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The culture of France is noted for its cosmopolitan, civilised
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 all
nations tend to do that.
French people address each other with formality, calling each other Madame, Mademoiselle or
Monsieur in a way which may seem formulaic to outsiders, but signifies a respect for the individual which permeates the
French way of life. The French value family life, the art of cooking good food and enjoyment of theatrical and musical arts.
Creative Arts
Visual Arts
Main article: Visual Arts in France
Architecture
Main article: Architecture of France
Literature
Main article: Literature of France
Cinema
Main article: Cinema of France
- List of French film directors
- List of French
movies
Theatre
Main article: Theatre of France
Dance
Main article: Dance of
France
Music
Main article: Music of France
Media
Main article: Media in France
Newspapers
Television & Radio
A mass market cultural export from France that many people (at least some of those who grew up in Canada) fondly rember is a television series
called Thierry La Fronde, about a Robin Hood-like heroic figure who lived during the Hundred Years' War, a period of conflict between England and France in the 14th century.
Institutions
Museums
List of French
museums
Schools
(Art schools)
Lifestyle
Coupling
Family
Work
Religion
Urban
Suburban
Rural
Women
Community
Bohemians
The Bohemian history of Paris deserves
an article in itself. Many culture icons spent some years in Paris, including Hemingway, Picasso, Toulouse Lautrec, Gertrude Stein, Samuel Beckett and many
others.
Customs and Traditions
Celebrations
Food & Wine
Main article: Cuisine of France
Sports and Hobbies
Le Foot
regional culture in France
Language
Main articles: French language, Languages of France
French culture is profoundly allied with the French language,
expressing a national psychology of high emotion, playfulness, and joie de vivre. 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 French Minister of Culture works to promote the French cinema,
and the Académie française sets an official standard of
language purity.
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), and some regional languages are Romance, like French, such as Provençal. Many of them have enthusiastic proponents among the people. 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. The real importance of local languages remains subject to debate.
Social reform
The revolutionary ideal is a powerful totem in the French psyche. Some ideas of Situationism were realised in Disneyland Paris,
although doubtless this would be denied by its builders. The French
Revolution was itself an extreme form of social change, and its reverberations are everywhere apparent in day to day life
there. Consider also the 1848 Paris Commune, and the 1968 student riots. Parallel to these events, it is possible to discern
deeply conservative trends in French life.
Transportation
Main article: Transportation in
France
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 are punctual, frequent and user friendly, in contrast to some other
European networks.
See also
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