France’s formal name is La République Française (French Republic).
The name “France” comes from the Latin Francia, which means “land or kingdom of the Franks.”
France is the largest country by size in Europe at 248,573 m2 (643,801 km2), and that figure includes the islands of French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, and Réunion Island.
France’s highest point, also the highest point in Europe, is Mont Blanc at 15,771 feet (4,807 m) high.
France is divided into 22 metropolitan regions, and its five overseas regions called Dom-Toms.

With at least 75 million foreign tourists per year, France is the most visited country in the world and maintains the third-largest income in the world from tourism.
An English book contains the first ever mention of French toast
French toast was originally called pain perdu (lost bread), and the first written mention of the dish comes from the court of Henry V of England. The Oxford English Dictionary mentions the first use of the name “French toast” was in 1660 in a book called the Accomplisht Cook.
France celebrates July 14th as its Fête Nationale (Independence Day), which is the founding of its current Constitutional Monarchy, or the First Republic. The celebration actually commemorates the storming of the Bastille Prison on July 14, 1789, which sparked the French Revolutionary War.
France’s flag has three equal vertical bands of blue (hoist side), white, and red. Known as Le Drapeau Tricolore (French Tricolors), the origin of the flag dates to 1790 and the French Revolution when the “ancient French color” of white was combined with the blue and red colors of the Paris militia.
The French government gives medals, La Médaille de La Famille Française (Medal of the French Family), to citizens who have successfully raised several children with dignity.
There is only one stop sign in the entire French city of Paris.
In the Savoie region of France, there is a small town named Pussy.
One in five French people have reportedly suffered from depression, making it the most depressed country in the world.
Louis XIX was king of France for just 20 minutes.
The 2003 Durex Global Sex Study showed that the French are the people who have the most sex in a year.
France was the first modern country to legalize same-sex sexual activity in 1791.
In France, one can legally marry a deceased person.

Crayola is a French word that means “oily chalk.” Alice Binney, wife of Crayola founder Edward Binney, combined the world craie (chalk) with ola (a shortened form of the French oléagineux, meaning oily).[12]
The Rainbow Warrior was a Greenpeace ship sent to disrupt French nuclear tests in the Pacific, and it was blown up while in harbor in New Zealand in 1985, killing one worker. A scandal ensued when it emerged that French secret services were involved in the attack.

Jean Dujardin is the first and only French actor to have ever won Best Actor at the Academy Awards for his role in “The Artist” in 2011.
Since the end of World War II, France has been one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
French (along with Spanish) women have the highest life expectancy in the whole of the European Union.
France’s greatest sporting moment came when the country hosted and won the 1998 Soccer World Cup.
French journalist and cyclist Henri Desgranges came up with the Tour de France in 1903 as a means of promoting his sports newspaper, L’Auto, today called L’Équipe.[