Mellow musician Bertrand Pierre sets the poignant poetry of French grand écrivain Victor Hugo to slow and soulful musical compositions. A man of many talents, Bertrand Pierre is also quite a performer live and acoustically.

Remember Bertrand Pierre, the smooth crooner of “Si vous n’avez rien à me dire”? He’s back to tell us about his background as a musician, and how he stumbled across the Victor Hugo idea…

Bertrand Pierre is back to tell us more about his album: Autre Chose, a tribute to the lesser-known love poems of Victor Hugo.

Bertrand Pierre was inspired by Victor Hugo, and Victor Hugo was inspired by his very active love life. As it turns out, Hugo’s little love poems make for great song lyrics.

The Nautique 196E is a high-power ski boat that runs entirely on electric power. Come take a tour of this eco-friendly craft and learn about all its impressive features.

No Quatorze Juillet would be complete without pétanque and Lillet—and that doesn’t just go for France. Here we talk with some of the people attending a Bastille Day celebration in New York City.

Journalists spent a week in Aulnay-sous-Bois interviewing young people about ongoing issues and clashes with the police. In the Cité des Trois Mille district, which includes 3,000 public housing units, cultural and sporting organizations are stepping in to make up for the lack of public services.

In the suburbs of Paris, women have formed an association called "Femmes-Relais" (Women's Relay) to support each other and their children in times of difficulty. Some parents worry their children are being held in police custody whenever they're late coming home. Politicians like Daniel Goldberg are taking an interest in the situation.

Many residents of Aulnay-sous-Bois have been reporting instances of police hostility in the town. In this segment, journalists show testimonies gathered from residents to a police official, who hopes that both sides will be able to rise above the situation and seek a permanent solution.

Activist, journalist, and documentary filmmaker Rokhaya Diallo talks about racial tensions between the police and young people in French working-class suburbs. She calls for better police training and more accountability to prevent violence against young people of color.

Rokhaya Diallo draws a parallel between incidents of racial discrimination and police brutality in the United States and similar incidents in French suburbs. She notes that young people are mobilizing and becoming more politically engaged in the aftermath of the infamous Théo case.

Here's the trailer for La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast), a new French film based on the famous fairy tale first published in 1740. While some of you may be most familiar with the Walt Disney or Jean Cocteau versions, this recent release is an attempt to recapture the spirit of the original tale while also giving it more of a contemporary twist.

In "J'ai plongé dans le bruit" (I Dove into the Noise), the French trio Baden-Baden depicts a relationship through impressionistic imagery and poetic language. The video's water-themed visuals might be a reference to the group's namesake, the German spa town Baden-Baden.

In this song, Baden Baden describes the process of saying farewell to a romantic relationship and softening the blows of separation. Despite the melancholy lyrics, the melody of this "soft descent" is catchy and uptempo.

Babylon Circus, a ska band from Lyon, sings in this song about romantic regrets, missed cues, and lost opportunities. “J’aurais bien voulu” could well be translated as “Woulda, coulda, shoulda.”