I learnt at the age of about three, being half french, half british, that one should never attempt to translate a joke into the other language. And have we ever in the united kingdom had a prime minister who behaved and conducted himself in quite the way he does? There is definitely a barrier vive le difference A, so it doesn't translate in many ways. What's interesting is that the elise palace and the french government did not rise to that abate. But the french press did, and did see it as a provocation. I mean, i've debated my sunday programme for years and months, week in, week out, the ir Irish border question. Nothing
‘Devil-Land’ – that was how foreign observers viewed England in the 17th century: a ‘failed state’ torn apart by seditious rebellion, religious extremism and royal collapse. The historian Clare Jackson recounts this stormy and radical era through the eyes of outsiders across the Channel. But she tells Andrew Marr that the country’s turbulence also bred great creativity and curiosity about the wider world.
The Anglo-French journalist Benedicte Paviot is the UK correspondent of France 24. She explores how the French view Britain today. From Brexit to the government’s pursuit of ‘Global Britain’ and the new Australia/UK/US defence pact, contemporary French neighbours often look on with hostility and bemusement.
Fintan O’Toole is an Irish journalist and polemicist who has spent much of his career commenting on Britain from the other side of the water. But in his latest book, We Don’t Know Ourselves, he turns his attention to Ireland since his birth in 1958. It’s another story of great turbulence and rebellion, from underdevelopment, domination by the Church and a sectarian civil war in the North, to struggles for intellectual, civil and sexual freedoms.
Producer: Katy Hickman