"France, in Western Europe, encompasses medieval cities, alpine villages and Mediterranean beaches. Paris, its capital, is famed for its fashion houses, classical art museums including the Louvre and monuments like the Eiffel Tower. The country is also renowned for its wines and sophisticated cuisine. Lascaux’s ancient cave drawings, Lyon’s Roman theater and the vast Palace of Versailles attest to its rich history."
Capital and largest city: Paris; 48°51.4′N 2°21.05′E / 48.8567°N 2.35083°E
Date format: dd/mm/yyyy
Currencies: Euro, CFP franc
- The guillotine remained the official method of execution in France until the death penalty was abolished in 1981. The final three guillotinings in France were of child-murderers
- Due to heavy inbreeding, Louis XIV of France (17th century) is descended from Louis IX of France (13th century) in 368 different ways.
- In 1978. France rolled out a pre-World Wide Web online service (MiniTel) that gave its users access to online shopping, search engines, cybersex, message boards etc. France Telecom only retired the service in 2012 after 30 years and 800,000 are units still in use
- In France, by law a bakery has to make all the bread it sells from scratch in order to have the right to be called a bakery.
- France is the only country in Europe to be completely self-sufficient in basic food production
- Victor Lustig (1890-1947) impersonated a government official, and managed to sell the Eiffel Tower not once, but twice.
- In France and Belgium there is a folk character called “The Whipping Father” who accompanies St. Nicholas. He beats naughty children with sticks and carries them away in a bag.
- When Catherine di Medici was queen of France, she kept a ‘Flying Squad’ of 80 women tasked with sleeping with powerful men to extract their secrets.
- A cave in France has the footprints of an 8 to 10-year-old boy left in the mud 26,000 years ago alongside the paw prints of either a wolf or a large dog, the oldest evidence of human/canine relationships ever found.
- When Louis Rèard introduced the bikini in France in 1946, no models were willing to wear such revealing swimwear, so Rèard had to hire a stripper to model it.
- The President of France is also the Co-Prince of Andorra. Therefore, Andorra is the only country in the world that has a democratically elected monarch
- Over the past 800 years, France fought in 185 military battles and won 132 of them, giving the French military the best record of any country in Europe.
- In France it is illegal to publish photographs of a person in handcuffs who has not yet been convicted of a crime.
- During the Italian invasion of France, 9 French soldiers defended the Pont Saint Louis against 5000 Italians for 10 days, of which 700 Italians were killed or injured. Eventually an Armistice was agreed.
- In the mid-1800s France gave out a crucial patent in photography for free as a gift to the world, except for Britain. They had to pay.
- France is the only country where hamburger sales do not supersede that of other sandwiches, with ham and butter sandwiches (Parisien) being the most popular alternative.
- Guy de Maupassant (the famed French writer) ate lunch at base of Eiffel Tower almost each day. His reason was that he hated the Eiffel Tower and that was the only place in the whole Paris from which he could not see it
- There is a man in Paris, who invites complete strangers to his house for a dinner party each week. He has been doing this for 30+ years.
- James Bond was modeled after a real spy named Wilfrid “Biffy” Dunderdale – MI6’s man in Paris, he was also friends with Ian Flemming and it appears that several of Dunderdale’s stories ended up in Flemming’s books
- The French Resistance cut the elevator cables to the Eiffel Tower to keep Hitler from visiting it during his visit after Paris fell. When faced with the prospect of climbing more than 1500 stairs, he opted out.
- There is a verifiable population of kangaroos living in the wild in the township of Émancé, about an hour outside of Paris. The kangaroos are descended from a breeding population that escaped during a failed burglary attempt at an animal park in the 1970s
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| made a vinaigrette for the greens |
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| All of our yummy french goodies: brioche, madeleines, candy, french preserves, brie, lobster pate, wine and 2 flavors of french soda. |
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| I needed cognac for the beef bourgignon |
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| the filter from my phone makes this look hazy |
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