Criticized, ignored or even booed, France’s national anthem, La Marseillaise hasn’t always enjoyed a flattering reputation. By anachronism, it is seen to be filled with flaws: bellicose, bloody and nationalistic.

Yet its symbolic significance, has often been underestimated in battles for freedom, over the course of both French history and the modern world’s. A revolutionary song and a call for equality in the nineteenth century, it was an appeal for unity in the trenches of World War I, a comfort to the vanquished during the darkest hours of the defeat of 1940 and in the despair of the concentration camps.

From Jules Michelet History of the French Revolution to Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, Jean-Louis Panné invites us along for a surprising and erudite promenade on the path of the French national anthem.

In the shape of a non-exhaustive anthology, a choice of historic accounts and literary and cinematic references highlight the universalist and liberating impact of La Marseillaise.