A very happy Festive Season to all my readers. Thank you for reading the blog this year and for all your comments here and on Facebook and elsewhere. I feel I have friends around the world.

Welcome to the 11th Edition of the Life on La Lune French Christmas Quiz, my little Christmas gift to you, dear readers. Twenty questions on aspects of French history, culture, language, cuisine, geography and politics with multiple choice answers. Stretch your brain cells after you’ve stretched your waistline.

A few rules

• Try to answer without using the internet if you can. You are, however, authorised to search this blog, and you’ll find the answers to around half of the questions buried here somewhere.
• Attention ! Some questions might have more than one correct answer. This is deliberate, so please don’t comment below that question x has y number of correct answers.
• Similarly, please don’t post up your answers in the comments but wait until I post them in a week’s time.
• Don’t take it too seriously; it’s all in fun.
• There are no prizes. Virtue is its own reward.

I will provide the answers on Thursday 30th December, so you have a week to puzzle over it.

A vos marques. Prêts. Partez !

Q1 When did French become the official administrative language of France?

a) 1539

b) 1790

c) 1992

Q2 What is said to be unique in France about the primary school in Bioule, Tarn-et-Garonne?

a) It has only two pupils

b) It is housed in a château

c) Occitan is the only language spoken

Q3 What is this person doing?

a) Fitting a bed sheet

b) Stretching cow’s stomach to make tripe

c) Making pastis, a Quercy dessert

Q4 With which flower does France commemorate those who have fallen in war?

a) Chrysanthemum

b) Cornflower

c) Poppy

Q5 How did Nègrepelisse (black coat or mantle) get its name?

a) The Black Prince captured the town during the Hundred Years War

b) The town’s plague doctors wore a black cloak with a hood as a sign of their profession

c) Charcoal burners were once active in the area

Q6 What is a fève?

a) A broad bean

b) A trinket baked into a galette des rois

c) A high temperature

Q7 Which artist’s work caused a stir when it was installed in the church in Caylus?

a) Marc Chagall

b) Henri Matisse

c) Ossip Zadkine

Q8 What is a poisson d’avril?

a) Plain white fish eaten during Lent

b) An April fool involving sticking a paper fish on someone’s back

c) Fish released into rivers for the fishing season

Q9 What is the real name of the fictionalised Janac in Jan and Cora Gordon’s 1925 memoir?

a) Carnac

b) Jarnac

c) Najac

Q10 What is un petit gris?

a) A type of snail

b) A touch of the blues

c) A lingering autumn mist

Q11 In past times, why might you have had to wear le casque de Saint-Grat (St Grat’s helmet)?

a) You were a conscripted soldier

b) You had committed adultery

c) You had a nervous or psychotic disorder

Q12 What is this building?

a) Le Musée Soulages in Rodez

b) L’Hôtel des Impôts (tax office) in Montauban

c) The library of l’Université de Nantes

Q13 If someone is “rond comme une queue de pelle” (as round as a shovel handle), are they

a) Very fat

b) Very drunk

c) Very rich

Q14 The basis for which popular French pastry was originally imported from Italy?

a) Croissant

b) Eclair

c) Macaron

Q15 Which traffic management system was invented in France?

a) Traffic lights

b) Roundabouts 

c) Stop signs

Q16 In which Nobel Prize category has France had more laureates than any other country?

a) Economics 

b) Literature 

c) Physics 

Q17 Which French author’s funeral is said to have brought more than two million people onto the streets of Paris?

a) Victor Hugo

b) Alexandre Dumas

c) Emile Zola 

Q18 Where is the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, believed to have really been composed?

a) Lyon

b) Strasbourg

c) Toulouse

Q19 Which of the following French presidents died in office?

a) Sadi Carnot

b) Georges Pompidou

c) François Mitterrand

Q20 How many départements does France have (including overseas domains)?

a) 95

b) 101

c) 107

Régalez-vous !

Enjoy your Christmas, and I’ll see you on the other side (of Christmas, that is…)

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