Editing Culture of France (section)

==Regional customs and traditions==
[[File:FIL 2009 - Coiffes bretonnes - bigoudènes - cercle ar vro vigoudenn.JPG|thumb|[[Brittany|Breton]] women and girls wearing [[Breton costume|headdress]]es during a festival]]

Modern France is the result of centuries of nation building and the acquisition and incorporation of a number of [[Provinces of France|historical provinces]] and [[Overseas departments|overseas colonies]] into its geographical and political structure. These regions all evolved with their own specific cultural and linguistic traditions in fashion, [[religious observance]], [[regional language]] and [[Accent (sociolinguistics)|accent]], family structure, [[cuisine]], leisure activities, industry, and including the simple way to pour wine, etc.

The evolution of the French state and culture, from the [[Renaissance]] up to this day, has however promoted a [[centralization]] of politics, media and cultural production in and around Paris (and, to a lesser extent, around the other major urban centers), and the industrialization of the country in the 20th century has led to a massive move of [[French people]] from the countryside to urban areas. At the end of the 19th century, around 50% of the French depended on the land for a living; today French farmers only make up 6–7%, while 73% live in cities.<ref>Kidd and Reynolds, 30–31.</ref> [[French literature of the 19th century|Nineteenth century French literature]] abounds in scenes of provincial youth "coming up" to Paris to "make it" in the cultural, political or social scene of the capital (this scheme is frequent in the novels of [[Balzac]]). Policies enacted by the [[French Third Republic]] also encouraged this displacement through mandatory military service, a centralized national educational system, and suppression of regional languages. While government policy and public debate in France in recent years has returned to a valorization of regional differences and a call for decentralization of certain aspects of the public sphere (sometimes with ethnic, racial or reactionary overtones), the history of regional displacement and the nature of the modern urban environment and of mass media and culture have made the preservation of a regional "sense of place or culture" in today's France extremely difficult.

The names of the historical French provinces – such as [[Brittany]] (''Bretagne''), [[Berry (province)|Berry]], Orléanais, [[Normandy]] (''Normandie''), [[Languedoc]], Lyonnais, [[Dauphiné]], [[Champagne (province)|Champagne]], Poitou, [[Guyenne]] and [[Gascony]] (''Gascogne''), [[Burgundy (region)|Burgundy]] (''Bourgogne''), [[Picardy]] (''Picardie''), [[Provence]], Touraine, [[Limousin (province)|Limousin]], [[Auvergne (province)|Auvergne]], Béarn, [[Alsace]], [[Flanders (county)|Flanders]], [[Lorraine (province)|Lorraine]], Corsica (''Corse''), [[Savoy]] (''Savoie'')... (please see individual articles for specifics about each regional culture) — are still used to designate natural, historical and cultural regions, and many of them appear in modern région or département names. These names are also used by the French in their self-identification of family origin.

Regional identification is most pronounced today in cultures linked to regional languages and non-French-speaking traditions – French language itself being only a dialect of [[Langue d'oïl]], the mother language of many of the languages to-be-mentioned, which became a national [[Lingua franca|vehicular language]], like (in alphabetical order): [[Alsatian language|Alsatian]], [[Franco-Provençal language|Arpitan]], [[Basque Country (historical territory)|Basque]], Brezhoneg ([[Breton language|Breton]]), [[Burgundian language (Oïl)|Burgundian]], Corsu ([[Corsican language|Corsican]]), Català ([[Catalan language|Catalan]]), [[Lorraine Franconian|Francique]], [[Gallo language|Gallo]], [[Lorrain language|Lorrain]], [[Norman language|Norman]], [[Occitan language|Occitan]], [[Picard language|Picard]], [[Poitevin language|Poitevin]], [[Saintongeais]], etc., and some of these regions have promoted movements calling for some degree of regional autonomy, and, occasionally, national independence (see, for example, [[Breton nationalism]], Corsica and [[Occitania]]).

There are huge differences in life style, socioeconomic status and world view between Paris and the provinces. The French often use the expression "la [[France profonde]]" ("Deep France", similar to "[[wikt:heartland|heartland]]") to designate the profoundly "French" aspects of provincial towns, village life and rural agricultural culture, which escape the hegemony of Paris. The expression can however have a pejorative meaning, similar to the expression "le désert français" ("the French desert") used to describe a lack of acculturation of the provinces. Another expression, "[[terroir]]" is a French term originally used for wine and coffee to denote the special characteristics that geography bestowed upon these products. It can be very loosely translated as "a sense of place" which is embodied in certain qualities, and the sum of the effects that the local environment (especially the "soil") has had on the growth of the product. The use of the term has since been generalized to talk about many cultural products.

In addition to its metropolitan territory, France also consists of [[overseas departments]] made up of its former [[French colonial empire|colonies]] of [[Guadeloupe]], Martinique and [[French Guiana]] in the [[Caribbean]], and [[Mayotte]] and [[Réunion]] in the Indian Ocean. (There also exists a number of "[[Overseas collectivity|overseas collectivities]]" and "[[Overseas territory (France)|overseas territories]]". For a full discussion, see [[administrative divisions of France]]. Since 1982, following the [[Cabinet of France|French government]]'s policy of [[decentralisation]], overseas departments have elected regional councils with powers similar to those of the [[Regions of France|regions]] of metropolitan France. As a result of a constitutional revision which occurred in 2003, these regions are now to be called [[overseas regions]].) These overseas departments have the same political status as metropolitan departments and are integral parts of France, (similar to the way in which Hawaii is a state and an integral part of the United States), yet they also have specific cultural and linguistic traditions which set them apart. Certain elements of overseas culture have also been introduced to metropolitan culture (as, for example, the musical form the [[biguine]]).

Industrialization, immigration and urbanization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have also created new socioeconomic regional communities in France, both urban (like Paris, [[Lyon]], [[Villeurbanne]], [[Lille]], [[Marseille]], etc.) and the suburban and working class hinterlands (like [[Seine-Saint-Denis]]) of urban agglomerations (called variously ''[[banlieue]]s'' ("suburbs", sometimes qualified as "chic" or "pauvres" or ''les cités'' "[[housing project]]s")) which have developed their own "sense of place" and local culture (much like the various [[borough (New York City)|boroughs]] of New York City or suburbs of Los Angeles), as well as cultural identity.