Culture of France

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Masterpiece painting by Eugène Delacroix called Liberty Leading the People portrays the July Revolution using the stylistic views of Romanticism. Since Liberty is part of the motto «Liberté, égalité, fraternité», as the French put it, this painting became the primary symbol of the French Republic. At first sight, this symbol gives the idea of some revolutionary people that would overthrow the powers in charge, shall their self-evident right to Freedom be threatened.

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The culture of France is diverse, reflecting regional differences as well as the influence of recent immigration. France has played an important worldwide role for centuries as a cultural center, with Paris as a world center of high culture.

[edit] Education

Main article: Education in France

Since the Jules Ferry laws, the prime minister and Minister of Education, all state-funded schools, including university are free, obligatory and separate from the church.

At the beginning of the 20th century, France was a largely rural country with conservative Catholic morals. In the course of the century, major changes have occurred: the countryside has become largely depopulated, and the population has largely become de-christianized. This has led to important changes in social morals.

[edit] Religion

Main article: Religion in France

France is a secular country where freedom of thought and of religion is preserved, in virtue of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The Republic is based on the principle of laïcité, that is of freedom of religion (including of agnosticism and atheism) enforced by the 1880s Jules Ferry laws and the 1905 law on the separation of the State and the Church, enacted at the beginning of the Third Republic (1871-1940). Roman Catholicism is not considered anymore a state religion, as it was before the 1789 Revolution and throughout the various, non-republican regimes of the 19th century (the Restauration, the July Monarchy and the Second Empire).

[edit] Specific communities

The Bohemian history of Paris deserves an article in itself. Many cultural icons spent some years in Paris, including Hemingway, Picasso, Toulouse Lautrec, Gertrude Stein, Samuel Beckett and many others.

[edit] Art in France

Main article: French art

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[edit] Painting

The Louvre is a very famous art museum created by former emporer, Napoleon Bonaparte. It is located in Paris, France and is, to date, the largest museum in the world. Before becoming a tourist attraction, it was a royal palace. The first section of the palace was made into a museum in 1793, during the French Revolution. It holds the very famous Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci, and Venus de Milo.

The first paintings of France are those that are from prehistoric times, painted well over 10000 years ago. During the times of Charles the Great the arts flourished, as it can be seen in different books of that time, with hand-made illustrations.

Classic painters of the 17th century in France are Poussin and Lorrain. During the 17th century the Rococo style emerged as a continuation of the Baroque style. The most famous painters of the era were Watteau, Boucher and Fragonard. At the end of the century, Jacques-Louis David was the most influential painter of the Neoclassicism.

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 by Courbet and Daumier. The impressionist artists such as Monet were from France. At the turn of the century, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin and Cézanne were painting. Matisse. Cubism is an avant-garde movement born in Paris at the beginning of the XXth century.

[edit] Customs and traditions

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France is noted for its cosmopolitan, civilized approach to life, combined with great concern for style, fashion and appearances. French people are sometimes perceived as taking a great pride in the national identity and positive achievements of France, although many French people would argue that people of all nations tend to do that. The culture of France is diverse, reflecting regional differences as well as the influence of recent immigration. France has played an important role for centuries as a cultural center, with Paris as a world center of high culture.

[edit] Food and Alcohol

Main article: French cuisine

The legal drinking age for alcohol beverages is 16, even though the age to buy spirits (with more than 21% vol. alcohol) is officially 18.

[edit] Sports and Hobbies

Main article: Sport in France

The French "national" sport, is football (soccer). The most-watched sports in France are football (soccer), rugby union, basketball, cycling, sailing and tennis. France is notable for holding 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 takes dominance in the southwest, especially around the city of Toulouse.

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 Americas Cup since the 1970s.

The most played sport in France is Pétanque. The social form of the sport of Pétanque is played by about 17 million people in France. The category Sport Competition of Pétanque is played by about 480,000 persons licenced with the Federation Française de Pétanque et Jeu Provençal (FFPJP). The FFPJP is the 4th largest sports féderation in France. Professional players play the very competitive form of Pétanque which is called Pétanque Sport, under precise rules. It has to be noted that Pétanque is mostly played in the southern part of the country. Pétanque is not considered as a sport by many northern Frenchmen.

Babyfoot (table football) is a very popular pastime in bars and in homes in France, and the French are the predominant winners of worldwide table football competitions.

[edit] Language

Main articles: French language, Languages of France, and Language policy in France

French culture is profoundly allied with the French language. The artful use of the mother tongue, and its defense against perceived decline or corruption by foreign terms, is a major preoccupation for some persons and entities.

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 supporting French 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 unrelated to standard French such as Breton and Alsatian. Most of them are from the same language group (Indo-European languages), and some regional languages are Romance, like French, such as Provençal. Many of them have some enthusiastic proponents among the people; however, the real importance of local languages remains subject to debate. There is also a language completely unrelated to French, Basque. 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.

[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] References

• Bernstein, Richard. Fragile Glory: A Portrait of France and the French. Plume, 1991.
• Carroll, Raymonde. Carol Volk, translator. Cultural Misunderstandings: The French-American Experience. University of Chicago Press, 1990.
• Darnton, Robert. The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History. Vintage, 1984.
• Dauncey, Hugh, ed. French Popular Culture: An Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press (Arnold Publishers), 2003.
• Forbes, Jill and Michael Kelly, eds. French Cultural Studies: An Introduction. Clarendon Press, 1996. ISBN 0-19-871501-3
• Gopnik, Adam. Paris to the Moon. Random House, 2001.
• Hall, Edward Twitchell and Mildred Reed Hall. Understanding Cultural Differences: Germans, French and Americans. Intercultural Press, 1990.
• Howarth, David and Georgios Varouzakis. Contemporary France: An Introduction to French Politics and Society. New York: Oxford University Press (Arnold Publishers), 2003. ISBN 0-340-74187-2
• Kelly, Michael. French Culture and Society: The Essentials. New York: Oxford University Press (Arnold Publishers), 2001. (A Reference Guide)
• Kidd, William and Siân Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies. Arnold Publishers, 2000. ISBN 0-340-74050-7
• Nadeau, Jean-Benoît and Julie Barlow. Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong: Why We Love France But Not The French. Sourcebooks Trade, 2003. ISBN 1-4022-0045-5
• Wylie, Laurence and Jean-François Brière. Les Français. 3rd edition. Prentice Hall, 2001. (in French)
• Zedlin, Theodore and Philippe Turner, eds. The French. Kodansha International, 1996.

[edit] Notes

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Culture of France

• Minister of Culture (France)
• List of French people
• Education in France
• Demographics of France
• French wine
• Rugby union in France
• Catherinettes
• Architecture of France
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