Paris, France - Nearly a quarter of French adults believe that the novel The Da Vinci Code is based on facts surrounding the life of Jesus Christ, according to a survey published on Tuesday.
Twenty-four percent of respondents said they believed the work was "inspired by real facts" and another seven percent said it was a mixture of inspiration from facts and of "esoteric" literary sources.
Forty-nine percent said the novel was based purely on literary sources. Twenty percent had no opinion.
The poll, commissioned by the monthly Science et Vie (Science and Life) and drawn from a questionnaire of 1,006 people aged 15 or over, explores the extent of Christian belief in relics and the accounts of the Bible.
Twenty-seven percent respondents who knew of the Shroud of Turin believed that this cloth was the genuine burial garment of Jesus Christ, whereas 29 percent concurred with scientists who say it was a fake dating from the Middle Ages.
Dan Brown's best-selling book, which has been made into a movie due to be released this month, explores the idea that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene, had children, and that their descendants survived to the present day.