In Italy too, US labor leaders, primarily from the AFL, played an active role in splitting and weakening the labor movement, and inducing workers to accept austerity measures while employers reaped rich profits. In France, the AFL had broken dock strikes by importing Italian scab labor paid by US businesses. The State Department called on the Federation’s leadership to exercise their talents in union-busting in Italy as well, and they were happy to oblige. The business sector, formerly discredited by its association with Italian Fascism, undertook a vigorous class war with renewed confidence. The end result was the subordination of the working class and the poor to traditional rulers. ibid.
France has been very good for me. It has given me a very worldly-cool attitude. Marianne Faithfull
In France one must adapt oneself to the fragrance of a urinal. Gertrude Stein
They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
The creation of Modern France through expansion goes back to the establishment of a small kingdom in the area around Paris in the late tenth century and was not completed until the incorporation of Nice and Savoy in 1860. The existing hexagon was the result of a long series of wars and conquests involving the triumph of French language and culture over what once were autonomous and culturally distinctive communities. The assimilation of Gascons, Savoyards, Occitans, Basques, and others helped to sustain the myth that French overseas expansionism in the nineteenth century, especially to North and West Africa, was a continuation of the same assimilationist project. George M Fredrickson, Race, Ethnicity, and National Identity in France and the United States: A Comparative Historical Overview 2003
Yet, who can help loving the land that has taught us
Six hundred and eighty-five ways to dress eggs? Thomas Moore, Fudge Family, 8
Ye sons of France, awake to glory!
Hark! Hark! what myriads bid you rise!
Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary,
Behold their tears and hear their cries! Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, The Marseilles Hymn, 1792
The Order had been quietly formed in Jerusalem in 1119, twenty years after the Christians took the City. A French knight founded the Order to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. So how did they end up with fortresses and churches all over Europe with a massive power-base to rival the European monarchs? Trial of the Knights Templar, Channel 5 2008
There were originally only nine Templars. ibid.
The Chinon Parchment adds up to a litany of heresies: the Templars had admitted to homosexuality, denouncing Christ and defiling the Cross. The Templar’s first confession after arrest had been tortured out of them by Philip IV, but had the Pope’s men done the same? Were the Chinon confessions reliable? The Chinon Parchment contains one further revelation: despite people believing for centuries that the Pope had condemned the Templars, in fact he had saved them. He absolved [Jacques] de Molay and the leaders unconditionally. ibid.
But the old warrior had left behind one last Parisian mystery. As the Templars were swept away, their biggest Bank, the Paris Temple, was raided by the King’s men. It was empty. Templar assets in Normandy alone amounted to more than the wealth of England yet nothing was found. Philip IV’s destruction of the Knights Templar had all been for nothing. ibid.
The Knights Templar were the most powerful military religious order of the Middle Ages. Formed to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land, they participated in the Crusades and rapidly gained wealth, lands and influence and were answerable to none save the Pope himself. In addition to having a fearful military reputation, they were also Christendom’s first bankers, and invented the modern banking system that is still in use today. ibid.
As Globalisation threatens France with austerity ... Marine le Pen: ‘The European Union, we can see today, has been a total failure.’ This World: Quell Catastrophe! France with Robert Peston, BBC 2015
France was a beacon of sunshine, civilisation and sex. ibid.
Its remarkable system of welfare benefits ... A particularly lavish welfare state. ibid.
Very near Auch, Lectoure and Mirande
a great fire will fall from the sky for three nights.
The cause will appear both stupefying and marvelous;
shortly afterwards there will be an earthquake. Nostradamus I:46
Roman land as the omen interpreted
Will be vexed too much by the Gallic people:
But the Celtic nation will fear the hour,
The fleet has been pushed too far by the north wind. Nostradamus II:99
From simple soldier he will attain to Empire,
From the short robe he will grow into the long.
Brave in arms, much worse towards the Church,
He vexes the priests as water fills a sponge. Nostradamus XIII:57
France: It’s thought that 40,000 people died in what became simply as the Terror. Andrew Marr’s History of the World VI: Revolution, BBC 2012
‘If only St Helena were France. I could be happy on this accursed rock. I am sad, bored, ill.’ Andrew Roberts, Napoleon, BBC 2015
For five and a half years Napoleon was a prisoner here of the British – depressed and dying, he was a martyr to just one cause – his own. ibid.
Napoleon once controlled an empire of over forty million people. Now he was utterly powerless ... He’s been caricatured as a monster ... A man of astonishing achievement. ibid.
The greatest law-giver, administrator and soldier of modern times. ibid.
Seized the crown, turned to the congregation, raised it high and placed it upon his own head. ibid.
The Austrian army retreated leaving the whole of northern Italy in French hands. ibid.
‘We had unlimited confidence in our destiny.’ ibid.
In the opening years of the nineteenth century across the battlefields and capital cities of Europe the government of France and her leader Napoleon Bonaparte reigned supreme. Andrew Roberts, Napoleon II
‘I have been condemned unheard. This slow torture, this killing in detail, is much less humane than if they had ordered me to be shot at once.’ Andrew Roberts, Napoleon III, Napoleon
Napoleon now initiated the single largest military operation in history to date – the invasion of Russia. ibid.
The campaign had seen a catalogue of mistakes ... 95% had either died or been captured. ibid.
In 1811 Napoleon controls Europe ... He is counting on fighting the British with Russian support. Napoleon: The Russian Campaign, ZED 2015
September 1812: Napoleon moves into the Kremlin ... His generals occupy the luxury homes of the Russian nobility. ibid.
The fire spreads ... Napoleon wants to prove his determination to the Tsar. Napoleon: The Russian Campaign II
The fatal command – burn the bridges ... This is a spectacle of horror and suffering. ibid.
129 killed in Friday’s attacks ... 17 killed in January ... Today there have been a series of raids. Panorama: Terror in Paris, BBC 2015
In their midst three teams of gunman; they have one aim – to kill. ibid.
IS brand their victims pagans. ibid.
Marine Le Pen wants to be President of France. After Brexit, after Trump, she wants to be the next shock to the establishment. Marine presents herself as the new face of a patriotic mainstream, but the toxic legacy of her father still looms large. We reveal controversial money men working behind the scenes. Panorama: Marine Le Pen: Who’s Funding France’s Far Right? BBC 2017
Their efforts to detoxify the brand seem to be working. ibid.
The fight against so-called Islamic State comes right to the heart of Europe. For the second time in a year the streets of Paris are stained with blood. As the world mourns the loss of 129 innocent lives, what can be done to keep us all safe? Tonight: After Paris: Can We Be Safe? ITV 2015
How many of our freedoms we are willing to give up in return for our safety? ibid.
G as in gleaners: to glean is to gather after the harvest … The original painting is at the Orsay. The Gleaners & I, 2000
A whole day in the sun with gnats and mosquitoes biting. ibid.
Urban and rural gleaners all stoop to pick up … To bend down is not to beg. ibid.
In paintings they were always in clusters, rarely alone. ibid.
‘But 25 tons [of potatoes] are rejected.’ ibid.
‘We’re better off working in the fields than shoplifting.’ ibid.
These vintage wines have been entirely harvested and the surplus has been deliberately left on the ground. ibid.
‘I’ve always liked the world of dumps and salvage.’ ibid.
‘People collect the oysters that have come loose.’ ibid.