France
A proud Republic built on liberty, equality, and fraternity, devoted to its language and its ideas, and to an art of living in which the long shared meal is something close to sacred. The complete guide.
France is a country of western Europe, home to about sixty-seven million people in its mainland and more across its scattered overseas territories, long among the most influential nations of the Western world. To understand it, begin with the idea of the Republic and its motto of liberty, equality, and fraternity, born of the great Revolution; with the strict secularism it calls laïcité, which keeps faith a private matter; with the deep love of the French language and the life of the mind, the country of philosophers, writers, and café debate; with the famous art of living, l'art de vivre, in which good food, good wine, and the long shared meal are treated as something close to sacred; and with a manner that is formal, proud, and fond of argument, where the spoken courtesy of bonjour opens every door. From these flow the customs that follow: the obligatory greeting, the cheek-kiss called la bise, the two-hour lunch, the bread and the cheese and the wine, and a way of living well that the French have raised to an art. This guide walks through each in turn.
Overview
France lies in western Europe, the largest country of the European Union by area, reaching from the English Channel and the Atlantic in the north and west to the Mediterranean in the south, and bordered by Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, and more. Beyond the mainland it holds a scattering of overseas territories around the world, from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean to the Pacific, the remnants of a once-vast empire. About sixty-seven million people live in mainland France and some two million more in the overseas territories. The capital and dominant city is Paris, one of the great cities of the world; the land beyond it ranges from the northern plains to the Alps and the Pyrenees, the river valleys and vineyards, and the warm Mediterranean coast.
France is a republic, a democracy with a strong presidency, in what is called its Fifth Republic. Its sole official language is French, protected by law and central to the national identity, though older regional tongues survive in corners of the country. It is one of the world's wealthier and more powerful nations, Europe's leading farmer and a major industrial power, a founding force of the European Union, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, with a long and proud history as a centre of art, thought, science, and cuisine.
A handful of deep forces shape French life. There is the idea of the Republic and its values, liberty, equality, and fraternity, born of the Revolution. There is the strict secularism called laïcité, which keeps religion out of the public square. There is the love of the French language and the life of ideas, the intellectual and café culture for which France is famous. There is the art of living, the reverence for food, wine, and the long shared meal. And there is the pull between a strongly centralised state and the proud regions with their distinct character and their terroir. The sections that follow trace these forces and then walk through the customs of daily life.
The Republic and its ideals
At the heart of French identity lies the idea of the Republic, and its famous three-word motto, carved on town halls and schools across the land: liberté, égalité, fraternité, liberty, equality, fraternity. These words are not mere decoration but the living creed of the nation, born of the French Revolution of 1789, which overthrew the king, proclaimed the rights of man, and set out to build a society of free and equal citizens. The Revolution is the founding event of modern France, and its ideals, that all citizens are equal before the law and that the people, not a monarch, are sovereign, remain the bedrock of how the French understand themselves and their country.
From the Revolution flows a distinctive French model of the nation. France sees itself as one and indivisible, a republic of equal individual citizens rather than a collection of separate ethnic or religious communities; in the ideal, what unites the French is shared citizenship and shared values, not blood or faith. The state is colour-blind in principle, refusing even to count its people by race or religion, holding that all are simply French and equal. This universalist ideal, that anyone who embraces the Republic and its values can be fully French, is a point of deep national pride, and a sharp contrast to models that celebrate distinct communities.
The republican ideal is also a source of ongoing struggle and debate, for France argues fiercely about whether it lives up to it. The Revolution bequeathed not only the ideals but a long tradition of protest, strikes, and taking to the streets to demand that the Republic honour its promises, a tradition the French exercise vigorously to this day. Real inequalities persist, and the universalist model is tested by a diverse modern society and by hard questions of immigration and identity. But the Republic, its motto, its Revolution, and its faith in liberty and equality remain the shared frame within which the French argue, protest, and live, and the deepest layer of the national identity.
Laïcité and the place of faith
One of the most distinctive and most fiercely defended of French principles is laïcité, the strict secularism that separates religion from the state and the public square. Enshrined in law in 1905 after long conflict between the French state and the Catholic Church, laïcité holds that the state is neutral in matters of faith, that it neither favours nor funds any religion, and that the public realm, above all the state school, is kept free of religious display. Faith, in this view, is a private matter, free to be practised but to be kept out of public institutions, so that all citizens may meet there as equals regardless of belief.
This goes further than the secularism of many other countries, and it has real force in daily life. In state schools, pupils may not wear conspicuous religious symbols, and the principle shapes public life broadly: religion is largely absent from politics, the state, and the public sphere in a way that can surprise visitors from more openly religious cultures. Laïcité is held by most French people as a core national value, bound up with the Republic and its promise of equality, a guarantee that the public space belongs equally to all and that no faith may impose itself there.
France was historically a deeply Catholic country, and the Catholic heritage remains woven into its calendar, its great cathedrals, its villages, and its festivals, even as actual religious practice has fallen steeply and a large share of French people are now non-believing or non-practising. The country is also home to the largest Muslim and Jewish populations in western Europe, the fruit of its colonial history and immigration. In recent years laïcité has become a subject of intense and sometimes painful debate, above all over the place of Islam and of religious dress in a society committed to keeping faith private, a debate that touches the deepest questions of French identity. But the principle itself, that the Republic is secular and faith is private, remains central to what France is.
The language and the life of ideas
The French love their language with a passion few other nations match, and the French tongue is central to the national identity and pride. French is the sole official language, required by the constitution to be the language of government and public life, and it is guarded with real care: an official body, the Académie française, watches over its purity, and the French take genuine pleasure in their language's precision, elegance, and beauty. Once the language of diplomacy and the cultured classes across Europe, French is still spoken across the world, and the French feel a deep responsibility to protect and promote it. To speak French well, and to make the effort to speak it at all, is the surest way to a French person's respect.
Bound up with the love of language is a deep regard for the life of the mind. France is the country of philosophers and writers, of Descartes, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Sartre, of a literary tradition held in the highest honour, and ideas matter here in a way that strikes visitors: intellectuals are public figures, philosophy is taught to every schoolchild and examined at the end of school, books and debate are taken seriously, and serious conversation about politics, art, and ideas is a valued pleasure rather than a chore. The café, where people have gathered for centuries to read, argue, and watch the world go by, is the natural home of this culture, a place to think and talk as much as to drink coffee.
This intellectual bent shapes how the French converse. They enjoy discussion and debate for its own sake, relish a well-argued point and a witty exchange, and are happy to disagree openly and to defend a position with vigour, in a way that can seem combative to those used to smoother small talk; for the French, a good argument is a pleasure, not a quarrel. They tend to find empty pleasantries and relentless positivity a little shallow, preferring substance, nuance, and a touch of intellectual sparring. To converse well in France is to come ready to engage with ideas, to hold one's ground with grace, and to value the conversation itself as one of the finer things in life.
The art of living
If one phrase captures the French spirit, it is l'art de vivre, the art of living, the conviction that life is to be savoured and that the pleasures of food, wine, beauty, company, and unhurried time are not luxuries but the very point of living well. The French take real care over the quality of daily life, over a good meal, a good bottle, a beautiful setting, an afternoon in good company, and they resist the idea that one should rush through life or sacrifice its pleasures to mere efficiency. To live well, with taste and attention and without haste, is a value held as seriously here as hard work is held elsewhere.
This shows above all in the French relationship with time and leisure. The French guard their leisure fiercely: the long lunch break, the protected weekend, the famously generous holidays, and the celebrated long summer break, when much of the country slows or stops, are not indulgences but rights, part of a culture that insists work must leave room for living. The legally short working week and the abundant vacation reflect a society that has chosen, more than many, to value time over money and life over labour. The result is a rhythm of life that prizes the meal, the gathering, the stroll, and the pause.
The art of living shows too in a deep regard for quality, beauty, and good taste in all things, from the food on the table to the clothes one wears to the look of a street or a square. The French tend to prefer the few fine things to the many cheap ones, the well-made and the beautiful to the merely convenient, and they bring a sense of style, care, and discernment to ordinary life. This is not snobbery so much as a conviction that life is better lived with attention and taste, that the everyday deserves to be done beautifully. To understand France is to understand this faith that living well is an art worth practising, and that its highest expression is the shared table.
Paris, the regions, and the terroir
France is a famously centralised country, and Paris looms over it as few capitals loom over their nations. For centuries power, wealth, culture, and ambition have flowed to Paris, the seat of government, the heart of French art and intellect, and the city against which all else is measured; the French speak of Paris and the provinces, and the gravitational pull of the capital shapes the whole country. The centralised state, with its grand schools that train the nation's elite and its administration reaching from Paris into every town, is a deep feature of French life, the legacy of kings and revolutionaries alike who built a single strong centre.
Yet beneath the centralised surface, France is a country of strong and proud regions, each with its own landscape, history, food, and character, and the French are deeply attached to their home region and its ways. Brittany in the northwest, with its Celtic roots; Alsace in the east, with its German-tinged traditions; Provence in the sunny south, with its olive oil and herbs; the Basque Country and the Pyrenees; Burgundy and Bordeaux with their great wines, each is a world of its own, with its dialect or old language, its dishes, its festivals, and a regional pride that the centralising state never erased.
The clearest expression of this regional richness is the French idea of terroir, the conviction that the land itself, its soil, its climate, its place, gives food and wine their character, and that the best things come from a particular spot and nowhere else. The French celebrate the local and the seasonal, prize the produce of a particular village or vineyard, and protect the names of their regional foods and wines with care, so that a cheese or a wine belongs to its place. The weekly market, where one knows the producers and buys what is local and in season, is the living heart of this love of terroir. To eat and drink in France is to taste the regions, and the deep French belief that the finest things are rooted in a particular place.
Formality, pride, and the French manner
The French manner can puzzle visitors at first, for it is more formal, more reserved, and prouder than many expect, and reading it rightly is a key to the culture. The French value good manners, proper form, and a certain dignity in social dealings, and they tend to be formal and a little reserved with those they do not know, keeping a polite distance until acquaintance is made. This is not coldness but correctness: warmth and openness are reserved for friends and earned over time, and the easy instant friendliness of some other cultures can strike the French as shallow or forced. Friendship in France comes slowly and runs deep, and the line between acquaintance and friend is real.
With the reserve comes a strong and well-known national pride, a deep confidence in French culture, language, cuisine, and way of life, and a sense that France has given much to the world in art, thought, and civilisation. This pride is mostly justified and mostly worn with style, though it can read as arrogance to outsiders, and it underlies the French insistence on their language, their standards, and their way of doing things. It is balanced by the famous French capacity for criticism and complaint: the French are great critics, of their politicians, their institutions, and one another, and a certain grumbling and questioning is part of the national character, the flip side of taking things seriously.
The French manner also prizes wit, intelligence, and a certain elegance in how one carries oneself and speaks. Cleverness, a good turn of phrase, and a well-argued point are admired; brashness, loudness, and gushing sentiment are not. The French tend to keep their voices down in public, to value discretion and privacy, and to find loud or overly familiar behaviour ill-mannered. To get on with the French is to meet their formality with formality, to be patient as warmth is earned, to engage their love of ideas and debate, and to show respect for their language and their pride. Do so, and the reserve gives way to a generous, loyal, and deeply rewarding friendship.
Bonjour, la bise, and tu or vous
No social rule in France matters more than the greeting, and getting it right is the first and most important courtesy a visitor can learn. One greets, always: on entering a shop, a café, an office, a lift, a waiting room, one says bonjour, madame or bonjour, monsieur, and on leaving, au revoir and often bonne journée, a good day. To walk into a shop and ask for something without first saying bonjour is taken as genuinely rude, a failure to acknowledge the person before you, and nothing marks out the ill-mannered visitor faster. After dark the greeting becomes bonsoir. This small ritual of recognition is the bedrock of French politeness, and to master it is to begin to be accepted.
Among people who know one another, the greeting is often la bise, the famous light kiss on each cheek, given between friends, family, and acquaintances, and between women, and between a man and a woman; men more often shake hands with one another. The number of kisses varies by region, two in most places, three or four in some, and the French themselves sometimes hesitate over which cheek comes first. La bise is a sign of a certain closeness, so with those one does not know well, or in formal and business settings, a handshake is the safer and more correct greeting; when in doubt, offer a hand and let the other person lead.
The French language itself carries a crucial distinction that a visitor must respect: the formal vous and the familiar tu, two words for you. One uses the formal vous with strangers, elders, superiors, and all but close friends, family, and children, and the move to the familiar tu is a meaningful step, usually offered by the elder or senior person and not to be presumed; to use tu too soon can seem disrespectful or overfamiliar. Titles matter too, with monsieur and madame used readily and surnames kept until first names are offered. A little French, the greetings above all, and a readiness to keep to the formal vous until invited closer, will earn a visitor real goodwill in a country that notices such things keenly.
The table and the long meal
In France the meal is sacred, and the long shared table is the very heart of the culture, so cherished that the French gastronomic meal is honoured around the world as a treasure of human heritage. To eat in France is not to refuel but to gather, to savour, and to talk, and a proper meal is an unhurried event of several courses taken in their order: often an apéritif drink to begin, then the starter, the entrée; the main course, the plat; the cheese, the fromage; and the dessert, each in its turn, with bread and wine throughout. Lunch is a long affair, traditionally an hour or two in the middle of the day, with many shops and businesses closing for it, and dinner comes late, around eight in the evening, and may stretch on for hours.
The meal has its own firm etiquette, observed with care. One waits until all are served and someone wishes bon appétit before beginning; one keeps both hands visible above the table, not in the lap; one breaks bread by hand and rests it on the tablecloth rather than on a plate. The food itself is treated with respect: one does not ask the kitchen to alter a dish or substitute its parts, for the chef's vision is honoured, and the rare request for a portion to take home puzzles. Above all the meal is leisurely; to bolt one's food, to rush from the table, or to ask for the bill the moment the plates are cleared is to miss the whole point, for the lingering talk over the cleared table is part of the pleasure.
This reverence for the meal runs through French life. The family gathers for the long Sunday lunch; friends are entertained at home with meticulous care, several courses and good wine and conversation lasting late into the evening; the weekly market, where one buys what is fresh, local, and in season and knows the producers by name, is a cherished ritual. To be invited to a French table is a real honour and a window into the culture, and a guest does well to come a little late rather than early, to bring a thoughtful gift of wine, flowers, or chocolates, to dress with care, and above all to settle in, savour the food and wine, join the conversation, and never rush.
Bread, cheese, and wine
Three things stand at the centre of the French table and the French heart: bread, cheese, and wine, each a source of national pride and each tied to the land. Bread, above all the long crusty baguette, is bought fresh daily from the neighbourhood bakery, the boulangerie, and accompanies nearly every meal; the French take the quality of their bread seriously and the baker is a respected daily institution. Bread is placed on the tablecloth beside the plate, torn by hand rather than cut, and used to gather the last of a sauce, a humble and beloved part of every table.
France is one of the great cheese nations of the world, with hundreds of varieties, soft and hard, mild and pungent, from the creamy Brie and Camembert to the blue Roquefort to the countless goat and mountain cheeses, each rooted in its own region and many protected by their place of origin. The cheese course comes after the main dish and before or in place of dessert, served as a board from which one cuts respecting the shape of the piece, and paired thoughtfully with wine. To the French, the variety and quality of their cheeses is a national glory, and a good cheese, like a good wine, speaks of its terroir, the particular place that made it.
Wine is woven into French life more deeply than in almost any other country, and France is among the world's greatest wine nations, its regions, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, the Rhône, the Loire, and more, giving their names to wines known the world over. Wine is the natural companion to a meal, chosen to suit the food, and a glass with lunch raises no eyebrows; it is drunk with pleasure and appreciation rather than to excess, savoured for its quality and its origin. At the table the host pours, one waits for all glasses to be filled, and the toast is a cheerful santé with eyes met over the glass. Bread, cheese, and wine together, simple, rooted in the land, and taken with care, are the everyday heart of the French art of the table.
Style and dressing well
The French are known the world over for style, and there is truth in it, though French style is subtler than the world's image of fashion runways and luxury labels suggests. The French ideal is elegance through restraint: a few well-chosen, good-quality pieces rather than many cheap ones, clothes that are understated, well-cut, and timeless rather than loud or trendy, and a finished, put-together look in which the details, a scarf, good shoes, a well-chosen accessory, matter as much as the rest. The aim is to look effortlessly correct and quietly elegant, never flashy or showy, and the French bring this care to ordinary daily dress, not just to special occasions.
Dressing well is, in France, a form of respect and self-respect, bound up with the art of living and with good manners. The French tend to dress with care even for ordinary errands, and the casual extremes of some other cultures, gym clothes or beachwear worn about town, sloppy or careless dress, strike them as a kind of discourtesy, a failure to make an effort. To dress neatly and with thought is to show that one takes the occasion, and the people one will meet, seriously, and a visitor who dresses with a little care will be better received for it.
Dress naturally rises to the occasion. Business calls for proper, well-cut professional clothes, on the formal and elegant side; an invitation to dinner, the theatre, or a celebration calls for dressing up with care, for the French enjoy doing such things properly, and it is better to be a little overdressed than under. France is, of course, a world capital of fashion and luxury, the home of the great houses and of Paris fashion week, and that heritage runs deep. But the everyday French style that matters most to daily life is the quieter one: good quality, good cut, good taste, and the conviction that to dress well is simply part of living well.
The French year
The French year is marked by national days, Catholic festivals kept now more in custom than in faith, and the seasonal rhythms of a country that loves its celebrations. The great national day is Bastille Day, the fourteenth of July, marking the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789 that began the Revolution, celebrated across the country with a grand military parade in Paris, fireworks, village dances, and the flying of the blue, white, and red tricolore. It is the day the Republic celebrates itself, and the most important secular festival of the year.
The Christian calendar still shapes the year even in a secular country. Christmas is the great family festival, kept with a tree, gifts, and above all the long and lavish Christmas Eve dinner, the réveillon, with its oysters, foie gras, and the log-shaped cake called the bûche de Noël. Easter brings its eggs and its family gatherings in spring; Epiphany in January brings the galette des rois, the cake of the kings, with a hidden charm and a paper crown for whoever finds it. All Saints' Day in November is when families visit and tend the graves of their dead. The Christmas markets of the east, above all in Alsace, bring their lights and mulled wine against the winter.
Other days and festivals fill the calendar with French pleasures. The Fête de la Musique on the longest day of June fills every street and square of the country with free music of every kind, a joyous national celebration of music. Labour Day on the first of May brings the giving of lily-of-the-valley flowers for luck, and the days marking the ends of the two World Wars are kept with solemn remembrance. Carnival enlivens some regions before Lent, and the warm months bring a wealth of local festivals, the wine harvests, the village fêtes, the open-air concerts and markets and feasts, each region celebrating its own bounty and its own traditions with the French gift for living and gathering well.
Weddings and family life
Family life in France is built mostly around the household of parents and children, in the Western pattern, and grown children commonly leave to live independently, though family ties remain warm and the long Sunday lunch gathers the generations. The wider family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins matters and comes together for the great occasions and holidays, even as it lives more separately than in some cultures. France today is notable for the variety of its families: many couples live together and raise children without marrying, with no stigma at all, and a great share of French children are born to unmarried parents, a sign of how relaxed and accepting French attitudes to family and love have become.
The French wedding has a distinctive shape set by law. The only legally binding marriage is the civil ceremony at the town hall, the mairie, conducted by the mayor, which every couple must hold; those who wish a religious blessing add a church wedding afterward, but the civil ceremony is the marriage in law. Around these gather the celebrations: the vin d'honneur, a reception of drinks and canapés to which a wider circle is invited, and then for closer guests a long and lavish wedding feast, a meal of many courses and fine wine stretching late into the night with dancing, in the French way of doing a celebration thoroughly and well.
French society is broadly liberal and private in matters of love and family. The country recognises marriage between same-sex couples, unmarried partnership is common and respected, and the French tend to keep their private lives private, holding family matters close. A guest at a French wedding is expected to dress elegantly, to bring a thoughtful gift or contribute to the couple's wishes, and to settle in for a long and joyful celebration centred, as so much of French life is, on a magnificent shared meal. For all the formality of the French manner, the wedding is an occasion of real warmth, where the pleasures of food, wine, family, and company that lie at the heart of the culture come fully together.
Work and doing business
The French workplace is formal, hierarchical, and more reserved than many newcomers expect, and understanding its codes is essential. Formality is the rule: colleagues and contacts are addressed as monsieur or madame with the formal vous and the surname until invited to be familiar, dress is proper and elegant, and proper manners and correct form carry real weight. Hierarchy is respected and decisions tend to flow from the top, with authority concentrated in senior figures; relationships and the personal regard built over time matter, and the French prefer to do business with those they have come to know and trust, so patience and relationship-building are wise.
French business communication reflects the national love of ideas and debate. The French argue and disagree openly, enjoy a vigorous and intellectual discussion, and may probe, question, and challenge a proposal hard, which should be read as serious engagement rather than hostility; a well-reasoned, logically argued, elegantly presented case carries more weight than a hard sell or a flashy pitch. Meetings can be lively, discursive, and less bound to a rigid agenda than in some cultures, and the French respect intelligence, culture, and a good command of language. Knowing something of French culture, and making the effort with the language, earns real goodwill.
Above all, the French guard the line between work and life, and the visitor must respect it. The protected lunch, often a real meal rather than a sandwich at the desk and an important occasion for building relationships; the legally limited working week; the generous holidays and the long summer break, when much of the country slows; and a strong reluctance to let work intrude on private time and family, are all deeply held, a reflection of the art of living applied to work. One does not lightly disturb a French colleague on holiday or after hours. The visitor who is formal, patient, intellectually engaged, respectful of hierarchy and of the language, and mindful of the French devotion to life beyond work will find French business a courteous and rewarding world.
Manners and what to avoid
French manners rest on formality, courtesy, discretion, and respect for proper form, and most of the social rules flow from these. Greet always and properly, with bonjour and the title on entering and au revoir on leaving, for this is the cardinal rule; use the formal vous and the surname until invited closer; mind your s'il vous plaît and merci; and keep your voice down, for loudness in public, on transport, in cafés, in the street, is considered ill-mannered. Make the effort to speak at least a little French, even just the greetings and a polite request, for to assume that others will simply speak English can give quiet offence, while the smallest effort earns real goodwill.
Several subjects and habits call for care. The French keep their private lives private and find certain questions intrusive: money above all, salary, wealth, what one paid for things, is not discussed, and personal questions are best left until a real acquaintance is made. Politics and religion can make for lively debate among those who know one another, but are handled carefully with strangers; laïcité and the place of religion are sensitive ground. At the table, mind the etiquette, hands visible, bread on the cloth, no rushing, no asking the kitchen to alter a dish; and do not request a portion to take home, which is not the custom.
Beyond that, the path to French good regard is to meet the country's formality and pride with grace. Be polite, correct, and a little reserved at first; dress with care; engage the French love of conversation, ideas, and good-natured debate without taking disagreement personally; show respect for the language, the food, and the culture in which the French take such pride; and be patient as warmth is earned. Tipping is modest, for service is included in the bill, and rounding up or leaving a little extra for good service is enough. The French can seem formal and critical at first, but beneath it they are warm, generous, and loyal friends to those who treat them, their language, and their way of life with respect.
Mourning and farewell
The French mark death with dignity and a certain reserve, in the Catholic tradition that shaped the country layered over its modern secularism. The usual form is a funeral held within about a week of the death, most often a Mass in a church even for families no longer devout, for the rites of the Church still frame death for many, followed by burial in the family plot or, increasingly, by cremation. There may be a viewing or a wake for close family before the funeral, and the ceremony itself, with readings, music, and words of remembrance, is solemn and composed. Mourners dress soberly in dark colours, and the tone throughout is restrained and dignified rather than openly demonstrative.
The customs of condolence are marked by discretion and proper form. One offers sympathy with a few measured words, mes condoléances, and supports the family with flowers sent to the funeral, with a card, or with one's quiet presence at the service. After the funeral the close family and friends may gather, but French mourning tends to be more private and contained than the long, communal, openly emotional mournings of some other cultures, the grief deeply felt but held with the same reserve that marks French manners more broadly. All Saints' Day in early November is the time when French families visit the cemeteries to clean and tend the graves of their dead and to lay chrysanthemums, the flower of mourning, upon them, a widely kept custom of remembrance.
Beneath the common Catholic-rooted pattern lies the full range of modern France's faiths and peoples, each keeping its own way of parting, the rites of the Protestant minority, and those of the large Muslim and Jewish communities and others, who bury and mourn according to their own traditions. The strict secularism of laïcité means too that many now choose a wholly civil funeral without religious rite. Whatever the form, the French way with death is to offer quiet, correct sympathy, to attend the service if one is close to the family, to send flowers or a card, and to mark the loss with the dignity, restraint, and proper courtesy that run through French life.
The nation today
France today is a republic of about sixty-seven million people in its European mainland, with some two million more across its overseas territories, the largest country of the European Union by area and one of the most influential nations of the Western world. Its capital and dominant city is Paris; it is governed under the Fifth Republic, a democracy with a strong president as head of state and a prime minister as head of government, with Emmanuel Macron as president. France has one of the world's larger economies, Europe's leading agricultural producer and a major industrial, technological, and luxury power, and it remains a global centre of art, fashion, food, and ideas, a founding member of the European Union and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, with nuclear arms and worldwide reach.
Its history is long and weighty. France is among the oldest nations of Europe, forged from medieval duchies under its kings, raised to grandeur under monarchs like Louis the Fourteenth, and remade forever by the Revolution of 1789, which gave the world its ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. It built and then lost one of the largest colonial empires in history, a story of both global reach and hard reckoning, above all the bitter Algerian war that brought the present Fifth Republic into being in 1958. It endured invasion and occupation in two world wars and emerged to help build a united Europe, of which it has been a leading architect.
The nation today carries its old strengths and some sharp challenges. The colonial past brought waves of immigration, above all from North and West Africa, that have made France far more diverse and home to the largest Muslim population in western Europe, and the country debates fiercely how its universalist, secular republican model fits a multicultural society, a debate that runs through its politics and touches the deepest questions of identity. It faces economic strains, the rise of a strong far right, and the perennial French readiness to take grievances to the streets. Yet through it all the culture holds its shape: the Republic and its motto, the secular ideal, the love of the language and of ideas, the café and the debate, the long meal with its bread and cheese and wine, and the art of living well that the French have raised to something like a national philosophy. To know France is to meet a proud, argumentative, cultivated nation, sure of its values and devoted, above all, to the pleasures and principles of a life well lived.