A dictionary of France,
including institutions, places, significant people, French specialities, and a selection
of other useful or intriguing expressions.... Q
QG, Quartier général : headquarters of an operation or force, command post. Quai d'Orsay -
part of the left bank of the River Seine in Paris, in the 7th
Arondissement; location of the French Foreign Office (ministry). By
extension, the expression "Le Quai d'Orsay" is used to mean the French
Foreign Office, in the same way as "Downing Street" designates the
office of the British prime minister. Quai des Orfèvres :
road beside the Seine on the Ile de la Cité, in central Paris, famous
as the headquarters of the Paris police. The Paris equivalent of
Scotland yard. Quartier : word implying a district or area of a town, as in le Quartier Latin, the Latin quarter. See the quarters of Paris Quartier Latin :
Covering part of the 6th arondissement, and also part of the 5th, this
is the traditional student quarter of Paris, centered on the Sorbonne
and the Panthéon. The narrow pedestrian streets are full of cafés and
restaurants, and the busy boulevards, particularly the Boulevard Saint
Michel, known as the Boul'Mich, have bookshops, cinemas and other shops Quatorze Juillet -
14th July : Bastille Day, the French national holiday, celebrated by a
big military parade down the Champs Elysées in Paris, in the presence
of the President, and firework displays in the evening in most towns
and cities. Que Choisir? French consumer magazine, similar to the UK's Which? magazine. Queen Mary 2
: World's largest ocean liner, built in the Chantiers de l'Atlantique
at Saint Nazaire, at the mouth of the Loire, and launched in 2003. Quinté: Form of betting on horses, involving selecting the first five horses in a race. See Tiercé and PMU. Quinzaine, une : A fortnight, two weeks. Quinzaine commerciale,
two-week period when shops in a town or shopping centre put on special
offers. These special offer periods cannot be called 'Sales',
since the wordSoldes, meaning 'sales', can only be used at specific
times of the year designated by the government. Quotient familial -
QF : factor applied during calculation of the income tax due by a
French household. The QF is 2 for a couple with no children, 2.5 for a
couple with one child, 3 for a couple with 2 children, and therafter
one point extra per additional child.
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