the times | Thursday February 3 2022 2GM 33
Wo r l d
President Macron sought to lure
working-class voters away from his far-
right rivals with a promise of limitless
subsidies and a clampdown on migra-
tion yesterday.
On a visit to the northern French
rustbelt — the heartland of Marine Le
Pen, the National Rally candidate in the
spring presidential election — Macron
outlined plans for the EU to reinforce
its external borders to curb the influx of
immigrants entering the bloc illegally
before heading to France.
He also pledged a €200 million bud-
get to renovate homes, roads and other
infrastructure in run-down former
mining communities, adding that the
funds would be topped up whenever
A precious 1st-century bronze statuette
has been returned to its French
museum by the art detective who
tracked it down half a century after it
was stolen.
Arthur Brand, whose exploits earned
him the nickname “the Indiana Jones
of the art world”, returned the sculpture
of the god Bacchus to the museum in
Châtillon-sur-Seine, in Burgundy,
where it had been the most prized
possession since it was unearthed in
1894 in a dig at the site of Vertillum, an
ancient Gallo-Roman village.
In December 1973 thieves snatched
the 40cm (16in) statue of the boy god
after smashing a window. They also
took about 5,000 Roman coins. After
the robbery the museum displayed a
copy of the statue.
The original resurfaced two years
ago when an Austrian client contacted
selected by the company Ipsos, and the
panel of experts.
Last night RTVE released the full
details of the votes, showing that
Chanel won thanks to the decisive
influence of the professional jury,
whose vote accounted for 50 per cent of
the final tally. She received 51 points, 21
more than they gave to Tanxugueiras.
The public gave Chanel only 3.9 per
cent of their votes while awarding the
Galicians 70.75 per cent.
RTVE insisted the jury “acted freely”.
However, María Eizaguirre, RTVE’s
director of communication and partici-
pation, did not rule out that measures
would be taken in the future “for great-
er isolation of the jury” — whose indi-
vidual votes were not revealed for their
own protection — saying it was “pru-
dent” after death threats were made.Analysis
P
resident Macron is
accused by critics of
failing to get a grip on
immigration. An
OpinionWay poll found
that 63 per cent of respondents
thought there were “too many”
immigrants in France and 62 per
cent wanted the country to
reinforce its borders.
Government figures last month
showed that France approved
271,675 residence permits last
year, a 21.9 per cent rise on 2020,
and received 121,554 asylum
claims, a 30.3 per cent rise.
Critics say that if France faces
a migration crisis, it is because of
the EU’s border-free zone. The
president’s challenge is to show
that membership is compatible
with a controlled migration
policy. For now he seems to be
doing enough to defend himself
but the issue could still erupt
before April’s election.Spanish TV chiefs squirm in
row over ‘rigged’ Eurovision
Spain
David SharrockSleuth solves mystery of stolen Bacchus
Brand to ask him to investigate the ori-
gins of a statue of a boy that he had
bought legally.
“When we could find no refer-
ence for such an important work
existing anywhere, we realised
that the work could have been
stolen — and the hunt was on,”
Brand said.
The art detective, who
earned fame in 2015
when he traced the
horse sculptures that
once stood outside
Hitler’s Berlin chan-
cellery, found a reference in a
1927 French archaeology
magazine to a statuette of
Bacchus as a boy that be-
longed to a museum.
Subsequent researchshowed that it had been shown in Paris
in 1937 in an exhibition of French art
treasures.
“The owner was
shocked to learn that
the piece had been
stolen and wanted to
give it back to the
museum,” Brand told
AFP news agency.
After collecting the statue from
Brand in Amsterdam, Catherine
Monnet, director of the museum,
said: “When I saw it now for the
first time, I just realised how much
more beautiful it is than the copy
we have had on display.”
Brand said: “After 50 years it’s
extremely rare for a stolen object to
surface. Especially such an important
one, that’s now going back to the
museum where it belongs.”
The French statute of limitations
means the theft will not be investigated.Charles Bremner Paris
Spain’s national broadcaster struggled
to explain last night how it chose as the
country’s representative in this year’s
Eurovision Song Contest a singer who
won 4 per cent of the public’s votes.
The selection of Chanel and her song
SloMo caused a storm of protest and
questions in parliament after the strong
favourites Tanxugeiras, a female trio
singing in their native Galician lan-
guage, were given the lowest score by
the five-person “professional jury”.
It quickly emerged that two of the
jury members had links to Chanel. The
voting procedure included three ele-
ments: a public televote, a so-called
demoscopic jury, made up of 433 people
of different localities, ages and sexesThe statuette of the boy
god was stolen in 1973Macron takes
aim at migrants
to outflank his
right-wing rivals
France
Adam Sage Tourcoing
needed, with no apparent ceiling on the
amount he was prepared to spend.
Macron, 44, is yet to confirm that he
will run for a second term but has made
it clear that he intends to do so.
He is a clear favourite, with an
Elabe poll for BFM, the rolling news
channel, placing him on 25 per cent of
the vote in the first round of the elec-
tion, with Le Pen, 53, on 16.5 per cent,
Valérie Pécresse, the centre-right
Republicans contender, on 16 per cent,
and Eric Zemmour, the anti-Islam
pundit, on 12.5 per cent.
Officially his day in a region where
15 per cent of the population are out
of work and up to 23 per cent live in
poverty, was a presidential visit. In
practice it bore the hallmark of a
man already on the campaign trail and
keen to shield himself against right-
wing claims that he is a wealthy
Parisian figurehead uninterested in
working-class concerns.
The region is home to makeshift
camps housing hundreds of migrants
hoping to reach the UK, to the exasper-
ation of local residents.
In an interview, Macron suggested
that the migrants were exploiting the
EU’s border-free zone to reach France.
Speaking to journalists in Tourcoing,
northern France, Macron refused to
back down in his quarrel with Britain
over the Channel migration crisis. He
reiterated his call for Britain to allow
migrants to claim asylum from France
and to authorise those whose demands
are approved to cross the Channel.
“Today legal and economic migra-
tion is not organised [by Britain],” he
said.
He added that the Channel migra-
tion crisis needed a twofold solution.
The first part was for Europe to tighten
control of its borders to prevent mi-
grants from entering the bloc illegally
and from crossing it to reach the Chan-
nel coast.
The second was for Britain to “open a
legal route” for asylum seekers to cross
the Channel.A
ustralia’s most
decorated
living soldier
shot dead a
prostrate
Afghan prisoner, a
serving SAS soldier told a
court in Sydney (Bernard
Lagan writes).
Just before this Ben
Roberts-Smith, a former
SAS corporal who was
awarded the Victoria
Cross, had ordered a
subordinate to kill an
Afghan prisoner during a
raid on a Taliban
compound, the court was
told.
The serving soldier,
who for security reasons
was referred to as Person
41, said Roberts-Smith
then frogmarched
another prisoner, threwhim on the ground and
shot him in the back with
a machinegun.
The killings are alleged
to have taken place in the
village of Kakarak, in
southern Afghanistan, on
Easter Day in 2009.
The evidence emerged
yesterday as a delayed
defamation trial resumed.
Roberts-Smith, 43, is
suing Melbourne’s The
Age newspaper and The
Sydney Morning Herald
over reports in 2018 that
he says portrayed him as
a war criminal and linked
him to the killings of six
unarmed Afghan
detainees.
The case resumed after
a six-month break due to
the pandemic with
evidence from Person 41,
who said he was sent to
Afghanistan as a new
trooper on his first SAS
mission in 2009. He said
he had been searching a
room in a compound
when he saw Roberts-
Smith, another soldier
identified as Person 4
and, squatting at a wall,an older Afghan prisoner.
Person 41 said Roberts-
Smith walked the Afghan
man about two metres
until he was in front of
Person 4, “then kicked
him in the back of the
legs behind the knees
until he was kneeling
down... RS pointed to
the Afghan and said to
Person 4, ‘Shoot him’.”
Person 41 said he did
not want to witness what
he realised was about to
happen, and stepped back
into the room he had
been searching. He heard
a muffled round fired
from an M4 rifle and
waited another “15 or so
seconds” before stepping
back into the courtyard.
Person 41 said Roberts-
Smith was no longer in
the courtyard, but Person
4 was standing above the
Afghan male, who was
dead from a bullet wound
to the head. “There was
quite a lot of blood
flowing from the head
wound,” he said.
Person 41 then left the
courtyard and noticedthat Roberts-Smith, who
is 6ft 6in, had another
Afghan male by the
scruff of his shirt and
was frogmarching him,
the court was told.
“He then proceeded to
throw the Afghan male
down on to the ground;
the man landed on his
back. RS then reached
down, grabbed him by
the shoulder, flipped him
over on to his stomach
and then I observed him
lower his machinegun
and shoot approximately
three to five rounds into
the back of the Afghan
male,” he said.
Roberts-Smith has
admitted killing the
Afghan man, who had a
prosthetic leg, but said
he was an insurgent
running outside the
compound and carrying
a weapon, and therefore
a legitimate target.
The trial continues.VC h e r o
‘shot dead
unarmed
prisoner’
Ben Roberts-Smith met the
Queen at a reception for
Victoria Cross holders at
Buckingham Palace in 2018JOHN STILLWELL/GETTY IMAGES