In his memoirs, Eric Hobsbawm, the 90-year-old British historian, recalls how serious young men and women of his generation would learn French and flock to Paris to be at the cutting edge of global debate, led and shaped by France’s famed intellectuals.

Nowadays, those serious young men and women speak English and visit the US instead. According to Hobsbawm, France has been reduced from an intellectual superpower to a hexagonal ghetto.