France
François Hollande has found a shameful saviour
France’s president is looking more hopeless than ever. But French politics is such a mess that he’ll probably survive
The French gym where kissing before a workout is mandatory
A fresh start in a new gym in a foreign country. The serious young gym attendant didn’t speak a word…
This Parisian exhibition has rewritten the story of art
Why do we put one work of art beside another? For the most part museums and galleries tend to stick…
The members of White’s fall into two categories: shits and bores
On Sunday we were invited for lunch at Chez Bruno, an unbelievably posh restaurant in the south of France. At…
French labour laws should come with a health warning
The tourist information office of the small French country town looked closed. Peering between the posters on the window glass,…
The waves that wrecked Britannia
Military history is more popular than respected. It is not hard to see why. It is masculine history, a trifecta…
Why gender fluidity will never take off in France
On Monday morning I was in a blind panic. The deadline for posted manuscript entries to the Daily Mail First…
The kindest man in the Bordeaux wine business
There was a moment during the war when De Gaulle was being more than usually impossible. Roosevelt, furious, asked Churchill…
Walking, and praying, in the hills of Provence
While I was in Provence, my hostess and I went out one day for a walk in the hills. We…
Why Britain (and Europe) depends on migrants
It’s not about economics. It’s about our snobbish, slobbish culture
Brexit is none of Mark Carney's business
Surely there is a difference between Mark Carney’s intervention in the Scottish referendum last year and in the EU one…
Courchevel – from pickled cockles to the height of luxury
The last time I stayed in Courchevel it was in a tatty roadside chalet a long way down the mountain.…
A gastronomic moron’s view of a legendary French brasserie
Before we left for Sunday lunch at the Les Deux Garçons restaurant, Aix-en-Provence, I checked the reviews on Tripadvisor. I’m…
My afternoon with the French Foreign Legion
In the Foreign Legion’s Museum of Memory at Aubagne, near Marseilles, I examined the kit, weapons and uniforms from the…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said that if Britain left the European Union, France could stop allowing British officials…
The perfect wines to toast the end of the hunting season
A few years ago, a distinguished cove in the diplomatic service was made High Commissioner to Australia. To prepare himself…
François Hollande’s own personal state of emergency
His response to the Paris terror attacks has left the French president increasingly isolated and unpopular
Eugene Delacroix foresaw the future of society not just art
Delacroix’s frigid self-control concealed an emotional volcano. Martin Gayford explores the paradoxes that define the apostle of modernism
We don’t need research to change banking culture. We need jail sentences
Was the Financial Conduct Authority leaned on by the Chancellor to scrap its ‘review of banking culture’? Or did it…
Britain is absent from the V&A’s new Europe galleries. Are they trying to tell us something?
Before cheap flights, trains were the economical way to discover Europe and its foibles. Personally, I enjoyed the old fuss…
Paris: go while it’s still friendly
Julie Burchill hymns the joys of post-attack Paris
Why would a dissolute rebel like Paul Gauguin paint a nativity?
Martin Gayford investigates how this splendid Tahitian Madonna came about and why religion was ever-present in Gauguin's art
Glenda Jackson is brilliant in Radio 4’s Zola adaptation - and terrifying
It was a stroke of genius to invite Glenda Jackson to make her return to acting as the star of…
It is political correctness, not maniacal bigots, that will end civilisation
What does one do, attend or refuse a party after a tragic event such as the recent Paris outrage? My…
The pretend war: why bombing Isil won't solve the problem
Britain, France and America are in a protracted fight against Islamic radicalism. Pity our leaders have no idea how to win it
