Franco-American history features a number of commercial and diplomatic disputes, from the “chicken war” in the 1960s to Donald Trump’s recent declarations about taxing steel and aluminum imported from Europe. With its boycotts and protectionist policies, we explore these conflicts through five episodes looking at the history of certain controversial products. Episode 4: The FDA Clamps Down on Mimolette Cheese...

Originally destined for high-altitude resorts and adopted by city-dwelling fashionistas and celebrities, the French brand will open on July 14 its first U.S. boutique in the SoHo neighborhood of New York. Take a look back on this French success story. In the late 1950s, French optician Roger Pouilloux teamed up with the skiing superstar of the day, Jean Vuarnet, to...

French director Edouard Deluc devotes his latest movie to the Fauvist painter and his exile in Tahiti, in U.S. theaters from July 11. After Cézanne and I by Danièle Thompson last year and the recently released Rodin by Jacques Doillon, a third biographical movie has now arrived in theaters. This time the subject is Gauguin, another leading, 19th-century French artist...

Franco-American history features a number of commercial and diplomatic disputes, from the “chicken war” in the 1960s to Donald Trump’s recent declarations about taxing steel and aluminum imported from Europe. With its boycotts and protectionist policies, we explore these conflicts through five episodes looking at the history of certain controversial products. Episode 3: Freedom Fries Flout the French The United...

Part sporting epic, part media extravaganza, part assertion of national identity, the Tour de France cycle race will depart from Noirmoutier-en-l'île in the Vendée region on Saturday, July 7. What makes this barnstorming annual event so compelling? Held every July, the Tour de France — literally "tour of France" — is an epic, 2,200-mile cycle race lasting 23 days. It is...

Serge and Beate Klarsfeld have spent their lives hunting former Nazis, war criminals, and high-ranking officials of the Vichy regime. France-Amérique met with these “militants of memory,” 82 and 79 respectively, while they were promoting the English publication of their autobiography, Hunting the Truth. “He was over 6 ft. 5 and had a revolver in his pocket. I was also...

Franco-American history features a number of commercial and diplomatic disputes, from the “chicken war” in the 1960s to Donald Trump’s recent declarations about taxing steel and aluminum imported from Europe. With its boycotts and protectionist policies, we explore these conflicts through five episodes looking at the history of certain controversial products. Episode 2: Hormone-Grown Beef vs. Roquefort Europe bowed to...

The first feature-length movie by Xavier Legrand offers an intimate depiction of a couple in the midst of a divorce, and picked up two awards at the last Venice International Film Festival. A striking work combining documentary, thriller, and social drama genres. The film opens with a scene set in a judge’s office. Miriam and Antoine Besson are going through...

During World War I, Afro-American musicians posted to France popularized a new form of music. This “syncopated ragtime” was the beginning of jazz. An exhibition organized at the New Orleans Jazz Museum through November 15, 2018, takes a look back over this period. “Here, on February 12, 1918, the first jazz concert was played on European soil.” This declaration is...

Franco-American history features a number of commercial and diplomatic disputes, from the “chicken war” in the 1960s to Donald Trump’s recent declarations about taxing steel and aluminum imported from Europe. With its boycotts and protectionist policies, we explore these conflicts through five episodes looking at the history of certain controversial products. Episode 1: The Chicken War In the middle of...

As part of the 110th anniversary of the legendary New York-Paris automobile race, six vintage vehicles will be leaving Rhinebeck, New York on June 20. The first stop is in Oakland, California, before they make their way to France! The roaring of the eight-cylinder engine drowns out any conversation at the start of the phone interview. On the other end of...

Once a working-class shoe, then the footwear of choice of Spain’s Franquistas, this rope-and-canvas sandal has attracted eccentrics such as Salvador Dalí, fashion designers such as Yves Saint Laurent, and in recent years, luxury and ready-to-wear brands. Basic and affordable, the espadrille has long been labeled the poor man’s shoe. The Basque country and Catalonia each claim to have invented...

If you can’t make it to France this summer, take a tour of the French gardens in the Public Parks, Private Gardens: Paris to Provence exhibition featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art through July 29. More than 150 works by painters like Matisse, Rousseau, Monet, and Cassatt outline the beginning of French gardening prestige at the turn of the...

A major collection of rare objects exhibited at the Château de Chantilly in France through June 30 retraces a century of Franco-American relations. Franco-American friendship is far more than just the War of Independence! The exhibition America ! La Maison d’Orléans et les Etats-Unis looks back over the transatlantic exchanges of the 19th century, a lesser-known period of Franco-American history but...

A tourist route linking French-speaking cities in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island will be inaugurated at the end of the summer in 2019. What do Lewiston and Biddeford in Maine, Manchester in New Hampshire, and Woonsocket in Rhode Island all have in common? More than half of the populations of these American cities spoke French just a century...

French Movie Nights is ending their year with The Return of the Hero, starring Jean Dujardin and Mélanie Laurent, on June 7 at the Emelin Theater in Mamaroneck, NY. The monthly rendezvous will begin again on September 20, bringing a fresh look on French cinema and its place in American society. Created in 2016 by Carina de Naurois, the monthly...

The French Health Minister has announced that France is lagging behind the United States and that medical marijuana could soon be legalized in France. Journalist Michel Henry, author of Drogues, pourquoi la légalisation est inévitable sees it as a necessary change. France-Amérique: You wrote in 2011 that “legalization is inevitable.” How did you reach this conclusion? Michel Henry: Neither prohibition...

A century after his death, Auguste Rodin is the world’s most famous sculptor after Michelangelo. A film coming out in the U.S. on June 1 explores the most inventive yet tormented period of the artist’s life. It is hard to imagine that this tremendous artist was still unknown at the age of 40 in 1880. However, that year he was...

June 1 through September 6, the Films on the Green festival returns to New York City for its 11th year with 12 classic and contemporary films surrounding the topic of gastronomy in French culture, thanks to the productions of the French Embassy, FACE Foundation, and NYC Parks. The free outdoor screenings begin at sunset, just in time to make you salivate about...

This weekend will see France and the United States commemorate the hundred-year anniversary of the Battle of Cantigny, named after a little village in the Somme. This particular event was one of many during World War 1, but marked the first U.S. military offensive in Europe. Some 199 American soldiers were killed during the Battle of Cantigny between May 28...