Paris has been among the top five most popular tourist destinations for many years, with about 15 million travelers annually. The city hospitably welcomes everyone – there are three international airports in its vicinity: Charles de Gaulle, Orly and Beauvais. In addition, Paris is a major railway junction, with 7 railway stations located on its… Read More »
Marseille (France) Marseille is located on the Mediterranean coast, it was founded by the Greeks in 600 BC, so the city is already over 2600 years old. It is the largest port in France. The city is divided into 16 zones, the first and most ancient zone is the Old Town area, adjacent to the… Read More »
France is a state of central-western Europe ; almost entirely embraces the French geographical region, between the Pyrenees to the S, the most rugged and elevated part of the Alpine chain to the SE, the Rhine valley to the NE and the sea on the other sides: the Atlantic Ocean to the West, the Canal of the Manche to the North and the Mediterranean… Read More »
In France, industry develops more and more, without, however, exercising such an important function there as in England and Germany; the percentage of its industrial and urban population rose from 25% in 1850, to 42% in 1911, to 46.4 in 1921. The French subsoil is not devoid of raw materials: coal is extracted in almost… Read More »
The aspirations of the humble found correspondence in the interests of the lords, who agreed to develop the system of taxes, tithes, corvee of the old closed economy. The gentleman who was formerly head, manager of the agricultural enterprise, is now on the way to being a simple if albeit formidable exploiter of agricultural income. This great… Read More »
Various causes influence to determine this important and new phenomenon. The Christian expeditions of French feudalism in Spain and Syria react unexpectedly on the consideration of the monarchy which also did not participate in it, or participated badly with Louis VII himself. The memory of the glorious deeds of the Merovingians and Carolingians awakens; Charlemagne… Read More »
At the beginning of the century. XII France seems to have reached a static situation. The feudal dynasties completely broke all links with the monarchy; and the Capetians of the Isle of France are reduced to the minimum power, to a simple feudal lordship. However, this equilibrium situation is not such that it can last… Read More »
Fiction has continued this decade to take the lion’s share of literary production. Here the example of the greatest contemporaries, already consecrated by fame, is still active and vital, whoever pays attention to what the unimaginative wisdom of a Gide and the coherent and steadfast work of G. Duhamel, J. de Lacretelle, A. Malraux, R.… Read More »
Several of the most prominent personalities of writers in the interwar period or already at the beginning of the century have disappeared or remained inactive in the last decade. Those who disappeared include Gide (1951), Alain (1951), J. Baruzi (1953), H. Bernstein (1953), P. Éluard (1952), Ch. Maurras (1952), J. Benda (1956), Céline (1958), Br.… Read More »
In the presidential elections of December 1965 it was France Mitterrand who put forward his candidacy in opposition to de Gaulle within the left. At the head of the Fédération de la gauche démocratique et socialiste which he himself established (it was a formation closed in the center and supported by the Communists), Mitterrand forced… Read More »
At first the new doctrines spread above all in the world of high culture. Before the echo of the words of Luther and Zwingli reached France, there had already been evangelism French: a movement which recognized Lefèbvre d’Étaples as its leader, and which, without taking a position in clear antithesis with that of Rome, already preached the… Read More »
In Europe, French-language literature has had an important development in Belgium (➔ # 10132;) and Switzerland (➔ # 10132;). On the other hand, the Francophone production of Val d’Aosta is of a minor and somewhat conventional nature, expressed in the nineteenth century in a Lamartinian or Parnassian-style poem and in the Romans nationaux, of republican and anti-militarist inspiration;… Read More »
According to philosophynearby.com, contemporary French cinema is characterized by an eye to the past and another to the future, as on the one hand it has maintained an authorial identity, but on the other it has never lost its contact with the public. In a period in which cinema has experienced a crisis on an… Read More »
The rivers, although some of them have an irregular regime, represented until the century. XIX an important part in the transport of raw materials. From the time of Henry IV they began to be integrated with canals; and on the eve of the Revolution, France already possessed the Channel of the South, the Channel of… Read More »
The foreign trade of France so to 1 / 3 only over land borders, making use of roads, canals and railways, and 2 / 3 the way of the sea. Commercial movement. – After a magnificent boost in the middle of the last century, French foreign trade appeared to remain stagnant from 1872 to 1902, its progress being negligible compared to that of… Read More »
The textile industry is the oldest of the French industries, and still occupies the first place among them. In the past it had a family and rural character, being practiced in the regions where flax and hemp were grown and where sheep were raised; but soon a first concentration took place: the industry emigrated from… Read More »
The new French constitution, drawn up by the second Constituent Assembly (elected on 2 June 1946) was made valid as a result of the popular referendum of 13 October 1946 and entered into force on 24 December 1946. Art. 60 of it determines the figure of a new international entity: the French Union, which includes… Read More »
The French economic expansion of the last fifteen years has benefited from the diversification of energy sources, with a marked increase in imports of liquid and gaseous fuels. According to naturegnosis.com, the production of hard coal tends to decrease more and more (25.7 million t in 1973 but 55.3 million t in 1961) due to… Read More »
The vast architectural movement also brought with it the other arts, and first sculpture. The decline of sculpture after the end of the Roman Empire is connected with the end of paganism and the penetration of oriental ideas. It survives only in the ivory and goldsmith works (Sens casket, consular diptychs, ivory chair in Ravenna,… Read More »
As for painting, also for sculpture some of the artists who in the first twenty years of the century had contributed to the renewal of the plastic language, have continued in the last decade an activity perhaps less important than their previous one, but in any case often of high quality. In some cases it… Read More »
By far the predominant religion in France is Catholic. At a great distance from it come the various confessions of Protestants, all of which reaches about 1,000,000, with the most important centers in Paris, the Cévennes, Montbéliard, etc., and especially in Alsace (about 250,000); then follow the Israelites, scattered a little everywhere, but particularly in… Read More »
Relief. – The general characteristics of the relief show a systematic distribution of the plains and mountains similar to that which governs the general course of the European relief. It has often been observed that a line, drawn in the direction SO.-NE. from the mouth of the Bidassoa (point where the Spanish border touches the… Read More »
Rainfall. – According to homosociety.com, the distribution of the rains is closely related to the relief, but their regime clearly marks the continental and maritime influences, and even more the particular characteristics of the Mediterranean climate. All depressions correspond to pluviometric minima, of which the most notable is in Colmar in Alsace and the largest… Read More »
France has a network of railways 60,000 km long, of which 42,000 are roads of general interest and 18,000 are roads of local interest (often narrow-gauge), operated by various companies, subsidized by the departments. It took more than half a century to build this network. The first line, which came into operation at the end… Read More »
As early as 1914, inadequate taxation, budget deficits and fluctuating debt worries would have required drastic measures, despite the country’s financial strength. The war came with its many economic needs, which the normal budget revenues (significantly reduced following the invasion and the diminished revenue of the land tax, which was one of the main sources of income… Read More »
During the Clactonian period (see Mousteriana, civilization, XXIII, p. 989) the proximity of the springs is already very important for the establishment of settlements: the Clactonian stations located in the estuary of the Seine, at the Bec-de-Caux and on the beaches dei Régates, in Le Havre, Saint-Adresse, are spread over five kilometers near water sources.… Read More »
The song and the air. – The musical hegemony passes to Flanders, where the Flemish composers, who are influenced, among others, by the influence of the Chapel of the King of France and that of Burgundy, compose almost all their profane songs on French words. The French Antoine de Févin of Orléans, Carpentras, Gascogne, Moulu… Read More »
Secular music. – According to ethnicityology.com, the liveliest splendor of French music occurred in the Middle Ages together with the flourishing of sculpture and architecture in the century. XII and in the XIII. Already in the century. X music was in great honor in monasteries and churches: main centers, S. Martial of Limoges, Rouen, Saint-Denis,… Read More »
The opera. – Giovan Battista Lulli, born in Florence in 1632, arrived in Paris at the age of 14 found himself in contact with French dance music and soon assimilated the style of violinists which he later perfected and made softer and more melodic. Lulli fused French and Italian stylistics with a very shrewd taste,… Read More »
Rameau and Gluck. – Much less sensitive than Couperin, J. Ph. Rameau, admirable technician, skilfully blends the French and Italian manner in works built with great confidence and vigor of accent, using the lively rhythms and pungent harmonies of a D Scarlatti. According to ehistorylib.com, Rameau had in the musical world of the century. XVIII… Read More »
From Berlioz, as from Wagner in Germany, the whole modern French musical movement derives. This great artist, still not sufficiently appreciated, broke the conventions of classicism by opening all the ways in which his successors set out. In 1829, with the Symphonie fantastique, he inaugurates new processes of development (especially the system of the conductor motif),… Read More »
According to dentistrymyth.com, the teaching of O. Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory (harmony, since 1942; musical analysis, aesthetics and rhythm, since 1947) is of the highest importance for the development of French music in the second half of the century. Spiritual successor of R. Leibowitz – the first to introduce Webern’s dodecaphony in France -,… Read More »
The Tour de France is the world’s most famous multi-stage race for professional cyclists, which is held annually in France in July. But what is the “Grand Boucle”, as the Tour de France is affectionately known by the French, so special? And how can it be explained that thousands and thousands of fans stand on… Read More »
According to abbreviationfinder, FR is the 2 letter abbreviation for the country of France. Business and Economics French business was long characterized by a fairly slow industrialization and economic development compared to the other Western European countries. Until the Second World War, agriculture was the largest industry. Since then, France has quickly become a country… Read More »