Brioche vendéenne (video)

Here we are a recipe I have cooked for my class: a brioche vendéenne. It is such

an easy recipe that a bad cooker like me has been able to do it, so I will

be easier for you.

These are the ingredients:

250 ml of milk

40 gr of yeast

2 eggs

650 gr of flour

65 gr of sugar

100 ml of sunflower´s oil

To bake: one egg, sugar and some water.

Now, this is the video, although we are sorried because it is in Spanish, but the

picture is ilustrative enough:

French educational system

France education is characterized and special since the implementation of the obligatory

schooling in the XIX century . This characterization is due to the creation of the French Republican

School, which was obligatory and secular. Its creation was due to the creation of the French Republic

and also to show the separation between govern middle of the XX century. a very deep transformation

related to social changes, the increase of obligatory schooling and the races diversity between

students and also teachers, something which was caused by the intense migration movements.

In France, schooling is obligatory until 16 years. When children are 3, they start their school

age in “L'école maternelle” (Little children school). When students are 4, they go to the “Moyenne”

Medium Section. Then, they go to the Grande Section (High section) when they're five. The following

courses, by increasing order, is: Cours préparatoire, Cours élémentaire 1, cours élémentaire 2, cours

moyen 1 and cours moyen 2 (Preparatory year, Elemental School Year 1 and 2, and Medium School

Year 1 and 2). 

From 11 to 18 years, French students go the Secondary School. This period is divided in two

parts; the first ones are called “collèges”, where French students go when they're 11 which finishes

when these are 14. It has four courses ordered in a decreasing rank. The first course is the 6

th one, and the las tone is the 3rd. When students finish the 3rd course, they've got to do the “Brevet”, an exam that isn't really necessary to approve but which gives french government a figure to know how their

students are and what do they know.

Students enter here when they finish the last year of primary school, which uses to be called

“Cours Moyen Deuxième Année”, as it has already been told.

The second schools are “lycées” (higher than Secondary Schools), which are divided in three

courses. It starts when students are 15, and finishes when students are 18.  There we can see some

parts. Two of them are the “Lycée général”(General High School), the “Lycée Technologique”(only

Technology School) and the “Lycée Proffesionnel”(Professional High School). The first one is taught in

normal “lycées”, and is oriented to people who want to continue learning and that are probably going

to study a university degree. Also “Lycée Technologique” is studied in normal “lycées”, but it has a

different orientation. There, students want to finish their studies promptly, doing something like the

Spanish CFGS. The “Lycée Professionnel” is oriented to people who isn't planing to study the highest

education. It's especially good for students who don't enjoy learning in academical ambiances

When students finish any of the ways of “lycée”, they got the “Baccalauréat” diploma.

Students from the “Lycée Technologique” and “Lycée Professionnel” go to an specific place to

study an specific area of Technology, in the first case, and in the second one they go to work in a

specific place to learn in that way. Students from the “Lycée Général” usually go to the university.

23 There are two ways to go to the university in France. You can go to a “Grand École”, which is

an institution very specialized in an area of study or you can also go to a university. “Grands écoles”

only admit processors of “Baccalauréat” diploma and 2 years of study in any university. That's one of

the reasons why students usually don't study in an unique organization.  Universities don't use to be

very expensive, and student's coming from low economic levels usually receive helps for the

education. If we add that to the fact of that they've got a health insurance until they're 21, we don't

have to be very intelligent to forecast that they don't have got many problems to get high educational

levels. Even so, “Grand École” is something different. It's not an organization from the

government, so they can make you do an exam to test that you're prepared enough. This is why there

preparatory schools which prepare students to these competitive exams at “Grands écoles”. Another

way of getting into those schools is a second selection based on the results of the two lasts years of

“lycée”. The other way is to do 2 years of university or preparatory class.

Even some of those schools just include the preparatory class into the program. The bad thing

about this is that if you're going to do the selection test in another school you'll probably have a

problem, because this preparatory school will prepare you for their selection exam and not for the

others one, so your probabilities of being selected in another school is really low. When students finish

their studies at universities or “Grands écoles” they can opt to the study of a master or doctoral

degree. These studies are like Spanish ones. In a master degree, a student studies an specific area of

the degree that obtained previously. Its finality is a professional career dedicated to the area of the

master. 

Doctoral degrees have the finality of giving the student a very deep knowledge of the area of study. Its destiny is to give students the capacity of researching by themselves or with a workgroup. 

All the educational

schema from 3 to 18

years old can be perfectly

reduced to the content

shown in the next  image.

Infrastructures in Paris

Paris is very known for being a very big and a very technological city. As a worthy city of that
title, it's very hard to know how Paris works. Its more important infrastructures are the transport ones.
Those include metro transport, bus transport, train transport, ship transport, air transport, taxies..
 Paris Underway is a railway net which length is 214 km, a figure which put L'Île de la cité's
underway longitude as the third one of the Western Europe. Those kilometters are divided into 16 lines. The central point of the net is Châtelet-Les Halles, which is the biggest underway station of the world. Five underway lines, Three RER (Réseau Express Régional) lines and some bus routes join there. It works with pneumatic technology, something used in other underways as the Mexico D.F. Or Santiago de Chile ones. The underway service became open in 1900, with the Olimpic Games of Paris. Only the line nº1 got open, and lines 2 and 6 were pointed as possibly
future lines.
Lines 1 to 10 were built by Paris city and administrated by the “Compagnie du Chemin de Fer
Métropolitain de Paris” (CMP). A second company called the “Societé du Chemin de Fer Electrique
Nord-Sud de Paris” (Known as Nord-Sud) started in 1910 the building of two lines which were called in
that time A and B. However, now those lines are the 12 and 13 lines. The Nord-Sud joined the CMP,

and later CMP became a statal possession and changed its name to the Régie Autonome des
Transport Parisiens. The latest line built is the number 14, opened the October 15th of 1998, which has
trains electrically controlled.
 Paris is connected with the rest of Europe thanks to a very big net of highways and the Train à Grande Vitesse, also called TGV. There are direct lines from Paris to London, Strasbourg and Stuttgart. The most used one is the line between Paris and Lyon, a reason that is making that TGV enterprise think to built a new line between those cities. They're even thinking in make a line between Paris and Barcelona, over all a good new for Spain.

Since 2007, something called Vélib' started. It's a bike renting service in Paris. It rent's 20,000 bicycles in 1202 stations. It's a concession by JCDecaux, a french advertising corporation. In the stations, electrical rental terminals unblock the bike you choose in the terminal, and users have to pay a subscription for the service, having, then, the first half hour of service for free.
Bus lines connect every place of the capital, over all because they're the most developed sorts
of transport in Paris. Since some time, special lanes for taxi and bus are being created. Even barriers
are being put to isolate the special lane from the ordinary lane.
 In Paris are located two of the more crowded airports in Europe. These are the airport Charles de Gaulle and the Paris-Orly one. Charles de Gaulle's airport is also known as the Roissy's airport due to his proximity to Roissy. Building the airport took about 10 years, and today, it supports 63,000,000 passengers a year. It's administrated by the private society "Aéroports de Paris". As a 2004 study says, Charles de Gaulle's airport is the second most crowded airport in Europe, only behind Heathrow's airport in London. It's connected to RER and TGV's net. It has got a surface of 32.38 square kilometers, and it's divided into 3 departments and 7 communes. Paris-Orly Airport is very big: It has a 15.3 square kilometers surface. It has a piece in Orly, and another in Paris. It flights to Europe, Africa, North America and the Middle East and, by a 2010's study,  25,204,000 passengers  travel here every year.

 As a negative thing, Paris citizens pass an average of 70 hours a year blocked in highways
due to the huge population density. As a way to achieve the uncongestion of Paris, most of parkings
are payable, collective ways of transport have their own roads and “pistes cyclables” are more
common every time. However, until the moment this isn't more than a dream.

French Society

The Constitution of France says that France is a secular, Democratic and social state: Religion
France recognizes themselves as a secular state, where every religions can coexist.
After a poll made in 2007, we know the Catholic religion supposes the 5% of the population
(fifteen years before, it was the 80&), the 30%  are atheist people and the 20% rest is composed by
Muslims, Jude, etc.
Then, Catholic Religion is the principal one in France. Its history in this country  began with
king Clovis, the king of all Francs in the V century, imposed Catholicism as the state religion.
After French Revolution the  Catholic Church was pursued , but some years later, Napoleon
signed a treaty with them to give the Church money to their maintenance and declared Catholic
religion the main one for French People. However, many protests against the Church has taken place
since Napoleon, and their power has decreased, so the state has become secular, neutral.

Democracy.

France is declared as a Democratic state, as we explain in the “Politics of France” paragraph.
The principal politic parties are the Social Party, Right´s Party and Extreme Right Party. Vote
average in France is really high (the 86 per cent).

Society: General Characteristics.

France is an Western country with style of life very similar to United States´ and Europe´s :
they are a consumption society, free market economy, etc. However style of life of France has got their
own characteristics: their history, based in the ideas of the freedom given in the French Revolution and
other important events, has conformed their mind, and they are very proud of their country.
 The state in France participates in many services in the country, (train, cruises, post,
phone, electricity, gas, etc) and there is an important piece of employment that is of
government employment.

Conflicts in the creation of Paris.

First Merovingian and later Carolingian kings controlled the kingdom where Paris was for a lot
of time. Then, they were replaced by the Carolingians. Later, Capets come, and were succeed by The Valois. These were succeed by the Bourbons. Some interesting stories about Paris and it as a city are
the next ones:
In the XVI AC were organised lots of assassinations against Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants). This were called St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, and is a part from French Wars of Religion. Lasted two days and thousand of Huguenots were killed. There are many theories about who organised the massacre, and traditionally people have thought that Catherine de Médici instigated the
massacre, but after some researches we know that who really ordered that the massacre was done
was Charles IX of France.
6Also in the XVI AC Paris population went against Henry III of France and made him leave his
position as governor of Paris. After this, the Seize, who doubted its name to the number of districts
that Paris has, took the power there. This was called The Day Of the Barricades.
Later, this capital was the center of the French Revolution. It commenced when Louis XVI of

France fired Jacques Necker, which was considered the only honest man in the government in that
moment. A mob sieged the Invalides, an armory, and acquired lots of weapons. Later, the same mob
sieged the Bastille and Bastille's defenders surrounded. That day is now noted as Bastille Day. Later,
when the revolution had already defeated the king, the queen and others members of the last
government, Napoleon Bonaparte became first consul after dispersing a Parisian revolution firing
cannons at point-black range.
After some time, and when Napoleon had already been defeated, Baron Haussmann was set
as Prefect of Paris by Napoleon III, the nephew of the already defeated Napoleon Bonaparte, who
won the Nationwide elections of the 2nd Republic of France with the 75% total votes and also the one who decided to the 2nd republic into an empire. He was the one who decided to make Paris more
modern. He destroyed the city's defensive walls and put around the city some boulevards, better
buildings, reorganised streets...  Finally, he was fired after being caught in corruption behaviors.

Napoleon III mandate came to its end when he declared the war to Prussia. The same day Napoleon
III resigned, a 3rd Republic was proclaimed and some time later, Prussian army reached Paris and
conquered it in 3 months without much effort. The Commune of Paris were proclaimed, and after a two months war and a lot of people dead, the government of Adolphe Thiers was restored in Paris.
In 1889 a World Expo was organised in Paris. It was the main reason to the construction of the
7Eiffel Tower, which was also the principal symbol in the event.
When the 2nd world war came, Paris was conquered by Germany from the 1940 to 1944.
While it was conquered, some interesting things happened. One of them is that the 160.000 Jewish
population of Paris was discriminated so their business had to be close  and their entry to a restaurant
or to a theatre, forbidden. Other interesting thing is that German Soldiers were ordered to treat politely to Paris inhabitants. In fact, they always paid what they bought, still when vendors overcharged them.
They also carried wherever a German-French phrase book.
When the post-war time came in Paris, the 4th Republic of France was proclaimed. Indochina
and Algeria were lost, and thousands of pro-french people came to France from the second one. Due
to how overcrowded was Paris becoming, the banlieues were created. Banlieues it's the name given in Francophone countries to suburb areas which are under the law.
And today, in the 21st century, Paris is a city, a capital of a country and a capital of a region. Its
actual mayor is Bertrand Delanoë, a French-Tunisian Diploma in Economics.
  It's one of the most populated metropolitan areas in Europe and houses about half of the french
business centrals. It's the most popular touristic destiny in the world with more than 25.000.000 foreign visits a year.
From 1956, Paris is twinned mainly with Rome, but it has also twinned, between others, with
Madrid, Washington DC, Lisbon, Berlin, London, Casablanca, Chicago...
 There have taken place 5 WORLD Expos in Paris since the first one in 1855. It took place on the
champ Elysées under the government of Napoleon III. 5,162,330 visitors came to visit the EXPO, and those left a profit of about $5,000,000 in the country.
  The second one was conducted in 1867 on all Paris, again under the government of Napoleon III.
About 9,238,967 persons visited the Exposition, and , mainly, there were no profits. French
government and french people wasted about $5,883,400 and only $2,822,900 were received.
However, Paris city and Parisian people paid some subscriptions and, finally, that $3,060,500 debt
was enough paid by Paris city as a "subscription".
   The third of them was made in 1878 in Paris as a way of celebrating the lost prusian war. It were
way bigger than the previously existing ones. 36 countries participated on
a surface of 76 hectare. There were 16,156,626 visitors. Graham Bell's
telephone was shown for the first time. Thomas Edison showed his
megaphone and his phonograph.
   The fourth one took place in 1889. It was the reason of the construction
of the Eiffel Tower, which was a "door" to enter intro the EXPO, just like the well known by Seville "Portada" in Sevillie Fear of April. The main attraction was the "Village nègre",
an attraction were you could see 400 people -usually indigenous- in their natural state.. There were
32,250,297 visitors and there weren't many profits -only 49,500,000 francs received from 41,500,000
francs wasted.
   The last -and fifth- one  happened in 1900 to celebrate previous achievements and next ones. First
talking firms and escalators were shown there. Diesel engine were shown working with peanut oil. A 49 inches telescope was shown in the Great Exposition Refractory, which was the largest one of its kind in that time.

Demography of France

Demography of France.

History of French and Parisian demography.

Let's see, at first, some history about France demography:

In 758 AC Pepin the Short made the first census at this territory. The next one who did so was Charlemagne, who counted 15,000,000 millions of persons in his empire (North Italy and Germany). In the IX century some census were done to servants. In 800 AC, France had about 8,8 millions of inhabitants, a figure which decreased in 900 AC (5 millions) due to the constants wars and invasions. En 1328 the population was estimated of 13-16 millions, but it decreased due to the black Death. Two years after that it was about 12-20 millions. In 1600 20 millions were counted. Sun King's kingdom was the fourth more populated kingdom in the world with 22,000,000 people.

Nowadays, Paris is the center of cosmopolitan area with 11.836.970 inhabitants in the area and 2,125,246 in the city. This quantity is, as we can see in the board shown, lower than the one of 1921. If we look at the board shown, we'll also see that between 1954 and 1982 Paris lost 1 millions of inhabitants. Why? Can we ask. That doesn't make sense if we remember that between 1960 and 1980 thousands of pro-french Argelians came to France. The reasons have already been explained. Those Argelians came firstly to Paris, but France government put them on Banlieues, which don't really belong to Paris government. It's also one of the most densitive areas in the world with the 24,448 per km², a figure that can be compared with some Asian megalopolis.

Paris, as it has already been said, it's a part of the region known as L'île de France. While Paris has an area of 2.732 km², L'île de France has an area of 14.518 km². This one is divided into 3 areas. We already know the first one, it's Paris. The second one is the Inner ring, whose area is about 647 km². The third and last one is the Outer ring, which counts with an area of 11.250 km². Its fertility rate is 1.98 children per woman; men life expectancy is 77.5 years. and women´s one is 88.4 years. The death rate is 8.55 deaths per 1000 inhabitants, and the birth rate is 12.91 births per 1000 inhabitants. The Infant death rate is 3.41 deaths per 1000 alive. Paris is because of its past and the past of France a multicultural metropolis. It's forbidden to ask about ethnicity or religion and it's pursued by the law. In fact, the 19.2% (1999's study) of the Parisian population wasn't born in the Metropolitan France, the name which is given to La Métropole, as France was called when it had many territories out there. The main reason of this enormous amount are the waves of inmigration which Paris has suffered. The first of them started in 1820 when some German peasants came to Paris due to the crisis in their land. Later, Italians and European Jews joined Paris population. Lots of Russians escaped from Russia when Russian Civil War was in its most critical point (1917) and swelled even more Parisian population. Last wave hasn't got a specific date, but it started when lots of Spaniards, African pro-french people, Italians... and a lot more of people came there. Today, Paris is one European cities with more inmigrant people. As a last date, the 46% is under 35 years old, while the national average is of 41%.

French demography.

France shares its birth rate, death rate, child death rate, fertility rate figures with Paris. Its women life expectancy is 83.2 years, a figure which gets increased by 2 months a year. Men life expectancy is 76.1 with an annual increase of 3 months.

As lots of European countries, France suffered something called the "Baby Boom". As we can see on the pyramid, it started on 1948 after the 2nd World War and finished in 1973. It was caused by the confidence which the end of the 2nd World War brought European people. If we look at years 1939 to 1945 we can see a fall in the number of people alive. It can be caused by two reasons. The first of them is the most obvious one, and it's about the age that belongs to this space of time. The second reason is that nearly all men went to the war and birth reate decreased a lot. We can see the same effect on areas 1914 to 1918, but this time the first reason (death by old age) is a lot more important.

Its population density is about 116 inhabitants per square kilometre (1/09/2011 study) and it's estimated population for 2012 by the ONU population for 2012 is about 63,292,000 inhabitants, while other organizations believe that it will be about 63,500,000 inhabitants.

This figures show a low decrease of the population, due for some people to the increase of the quality of life and, for others, to the increase of the emigration.

Inmigration phenomena can be shown with a clear information that a French demography announced in 1999. About 14.000.000 people, the fourth part of french population in that time, have at least a foreign father/mother/grandfather/grandmother. Net migration(difference between inmigration and emigration) where calculated in 2007 of 71,000 persons a year. However, this huge inmigration tax isn't more than the 1/4 of the real grow in the French nation.

Inmigrant people have, generally, lower possibilities at the hour of the education. About incomes, they've got an average of the third part of the national income average although they get the same education.

From 2004, the census method has changed. Now, annual surveys are done and exhaustive polls are done every 5 years. This is due to the profit of administrations which can regulate employment and organisms related with the comfort in a better way.

About the 16.2% is above 65 years old, and young people under 20 years are only the 25% of the national population.

Marriage average decreases continuously. In 2007 only 266,500 marriages were celebrated, and in 2006 the average age was of 29'3 years in the case of women and 31'3 in men. Some years ago, Civil Solidarity Pacts are being celebrated. They're another way of getting married were homosexual couples can participate.

Politics of France

Political Organization of France.

France political system is a parliamentary and presidential democracy, the Republic of France. Legislative powers are:

-Executive: it is represented by the Republic´s president and the First Minister and his/her government cabinet.

-Legislative: it is represented by the Parliament with its two chambers (National Assembly and Senate).

-Judicial: it is represented by Judiciary (independent from the other powers).

State Political Organization

Political principal charges (government) and institutions are:

-The Republic´s President: he/she is the head of the state, can select the First Minister and is voted every five years by every older than eighteen years people.

-Ministers or Government Cabinet: they are, in theory, lead by the First Minister. They are selected by the Republic´s President but they are proposed by the First Minister.

The government is represented in all France by prefects.

-Parliament: its has the legislative power and it is composed by two chambers:

a) National Assembly: conformed by 577 deputies who voted every five years.

b) Senate: it is formed by 321 senators who are completely voted every nine years by other politician, members of other political institutions as deputies, counselors and municipal charges.

-Other political institutions:

-Constitutional Council (the most important judiciary who make the laws to be complied related by the Constitution.

-State Council: most important administrative judiciary.

-Courts of Appeals: most important judicial judiciary.

-Courts of Accounts: in charged of revise public accounts.

-Supreme Courts of Judiciary: advisory organ.

-Social and Economical Council: composed by unions, farmers, company leaders,etc. It is an advisory organ.

Administrative organization of France.

France is divided in many local governments: the biggest unit is the Region; then, departments; communes ; and commonwealths.

-Region: there are 26 regions in France, four of them are overseas regions. Regional Counselors are voted every six years and they can chose their Regional Council President (called Prefect), who leads the region´s politics in relations economics, territory order and professional training.

-Department: there are 100 departments in France. They were created in the French Revolution and they have their own autonomous government.

Departments are represented by the General Council, voted every six years. The council chooses their president, who has the executive power, manages accounts and manage the political staff.

Departments has some functions: social actions, public buildings construction, etc.

-Commune: communes are the smallest administrative (and territorial) divisions, created in 1789. There are 36.779 communes now.

They are administrated by a Municipal Council, voted every six years and they choose the mayor, who has executive and accounts administration powers. He/she controls every municipal matters (school, citizen matters, etc.). The mayor is also responsible to the State in citizen functions, public order, elections organization, etc.

-Commonwealths: they are not continuous administrative division; they are associations between communes by their interests, we mean they are temporal administrative associations. Commonwealths can be:

a) Simple communes association: some commune develops some common proyect and territory order.

b) Agglomeration communes: a group of communes represents a group of citizen of 50.000 for a common development proyect, territory order, etc.

c) Urban community: it is the same than the others, but now the group of citizen is bigger (500.000).

France administrative map (not included overseas territories)