Gradually I became aware of details: a company of French soldiers was marching through the streets of the town. They broke formation, and went in single file along the communication trench leading to the front line. Another group followed them.
While Haiti has recently celebrated more than 200 years of independence from French colonial rule, the citizens of the island remain vulnerable to poverty, poor health, and political chaos.
In a country like France, so ancient, their history is full of outstanding people, so they carry a heavy weight on their back. Who could write in French after Proust or Flaubert?
There is rap music in all my films. In 'La Vie des Morts,' there is rap music too. It's because I'm French, and when it appeared in 1978, it was so new, it set off my musical imagination.
We used to be referred to as bakers and then we became known as cake decorators and now we are known as cake designers. I teach at the French Culinary Institute in New York and cake design is a legitimate profession.
People know that I have a great love for cinema. Not just for commercial cinema, but for the 'cinema d'auteur.' But to me, two of the great 'auteurs' are actually actors and they both happen to be French. One is Alain Delon and the other is Jean-Paul...
I always feel I'm better known in England than I am here in the U.S. Americans don't read that much, and the French are very good at knowing the names of everybody.
I like photographing the people I love, the people I admire, the famous, and especially the infamous. My last infamous subject was the extreme right wing French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen.
It's funny because I think that both France and Britain are known for their distinctive styles, and everyone says that France is so chic and elegant but I think, more than that, French women are renowned for dressing in what suits them.
There are certain sorts of jokes which have only to do with the substitution of the unexpected word in a familiar context. If you translated something into French and then had it translated back into English by somebody who didn't know the original, ...
I'm not Catholic. I don't believe in God. But at the same time, I'm obsessed by the sacred, by spirituality. The question of redemption has been present well before Christianity, but as French people are a bit stupid, they see all that in religious t...
I definitely consider myself a Christian. There's things that I believe in, there's things I have a self-belief on. I know I got a great relationship with God and the universe. I just believe in being a righteous person and karma. Doing unto others a...
If I pleaded guilty to a mistake while I was home secretary, it wasn't that I didn't get tough - my God, I put immigration and security officials on French soil for the first time.
I have been obsessed with seamed stockings my whole life, and I would collect vintage ones that were made in the '40s and '50s with the authentic styling of the keyhole, the welt, the reinforced toe and heels, French or Cuban heels, and hand-stitched...
I can bake. I made myself some nice French fries once. But otherwise I just eat out. Lots of salad bars.
Not in the constitution, but I would propose a law to the French parliament that provides for reducing the budget deficit year by year, until we have reached a balanced budget by 2017.
Only peril can bring the French together. One can't impose unity out of the blue on a country that has 265 different kinds of cheese.
When I need a word and do not find it in French, I select it from other tongues, and the reader has either to understand or translate me. Such is my fate.
They were nothing like the French people I had imagined. If anything, they were too kind, too generous and too knowledgable in the fields of plumbing and electricity.
French girls still have the Jane Birkin culture. You can go just like that, without makeup, without managing your hair.
People who do not speak our language very well do complain of feeling rebuffed by French people, who can sometimes be impatient, or even intolerant.
