Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Meet Françoise, a social worker specializing in animal mediation. She visits children with developmental disabilities and introduces them to her four-legged friends. Health management students Noémie and Clémence work alongside Françoise and enjoy seeing the children flourish.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Daniel Benchimol continues to explore the town of Soissons on an exceptionally hot summer day. There's no better time to explore the magnificent twelfth-century cathedral of Soissons to cool off and admire this gothic architectural masterpiece, including the stained glass wall depicting religious scenes.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
In this third segment on the madeleine, a specialty of the Lorraine region, we find out more about the history of the famous pastry. Did you know that the first madeleine appeared in the Middle Ages?
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
Nino comes home from Eddy and his mother's workplace and recounts the incident with Nicole, the manager who threw him out. He fails to mention that Eddy caught him stealing some merchandise.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
In part two of our discovery of Soissons, a very ancient town indeed (it was founded in the year 20 B.C.), Daniel Benchimol takes us on a sweltering summer day to visit some interesting places, including the Église Saint-Pierre, part of a seventh-century monastery where Charlemagne's daughter lived. He then shows us a baroque-style building on Little Red Riding Hood Street opposite a magnificent century-old fish market.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Lionel is still in Liverdun, a small village in the Lorraine, to find out some more about the madeleine. It's a specialty of the region that comes in various delicious flavors, such as mirabelle plum and bergamot orange.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
Nino visits Eddy's workplace as arranged. However, things get out of control when Nino becomes confrontational. Meanwhile the manager arrives and is angry that a stranger was allowed on the company premises. Nino seems pleased with himself and decides to play a dirty trick on Eddy.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
This news report explores the possibilities of new biofuels. The company Gecco is testing biofuels made from coffee grounds and cooking oil on service vehicles and a school bus in hopes of converting waste from schools and other institutions.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Lea shows us one of the largest film libraries in the world, the Cinémathèque Française, which contains over forty thousand films. After the Cinémathèque's original home in the Palais de Chaillot burned down, it relocated to a brand-new facility in Paris's twelfth arrondissement.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Daniel takes us to Soissons, an ancient city that was the first capital of France. He shows us the memorial commemorating the victims of World War I and depicting the legend of the famous Soissons vase.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Meet Jean-Claude and Rachelle, who own a specialty store full of delicious goodies. They talk to Lionel about the madeleine, a specialty of the Lorraine region that was supposedly invented by a cook named (you guessed it!) Madeleine.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
Sarah invites her coworker Eddy over for dinner to meet her son Nino. After seeing Eddy kiss Sarah on his way out, Nino gets angry and lashes out at his mother.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Aldo takes us to a very special house on 23 Rue Beauregard in Paris. In that house lived a shady character, Catherine Deshayes, who was responsible for the murder of thousands of infants. She and 36 others were burned at the stake by Louis XIV.
Difficulty: Advanced
France
Danièle Gerkens, who decided to give up sugar for a year, discovered some unexpected benefits on her health. She claims that she looks younger, feels healthier, and is free of cravings, but she cautions that everyone reacts differently. You can read another interview with her here.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
Sarah goes back to work feeling uneasy after having stolen a steak for her son the day before. Her colleague, whom she fancies, invites her for drinks. To her relief, he has no idea about the theft, so she is delighted to take him up on his offer.
Difficulty: Advanced
France
Danièle Gerkens, a journalist working for Elle magazine, decided to eliminate sugar from her diet for a year. She related her experience in her book Zéro Sucre, explaining that sugar is indeed an addiction, similar to a drug addiction. Are you ready to give up your sweet tooth?
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
Sarah goes to work at the frozen food factory as usual, but her day is anything but ordinary. Temptation gets the best of her as her son's unethical suggestion echoes in her mind and drives her to do something she would never have imagined possible.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Lionel takes us to the friendly Butte aux Cailles neighborhood in Paris. Its village-like atmosphere is a welcome respite from the hustle and bustle of the capital. The Butte aux Cailles was formerly part of the small town of Gentilly before being attached to the city of Paris.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
Chef Christian Le Squer, takes us into the kitchen of his three-Michelin-starred restaurant, Le Cinq. You will see the cooks at work making exquisite dishes. Le Squer wants the food cooked to perfection, even "sexy," as he puts it. His job is to taste only, but it's not as easy as it looks.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
After her divorce, Sarah is raising her son Nino alone and is having trouble coping with his hostile behavior. Her financial situation doesn't allow for meat on the table more than twice a week. Nino proposes a dishonest solution, but his mother won't hear of it.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
A black mother who joined the film project launched by Alain Etoundi is critical of movies that don't portray black people accurately and perpetuate stereotypes. She says there's a dearth of good movies with positive role models for young black people.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Daniel finishes up his tour of Auvers-sur-Oise with an appreciation of Vincent Van Gogh, who completed an astounding eighty paintings during his two-month sojourn in the village. In this video, you'll see the inn where the artist stayed during his visit, along with some of the gorgeous stops on the "painters' discovery" tour of Auvers-sur-Oise. It's easy to see why the village was such an inspiration to the impressionists!
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
After multiple organizations refused to finance his film Un frère comme moi (A Brother Like Me), Alain Etoundi decided to speak out by making a short film called Allez tous vous faire enfilmer! (Go Film Yourselves!). He criticizes the French film industry for not doing justice to suburban black communities, preferring instead to churn out films with stereotypical black characters.
Difficulty: Advanced
France
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.
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