If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. Two sinister underlying obsessions link this contemporary discourse to the earlier reactionary and nationalist French essayists. The first is a belief in an immutable “eternal France”. Maurras, who was a leading figure in Action Française, a political movement that was founded in 1899 to defend “true France”, termed this le pays réel (the real country): a land of church spires, ancestral soil and family tradition. It was to be distinguished, in his view, from le pays légal (the legal country), or the artificial structures of the anticlerical republican administration. Old enemies and new Britain has Europe’s worst-insulated homes, losing 3 °C after five hours according to home climate management company tado, which surveyed 80,000 homes in 11 European countries. Norway and Germany have the best insulated homes. The second obsession is paranoia about decline, and the failure of elites to protect French identity. For Maurras, the chief menace to it was that enemy within: Jews, Protestants, Freemasons and foreigners. For Barrès, the enemy was principally without: Germany, and its military might. For Mr Camus and Mr Zemmour, it is above all Islam. Echoing the “great replacement theory”, Mr Zemmour claims that, in today’s France, “an Islamic civilisation is replacing a people from a Christian, Greco-Roman civilisation”. “Veiled women”, Mr Camus recently told a TV interviewer, “are the flags of conquest, of colonisation”.

Denmark, Sweden, Chile, Morocco, Chile and India are all ranked ahead of the UK, which was 10th in the 2022 Climate Change Performance Index. French Southern Territories - these islands in the Antarctic function primarily as a research station and do not have any permanent residents. They are on GMT +5 French Polynesia - the more than 100 islands that make up French Polynesia cover two time zones in the South Pacific - GMT -10 and GMT -9

Do I like the English? Yes, I was born there but the weather is ghastly and worse of course in Scotland. But it seems that the weather in Paris is much the same as London. It took over 10 years for me to finally go to him and ask for forgiveness, and to my surprise, he wasn't mad at all. It was a huge relief, and he and I aren't awkward around each other anymore." When it comes to the English, not enough credit is given them because they tend to be self critical so others think let's be critical of them as well. It was probably my biggest regret for most of my life after that and I feared that he had deep seated resentment for me. He's pretty much the only family I had left, and I was afraid that I would lose him too due to my selfishness. Alexander Dumas described his musketeers as 'The Insperables'. While that may not have really be the case, their real-life counterparts were related (Photo by Dreamstime)

Netflix's French-language output has improved rapidly, and The Eddy offers a guide in how to blend the best of French and American influences. With bilingual dialogue and jazz as its primary medium, the series offers a counterpoint to the sterile depictions of Paris. Set in Belleville, birthplace of Edith Piaf, this show captures the texture of a lived city, beyond the mere cliché of "grittiness" – its creativity, sensuality, and fragility.I think Rowan Atkinson summed it up well with Richard Curtis & Howard Goodall's lyrics in his Live in Belfast performance. It’s hard to imagine that French was the official language of England between 1066 and 1362. But after William the Conquerorled theNorman conquest and subsequent occupation of Englandin 1066, he introduced Anglo-Norman French to the nation. This was spoken by royalty, aristocrats, and high-powered officials, some of whom couldn’t speak any English! In 1362, however, parliament passed the Pleading in English Act, making English the official language of government. This was because Norman French was used for pleadings, but was largely unknown to the common people ofEngland, who had no knowledge of what was being said in court. 4. Louis XIX was the king of France for just 20 minutes, the shortest ever reign