Marie Le Conte

London

Journalist and Writer at Freelance

hard-working dilettante / freelance journalist & author / sometimes on the radio / [email protected] / 🇫🇷🇲🇦

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Articles

Inside the Industries Enabling Dirty Money in London

6 days ago | foreignpolicy.com | Marie Le Conte

Corruption Europe London, you may be aware, is the place to be if you’re a shadowy individual with piles of ill-gotten money who wishes to, ideally, shield said ill-gotten money from view. This has been a popular topic in investigative nonfiction for some time now.
Dilettante: Watching my trans friend come alive

6 days ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Marie Le Conte

The first conversation happened in 2011, at around 2am. Most drunk conversations are silly and incoherent but sometimes, all that alcohol gives you a sense of sharp clarity. They were my housemate and we were close; at some point, they took me away from the dancefloor and we went to sit in a corner. “I think I may be non-binary”, they told me, and so we talked it out for a little while. I asked questions; they answered. The second was in 2015, at my birthday party.
Starmer and the left’s “Hard Labour” problem

6 days ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Marie Le Conte

So, Hard Labour. Have you heard the news about it? It’s all the rage in Westminster, apparently. You may have read the words “hard labour” and thought that it didn’t sound especially pleasant, and that it wasn’t necessarily something you’d name a political faction or governing ideology after, but that’s probably because you’re daft and a bit of a pinko. You just don’t understand the Real Struggles Britain Is Facing. This was, in essence, the gist of a piece published in the Sunday Times last week.
Contemporary fiction is getting boring

1 week ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Marie Le Conte

I have, over the past few years, become quite obsessed with reading fantasy books. My most recent outing was Maud Martha, by Gwendolyn Brooks. Over around 150 short, snappy but beautiful pages, the author goes through the life of a Black woman in America, from the early 20th century until after the war. The prose is gorgeous, and each vignette is both engrossing and deeply poetic.
Why we should all game-shame Elon Musk

2 weeks ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Marie Le Conte

There are two words one ought to think of when considering a recent news story involving Elon Musk. No, not those two. Okay, sure, those two words apply to all stories involving Elon Musk. You’re allowed and indeed encouraged to think them. It’s quite cathartic. Still, they’re not the ones I had in mind here. The two words that should spring to mind right about now, and which show that Musk may be losing some crucial ground with a constituency he could once rely on are: git gud.
Dilettante: What our language says about us

2 weeks ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Marie Le Conte

“No, no, no, I’m sorry but you just can’t use that word”. My friend and I were chatting away on the couch, but she’d felt the need to stop me in full flow. She’d had enough. The friend in question was French, and someone I’ve known since high school. She now lives in New York and we spent a lot of time together when I was there last year. The culprit, in this context, had been the word “tordant” which – it’s true – I do use freely. How to translate tordant? Well, it depends what you’re looking for.
Adolescence and the dangers of “government by TV show”

2 weeks ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Marie Le Conte

You’ve got to hand it to him: earlier this week, Keir Starmer managed to do something most policymakers could only dream of. In the space of 24 hours, outlets with political views as diverse as the Spectator and the Canary all spoke with one voice. Granted, it was to say that they disagreed with the government’s latest announcement, and found it idiotic, but still. Finding this level of consensus across the political spectrum is rare.
Dilettante: We shouldn't be shocked at Rachel Reeves and Freebiegate

3 weeks ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Marie Le Conte

When I left the house earlier today, I stopped in the hallway for a moment to think about the shoes I wanted to wear. On weekdays, in the morning, there are usually only two choices. Today, I picked the black leather loafers, which I bought in France last year. The other option, which I considered but then discarded, was a pair of Adidas Sambas, the trainers made both famous and uncool by, of all people, Rishi Sunak.
Stop worrying about a Le Pen backlash

3 weeks ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Marie Le Conte

Despair will still be on offer later if we change our minds, is the thing. Pessimism isn’t going anywhere; it is, if anything, tediously reliable. If things go south soon, which they might, then the doom and gloom will be more than happy to welcome us back into their arms. For the time being, though? We might as well celebrate. On Monday morning in Paris, Rassemblement National leader Marine Le Pen was found guilty of misappropriating European funds to finance her party.
Paris versus the populists

3 weeks ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Marie Le Conte

Paris is changing again. As the pandemic receded, residents of the capital and tourists alike rediscovered the city, and found it to be considerably more amenable to cyclists than it once had been. Last year, those attending the Olympics and Paralympics were pleasantly surprised to find the metro cleaner, and mostly rid of its formerly persistent urine stench. Soon, both Parisians and out-of-towners will be able to enjoy a greener, quieter and less polluted city.