France Facts

In France, it is legal to marry a dead person.

In 1386, a pig in Falaise, France was publicly executed by hanging for killing a child. The pig was even dressed in human clothes for the execution.

One punishment for an adulterous wife in medieval France was to make her chase a chicken through town naked.

In France, there's a place called Y.

The Statue of Liberty was a gift of friendship resulting from the diplomatic relationship between the United States and France.

The 'Big Dipper' is known as 'The Casserole' in France.

Stilts were invented by French shepherds who needed a way to get around in wet marshes.

After noticing the wind rustling and turning the leaves on trees, French entrepreneur Jérôme Michaud-Larivière designed wind turbine trees that could provide clean energy for urban settings.

In 1846, a 14-year-old French peasant girl named Angélique Cottin became famous for allegedly possessing strange physical powers. Witnesses claimed that furniture moved away from her, compasses spun wildly in her presence, and people felt electric-like shocks when near her. Scientists of the era studied her, though they never explained the phenomenon.

There's a café in France which charges €7 for a coffee to rude customers and €1.40 to people who talk politely to staff.

In France, by law a bakery has to make all the bread it sells from scratch in order to have the right to be called a bakery.

In 1542, French noblewoman Marguerite de La Rocque was marooned on a remote island off Quebec as punishment for a love affair. After her lover and servant died, she survived alone for months before being rescued by fishermen.

The French named one of their aircraft carriers after Ferdinand Foch, a man who once said "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value".

The word 'mortgage' comes from a French law term that means 'death pledge'.

More people in Africa speak French than in France itself.

In 1997, a 23-year-old French con artist convinced a Texas family he was their missing teenage son — despite having brown eyes instead of blue, a heavy French accent, and being a completely different person. He lived with them for months before a private investigator uncovered the truth.

French street artist Le CyKlop has been transforming ordinary anti-parking bollards into bright yellow LEGO-like characters across France since 2014. His 'Angry L'éGO' series started as guerrilla art — painting the posts at night in just two minutes using custom stencils — and has since grown into both unauthorized installations and official city commissions.