Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Start the Week

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday

BBC Radio 4 FM

Andrew Marr

Agnes Desarthe

Karim Miske

Anne-Elisabeth Moutet

Robert Gildea

Katy Hickman

Start the Week: France Special

start-the-week_161115_e_el.jpg

16/11/2015

France Special

BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, France Special

Andrew Marr with Agnes Desarthe, Karim Miske, Anne-Elisabeth Moutet and Robert Gildea.

Andrew Marr discusses France with novelists Agnes Desarthe and Karim Miske, commentator Anne-Elisabeth Moutet and historian Robert Gildea, talking hours before the Paris attacks.

Andrew Marr was in Paris on Friday to record a special edition of Start the Week about France. Hours later the Paris attacks happened. This programme is not about these attacks or Islamic State or the French role in the war in Syria, but it is a conversation about the political, cultural and religious fault lines in France from the 19th century to today. 
As BBC Radio 4 plans to broadcast a retelling of Emile Zola's 20 novel cycle, Les Rougon-Macquart, the journalist Anne-Elisabeth Moutet explores whether Zola is a 19th century gateway into understanding modern France. The novelist Agnès Desarthe has set her latest novel at the beginning of the 20th century and mixes the intimate with the great events of French history. The French Resistance is one of France's heroic myths and is central to the country's identity, but the historian Robert Gildea says the reality is far more complex. And contemporary France in all its complexity is represented in Karim Miské's thriller set among the radical Islamic preachers, Christian fundamentalists and corrupt police officers in one of the poorest suburbs of Paris. 
Producer: Katy Hickman.

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Start the Week

France Special

Contributors

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4