How the myth of Paris liberating itself was born
When De Gaulle persuaded Eisenhower to allow the French 2nd armoured division to lead a diversion into the city on 25 August 1944, it was his own political future he was thinking of
Sir Roger Casement never deserved to hang
Executed as one of the leaders of the Easter Rising, he was absent from Dublin at the time of the doomed insurrection – and actually tried to prevent it
The trial of Marshal Pétain continues to haunt France to this day
Was one venal old man primarily responsible for France’s catastrophe of 1940-44, or was it a case of collective failure? The question remains unanswered, says Patrick Marnham
When Paris was the only place to be
For more than 100 years Paris has been as much a symbol and a myth as a geographical reality. The…
France’s new right
The result in France in the first round of the Les Républicains party’s primary elections marks the political death of…
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 finest architectural delusion in the world’
It took the madness of genius to build such a wonderful impossibility. Patrick Marnham reviews a delightful new literary guide to Venice
Paris: a beautiful, damned city
The much-lamented journalist and bon viveur Sam White, late of the rue du Bac, The Spectator and the Evening Standard,…
François Hollande’s own personal state of emergency
His response to the Paris terror attacks has left the French president increasingly isolated and unpopular
Meet the intellectuals leading France to the right
The nation’s intellectuals are being roiled by issues of immigration, sovereignty and freedom of expression
France’s divided centre-right must delight Marine Le Pen
The leaders of the Républicains avoid Le Pen’s coarse language, but many offer similar immigration policies
The facts behind France’s most potent modern myth
Patrick Marnham unravels some of the powerful, often conflicting myths surrounding the French Resistance
The Outsider — from the viewpoint of the victim’s family
In 1975 the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, in a lecture at the University of Massachusetts, identified Joseph Conrad’s Heart of…
Is Nicolas Sarkozy headed back to the Elysée – or to jail?
Destiny is calling Nicolas Sarkozy. But it’s not clear whether he’s heading back to the Elysée – or to jail
Némirovsky's love letter to the France that spurned her and killed her
By 1940 Irène Némirovsky, who had arrived in France at the age of 16 as a refugee from Kiev, had…
A salute to Georges Simenon
The full series of the Maigret novels, together with some of the romans durs, are being republished by Penguin Classics at a rate of one per month. Patrick Marnham salutes a magnificent long-term project.
France's political system is crumbling. What's coming next looks scary
The desperate state of its politics seems to signal the end of the Republic
There was good art under Franco
Everyone knows about the Spanish civil war, first battlefield in the struggle that broke out in 1936 and ended nine…
When we dropped the Bomb by mistake
In January 1976 New York’s late-lamented National Lampoon produced a bicentennial calendar as a contribution to the general rejoicing. For…
