Alliance(s) Française(s)

From Detroit to Manchester and on to Boston, innumerable American towns, streets and rivers carry francophone names. Why? The rapper Biz and globe-trotter Jean-Michel Dufaux set off in the footsteps of those who travelled and dreamed of America in times gone by. The story of a history forgotten or erased.

December 1944. They thought that the war was over because Belgium had been freed three months earlier. But the families in Ardennes saw the Germans return by surprise. We look back at a terrible battle, through accounts, sequences from the archives and interviews with historians.

Wherever man is found, members of the crow family are nearby, watching. Since time immemorial, they have followed the hunters, farmers, soldiers and persecutors, scratching the soil in gardens, ploughed fields, battlefields... Crows and their cousins study us, passing on the knowledge gleaned to their offspring. Chronicle of an inquisition.

6 May 1994, Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais. The meeting between Queen Elizabeth II and President François Mitterrand puts the final touch to the most important civil engineering project of the 20th century. We look back at an international technological exploit and an exceptional adventure for the workers involved.

Struck by a fire on 15 April 2019, Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris will reopen on 7 December 2024. For five years, the religious building has been the centre stage of an unparalleled human and technical adventure. We dive into the heart of this enormous restoration site, alongside exceptionally skilled tradesmen.

Press conference by the French President Emmanuel Macron closing the 19th Francophonie Summit in Villers-Cotterêts.

The Indian Taïno people, who are almost extinct, leave a culture full of legends, sculptures and beliefs, but also a way of living, in harmony with nature, and values of sharing and solidarity. So many aspirations that appeal to certain contemporary young people. Story of a rediscovery.

"I come from a people, the Fang, where the dead never leave the living. But since we have become Christians, we are no longer able to hear them." Lost between the here-and-now and the beyond, Natyvel Pontalier's spiritual quest in Gabon takes her back to her family's roots.

1804. Haiti is the first modern nation to gain its independence, thanks to a slave revolt. But France imposed a colossal debt on its former colony, condemning it to poverty and chronic under-development: political instability, food crises and violence ensued. This ransom continues to haunt the present-day situation.

"Whether I wanted it or not Vietnam has forever accompanied me, every step along my path through life". Narrated in the first person, Mei-Chen Chalais recounts the story of a childhood steeped in war, her mother's courage, the flight to Hanoi, Saigon and then to France...