A Profile of France

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Mona Lisa – La Joconde
October 27, 2003  By France.com 

Mona Lisa (also known as the Monna Lisa; Italian La Gioconda; French La Joconde), is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci showing a woman with an introspective expression-perhaps smiling would be the wrong word. It is the most famous painting in the world, going so far as to be iconic of painting, art, and even visual images in general. No other work of art is so romanticized, celebrated, or reproduced. It was accomplished between 1503 and 1506. Today it hangs in the Louvre in Paris and is the museum’s star attraction.

The Painting

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Vaux-le-Vicomte
October 23, 2003  By France.com 

Once a small castle located between the royal residences of Vincennes and Fontainebleau in France, the estate of Vaux-le-Vicomte was purchased by a 26 year-old parliamentarian, Nicolas Fouquet in 1641.

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Regions of France
October 23, 2003  By France.com 

Regions oFrance has 26 régions, which are further subdivided into départements.

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Map of France
October 23, 2003  By France.com 

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La Marseillaise
October 23, 2003  By France.com 

History

La Marseillaise is a song written and composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle on April 24, 1792. Its original name is Chant de marche de l’Armée du Rhin (Marching song of the Rhine Army). It became the rallying call of the French Revolution and was so-called because it was first sung on the streets by troops from Marseille upon their arrival in Paris.

La Marseillaise was rearranged by Hector Berlioz around 1830.

In 1917, after the collapse of the tsarist regim La Marseillaise became the national anthem of Russia, the Russian lyrics being very different from the French lyrics. It was soon replaced with The International by the Bolsheviks.

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History of France
September 15, 2003  By France.com 

Gaul
Settled mainly by the Gauls and related Celtic peoples (apart from a shrinking area of Basque population in the south-west), the area of modern France comprised the bulk of the region of Gaul (Latin Gallia) under Roman rule from the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD.

Franks
In 486, Clovis I, leader of the Salian Franks to the east, conquered the Roman territory between the Loire and the Somme, subsequently uniting most of northern and central France under his rule and adopting (496) the Roman Catholic form of Christianity in preference to the Arianism preferred by rival Germanic rulers.

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Introduction
March 20, 2003  By France.com 

France is the world’s number four economic power in terms of GDP. The country’s assets are varied and include its transport and telecommunications sectors, agri-foodstuffs and pharmaceutical industries along with banking, insurance, tourism and the traditional luxury products (leather goods, ready-to-wear fashion, perfumes, fine wines and spirits, etc.).

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Agriculture
March 20, 2003  By France.com 

Farms: 730,000
Farmers/farm workers: 910,000
Utilized agricultural area: 30,139,000 hectares

Principal agricultural products in France:

  • Sugar beet: 1st in the EU, 2nd in the world (29 million tonnes)
  • Wine: 2nd in the world, 2nd in the EU (5.3 million tonnes)
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Industry
March 20, 2003  By France.com 

Leading industrial sectors in France :

  • Construction and civil engineering. Annual production : 797 billion francs ($159.4 billion). Four French groups (Bouygues, SGE, Eiffage and GTM-Entrepose) rank among the top ten in European construction, with an annual turnover of 158 billion francs ($31.6 billion).

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Research & Development
March 20, 2003  By France.com 

National R & D expenditure amounts to 190 billion francs ($38 billion) i.e. 2.5% of GDP.

The public sector finances 51% of it and is responsible for operating (building maintenance, salaries, laboratory equipment) the major national research centres, which include the CNRS (all fields), INSERM (medicine), INRA (agronomy), etc..

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