This is the national song of France — the one people stand for, the way other countries have their own. The name looks like the city Marseille, and that is not an accident. During the French Revolution, soldiers from Marseille marched north singing it, and the song kept their name. In English we still say the Marseillaise. You hear it at football, at the Olympics, and on France’s national day. Though actually it began as a war song, not a gentle hymn: the words are about taking up arms and marching. In everyday English it is almost only this one song, not any song from the south of France.

馬賽曲（法國國歌）