Quiz: July 2017

1    What language other than French is spoken by well over 100,000 inhabitants of Roussillon, at the eastern end of the Pyrenées?

2    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?

3    How many people, in various states of undress, can be seen in Édouard Manet’s once scandalous 1863 painting ‘Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe’?

4    Since its first lines were opened in 1900, the interior decoration of concourses on the Paris Métro, have largely corresponded to which artistic style?

5    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?

6    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?

7    Which ‘Loire château’ actually on the river Vienne, underwent a spectacular 21st century restoration and shares its name with a former Japanese camera maker?

8    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?

9    Known in France as ‘Télécran’, what lineographic screen-based drawing toy invented by Frenchman André Cassagnes, first went on sale in 1960?

10    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?

11    Which horse with a French name was the first in post-war years to win both the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Grand National?

12    What slang word for a female, comes from a character in the title of an Émile Zola novel, who cuts a swathe through Paris society, before dying horribly of smallpox?

13    In his book Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe, who mused (unfairly!), “…and let’s face it, the French army couldn’t beat a girl’s hockey team”?

14    The commercial launch of which legendary French car, was delayed for nine years, by the outbreak of the Second World War?

15    Complete this lyric from a very famous French song: “Quand il me prend dans ses bras, il me parle tout bas, je vois…” (4 words)

16    Pollux, Zébulon, Ambroise and Azalée the cow, are four characters from a French TV show for children, which transferred to the BBC in 1965 under what title?

17    In a French rugby line-up, what role is played by the ‘talonneur’?

18    Born near Boulogne around 1170, Eustace the Monk may sound like a man of the cloth, but was much more famous in what other sphere of activity?

19    Which 55-year old francophile Cornish actress who studied at Paris’s ENSATT National Theatre School, was made a Dame of the British Empire in 2015?

20    What is the name of the Pacific atoll nearly 800 miles south of Tahiti, where France conducted a long series of controversial atomic tests between 1966-96?

Take the first letter from the answers to the questions indicated below and rearrange the letters to spell out the name of a famous French novel

Questions: 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 14