Facts about France? I suppose you could go on forever finding different things but here are a few that you may or may not find interesting or useful.
The French departments
France is often called The Hexagon (l’hexagon), because that’s roughly its shape. It’s about 1000 kilometres north to south and the same west to east. Paris is the capital (I think everyone knows that) and the currency since 1999 is the Euro. Before that it was the Franc and it’s quite common to still see things priced in Francs as well as Euros (particularly property).
I think I’m going to establish a bit of a standard with this post. To help those who are interested in learning French I’ll put certain French words in italics, OK?
Anyway, back to those French facts.
As you can see from the map on the right France is broken up into various regions (départements). Ile De France is the area which includes Paris. It’s called an Ile (island) because of the rivers which virtually surround it.
Incidentally, The Seine which runs through the middle of Paris is often thought of as France’s biggest river but in fact it’s The Loire.
Départments are further divided into Cantons and these are further divided into Communes – which can be quite small villages. Each commune is governed by a Mayor (or Mayoress, who is nevertheless called Madame Le Mayor). These people are surprisingly powerful locally and worth getting on well with – particularly if you need planning permission!
There are four overseas départements (régions d’outre-mer), Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique and Réunion, which are treated much like they were a part of the mainland.
Bored yet? No? OK, a bit more.
The population of France is around 70 million – which explains why there’s so much space – that’s the same as the UK which is only a quarter of the size! It is claimed that this population actually doubles during the year with tourists, making France the most popular holiday destination in the world.
I’m not going to get into politics and religion because that really is boring – except to say that France has an elected President (every 5 years) and is mainly Roman Catholic. It is not legally necessary to marry in church but you must be married by a Mayor at the official building (Mairie). I told you they were powerful!
I think that will do. I’m no professor but if you want to ask anything else, by all means post a comment. You could always Google it of course, they know a lot more than I do!
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