For people interested in visiting or curious to learn more about France and the French language, here’s a brief overview for help getting started.
- 1. The French language is spoken by 75 million native speakers and 220 million speaking as a foreign or secondary language.
- 2. Besides France, it’s the official language in 29 countries, including Belgium, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Cote d’lvoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Haiti, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Monaco, Niger, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Switzerland, Togo and Vanuatu. Other areas where it’s used to different degrees include Algeria, Cambodia, French Polynesia, Laos, Lebanon, Morocco, Mauritius, Mauritania, New Caledonia, Pondicherry, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Syria, Tunisia, the US (New Orleans), Vietnam and Wallis & Futuna.
- 3. From the shape of France, it’s sometimes referred to as l’Hexagone or the Hexagon and includes seven mountain ranges and five major river systems.
- 4. France is home to the famous Lascaux caves, human paintings from approximately 18,000 BC.
- 5. Some French inventions include the bicycle, the Chanel suit, pencil, refrigerator, sewing machine, film animation, canned goods, photography, the aqua-lung (from Jacques Cousteau), the neon lamp and others.
- 6. French cuisine is known for a variety of foods, flavors and dishes, there are 300-400 different types of cheeses, many types of seafood, sauces, breads, chocolates, pastries, coffees and much, much more.
- 7. French wine is produced throughout France, is the largest wine producer worldwide and has traces of production going to back to 600 BC.
- 8. Famous writers from France include Fontaine for his fables, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Charles Perrault and philosophers including Descartes, Voltaire and more recently Baudrillard (influential for some ideas in the popular Matrix movies).
- 9. With about 80 million tourists or visitors to France a year, France is the #1 destination for visitors worldwide. Popular attractions include Paris, Mont Saint Michel, various art galleries, wines, cheeses, seafood and more.
- 10. Things to do in Paris include seeing the Eiffel Tower, checking out the various street markets, visiting the Louvre, hanging out at any of the 1,000’s of coffee shops and pubs, walking along the Seine, seeing the Moulin Rouge, walking through the catacombs, checking out the resting place of Jim Morrison and staying up until dawn at any of the 100’s of different nightlife activities.
Have your own networks with others in France
If you regularly share content or work with people in France, here are a few benefits you get from using an Odysen solution:
- Use in your language, including French, Spanish, Italian, German, English and others.
- Have separate networks for different groups, keeping content focused for each. This could be having separate networks for different groups of friends, family members, organizations as well as using in professional environments, having separate networks for different clients or customers.
- Organize content with easy to use folders, add sub-folders to expand and see integrated views in respective parent folders.
- Within each folder you can add content to the applications, including actions, notes, events, photos, graphics, audio files, office files, videos, websites and blogs.
- Get started and invite other users for free with the Basic plan. This includes the ability to add networks, use the applications, and initial storage for your various files.
Learn more about having your own networks with others in France, including using the applications, languages available, solution examples and relevant blog articles.