Hexagon, c’est quoi?

What does France represent for the French? To the serious people who are in possession of themselves, and who think deeply and pompously, it is a necessary weight in the European balance; for the others, it is a hexagon. –  Georges Darien, La Belle France, 1900

What has 6 sides, 64.81 million inhabitants, 246 types of cheese, and, to quote Steve Martin, “a different word for everything”?

Eh oui.

Mainland France, to be precise. Not its overseas territories. But the French, when they think of the whole of France, including Corsica, including the Dom-Tom, including the uninhabited, largely barren coral atoll in the eastern Pacific Ocean known as Clipperton Island, which has only been a French possession since 1931 and is home to the world's largest masked booby colony, they conjure forth an image that they first learned to sketch out in maternity school.

L’Hexagone.

This is why we have chosen Hexagon as the name of our podcast and publication series.

Euh, why?

Because we are going to cover France from all six sides, namely: Culture, society, politics, history, economics and science.

Yes, this is an arbitrary breakdown, but you get the idea. We are going to talk about everything from food to fascism to fashion to film. Nuclear energy to naturopathy to nationalism. Sex to Sartre to Sauternes to a bunch of other subjects starting with S.

Do you need to subscribe?

Non.

Should you, though?

Bien sur que oui. Subscribers not only earn our gratitude. They become part of a virtuous circle – a virtuous hexagon – that perpetuates goodness.

The six sides of this causal sequence are the following: i) Your monthly subscription will help pay our bills; ii) so we won’t have to spend every waking hour chasing after money elsewhere; ii) which will allow us to wholly devote our energies to Hexagon; iv) which will result in better posts and podcasts; v) which will increase your knowledge of La Belle France; vi) which will intensify your joie de vivre and make you a better lover.

So, don’t do it for us. Do it for your lovers.