The submarine base of Lorient has become an ideal location for manufacturing carbon masts for yachts. Further west, on the tip of Finistère, a bunker has been transformed into a museum on the war.
Finally, on the Crozon peninsula, a young entrepreneur has decided to transform a network of tunnels built by the Allies into a brewery.
France-Amérique Magazine – April 2023 – Ahead of Earth Day, April 22, we profiled five Gallic startups based in the United States and helping biodiversity, fighting against food waste, and curbing global warming. We also sat down with Tristan Grimbert, the French CEO of EDF Renewables North America, one of the leaders on the green energy market in the United States and Canada. Also in this issue, read about the 15-Minute City, a model born in Paris and advocating for livable, sustainable urban centers; discover our profile of Gérard Araud, the former ambassador of France to the U.S. and a sharp observer of international relations; and read our interview with William Christie, the American conductor who has done more than anyone else for the revival of French baroque music.
American harpsichordist and conductor William Christie has arguably done more than anyone else for the global revival of French baroque music. He now lives in France, but on April 25-26, he will bring his ensemble Les Arts Florissants to Carnegie Hall.
France Rethinks, Once Again, Its Relationship with Africa. By Anthony Bulger
French Cultural Events in North America. By Tracy Kendrick
Wokeness Dividing the (French) People. By Guy Sorman
Julie Taymor: “The Lion King Makes People Laugh from Paris to New York.” By Guy Sorman
Why the 15-Minute City May Be Your Next Home. By Anthony Bulger
Five French Entrepreneurs Caring for the Planet. By Benoît Georges
The city was originally a Celtic village, and under the Romans it became a garrison town called Argentoratum. It was captured in the 5th century by the Franks, who called it Strateburgum, from which the present name is derived. In 842 Charles II (the Bald), king of the West Franks, and Louis II (the German), king of the East Franks, took an oath of alliance there, the Serment de Strasbourg, a text of which is the oldest written document in Old French. After a struggle for power between its citizens and the bishops in the Middle Ages, Strasbourg became a free city within the Holy Roman Empire.
The Guardian Weekly (March 31, 2023) – This week sees an important moment in the history of the Guardian with the launch of Cotton Capital, a series revealing the links between the 19th-century Manchester founders of the newspaper, the transatlantic cotton industry and the enslaved labour upon which the trade was built.
In France, national protests against the proposed increase to the pension age have become so inflamed that a state visit by Britain’s King Charles had to be postponed. Kim Willsher reports on a wave of anger and how women are at the forefront of the demonstrations.
As if life wasn’t pressurised enough already for top-level football referees, the advent of video assistant technology only seems to have made the job even harder than ever, leading to a slew of controversial decisions. From hotel breakfasts to being holed up in front of TV monitors, William Ralston goes behind the scenes with the men and women in black.
On the Culture pages, there’s also a great interview with the indie supergroup Boygenius, whose band members Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker talk to Laura Barton about songwriting, friendship and group therapy.
March 27, 2023: Taiwan’s former president Ma Ying-jeou visits China. Plus: the latest on the civil unrest in France with Agnès Poirier, Josh Cowls on the Tiktok controversy and a look ahead to Monocle’s April issue.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
March 24, 2023: Benjamin Netanyahu’s UK visit. Plus: Emmanuel Macron digs in his heels as pension-reform rallies erupt across France, Honduras switches ties from Taiwan to China and the latest business news.
Even if China’s transactional diplomacy brings some gains, it contains real perils
A lesser man than Xi Jinping might have found it uncomfortable. Meeting Vladimir Putin in Moscow this week, China’s leader spoke of “peaceful co-existence and win-win co-operation”, while supping with somebody facing an international arrest warrant for war crimes. But Mr Xi is untroubled by trivial inconsistencies. He believes in the inexorable decline of the American-led world order, with its professed concern for rules and human rights. He aims to twist it into a more transactional system of deals between great powers. Do not underestimate the perils of this vision—or its appeal around the world.
They have to choose between financial instability and high inflation. It wasn’t meant to be that way
The job of central bankers is to keep banks stable and inflation low. Today they face an enormous battle on both fronts. The inflation monster is still untamed, and the financial system looks precarious.
The way a wise policy was forced through will have political costs
Any French president who asks his fellow citizens to retire later does so at his peril. When Jacques Chirac tried in 1995, crippling strikes made him shelve the project; 18 months later voters sacked his government. Piles of rubbish were left to rot on the streets, as they are today on the boulevards of Paris. Bin collectors have joined strikes against the decision by the current president, Emmanuel Macron, to raise the minimum pension age from 62 to 64. So it was with some relief that on March 20th his minority government narrowly survived two no-confidence votes, opening the way for his reform to enter the statute books.
It shows what was heterogeneous and conflicting in pictorial modernity, and reveals the value of Degas’s collection, where Manet took a greater place after his death.
A comparison of artists as crucial as Manet and Degas should not be limited to identifying the similarities in their respective bodies of work.
Admittedly, there is no lack of analogies among these key players in the new painting of the 1860s-80s when it comes to the subjects they imposed (from horse races to café scenes, from prostitution to the tub), the genres they reinvented, the realism they opened to other formal and narrative potentialities, the market and the collectors they managed to tame, and the places (cafés, theaters) and circles, whether comprised of family (Berthe Morisot) or friends, where they crossed paths.
From March 28 to July 23, 2023
March 23, 2023: A report on the Federal Reserve’s crucial decision on interest rates. Plus: protesters in Lebanon try to storm the government headquarters, plans for urban ‘floating’ swimming zones in Seoul, and art collectors flock to East Asia for Art Basel Hong Kong.
March 22, 2023: Two Asian leaders visit countries at war: China’s Xi Jinping is in Moscow, while Japan’s Fumio Kishida travels to Kyiv.
We ask what this reveals about how Asia views the conflict. Plus: the new Brexit deal faces its first parliamentary test in the UK and why the demand for transatlantic travel is soaring to record levels.
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