From a worrying milestone for the French far right to the country’s international reputation, via a hidden gem of south-west France, here’s what we have been talking about in France this week.
Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.
Laughing
So France has managed to get through an entire week without losing any of its national heritage, a government collapsing, or an ex-leader going to jail. Outstanding, mes amis. Formidable.
Yes OK, perhaps it’s a little too easy to joke about France right now – but I actually don’t think foreigners are laughing at France as much as the French fear it is.
READ ALSO: OPINION: Relax France, the world isn’t laughing at you (not much, anyway)
I should note that since I wrote the above column, a pal in Austria told me that she is dressing her son as ‘the Louvre heist’ for Halloween, so maybe I spoke too soon.
Worrying milestone
Despite the chaos and uncertainty over the Budget or the future of the government, the parliament is continuing to function in some ways, with the bill to enshrine the notion of consent into France’s rape laws now approved by the Senate and therefore set to pass into law.
Thursday saw another parliamentary milestone – the first time that a bill proposed by the far-right Rassemblement National was passed in the Assemblée nationale.
The bill itself is largely symbolic – to ‘condemn’ the 1968 agreement between France and Algeria that was part of the normalisation of relations between the two countries after the French colonisation and the extremely brutal war of independence. Among other things, the agreement gives Algerians a slightly different immigration pathway into France.
It’s a fitting subject for RN’s first bill, since the party’s earliest members were disgruntled veterans of that war who were furious at France for giving up its last colonial possession, and in many ways it has been rehashing colonial wars ever since.
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But while the bill itself may not be important, the precedent it sets certainly is, marking another milestone on the far right’s long journey into a position of power within mainstream politics.
Also significant are the bill’s allies – it passed with the support of both sides of the fractured Les Républicains party (the political heirs of Charles de Gaulle, whose government passed that 1968 agreement) and former prime minister Edouard Philippe’s centrist Horizons MPs, while most of the Macronist centrist block abstained.
It seems that both right and centre are now prepared to break the cordon sanitaire around the far right in parliament, and it comes as polling among the general public shows that just 41 percent are now prepared to support a ‘front républicain’ against the far right at election time.
The idea of the ‘front républicain’ – where voters agree to vote strategically, even if that means voting for parties that they dislike, in order to keep out the far right – has been a powerful force in French politics in recent decades, but this is not the first poll that shows it to be crumbling.
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Creepy cathedral
I usually ignore these Forbes-style ‘best European cities’ lists, but this one contains a genuine under-the-radar French gem: Albi.
When I lived in south-west France, this was always where I took visitors for a day out – it’s a beautiful town with a world-class collection of Toulouse-Lautrec paintings, but it also has one of the most bizarre and sinister cathedrals I have ever seen.
Official sites will say it was built as a “reaffirmation of faith after the turmoil of the Cathar uprising” – local guides will tell you a much darker story.
The historic Languedoc region remains shaped to this day by the Cathar period of the 12th century – a brutal and blood-soaked tale of religious persecution coupled with cynical power grabs on the part of the church establishment, nobility and royalty.
From the fortified Bishop’s Palace of Albi to the vast castle walls of Carcassonne, via the numerous fortified bastide villages, even today the landscape tells the story of the vicious conflict in which between 200,000 and 1 million people died.
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Talking AI
The Talking France podcast is on a two-week break – we’ll be back in mid-November, but in the meantime please enjoy this clip from the majestic Emma Thompson. I feel her rage with every fibre of my being, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
“I DON’T NEED YOU TO FUCKING REWRITE WHAT I’VE JUST WRITTEN!”
— Matthew Noe (@noethematt.bsky.social) 28 October 2025 at 11:46
Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.
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