Éric Vuillard wins Goncourt prize, France's highest literary honour

FranceFrance's top literary prize has been awarded to a novel that portrays the Nazis as the product of big business interests — including businesses that remain major industrial players today, reports France 24.

Éric Vuillard's "L'Ordre du Jour," or "The Agenda," was awarded the Goncourt Prize on Monday in a Paris cafe, part of a long-running tradition.

The choice prompted criticism from some quarters because the book's publisher, Actes Sud, was co-founded by French Culture Minister Françoise Nyssen.

The publisher describes the book as an investigation of the backstage of the Nazi phenomenon that asks "what if the foundation for the first (Nazi) exploits was found in wheeling and dealing, in vulgar combinations of interests?"

Read more of this report from France 24.