FrenchVictor Hugo
Les Misérables, Notre-Dame de Paris
Poet, novelist, exile and national hero. Two million people followed his funeral in 1885.
Destination 02
Arts & Littérature
Art and literature
Molière's wit, Hugo's barricades, Monet's water lilies — art that taught the world how to see and how to argue.
Les écrivains
The writersAlbert Camus
L'Étranger, La Peste
Nobel laureate who asked how to live meaningfully in an absurd world.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Le Petit Prince
« On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. » — the most translated French book ever.
Les peintres
The paintersClaude Monet
Impression, soleil levant
The 1872 painting that gave Impressionism its name — originally as an insult.
Berthe Morisot
Le Berceau
A founding Impressionist who exhibited at seven of the eight Impressionist shows.
Le cinéma
CinemaLa Nouvelle Vague
The New Wave
Godard, Truffaut, Varda — handheld cameras and real streets reinvented film in the 1960s.
Le Festival de Cannes
Since 1946
Every May, the Croisette becomes the capital of world cinema.