France is a beautiful country...


Les plus beaux villages de France
From Alsace to the Pyrenées, from Brittany to Provence, local efforts are made to keep intact the unique character of the villages de France.
A non-profit organisation les plus beaux villages de France comprises 149 of France most beautiful villages. Each village has been rigorously selected for the quality of their architecture, environment, and what seem their most important quality, their unique ability in stopping the course of time.
All of them are beautiful but each one has it's own character.
The Association was created in 1982 by the mayor of a small and beautiful village located in the centre of France.
He noticed that quite a few villages had kept their original character, and apparently had been spared by the uncontrolled and greedy expansion of the cities. He wanted to encourage people into protecting and developping the villages' cachet by controlling their evolution.
The Association, focuses on quality. The selection of new villages (and the re-examination of the members) is based on a set of criteria measuring the quality of the villages and their development.
The Association with its members share successful experiences which took place in villages, providing expert advise, and organising actions of communication to promote the villages. Many of the villages are already famous around the world and soon many more.

Besançon in Franche Comté - Eastern France, a museum in the Citadel
The Citadel of Besançon, designed by Vauban is a masterpiece of the XVII century and the premier tourist destination of the Franche-Comté. This magnificently restored fortress houses several museums as well as a large number of animal enclosures.
Find out about climate at a planetary and regional level using 4 themes and complementary fields : the solar system and how the weather works, climate in the past, the climate today and meteorology.

Follow in their tracks: the diversity of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Discover 100 species of arthropods in their recreated natural environment: Phasmatodea aka stick insects (UK) and walking insects (US), phasmes (FR), scarabs, ants, spiders, scorpions ... watch living insects in a fascinating and original setting and a genuine breeding laboratory.

Citadel of Besançon in Franche-Comté, Eastern France


understand French people and the country
France and England have a common history, rather like former lovers who once shared some 'past', parted but keep living in the same neighbourhood. They never forgave each other, and all that remains of their 'old story' is what they want to remember, what they tried to forget, what they would like the others to believe... lies and semi truths and a lot of myths built up with the help of time and what makes them so ignorant of each other.
Leaving them after a short visit we would obviously think that definitely they were right to divorce and to make a short picture of them both we could try to sum up as they too often do:

choose from the options a or b___ a/French___b/English

The - are arrogant
The - are superior
Love the - accent
Love their country, shame it's full of -
Excuse my -
The - are hypocritical
The - are dirty
The - smell garlic
We have more varieties of cheese than them! (we all know who said that, no need to verify, she may be right)
The - are fantastic lovers
The - have a bad breath
The - are racist
The - don't like the -
The - don't like the - (the 2nd is not a print mistake)
The - can't speak a foreign language (wrong, a few can)
The - are not tolerant
The - are individualistic
The - have no team spirit (have we all?!)
The - are lazy........

Some of you, hopefully, might think that this is going too far... but reading through a few english forums can quickly demonstrate if need be that all the above 'remarks' not to say established opinions are too common ways of talking. And to give only one example, please follow the link in the comments and discussionID=59 section of thisfrenchforum.com, which despite its name is mainly visited by english expatriates.

As you will see the discussion was started by an individual, who anyone with a little sense could wonder why he/she is living in France, and has only generated one British opinion in defense of the French and that in 3 months, interesting isn't it?
We thank the first person who replied on the 24th Jan: "We have been here 8 months and found the French to be polite, friendly and only too willing to help (remember when the UK was like that?)..."
We couldn't agree more, especially with the comment within brackets.
- Lately in February, three more people have answered to that comment and we thank them with all our heart! visit >> http://www.thisfrenchforum.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=59

A path towards better understanding of the French country and the French people, thanks to John Mole - One way to find out the truth behind the myths could be to live and work long enough among 'them', on the compulsory condition of being fluent in 'their' language. As this may take too long for some of us, there are other ways like forgetting that we come from a foreign country and take everything with patience and reserve, observe and try to understand and avoid any comparison with what we may be used to 'according to our standards'.

'Mind your Manners' by John Mole should help understand better why the French don't behave like us, apart from the fact that of course they are not British... bless them...
Mind your manners, Managing Business Cultures in Europe, by John Mole at amazonJohn Mole is the author of "Mind your Manners" Managing Business Cultures in Europe". John studied French and German at Oxford and Business at the European Business School.
find it at Amazon


let's take a break and a tour of Paris past and present...
The amateurs of the past may enjoy a balade or rather a virtual walk through the 'past' of one of the most beautiful city in the world... New York, Paris!. Now we have mentioned New York here is a link to some wonderful
black and white photos of N.Y by Rob Gardiner and also of London et même Paris, you will find a photo of a street in Montmartre by night and also 2 Mona Lisa in the Louvres Gallery... the magic power of the black and white photography...

French school system and exams...
To finish this quick tour of idées more or less/ill or well reçues, we can have a look at the French school system and the studious people amongst us will be pleased to brush up their French by having a look at some homework and subjects of exams, Brevet(GCSE), BAC, BTS, from the page france-examen.com.
To see a correction of a weekly homework of the BAC (A-Levels), select BAC and once on the page france-examen.com/bac.html select: Révisions, Corrigé de la semaine to open the new page on which you will be able to choose from the subjects: Anglais, Ens. Scientifique, Français, Maths, Philosophie, SES (Sciences Economiques et Sociales), SVT (Sciences of the Life and the Earth). Brevet (GCSE) exams topics examples are also available on the same site.
The University of Besançon in Franche-Comté (Eastern France) in it's article about the Education in France may provide some learning material, although it is not for total beginners it is worth having a look, it links to more reading materials.


computing, browsing and learning French while reading and listening to the news...
As we prefer using Open Source browsers from the Mozilla project, we have discovered a French site which promotes Firefox with a French accent and we are sure that you will approve of it, go to Femfox.com. The site is bilingual and might provide a free language material to people who are keen in taking advantage of any good opportunity to learn French.femfox.com a firefox with a French twist
In Femfox, Fem is short for 'femme' which, as we know, means 'woman' and that we pronounce like the 'jam' you eat...
Enjoy!

About Open Source computing in France
French authorities will give out 175,000 USB memory sticks loaded with open-source software to Parisian high school students at the start of the next school year.
But mentioning open-source software without naming linux would be unfair, when we think that by switching to the Open Office suite and open browsers the French National Police in January 2006 and the French Tax Department, in 2005, are saving a few millions euros per year, in English French Police abandons Ballmer's Microsoft for Mozilla.

On zdnet.fr you can read and listen to Business and Technologies news, download them and save them on your hard drive in the format MP3, and use them later as language learning material. Another French site where you can get to grip with the French language is the blog of Tristan Nitot, the president of Mozilla Europe.


Microsoft new operating system Vista packed with functionality-crippling features
read Bruce Schneier's article 'Why Vista's DRM Is Bad For You'(DRM: digital rights management). You must allow the cookies from forbes.com (even temporarily) to be able to read the article and avoid being redirected to their front page.