Spotlight on France

Despite a raft of laws and programmes in France to address the gender pay gap, women still earn less than men. Organic farmers try to adapt to a drop in demand for organic food. And the story of Ravel's Boléro – the world's most performed piece of classical music.

There are some explanations for France's 22 percent gender pay gap – women work fewer hours on average and in lower-paid jobs. But even doing the same job and putting in ...

A French large language model adds European context and nuance to the dominant artificial intelligence being developped by US tech giants and China. Is France really being "flooded" with immigrants? The numbers say no, but the feeling remains. And the mixed legacy of a landmark law on disability and inclusion, 20 years later.

Countries are looking for sovereignty in artificial intelligence and at a major AI summit in Paris this wee...

How France's budget cuts will impact development work abroad and civil society at home. An inconclusive medical marijuana experiment leaves patients in limbo. And how Jewish comedian Pierre Dac used humour in the Resistance.

The government’s budget for 2025, if passed, will see public spending slashed by €32 billion. While most ministries are impacted, funding for public development assistance (PDA) is facing cuts of more than €2 b...

A big freeze in Franco-Algerian relations as domestic politics drive international diplomacy. France is full of dinosaur bones, but short on paleongolotists to dig them up. And France's law decriminalising abortion turns 50.

The often fraught relations between France and its former colony Algeria have hit an all-time low after a series of disagreements over Western Sahara, the detention of a French-Algerian writer and an Algerian b...

Tibetans question why a French museum has renamed its collection of Tibetan art. A group of neighbours south of Paris produce the region's first olive oil. And the independence of the Comoros, without Mayotte.

Tibetans and Tibetan scholars are alarmed at how Paris' Guimet museum of Asian art has categorised its art and artefacts from Tibet. Tenam and other Tibetans in exile, who have been demonstrating regularly outside the museum,...

Unearthing the story of the woman who documented Charles de Gaulle's liberation of Paris in 1944. The impact of climate change on alcohol content in wine, and how French consumers are reacting. And the reopening of Notre-Dame cathedral, five years after the fire. 

A few days before General Charles de Gaulle was due to make his triumphant entry into Paris, the three French war correspondents lined up to cover the event were captured...

Controversy around the latest edition of the Académie Française dictionary. How France is processing the re-election of US President-elect Donald Trump. The first disaster to prompt waves of international solidarity. 

The Academie Française, guardian of the French language since 1635, has issued the 9th edition of its official dictionary, with 21,000 new words compared to the 8th edition of 1935. President Macron has praised the ac...

After a ban on single-use plastic food containers, France tackles shipping packaging in its fight to reduce waste. A stand-off between mussel farmers and spider crab fishers in Brittany. And the 1924 sardine strike that set the example for women demanding labour rights.

France produces 2.2 million tonnes of plastic packaging a year, most of which does not get recycled. In the ongoing battle to reduce waste, a 2021 law is intended t...

Why songs in French are attracting new audiences in non-francophone countries. How are French schools using screens in classrooms? And the history of France's Nobel prizes.

The Paris Olympic Games and Paralympics gave French-language songs huge exposure, adding new fans to the global audience already growing on streaming platforms. But what kind of music are non-French-speakers listening to and why? A new exhibition at the recently...

A shamanic ceremony in Paris prepares human remains to return to French Guiana. French villages finally get street names. And the 1970s court case that changed France's approach to prosecuting rape.

Native Americans from French Guiana and Suriname were recently in Paris to demand the restitution of the remains of six of their ancestors who died after being exhibited in so-called human zoos. Corinnne Toka Devilliers, whose great-gra...

How the Paris Paralympics have boosted interest in inclusive sports in France. A look back at the origins of the first international games for deaf athletes, 100 years ago. And why it’s difficult, but necessary, for France’s deeply divided National Assembly to embrace the art of compromise.

The Paralympics in Paris shone a light on disability and the challenges disabled people in France face in getting access to sport. Novosports, ...

France is reviving its industrial farming of hemp – 'green gold' – in the search for more sustainable, energy-saving building materials. French publishers are flocking to romance, as a new generation of authors are writing for a new and growing audience of young women readers. And when Paris hosted the 1924 Olympics 100 years ago.

Hemp farming nearly died out in France in the 1970s but is making a comeback in textiles and the const...

As France heads into snap parliamentary elections with the prospect of the far-right National Rally winning a majority, what powers would its prime minister have, and what would change in France? Also, a look at previous presidents who dissolved parliament and risked getting a result they didn't like. And the story of Jenny Sacerdote – France's Roaring Twenties haute couture designer, whose mould-breaking designs are finally being ...

The United States played a key role in the Allied effort to liberate Western Europe from the Nazis, but not everyone sees it in the same light. As France marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, an American veteran reflects on the differing ways the US and France remember the war. Meanwhile, historians recall the large number of civilians killed during the Allied invasion and explain why US soldiers were not always welcomed as heroes.

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How student protests in support of Palestinians at Paris's political science institute are different from those in the US, a look at France's growing disaffection with Europe, and the long birth of the Channel Tunnel linking France to Britain – 30 years old this week. 

Student protests against Israel's war in Gaza came to a head in the past week, when the president of the prestigious Sciences Po university called the police to forc...

Why French youth are once again under fire as the government vows to crack down on violent crime. The staying power of Ionesco's The Bald Soprano in one of Paris's smallest theatres. And why French women won the right to vote so much later than many of their European neighbours.

In recent weeks President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Gabriel Attal have been looking for ways to tackle what Macron has called a wave of ultraviole...

How France's new hardline position on Russia marks a major shift away from decades of pro-Russia policies. The fight to make hair discrimination illegal. And why VAT – a tax introduced 70 years ago – is so important to French finances, despite being deeply unequal.

French President Emmanuel Macron has recently done a U-turn on Russia:  having argued against humiliating Russia following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he h...

Four years after the start of the first Covid lockdown in France, what has been the impact? What's stopping more men getting vasectomies in France. And why not everyone wants to accept that Rosa Bonheur, the most famous female painter of the 19th century, was a lesbian.

For 55 days, starting 17 March 2020, French citizens were confined to their homes as part of the government's approach to controlling the then little-understood vir...

How a wave of #MeToo allegations against French directors is shaking up the cinema industry; the Cinémobile movie theatre bringing culture to the countryside; and the satirical news rag that appears just once every four years, on 29 February.

Seven years after the #MeToo movement shook Hollywood, Judith Godrèche and other actresses in France have broken the omertà around sexual abuse within the French movie industry, accusing sever...