Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong

Canadian journalists Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow have spent the last decade working extensively in both of their country’s official languages.

Born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, in 1964, Jean-Benoît Nadeau holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and history from McGill University. A journalist since 1987, he has written for L’actualité, Saturday Night Magazine, National Post Business, and Quebec Science.

The holder of seventeen journalism awards, he was granted a two-year fellowship in 1998 by the New Hampshire–based Institute for Current World Affairs to study why the French resist globalization. In 2001, he published a humorous travelogue, Les français aussi ont un accent (Payot, Paris). He has also traveled in Mexico, the UK, New Zealand, and Algeria.

Born in Ancaster, Ontario, in 1968, Julie Barlow holds an honour’s degree in political science from McGill University and a master’s in English Literature from Concordia University. Over the last decade, she has written for Saturday Night Magazine, Report on Business Magazine, L’actualité, Chatelaine and other Canadian magazines. In 1998, she worked as Editor-in-Chief of English-language projects at Montreal-based publisher Les Éditions Ma Carrière. In 2003, she published Same Words, Different Language (Piatkus, London) with international gender expert Barbara Annis. She has traveled extensively throughout Europe, North Africa, Israel, Turkey, the Caucasus, Mexico, the UK, and New Zealand.

The couple is now based in Montreal, where they are living happily in French and English while producing their next book, The Story of French.