Living Proof of a Vibrant Culture

FRED TANNEAU/AFP

Les Ephémères by Ariane Mnouchkine

As we start the new year, here's an ardent wish: that you will offer us as often as possible a present as big as this magnificent cover of TIME, with its title for a first-class burial: "The Death of French Culture." "Death," you said, not even "decline," a word with which we are quite familiar. "Death" is a strong word.

It is true that, over the past few years, for those who do not speak our language, it has been the silent artists of French culture who have hit the headlines: the mime artist Marcel Marceau, Jacques Cousteau,...

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