Professional Documents
Culture Documents
In pairs, you will plan, outline and animate a 5-minute video where you present, explain and
give tips about a relevant topic that is connected to the contents covered in the course
Instructions
Phase A - Planning
Phase B - Outlining
Phase C - Animating
Choose topic:
We are going to talk about France, its culture, its people, its traditions and more.
Related with Week 4, Session 16 ↣ Cultural Gallery
Videos:
France | Basic Information | Everyone Must Know
Explore French Culture Just to add a fragment to Animaker (The video has images in good
resolution)
101 Facts About France 101 Facts About France
THE TRUTH ABOUT FRENCH PEOPLE (French Stereotypes, Culture and Assumptions
about French People).
Texts:
Tour-de-France.(About Tour)
France | History, Map, Flag, Capital, & Facts
France - Country Profile
Important cities
The capital and by far the most important city of France is Paris, one of the world’s
preeminent cultural and commercial centres. A majestic city known as the ville lumière, or
“city of light,” Paris has often been remade, most famously in the mid-19th century under the
command of Georges-Eugène, Baron Haussman, who was committed to Napoleon III’s
vision of a modern city free of the choleric swamps and congested alleys of old, with broad
avenues and a regular plan. Paris is now a sprawling metropolis, one of Europe’s largest
conurbations, but its historic heart can still be traversed in an evening’s walk. Confident that
their city stood at the very centre of the world, Parisians were once given to referring to their
country as having two parts, Paris and le désert, the wasteland beyond it. Metropolitan Paris
has now extended far beyond its ancient suburbs into the countryside, however, and nearly
every French town and village now numbers a retiree or two driven from the city by the high
cost of living, so that, in a sense, Paris has come to embrace the desert and the desert
Paris.
Climate
France lies near the western end of the great Eurasian landmass, largely between latitudes
42° and 51° N. Roughly hexagonal in outline, its continental territory is bordered on the
northeast by Belgium and Luxembourg, on the east by Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, on
the south by the Mediterranean Sea, Spain, and Andorra, on the west by the Bay of Biscay,
and on the northwest by the English Channel (La Manche). To the north, France faces
southeastern England across the narrow Strait of Dover (Pas de Calais). Monaco is an
independent enclave on the south coast, while the island of Corsica in the Mediterranean is
treated as an integral part of the country.
The French landscape, for the most part, is composed of relatively low-lying plains, plateaus,
and older mountain blocks, or massifs. This pattern clearly predominates over that of the
younger, high ranges, such as the Alps and the Pyrenees. The diversity of the land is typical
of Continental Europe.
The physical structure of France is dominated by a group of ancient mountains in the shape
of a gigantic V, the sides of which form the two branches of Hercynian folding that took place
between 345 and 225 million years ago.
The eastern branch comprises the Ardennes, the Vosges, and the eastern part of the Massif
Central, while the Hercynian massifs to the west comprise the western part of the Massif
Central and the Massif Armoricain.
People
The French are, paradoxically, strongly conscious of belonging to a single nation, but they
hardly constitute a unified ethnic group by any scientific gauge. Before the official discovery
of the Americas at the end of the 15th century, France, located on the western extremity of
the Old World, was regarded for centuries by Europeans as being near the edge of the
known world. Generations of different migrants traveling by way of the Mediterranean from
the Middle East and Africa and through Europe from Central Asia and the Nordic lands
settled permanently in France, forming a variegated grouping, almost like a series of
geologic strata, since they were unable to migrate any farther. Perhaps the oldest reflection
of these migrations is furnished by the Basque people, who live in an isolated area west of
the Pyrenees in both Spain and France, who speak a language unrelated to other European
languages, and whose origin remains unclear. The Celtic tribes, known to the Romans as
Gauls, spread from central Europe in the period 500 BCE–500 CE to provide France with a
major component of its population, especially in the centre and west
Language
French is the national language, spoken and taught everywhere. Brogues and dialects are
widespread in rural areas, however, and many people tend to conserve their regional
linguistic customs either through tradition or through a voluntary and deliberate return to a
specific regional dialect.
Religion
About three-fifths of the French people belong to the Roman Catholic Church. Only a
minority, however, regularly participate in religious worship; practice is greatest among the
middle classes. The northwest (Brittany-Vendée), the east (Lorraine, Vosges, Alsace, Jura,
Lyonnais, and the northern Alps), the north (Flanders), the Basque Country, and the region
south of the Massif Central have a higher percentage of practicing Roman Catholics than the
rest of the country. Recruitment of priests has become more difficult, even though the
church, historically autonomous, is very progressive and ecumenical.
Economy
France is one of the major economic powers of the world, ranking along with such countries
as the United States, Japan, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Its financial position
reflects an extended period of unprecedented growth that lasted for much of the postwar
period until the mid-1970s; frequently this period was referred to as the trente glorieuses
(“thirty years of glory”). Between 1960 and 1973 alone, the increase in gross domestic
product (GDP) averaged nearly 6 percent each year. In the aftermath of the oil crises of the
1970s, growth rates were moderated considerably and unemployment rose substantially. By
the end of the 1980s, however, strong expansion was again evident. This trend continued,
although at a more modest rate, into the 21st century.
Cultural life
For much of its history, France has played a central role in European culture. With the
advent of colonialism and global trade, France reached a worldwide market, and French
artistic, culinary, and sartorial styles influenced the high and popular cultures of nations
around the globe. Today French customs, styles, and theories remain an influential export,
as well as a point of great national pride, even as French intellectuals worry that the rise of
globalism has prompted, in the words of the historian Pierre Nora, “the rapid disappearance
of our national memory.”