All 71 French passages

The famous opening: a six-year-old sees a snake swallowing a beast and draws his first picture.

A walk through Paris in the rain, when the city changes colour and empties out.

A family summer in Brittany: rain, crêpes, cliffs, and the best holiday they ever had.

Sophie's nervous first morning at a new office, ten minutes early and trying to look calm.

Flaubert's Emma wonders whether these quiet days were the most beautiful of her life.

How European cities are planting their way out of concrete, and what city life means now.

A warm letter to a friend who has gone quiet, written in everyday French.

A man boards a night train with one suitcase and very few certainties.

Mulled wine, wooden chalets and lights: the French Christmas market in December.

A full job interview in dialogue, from background question to closing handshake.

Harvest season in the Bordeaux vineyards, ending with a long table and songs.

Morning fish sellers and afternoon terraces in the old port of Marseille.

A school trip to the Louvre and a first, surprising look at the Mona Lisa.

Paris as fashion capital, and the everyday art of dressing simply.

1789, the fall of the monarchy, and ideals that still shape democracies.

Mountains between France and Spain, with chamois and the occasional bear.

Street slang born in Paris, and what it reveals about the French.

A simple Friday night at the cinema with friends.

How French school works, from age three to the centralised curriculum.

The French chanson as an art form, and the musicality of the language.

The world's most famous bike race and the crowds lining the roads.

France invented cinema, and still wins prizes at the great festivals.

Eighteen years old, first time in Paris, and falling in love with the city.

All the everyday expressions where French uses avoir and English does not.

The third Thursday of November, when a young wine becomes a national party.

Remote work in French companies, and the hybrid week that stuck.

A model French cover letter, with its formal openings and closings.

The French holiday calendar, each with its dishes and songs.

The life and work of France's best-known writer, and the causes he fought for.

Bouchons and Lyon's claim to be the gastronomic capital of France.

Doubt, wish and necessity: why the subjunctive exists and how to use it.

A day on the Riviera, ending with sunset over the sea.

French Sign Language, its grammar, and why hearing people are learning it.

Julien boards a midnight train and shares eight hours with a stranger across a sleeping France.

A woman leaves her umbrella on the bus, and a stranger runs after her in the rain.

Every Sunday a grandfather sends his grandson for bread — and the boy always eats the end of the baguette.

A small dog boards a regional train alone, and an entire carriage decides to adopt him for an hour.

Clearing out her mother's attic, Sophie finds a love letter that was never sent.

Nobody in the building knows the man on the fifth floor, until the lift breaks down with two of them inside.

Ten minutes before closing, a bookseller serves a customer who cannot decide — and neither of them minds.

At a Sunday flea market, a haggled-over photograph turns out to be worth far more than its price.

A transport strike forces two colleagues to walk across Paris together, and they finally talk.

Three siblings meet to sell the family house, and each remembers a different childhood.

A teacher gives her final lesson after thirty-one years and refuses to make a speech about it.

Every morning Nadia takes the same bus, and every morning the same man saves her a seat.

Hugo locks himself out, and the neighbour's flowerpot holds a solution nobody planned.

A red umbrella travels between two students for a whole term without a word being said.

A new neighbour cooks too much couscous, and an entire staircase ends up at her table.

A bookseller who refuses to sell the wrong book to the right customer, whatever it costs him.

A 1954 photograph in a village café turns out to contain more than anyone noticed.

A power cut empties an apartment block onto the courtyard, and the building changes for good.