Everything you need to know about… Heho heho!

General Info; Population; 60,300,000 Life Expectancy; 79.4 Birth Rate (per 1000 population); Death Rate (per 1000 population); 8.55 There are towns and villages in France Total land surface 550,000 sq km The highest point is Mont Blanc which culminates at 4,807 metres above sea-level. The coastline is more than 5,500 km long

Politics France have a presidency, and current President is Nicolas Sarkozy (5 year mandate). Their Prime Minister is Francois Fillon France, is a republic, with a written constitution. (5th Republic) Since the French revolution in 1789 and the establishment of a democratic government in 1792 (The First Republic) and the end of the reign of the kings and queens in France, there has always been a Parliament of some sort in France. Despite the dark days of the Second World war and the infamous Vichy government, were the influence of Hitler and Nazi occupation clouded many a politician. French politics tend to swing from one side to the other at ever election, sometimes it's a moderate swing and every now and then a major swap. Politics are very emotional, you still hear words such as Communism, Trotski and Nationalism. De Gaule and Mitterand were probably the most famous and influential leaders of the political scene. Although both of these Presidents are no longer, people tend to be; conservator and Gauliste or socialiste and Mitterandist.

Regions The country is split into 22 administrative regions Each region is divided into "departments" (counties). There is a total of 96 departments (106 when including the DOMs which are the overseas counties). The regions listed in alphabetical are : Alsace, Aquitaine, Auvergne, Basse-Normandie, Bourgogne, Bretagne, Centre, Champagne-Ardenne, Corse, Franche-Comte, Haute-Normandie, Ile- de-France, Languedoc-Roussillon, Limousin, Lorraine, Midi-Pyrenees, Nord- Pas-de-Calais, Pays de la Loire, Picardie, Poitou-Charentes, Provence-Alpes- Cote d'Azur, Rhone-Alpes

The culture of France is very rich and diverse, reflecting regional differences as well as the influence of immigration. France plays since centuries an important worldwide role as a cultural center, with Paris as a world center of high culture. France is a secular country where freedom of thought and of religion is preserved, in virtue of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The Republic is based on the principle of laïcité, that is of freedom of religion (including of agnosticism and atheism) enforced by the 1880s Jules Ferry laws and the 1905 law on the separation of the State and the Church, enacted at the beginning of the Third Republic ( ). Roman Catholicism is not considered anymore a state religion, as it was before the 1789 Revolution and throughout the various, non-republican regimes of the 19th century (the Restauration, the July Monarchy and the Second Empire). At the beginning of the 20th century, France was a largely rural country with conservative Catholic morals. In the course of the century, major changes have occurred: the countryside has become largely depopulated, and the population has largely become secularised. This has led to important changes in social morals.

Since the Jules Ferry laws, the prime minister and Minister of Education, all state-funded schools, including university, are separate from the church. Education in these institutions is free. The legal drinking age for alcohol beverages (21% vol. alcohol) is officially 12 The most-watched sports in France are football (soccer), rugby union, basketball, cycling, sailing and tennis. France is notable for holding the football World Cup in 1998, for holding the annual cycling race Tour de France, and the tennis Grand Slam tournament Roland Garros, in the French Open. Kimi Riakonen won the French Grand Prix last weekend.