Spotlight on France

Oct 10 2024 117 ep. 28 mins 708
Spotlight on France Podcast artwork

An in-depth look at what makes this country tick.

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Podcast: French song's popularity abroad, screens in school, France's Nobels

Oct 10 2024 33 mins  
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, building on a growing interest in listening to songs in French on streaming platforms. But what kind of music are non-French-spea

Podcast: Restituting human remains, street-naming, redefining rape in France

Sep 26 2024 32 mins  
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 hu

Podcast: Inclusive sports, Deaflympics, compromise in French politics

Sep 12 2024 28 mins  
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

Podcast: France revives hemp farming, New Romance, Paris's 1924 Olympics

Jul 04 2024 33 mins  
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 1

Podcast: Imagining a far-right government in France, forgotten fashion icon revived

Jun 20 2024 34 mins  
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 desi

Podcast: D-Day and its aftermath seen through French and American eyes

Jun 06 2024 26 mins  
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 w

Podcast: Pro-Palestinian student protests, French euroscepticism, Channel Tunnel

May 09 2024 31 mins  
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 prestigi

Podcast: War on youth, Ionesco in Paris, French women's right to vote

Apr 25 2024 33 mins  
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

Podcast: France-Russia relations, hair discrimination, tax history

Mar 28 2024 30 mins  
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 fo

Podcast: Covid obedience, vasectomies in France, was Rosa Bonheur a lesbian?

Mar 14 2024 28 mins  
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 2022, French citizens were confined to their homes as part of the government's app