France
Hell is an expat dinner party
I just don’t understand it. Emigrating from Britain to France is a big step. Shifting from one culture to another…
Trump is saving Nato
It’s almost Nato as usual when Emmanuel Macron calls Nato ‘brain dead’. It’s Nato as usual, and Donald Trump as…
Meet the unrivalled Sun King of early music, William Christie
It’s morning in the garden of William Christie, and he’s talking about home improvements. ‘I planted three pines up there…
Could this self-made billionaire become France’s first Muslim president?
The French writer Michel Houellebecq has a disconcerting habit of correctly predicting unsettling events. In 2001 in Plateforme he predicted…
Emmanuel Macron will regret his failure to crack down on Islamists
It beggars belief that Mickaël Harpon was employed as a computer expert in the intelligence department at police HQ in…
Labour is following in the doomed footsteps of the French left
The left no longer exists as a coherent political force in France. Embarrassed in the 2017 presidential election, the Socialist…
The French city zones where police rarely escape unscathed
In December 2015, Donald Trump claimed parts of the French capital were no-go zones for the police. ‘Paris is no…
The mysterious ways of the French
These new tablets that will save or at least prolong my life have unpredictable side effects which only now, a…
Trump’s yin and yang game with China
It should be obvious by now — but somehow isn’t. Whenever @realDonldTrump says something wild, you can bet the real…
Why you can’t let Brexit affect your life
A couple with a first baby sought my advice: they had accepted a low offer for their cramped London flat…
Will the Mistral drive me to murder?
So far this latest Mistral wind has blown for two and a half weeks. The Mistral is said to blow…
Meet Santini: the world’s worst tourist guide
Santino was unusually short in the leg and, in his mid-twenties, was already rapidly losing his hair. He had recently…
Notre Dame is an architectural nullity
Notre Dame is only important from a Shakespeare’s-birthplace point of view. Architecturally it is a nullity beside the cathedrals of…
Hope will rise out of the ashes of Notre Dame
‘Great edifices, like great mountains, are the work of centuries,’ wrote Victor Hugo in Notre-Dame de Paris. ‘The man, the…
The truth is messy. Village gossip is even messier
An angry villager accosted me outside my house as I came through my front door. ‘You’re wrong about those horses,’…
It may seem incredible, but I’d trust an Italian over a Frenchman any day
For a few years before coming to Italy, I lived in Paris and I cannot tell you the life-enhancing difference…
David Cairns explains how we learned to love Berlioz
According to his friend and fellow-composer Ernest Reyer, the last words Berlioz spoke on his deathbed were: ‘They are finally…
Europe’s culture clash: Macron vs Salvini is a battle over a continent’s soul
Two weeks ago Luigi Di Maio, Italy’s vice-premier and Labour Minister and the top politician of the Five Star Movement…
How an anarchist music student become of the fashion greats: the life of Christian Dior
Strange to think when you visit the Christian Dior show at the V&A that his time as designer was so…
Hell — and heaven – on the French Riviera
We drove down from the hills to visit friends of friends with a house by the sea and on the…
Portrait of the week: Theresa May’s double defeat on Brexit
Home Political hobbyists speculated on the future of Brexit if the government fell, if a new Conservative leader was chosen,…
We lost our elderly, dementing French charge
I entered the cave house carrying groceries and panting from the climb to find an old hippie woman displaying rugs…
France’s second world war shame
The monument to this French village’s war dead is a plain white stone block with the head of a grizzled…
Is Emmanuel Macron having a meltdown?
Emmanuel Macron was elated when France won the World Cup in July. The photograph of him leaping out of his…
The perils of smoking three-year-old Glaswegian skunk
Three years ago we were given a bag of skunk, Catriona and I, provenance Glasgow. It was one gigantic dried…
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