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“... inventing new ones. By contrast, post-Gaullist France has carried the torch diffidently if at all. Mitterrand has made a few celebratory gestures, but parts of the Invalides are visibly crumbling and it will be interesting to see what the French do with Napoleon when they commemorate the Revolution in 1989. What current French historians do with the Napoleonic ...”

“... Indeed, in the 1980s Tony’s essentially social-democratic liberalism was briefly infected by François Furet’s Hayekian economic libertarianism. I don’t think this late Cold War afterglow was central to Tony’s development, but it helped to give more body and depth to his very impressive Postwar. His progress through the second half of the century ...”

“... gripping events of her life, remains frustratingly opaque. Yes, there’s a French biography – François Leperlier’s Claude Cahun: L’Ecart et la métamorphose (1992). But if you don’t know it Cahun’s renegade life and art are likely to seem alienating, even incoherent. Unlike similar figures from the period, she hasn’t, so far, acquired a context ...”

“... What, for example, is the significance of politicians living on the Left Bank? President Mitterrand lives in the Rue de Bièvre, just off the Boulevard Saint-Germain and the Quais; the former Prime Minister, the Gaullist Michel Debré, lives in the Rue Jacob, just off the Rue Bonaparte and St Germain des Près. Both live in the essential Left ...”

“... to hunt down, is described as a protégé of the then ‘president of the French Republic’ – Mitterrand. The cowed and intermittently sadistic daughter, who experienced none of the primal events, is fighting a hopeless battle against her mother’s foul-mouthed energy, vivid memories and persuasive hallucinations: these are to be her inescapable ...”

“... to imagine them not knowing each other, and easy to forget how unlikely their partnership was. François Dosse begins his biography of the two men with their first encounter, a year after the ‘events’ of 1968, which, more than anything, inspired their collaboration.Guattari was not quite 40 when he drove to the Limousin to meet Deleuze for the first ...”

“... and revolution are sublime forms of self-expression. At the head of this parade is the rogue poet François Villon, imprisoned in the Châtelet in 1462; on the last float, the heroines from Jacques Rivette’s 1981 movie, Le Pont du Nord, are waving goodbye, along with the two keynote Situationists, Guy Debord and Raoul Vaneigem. The Other Paris is also an ...”

“... public sector was vital to republican values. Not everyone agreed. After Jacques Chirac succeeded Mitterrand in 1995, he and his prime minister, Alain Juppé, tried to reform civil service pensions and triggered the most impressive round of strikes in France since 1968. For nearly three weeks large parts of the country were at a standstill. Private sector ...”

“... But its role in the slow post-colonial reconfiguration of Africa may no longer be critical. During Mitterrand’s fourteen-year presidency, high-level military interventions came thick and fast in former French colonies. Mitterrand damaged France’s diplomatic reputation in Africa – and elsewhere – by aligning with the ...”

“... most – though not all – identified with historic provinces of the country, endowed since Mitterrand with considerable autonomy in their jurisdictions, but every city enjoys a directly elected mayor, who by reason of the cumul des mandats can play a role on the national stage at the same time. The roll-call of politicians who have occupied or ...”

“... prewar affiliation, or of the newly formed Union Démocratique et Socialiste de la Résistance (Mitterrand’s party). The RGR was an intensely anti-Communist alliance caught up in the hatreds of the Cold War. It was also the formation most closely associated with the instability and ‘politique à petite semaine’ of the Fourth Republic. He would have ...”

“... is the largest increase since the 1981 presidential campaign – 3.7 per cent — which brought Mitterrand to power. The Ministry of the Interior, lately the domain of the right-wing candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, has announced that the figure is normal, but a glance at percentage rises in the electorate in 1988 (1.9 per cent), 1995 (2.1 per cent) and 2002 ...”

“... Anticipating a new wave of immigration in flight from the Islamic state FIS proposed to create, François Mitterrand’s government was already drawing up contingency plans for refugee camps in the South of France when the second round was cancelled. Mitterrand made a show of dismay about the betrayal of ...”

“... orchestrated this change of outlook. But it was the general turn to neo-liberalism, sealed by Mitterrand’s abandonment of his initial Keynesian programme in 1983, that made possible the convergence of all member states, including the UK in Thatcher’s heyday, on the completion of the internal market – each calculating, as in the Fifties, the ...”

“... and turns in his career. He outlines his service to four masters – Castro, Guevara, Allende and Mitterrand – and explains why, over the years, he has come to reject them all.I first set eyes on Debray in August 1967, at an informal press conference held in the front room of a single-storey jailhouse in Camiri, the tiny oil town in the airless heat of ...”