Philippe Collin in Conversation with Philippe Sands at the French Institute, London

The French Institute is delighted to welcome Philippe Collin for the English-language launch of his debut novel, The Barman of the Ritz, in conversation with the writer and international lawyer Philippe Sands.

Paris, June 1940. The Germans march in and a curfew falls across the city, but the bar of the Ritz stays open. German officers arrive for a taste of French refinement and rub shoulders with the Parisian elite, while behind the counter stands Frank Meier, the hotel’s barman. Meier serves them, wins their trust and buys a measure of safety for himself and for those close to him, all while hiding a secret that would cost him his life: he is Jewish.

Based on the real story of the Ritz’s barman, who counted Fitzgerald and Hemingway among his customers before the war, the novel follows four years of occupation in which collaborators and resistance fighters cross paths in the same room, each convinced they are defending their own idea of civilisation.

It is a question Philippe Sands has spent his own career pursuing, most recently in 38 Londres Street, which follows a Nazi fugitive who escaped justice. The two writers return, in very different forms, to the same ground: how people answer for the choices they make under, and after, a criminal regime.

The Barman of the Ritz (Le Barman du Ritz, Albin Michel, 2024) is translated from the French by Frank Wynne and published in the UK by Doubleday on 20 August 2026

Copies will be available to buy on the night, courtesy of Librairie La Page.