The Spectator

How they tried (and failed) to make ‘La Marseillaise’ nicer

Plus: Cynthia Payne’s demographic; how armed are British police?; and double-decker trains

issue 21 November 2015
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Friendly words

England football fans sang ‘La Marseillaise’ in a friendly match at Wembley. The anthem has not always been so popular. In 1992 a Committee for a Marseillaise of Fraternity was founded to campaign for a change to the words, written as a war hymn by an army captain while French troops were besieged by Prussians at Strasbourg 200 years earlier.

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