Believe it or not

Time has not been legal in France for some 35 years, even though the Paris-based International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) is keeping time legal for everyone else. Ironically, France uses as many as twelve different time zones.

One punishment for an adulterous wife in medieval France was to make her chase a chicken through town naked. 

Though traditionally there are around 300 to 400 varieties of French cheese, there are in fact over 1,000 different types available in the French market.

The concept of denim clothing was born in the Languedoc-Roussillon city of Nimes – de Nîmes; get it?

France’s official name is the French Republic (République Française). It became a republic in 1792, after centuries of royal rule, as a result of the French Revolution. The Revolution started with the storming of the Bastille fortress on 14th July 1789, an event that is celebrated every year all over France on Bastille Day.

The legal system in France is still largely influenced by Napoleon. French law is still based on the principles set down in Napoleon Bonaparte’s Code Civil in the 1800s. 

Paris was originally a Roman city called Lutetia.

There is only one 'Stop' sign in the entire city of Paris.

In France you can marry a dead person. During World War I, a few women were married by use of proxy to soldiers that had died weeks earlier. This practice came to be called posthumous marriage. Posthumous marriage for civilians originated in the 1950s, when a dam broke and killed 400 people in Fréjus, France, including a man named André Capra, who was engaged to Iréne Jodart. Jodart pleaded with French President Charles De Gaulle to let her go along with her marriage plans even though her fiancé had died. She had support from the media and within months was allowed to marry her fiancé.

Louis XIX was king of France for just 20 minutes.

At the Petite Syrah in Nice, France, it pays to display proper gentility –not saying 'Hello', and 'Please' makes your coffee more expensive.

Potatoes were illegal in France between 1748 and 1772.

Did you know that the largest Buddha in Europe is to be found just outside Paris?