FROM THE CELTS TO ROLLERBLADES - CultureShock! A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette: France - page 16

of France. The word aborigines is usually associated with
primitive peoples now, but it really just means 'original'. The
ancestors of the French go back several ice ages. They are not
a people who, like North Americans, arrived in the midst of a
primitive culture, erased it, and started over. They have always
been there.”
In 900 BC , Celtic tribes began spreading west across the
Rhine and by the 5th century BC , they dominated most of
France and Belgium, with the more adventurous crossing the
Atlantic to the British Isles.
The Celts were not a homogenous people, but organised
into small, fi erce tribes, speaking different languages and
constantly fi ghting among themselves. They adjusted to
the geography where they settled. We know so little of
the people who were already there, we must assume they
were assimilated.
In the mountains of what we now call Switzerland, the
Helvetii established dominance. In the north-west, the Belgae
fended off the Scandinavian tribes. The Celtic people in
the south dwelt among the Greeks (Phoenicians), who are
credited with founding the city of Massilia (now Marseille in
French, Marseilles in English) in 600 BC .
The Romans called the land of these Celtic peoples Gaul or
Gallia. In 121 BC , they conquered the Mediterranean coastline,
and most of what is now the Provence and Languedoc. Julius
Caesar then won domination over the rest of what was to
become France during the Gallic Wars, 58-51 BC . (The feistier
Celtic tribes in Brittany successfully resisted. So did the Celts
who had settled in Cornwall, Wales and Scotland.)
The Romans built major edifi ces you can still visit today,
and the people were somewhat assimilated into the Empire.
Emperor Claudius I, a Roman born in the city that is now
Lyon (Lyons in English) even admitted Gallic noblemen to
the Roman Senate. The exports of wine, food and pottery
prospered, as it still does today.
The Romans brought their language, law and Christianity,
but the Celtic tribes retained many of their unique ways, still
evident in the various regions of the country today. Eventually,
the Roman Empire weakened and various Germanic tribes