What traditional Parisian tourist conveyances take their familiar name from the area of Lyon where they were first built, and not, as many think, from a type of insect?
A version of which BBC quiz show has been broadcast on the TV station France 3 since 2011 under the title Personne n’y avait pensé! (‘No one thought of it!’)?
Who returned home from exile in Paris on a chartered Air France flight to assume the effective leadership of his country, on February 1st, 1979?
In the field of leisure activity in France, what are Les Arcs, Les Carroz, Les Gets and Les Menuires?
Which Picardy town near Arras has a five-letter name which is 80% vowel, and is famous for an English Catholic translation of the Old Testament, published there in 1609?
What late 18th century hyphenated term for the lower classes who wore trousers rather than knee-breeches, might today be used colloquially as an equivalent to ‘going commando’ in English?
Taken from the book of Genesis, what is the French title of the 1956 film directed by Roger Vadim which rocketed the 22-year old Brigitte Bardot to global fame?
Which very famous pop song, played more often at British funerals than any other, was in its original version a 1968 French hit by Claude François, when it was called ‘Comme d’habitude’?
What was first represented by the length of a platinum bar kept at theInternational Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris from 1799 to 1889, when it was infinitesimally altered?
Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre and Marie Galante are the three principal islands of which French overseas département located in the Caribbean Lesser Antilles?
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French Quiz - March 2018
Which French city’s equivalent of the Champs-Elysées is a kilometre-long boulevard called ‘La Canebière’, built in accordance with wishes ex-pressed by King Louis XIV in the 1660s?
Which song was dedicated in 1959 by its singer to the French Foreign Legion, and is routinely sung by them when on parade?
Dominated by one of west Africa’s most significant rivers, what was the former name (in English) of Burkina Faso, which gained independence from France in August 1960?
What is the main type of ingredient in the garlic-flavoured provençale stew known as a ‘bourride’?
The world’s least frequently published newspaper, the satirical La Bougie du Sapeur, (‘The Soldier’s Candle’), has appeared only once every four years since 1980, always on which date?
In the 1820s, for use in what type of building did physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel originally develop his ridge and-groove lantern lenses, some of which could be over eight feet tall?
Although all were born in other countries, Michel Théato (1900), Boughera El Ouafi (1928) and Alain Mimoun (1956) all won gold medals for France in which classic Olympic event?
If the French word for a branch or twig is ‘un rameau’, which day of the Christian calendar is known in France as ‘Dimanche des Rameaux’?
Popular the world over, what distinctively muscular all-white breed of cattle from eastern Burgundy is the most numerous native type in French agriculture?
What name for a dingy pit-like room in a medieval castle is taken from the French verb ‘to forget’, since that is what often hap-pened to prisoners unfortunate enough to be left there?
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French Quiz - February 2018
In the title of a 1990 thriller directed by Luc Besson, what is the name of the highly-trained youthful assassin working for the government and played by Anne Parillaud?
Which two letters, most likely to be found after the name of a company, is the equivalent in France of the English ‘Ltd’?
What substance, previously known as ‘vital’ or ‘dephlogisticated’ air, was definitively re-named by the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier in 1777?
What cheap brand of blended wine synonymous with socialising in the 1970s, helped accustomise the British to wine-drinking, and had a French name meaning ‘swallow’ (bird)?
In horseracing, steeplechasers such as the 2009 Grand National winner Mon Mome, classified as AQPS - ‘Autre Que Pur-Sang’, specifically do NOT fall into what category?
Now a museum ship in Nantes, the French destroyer Maillé-Brézé played a significant on-screen role in what British war movie, released in July 2017?
If the French classify ‘bitter’ beer as ‘bière brune’, what adjective do they generally use to describe lager beers?
What is the most common three-letter English equivalent of the French texting acronym EDR, which stands for ‘écroulé de rire’?
A large island of Papua New Guinea and a colourful genus of South American climbing plant both take their names from which illustrious 18th century French explorer and naval officer?
What range of mountains runs along France’s border with Switzerland and gives its name to both a French département and a Swiss administrative canton?
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French Quiz - January 2018
What is the name of the opulent room within the Palace of Versailles in which Georges Clemenceau signed the treaty formally ending the First World War on June 28th, 1919?
What word used in English as well as French for a travelling writer and performer of songs, comes originally from an old Languedoc word for ‘composer’?
Alain Prost won his first three Formula 1 World Championships in the 1980s driving for McLaren, but for which British team was he driving when he won his final title in 1993?
What was the middle name of the French engineer Marc Brunel, who in the 1820s designed and helped construct the Thames Tunnel between Rotherhithe and Limehouse in London?
Which classic 1953 Hollywood movie set 12 years previously and starring Burt Lancaster, was released in France under the title, ‘Tant qu’il y aura des hommes’?
Which manufacturer of beauty products now based in New York but founded in Paris in 1904, shares its name with the surname of the last president of the French Fourth Republic (1946-58)?
Which tributary of the River Seine gives its name to two French administrative départements and has inhabitants who are sometimes known as ‘Isarien(ne)s’?
Which military rank used in English-speaking countries means ‘place-holder’ in French?
France’s ‘Loi Evin’, the ‘Evin law’, passed in 1991, puts stringent limits on the advertisement of what, proving especially disruptive for TV coverage of foreign sporting events?
An 1859 operatic version by Charles Gounod of which Shakespeare play spawned a Parisian parody entitled ‘Rhum et eau en juillet’, (‘Rum and Water in July’) eight years later?
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French Quiz - December 2017
A publication which describes itself as ‘bimensuel’ is issued twice every month. How often does a ‘trimestriel’ publication appear?
Which French town or city of about 70,000 inhabitants is served by the Aéroport Napoleon Bonaparte?
What is the English title of a song, originally German, whose best-known French version begins with the words ‘Douce nuit, sainte nuit! Dans les cieux, l’astre luit!’?
In which 2011 film directed by Woody Allen, does Owen Wilson travel back in time to the France of the roaring ‘20s and later, to the ‘Belle Epoque’ of the 1890s?
A very unsophisticated prototype of what item of diagnostic medical equipment, was first used by René Laennec on a heart patient at Necker Hospital in Paris in 1816?
What French phrase is a brusque and impolite request for someone to “shut up!” and can be literally translated as your gob!’?
What culturally historic name was given in September 2016 to the administrative division made up of the former Midi-Pyrénées and Languedoc-Roussillon regions?
In the NATO phonetic alphabet, which predominantly French-speaking Canadian province’s name is allocated to one of the letters of the alphabet?
What French word for bib-and brace overalls was adopted in the 1970s in English, for a fashion item now largely relegated to the worlds of skiing and sailing?
A double murder in an apartment on which fictional Paris street was solved by C. Auguste Dupin, in a pioneering detective story published in 1841?
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French Quiz - November 2017
What does the word ‘bio’ on an item in a French shop or market indicate?
Which French fashion magazine founded in 1945 is said to have featured its namesake supermodel in every issue for six years during the 1980s?
67 of France’s 96 metropolitan départements take their names from what?
Parisian actress Bérénice Marlohe played the rather short-lived love interest in which James Bond film?
After which French port did explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville name what are now known as the Falkland Islands, when he founded a colony there in 1764?
Which French sports goods manufacturer supplied the shirts in which Tottenham Hotspur won memorable FA Cup Final victories in 1981 and 82?
Which US state has a capital with a French name, possibly derived from the settlement there in the 17th century of a group of Trappist monks?
In 2005 at Amiens University Hospital Isabelle Dinoire was the first person ever to undergo what pioneering surgical operation, after being mauled by a dog?
What 500-year old French trick-taking card game for two players, uses a deck of 32 cards, and has a name which might bring to mind a F1 world champion?
Between 1309 and 1377 seven successive popes resided in which French commune in south-eastern France?
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Mentioned in the title of a 1953 play originally written in French, for which other character do the down-at-heel Vladimir and Estragon wait in vain?
Which day in the Christian calendar is known in France as ‘mercredi des Cendres’?
What was the surname of the brothers Auguste and Louis who invented a working ‘cinematograph’ in the 1890s, only to abandon moving pictures by 1905 because they saw no future in them?
Which rugby union forward who played 62 times for France between 2000-11, spent five years at Sale Sharks, where he won the affectionate nickname ‘Sea Bass’?
In the kitchen of a large restaurant or hotel, a ‘potager’ would be responsible for the preparation of what?
In the kitchen of a large restaurant or hotel, a ‘potager’ would be responsible for the preparation of what?
Which very short children’s song contains the repeated phrase, “Sonnez les matines!” (“Morning bells are ringing”)?
Théodore Géricault’s most famous painting shows a raft strewn with the desperate survivors of which ship, wrecked off the coast of west Africa in July 1816?
In stories and novels by Georges Simenon, what is the first name of Paris police commissioner Maigret?
Acquired in 2015 by the American corporation XPO, with what line of business is the Lyon-based company Norbert Dentressangle most closely associated?
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French Quiz - August 2017
In 1925, which world-famous delicacy from Aveyron in the south of France, was the first French cheese ever awarded protective AOC status?
Which Hollywood film star who is married to French advertising executive Romain Dauriac, opened her own Yummy Pop popcorn shop in Paris in October 2016?
Which modern orchestral instrument is a development of a 17th century French invention called the ‘hautbois’, meaning high(-pitched) wood?
At which French Winter Olympics venue, did French alpine skier Jean-Claude Killy pick up three gold medals in1968?
What term derived from a phrase in a Beatles song, characterised lightweight French pop music performed by 1960s singers such as Sylvie Vartan and Françoise Hardy?
Which breed of dog, known in France as a ‘caniche’ or less commonly a ‘barbone’, sometimes symbolises the nation itself, although it is also claimed by the Germans?
What is the first name of the adulterous doctor’s wife, who is the title character in Gustave Flaubert’s 1857 novel Madame Bovary?
Named after the great French polymath who attempted to perfect them in the 1640s, what kind of instrument – of which around 10 survive - is a ‘Pascaline’?
Built across the western end of the Ile de la Cité in the early 17th century, what is the slightly misleading name of the oldest bridge, over the Seine in Paris?
Every Easter Monday to commemorate an incident when Napoleon’s entire army had to be fed locally, the Haute-Garonne village of Bessières cooks a giant…what?
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Quiz: July 2017
What language other than French is spoken by well over 100,000 inhabitants of Roussillon, at the eastern end of the Pyrenées?
According to its own website, which French theme park’s most popular attractions include It’s A Small World, Big Thunder Mountain and Phantom Manor?
How many people, in various states of undress, can be seen in Édouard Manet’s once scandalous 1863 painting ‘Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe’?
Since its first lines were opened in 1900, the interior decoration of concourses on the Paris Métro, have largely corresponded to which artistic style?
What city in Africa was the destination for a field of assorted vehicles which gathered for the first time at the Place du Trocadéro, in Paris, on Boxing Day, 1978?
What was the first name of Pierre and Marie Curie’s daughter who, due to her work in the field of artificial radiation, was, like her parents, a Nobel chemistry laureate?
Which ‘Loire château’ actually on the river Vienne, underwent a spectacular 21st century restoration and shares its name with a former Japanese camera maker?
Shortly after the Second World War, London-born Susan Travers became the only official woman member of which military body in its (now) 185-year history?
Known in France as ‘Télécran’, what lineographic screen-based drawing toy invented by Frenchman André Cassagnes, first went on sale in 1960?
In which country’s October 2014 F1 Grand Prix, did an accident in very wet conditions lead to the death of French driver Jules Bianchi?
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French Quiz - June 2017
On April 25th, 1792, of what implement was highwayman Nicolas Pelletier the first of many Frenchmen to fall foul?
What word is used in French for pliable twigs of wicker typically used in making furniture, and in English is an antiquated term for any tree in the willow family?
In an English hotel, you might expect the letters H and C to appear on the hot and cold taps. What equivalent letters might you see on taps in a French hotel?
Parisian-born Séverine won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1971 performing Un Banc, Un Arbre, Une Rue, but which country did she represent?
Standing at the confluence of the rivers Ille and Villaine, which city in eastern Brittany was founded over 2000 years ago by a Gallic tribe called the Redones?
For reasons which remain unclear, which great female French athlete caused a shock by withdrawing from the 2000 Sydney Olympics, days before the start of her events?
Which historical figure was Carry On actor Peter Gilmore portraying when the incompetence of a subordinate led him to exclaim, “Mon blooming dieu!”?
In September 2016, the most easterly of France’s reformed regions, made up of Alsace, Lorraine and Champagne-Ardenne, was officially given what new name?
What is the most common equivalent word in English for what players of pétanque call the cochonnet (piglet)?
Which Paris nightclub on the Champs Élysées, home to the statuesque Bluebell Girls, opened in 1946 on the site of what was previously a small artificial beach?
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French quiz - May 2017
The favourite food of the fictional Gaul Obélix and widespread throughout much of modern rural France, what kind of mammal is a ‘sanglier’?
Named in honour of a French physicist who died in 1836, what is the standard international unit of electric current?
Formerly ‘Les Guignols de l’Info’ and going strong since 1988, Canal+ TV’s puppet-based Les Guignols was heavily influenced by which British TV show?
Before the adoption of the Euro in January 2002, the French franc was divided into one hundred what?
What is France’s oldest surviving daily national newspaper? First published in 1826, it takes its name from the title of a play by Pierre de Beaumarchais.
Which city on the French Riviera hosts an annual film festival usually held in May?
In July 1921, who was the only French boxer ever to contest a world heavyweight title fight? He lost in four rounds to Jack Dempsey, in Jersey City, New Jersey.
The Carmelite nun Thérèse Martin, who was canonised a saint in 1925 just 28 years after her early death from TB, is associated with which town in Normandy?
What colour is the large diamond on a French road sign which advises that you are driving on a ‘route prioritaire’, and do not have to give way?
In a verse epistle of 1768, which Frenchman made the famous observation that “if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”?
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French Quiz - April 2017
On which day of the year does Fête du Travail or Fête des Travailleurs, a French national holiday, fall?
In which 1999 novel by Joanne Harris does newcomer Vianne Rocher subtly alter the lives of the villagers of Lasquennet-sous-Tannes, in rural south-west France?
Which French ocean liner, a great rival of the Queen Mary in the 1930s, twice broke the westbound and three times the eastbound Atlantic crossing time records?
Which resort in Savoie hosts an annual leg of the Alpine Ski World Cup, and was the preferred winter destination of Patsy and Edina in Absolutely Fabulous?
What five-letter name was the most popular for baby girls in France in 2015? It might bring to mind fictional ladies created by Abbé Prévost and Marcel Pagnol.
If you fancied a raspberry ice-cream when you were on a French beach, what flavour would you be best advised to ask for?
On which island in the River Seine does Notre Dame cathedral stand?
Much loved 89-year old ‘Grande Dame’ of French politics Simone Veil, is best remembered for the legalisation of what in 1975, when she was Minister of Health?
In the lyrics of a 1988 top five UK hit performed by a 14-year old French singer, who drove a yellow Citroen Saxo and knew all the little bars and dark corners?
A French tennis umpire would call “Quarante-à” for the first instance of deuce in a game. What does he call when subsequent deuces occur in the same game?
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