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n , Villeurbanne, Lille, [[Mar According to INSEE figures, household and family composition in metropolitan France continues to evolve. Most significantly,

Rates of obesity and heart disease in France have traditionally been lower than in other north-western European countries. This is sometimes called the French paradox (see, for example, Mireille Guiliano's 2006 book French Women The legal drinking age is officially 18 (see: Legal drinking age).

France is one of the oldest wine producing regions of Europe. France now produces the most wine by value in the world (although Italy rivals it by volume and Spain has more land under cultivation for wine grapes). Bordeaux wine, Bourgogne wine and Champagne are important agricultural products.

Tobacco and drugs

The cigarette smoking age is 18 years. According to a widespread cliché, smoking has been part of French culture — actually figures indicate that in terms of consumption per capita, France is only the 60th country out of 121.

France, from 1 February 2007, tightened the existing ban on smoking in public places found in the 1991 Évin law: Law n°91-32 of 10 January, 1991, containing a variety of measures against alcoholism and tobacco consumption.

Smoking is now banned in all public places (stations, museums, etc.); an exception exists for special smoking rooms fulfilling drastic conditions, see below. A special exemption was made for cafés and restaurants, clubs, casinos, bars, etc. which ended, 1 January 2008. Opinion polls suggest 70% of people support the ban. Previously, under the former implementation rules of the 1991 Évin law, restaurants, cafés etc. just had to provide smoking and non-smoking sections, which in practice were often not well separated.

Under the new regulations, smoking rooms are allowed, but are subjected to very strict conditions: they may occupy at most 20% of the total floor space of the establishment and their size may not be more than 35 m²; they need to be equipped with separate ventilation which replaces the full volume of air ten times per hour; the air pressure of the smoking room must constantly be lower than the pressure in the contiguous rooms; they have doors that close automatically; no service can be provided in the smoking rooms; cleaning and maintenance personnel may enter the room only one hour after it was last used for smoking.

Popular French cigarette brands include Gauloises and Marlboro.

The possession, sale and use of cannabis (predominantly Moroccan hashish) is illegal in France. Since 1 March 1994, the penalties for cannabis use are from two months to a year and/or a fine, while possession, cultivation or trafficking of the drug can be punished much more severely, up to ten years. According to a 1992 survey by SOFRES, 4.7 million French people ages 12–44 have smoked cannabis at least once in their lives.

Sports and hobbies

Football (French: Le Foot) is the most popular sport in France. Other popular sports played in France are rugby union, cycling, tennis, handball, basketball and sailing. France is notable for holding and winning the FIFA World Cup in 1998, and holding the annual cycling race Tour de France, and the tennis Grand Slam tournament the French Open. Sport is encouraged in school, and local sports clubs receive financial support from the local governments. While football is definitely the most popular, rugby union and rugby league takes dominance in the southwest, especially around the city of Toulouse (see: Rugby union in France and Rugby league in France).

The modern Olympics was invented in France, in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin.

Professional sailing in France is centred on singlehanded and 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 du Rhum transatlantic race. France has been a regular competitor in the America's Cup since the 1970s.

Other important sports include:

• 24 Hours of Le Mans - The world's oldest sports car race.
• Skiing - France has an extensive number of ski resorts in the French alps such as Tignes. Ski resorts are also located in the Pyrénées and Vosges mountain chains.
• Pétanque - The international federation is recognized by the IOC.
• Fencing - Fencing leads the list of sports for which gold medals were won for France at the Summer Olympics (see: France at the Olympics).
• Parkour - Developed in France, Parkour is a training discipline with similarities to self-defense or martial arts.
• Babyfoot (table football) - A very popular pastime in bars and homes in France, and the French are the predominant winners of worldwide table football competitions.
• Kitesurfing

Like other cultural areas in France, sport is overseen by a government ministry, the Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports (France) which is in charge of national and public sport associations, youth affairs, public sports centers and national stadia (like the Stade de France).

Fashion

Along with Milan, London and New York, Paris is center of an important number of fashion shows. Some of the world's biggest fashion houses (ex: Chanel) have their headquarters in France.

The association of France with fashion ( Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) dates largely to the reign of Louis XIV when the luxury goods industries in France came increasingly under royal control and the French royal court became, arguably, the arbiter of taste and style in Europe.

France renewed its dominance of the high fashion ( Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) industry in the years 1860–1960 through the establishing of the great couturier houses, the fashion press (Vogue was founded in 1892; Elle was founded in 1945) and fashion shows. The first modern Parisian couturier house is generally considered the work of the Englishman Charles Frederick Worth who dominated the industry from 1858 to 1895. In the early twentieth century, the industry expanded through such Parisian fashion houses as the house of Chanel (which first came to prominence in 1925) and Balenciaga (founded by a Spaniard in 1937). In the post war year, fashion returned to prominence through Christian Dior's famous "new look" in 1947, and through the houses of Pierre Balmain and Hubert de Givenchy (opened in 1952). In the 1960s, "high fashion" came under criticism from France's youth culture while designers like Yves Saint Laurent broke with established high fashion norms by launching prêt-à-porter ("ready to wear") lines and expanding French fashion into mass manufacturing and marketing. Further innovations were carried out by Paco Rabanne and Pierre Cardin. With a greater focus on marketing and manufacturing, new trends were established in the 70s and 80s by Sonia Rykiel, Thierry Mugler, Claude Montana, Jean Paul Gaultier and Christian Lacroix. The 1990s saw a conglomeration of many French couture houses under luxury giants and multinationals such as LVMH.

Since the 1960s, France's fashion industry has come under increasing competition from London, New York, Milan and Tokyo, and the French have increasingly adopted foreign (particularly American) fashions (such as jeans, tennis shoes). Nevertheless, many foreign designers still seek to make their careers in France.

Pets

This section needs expansion. You can help by making an edit requestadding to it . (February 2012)

In 2006, 52% of French households had at least one pet: In total, 9.7 million cats, 8.8 million dogs, 2.3 million rodents, 8 million birds, and 28 million fish were kept as pets in France during this year.

Media and art

Art and museums

The first paintings of France are those that are from prehistoric times, painted in the caves of Lascaux well over 10,000 years ago. The arts were already flourishing 1,200 years ago, at the time of Charlemagne, as can be seen in many hand made and hand illustrated books of that time.

Gothic art and architecture originated in France in the 12th century around Paris and then spread to all of Europe. In the 13th century, French craftsmen developed the stained glass painting technique and sophisticated illuminated manuscripts for private devotion in the new gothic style. The final phase of gothic architecture, known as Flamboyant, also began in France in the 15th century before spreading to the rest of Europe.

The 17th century was one of intense artistic achievements : French painting emerged with a distinct identity, moving from Baroque to Classicism. Famous classic painters of the 17th century in France are Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain. French architecture also proved influential with the Palace of Versailles, built for the powerful king Louis XIV, becoming the model of many European royal palaces. During the 18th century the Rococo style emerged as a frivolous continuation of the Baroque style. The most famous painters of the era were Antoine Watteau, François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard. At the end of the century, Jacques-Louis David and Dominique Ingres were the most influential painters 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 Honoré Daumier. Impressionism was developed in France by artists such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro. At the turn of the century, France had become more than ever the center of innovative art. The Spaniard Pablo Picasso came to France, like many other foreign artists, to deploy his talents there for decades to come. Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin and Cézanne were painting then. Cubism is an avant-garde movement born in Paris at the beginning of the 20th century.

The Louvre in Paris is one of the most famous and the largest art museums in the world, created by the new revolutionary regime in 1793 in the former royal palace. It holds a vast amount of art of French and other artists, e.g. the Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci, and classical Greek Venus de Milo and ancient works of culture and art from Egypt and the Middle East.

Music

France boasts a wide variety of indigenous folk music, as well as styles played by immigrants from Africa, Latin America and Asia. In the field of classical music, France has produced a number of notable composers such as Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, and Hector Berlioz while modern pop music has seen the rise of popular French hip hop, French rock, techno/funk, and turntablists/djs.

The Fête de la Musique was created in France (first held in 1982), a music festival, which has since become worldwide . It takes place every June 21, on the first day of summer.

Theater

Cinema

France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its early significant contributions: Antoine Lumière realized, on 28 December 1895, the first projection, with the Cinematograph, in Paris. Philippe Binant realized, on 2 February 2000, the first digital cinema projection in Europe, with the DLP CINEMA technology developed by Texas Instruments, in Paris. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle Vague, began in the country.

Additionally, France is an important Francophone film production country. A certain amount of the movies created share international distribution in the western hemisphere thanks to Unifrance. Although French cinema industry is rather small in terms of budget and revenues, it enjoys qualitative screenplay, cast and story telling. French Cinema is often portrayed as more liberal in terms of subjects (Sex, Society, Politics, Historical). Within the domestic market, French movies are ranked through n° of entries. Movies are premiered on Wednesdays.

"Going to the movies" is a popular activity within metropolitan areas. Many cinema operators offer a "flat-rate pass" for approx. €20 per month. Prices per movie range between €5.50 and €10.

French major cinema operators are UGC and Pathé, mainly located in city suburbs due to the number of screens and seating capacity.

Within France many "small" cinemas are located in the downtown parts of a city, resisting the big cinema operators nationwide. Paris has the highest density of cinemas (movie theaters) in the world: biggest number of movie theaters per inhabitants, and that in most "downtown Paris" movie theaters, foreign movies which would be secluded to "art houses" cinemas in other places, are shown alongside "mainstream" works as Parisians are avid movie-goers. Proximity of restaurants, accessibility, ambiance and the showing of alternative foreign movies is often cited as being the advantage of these small theaters.

The Cinémathèque Française holds one of the largest archives of films, movie documents and film-related objects in the world. Located in Paris, the Cinémathèque holds daily screenings of films unrestricted by country of origin.

Television

Books, newspapers and magazines

France has the reputation of being a "literary culture", and this image is reinforced by such things as the importance of French literature in the French educational system, the attention paid by the French media to French book fairs and book prizes (like the Prix Goncourt, Prix Renaudot or Prix Femina) and by the popular success of the (former) literary television show "Apostrophes" (hosted by Bernard Pivot).

Although the official literacy rate of France is 99%, some estimates have placed functional illiteracy at between 10% and 20% of the adult population (and higher in the prison population).

While reading remains a favorite pastime of French youth today, surveys show that it has decreased in importance compared to music, television, sports and other activities. The crisis of academic publishing has also hit France (see, for example, the financial difficulties of the Presses universitaires de France (PUF), France's premier academic publishing house, in the 1990s).

Literary taste in France remains centered on the novel (26.4% of book sales in 1997), although the French read more non-fiction essays and books on current affairs than the British or Americans. Contemporary novels, including French translations of foreign novels, lead the list (13% of total books sold), followed by sentimental novels (4.1%), detective and spy fiction (3.7%), "classic" literature (3.5%), science fiction and horror (1.3%) and erotic fiction (0.2%). About 30% of all fiction sold in France today is translated from English (authors such as William Boyd, John le Carré, Ian McEwan, Paul Auster and Douglas Kennedy are well received).

An important subset of book sales is comic books (typically Franco-Belgian comics like The Adventures of Tintin and Astérix) which are published in a large hardback format; comic books represented 4% of total book sales in 1997. French artists have made the country a leader in the graphic novel genre and France hosts the Angoulême International Comics Festival, Europe's preeminent comics festival.

Like other areas of French culture, book culture is influenced, in part, by the state, in particular by the "Direction du livre et de la lecture" of the Ministry of Culture, which oversees the "Centre national du livre" (National Book Center). The French Ministry of Industry also plays a role in price control. Finally, the VAT for books and other cultural products in France is at the reduced rate of 5.5%, which is also that of food and other necessities (see here).

In terms of journalism in France, the regional press (see list of newspapers in France) has become more important than national dailies (such as Le Monde and Le Figaro) over the past century: in 1939, national dailies were 2/3 of the dailies market, while today they are less than 1/4. The magazine market is currently dominated by TV listings magazines followed by news magazines such as Le Nouvel Observateur, L'Express and Le Point.

Architecture and housing

Transportation

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 public transport. 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.

Holidays

Despite the principles of laïcité and the separation of church from state, public and school holidays in France generally follow the Roman Catholic religious calendar (including Easter, Christmas, Ascension Day, Pentecost, Assumption of Mary, All Saints Day, etc.). Labor Day and the National Holiday are the only business holidays determined by government statute; the other holidays are granted by convention collective (agreement between employers' and employees' unions) or by agreement of the employer.

The five holiday periods of the public school year are:

• the vacances de la Toussaint (All Saints Day) - one and a half weeks starting near the end of October.
• the vacances de Noël (Christmas) - two weeks, ending after New Years.
• the vacances d'hiver (winter) - two weeks in February and March.
• the vacances de printemps (spring), formerly vacances de Pâques (Easter) - two weeks in April and May.
• the vacances d'été (summer), or grandes vacances (literally: big holidays) - two months in July and August.

On May 1, Labour Day (La Fête du Travail) the French give flowers of Lily of the Valley (Le Muguet) to one another.

The National holiday (called Bastille Day in English) is on the 14 of July. Military parades, called Défilés du 14 juillet, are held, the largest on the Champs-Élysées avenue in Paris in front of the President of the Republic.

On November 2, All Souls Day (La Fête des morts), the French traditionally bring chrysanthemums to the tombs of departed family members.

On November 11, Remembrance Day (Le Jour de la Commémoration or L' Armistice) is an official holiday.

Christmas is generally celebrated in France on Christmas Eve by a traditional meal (typical dishes include oysters, boudin blanc and the bûche de Noël), by opening presents and by attending the midnight mass (even among Catholics who do not attend church at other times of the year).

Candlemas (La Chandeleur) is celebrated with crêpes. The popular saying is that if the cook can flip a crêpe singlehandedly with a coin in the other hand, the family is assured of prosperity throughout the coming year.

The Anglo-Saxon and American holiday Halloween has grown in popularity following its introduction in the mid-1990s by the trade associations. The growth seems to have stalled during the following decade.

Conventions

• France is the home of the International System of Units (the metric system). Some pre-metric units are still used, essentially the livre (a unit of weight equal to half a kilogram) and the quintal (a unit of weight equal to 100 kilograms).
• In mathematics, France uses the infix notation like most countries. For large numbers the long scale is used. Thus, the French use the word billion for the number 1,000,000,000,000, which in countries using short scale is called a trillion. However, there exists a French word, milliard, for the number 1,000,000,000, which in countries using the short scale is called a billion. Thus, despite the use of the long scale, one billion is called un milliard ("one milliard") in French, and not mille millions ("one thousand million"). It should also be noted that names of numbers above the milliard are rarely used. Thus, one trillion will most often be called mille milliards (“one thousand milliard”) in French, and rarely un billion.
• In the French numeral notation, the comma (,) is the decimal separator, whereas a space is used between each group of three digits (fifteen million five hundred thousand and thirty-two should be written as 15 500 032). In finance, the currency symbol is used as a decimal separator or put after the number. For example, €25,048.05 is written either 25 048€05 or 25 048,05 € (always with an extra space between the figure and the currency symbol).
• In computing, a bit is called a bit yet a byte is called an octet (from the Latin root octo, meaning "8"). SI prefixes are used.
• 24-hour clock time is used, with h being the separator between hours and minutes (for example 2:30 pm is 14h30).
• The all-numeric form for dates is in the order day-month-year, using a slash as the separator (example: 31/12/1992 or 31/12/92).

See also

• Architecture of Normandy
• Catherinettes
• Demographics of France
• Remarkable Gardens of France
• List of French people
• List of World Heritage Sites in France

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. ISBN 0-394-72927-7
• Dauncey, Hugh, ed. French Popular Culture: An Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press (Arnold Publishers), 2003.
• DeJean, Joan. The Essence of Style: How The French INvented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour. New York: Free Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-7432-6413-6
• Forbes, Jill and Michael Kelly, eds. French Cultural Studies: An Introduction. Clarendon Press, 1996. ISBN 0-19-871501-3
• Girod, André. " French-American class: It's a long way to France" Redleadbooks <www.usa-decouverte.com>
• 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
• Marmer, Nancy, "Out of Paris: Decentralizing French Art," Art in America, September 1986, pp. 124–137, 155-157.
• 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
• Robb, Graham. The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography, from the Revolution to the First World War. New York: Norton, 2007. ISBN 978-0-393-05973-1
• Template:Fr icon Wylie, Laurence and Jean-François Brière. Les Français. 3rd edition. Prentice Hall, 2001.
• Zedlin, Theodore and Philippe Turner, eds. The French. Kodansha International, 1996.

Notes

1. Decree n°2006-1386 over 15th November, 2006 taken as application of article L3511-7 of the Public Health Code, banning smoking in public places.
2. "France to ban smoking in public". BBC News. 2006-10-08. Retrieved 2006-10-09.
3. http://www.cedro-uva.org/lib/boekhout.france.html
4. Kelly, 101. DeJean, chapters 2-4.
5. Kelly, 101.
6. Dauncey, 195.
7. Le marché des aliments pour chiens et chats en Belgique. Mission Economique de Bruxelles, 2006. Read this document (in French) PDF
8. Alan Riding (February 28, 1995). "The Birthplace Celebrates Film's Big 1-0-0". The New York Times.
9. December 28, 1895.
10. Cahiers du cinéma, n°hors-série, Paris, April 2000, p. 32 (cf. also Histoire des communications, 2011, p. 10.).
11. 20 questions about studying in France |url=http://old.campusfrance.org/en/a-etudier/faq.htm
12. Theodore Zedlin, quoted in Kidd and Reynolds, 266
13. ^ Kidd and Reynolds, 261.
14. Kidd and Reynolds, 266.
15. Kidd and Reynolds, 258 and 264.
16. Kidd and Reynolds, 265.
17. ^ Donald Morrison, "The Death of French Culture", Time, Wednesday Nov. 21, 2007. {http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1686532,00.html}
18. Kidd and Reynolds, 264.
19. Kidd and Reynolds, 232.
20. Kidd and Reynolds, 236
21. French schoolyear calendar {fr}
22. International System of Units (SI) - Physics Laboratory
23. English translation of "Octet" on Reverso

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External links

• Frenchculture.org
• Frenchcultureguide.com - French culture news website
• France in Brief / France From A to Z - Embassy of France in the US
• National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE)
• Morrison, Don. "The Death of French Culture," TIME
• Chardin's paintings are just an example of the importance of the French culture in the history of art
• French Painters who contributed to the Rococo and Neoclassical period are Boucher, Bouguereau and Jean-Léome Gérôme famous forgotten artists
• The French Culture in Lyon

• French culture