- Off with Their Perks! – How “Penelopegate” sentenced a leading French pol to prison and shook the country’s ruling elite On May 14, 2011, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the I.M.F. and then considered the front-runner in the 2012 French presidential election, was arrested in New York City for sexual assault and attempted rape of a chambermaid at the Sofitel hotel in Midtown. At the time, the French public was shocked, not just by […]
- Is Paris Fuming? – Life in France during the nationwide strikes, now in their third month Although Sam Mendes’s 1917 debuted in Paris theaters January 15, I, like many of my friends here, have been reluctant to see it. We’re going through our own form of PTSD right now, and frankly anything involving tear gas and chaos, sirens and claustrophobia, isn’t something we need more of. When I moved to France […]
- In Cold Blue Blood – The mystery of the missing French aristocrat who vanished after murdering his wife, children, and dogs On April 21, 2011, at an elegant three-story town house in the city of Nantes at the western end of the Loire Valley, French police discovered five bodies, all of them members of the notable Dupont de Ligonnès family, including the mother, Agnès, and her four children, Benoît, Anne, Thomas, and Arthur, ages 13 to […]
- Viva Zapata!! – The inventor of the Flyboard channels his inner Tony Stark The French are used to tanks, jeeps, and military forces rolling down the Avenue de Champs-Élysées every July 14. Even the infamous bearded fighters of the French Foreign Legion are no big deal. But on this Bastille Day even the most jaded spectators stared incredulously as Franky Zapata, the inventor of the Flyboard, zigged and […]
- The Talented Mrs. Harriman Before she was the American ambassador to France, Pamela Harriman was either the wife, the mistress, or the political benefactor of some of the world’s most powerful men. JOHN VON SOTHEN retraces the life of a 20th century Leonard Zelig, whose life ended in the vaulted pool of the Hotel Ritz.
- The 10th arrondissement – Paris’s secret garden JOHN VON SOTHEN reveals why Paris’s most diverse and hipster arrondissement has become France’s Ground Zero.
- Schizofrench at Mediapart For the past two years, I’ve been a contributor for the online publication Mediapart thanks to a column they’ve given me called Schizofrench. It’s a sandbox of sorts; essays and rants ranging from my love of Moleskin notebooks to my hatred for French flea markets, to the way Airbnb has changed my neighbourhood sitcom. All of it, of course, is super serious and fits in […]
- Flea Markets: France airs its dirty laundry A flea market (vide grenier) visit ranks up there as one of the things people most romanticize about France. Don’t believe the hype says JOHN VON SOTHEN, who’s had his share of an institution that has seen better days
- Americans in Paris With the 70th anniversary of D-Day fresh in our minds, I keep going back to how my father (who fought in World War II) would tell me those involved in the Normandy invasion were “the best Americans had to offer.” Unfortunately, that trend stopped after the war, because the Americans who’ve debarked in Paris since aren’t the best America has […]
- The Mid-Atlantic: the future voice of Europe The European elections will soon be upon us, yet it seems I’m the only one who cares. And I can’t even vote! But my interest lie less in the politics of Europe and more in imagining what Europe would look like if they really did go all the way, as in the full federal sense, […]
an American writer in Paris