After a disappointing weekend last weekend, this weekend was a different kettle of fish, despite a tad of inclemency in the weather. This weekend was ‘French Weekend’ at Arcadians, which meant a weekend of pétanque, good food, a little wine and plenty of good company. The weather had its inevitable say too, but luckily the sun shone brightly during the day, to be replace by heavy rains and thunderstorms in the evening once we’d moved indoors. Indoors there was an excellent buffet and also good entertainment from DJ David Wayne. On the pétanque front, our fortunes were mixed winning as many as we lost on the bumpy main lawn, but all in all I was happy with my game which included many excellent shots.
France as a country has a wonderful culture which like the British, has many diversities due to the country’s colonial days. France has been a centre of Western cultural development for centuries. Many French artists have been among the most renowned of their time, and France is still recognized in the world for its rich cultural tradition. The culture of France and of the French people has been shaped by geography, by profound historical events, and by foreign and internal forces and groups. France, and in particular Paris, has played an important role as a centre of high culture since the 17th century
French Art to is also renown around the world .The French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars brought great changes to the arts in France. The program of exaltation and myth making attendant to the Emperor Napoleon I of France was closely coordinated in the paintings of Gros and Guérin. Meanwhile, Orientalism, Egyptian motifs, the tragic anti-hero, the wild landscape, the historical novel, and scenes from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance—all these elements of Romanticism—created a vibrant period that defies easy classification. French artists are many but the most renown ones are Claude Monet (1840 – 1926),Paul Cezanne (1839-1906),Paul Gauguin (1848-1903),August Renoir (1841–1919),Edgar Degas (1834–1917),Édouard Manet (1832–1883),Charles-François Daubigny (1817–1878),Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863),Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968).
Frances traditions and influences around the globe can be seen in architecture especially but also in the traditions of other countries as well as the political systems of many former French colonies. The French colonial empire was constituted of the overseas colonies, protectorates and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 17th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the “First colonial empire”, that existed from 1534until 1814, by which time most of it had been lost, and the “Second colonial empire”, which began with the conquest of Algiers in 1830 and came for the most part to an end with the granting of independence to Algeria in 1962 (the last territory to reach independence was Vanuatu in 1980).Countries that came under French control during these times includes parts or all of these following countries : Algeria, Antarctica, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon,
Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, China, Comoros, Congo, Republic of the Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Gabon, Gibraltar, Guinea, Haiti, India, Italy, Ivory Coast, Laos, Lebanon,
Libya,Madagascar,Mauritania,Mauritius,Mali,Morocco,Niger,Senegal,Syria,Thailand,Togo,Tunisia,Turkey,Vanuatu, Vietnam and the United States
Naturism has been active in France since 1920.250 million to the French economy. France is represented on the INF by the FFN.Fourgon. In 1907, supported by his superiors, Abbé Legrée encouraged the students at his catholic college to bathe nude on the rocky beaches near Marseille. A report on German naturism was published in la Revue des deux mondes.Marcel Kienné de Mongeot, who came from a noble family and who was an aviator in the Great War, is credited with starting naturism in France in 1920. By then he was a journalist who wrote a defense of the dancer, Malkowski, in the journal Vouloir. His family had suffered from tuberculosis, and he saw naturism as a cure and a continuation of the traditions of the ancient Greeks. In 1926, he started the magazine Vivre intégralement (later called Vivre) and the first French naturist club, Sparta Club at Garambouville, near Evreux. Others quickly followed as did local opposition. His victory in court established that nudism was legal on private property that was fenced and screened.
Drs. André and Gaston Durville opened a naturist health centre, edited the La vie sage (1924) and bought a 70 hectare site on the Île du Levant on which they established the Héliopolis. The village was open to the public. Dr François Fougerat de David de Lastours, who was gassed in the Great War and was saved by exposure to the sun, in 1925 wrote a thesis on heliotherapy and in that year opened the Club gymnique de France. Jacque de Marquette wrote on naturism and vegetarianism. In 1936, government minister Léo Lagrange recognised the naturist movement. France is now a leading naturist nation and this is seen by the creation of one of the only naturist towns Cap D’Agde.