de Gaulle
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
My host’s reciprocity was almost embarrassingly generous
Peace came dropping slow. I have never regarded west Flanders as part of la France profonde, but here we were,…
France’s favourite bedtime story: a sanitised version of the French Revolution
The great conundrum of French history is the French Revolution, or rather, the sequence of revolutions, coups and insurrections during…
Man of destiny: Napoleon was always convinced he was the chosen one
It is almost inconceivable that there could be a more densely detailed book about Napoleon than this — 800 crowded…
What took Francis Mitterrand to the top?
Of a dashing political rival, François Mitterrand once remarked: He was more intelligent than I was, he thought faster than…
