The Grand Véfour has been serving fine dining to Parisians for more than 200 years.
Lionel Bonaventure/AFP
The first restaurants in Paris were based on the medicinal powers of soup, but these establishments soon transformed into the temples to gastronomy we know today.
William Lounsbury/Shutterstock
France has undergone thirteen major political shifts since 1789, and yet there have been very few major changes to the country’s elite.
The Fête de la Fédération at Champ de Mars on July 14, 1790. Woodcut by Helman, from a picture by C. Monet, Painter of the King.
Bibliothèque nationale de France
The French celebrate Quatorze Juillet, not Bastille Day. In fact, the English-language name hides much of the surprisingly complex history of the day.
The Thinker by Auguste Rodin.
Sputnik/Alamy
All muscles and sensuous flesh, its hyper and toxic masculinity puts this Rodin scholar off the artist’s most famous artwork.
In this influential novel, two Persians travel to Paris and report their bemusement at its customs. Questions such as the dilemmas of tolerance and the social nature of our identities are explored.
The Battle of Tewkesbury was a major episode in the War of the Roses.
Wikimedia
The French meddled in the civil war between the Yorks and Lancasters, hoping for an outcome that would favour them.
An engraving of the sabbath from Pierre de Lancre’s Tableau de l'inconstance des mauvais anges .
A historian reviews Pablo Agüere’s award-winning Netflix film Akelarre and explains why it is one of the best films around on the early modern witch-hunt.
The Viking hoard being excavated.
Acta Konserveringscentrum
A Viking hoard of silver coins and jewellery expands our understanding of French history.
President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who died on Wednesday 2 December following the Covid-19.
Jacques Demarthon/AFP
The former president advocated an ‘advanced liberal society’ in which the state must promote growth and paved the way for Europe.
A modern portrait of Jeanne Barret disguised as a man, based on the author’s interpretation.
Timothy Ide
Fresh research casts new light on a boldly unconventional woman who cross-dressed as a man to join a French naval sea voyage.
Uderzo with his creations at Melsbroek airport, Belgium in 2005.
EPA_EFE/Francois Walschaerts
With his colleague René Goscinny, Uderzo told the story of the Gaulish nation.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault, right, chats with Louise Mushikiwabo, secretaire generale de la Francophonie, Tuesday, June 11, 2019 in Quebec City.
CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot
On the month of the Francophonie’s 50th anniversary, it’s time to think about the untold story of French connections across the Canada-U.S. border
Lady Reading in an Interior (between 1795 and 1800).
Marguerite Gérard (1761–1837)
In a turbulent period of French history, women’s journals started to agitate for legal, political and cultural rights.
Could using the guillotine be more humane than execution by lethal injection?
AlexLMX/Shutterstock
Many recent executions in the US by lethal injections have resulted in prolonged suffering before death. A historian asks: Could the guillotine be a preferable method?
The Seine and Notre Dame, physically and spiritually the heart of Paris.
Iakov Kalinin via Shutterstock
From coronations to Revolution to reconciliation, Notre Dame has witnessed nearly 900 years of French history.
Flames and smoke rise as fire rages in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
AP Photo/Thierry Mallet
The Notre Dame Cathedral was long a powerful symbol of church authority - but it wasn’t static. The design kept changing to keep up with the changing times.
Map of New France, by Samuel de Champlain (1612), including French depictions of First Nations peoples.
Wikimedia Commons
Antoinette de Saint-Étienne was a Canadian First Nations woman of the 17th century whose beautiful singing voice attracted the attention of a queen.
Awkward: Rwandan President Paul Kagame visits his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron.
EPA/Christophe Petit Tesson
After the 1994 genocide, Rwanda pivoted towards the Anglophone world. But not entirely.
Why did this woman, so devoted to her political cause and to her vision of a united France, chose to be burnt at the stake at the age of 19 instead of acquiescing to her judges’ directives?
shutterstock.com
Essays On Air: Joan of Arc, our one true superhero
The Conversation 22,1 MB (download)
Joan of Arc has been depicted as a national heroine, nationalist symbol, a rebellious heretic and a goodly saint. Forget Wonder Woman and Batman – Jeanne d’Arc may be our one and only true superhero.
Shutterstock.
Memorials to the terror attack have become visual and transient – a battleground to contest parts of French identity.