•    Sir Richard Lambert, Lord Spicer, Chris Cummings and Andrew Lilico who discussed the arguments for and against Brexit
•    Kate Barker, Ben Brogan and Andrew Sentence on the economic prospects in France and the UK
•    Pierre Mercier, Bertrand Moullier and Gael de la Rochere on the differences of doing business in France and the UK
•    Professor Robert Tombs and Sheila O’Connell on the cultural differences between our two nations
•    Bertrand Moullier and Sonia Stolper on the French political scene

Demi Siècle attracts a highly articulate and well informed group of guests who want to take part in a discussion led by well-regarded experts in their field.

Here are details of recent and forthcoming suppers :

Date : Monday, 7 October 2019
Speaker: Sonia Delesalle-Stolper, UK and Ireland correspondent of the French newspaper, Libération
Once again we met at the charming Bleeding Heart Restaurant, located in a cobbled yard in the heart of the Jewellery

district in London.

We were very fortunate to have persuaded Sonia Delesalle-Stolper to return to lead a discussion at what was a time of high drama! She had just returned from the Tory party conference at which the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson had
produced the proposed agreement for leaving the EU which he considered most likely to gain Parliamentary approval.

Sonia questioned whether the EU negotiators were likely to make many concessions believing that the Johnson
government was not in a strong position and could fall at any time.

Looking at France, she considered that President Macron had survived the gilets jaunes uprising with only 7000 turning out at the last manifestation in September. His position in the EU had been strengthened by clever negotiations resulting in two allies - Christine Lagarde and Ursula von der Leyen being nominated to the Presidency of the ECB and the European
Commission respectively. They would support his determination to reform the EU.

She considered that Brexit had strengthened the support of both small and large members for the EU. The electorates

had seen how difficult it was to disentangle a country – and most depended on EU financial support. Increased
contributions from Germany and France were unlikely to sway their electorates to press for independence.

The supper was chaired by Charles Dorin. Among the guests was Marie-Jose Clayton, the Presidente de L’Association des Membres de l’Ordre National du Merite pour la Grande Bretagne. Like Sonia, both women had lived in the UK for over

twenty years.

Our next supper will be in the New Year.

Date: Monday, 10 June 2019
Nos ancêtres les Gaulois...toujours ?
Speaker : Professor Greg Woolf, Director, Institute of Classical Studies and Professor of Classics, London University
Venue : Bleeding Heart Restaurant,  Bleeding Heart Yard, Greville Street, London EC1N 8SJ

Professor Greg Woolf has lived and worked in France, concentrating on his specialism, the late Iron Age and the Roman Empire.
He will describe how statesmen, intellectuals and satirists have turned again and again to ancient Gaul since the Napoléon III's campaigns of excavations (and monument building) or various Caesarian sites. The tradition continued through the political subtexts of the Astérix BDs to the grandiose museum at Mont Beuvray in the Morvan opened by François Mitterand  where at least 10,000 Gauls had lived.

The image of the Gauls as prototypical Frenchmen remains close to the surface as evidenced by the sensation caused by Jean Pruvost's recent Nos ancêtres les arabes. Yet once again the French thought of themselves as descendants of Franks, or even Trojans... Greg will mention a few examples and ask why the Gauls remain favoured grandparents


Date: Thursday, 21 March 2019
The background to the Gilets Jaune
Speaker : Jean-Louis Balouzet

Nineteen weekends of demonstrations across France have had an adverse affect on the economy. Although the number of protesters has dwindled, the violence has increased significantly. The protesters have many different causes they are angry about, and a hard core “rent-a-mob have jumped on the bandwagon”. A reduction in the speed limit and an increase in fuel costs angered many people living in the country dependent on their cars to go to work and to shop. It reinforced the view that Paris and the elite establishment did not understand their concerns – similar concerns that have fuelled populist groups across Europe and the US.


Date: Monday, 4 June 2018
Lifting children out of poverty in some of the poorest countries– and an update on the progress of President Macron’s reforms.
Speaker : Olivier Duval, President , ICCB

Olivier Duval grew up in London until the age of 9 years and remains a strong Anglophile. He trained as an engineer in France and spent most of his career with the international industrial group, Saint-Gobain. His career took him overseas, living and working in many different cultures and ways of life. This interaction with people from very different backgrounds has led him to what has become his passion – helping to lift children in some of the poorest countries of the world out of poverty and given them hope and dignity.
 
Since 2013, Olivier has been President of The International Catholic Child Bureau which was formed in the same year as Demi Siecle – 1948 and was one of the first NGOs to be recognised by the UN in 1950. Olivier described how the ICCB was instrumental in 1989 in creating the International Convention on the Rights of the Child which is today the most ratified international agreement – 196 countries.

Dr Tomlin, one the country’s foremost experts on Roman cursive writing described how he deciphered 90 of the wooden tablets found during the building of Bloomberg’s new headquarters building in London. The Bloomberg tablets are a collection of 405 preserved wooden tablets that were found between 2010 and 2013. The tablets are the earliest written documents found in Britain, dating from 50 to 80 AD, discovered buried 40 feet underground.

Date: Monday 11 September 2017
Will President Macron succeed in reforming parts of the French economy where others have failed ?
Speaker : Sonia Delesalle-Stolper, UK and Ireland correspondent, Libération

Sonia Delesalle-Stolper described what happened in the election process, and how the President planned to tackle the challenges facing France – and other Western countries. They are
•    The economic anxiety and anger of forgotten people living in left-behind places
•    Reuniting France where nearly 50% of voters backed extremist candidates in the first round of the election  -- critical of the EU, globalisation and "elites"
•    Unemployment – 10% in France are without work compared to 8% across the EU and only 3.8% in Germany
•    The growth of segregated immigrant enclaves in the suburbs of major cities such as Paris and Lyon.
•    Fighting Terror – since January 2015, 230 people have been killed in jihadist attacks
•    Reforming the EU – Macron has proposed a five year road map which would see a closer union

 
Date: Tuesday, 9 May 2017
What is the European Commission’s vision for Europe post Brexit ?
Speaker : Jacqueline Minor, European Commission’s Head of representation in the UK

Jacqueline Minor will lead a discussion on what the EU might look like post Brexit following the publication of Jean Claude Juncker’s paper which identified five scenarios. Whatever the outcome, Jacqueline argued that it was in everyone’s interests that Europe remained a strong trading entity.

Christopher Chantrey OBE led a vigorous campaign with his colleagues in the British in Europe coalition, encouraging the UK Government to be magnanimous and guarantee EU nationals in the UK to have continuing full rights of residency at the outset of negotiations. The Brexit vote had caused great consternation among both British expats on the continent and EU nationals working in the UK. He argued that their situation should not remain uncertain for two years while negotiations

Time for the suppers : 19.00 for 19.30hrs
Venue : Malmaison Hotel, Charterhouse Square, London EC1M 4AH