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Nous étudions des pays européens, tels que la France.

Nous étudions des pays européens, tels que la France.
We study European countries, such as France.
From Lesson 357:Giving examples (tel que)·French

Questions & Answers about Nous étudions des pays européens, tels que la France.

Why is it tels que (masculine plural) when the example given is la France (feminine singular)?
In French, tel que always agrees with the general category that comes before it, not the specific example that follows. Here, the category is des pays (masculine plural), so we use the masculine plural form tels. It is a common mistake to make it agree with the example!
Why is the article la included before France?
Unlike English, which drops the article for countries in phrases like "such as France," French almost always requires a definite article before the name of a country. You must say la France here, not just France.
Since the word pays ends in an 's' even in the singular, how can we be sure it is plural in this sentence?
The words around it give it away! The plural indefinite article des and the plural adjective européens (which would be européen in the singular) both indicate that we are talking about multiple countries.
Could I just use comme instead of tels que to say "such as"?
Yes, you could say des pays européens, comme la France. Tel que translates specifically to "such as" and is a bit more formal, while comme translates to "like." The big grammatical difference is that comme is invariable, whereas tel que must agree with the noun it refers back to.

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