Talk:Culture of France

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How about including something on ballet?richie -Lauren

i don't think there is a national pride in France, individualism is strong in france so you are wrong. french who are proud to be french are rare. Nicoilas (french man)

I agree. Ant

I do not think that it is so clear-cut. Many people in France feel pride of the culture of the country (literature, arts, cinema), of which they have somehow inherited. Also, how do you explain the crowds in the street of Paris after French victory at the World Football cup? Does it have anything to do with national pride and identity? maybe. Anyway, I think that the pride thing of this article is really subject to debate and has nothing to do in this POV form in an encyclopedia. In any case, French abroad are considered as being proud of their country or at least of something French. This part of the article could be simply removed or NPOVed. Nicolas, your argument is faulted: "i don't think there is a national pride in France, individualism is strong in france so you are wrong" is logically wrong. You are not proving that the author (the "you" that you are refering to) was wrong with your sentence. Nevertheless, you might be right, after all. olivier 20:51, Jan 20, 2004 (UTC)

Nothing is ever clear cut. But it is very obvious to me that the pride of french feels in his country is way below the pride an american for example, would feel in his. However, I think the big point is that we feel a lot of pride in stuff like food, art de vivre and such (that is, culture essentially) but very little pride for the nation itself (politics, administration).

I'm happy of being french. But i'm not proud of it, because that would mean that i would be proud of all that had been made in my country's name. And this is impossible. For me, being proud of your country is possible, but only if you forget your history and all crimes that have been made in your name. So that why it's unbelievable for a french, that an american can be proud of his country... For us, american people are all immigrants, who decimated the native american people. How can they forget that and be proud a country born like that ? French people don't forget crimes of their ancestors, even if they try to ignore them. Our history books start with the victory of Jules Caesar against Vercingetorix about 50 BJ, and for us, we have given the liberty statue to US only some years ago. We don't forget our history, that's why we are not proud of our country. But we are proud of our football team. :D (Jaggy, a french) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.194.132.39 (talk) 15:38, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, this article, in its current form, does a great deal to demonstrate the level of ignorance of Americans when it comes to European cultures. Language definitely creates major barriers to mutual understanding it seems. Mathieugp 02:56, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

So dispel our ignorance, Mathieugp, that's what this place is all about: if you see a need to change something, do it, you will get feedback...

TonyClarke 08:30, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Where to begin! Some European cultures are more than a 1000 years old. I don't write English all that well... I could only contribute badly translated paragraphs. :-) I think the best I could do would be to prepare the structure of the article and let more knowledgeable people develop the articles. Also, not being French, my POV would become appearent very quickly.

See what I did at Culture of Quebec as an example. It used to be mostly empty and full of annecdotes, but it has improved over time. I find it works better to have properly named empty articles than no articles at all. (We can use the structure of another part of the world of course). Mathieugp 13:52, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Concerning Communautarism:

The word comes from "communauté", which can be straightly translated to communauty. It relates the idea of living through the rules of the "communauté" in which you are originated from. This often has an ethnical context. This word has appeared recently to due to the failed integration of maghreb immigrants, to qualify their specific way of life, and their refusal of the french culture, law, secularity, mores... It is not related in any way to communism. Edouard (another frenchmen).

Subsection "Other subcultures" is filled with massive errors. Picasso was not an impressionist, "Bohemians" was not of the Belle époque, etc… —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.217.188.249 (talk) 20:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Structuring the article

I didn't know where to put the Language, Transportation and Social reform paragraphs, so I left them at the bottom of the page. They should be inserted somewhere else though or simply removed. Mathieugp 15:01, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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Good structure, and the page should be a lot more informative when the headings are filled out.

I wonder if some of the links would be better as sections of the main article, rather than separate articles. There was a big discussion about these alternatives (links or sections) a few months ago. I think somebody interested in one aspect of French culture would probably benefit from having other aspects of the culture in the same article, rather than to have to go off to another article to find out about something sililar to their original interest. Hope this makes sense!

TonyClarke 22:56, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)~

I understand what you mean. I would tend to agree with putting sections directly under a given heading, however determining which sections are to appear on the main page would be an arbitrary decision. We would need some kind of a rule. Yet more policies... Not sure I like that. ;-) Mathieugp 16:25, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Political outlook

The revolutionary ideal is a powerful totem in the French psyche. Some ideas of Situationism were realised in Disneyland Paris, although doubtless this would be denied by its builders. The French Revolution was itself an extreme form of social change, and its reverberations are everywhere apparent in day to day life there. Consider also the 1871 Paris Commune, and the 1968 student riots. Parallel to these events, it is possible to discern deeply conservative trends in French life.

This is very vague, POV, etc. Removed until we can write something more encyclopedic. David.Monniaux 02:26, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Religion

Need to be updated with info from: Vers un catholicisme minoritaire (not a permalink) --Ann O'nyme 05:43, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Alcohol

Why is there a whole section for one sentance? This should be expanded or intergrated elsewhere. -ChristopherMannMcKay 22:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Sports

Only three little remarks about the sport chapter :

• in France, nobody plays cricket, ... and less again in the suburbs (especially the Parisian ones...) where soccer in almost the only sport played.
• Nobody plays polo too...
• Everybody knows Pétanque ! Not only in the South !!! Even if it's mostly played by Southern French, and even if a lot a Northern French don't consider it as a sport.

And actually, our real "national" sport is strike !

(sorry for my poor level in English !)

Your English is fine. Il est meilleur que mon français.--Rob117 04:24, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Grammar

To me, the second sentence of the intro paragraph doesn't make a lot of grammatical sense. I changed it a while ago, and it was reverted to its previous state by an anon user. Does anyone else think that it should be changed? Also, do we need a link to "France" in that sentence, since there's already one in the previous sentence? Dariuspomaha 21:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Clean up and Expansion

In trying to clean up and expand this article, I think we might take a hint from the organization of Culture of the United States which has some valid subsections:

• Romantic relationships/Sexuality/Marriage
• Body contact and personal expression
• Race
• Group affiliations (including unions)
• Work
• Popular culture
• Drugs (added)
• Housing
• Death rituals
• Gender roles

Other subsections that could be added:

• Private and public spheres
• Sense of History/Monuments —Preceding unsigned comment added by NYArtsnWords (talk • contribs) 06:26, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
• Holidays (added, needs expansion)
• Smoking (added)
• Public protest (strikes and riots)
• Health/Social Security/Retirement (added, needs expansion)
• Political culture
• Paris/Centralization

Thanks- NYArtsnWords (talk) 01:06, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Definition of culture

I don't think that the word culture should be defined here (with references to dictionaries, etc). There is a separate article about culture anyway —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.127.111.234 (talk) 23:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The definition of culture in the article is only three sentences long and serves merely to introduce the necessary discussion of "what is "French" culture" (this approach was taken from the United States culture article). - NYArtsnWords (talk) 01:16, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The "problem" with the word "culture" concerns the link with the French version of this page. While the English-speaking page is considering Culture from a sociological perspective, the French(-speakers) relates "Culture" to Monuments (heritage), Arts and Literature "only". And it is common in France to hear "the Culture in USA is very limited because they don't have a long history". This is in fact a different usage of the word "Culture", certainly causing occasional misunderstanding. -- Silwilhith (talk) 20:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

can i suggest the smoking figures are changed, i followed the link to the statistics, and theyre from 1998! this is 10 years ago, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6319649.stm - gives a total percentage at 26.1 % in january 2008. if you dont change them, then at least acknowledge that your statiscs are way outa date

kind regards Alexandre8 (talk) 14:02, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

The first section "what is French culture" should be seriously emended as it seems to reflect only the views of the author. It states without any references that French culture is only the culture of metropolitan France and asserts a specific view of cultural identity over others. Such claims should be backed up by actual references or removed. In fact this entire section seems to be the expression of personal views on the subject and does not meet Wikipedia's standards in terms of neutrality and objectivity. A tag should at least be added in that regard. Askorahn (talk) 16:07, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Material on Catholicism

I have moved the following material here, awaiting some references:

The Roman Catholic Church in France presents certain paradoxes. It is at the same time a key element in the perception of national identity, has served in places as a vehicle for the 'repli identitaire' (including at times identification with an idealised monarchical past) and often has congregations composed of the central range in society. The Church also pleads for social rights, fair treatment for immigrants and advocates the Social Doctrine of the Catholic church. In banlieue areas congregations are frequently composed predominantly of Portuguese and Caribbean populations.

Intrinsic division between the various strands which compose Roman Catholic society in France were particularly evident at the time of the Algerian War of Independence, but they also came to the fore with the powerful opposition of Cardinal Lustiger to the Education Minister Savary's school reform project and with the deposition of Msgr. Gaillot, the outspoken bishop of Evreux François Mauriac, Blocnotes.

The Catholic Church in France is a very fluid reality and varies considerably in social character from one area to another. A certain uniformity is however ensured by the method of appointment of bishops with state assistanceBriand-Ceretti Agreement.

The material was added on 5/5/008. Please feel free to return the material once it has been sourced. Thanks - NYArtsnWords (talk) 23:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

France in north western Europe??!

"Rates of obesity and heart disease in France have traditionally been lower than in other north-western European countries"

well, by reading this sentence it seems that France is regarded as a north-western European country, or as a north European culture. Geographically it is a bit hard to accept, since France northernmost point hardly reach the north of Bavaria, and its southernmost point share the same latitudes than Rome; while the gravity center of the country lies at about northern Italian latitudes. It that being northern European?

Culturally speaking it is even more clear that France is not part of north-western Europe. North western European countries speak west Germanic languages, have a great impact of protestantism, surround the north sea (from where they share a common culture, for exemple in terms of food: beer/potatoe), France, as a romance spaking nation, traditionally catholic and that opens on the mediterranean sea can hardly be associated with "the other north-western European countries".

Generally speaking, I would find it a major point (that is completly ignored in this article) about french culture to place it among its natural cultural group within European culture. It is impossible to understand French culture and french people if we ignore what is the major root of its cultural identity: most of tipically french aspects of French culture are what they are because France is a latin/mediterranean rooted country (that doesn't help that it has some influences from its northern Neighbors). The exemple of differences of food customs that was the question in the sentence I quoted (in comparision to UK/Belgium/Netherlands/Germany ("north western Europe")), come from the fact that France is not derives from a germanic culture but from a latin one (I know this fact is hard to accept for some English-speaking people), by comparision with other "wine-based" countries such as Italy, France is no more different on that aspect (the so-called "french paradox" is a paradox only if France is thought to be to compare with north-western European countries, if compared to Italy France is not at all paradoxal).

France gets its latin culture firstly from the roman Empire (which gave it its language, but also created historically long-lasting links to Roman church), as well as other cultural heritage as family structures, and other (often more obvious in the southern half of the country) such as architecture, mediterranean urbanity (even Paris, despite being quite north relatively to the rest of the country, shows a density and other urban characteristics that can be usually found in cities that border the mediterranean), wine-culture, foods, etc.

Language proximity (and also cultural in general) with Spanish, Italian or Portuguese created a particular link to these countries/cultures (links that have expressed in the modern times in the fact that France had recieved huge numbers of imigrants from these countries since the 19th century, bringing with them part of their identity. This phenomenon of influences coming from other latin countries have deeply shaped many aspects of what is considered to be "tipically french", exist since a long time, especially from Italy: I'll give two exemples: french gastronomy and cooking technics has became what it is by the adaptation of the cooking Italian technics of renaissance. It is the same of the "jardind à la Française", seen as a tipical french thing has also its roots in the Italian renaissance gardens geometrical technics, adapted to the vegetation and relief of Ile-de-France.

On a other point many french cities have become major "hubs" of southern European culture meltings (Marseille, Lyon, but also Paris where are located the seat of the latin union), this link to the mediterranean world is even becoming closer with the influence of french population of north African origins. This implication of french culture in the mediterranean world is another major aspect of french culture that is completly ignored in the article.

Generally speaking I think this article is interesting, but seems to avoid the heart of the question about french culture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.224.59.166 (talk) 14:41, 30 September 2009 (UTC)