France

The French sculptors building the new Statue of Liberty

28 June 2025 9:00 am

At a miserable-looking rally for the centre-left Place Publique in mid-March, its co-president, MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, made international headlines calling…

What history doesn’t tell us

7 June 2025 9:00 am

The trouble with history is that it is topiary. History is what’s left after the unwanted foliage has been clipped…

Britain is heading the way of France

14 May 2025 8:41 pm

The backlash against Keir Starmer has begun. Some senior figures within the Labour party have criticised the Prime Minister’s warning…

Why it might be best if US stock markets go on falling

12 April 2025 9:00 am

It gives me no pleasure to say I told you so. ‘If [Donald Trump] is prepared to cause mayhem in…

Is Britain ready for a patriotic theme park?

5 April 2025 9:00 am

It is the early 9th century. Peace reigns in a small French village as they prepare for a wedding. Garlands…

How the French right can still win

5 April 2025 9:00 am

Dixmont, Yonne It has been a terrible year for the Le Pen family. Jean-Marie died in the first week of…

I’m ready to defend my Tesla from the mob

29 March 2025 9:00 am

Occitanie, France In France, burning cars is practically a national sport. Almost 1,000 were set on fire on New Year’s…

The unfairytale life of two European princesses

15 March 2025 9:00 am

Wounded by their husbands’ infidelity and shattered by the deaths of their only sons, Elisabeth of Austria and Eugénie of France defied court protocol in a bid for independence

More booze won’t save France’s dying village life

13 March 2025 9:57 pm

Reach for the pastis, Jacques. A law is making its way through the French parliament to relax alcohol licensing, to…

Donald Trump humiliated Emmanuel Macron

25 February 2025 5:56 pm

The orca killer whale is known for playing with its prey before killing it, always with a smile. An image…

The case for ‘Areas of Outstanding Natural Ugliness’

25 January 2025 9:00 am

I was leaving the car park of my local shop yesterday – a manoeuvre which involves a hair-raising reverse on…

Immigration’s theatre of the absurd

25 January 2025 9:00 am

On the cusp of an almighty row over Trump’s planned mass deportations, let’s look to Europe for light relief. Last…

There’s something hypocritical about Macron attacking Musk

7 January 2025 10:08 pm

Europe’s leaders rounded on Elon Musk on Monday as the American tech billionaire continued to air his views on the…

How French absolutism powered a techno-progressive revolution

4 January 2025 9:00 am

The Enlightenment is back. Despite the best efforts of the past decade of handwringing about cultural imperialism and wailing over…

Macron governs only for himself

11 December 2024 12:04 am

Emmanuel Macron will this afternoon host the leaders of France’s political parties as he searches for his fourth prime minister…

Macron is the author of his own despair

7 December 2024 9:00 am

‘Notre-Dame has been restored to its full level of glory, and even more so,’ said the President-elect Donald J. Trump…

The good soldier Maczek – a war hero betrayed

7 December 2024 9:00 am

After fighting for the Allies in Hungary, France, Belgium and Holland, Stanislaw Maczek finds himself stripped of his Polish citizenship as a result of the Yalta conference

Banning Marine Le Pen from politics would be a grave mistake

19 November 2024 5:35 pm

Paris prosecutors last week recommended that Marine Le Pen be jailed and banned from public office for five years. The…

It’s rich of the French to call Trump ‘vulgar’

3 November 2024 11:00 am

There has always been a touch of snobbery in the way the French elite regard American politics. The word one…

Small-town mysteries: A Case of Matricide, by Graeme MacRae Burnet, reviewed

12 October 2024 9:00 am

The gifted writer Graeme Macrae Burnet makes a mockery of the genres publishers impose on credulous readers. The author of…

A fashion series made by people who hate fashion: Apple TV+’s La Maison reviewed

12 October 2024 9:00 am

I’m a bit disappointed – déçu, as we Francophiles like to say – with La Maison. When French TV drama…

Move over, Mrs Bennet – I’ve seen two daughters married in less than a month

5 October 2024 9:00 am

Provence A few days before my middle daughter’s Oxfordshire wedding this summer, my youngest announced that she and her fiancé,…

Pornography and the truth about the Pelicot case

5 October 2024 9:00 am

There have been protests in 30 cities across France, people marching in outrage over the case of Dominique Pelicot who…

Why French students want English uniforms

28 September 2024 9:00 am

Béziers, France The École Mairan in Béziers in southern France is a happy neighbourhood elementary school housed in a superb…

The joy of hiring an old banger

21 September 2024 9:00 am

There is always much to look forward to on a holiday with friends in France (the day one supermarket sweep,…