Some rebels believe the Government wants to be able to blame them for the expected losses in the forthcoming local government elections. It said that if the Government succeeded in making an informal declaration on Britain’s right to maintain border controls legally enforceable, “this would enable the issue of ID cards to be considered on its merits”.But there was no sign of any respite in the stand-off between ministers and the rebels. There was no certainty of legislation this side of the general election.The rebels expressed “concern” that the Government’s apparent conversion to some form of ID card was coming at a time when there were fears “regarding the maintenance of our border controls”.The Government has consistently maintained there is no connection between the two issues, that an ID card would be for domestic purposes only and that Mr Major will do all that is necessary to ensure that border controls are maintained.But it was clear that with at least two of the rebels, including Mr Budgen and John Wilkinson, actually in favour of ID cards, last night’s statement was drafted to fall well short of an all-out denunciation. As ministers showed no sign of a move to readmit the Euro-rebels, one prominent among them, Nick Budgen, the MP for Wolverhampton South West, yesterday went so far as to suggest that they were being denied the whip to save John Major from a leadership challenge.
Whitehall sources yesterday emphasised that the forthcoming Green Paper on ID cards would not put forward a “preferred option”, and would be followed by a long consultation period.

The Government was yesterday at pains to defuse speculation on an early decision over ID cards which became the latest contentious issue in the conflict with its whipless rebels. You get the impression at times that Mr Mayle is hanging on, waiting for inspiration. Miracles, as an old Provenal proverb has it, never happen twice.” Touch, Monsieur Mayle, and adieu.. Toute France, it seems, has been reading A Year in Provence – and liked what it read.

Now, the French can get their teeth into Toujours Provence (translated as – wait for it – Provence Toujours), which has just been published here But the reviews have been less kind. “The magic of A Year in Provence,” one said, “seems to have played itself out. The Aids virus, it said, was a concern for everyone: it didn’t support Balladur, or Jospin, or the Communists, or Le Pen – and there was no guarantee whatsoever that its extinction could be guaranteed on the evening of 7 May, when the results of the second round were known, any more than could poverty or unemployment …You might have thought you had heard the last of Peter Mayle and his years in Provence, now that he is packing up and leaving for the United States. But hold on a second: Mayle is enjoying a burst of popularity where it might least be expected – in his temporarily adopted homeland. At which point a distant murmuring was heard through the hall, that rose to a collective chant: “Ball-a-dur, Ball-a-dur, Ball-a-dur”.A gravitas-exuding comment in Le Monde the next day said that it was a very bad idea to juxtapose an “absolute evil” – Aids – and a “relative good” – Chirac. Roped in to give a rousing address to Jacques Chirac’s youth rally and convince 16,000 excited young people of his commitment to the cause of fighting Aids – the second biggest concern to young people after unemployment, according to the polls – Line Renaud, president of the movement Actors against Aids and an accomplished public speaker, worked up some fine rhetoric.”You are at war against a virus, an unremitting virus,” she said, pausing for effect. So who says French cities are not affected by out-of-town shopping malls?There are risks in trying to mix populist politics and the further reaches of medical research, as one of France’s leading anti-Aids campaigners found to her cost.

But the factors most commonly cited are the rise of the Asian shopkeeper and the proliferation of large supermarkets. In some areas they are the only grocery shop left in the neighbourhood, and their presence rescued many an improvident house-husband or wife at the end of the working day. The staff, often loyal employees over decades, are protesting about what they see as the paltry sums offered in compensation.Many reasons are offered for the failure of Felix Potin, from the (very) high prices in their shops, to exorbitant business rents and the recession. Now, some of the shops – mostly those in prime Paris sites – are up for sale, others have already closed. Felix Potin founded his grocery company in 1844 and by the Sixties it had almost 450 small shops, more than half of them in the capital. Last week, after months of uncertainty and several rescue attempts, the company went into receivership. “It’s downright noisy, uncomfortable and generally dreadful.”Another well-known name on the Paris scene is about to disappear.