France – Mission based Assignment Introduction My association with France started in 1966 and 1967 when we had an exchange trip from school to a town called Chateaubriand in Brittany. Following that in March 1981 I got a job with the French pharmaceutical company Les Laboratoires Servier who were about to move to Fulmer village just north of Stoke Poges . From then on for nearly thirty years I had day to day contact with French people working in the UK, on the telephone to France, but also quite frequent business trips lasting from overnight to a week at a time over in France. Ialso got involved going over to France to sing with the worship band, which started an association for about five years or so with a tiny evangelical church in Calais, which some of us used to visit quite regularly, but progress was slow and eventually the association fizzled out. Ethnic Origins and Early Christian History Archaelogy indicates that France has been settled continuously since Paleolithic times, though the inhabitants are originally Celtic in origin, and had migrated from the Rhone Valley into Gaul, now France. There was also some mingling of tribes with more Germanic peoples notably the Basques in Gascony. In about 600BC, Greek and Phoenician traders established settlements along the Mediterranean coast, notably at Marseille. Province was colonised by the Romans in the second century BC and Julius Caesar conquered part of Gaul in 57-52 BC, with his final battle at Verangetorix, and the capital of Roman Gaul was Lugdunum (current day Lyons). Christianity was introduced into Gaul in the 1st century AD, though it is not clear who the evangelists were. It is possible they could have come directly from the Holy Land. In AD 171 Irenaeus was appointed Bishop of Lyons in order to replace Pothinus who was killed during persecution. Iranaeus was moved to pursue a church with a single authority and doctrinal standard, which was affirmed by others, and wrote a creedal statement in Greek at the end of the second century AD. This was to dispel the gnostoicism which was prevalent at the time. There is now only a copy left in Armenian, and it contains three articles addressing spiritual encounters with God the Father , Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. This doctrine was to stay in place for many centuries. Irenaeus died in AD 202. In the third century, western Christians were becoming attracted to the monastic life similar to that followed by the Eastern Churches. In 361 AD, a soldier called Martin (later St Martin) established his first monastic community in a place called Liguge which is near Poitiers and in AD 372 he became Bishop of Tours and established his second monastic community at Marmoutier which lasted until the French revolution in 1789. He attracted many young aristocrats from Gallo Roman families into the religious life. Celtic missionaries evangelised much of Europe between the 5th and 6th centuries AD . They had developed their faith on their own with no influence from Rome, and their revelation came from the True Vine and of continuous praise and prayer. They introduced art into worship, the greatest being the Book of Kells, now in Trinity College Dublin. For them nature was also a self expression of the divine. Irish monks also established monasteries in Gaul in the 6th and 7th centuries AD. They were sent out from the 24 hour prayer and worship centres in Lindisfarne and Iona. They had the wisdom to preserve art and literature, both Christian and secular, when the Visigoths, Franks and Burgundii sacked parts of the old Roman Empire in Gaul, and in so doing preserved civilisation as we know it today. Geography and Location Mainland France is situated just thirty miles from the United Kingdom at its nearest, just across the English Channel. This is the northern border, with the Atlantic Ocean and Bay of Biscay to the West, Spain and Andorra to the South West, the Mediterranean Sea in the south, Switzerland and Italy to the South East and Germany Luxembourg and Belgium to the North East. Apart from extreme northern France, the country has been described as four river basins and a plateau. There is also Corsica, an island in the Mediterranean, and some overseas departements (Martinique, Guadeloupe, Reunion, and French Guiana) countries and territories (New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna Islands ) and the French Southern and Antartic Territories. Demographic Information The population of France in 2010 was 64 million. Paris, the capital of France is the largest city with Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Nice, Nantes, Strasbourg and Bordeau also having greater than 210,000 inhabitants. France was made up historically of many separate provinces, and these still remain as geographic, cultural and economic divisions which retain their own striking diversity. In 1972 , 22 regions based on these historical provinces were established. 75% of the country is urban, but there is a great mingling of peoples, together with a large ethnic diversity particularly in Paris and Marseille, due to North African immigrants. It has been calculated that there are 101 people groups over the whole country and only eight of these groups are recorded as speaking French, though some speak local dialect versions of the parent language. The rest (93) are other ethno linguistic groups which are too many and too scattered across France to mention individually. On account of the absolute diversity of the inhabitants of France, Herve Le Bras and Emmanuel Todd wrote in 1981 that from an anthropological point of view, France ought not to exist. The original Celtic, Germanic and Frankish tribes had almost as many origins as the population of modern France. Since France has been pieced together by treaties and conquests, and since two-thirds of the territory has been French for less than three hundred and fifty years, it is not surprising that there is no deep rooted sense of national identity. They belong to a town, a suburb, a village or a family, but not a nation or a province. People, Government and Politics The French people are known to have a very laid back attitude to life , and do not tolerate foreigners easily. French culture and mealtimes are taken very seriously, and the family is the central part of their society and culture. They are also a very private people. I certainly can count on one hand , the number of times I got invited out, when I was over there on business, which could be very lonely. The government of France is a semi-presidential system, determined by the French Constitution of the Fifth Republic, considered to be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social republic. The constitution provides for a separation of powers and proclaims France’s attachment to the Rights of Man and the principles of national sovereignty as defined by the Declaration of 1789, which refers back to the French Revolution. The President shares executive power with his appointee, the Prime Minister. Parliament comprises the National Assembly and the Senate. It was a founding member of the European Coal and Steel Community, the forerunner of the European Union, and therefore the French government has to abide with European treaties, directives and regulations. Politically there are parties ascribed to all political doctrines from the far left to the far right, which is similar to the rest of Europe. Since 1905 there has been no connection between Church and state. Wars, Invasions, and other Critical Events As all countries, France has gone through its share of upheavals over the centuries, which has shaped the nation into what it is today. From the Conquest of the Romans , the Hundred Years War, to the end of the Second World War, there have been regular events, wars and political intrigue going on with neighbouring countries. The biggest event which affected the whole of France was the French Revolution in 1789 , when the reigning royal family was deposed and beheaded because the people were living in poverty, and the Royal Family had everything. France has also been invaded by Germany on three occasions. (Franco-Prussian War, World Wars 1 and 2 ) Religion The statistics list for France list Christianity as 61.1%, Non Religious as 26%, Islam as 26%, Buddhism as 1.0% , Ethnic Religions 0.9% and Unknown Religions as 0.4%. For Christianity it breaks down so that 94.2% are Roman Catholic, Protestant 3.1%, Orthodox 1.7% and other 0.7%. Although the majority of Christians are listed as Roman Catholic, actually religious practice varies greatly. The saint or Virgin Mary of one village need not be the same as the saint or Virgin Mary from the village down the road. Beliefs and practices centred on prehistoric stones and magic wells bore only the faintest resemblance to Christianity. The local priest might be useful as a literate man, but as a religious authority had to prove his worth in competition with healers, fortune-tellers, exorcists, and people who could change the weather. Morality and religious feeling are independent of church dogma. It is thought that there are currently more clairvoyants in France than Catholic priests. In my travels in France I have found some places where there was such a spiritual darkness around that I used to find it very difficult to pray. I have also found the French to be very philosophical. In many companies there are quotes from Voltere or other notaries written on a slab of marble on the wall in the reception area. The Reformation and Beyond French Protestantism started , as it did across Europe at the end of the fifteenth Century , courtesy of Martin Luther, and was successful in France due to the prevailing mental attitude.