Prévert wrote the part of Garance for Arletty, France's biggest star before Bardot. Garance and Arletty are the same and one woman, the epitome of th… - Agnès Poirier

During the war, some publishers chose to close down rather than collaborate with the Nazi occupation, while others—like Gallimard—decided to remain open and negotiate with the German authorities. Appointing an outspoken fascist writer like Drieu La Rochelle to a crucial position at Gallimard pleased the Nazi overseers and created a clever smokescreen—for the résistants, too, were operating from the offices of Gallimard. One was the long-time editor of the literary journal La Nouvelle Revue Française, Jean Paulhan. The two writers' tiny offices stood next to each other. How could they cohabitate? Easily enough, it turned out: such was Paris during the Occupation, a place of moral ambiguity, of cowardice, treason, and courage living side by side. Drieu the collaborator and Paulhan the résistant coexisted without rancor, their love of literature cementing their mutual respect. For four years, they published both rightist and leftist authors under the noses of the Nazis. For them, as for Gaston Gallimard, one thing only counted above all else: the talent of the writer.

Eve Gilles' win at this year's Miss France is cause for celebration – it is a continuation of a longstanding French tradition of championing unique beauty and saying merde to conventions. Vive la différence!

The uncanny thing about spinal surgery, or at least the kind I had, is that I’m not allowed to sit down for three months. I can lie down or stand up, or at most perch on the edge of a bar stool for no more than 15 minutes at a time. This means reading and writing standing up, changing positions often and lying down to recuperate in between. My horizontal life has thus been rich and allowed for hours of listening: radio documentaries about Victor Hugo, radio dramas such as the Charles Paris mysteries, and mindfulness meditation podcasts during which I have discovered the art or rather science of proprioception; in other words the awareness of one's body position in space through nerves, muscle and joints.