They are called "stages" in English, "étapes" in French.
The Tour de France is oldest and most prestigious Grand Tour. There are three Grand Tours: the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espania. The format is generally the same for each. After these three races, other races are generally shorter (either one day or multiple days) and have less teams/riders participating.
Well theres the Tour de France, which just ended. The Giro d'Italia. The Dauphine Libere. Then there are one-day classics, like Paris-Roubaix. There are lots of great cycling races in the world. Hope this helps.
Tour de France Tour de France
No! It's a one day race, totally different to the Tour de France. its one of the 5 one day monuments of cycling (the others being Milan - San Remo, Tour of Flanders, lLege - Bastogne - Liege and the tour of Lombardy). Its also one of the spring classics. These races favour totally different cyclists to the grand tours, to the extent that grand tour contenders may not race in the classics.
The TdF is a multi-day event, and the race distance for each day is called a stage.
It can vary a lot. The average professional road race will be from 120km - 180km. That is for something like the Tour de France or any other tour. There are also one-day specials like: Paris Roubaix, which is a 250km race over the hard cobblestones of France. It goes for 5 hours.
Tour de France
"Present-day" means right now. France is called France now.
The Tour de France, a 23-day-long bicycling race.
one inch >:(
Podium
By being fastest, every day.