Les Marches de l'Histoire

Last spring I began looking for podcasts that could help me study for the civil servant exams since I couldn't use flashcards or read books while doing the dishes or cooking dinner.

While searching for things like "histoire" and "histoire française", I discovered Les Marches de l'Histoire, a regular radio show on France Inter. I've been hooked ever since.

Here's the official description: Chaque jour, Jean Lebrun brosse le tableau d’un événement, le portrait d’un personnage et le récit d’une époque étayés par des archives et des témoignages

The show airs Monday to Friday, and lasts about 30 minutes. The topics are often historical, though related to current events, and when the event pre-dates radio or tv recordings, they often make use of clips from plays written at the time or about the event. Each episode includes a bit of description or historical perspective, an interview with one or more specialists, and excerpts of some kind of recording.

Here are some recent episodes:
Algérie : le soulèvement d'août 1955
Madame du Châtelet
Le témoin du vendredi : Mara Goyet, professeur d'histoire-géographie et d'éducation civique
Assassin’s Creed Unity, un jeu vidéo sur la Révolution française
Confucius
Camus, un théâtre politique
La comédie morale, Molière et ses ennemis
Polytechnique : l'X dans l'inconnu

What I really appreciate is that the show mixes discussions about current events, recent history, and then 'older' history. Each episode is self contained, so you generally don't need a lot of previous knowledge to follow along.

If you're interested in French current events/culture/history, and looking for something other than the news(paper) or thick books, I highly recommend this show. I'm not interested in all of the topics, but there is so much variety that I'm never without something in my podcast queue that seems fascinating. The episodes are very well edited and never boring, hitting that perfect balance of "short and sweet" without being superficial. The host usually mentions a book or movie listeners might be interested in to learn more, and they are listed on the episode webpage. 

Time to catch up on an episode. I think I'll listen to this one while cooking:

"La séance est ouverte" : 1844, la loi Falloux, l’instruction publique, l'Eglise et la République