France

Low birth rates have obsessed the French since their defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, argues Richard Tomlinson.

The activities and success of the Resistance movement in France from 1940-1944 is examined by Roderick Kedward.

In the world today, a nation's financial collapse can threaten its political and social stability. It was the same in France in 1789, explains Peter Burley.

Daniel Bertaux presents an oral history of a traditional French industry.

Douglas Johnson asks what political or military intrigues lay behind the sudden recall to power, twenty-five years ago this month, of Charles de Gaulle, the wartime leader of the Free French.

Patriotism, propaganda, profit - Anthony Tuck finds that these were the motives that led Englishmen to fight in France.

'To sum up all, poverty, slavery and innate insolence, covered with an affectation of politeness, give you... a true picture of the manners of the whole nation' was Hogarth's opinion of the French in 1749, explains Michael Duffy.

'Thrice had his foot Domingo's island prest, Midst horrid wars and fierce barbarian wiles; Thrice had his blood repelled the yellow pest That stalks, gigantic, through the Western Isles!' ran the epitaph to one of the more than 20,000 British soldiers sent to St. Domingue in the 1790s.