By Anne Swardson In France, there are some rules that must be obeyed and others that can be ignored. The trick for non-natives is to figure out which is which. Owners of some of the small shops in my neighborhood, and elsewhere, must know something I don’t. Two weeks...

By Anne Swardson Walking down a small street in my neighborhood the other day, I heard a sound that took me back decades: the noise of silverware clinking on a plate. Through the open windows, I could hear lunch. Three lunches, from three separate apartments. The...

“In no country of the world has the principle of association been more successfully used or applied to a greater multitude of objectives than in America.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835 By Anne Swardson Tocqueville published those words a year after...

    By Anne Swardson “We are at war,” President Emmanuel Macron said at least six times in the Monday night address at which he announced an effective lockdown of the entire country. He meant against the coronavirus. But it’s becoming clear that the war is actually a...

By Anne Swardson Walking in my Paris neighborhood, permitted during the coronavirus lockdown under very limited circumstances, has taken on a strange choreography. People passing each other swerve to the building side or the curb side to keep the required one meter...

By Anne Swardson “They said we were an undisciplined country. But look how we respect these rules, these requirements, that are the most rigorous ever imposed on our people in peacetime.” So spoke President Emmanuel Macron last night as he announced an extension of...

By Anne Swardson I’ve written before about how sad it makes me to see, in my walks around Paris, posters of the things that will never happen. The movies, the plays, the concerts, the museum exhibitions. I realized the other day that spring flowers are also one of...