Note: Javascript is disabled in your browser.
You need to enable Javascript if you want to see images and video.
Introducing France
Good, bad or ugly, everyone has something to say about France and the French: chic, smart, sexy, rude, racist, bureaucratic, bitchy as hell, pavements studded with dog poo, baguettes that dry out by lunchtime and a penchant for torching cars is some of the chitchat on the street. Spice up the cauldron with the odd urban riot, political scandal and a 35-hour working week - not to mention a massive box-office hit like The Da Vinci Code taking over Paris or superstar Angelina Jolie allegedly plumping for a chateau in Normandy to raise her kids - and the international media is all ears too.
This is, after all, that fabled land of good food and wine, of royal chateaux and perfectly restored farmhouses, of landmarks known the world over and hidden landscapes few really know. Savour art and romance in the shining capital on the River Seine. See glorious pasts blaze forth at Versailles. Travel south for Roman civilisation and the sparkling blue Med; indulge your jet-set fantasies in balmy Nice and St-Tropez. Ski the Alps. Sense the subtle infusion of language, music and mythology in Brittany brought by 5th-century Celtic invaders. Smell ignominy on the beaches of Normandy and battlefields of Verdun and the Somme. And know that this is but the tip of that gargantuan iceberg the French call culture.
Advertisement
Tips & articles
-
Kayaking in Corsica
8 July 2009
Feel like an eco-friendly adventure on the high seas? Grab a kayak and head out onto the Mediterranean....
-
Skiing Europe’s Haute Route
8 July 2009
Take a guide, take an ice axe and take the exhilarating challenge of skiing the legendary Haute Route. This...
-
Five memorials to music legends
26 June 2009
Pop ultralegend Michael Jackson has died. We, along with millions of fans worldwide, are in mourning. As...
Latest headlines for France
-
Inside France's 'Barbarians' trial
9 July 2009 11:27PM
The BBC's Emma Jane Kirby reports on the 10-week trial in Paris of Youssouf Fofana, accused of the brutal murder of 23-year-old Jewish man, Ilan Halimi.
-
School trip stowaway not caught
9 July 2009 4:43PM
A man who clung under a schoolgirls coach from France to Hertfordshire remains at large, police say.
-
Man held after child kidnap bid
8 July 2009 10:45AM
Police in France arrest a man who allegedly tried to abduct a 12-year-old Scottish girl he met through the internet.
