French Culture
La mystère de la langue basque
Within the French region of Aquitaine, which stretches into Spain, lies the "Basque country" (le Pays basque), which has inhabitants who speak not only their respective national language-French or Spanish-but also their ancestral language: le basque (or euskara in Basque). No one knows the true origins of the Basque language, and it bears little resemblance to both French and Spanish. Though the 20th century had some sparks of a separatist movement, they remain as a region of France. The also celebrate their unique identity each summer with a five-day-long festival, les fêtes de Bayonne.
La colonisation et l'immigration
The French first started colonizing the Caribbean in the 16th century, then North America in the 17th and 18th centuries, and then they explored territories in Africa and Southeast Asia in the 19th and 20th centuries. Post WWII, a majority of their territories became independent, but there is still some remnants in some who maintain the French language and some aspects of their culture.
Le Tour de France des événements -le Bocuse d'or (Lyon, janvier), un concours mondial de la cuisine. -le Tournoi de Roland-Garros (Paris, mai), un tournoi de tennis -la Braderie de Lille (septembre), un énorme marché aux puces. -le Festival internationale de la bande dessinée (Angoulême, fin janvier-début février), une célébration de la band dessinée et ses artistes. -les 24 Heures du Mans (Le Mans, juin), une course automobile -les Fêtes de Bayonne (juillet), cinq jours de fêtes pour célébrer la culture basque. -les Nuits électroniques de l'Ososphère (Strasbourg, septembre), cinq nuits de spectacles d'art numérique.
The Tour de France of events -the Bocuse d'or (Lyon, January), a world cooking competition. -the Roland-Garros Tournament (Paris, May), a tennis tournament (the French Open) -the Braderie de Lille (September), a huge flea market. -the International Comics Festival (Angoulême, late January-early February), a celebration of the comic strip and its artists. -the 24 Hours of Le Mans (Le Mans, June), a car race -the Fêtes de Bayonne (July), five days of celebrations to celebrate Basque culture. -the Electronic Nights of the Ososphere (Strasbourg, September), five nights of digital art shows.
la France et la francophonie
The former is a term to denote both the French nation as a whole and its overseas holdings (la France); the latter denotes the large group of countries where French is the official language or where a majority of the population speaks French (la francophonie).
Les bonnes qualités d'un leader
There have been three different elected French presidents since the start of the 21st century: Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, François Hollande in 2012, and Emmanuel Macron in 2017. With these three presidents, there was a cultural shift that resulted in the newfound prying into the private lives of these presidents, where previously the private life of the president was left alone and was not a subject of gossip. There was a lot written about Sarkozy and his third wife, the French-Italian singer Carla Bruni. Due to the lavish life Sarkozy and Bruni lived, Sarkozy was given the nicknames of 'le président bling-bling' and 'le president People', like the magazine. Despite the increased prying into their lives, the French people don't let it impact their vote and vote for people who are: honnête (honest), corageux (courageous), proche proximité avec la population (close to the people), intègre (virtuous, having integrity), cultivé (cultivated), and réaliste (realistic).
Les horaires des commerces
There's a tradition for smaller, independently-owned businesses to close around noon for lunch, then reopen at 2 PM, then stay open until 7 or 8 PM. However, in big cities, the current trend is to stay open all day (known as la journée continue). Another tradition is for retail and food stores to open six days a week and close on Sunday. A majority of salaried employees benefit from this "day of rest" (le repos dominical) and never work on Sunday. Though, after the passage of a 2015 law, many retail stores are choosing to stay open longer at night during the week, and open for a part of the day on Sunday.
<<Nos ancêtres les Gaulois...>>
This famous expression taught French children that the ancestors of the French were les Gaulois, from la Gaule, a territory that covered much of present-day France and was conquered and colonized by Romans starting in 52 BCE. Other tribes could dispute this title, such as les Francs, who invaded the north of la Gaule in 5th century CE and gave their name to the modern country. The diversity of today's French population is due to three waves of immigrés (immigrants) who came to France in the 19th and 20th centuries. First came Italy, Spain, and Belgium during the Industrial Revolution; then Poland and Italy after WWI; then, finally, after WWII, from Portugal and many of France's former colonies and protectorates.
Brigitte Bardot
Une actrice née à Paris en 1934. Considered as a sex symbol during the years of the 50s and 60s, with her long blond hair being considered an essential characteristic for her physique. Brigitte is also known for singing and, now, she is known for her activism; she is the founder (fondatrice) of la Foundation Brigitte Bardot pour la protection des animaux.
Georges Surat
A French post-Impressionist painter, who painted the piece shown at the beginning of the chapter: "Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte (1884).
Paul Gauguin
A famous French artist. Gauguin was one of the leading painters of Post-Impressionism and Primitivism. Despite painting a lot of French landscapes, he is most famous for his paintings of Tahitian women. His works are now said to have significantly inspired modern art.
Patrick Fiori
A famous French singer, born a Patrick Chouchayan in Marseille. He first found success in 1998 with his song called "Belle" from the musical "Notre-Dame de Paris."
Marcel Marceau
A famous pantomime who worked with many famous celebrities, such as Michael Jackson; his step, la marche contre le vent (walk against the wind), was the inspiration for Michael Jackson's famous moonwalk.
La bise/le bisou
A form of greeting reserved for people you know well, a kiss on the cheek.
Le rituel des repas
Breakfast is very simple in France: one would normally eat bread or croissants with butter and/or jam; drink coffee with milk or a hot chocolate in a bowl. Per tradition, lunch is the most important meal of the day. It isn't rare to return to one's home at noon to eat a hot meal - with meat, potatoes, vegetables - and to return to work at 2 PM. Later on, some people might eat a small snack, like a pastry or a fruit juice. At dinner, which is served between 7-9 PM, it is normal to have a dinner that is less plentiful. On the contrary, a dinner at a restaurant is different, and can last between 2-3 hours. They start with un apéritif, which is usually an alcoholic drink of some kind, or a fruit juice for kids. Then follows une entrée (an appetizer), then un plat principal (the main course). Then follows a salade, a selection of cheeses, a dessert, and finally a coffee.
Le calendrier des fêtes
Everyday in the French calendar is associated with one or more first names (prénoms). The names are usually after Roman Catholic saints. French children are normally named after the saint that shares their birthday from the calendar. Before 1993, there were legal restrictions on naming one's kid, and the govt can still refuse a name that could be "contrary to the interests of the child" (think: those parents who wanted to name their son Titeuf, which basically means 'little egghead').
Les douze (12) régions administratives et les départments
France is divided into 12 administrative regions (plus the island of Corsica), which is then further divided into 2 or more departments. Each department is associated with a number between 1 to 95. There are 5 additional departments-régions d'outre mer (DROM)-located in South America, the Caribbean, and two islands in the Indian Ocean.
Les Français et leurs animaux domestiques
France is the European country with the most pets per capita, at 20 million domestic cats or dogs. Beyond numbers, the place of animaux domestiques (or animaux de compagnie) if reflected in French literature and media. Colette, a great writer and member of l'Académie française, wrote "Dialogue de bêtes," about the thoughts of her cat and bulldog. Although animals are no longer allowed in supermarkets, they are still welcomed in many restaurants and bars. Just outside of Paris is the world's oldest pet cemetery, le Cimetière des chiens, opened in 1899.
Les sports en France
French people love sports, and this is shown with the large number of clubs sportifs and associations sportives, made up of official members (licenciés). The most popular team sport in France is le foot(ball) (soccer), with roughly 2 million French people being members of a soccer club or association. In 1998, and again in 2018, l'équipe de France won the World Cup (La Coupe du Monde). Le tennis and le cyclisme are also very popular. One of the world's most prestigious cycling competitions, Le Tour de France, is widely watched every summer; the French Open, a major tennis tournament (also called Roland-Garros), held in Paris. There are also other popular sports, such as la pétanque, which is a form of lawn bowling similar to Italian bocce. There is also le handball, a German game, where a ball is held in the hand, but is also dribbled, before being shot into the opposing team's net.
La Noce (c. 1905) by Henri Rousseau
Henri Rousseau was nicknamed Le Douanier because of his job as a tax collector in Paris. He never formally studied are and painted mostly on his days off. His paintings depict exotic animals and forests (even though Rousseau never left Paris) or portraits of people who seem frozen in time. Rousseau's style - his use of primary colors and clearly delimited lines, with odd proportions and little or no perspective - is therefore referred to as art naïf (naïve or primitive art). La Noce is currently exhibited at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris.
Le PACS et le <<marriage pour tous>>
In 1999, French Parliament approved the Pacte civil de solidarité (PACS), a form of civil union between two consenting adults of the same or opposite sex who want to live together as a couple and share resources. A couple who is pacsé enjoys many of the same advantages of being married, but not others (they do not have adoption or automatic inheritance rights). Same-sex marriage in France, after long debates and massive street demonstrations on both sides of the <<marriage pour tous>> issue, was legalized in May 2013, making France the ninth European country to legally recognize such unions.
<<Serveur, une idée, s'il vous plaît!>>
In France, going to a cafe isn't just for drinking a coffee. It is also a time to socialize, and hold intellectual conversations. The French can spend several hours drinking espressos, accompanied by their friends, watching the people who go by, and such. In France, there are 35,000 cafes just in Paris. At the cafe Les Deux Magots, opened in 1880, we can see the poets Verlaine and Rimbaud. In 1930, Picasso and Hemingway would pass by regularly. Post-WWII, philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir wrote some of their existentialist essays in that same cafe. Le Café de Flore is also famous.
La famille élargie
In French-speaking West African countries, the birth rates range from 4.5 to 5.0 children per mother (and rising) versus 2.0 children per mother (and falling) in France. In West African societies, being a member of a large family (une famille nombreuse) is more common than in European and North American societies. Also common is the extended family model (la famille élargie), rather than the nuclear family model, in which parents, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins regularly see one another because they live in the same village and sometimes live together in the same family compound of buildings set around a common courtyard.
En Louisiane, on parle français
In the 17th century, French colonists settled in many parts of North America, including present-day Louisiana which they named after King Louis XIV. In Louisiana, there is still the opportunity to experience French culture in le Pays des Cadiens, which is translated in English as "the country of the Cajuns."
Paul Van Haver
Known under the pseudonym, Stromae, he is a Belgian singer. Born in Brussels from a Belgian mother and Rwandan father, at 18, he began to sing with a rap group. He had a hit single <<Alors on danse>> in 2009 which led to him becoming a celebrity. Papaoutai is the first single from his album Racine carrée (2013).
Jean-Jacques Rousseau et la nouvelle famille
Letting children learn on their own, giving them time to play, to ask questions - these sound like modern ideas in the domain of early childhood education, and yet they originated in the 18th century in the writings of French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau rejected tradition in favor of reason and individual agency, and he also wrote about social organization and language.
La neige et la glace
Most of Quebec's area is made up of tundra or boreal forest, but, even in southern Quebec, temperatures regularly dip below freezing. Outdoor leisure activities in this cold area that involve la neige (snow) or la glace (ice) are thus really important. Favorite activities in the snow include: skiing, snowboarding (la planche à neige), sledding (la luge), snowmobiling (la motoneige), and snowshoeing (la raquette). Favorite activities on ice include: ice fishing (la pêche sous la glace), skating, and hockey (le hockey). Hockey, however, is super important to Canada, which includes Quebec, ever since it took shape in Montreal in the 1800s. Montreal's pro hockey team, Les Canadiens de Montréal, has won the sport's highest honor, la Coupe Stanley (The Stanley Cup), more than any other team.
Président de la République française
Phrase for the president of France, which is currently Emmanuel Macron. Macron was born December 21, 1977, in Amiens, in Picardy (Picardie), a region in the north of France; he studies philosophy and political science, then received his diploma from the School of National Administration (if i'm translating correctly, which I think I am) in 2004. He's married to Brigitte Trogneux, a professor of classical literature.
l'Hexagon
Since France has six sides, it is also referred to as "the hexagon" in French.
Les noms de famille
The 10 most common last names in France: -Martin* -Bernard* -Dubois -Thomas* -Robert* -Richard* -Petit -Durand -Leroy -Moreau *are also first names
