Cultural Knowledge of the Francophone World
Domain overview
Cultural items draw on French and Francophone history, geography, institutions, education, media, literature and the arts, and contemporary social issues. You need names, dates and the meaning of institutions - not tourist trivia.
Institutions and civic culture
- Fifth Republic: a directly elected president (universal suffrage since 1962; five-year term since 2000), a prime minister appointed by the president, and a bicameral Parliament (Assemblée nationale, Sénat). Départements and régions handle local administration.
- Laïcité: the 1905 law separated churches and the state. The earlier lois Ferry (1881-82) made public primary schooling free, compulsory and secular.
- Education: collège (four years, ending with the brevet), lycée (three years, ending with the baccalauréat). Grandes écoles admit through competitive concours, not by the bac alone.
The Francophone world
The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie links dozens of states. French is official in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada (federally), Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire and Haiti, among others. Quebec's Charte de la langue française (Bill 101, 1977) restricts English on commercial signage.
Worked example
Question: which measure made French public primary schools secular? Answer: the lois Ferry, not the 1905 law. Ferry's 1881-82 legislation built the free, compulsory, lay école; the 1905 law governs the general separation of church and state.
Traps
Confusing the bac with entrance to grandes écoles; treating France's overseas départements (Guadeloupe, Martinique, La Réunion, Mayotte, Guyane) as independent states; assuming Francophone Africa uses the euro, when most of it uses the CFA franc.