Footloose in France (2023) is a travel book by the British authors John Adamson and Clive Jackson. They recall with humour their separate experiences of living in France in the mid-to-late sixties and early seventies: Jackson worked in the western Pyrenees and Adamson in Paris.

The book, whose prologue and epilogue are set in West Mersea,^[1] recounts Jackson and Adamson's French adventures, the recollection of which is sparked by the unexpected brightness of a late summer's afternoon at the Essex seaside resort, as if they were back in France.

The alternate tales the authors tell are true reminiscences of a France of decades ago. There are insights into the worlds of wine-making, art and film, the challenges of language teaching, translating, banking, balloon-selling and much more. Encounters with Alain Delon,^[2] Piem, the cartoonist,^[3] Louis Derbré, the sculptor,^[4] Toru Iwaya, the Japanese mezzotint artist,^[5] Modigliani's daughter,^[6] and across the tables in a Provençal restaurant, Noël Coward,^[7] are mingled with interactions with the locals in the foothills of the Pyrenees, and exchanges with workers, among them waiters,^[8] barbers and business executives, in Paris.^[9] Falling in love at a château in the Pomerol,^[10] putting on an exhibition of Franco-British humorous art in the Marais^[4] and discovering a letter in Paris written by Vincent van Gogh to Paul Gauguin^[11] are among the highlights of the book.

Through the memories of those they meet the reader is transported back to the Algerian War;^[12] to the occupation of Paris in the Second World War;^[13] to the quandary of a young French doctor working at Buchenwald in the aftermath of the War;^[14] and more recently to the behaviour of the CRS in the Paris riots of May 1968.^[15]

The book's frontispiece reproduces Tuileries Gardens, Paris, a painting by George Adamson, father of one of the authors.

The Cambridge Critique hailed Footloose in France as having "all the quirky fun of an authentic adventure, a trove of fascinating real-life tales – whilst it reveals the real France in all its remarkable differentness".^[16] Sir Quentin Blake found the incidents and experiences sympathetic to him and induced "a measure of nostalgia".^{[17][better source needed]} The booksellers Hatchards on Piccadilly, London, dubbed the book, "A beautiful portrayal of the country from an outsider's perspective".^{[18][better source needed]}