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Sunday, 12 June 2011

Français

   Bonjour!
  Simple fait: je ne peux pas parler Anglais!
  Fait au hasard: je ne peux pas parler français, mais je veux vraiment!
  Donc, c'est pourquoi j'essaie d'écrire ce post en français.
  Hmm, Je viens d'essayer, en fait. J'ai eu l'aide de Google Translate! Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Google. :)
   Il est difficile d'écrire ce post, car je aller et venir à traduire mon poste l'anglais au français. Si difficile :( Mais je dois. LOL




   Okay, I can't stand to go to and fro the Safari tab. I don't want to be random anymore, just for today. I think it's a random post cuz I have no reason to write this. But, I can't keep it random. Ah, so complicated, right? Haha, I'm sorry.

   French, with all those unique characters, has hypnotized me (wow?). Since I used to post a status on my Facebook account using French, I suddenly LOVE this language, and all its cultures. It looks so unique, so vintage. I like French's fashions too. I often admirer people who have a good taste in Fashion. I like fashionable people, I'm not fashionable though. But I like designing (in particular situation). I like designing home architecture. Imagining, how my house will look alike. Haha, I like imagining. Imagination makes my days. :)
   Back to French. I've been browsing so far, and I found a beautiful blog. My best friend recommended it. You can see the blog here. This girl is awesome in fashion and photography. I like her taste. Not because she's good at fashion, because I think she likes France fashions, too. I thought she's European or French. She is Indonesian! But she has her own brand for her fashion. And she is still 12 this year. Urgh, I'm so envy with her! :3 But she inspires me, a lot!
   Back to the real FRENCH. Yes, I'm interested with this language, even I really want to learn it as my third language (after English and Indonesian)! Someday, I'll go to France and live there, only for short times cuz my dreams isn't to live there actually :D. I have been browsing France profile. And here is the profile. I copied from www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3842.htm. Enjoy it!





Background Note: France


Official Name: French Republic




PROFILE




Geography

Area: 551,670 sq. km. (220,668 sq. mi.); largest west European country, about four-fifths the size of Texas.
Cities: Capital--Paris. Major cities--Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Nice, Rennes, Lille, Bordeaux.
Terrain: Varied.
Climate: Temperate.




People

Nationality: Adjective--French.
Population (January 1, 2010 est.): 65.0 million (including overseas territories); 63.1 million (metropolitan).
Annual population growth rate (2011 est.): 0.55%.
Ethnic groups: Celtic and Latin with Teutonic, Slavic, North African, Sub-Saharan African, Indochinese, and Basque minorities.
Religion: Roman Catholic (majority), Muslim, Protestant, Jewish.
Language: French.
Education: Years compulsory--10. Literacy--99%.
Health: Infant mortality rate (Jan. 2011)--3.7/1,000.
Work force (2009): 28.3 million (preliminary): Services--75%; industry and construction--21.7%; agriculture--2.9%.




Government

Type: Republic.
Constitution: September 28, 1958.
Branches: Executive--president (chief of state); prime minister (head of government).Legislative--bicameral Parliament (577-member National Assembly, 319-member Senate).Judicial--Court of Cassation (civil and criminal law), Council of State (administrative court), Constitutional Council (constitutional law).
Subdivisions: 22 administrative regions containing 96 departments (metropolitan France). Thirteen territories outside metropolitan France: four overseas departments which are also regions (French abbreviation is DOM-ROM)--Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, and Reunion; six overseas collectivities ("Collectivites d'Outre-mer" or COM)--French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna Islands, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthelemy Island, and Mayotte, which became a full overseas department in March 2011; one overseas country of France ("Pays d'Outre-mer" or POM)--New Caledonia; and the French Southern and Antarctic Territories and the atoll of Clipperton.
Political parties: Union for a Popular Movement (UMP--a synthesis of center-right Gaullist/nationalist and free-market parties); Socialist Party; New Center (former UDF centrists now affiliated with the UMP); Democratic Movement (former UDF centrists loyal to MoDem President Francois Bayrou); Communist Party; extreme right National Front; Greens; various minor parties.
Suffrage: Universal at 18.




Economy

GDP (2010): $2.580 trillion.
Avg. annual growth rate (2010): 1.5%, compared with -2.5% in 2009.
Per capita GDP at PPP (2010): $34,077.
Agriculture: Products--grains (wheat, barley, corn); wines and spirits; dairy products; sugar beets; oilseeds; meat and poultry; fruits and vegetables.
Industry: Types--aircraft, electronics, transportation, textiles, clothing, food processing, chemicals, machinery, steel.
Services: Types--Services to companies and individuals, financial and real estate activities, tourism and transportation
Trade: Exports (2010)--$521 billion (f.o.b.): automobiles, aircraft and aircraft components, pharmaceuticals, automobile equipment, iron and steel products, refined petroleum products, cosmetics, organic chemicals, electronic components, wine and champagne.Imports (2010)--$588 billion (f.o.b.): oil and natural gas, automobiles, aircraft and aircraft components, refined petroleum products, automobile equipment, pharmaceuticals, iron and steel products, and computers/computer-related products. Major trading partners--EU and U.S.
Exchange rate: U.S. $1=0.6891 euro (€) in April 2011.




PEOPLE

Since prehistoric times, France has been a crossroads of trade, travel, and invasion. Three basic European ethnic stocks--Celtic, Latin, and Teutonic (Frankish)--have blended over the centuries to make up its present population. France's birth rate was among the highest in Europe from 1945 until the late 1960s. Since then, its birth rate has fallen but remains higher than that of most other west European countries. Traditionally, France has had a high level of immigration.

The government does not keep statistics on religious affiliation; according to a January 2007 poll, 51% of respondents describe themselves as Catholic, and another 31% describe themselves as having no religious affiliation. There also are Muslim, Protestant, and Jewish minorities. France is home to both the largest Muslim and Jewish populations in Europe. More than 1 million Muslims immigrated to France in the 1960s and early 1970s from North Africa, especially Algeria. In 2004, there were over 6 million Muslims, largely of North African descent, living in France.

Education is free, beginning at age 2, and mandatory between ages 6 and 16. The public education system is highly centralized. Private education is primarily Roman Catholic. Higher education in France began with the founding of the University of Paris in 1150. It now consists of 91 public universities and 175 professional schools, including the post-graduate Grandes Ecoles. Private, college-level institutions focusing on business and management with curriculums structured on the American system of credits and semesters have been growing in recent years.

The French language derives from the vernacular Latin spoken by the Romans in Gaul, although it includes many Celtic and Germanic words. Historically, French has been used as the international language of diplomacy and commerce. Today it remains one of six official languages at the United Nations and has been a unifying factor in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Caribbean.




HISTORY

France was one of the earliest countries to progress from feudalism to the nation-state. Its monarchs surrounded themselves with capable ministers, and French armies were among the most innovative, disciplined, and professional of their day. During the reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715), France was the dominant power in Europe. But overly ambitious projects and military campaigns of Louis and his successors led to chronic financial problems in the 18th century. Deteriorating economic conditions and popular resentment against the complicated system of privileges granted the nobility and clerics were among the principal causes of the French Revolution (1789-94). Although the revolutionaries advocated republican and egalitarian principles of government, France reverted to forms of absolute rule or constitutional monarchy four times--the Empire of Napoleon, the Restoration of Louis XVIII, the reign of Louis-Philippe, and the Second Empire of Napoleon III. After the Franco-Prussian War (1870), the Third Republic was established and lasted until the military defeat of 1940.

World War I (1914-18) brought great losses of troops and material. In the 1920s, France established an elaborate system of border defenses (the Maginot Line) and alliances to offset resurgent German strength. France was defeated early in World War II, however, and was occupied in June 1940. That July, the country was divided into two: one section being ruled directly by the Germans, and a second controlled by the French ("Vichy" France) and which the Germans did not occupy. German and Italian forces occupied all of France, including the "Vichy" zone, following the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942. The "Vichy" government largely acquiesced to German plans, namely in the plunder of French resources and the forceful deportations of tens of thousands of French Jews living in France to concentration camps across Europe, and was even more completely under German control following the German military occupation of November 1942. Economically, a full one-half of France's public sector revenue was appropriated by Germany. After 4 years of occupation and strife in France, Allied forces liberated the country in 1944.

France emerged from World War II to face a series of new problems. After a short period of provisional government initially led by Gen. Charles de Gaulle, the Fourth Republic was set up by a new constitution and established as a parliamentary form of government controlled by a series of coalitions. French military involvement in both Indochina and Algeria combined with the mixed nature of the coalitions and a consequent lack of agreement caused successive cabinet crises and changes of government.

Finally, on May 13, 1958, the government structure collapsed as a result of the tremendous opposing pressures generated by 4 years of war with Algeria. A threatened coup led the Parliament to call on General de Gaulle to head the government and prevent civil war. Marking the beginning of the Fifth Republic, he became prime minister in June 1958 and was elected president in December of that year. The Algerian conflict also spurred decades of increased immigration from the Maghreb states, changing the composition of French society.

Seven years later, for the first time in the 20th century, the people of France went to the polls to elect a president by direct ballot. De Gaulle won re-election with a 55% share of the vote, defeating Francois Mitterrand. In April 1969, President de Gaulle's government conducted a national referendum on the creation of 21 regions with limited political powers. The government's proposals were defeated, and de Gaulle subsequently resigned. Succeeding him as president of France have been Gaullist Georges Pompidou (1969-74), Independent Republican Valery Giscard d'Estaing (1974-81), Socialist Francois Mitterrand (1981-95), neo-Gaullist Jacques Chirac (1995-2007), and center-right Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-present).

While France continues to revere its rich history and independence, French leaders have increasingly tied the future of France to the European Union (EU). France was integral in establishing the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 and was among the EU's six founding states. During his tenure, President Mitterrand stressed the importance of European integration and advocated the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty on European economic and political union, which France's electorate narrowly approved in 1992.

Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S., France has played a central role in counterterrorism efforts. French forces participate in Operation Enduring Freedom and in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for Afghanistan. France did not, however, join the coalition that liberated Iraq in 2003.

In October and November 2005, 3 weeks of violent unrest in France's largely immigrant suburbs focused the country's attention on its minority communities. In the spring of 2006, students protested widely over restrictive employment legislation. In May 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy was elected as France's sixth president under the Fifth Republic, signaling French approval of widespread economic and social reforms, as well as closer cooperation with the United States. By midway through his 5-year term, Sarkozy faced mounting pressure to revive the economy, lower unemployment, and reduce the government’s sizable budget deficit. The most notable reform in 2010 was raising the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 and from 65 to 67 for full benefits. As of April 2011, President Sarkozy’s approval ratings remained low at 29%.

On the international front, President Sarkozy has reintegrated France into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), confirmed France’s commitments to Afghanistan, and worked closely with the United States on the Iran nuclear issue. Although a 2005 French referendum was responsible for the defeat of a treaty to establish a constitution for Europe, France later backed the Lisbon Treaty--a main priority of Sarkozy during France's EU presidency in the latter half of 2008. The Lisbon Treaty took effect in December 2009. France continues to play a leading role in the EU, particularly in the development of a Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). In July 2008, France was instrumental in launching the Union for the Mediterranean (UM), a continuation of the EU Barcelona Process. France and Egypt held the first rotating co-presidency, which serves as a forum for political and economic cooperation between the EU and its Mediterranean neighbors. The second biennial conference scheduled for 2010 was indefinitely postponed due to heightened tensions in the Middle East. France currently holds the rotating presidencies of the G-8 and G-20 and was instrumental in spring 2011 in assembling the international coalition that is engaged in military operations in Libya.




GOVERNMENT

The constitution of the Fifth Republic was approved by public referendum on September 28, 1958. It greatly strengthened the powers of the executive in relation to those of Parliament. Under this constitution, presidents were elected directly for a 7-year term. Beginning in 2002, the presidential term of office was reduced to 5 years, and a constitutional reform passed on July 21, 2008 limits presidents to two consecutive terms in office. The next presidential and legislative elections are scheduled for 2012.

The main components of France's executive branch are the president, the prime minister and government, and the permanent bureaucracies of the many ministries. The president names the prime minister, presides over the cabinet, commands the armed forces, and concludes treaties. The president can submit questions to a national referendum and can dissolve the National Assembly. In certain emergency situations, with the approval of Parliament, the president may assume dictatorial powers and rule by decree. Led by a prime minister, who is the head of government, the cabinet is composed of a varying number of ministers, ministers-delegate, and secretaries of state. Traditionally, presidents under the Fifth Republic tended to leave day-to-day policy-making to the prime minister and government, and the 5-year term of office was expected to make presidents more accountable for the results of domestic policies. Nicolas Sarkozy has been a hands-on manager and policymaker.

Parliament meets for one 9-month session each year. Under special circumstances the president can call an additional session. Under the constitution, the legislative branch has few checks on executive power; nevertheless, the National Assembly can still cause a government to fall if an absolute majority of the total Assembly membership votes to censure. The Parliament is bicameral, with a National Assembly and a Senate. The National Assembly is the principal legislative body. Its deputies are directly elected to 5-year terms, and all seats are voted on in each election. Senators are chosen by an electoral college and, under new rules passed in 2003 to shorten the term, serve for 6 years, with one-half of the Senate being renewed every 3 years. (As a transitional measure in 2004, 62 Senators were elected to 9-year terms, while 61 were elected to 6-year terms; subsequently, all terms will be 6 years.) The Senate's legislative powers are limited; the National Assembly has the last word in the event of a disagreement between the two houses. The government has a strong influence in shaping the agenda of Parliament, although the constitutional reform passed in July 2008 granted new authority to the Parliament to set its own agenda. The government also can declare a bill to be a question of confidence, thereby linking its continued existence to the passage of the legislative text; unless a motion of censure is introduced and voted, the text is considered adopted without a vote. The constitutional reform passed in July 2008 limited the process to the vote of the national budget, the financing of the social security, and to one bill per session of the Parliament. As of September 2009, impact assessment is mandatory for all draft laws going to the Council of State and the Parliament.

A distinctive feature of the French judicial system is that the Constitutional Council protects basic rights when they might be potentially violated by new laws, and the Council of State protects basic rights when they might be violated by actions of the state. The Constitutional Council examines legislation and decides whether it conforms to the constitution. Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, it considers only legislation that is referred to it by Parliament, the prime minister, or the president. Moreover, it considers legislation before it is promulgated. The Council of State has a separate function from the Constitutional Council and provides recourse to individual citizens who have claims against the administration. The Ordinary Courts--including specialized bodies such as the police court, the criminal court, the correctional tribunal, the commercial court, and the industrial court--settle disputes that arise between citizens, as well as disputes that arise between citizens and corporations. The Court of Appeals reviews cases judged by the Ordinary Courts.

Traditionally, decision-making in France has been highly centralized, with each of France's departments headed by a prefect appointed by the central government. In 1982, the national government passed legislation to decentralize authority by giving a wide range of administrative and fiscal powers to local elected officials. In March 1986, regional councils were directly elected for the first time, and the process of decentralization continues, albeit at a slow pace.




   And here are about French cultures. I picked it up from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_France



Culture of France

The culture of France and of the French people has been shaped by geography, by profound historical events, and by foreign and internal forces and groups. France, and in particular Paris, has played an important role as a center of high culture and of decorative arts since the seventeenth century, first in Europe, and from the nineteenth century on, world wide. From the late nineteenth century, France has also played an important role in cinema,fashion and cuisine. The importance of French culture has waxed and waned over the centuries, depending on its economic, political and military importance. French culture today is marked both by great regional and socioeconomic differences and by strong unifying tendencies.




Problems in defining "French" culture

Whether in France, Europe or in general, "culture" consists of beliefs and values learned through the socialization process as well as material artifacts.[1][2] Culture guides the social interactions between members of society and influences the personal beliefs and values that shape a person's perception of their environment: "Culture is the learned set of beliefs, values, norms and material goods shared by group members. Culture consists of everything we learn in groups during the life course-from infancy to old age."[3]
The conception of "French" culture however poses certain difficulties and presupposes a series of assumptions about what precisely the expression "French" means. Whereas American cultureposits the notion of the "melting-pot" and cultural diversity, the expression "French culture" tends to refer implicitly to a specific geographical entity (as, say, "metropolitan France", generally excluding its overseas departments) or to a specific historico-sociological group defined by ethnicity, language, religion and geography. The realities of "Frenchness" however, are extremely complicated. Even before the late nineteenth century, "metropolitan France" was largely a patchwork of local customs and regional differences that the unifying aims of the Ancien Régime and theFrench Revolution had only begun to work against, and today's France remains a nation of numerous indigenous and foreign languages, of multiple ethnicities and religions, and of regional diversity that includes French citizens in Corsica, Guadeloupe, Martinique and elsewhere around the globe.
The creation of some sort of typical or shared French culture or "cultural identity", despite this vast heterogeneity, is the result of powerful internal forces — such as the French educational system, mandatory military service, state linguistic and cultural policies — and by profound historic events — such as the Franco-Prussian war and the two World Wars — which have forged a sense of national identity over the last 200 years. However, despite these unifying forces, France today still remains marked by social class and by important regional differences in culture (cuisine, dialect/accent, local traditions) that many fear will be unable to withstand contemporary social forces (depopulation of the countryside, immigration, centralization, market forces and the world economy).
In recent years, to fight the loss of regional diversity, many in France have promoted forms of multiculturalism and encouraged cultural enclaves (communautarisme), including reforms on the preservation of regional languages and the decentralization of certain government functions, but French multiculturalism has had a harder time of accepting, or of integrating into the collective identity, the large non-Christian and immigrant communities and groups that have come to France since the 1960s.
The last fifty years has also seen French cultural identity "threatened" by global market forces and by American "cultural hegemony". Since its dealings with the 1993 GATT free trade negotiations, France has fought for what it calls the exception culturelle, meaning the right to subsidize or treat favorably domestic cultural production and to limit or control foreign cultural products (as seen in public funding for French cinema or the lower VAT accorded to books). The notion of an explicit exception française however has angered many of France's critics.[4]
The French are often perceived as taking a great pride in national identity and the positive achievements of France (the expression "chauvinism" is of French origin) and cultural issues are more integrated in the body of the politics than elsewhere (see "The Role of the State", below). The French Revolution claimed universalism for the democratic principles of the Republic. Charles de Gaulleactively promoted a notion of French "grandeur" ("greatness"). Perceived declines in cultural status are a matter of national concern and have generated national debates, both from the left (as seen in the anti-globalism of José Bové) and from the right and far right (as in the discourses of the National Front).
According to Hofstede's Framework for Assessing Culture, the culture of France is moderately individualistic and high Power Distance Index.
Now, the interracial blending of some native French and newcomers stands as a vibrant and boasted feature of French culture, from popular music to movies and literature. Therefore, alongside mixing of populations, exists also a cultural blending (le métissage culturel) that is present in France. It may be compared to the traditional US conception of the melting-pot. The French culture might have been already blended in from other races and ethnicities, in cases of some biographical research on the possibility of African ancestry on a small number of famous French citizens. Author Alexandre Dumas, père possessed one-fourth black Haitian descent,[5] and Empress Josephine Napoleon who was born and raised in the French West Indies from a plantation estate family. We can mention as well, the most famous French singer Edith Piaf whose grandmother was a North African from Kabylie.[6]
For a long time, the only objection to such outcomes predictably came from the far-right schools of thought. In the past few years, other unexpected voices are however beginning to question what they interpret, as the new philosopher Alain Finkielkraut coined the term, as an "Ideology of miscegenation" (une idéologie du métissage) that may come from what one other philosopher, Pascal Bruckner, defined as the "Sob of the White man" (le sanglot de l'homme blanc). These critics have been dismissed by the mainstream and their propagators have been labelled as new reactionaries(les nouveaux réactionnaires),[7] even if racist and anti-immigration sentiment has recently been documented to be increasing in France at least according to one poll.[8]

Language

Main articles: French language, Languages of France, and Language policy in France
The Académie française sets an official standard of language purity; however, this standard, which is not mandatory, is even occasionally ignored by the government itself: for instance, the left-wing government of Lionel Jospin pushed for the feminization of the names of some functions (madame la ministre) while the Académie pushed for some more traditional madame le ministre.
Some action has been taken by the government in order to promote French culture and the French language. For instance, there exists a system of subsidies and preferential loans for supportingFrench cinema. The Toubon law, from the name of the conservative culture minister who promoted it, makes it mandatory to use French in advertisements directed to the general public. Note that contrary to some misconception sometimes found in the Anglophone media, the French government neither regulates the language used by private parties in non-commercial settings, nor makes it compulsory that France-based WWW sites should be in French.
France counts many regional languages, some of them being very different from standard French such as Breton and Alsatian. Some regional languages are Roman, like French, such as Occitan. The Basque language is completely unrelated to French and, indeed, to any other language in the world; its area straddles the border between the south west of France and the north of Spain. Many of those languages have enthusiastic advocates; however, the real importance of local languages remains subject to debate. In April 2001, the Minister of Education, Jack Lang, admitted formally that for more than two centuries, the political powers of the French government had repressed regional languages, and announced that bilingual education would, for the first time, be recognized, and bilingual teachers recruited in French public schools. English is taught in schools as a second language.
A revision of the French constitution creating official recognition of regional languages was implemented by the Parliament in Congress at Versailles in July 2008.[9]

Regional customs and traditions

Modern France is the result of centuries of nation building and the acquisition and incorporation of a number of historical provinces and overseas colonies into its geographical and political structure. These regions all evolved with their own specific cultural and linguistic traditions in fashion, religious observance, regional language and accent, family structure, cuisine, leisure activities, industry, etc.
The evolution of the French state and culture, from the Renaissance to today, has however promoted a centralization of politics, media, and cultural production in and around Paris (and, to a lesser extent, around the other major urban centers), and the industrialization of the country in the twentieth century has led to a massive move of French people from the countryside to urban areas. At the end of the nineteenth century, around 50% of the French depended on the land for a living; today French farmers only make up 6-7%, while 73% live in cities.[14] Nineteenth century French literatureabounds in scenes of provincial youth "coming up" to Paris to "make it" in the cultural, political or social scene of the capital (this scheme is frequent in the novels of Balzac). Policies enacted by theFrench Third Republic also encouraged this displacement through mandatory military service, a centralized national educational system, and suppression of regional languages. While government policy and public debate in France in recent years has returned to a valorization of regional differences and a call for decentralization of certain aspects of the public sphere (sometimes with ethnic, racial or reactionary overtones), the history of regional displacement and the nature of the modern urban environment and of mass media and culture have made the preservation of a regional "sense of place or culture" in today's France extremely difficult.
The names of the historical French provinces — such as Brittany (Bretagne), Berry, Orléanais, Normandy (Normandie), Languedoc, Lyonnais, Dauphiné, Champagne, Poitou, Guyenne and Gascony(Gascogne), Burgundy (Bourgogne), Picardy (Picardie), Provence, Touraine, Limousin, Auvergne, Béarn, Alsace, Flanders, Lorraine, Corsica (Corse), Savoy (Savoie)... (please see individual articles for specifics about each regional culture) — are still used to designate natural, historical and cultural regions, and many of them appear in modern région or département names. These names are also used by the French in their self-identification of family origin. Regional identification is most pronounced today in cultures linked to non-French languages like Corsu, Català, Occitan, Alsatian,Basque and Brezhoneg (Breton), and some of these regions have promoted movements calling for some degree of regional autonomy, and, occasionally, national independence (see, for example,Breton nationalism and Corsica).
There are huge differences in life style, socioeconomic status and world view between Paris and the provinces. The French often use the expression "la France profonde" ("Deep France", similar to "heartland") to designate the profoundly "French" aspects of provincial towns, village life and rural agricultural culture, which escape the hegemony of Paris. The expression can however have a pejorative meaning, similar to the expression "le désert français" ("the French desert") used to describe a lack of acculturation of the provinces. Another expression, "terroir" is a French term originally used for wine and coffee to denote the special characteristics that geography bestowed upon these products. It can be very loosely translated as "a sense of place" which is embodied in certain qualities, and the sum of the effects that the local environment (especially the "soil") has had on the growth of the product. The use of the term has since been generalized to talk about many cultural products.
In addition to its metropolitan territory, France also consists of overseas departments made up of its former colonies of Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana in the Caribbean, and Réunion in the Indian Ocean. (There also exist a number of "overseas collectivities" and "overseas territories". For a full discussion, see administrative divisions of France. Since 1982, following the French government’s policy of decentralisation, overseas departments have elected regional councils with powers similar to those of the regions of metropolitan France. As a result of a constitutional revision which occurred in 2003, these regions are now to be called overseas regions.) These overseas departments have the same political status as metropolitan departments and are integral parts of France, (similar to the way in which Hawaii is a state and an integral part of the United States), yet they also have specific cultural and linguistic traditions which set them apart. Certain elements of overseas culture have also been introduced to metropolitan culture (as, for example, the musical form the biguine).
Industrialization, immigration and urbanization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have also created new socioeconomic regional communities in France, both urban (like Paris, Lyon,Villeurbanne, Lille, Marseille, etc.) and the suburban and working class hinterlands (like Seine-Saint-Denis) of urban agglomerations (called variously banlieues ("suburbs", sometimes qualified as "chic" or "pauvres") or les cités ("housing projects") which have developed their own "sense of place" and local culture (much like the various boroughs of New York City or suburbs of Los Angeles), as well as cultural identity.

Other specific communities

Paris has traditionally been associated with alternative, artistic or intellectual subcultures, many of which involved foreigners. Such subcultures include the "Bohemians" of the mid-nineteenth century, the Impressionists, artistic circles of the Belle époque (around such artists as Picasso and Alfred Jarry), the Dadaists, Surrealists, the "Lost Generation" (Hemingway, Gertrude Stein) and the post-war "intellectuals" associated with Montparnasse (Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir).
France has an estimated 280,000-340,000 Roma, generally known as Gitans, Tsiganes, Romanichels (slightly pejorative), Bohémiens, or Gens du voyage ("travellers").
There are gay and lesbian communities in the cities, particularly in the Paris metropolitan area (such as in Le Marais district of the capital). Although homosexuality is perhaps not as well tolerated in France as in Spain, Scandinavia, and the Benelux nations, surveys of the French public reveal a considerable shift in attitudes comparable to other Western European nations. As of 2001, 55% of the French consider homosexuality "an acceptable lifestyle."[15] The current mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, is gay. In 2006, an Ipsos survey shows that 62% support same-sex marriage, while 37% were opposed. 55% believed gay and lesbian couples should not have parenting rights, while 44% believe same-sex couples should be able to adopt.[16] See also LGBT rights in France.

Social class

Main article: Social class in France
Despite the egalitarian aspects of French society, French culture remains marked by social-economic class and by many class distinctions[citation needed].

Families and romantic relationships

[edit]Household structure

Growing out of the values of the Catholic Church and rural communities, the basic unit of French society was traditionally held to be the family.[17] Over the twentieth century, the "traditional" family structure in France has evolved from extended families to, after World War II, nuclear families. Since the 1960s, marriages have decreased and divorces have increased in France, and divorce law and legal family status have evolved to reflect these social changes.[18]
According to INSEE figures, household and family composition in metropolitan France continues to evolve. Most significantly, from 1982 to 1999, single parent families have increased from 3.6% to 7.4%; there have also been increases in the number of unmarried couples, childless couples, and single men (from 8.5% to 12.5) and women (from 16.0% to 18.5%). Their analysis indicates that "one in three dwellings are occupied by a person living alone; one in four dwellings are occupied by a childless couple.." [19]
Voted by the French Parliament in November 1999 following some controversy, the pacte civil de solidarité ("civil pact of solidarity") commonly known as a PACS, is a form of civil union between two adults (same-sex or opposite-sex) for organizing their joint life. It brings rights and responsibilities, but less so than marriage. From a legal standpoint, a PACS is a "contract" drawn up between the two individuals, which is stamped and registered by the clerk of the court. Individuals who have registered a PACS are still considered "single" with regard to family status for some purposes, while they are increasingly considered in the same way as married couples are for other purposes. While it was pushed by the government of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin in 1998, it was also opposed, mostly by people on the right-wing who support traditionalist family values and who argued that PACS and the recognition of homosexual unions would be disastrous for French society.
However, same-sex marriage is not legally recognized in France.

[edit]Role of the State

The French state has traditionally played a key role in promoting and supporting culture through the educational, linguistic, cultural and economic policies of the government and through its promotion of national identity. Because of the closeness of this relationship, cultural changes in France are often linked to, or produce, political crisis.[20]
The relationship between the French state and culture is an old one. Under Louis XIII's minister Richelieu, the independent Académie française came under state supervision and became an official organ of control over the French language and seventeenth-century literature. During Louis XIV's reign, his minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert brought French luxury industries, like textile and porcelain, under royal control and the architecture, furniture, fashion and etiquette of the royal court (particularly at the Château de Versailles) became the preeminent model of noble culture in France (and, to a great degree, throughout Europe) during the latter half of the seventeenth century.
At times, French state policies have sought to unify the country around certain cultural norms, while at other times they have promoted regional differences within a heterogeneous French identity. The unifying effect was particularly true of the "radical period"" of the French Third Republic which fought regionalisms (including regional languages), supported anti-clericalism and a strict separation of church from state (including education) and actively promoted national identity, thus converting (as the historian Eugen Weber has put it) a "country of peasants into a nation of Frenchmen". TheVichy Regime, on the other hand, promoted regional "folk" traditions.
The cultural policies of the (current) French Fifth Republic have been varied, but a consensus seems to exist around the need for preservation of French regionalisms (such as food and language) as long as these don't undermine national identity. Meanwhile, the French state remains ambivalent over the integration into "French" culture of cultural traditions from recent immigrant groups and from foreign cultures, particularly American culture (movies, music, fashion, fast food, language, etc.). There also exists a certain fear over the perceived loss of French identity and culture in the European system and under American "cultural hegemony".

Food and lifestyle

See also: French cuisine

[edit]Food and alcohol

Traditional French culture places a high priority on the enjoyment of food. French cuisine was codified in the 20th century by Georges Auguste Escoffier to become the modern version of haute cuisine. Escoffier's major work, however, left out much of the regional character to be found in the provinces of France. Gastro-tourism and the Guide Michelin helped to bring people to the countryside during the 20th century and beyond, to sample this rich bourgeois and peasant cuisine of France. Basque cuisine has also been a great influence over the cuisine in the southwest of France.
Ingredients and dishes vary by region (see regional cuisine). There are many significant regional dishes that have become both national and regional. Many dishes that were once regional, however, have proliferated in different variations across the country in the present day. Cheese (see list of French cheeses) and wine (see French wine) are also a major part of the cuisine, playing different roles both regionally and nationally with their many variations and Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) (regulated appellation) laws (lentils from Le Puy-en-Velay also have an AOC status). Another French product of special note is the Charolais cattle.

A sweet crêpe. Crêpes are originally from Brittany
The French typically eat only a simple breakfast ("petit déjeuner") (of, say, coffee or tea, served traditionally in a large handleless "bol" (bowl) and bread, breakfast pastries (croissants)). Lunch ("déjeuner") and dinner ("dîner") are the main meals of the day. Formal four course meals consist of a starter course ("entrée"), a salad, a main course ("plat principal"), and finally a cheese and/or a dessert course. While French cuisine is often associated with rich desserts, in most homes dessert consists of only a fruit or yogurt.
Food shopping in France was formerly done almost daily in small local shops and markets, but the arrival of the supermarket and the even larger "hypermarchés" (large-surface distributors) in France have disrupted this tradition. With depopulation of the countryside, many towns have been forced to close shops and markets.
Rates of obesity and heart disease in France have traditionally been lower than in other north-western European countries. This is sometimes called the "French paradox" (see, for example, Mireille Guiliano's 2006 book French Women Don't Get Fat). French cuisine and eating habits have however come under great pressure in recent years from modern "fast food", American products and the new global agricultural industry. While French youth culture has gravitated toward fast food and American eating habits (with an attendant rise in obesity), the French in general have remained committed to preserving certain elements of their food culture through such activities as including programs of "taste acquisition" in their public schools, by the use of the "appellation d'origine contrôlée" laws, and by state and European subsides to the French agricultural industry. Emblematic of these tensions is the work of José Bové, who founded, in 1987, the Confédération Paysanne, an agricultural union that places its highest political values on humans and the environment, promotesorganic farming and opposes genetically modified organisms; Bové's most famous protest was the dismantling of a McDonald's franchise in Millau (Aveyron), in 1999.
In France, cutlery is used in the continental manner (with the fork in the left hand, prongs facing down and the knife in the right hand). French etiquette prohibits the placing of hands below the table and the placing of elbows on it.
The legal drinking age is officially 18 (see Legal drinking age).
France is one of the oldest wine-producing regions of Europe. France now produces the most wine by value in the world (although Italy rivals it by volume and Spain has more land under cultivation for wine grapes). Bordeaux wine, Bourgogne wine and Champagne are important agricultural products.

[edit]Tobacco and drugs

The cigarette smoking age is 18 years. According to a widespread cliché, smoking has been part of French culture — actually figures indicate that in terms of consumption per capita, France is only the 60th country out of 121.
France, from 1 February 2007, tightened the existing ban on smoking in public places found in the 1991 Évin law: Law n°91-32 of 10 January, 1991, containing a variety of measures againstalcoholism and tobacco consumption.
Smoking is now banned in all public places (stations, museums, etc.); an exception exists for special smoking rooms fulfilling drastic conditions, see below. A special exemption was made for cafés and restaurants, clubs, casinos, bars, etc. which ended, 1 January 2008.[23] Opinion polls suggest 70% of people support the ban.[24] Previously, under the former implementation rules of the 1991 Évin law, restaurants, cafés etc. just had to provide smoking and non-smoking sections, which in practice were often not well separated.
Under the new regulations, smoking rooms are allowed, but are subjected to very strict conditions: they may occupy at most 20% of the total floor space of the establishment and their size may not be more than 35 m²; they need to be equipped with separate ventilation which replaces the full volume of air ten times per hour; the air pressure of the smoking room must constantly be lower than the pressure in the contiguous rooms; they have doors that close automatically; no service can be provided in the smoking rooms; cleaning and maintenance personnel may enter the room only one hour after it was last used for smoking.
Popular French cigarette brands include Gauloises and Gitanes.
The possession, sale and use of cannabis (predominantly Moroccan hashish) is illegal in France. Since 1 March 1994, the penalties for cannabis use are from two months to a year and/or a fine, while possession, cultivation or trafficking of the drug can be punished much more severely, up to ten years. According to a 1992 survey by SOFRES, 4.7 million French people ages 12–44 have at one time smoked cannabis.[25]

[edit]Sports and hobbies

Main article: Sport in France
The French "national" sport is Association football, colloquially called 'le foot' (see Football in France). The most-watched sports in France are football (soccer), rugby union, cycling, tennis, handball,basketball and sailing. France is notable for holding (and winning) the football World Cup in 1998, for holding the annual cycling race Tour de France, and the tennis Grand Slam tournament Roland Garros, or the French Open. Sport is encouraged in school, and local sports clubs receive financial support from the local governments. While football (soccer) is definitely the most popular, rugby union and rugby league takes dominance in the southwest, especially around the city of Toulouse (see Rugby union in France and Rugby league in France)
The modern Olympics was invented in France, in 1894.
Professional sailing in France is centred on singlehanded/shorthanded ocean racing with the pinnacle of this branch of the sport being the Vendee Globe singlehanded around the world race which starts every 4 years from the French Atlantic coast. Other significant events include the Solitaire du Figaro, Mini Transat 6.50, Tour de France a Voile and Route de Rhum transatlantic race. France has been a regular competitor in the America's Cup since the 1970s.
Other important sports include:

People playing Pétanque next to the beach at Nice, France
  • 24 Hours of Le Mans - The world's oldest sports car race
  • skiing - France has an extensive number of ski resorts in the French alps such as tignes. Ski resorts are also located in the Pyrénées and Vosges mountain chains.
  • Pétanque - the international federation is recognized by the IOC. [2].[26]
  • Fencing - fencing leads the list of sports for which gold medals were won for France at the summer Olympics (see France at the Olympics).
  • Parkour - developed in France, parkour ("art du déplacement") is a physical activity that resembles self-defense or martial arts.
  • Babyfoot (table football) - a very popular pastime in bars and in homes in France, and the French are the predominant winners of worldwide table football competitions.
  • Kitesurfing
Like other cultural areas in France, sport is overseen by a government ministry, the Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports (France) which is in charge of national and public sport associations, youth affairs, public sports centers and national stadia (like the Stade de France).

[edit]Fashion

Main article: French fashion
Paris is the leading capital of fashion and design. Along with Milan, London and New York, Paris is center of a important number of fashion shows. Some of the world's biggest fashion houses (ex:Chanel) have their headquarters in France.
The association of France with fashion (French: la mode) dates largely to the reign of Louis XIV [27] when the luxury goods industries in France came increasingly under royal control and the French royal court became, arguably, the arbiter of taste and style in Europe.
France renewed its dominance of the high fashion (French: couture or haute couture) industry in the years 1860–1960 through the establishing of the great couturier houses, the fashion press (Voguewas founded in 1892; Elle was founded in 1945) and fashion shows. The first modern Parisian couturier house is generally considered the work of the Englishman Charles Frederick Worth who dominated the industry from 1858-1895.[28] In the early twentieth century, the industry expanded through such Parisian fashion houses as the house of Chanel (which first came to prominence in 1925) and Balenciaga (founded by a Spaniard in 1937). In the post war year, fashion returned to prominence through Christian Dior's famous "new look" in 1947, and through the houses of Pierre Balmain and Hubert de Givenchy (opened in 1952). In the 1960s, "high fashion" came under criticism from France's youth culture while designers like Yves Saint Laurent broke with established high fashion norms by launching prêt-à-porter ("ready to wear") lines and expanding French fashion into mass manufacturing and marketing.[29] Further innovations were carried out by Paco Rabanne andPierre Cardin. With a greater focus on marketing and manufacturing, new trends were established in the 70s and 80s by Sonia Rykiel, Thierry Mugler, Claude Montana, Jean-Paul Gaultier andChristian Lacroix. The 1990s saw a conglomeration of many French couture houses under luxury giants and multinationals such as LVMH.
Since the 1960s, France's fashion industry has come under increasing competition from London, New York, Milan and Tokyo, and the French have increasingly adopted foreign (particularly American) fashions (such as jeans, tennis shoes). Nevertheless, many foreign designers still seek to make their careers in France.

[edit]Pets

In 2006, 52% of French households had at least one pet:[30] 9.7 million cats, 8.8 million dogs, 2.3 million rodents, 8 million birds, and 28 million fish.

Media and art

[edit]Art and museums

Main article: French art
The first paintings of France are those that are from prehistoric times, painted in the caves of Lascaux well over 10,000 years ago. The arts were already flourishing 1,200 years ago, at the time ofCharlemagne, as can be seen in many hand made and hand illustrated books of that time.
Classic painters of the 17th century in France are Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain. During the 18th century the Rococo style emerged as a frivolous continuation of the Baroque style. The most famous painters of the era were Antoine Watteau, François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard. At the end of the century, Jacques-Louis David was the most influential painter of theNeoclassicism.
Géricault and Delacroix were the most important painters of the Romanticism. Afterwards, the painters were more realistic, describing nature (Barbizon school). The realistic movement was led byCourbet and Honoré Daumier. Impressionism was developed in France by artists such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro. At the turn of the century, France had become more than ever the center of innovative art. The Spaniard Pablo Picasso came to France, like many other foreign artists, to deploy his talents there for decades to come. Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin and Cézanne were painting then. Cubism is an avant-garde movement born in Paris at the beginning of the 20th century.
The Louvre in Paris is one of the most famous and the largest art museums in the world, created by the new revolutionary regime in 1793 in the former royal palace. It holds a vast amount of art of French and other artists, e.g. the Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci, and classical Greek Venus de Milo and ancient works of culture and art from Egypt and the Middle East.

[edit]Music

Main article: Music of France
France boasts a wide variety of indigenous folk music, as well as styles played by immigrants from Africa, Latin America and Asia. In the field of classical music, France has produced a number of legendary composers, like Gabriel Faure, while modern pop music has seen the rise of popular French hip hop, French rock, techno/funk, and turntablists/djs.
The Fête de la Musique was created in France (first held in 1982), a music festival, which has since become worldwide[clarification needed]. It takes place every June 21, on summer's day.

[edit]Cinema

Main article: Cinema of France
France is an important French speaking film production country. A certain amount of the movies created share international distribution in the western hemisphere. Although French cinema industry is rather small in terms of budget and revenues, it enjoys qualitative screenplay, cast and story telling. French Cinema is often portrayed as more liberal in terms of subjects (Sex, Society, Politics, Historical) and therefore often gets critical acclaim. Within the domestic market, French movies are ranked through n° of entries. Movies are premiered on Wednesdays.
Most famous genres are:
French actors appear and star in Hollywood productions, such as Vincent Cassel and Marion Cotillard.
"Going to the movies" is a popular activity within metropolitan areas. Many cinema operators offer a "flat-rate pass" for approx. 30€ per month. Prices per movie range Between 5€50 to 10€.
French major cinema operators are UGC and Pathé, mainly located in city suburbs due to the number of screens and seating capacity.
Within France many small cinemas are located in the downtown parts of a city, resisting the big cinema operators nationwide. Proximity of restaurants, accessibility, ambiance and the showing of alternative foreign movies is often cited as being the advantage of these small theaters.

[edit]Television

Main article: Television in France

[edit]Books, newspapers and magazines

Main articles: French media and French literature
France has the reputation of being a "literary culture",[31] and this image is reinforced by such things as the importance of French literature in the French educational system, the attention paid by the French media to French book fairs and book prizes (like the Prix Goncourt, Prix Renaudot or Prix Femina) and by the popular success of the (former) literary television show "Apostrophes" (hosted by Bernard Pivot).
Although the official literacy rate of France is 99%, some estimates have placed functional illiteracy at between 10% and 20% of the adult population (and higher in the prison population).[32]
While reading remains a favorite pastime of French youth today, surveys show that it has decreased in importance compared to music, television, sports and other activities.[32] The crisis ofacademic publishing has also hit France (see, for example, the financial difficulties of the Presses universitaires de France (PUF), France's premier academic publishing house, in the 1990s).[33]
Literary taste in France remains centered on the novel (26.4% of book sales in 1997), although the French read more non-fiction essays and books on current affairs than the British or Americans.[34]Contemporary novels, including French translations of foreign novels, lead the list (13% of total books sold), followed by sentimental novels (4.1%), detective and spy fiction (3.7%), "classic" literature (3.5%), science fiction and horror (1.3%) and erotic fiction (0.2%).[35] About 30% of all fiction sold in France today is translated from English (authors such as William Boyd, John le Carré, Ian McEwan, Paul Auster and Douglas Kennedy are well received).[36]
An important subset of book sales is comic books (typically Franco-Belgian comics like Tintin and Astérix) which are published in a large hardback format; comic books represented 4% of total book sales in 1997.[37] French artists have made the country a leader in the graphic novel genre[36] and France hosts the Angoulême International Comics Festival, Europe's preeminent comics festival.
Like other areas of French culture, book culture is influenced, in part, by the state, in particular by the "Direction du livre et de la lecture" of the Ministry of Culture, which oversees the "Centre national du livre" (National Book Center). The French Ministry of Industry also plays a role in price control. Finally, the VAT for books and other cultural products in France is at the reduced rate of 5.5%, which is also that of food and other necessities (see here).
In terms of journalism in France, the regional press (see list of newspapers in France) has become more important than national dailies (such as Le Monde and Le Figaro) over the past century: in 1939, national dailies were 2/3 of the dailies market, while today they are less than 1/4.[38] The magazine market is currently dominated by TV listings magazines[39] followed by news magazinessuch as Le Nouvel Observateur, L'Express and Le Point.

[edit]Architecture and housing

Main article: French architecture

[edit]Transportation

Main article: Transportation in France
There are significant differences in lifestyles with respect to transportation between very urbanized regions such as Paris, and smaller towns and rural areas. In Paris, and to a lesser extent in other major cities, many households do not own an automobile and simply use efficient mass transportation.The cliché about the parisien is rush hour in the Métro subway. However, outside of such areas, ownership of one or more cars is standard, especially for households with children.
The TGV high speed rail network, train à grande vitesse is a fast rail transport which serves several areas of the country and is self financing. There are plans to reach most parts of France and many other destinations in Europe in coming years. Rail services to major destinations are punctual and frequent.

[edit]Holidays

Main article: Public holidays in France
Despite the principles of laïcité and the separation of church from state, public and school holidays in France generally follow the Roman Catholic religious calendar (including Easter, Christmas,Ascension Day, Pentecost, Assumption of Mary, All Saints Day, etc.). Labor Day and the National Holiday are the only business holidays determined by government statute; the other holidays are granted by convention collective (agreement between employers' and employees' unions) or by agreement of the employer.
The five holiday periods of the public school year[40] are:
  • the vacances de la Toussaint (All Saints Day) - one and a half weeks starting near the end of October.
  • the vacances de Noël (Christmas) - two weeks, ending after New Years.
  • the vacances d'hiver (winter) - two weeks in February and March.
  • the vacances de printemps (spring), formerly vacances de Pâques (Easter) - two weeks in April and May.
  • the vacances d'été (summer), or grandes vacances (literally: big holidays) - two months in July and August.
On May 1, Labour Day (La Fête du Travail) the French give flowers of Lily of the Valley (Le Muguet) to one another.
The National holiday (called Bastille Day in English) is on the 14 of July. Military parades, called Défilés du 14 juillet, are held, the largest on the Champs-Élysées avenue in Paris in front of thePresident of the Republic.
On November 2, All Souls Day (La Fête des morts), the French traditionally bring chrysanthemums to the tombs of departed family members.
On November 11, Remembrance Day (Le Jour de la Commémoration or L' Armistice) is an official holiday.
Christmas is generally celebrated in France on Christmas Eve by a traditional meal (typical dishes include oysters, boudin blanc and the bûche de Noël), by opening presents and by attending themidnight mass (even among Catholics who do not attend church at other times of the year).
Candlemas (La Chandeleur) is celebrated with crêpes. The popular saying is that if the cook can flip a crêpe singlehandedly with a coin in the other hand, the family is assured of prosperity throughout the coming year.
The Anglo-Saxon and American holiday Halloween has grown in popularity following its introduction in the mid-1990s by the trade associations. The growth seems to have stalled during the following decade.

   Well, it's my first long-post. Difficult to enjoy? Ignore then. Enjoy reading? EXCELLENT!
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