France’s maverick mountain mayor…

Near my hometown in the French Alps is the ski town of Châtel, that sits next door to another one in Switzerland, called Morgins. Both are part of one of the largest Alpine ski interconnect known as “Portes du Soleil”. 

Nicolas Rubin is Châtel’s mayor and a maverick of sorts. He is now challenging French President Macron’s edict to keep ski resorts shut down till sometime in January, if signs of a tapering off Covid-19 are materializing. He can’t understand that his Swiss neighbor Morgins, can stay open while he has to keep his community out of business.

To express his discontent, he’s plastered Châtel’s City Hall with Swiss flags, as he likes to say that “Châtel is the most Swiss of all French resorts!” 

To borrow a page from Trump’s bold playbook, Rubin might try to annex Switzerland like the US wanted to do the same with Greenland, and the embattled mayor should also build a wall west of Châtel and have Macron pay for it! 

Of course, to add insult to injury, Macron now wants to punish French skiers who’d dare ski abroad, like in Switzerland, by imposing a quarantine upon their return from their ski holiday. This has prompted the French ski area association to sue the government. 

To be continued...