watched with

dismay as the Spanish, Americans and

British have successively monopolised

the trophy (see chart). French suspicions

of cheating used to seem like sour grapes.

But in 2012 Lance Armstrong, a seven-

time American winner, was stripped of

his titles after a doping scandal.

Today, the tour has recovered its

credibility as an extreme test of muscular

endurance, and with it the country’s

enthusiasm. The French airwaves have

been filled with breathless live coverage

of the race, with its 21 separate stages

covering 3,480km (2,162 miles). This year

is also the centenary of themaillot jaune,

or yellow jersey, awarded daily to the race

leader. To celebrate, on July 20th Presi-

dent Emmanuel Macron was at the Col

du Tourmalet in the Pyrenees to congrat-

ulatemaillot jaune-wearing Mr Alaphi-

lippe as well as the day’s winner, who

happened to be Mr Pinot.

In 1903 Henri Desgrange, an early

cycling enthusiast, devised the tour to

help publicise his sports newspaper. Yet

these days the tour also serves to pro-

mote France. On July 24th cyclists sped

past the medieval village of Faucon,

having started at the Roman aqueduct of

the Pont du Gard, before ending in the

foothills of the Alps. More of the French

think of the race as an opportunity to

admire the scenery than see it as a great

sporting event, says a poll. This being

France, existential musings are also in

order. The tour, said Christian Prud-

homme, its director, is “life, condensed...

all the wonderful,exceptional, dis-

concerting, unfortunate things that can

happen: it is life.”

Cycling’s coming home

Tour de France

FAUCON

The meaning of the Tour de France

34 years of hurt

Source: Tour

de France

*Lance Armstrong stripped of seven wins from

1999 to 2005. No winner declared for these years

Tour de France wins by country

France 36

Belgium 18

Spain 12

Italy 10

Britain 6

Luxembourg 5

United States* 3

Netherlands 2

Switzerland 2

Australia 1

Germany 1

Denmark 1

Ireland 1 Year last won

1985

1976

2009

2014

2018

2010

1990

1980

1951

2011

1997

1996

1987

P

ope pius xi, who died in 1939, described

Malta as “Malta Cattolicissima”. Today,

that is not quite as true as it once was. The

first schism with Catholic doctrine came in

2011, when divorce was legalised after a bit-

terly fought referendum. For the past four

years, Malta has retained its top spot in

ilga-Europe’s Rainbow Index, a ranking of

policy towards lgbtpeople in 49 European

countries. Same-sex couples now have

equal marriage and adoption rights.

Yet Malta remains the only European

Union member state which bans abortion

in all circumstances. Under a law dating to

1724, women who procure an abortion in

Malta risk being imprisoned for up to three

years. The second-most-stringent eu

country, Poland, allows abortion in very

limited circumstances (as does Northern

Ireland, which is even stricter, though a

law passed in Westminster earlier this

month could change that).

A fledgling grassroots movement is

now positioning itself to break the taboo.

“We want to normalise saying the word

‘abortion’,” says Lara Dimitrijevic, the foun-

der of the Women’s Rights Foundation, an

ngo. In 2016 the foundation filed a judicial

protest, signed by 100 Maltese women,

claiming that the nationwide ban of the

morning-after pill (which is not abortifa-

cient) was a violation of their human

rights. The pill was legalised soon after. In

March last year her group began campaign-

ing for the public provision of abortion to

Maltese women, at least when a woman’s

health is at risk, and in cases of rape, incest

or fatal fetal impairment.

Dr Andrea Dibben of the University of

Malta says that such is the stigma around

abortion that she knows of no Maltese

woman to have spoken publicly about get-

ting one. The activists estimate that 370

women, in a country with a population of

460,000, travel to terminate a pregnancy

each year. According to the British govern-

ment, 58 Maltese women sought an abor-

tion in Britain in 2016. Many more travel to

nearby Sicily, but even there they encoun-

ter long hospital waiting lists. That some-

times pushes women to seek out back-

street clinicians, with all of the risk that

brings. Increasingly, Maltese women are

also illegally importing abortion pills

bought online. A 30-year-old woman was

given a two-year suspended prison sen-

tence for using a pill in 2014.

Even trying to organise is difficult.

When the Republic of Ireland overwhelm-

ingly voted to repeal its abortion ban in

May last year, Maltese activists began copy-

ing tactics from their Irish counterparts,

replicating their strategy of setting up an

association of pro-choice medical doctors.

But in Malta most of its 51 members chose

to remain anonymous.

Those who have revealed their identity

were reported to the national Medical

Council, which regulates doctors, by an

anti-abortion doctor who—unsuccessful-

ly—requested that they be struck off the

medical register. When an openly pro-

choice doctor stood in the election to the

board of the council this month, a recently

formed counter-organisation, Doctors for

Life, emailed eligible voters urging them to

vote for a list of five anti-abortion candi-

dates, four of whom were indeed elected;

the pro-choice doctor was not.

Last year Malta’s prime minister, Joseph

Muscat, told the Council of Europe that his

government “neither has the political

mandate to open a debate on access to

abortion, nor the support of public opin-

ion”. Polls suggest around nine-tenths of

the population continue to oppose abor-

tion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Al-

though Malta’s pro-choice activists have

sparked a conversation, victory seems a

long way off. 7

The pro-choice movement in Malta

faces an upward struggle

Malta and abortion

The last taboo