Biography:
About:
Education: ACP is a graduate from the Sorbonne, the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences-Po) and a former PhD student at the London School of Economics
Career: French born Agnès Poirier moved to London in 1995 and started writing as an independent journalist for Le Monde (1996) and then for Le Figaro as UK arts correspondent (1997-2001). Between 2001 and 2006, she was a political correspondent and film critic for Libération
Current position/role: UK editor for French and Italian weeklies Le Nouvel Obs, La Vie, L'Espresso. Editor of French news weekly Marianne
- also writes/written for: regular contributor to the BBC, Channel 4 (100 Greatest Movie Moments), Channel 5 and Al Jazeera on French politics and films. ACP is also a regular commentator for The Guardian, The Independent On Sunday, The New Statesman and The Observer
Other roles/Main role: Agnès Poirier is an independent adviser on British films for the Cannes Film Festival and a producer for Radio France (France Musiques) of special series about cinema
Other activities:
Disclosures:
Viewpoints/Insight:
- Les misérables Anglais - Unhappy, ignorant, violent, disrespectful and obsessed with celebrity and money - that's how this French writer and London resident sees us - The Independent, 25th February 2007
Broadcast media:
Video: radio & TV updates
Controversy/Criticism:
Awards/Honours:
Scoops:
Other:
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Books & Debate:
Her first book, Les Nouveaux Anglais, came out in France in April 2005 (Alvik), followed by Touché! A French woman's take on the English published in the UK by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Her latest essay in French Le modèle anglais: une illusion française, an antidote to Sarkozy's politics, was released in France by Alvik at the end of 2006
Latest work: Le modèle anglais, une illusion française, 2006
Speaking/Appearances: news & events update
Debate:
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Articles:
- Hollande's cabinet shows Sarkozy how to do gender equality – see, easy - For the first time, the French cabinet has an equal number of men and women, thanks to increased parity in higher education - 18th May 2012
- François Bayrou: the lonely centrist who looks set to decide the French election - In declaring that he will vote for François Hollande, Bayrou is the first centrist to back a Socialist in a presidential election - 5th May 2012
- Nicolas Sarkozy is a political weathervane - The French president's latest bout of 'temporary amnesia' has been cured, but it's impossible to know what he stands for - 2nd May 2012
- Farewell to Raymond Aubrac, one of the last résistants - France, as a nation, has survived shame thanks to De Gaulle and a few men like Aubrac. We should keep his memory alive - 12th April 2012
- This leaders' boycott of François Hollande is simply not clever - France's Socialist presidential hopeful is being shunned by a coalition of European leaders. Too fiery for the austerity tsars? - 6th March 2012
- Call me Madame? Au contraire... - In the land of Maurice Chevalier and DSK, the word Mademoiselle has become so loaded that two feminist groupuscules have had it banned from administrative forms - 26th February
- Why not have a Napoleon theme park? He did more for the world than Disney - Although le petit caporal was at times a monster, he achieved great things and left a legacy far beyond France - 16th February 2012
- Angela Merkel for French president, anyone? - This 'Merkozy' charade makes France look desperate. The duo must be perceived as political equals to be a force in Europe - 7th February 2012
- French children: enfants, but not terrible - French parenting, praised in Pamela Druckerman's new book, is easily mocked – but strict rules create rebellious mind - 23rd January 2012
- The trouble is, Sarkozy does not know when he's beaten - The year could not have worked out better for the president – yet he is still trailing in the polls. Will he never accept defeat? - 30th December 2011
- Sarkozy should leave the Armenian genocide to the historians - Making it a crime to deny the genocide antagonises a useful ally in Turkey – a country founded on the French Republican model - 24th December 2011
- Can David and Victoria Beckham pass the Paris test? - David Beckham is thought to be signing for Paris St-Germain FC. It's set the French capital abuzz with existentialist questions - 21st December 2011
- Intouchables – not Sarkozy – provides the narrative France needs - French people are flocking to a spate of socially aware films filling the void left by Nicolas Sarkozy's divisive politics - 18th November 2011
- Garance: our lasting affair - As a new generation can now find, the heroine of Les Enfants du Paradis isn't one you easily forget - 7th November 2011
- A disturbing development in secular France - The offices of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo are petrol-bombed the day the magazine releases its own ironic tribute to the Arab Spring with a special 'sharia' issue - 3rd November 2011
- Socialist primaries: France's novel exercise in democracy proves a hit - Sarkozy's team sought to rubbish it, but the Socialists' US-style selection process has already prompted valuable debate - 10th October 2011
- There is an alternative to the M word - What do my British female friends think? Are they happy to tick the "Ms" box rather than be called Miss or Mrs? - 29th September 2011
- The fall of France's Senate could be just l'apéritif - A forecasted majority for the leftwing opposition in France's upper house signals a split in the right that could finish Sarkozy - 27th September 2011
- France's tax musketeers have done the decent thing - In volunteering to pay more tax, the 'patriotic millionaires' have set a much needed example of solidarity - 24th August 2011
- Depardieu, a true Rabelasian hero - In France, the actor's behaviour would be called great. Maybe we just don't deserve him - 21st August 2011
- La Commune: a lesson in audacity - 140 years on, we can see that although the Paris Commune was short-lived, it was a trailblazer for modern society - 1st August 2011
- France can be proud of its resistance to media deregulation - The phone-hacking scandal has shocked the French media, used to robust state regulation and strong privacy laws - 16th July 2011
- France needs to talk about nationality - A report attacking dual nationality is just one sign that something has gone awry in France – the left must stop closing its eyes - 28th June 2011
- Chirac the liberator - By endorsing a Socialist, good old Jacques has shown the French right how to get rid of Sarkozy - 14th June 2011
- Both leaders are prisoners of a resurgent right wing - Silvio Berlusconi and Nicolas Sarkozy haven't agreed on very much about immigration of late, but yesterday they found common cause on at least one point: the Schengen agreement needs to change - 27th April 2011
- Let the French riot police have their daily glass of wine - A ban on the CRS drinking alcohol with their meal is another sign of a rampant righteousness taking hold in our society - 25th April 2011
- This excessive law tempts me to put a veil on myself - How will the French police proceed in dealing with a law that they say is unworkable? - 12th April 2011
- Fears of Françafrique are rather overdramatic - France is not suddenly a warmongering nation. It is acting with other Nato members, under UN mandates, to protect civilians - 8th April 2011
- France's female new wave - The French insistence on regarding cinema as art has helped produced formidable women directors. But is the next generation the most wide-ranging yet? - 24th March 2011
- Putting the Cornish back into pasties - The EU ruling that Cornish pasties must be made in Cornwall underlines the importance of the world's many food specialities - 24th February 2011
- Why the baccalaureate beats A-levels - No wonder the Royal Society is calling for a broader-based set of exams – A-Levels let you skip the hard stuff too early - 16th February 2011
- Nicolas Sarkozy, stop judging the judges - The French president's latest outburst against magistrates is one offence too many for the put-upon judges - 9th February 2011
- France, America's special friend - Britain may be outraged, but Barack Obama has good grounds for saying that the US has no 'stronger ally' than France - 12th January 2011
- Mario Monicelli exposed injustice with love and laughter - The king of Italian comedy leapt to his death last month. At least he avoided seeing Berlusconi survive the no-confidence vote - 18th December 201
- Will the French street call the shots? - Sarkozy is taking a risk. France's strikers love little more than putting leaders in their place - 13th October 2010
- Through the French looking glass with Claude Chabrol - Chabrol went behind the beautiful landscapes and homes of the bourgeoisie to lay bare the travails and turpitudes of the French - 14th September 2010
- The prurient hounding of Roman Polanski is over at last - The Swiss decision not to extradite the director is just – it was a vengeful demand and his victim wanted the case closed - 13th July 2010
- Sarkozy: is he worth it? - The scandal over the L'Oréal donation could bring about the French president's downfall - 8th July 2010
- Is France in the grip of an existential crisis? - Agnès Poirier, French journalist and author, and film-maker Nick Fraser consider how the French team's inglorious exit from the World Cup has affected the mood of the nation - 27th June 2010
- Draquila: the film Berlusconi doesn't want you to see - A documentary film shown at Cannes has used the L'Aquila earthquake to expose the Italian prime minister's abuse of power - 20th May 2010
- Sarkozy's niqab ban: a legal nightmare - While boasting about human rights, the president has got the French state into a muddle about what it is trying to achieve - 28th April 2010
- Nicolas Sarkozy receives a warning - The low turnout in France's regional elections is not just due to apathy – let's hope the second round sends a clearer message - 16th March 2010
- Britain’s High Representative is letting Europe down - Lady Ashton does not cut la moutarde - 28th January 2010
- Veil committee': no outright ban - The panel set up by Sarkozy to consider whether full veiling should be banned in France has come back with fudge - 26th January 2010
- The French secret of fat - We French eat four times as much butter and 60% more cheese than the average American, but we stay thin. How do we do it? - 19th January 2010
- Eric Rohmer: un hommage - Rimbaud's mantra, 'one must be absolutely modern', guided the father of the New Wave, a director fascinated by France's bourgeoisie - 12th January 2010
- What it means to be French - Nicolas Sarkozy's national debate on French identity is meaningless, vain and too often descends into racism - 23rd December 2009
- Love's bite is deeper, Tiger - Without risk there can be no passion. Philosophers know that, beyond golf, romance is under threat - 8th December 2009
- Behind the scenes at French museums - The Louvre and the Pompidou Centre have closed their doors in protest at government cuts – and they could hurt the economy - 7th December 2009
- Thierry Henry and football philosophy - Henry's handball in a World Cup game against Ireland has caused an existential crisis in France. What would Camus do? - 21st November 2009
- Greer's Proust polemic a waste of time - Proust is too long, too expensive and impossible to read in the bath, says Germaine Greer. Has she had a bang on the head? - 10th November 2009
- Roger Moore can't persuade me - I know force-feeding is cruel, but the former James Bond's call to send foie gras the way of life's other pleasures must be resisted - 7th November 2009
- We need a visionary as EU president, not Tony Blair - What about Vaclav Havel or Simone Veil? - 29th October 2009
- The 'sacrifice' of France's Prince Jean - Sarkozy junior has put his ambitions to run La Défense on hold, but he can't convince France that they were legitimate - 24th October 2009
- Rejecting Rue de Robespierre - Parisian councillors have guillotined a plan to name a street in France's capital after the revolutionary leader - 3rd October 2009
- Polanski's arrest has shocked France - Given new facts revealed by a documentary about the Polanski case, the great director's arrest makes no sense - 28th September 2009
- The Clearstream Affair, Act 1 Scene 1 - A courtroom drama driven by political rivalry and vengeance opens as Sarkozy and De Villepin go head to head - 23rd September 2009
- Italy's eccentric man of the north - It's easy to laugh at Umberto Bossi's ideas to drop the national anthem, flag and language, but Italians should take more notice - 18th September 2009
- Stop the pregnancy scaremongering and let women make love in peace - Britain is obsessive and dictatorial when it comes to motherhood. Yet we get more real help – and babies born – in France - 14th August 2009
- France's theatre of redundancy - From 'bossnapping' to threatening to blow up factories, French workers use spectacular stunts to highlight their situation - 17th July 2009
- French vote with maturity - That an unpopular government did so well in the European elections indicates voters' ability to think outside national politics - 8th June 2009
- To see ourselves as others see us - The parents of two French students murdered by men who should have been in custody are outraged. So should we be - The Independent, 7th June 2009
- Sarkozy's royal gaffe - Excluding the Queen from the D-Day anniversary celebrations is crass even by Nicolas Sarkozy's dire standards - 3rd June 2009
- French Socialists outplayed in Europe - François Bayrou has struck a chord with the French and will draw voters from the Socialists in the European elections - 24th May 2009
- Cinema sans frontières - The Cannes festival can appear a tower of Babel, but it inspires a language that crosses all barriers - 22nd May 2009
- The importance of being Eric - The French never really took Eric Cantona seriously. But playing himself in Ken Loach's new film, he has won us over - 18th May 2009
- Quelle horreur! We miss Chirac - How can the politician we learned to despise for 40 years score a 74% approval rating? Answer: he's not Sarkozy - 21st April 2009
- Protest in perpetual motion - Students and professors have invented a new way of protesting about the marketisation of academia: the 24-hour circular march - 7th April 2009
- Three strikes and you're out, Sarko - Radicalisation has taken France by storm. Nicolas Sarkozy must listen to the public's demands to save his presidency - 20th March 2009
- Abandoning independence, for nothing - France's return to Nato's military command is purely symbolic, or so say Sarkozy's lieutenants. So why do it at all? - 12th March 2009
- Life sucks. Say it – you'll feel better - The French are good at fulminating loudly, and a number of websites make it easy for anyone to join in - 8th March 2009
- Womaniser? He's just French - Dominique Strauss-Kahn has great charisma, intelligence and charm. For better or worse, his behaviour is part of our culture - 25th February 2009
- Guadeloupe on the edge - This 'forgotten territory of the French republic' is erupting with anger. President Sarkozy must act, or face insurrection - 19th February 2009
- Where's our Mitterrand? - The Socialist party badly needs a successor to the man who proudly took on the rightist De Gaulle - 30th January 2009
- The fall of Rachida Dati - As France heads for a national strike this week, it's not just the ex-justice minister the public seems to have had enough of - 27th January 2009
- The war of the wines - I'm all for teaching French vintners a lesson – but Malcolm Gluck's fierce criticisms seem like a case of inverted snobbery - 15th January 2009
- French parliament fades to grey - The law hasn't been approved by the senate yet, but advertising is now banned on France's public broadcasting networks - 9th January 2009
- The intriguing case of Rachida Dati - Brits are fascinated with the French minister's rapid return to work after giving birth – but in France, parenting culture is different - 8th January 2009
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