Tracy McNicoll

Atiq Rahimi's 'The Patience Stone' comes to the big screen.

How singer Fatoumata Diawara fought back against the Islamists overrunning Mali.

Exploring the myth of 'The Thousand and One Nights.' By Tracy McNicoll.

A notorious NGO stuns the French conscience.

How Europe's artists resisted the horrors of WWII. By Tracy McNicoll

The faded star of a French anti-racist icon.

France's photo pioneers.

Hollywood's enduring affair with the City of Light.

In a time of turmoil, the Louvre's new Islamic galleries offer up a reminder of the complexity and grandeur of Muslim history.

The former French president auctions off contents of his country castle.

Can the Elysée control the controversial new first lady?

The heiress-intellectual jumps into the mommy wars.

The woman who inspired Paris's legendary artists.

Undiplomatic top diplomat.

Would he really be a 'dangerous' leader?

Look out, Carla Bruni: There's a bombshell ready to help the left's François Hollande lead France.

Dominique de Villepin's opposition to the hasty invasion of Iraq gets the comic-book treatment.

What do you get when you combine a young kid from the ghetto and a rich invalid? France's new blockbuster.

In 'The Artist' French star Jean Dujardin channels a bygone Hollywood era.

The scandals of L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt have shaken the French state and its president to the core.

Adam Gopnik pens a love letter to France's influence on how we taste and talk about food.

How an obscure pamphlet by a former resistance fighter inspired Europe's grassroots protesters.

Ferran Adrià is closing his gastronomic temple, El Bulli, to the dismay of Foodies.

Amid horrific Nazi madness, Wiera Gran sang love songs in the Warsaw Ghetto. Within the walls of that grim urban cage, the 25-year-old petite Jewish beauty drew crowds to the ghetto's Café Sztuka, crooning standards from happier times in a deep, velvety lilt.

Marine Le Pen, leader of France's National Front, reached historic heights by gaining 18 percent of France's vote in the first round of the 2012 presidential election—making her a potential kingmaker. In February 2011 profile, Tracy McNicoll explains why Le Pen is not exactly Daddy's girl.

The brooding French may be the world's biggest pessimists—61 percent anticipated more economic hardship in 2011, more than twice the global average, according to a recent Gallup International poll—but they're still adding new infants to their healthy broods.

The former soccer star Eric Cantona is beloved for his dazzling feats on the pitch and became a screen actor most celebrated when he played himself. Now he's making waves by calling for his French compatriots to withdraw their money from banks.

This time the president may not be able to parlay foreign success into a bounce at home.

Nicolas Sarkozy may well win his pension battle against the unions, but the French president will have little cause to celebrate. After weeks of strikes, fuel blockades, and street protests, the Senate finally passed his austerity bill late last week, another major legislative step toward raising the retirement age from 60 to 62 and the age at which workers can retire on full pension from 65 to 67.

French protests have a language all their own.