French quiz - May 2018

1    ‘On y danse, on y danse’ (‘People dance there, people dance’) is the second line of which very well-known traditional French song?

2    What was the French name of the British ship-of-the-line which fought at Trafalgar and which can be seen in a famous painting by J.M.W. Turner, on its way to the breaker’s yard in 1838?

3    What is the name of the footballer who moved to Paris Saint-Germain from Barcelona in the summer of 2017 for a world record fee of nearly £200 million?

4    Which orange-flavoured Cognac liqueur created in 1880 and most familiar in its ‘Cordon Rouge’ edition, is typically used as an alternative to Cointreau in Sidecar and Margarita cocktails?

5    Which oil company from Aquitaine whose name was a three-letter acronym for French Gasoline and Lubricants, was merged into the multinational concern which became ‘Total’ in 2003?

6    Name the unfinished novel by concentration camp victim Irène Némirovsky, published only in 2004, and made into a film starring Michelle Williams and Matthias Schoenaerts in 2015.

7    What is the most obvious British equivalent of the French organisation known as the Fédération Unie des Auberges de Jeunesse (FUAJ)?

8    Which famous Parisian thoroughfare runs along the north side of the Louvre as far as the Place de la Concorde, and takes its name from a 1797 battle won in Italy by Napoleon?

9    What alliterative term encapsulating vigour and excitement became closely associated in the UK with footballer Thierry Henry, after he used it in a series of Renault Clio TV adverts?

10    What nine-letter French word is used in English to lend a little upmarket glamour to a product which is essentially a stewed fruit preserve – or, in other words, jam?

11    Which département of southwestern France takes its name from the huge estuary formed by the junction of the rivers Garonne and Dordogne?

12    Which English playwright’s first major success was the 1936 romantic comedy French Without Tears, set in an intensive language school in a villa in the south of France?

13    What French currency was replaced in 1794 by the decimal franc? It was made up of 20 sous, each of which was in turn made up of 12 deniers.

14    First exhibited at the Paris Observatory in 1851, physicist Léon Foucault’s famous ‘pendulum’ was intended to demonstrate and prove what natural phenomenon as simply as possible?

15    In the comic book stories of Astérix, what is the original French name of the small dog who accompanies Obélix everywhere, and who is called Dogmatix in the English versions?

16    What French name is given to the dense hedgerow countryside, typical of lower Normandy, which made fighting in the immediate aftermath of D-Day in June 1944 such an arduous affair?

17    What is the English name of the 1886 musical suite by Camille Saint Saëns which includes movements called Poules et coqs, Aquarium and Personnages à longues oreilles?

18    In July 2010 at the French National Athletics Championships in Valence, sprinter Christophe Lemaitre became the first white European to officially achieve what sporting feat?

19    Which of the five ‘mother’ sauces of French cuisine is an emulsion of egg yolk, butter and lemon juice or white wine, and takes its name from that of a fellow EU member country?

20    What is the name of the fanatically determined inspector of police who remorselessly tracks down Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel Les Misérables?

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