Contemporary France. News, Politics, Films, Books
Jan Masaryk served as the foreign minister of Czechoslovakia, mostly in exile, from July 1940 on–after Munich and the Nazi Occupation, during World War II, and then through the Liberation as part of a Communist-dominated new government. His term was ended by his sudden death …
Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, from Shutterstock.com There have been world-wide protests about the death of George Floyd, but in France these protests also have a local connection. In 1986 Malik Oussekine, a 22-year-old student, was beaten to death by police. Thirty years later, in 2016, Adama Traoré, …
French prosecutors announced on Monday, May 11, 2020, that they have opened an investigation into former President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing on the charge of sexual assault (agression sexuelle), an action that had allegedly occurred on December 18, 2018. The complainant is reporter Ann-Kathrin Stracke of …
Trick question: With what country does France share its longest land border? Answer: Brazil; 800 kilometers. French Guiana (Guyane française) is one of the remnants of France’s first colonial empire (those territories acquired before the French Revolution), and it chose to remain with France after …
On May 14, 2011, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (known as DSK), powerful head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), was taken into custody at JFK just before his return to Paris. An experienced and popular leader of the Socialist Party in France, he had been about to …
Emmanuel Macron was not entirely to blame for the Socialist Party’s collapse in the 2017 elections. Indeed, one could argue that the Socialist Party had been digging a hole for itself since the end of François Mitterand’s term in 1995. Further, the Socialist Party had …
Everyone who watches The Office knows that Sandals in Jamaica is “all-inclusive.” Michael Scott bought a holiday couples vacation package, and the rest was history. But Sandals didn’t invent the concept. Before Sandals there was Club Med. And before that, there was Billy Butlin. Billy …
(Image of Calais Jungle in France, from Shutterstock.com) ================================================= William Shakespeare, from Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1: “Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war. . . .” And then, as Donald Trump would say, “We’ll see what happens!” Shortly after the invasion …
France in the 1950s. A postwar boom. The nation pulled into the modern world under the auspices of dirigisme (directed economic investment, encouragement of mergers in key sectors), a middle way between laissez-faire and communist central planning. Pressure against the small family business, the Mom …
