Sports

• Cycling

France is famous for its cycling since Tour de France, an international cycling road race that attracts hundreds of thousands of spectators each year. Established more than a century ago, the annual summer race covers some 3,600 km (2,235 miles) over the course of three weeks, finishing in Paris.

• Soccer

Soccer is extremely popular in larger towns since the country is pretty good at the sport. In 1998 during The World Cup, not only was this global event was hosted by France but France also won The World Cup. From then on, the popularity of soccer has skyrocketed.

• Rugby

Rugby league has a strong following in the south and southwest of France where favourite teams being Toulouse, Montauban and St-Godens.

• French Balls

France’s most traditional ball games are petanque and the similar, though more formal, boules. Both are played by village men in work clothes on rough gravel, or sandy pitch known as a boulodrome, scratched out wherever a bit of flat and shady ground can be found.

Here is a video to show you an example of the game

Festivals

• Bastille Day

The Bastille was a prison in Paris, known formally as Bastille Saint-Antoine and is best known today because of the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, which lead to the end of the country's monarchist rule and the establishment of a new French Republic. The event was commemorated one year later and was declared a national holiday. Nowadays it's still a day of celebration for the French, and today the July Column and the Opéra Bastille are located in La Place de la Bastille.

• Cannes Film Festival

The Cannes Film Festival is the world's most prestigious film festival and is held in May each year in Cannes, in the south of France. The most prestigious award given out at Cannes is the Palme d'Or ("Golden Palm") for the best film.

• Nice Jazz Festival

Nice city in the south of France, receives more than 45,000 visitors each year, between musicians and spectators. All of them are there for the Nice Festival of Jazz that takes place in the Arenes de Cimiez every summer. Concerts are held each night between 7pm and midnight.