France is a country with a number of unique traits and traditions. France has a long and varied history. This list of interesting facts about France highlights a number of these.
Interesting facts about France:
People and Lifestyle
- French people cheek kiss to greet each others between family and friends, even between men. The number of kisses varies according to the region, from 1 (e.g. in the tip of Brittany) to 4 (e.g. Paris and most of the North), and occasionally up to 5 in Corsica.
- French people have the highest female and third highest male life expectancy in the European Union.
- 20% of the French people live in the Parisian region.
- Although French language is a direct descent of Latin, French people have some of the most diversified genetic make-up in Europe, with genes inherited from the Celts, the Basques, the Romans, the Franks and the Normands, which explains the wide physical diversity in French facial traits, as well as hair and eye colours.
- According to Graham Robb in his book The Discovery of France, there were hundreds of small, autonomous republics within France until the 18th or 19th century. Some were autonomous hamlets that didn’t pay tax at all and were almost completely isolated from the rest of France.
- Until the early 20th century at least two thirds of the French population was rural and most people lived in communities numbering less than 100 people. Few people knew anything a dozen miles beyond their place of birth, and few identified themselves with France as a country.
- The French are the world’s biggest consumers of psychotropic drugs. About one fourth of the population admits having taken anti-depressants or tranquillisers over the past year.
Land
- France is the third largest European country in terms of land area, after Russia and the Ukraine.
- Nearly 20% of the territory of France lies outside Europe. These regions are known as “DOM-TOM”, where over 2.5 million French citizens live.
- The Canal du Midi is Europe’s oldest functional canal. It was built from 1666 and 1681. It is 240 km (150 miles) long, has 63 locks, 126 bridges, 55 aqueducts, 7 canal-bridges, 6 barrages and 1 tunnel.
- Rivers played a major role in French history, acting as the main transportation routes before the advent of the railway. 24 rivers in France exceed 300 km in length (against only 2 in the UK and 4 in Italy). 66 of the 95 metropolitan départements are named after rivers.
- The tides in the region of Brittany and Normandy are the strongest in Europe, with a difference in level of up to 15 meters between high and low tide.
- Saint-Véran (Hautes-Alpes department) is the highest municipality in Europe. The village itself is located at 2,042 metres of altitude, and the highest point on its territory reaches up to 3,175 metres.
- Seaside resorts in France were given catchy or poetic names, typically after precious stones. On the Channel and North Sea coast you can find the Opal Coast, Alabaster Coast, Mother-of-pearl Coast, Emerald Coast, Pink Granit Coast; on the Atlantic coast, some beaches are known as the Jade Coast, Silver Coast or Love Coast ; while on the Mediterrnean side, tourists are greeted with colourful names like the Amethyst Coast, Ruby Coast, Mauresque Coast or Azure Coast. The French Riviera (Côte d’Azur) was the first to aquire such a nickname, in 1887.
- The largest canyon in Europe is the Verdon Gorge, near Castellane and Moustiers-Sainte-Marie. It is the world’s second largest gorge, at about 25 kilometers in length and up to 700 meters deep.
Language
- French used to be the language of the nobility and diplomacy all across Europe and in the Ottoman Empire, it was the world’s first real international language until English replaced it in the mid-20th century.
- Metropolitan France counts several native regional languages : Alsatian and Lorraine German, Occitan, Oïl, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Corsican and Franco-Provençal.
- In spite of foreign stereotypes, many French people can speak at least one foreign language, and English is the most widely spoken at 34%.
- A survey in 1794 revealed that a mere 11% of the population of France were pure French speakers. As late as in 1880, only 20% of the population could actually speak French fluently. Nowadays, 86% of French people are native French speakers if this is defined by the language their parents spoke with them before the age of 5. Oc languages account for 3.65%, Oïl languages for 3.10%, German and German dialects for 3.15%, and Arabic for 2.55%.
- French was the official language of England for over 300 years (from 1066 until the early 15th century). It is still the official language of 30 countries worldwide.
- The French language is spoken by 270 million people worldwide (almost as much as the population of the USA), of which 120 million are native or fluent. There are less than 60 million of White Caucasian native speakers of standard French worldwide.
- The variety of French spoken in Quebec, Canada, is a distant dialect from the French spoken in Europe, and sometimes hard to understand for French people.
History
- The name “France” comes from “Frank”, a Germanic tribe that invaded the Western Roman Empire in the 6th century and founded the first independent kingdom covering most of today’s France.
- The French state is one of the oldest in Europe; it was founded in 843, splitting from the Carolingian Empire based in Aachen on the Belgo-German border.
- The region of Paris was settled since around 4200 BCE. The city itself was founded by the Parisii, a Celtic tribe, around 250 BCE. The Roman renamed it Luteca from 52 BCE, and it only became known as “Paris” after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century.
- Foie gras may be part and parcel of French cuisine, but its origins go back to 4,500 years ago in Ancient Egypt, from where it spread to Greece (500 B.C.E.), then to the Romans, ancestors of the modern French.
- Gothic art has its origins in the middle of the 12th century in the North of France. The world’s first Gothic building is said to be the Abbey of St. Denis, just north of Paris, which is the burial place of many Frankish kings since Clovis, as well as most Kings of France. Gothic architecture then spread to Picardy, notably with the cathedrals of Noyon, Laon and Senlis, followed by the Île-de-France.
- Nicotine was named after Jean Nicot (1530-1600), a French diplomat and scholar who introduced the tobacco plant to France in 1559 (from Portugal).
- “La Marseillaise”, France’s national anthem, was composed in Strasbourg in 1792, not in Marseilles as its name might induce to think.
- The world’s first international scientific conference was held in Paris on 2 February 1799.
- The first modern fire-resistant safe deposit box was invented by Alexandre Fichet (1799-1862) around 1840.
- The world’s first true department store was Le Bon Marché in Paris, founded by Aristide Boucicaut in 1838.
- At its peak, between 1919 and 1939, the second French colonial empire extended over 12,347,000 km² of land, or 8.6% of the world’s land area. This is over 22 times the size of modern Metropolitan France.
- France has hosted the Summer Olympic Games five times, the Winter Olympic Games three times, and the FIFA World Cup twice.
- France has won the 4th most Summer Olympic medals (including gold) in history after the USA, USSR and UK.
- France has won the most Nobel Prizes for Literature of any country (13 so far) and the second highest number of Field Medals (mathematics) after the USA.
- On 10 June 2007, a sabre having belonged to Napoleon I was sold at an auction for € 4.8 million – the most expensive weapon ever sold.
Culture and Sciences
- There are some 40,000 châteaux (castles, manors, palaces…) in France.
- Famous French inventions include the adding machine, the hot air balloon, the airship, the parachute, the submarine, the ambulance service, photography, animation and cinema.
- France is the country that has won the most Nobel prizes for literature (13 as of 2005, with the last prize going back to 1985).
- French people are the second biggest consumers of alcohol per capita in the Western world – after Luxembourg…
- A 2007 study revealed that the French were the biggest consumers of medicines in Europe, both in quantity and total money spent per person.
- There are over 300 kinds of cheese made in France.
- There are 28 categories of sites in France listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, including 3 Roman sites (Arles, Orange and Le Gard), 4 cathedrals (Amiens, Bourges, Chartres, Reims), 4 abbeys (Fontenay, Reims, Saint-Savin sur Gartempe and Vezelay), 8 historic city/town centres (Paris, Strasbourg, Lyon, Avignon, Le Havre, Mont-Saint-Michel, Provins and Carcassone) as well as numerous belfries, castles and palaces.
- More tourists visit France each year than any other country in the world, with 67 million annual tourist arrivals (more than the country’s population).
- The spectacle “Ionesco” has been playing at the Théâtre de La Huchette since 1957, with over 15,000 performances – a world record.
- There are about 2 new cooking books published every day in France.
- Pop singer Claude François (1939-1978) is still as popular as ever in France 30 years after his accidental death. Two of his songs have remained constantly in the top 10 of music played in night club for the last 20 years. A real cult has developed around him. In many ways, Claude François can be regarded as the French equivalent of Elvis Presley.
- About one fourth of French people nowadays choose to be cremated when they die, instead of the traditional Catholic burial.
Food and Drinks
- Crêpes, one of the most popular food in Europe, originate from Brittany, in western France.
- Wine has been made in France since Roman times.
- There are 450 different wine appellations in France. There are tens of thousands of small wine-producing domains, but only 15% of all French wines enjoy the marketing benefits of AOC designations.
- Bordeaux alone has over 9,000 different châteaux.
- 72% of the adult French population finds it difficult to understand French wine labels.
- In 2004, France produced 56.6 millions hectoliters of wine.
- Wines from the North of France (e.g. Alsace) are usually made from a single variety of grape (e.g. Pinot Noir), whereas wines further south are typically blends of varietals (e.g. Carbernet Sauvignon + Merlot), which is why they do not mention them on the label like in Australia, California, Chile or South Africa.
- France produces some of the world’s most famous liqueurs, such as Grand Marnier, Cointreau, Triple Sec, Mandarine Napoleon, Cognac, Armagnac, Crème de Cassis, Pastis, Chartreuse, etc.
- The international market of Rungis, in a southern suburb of Paris, covers 232-hectares (573 acres). With 1.7 million tonnes brought annually, it has the largest turnover of any wholesale markets in the world.
Immigration
- 4.9 million foreign-born immigrants currently live France (8.1% of the country’s population), including 1.2 million of other Latins (Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese), 1.5 million of Maghrebans (Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians), and 570,000 from sub-Saharan Africa.
- Recent immigrants and their offspring make up over 10% of the population of France, including 8.7% of Muslims.
- 40% of all immigrants live in the region of Paris. 60% of sub-Saharan African immigrants live in the region of Paris.
Government and Politics
- The French ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’ of 1789 is the world’s first universal declaration of human rights, applying not only to French citizens or “free men” (as opposed to slaves), but to all people in the world.
- France has changed its form of government 9 times since 1789, including 5 republics, 2 empires and 2 constitutional monarchies.
- France has only had 3 presidents in the last 32 years (since 1974) : Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac.
- France ruled over the second largest colonial empire in the world (after Britain) from the late 19th-century to the 1960′s.
Legal and Fiscal System
- In France, in exceptional cases it is possible to marry a deceased person with the authorisation of the President of the Republic.
- France has the highest wealth tax of any European country.
- France is the only EU country to have all its V.A.T. rates with decimal fractions (19.6%, 5.5% or 2.1%). Only Britain and Ireland also use some rates with decimal fractions.
- In the town of Chateauneuf-du-Pape in Provence, a municipal law of 1954 prohibits flying saucers from landing within the borders of the municipality.
Economy
- France is the world’s leader in luxury goods, including haute couture, perfumes and cosmetics.
- France is the world’s first producer of wine and liquors.
- France is the first producer of nuclear electricity in Europe and second producer in the world after the United States. France produces as much nuclear electricity as Germany, the UK, Spain and Russia combined!
- France has the third highest GDP (PPP) per capita per hour in the world, after Norway and Luxembourg, with an average of US$ 38.16 per hour.
- The Millau Viaduct, completed in 2005 in the south of France, is the tallest bridge in the world.
- The largest and most advanced passenger cruise ship, the Queen Mary 2, was built in France in 2004.
- The France-based Arianespace is the world leader in commercial space launch, with over 50% of the global market for launching satellites.
- The European Space Agency (ESA) is based in Paris, while the headquarters of the pan-European aerospace concern Airbus are in Toulouse.
- The French TGV is the fastest train in the world, with an average speed of 263.3 km/h from station to station. It reached a record 574.8km/h on a test run in April 2007 (still unbeaten). It also detains the world record of endurance, running from Calais to Marseille (1067.2 km) in 3h29min, in 2001.
- Charles De Gaulle International Airport in Paris is Europe’s busiest airports by cargo traffic (6th in the world).
- The Société Bic was the world’s first mass manufacturer of ball-point pens. It sold its 100,000 millionth ball pen in 2005.
