On the eve of the 2022 French presidential election, the New Statesman’s writer-at-large Jeremy Cliffe caught a train from Courseulles-sur-Mer on the north coast of France to Marseille on the Mediterranean. Stopping in Caen, Paris and Vierzon along the way, he heard how contemporary France is reshaping itself in the long shadow of Charles de Gaulle – and against the backdrop of Europe’s biggest war since 1945. What does the future hold for the Fifth Republic?

Written by Jeremy Cliffe and read by Adrian Bradley.

Read the text version here. It was first published on the New Statesman website on 12 March 2022, and in the magazine on 18 March 2022.

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