French culture is being shaped by historical events, geography, internal and foreign groups and forces of it. France, especially Paris, has been playing a significant role in terms of decorative arts and high culture since the 17th century. Paris had dominated these two fields till the 19th century. Later, it gained reputation in the fields of cuisine, fashion, cinema, and modern art as well. French culture’s importance has waxed and waned for centuries, depending on vitality with regards to military, polity, and economy. Today, French culture is marked by both- great socioeconomic and regional differences, as well as by enormous unifying tendencies.
Meaning of ‘Culture’
Culture, be it in France, or generally, comprises of values and beliefs grasping through material artifacts and socialization process. Culture performs the task of guiding social interactions amongst members of the society, along with influencing values and personal beliefs which shape the perception of people about their environment. Culture comprises of everything learnt in groups with the passage of time-between infancy and old age.
French culture’s conception, however poses some difficulties, along with presupposition of a chain of assumptions regarding the meaning of the expression ‘French’. The term ‘French Culture’ implicitly refers to a specified geographical identity or to precise historico-sociological group which can be defined by geography, religion, language, and ethnicity.
Frenchness
Realities of ‘Frenchness’ are, however, extremely complicated. Prior to late 19th century, ‘Metropolitan France’ was hugely a hodgepodge of regional differences and local customs that the combining aims of French Revolution and Ancient Regime had only started for working against. France of today id known as a country of several foreign and indigenous languages, of diverse religions and ethnicities, as well as of the regional diversity which is inclusive of French citizens residing in Martinique, Guadeloupe, Corsica, and elsewhere across the globe.
Creation of certain sort of shared or typical cultural identity or French culture, in spite of such a vast heterogeneity, can be referred to as outcome of the internal forces, like cultural and linguistic policies of state, compulsory military service, and educational system. Historic events, like the first and the Second World War, and Franco-Prussian War have also forged a great sense of ‘National Identity’ since the last two centuries.
Recently, for fighting against loss on the part of regional diversity, many people in France have gone with promotion of multiculturalism. They have also encouraged formations of cultural enclaves, inclusive of reforms on safeguarding regional languages as well as decentralization of some government functions. French multiculturalism, however, has had to pass through tough time in terms of acceptance, or integration in to collective identity, of the huge non-Christian, immigrant communities which have settled in France since 1960.
The last five decades
The last 50 years have witnessed the threatening of cultural identity of France by global forces and cultural hegemony of the US. From the time of its transactions with GATT Free Trade conference in the year 1993, France has been fighting for the so-called ‘Exception Culturelle’, which means right of subsidizing or treating the cultural production on the domestic level favorably and for limiting or controlling cultural products which come from outside France.
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