That's why the French, Poles and God knows who else have that the other way around, i.e., ".

Jacek 

« En français », précisa Laurent, « la ponctuation se place de cette façon. »

"Sådan", siger Nanna, "sætter vi anførselstegn på dansk".

It's also okay to use «  -  », or '  -  ' as quotation marks. To make it more fun, we have old comma rules and new comma rules. Both are okay, but some teachers frown on the new comma, which is more akin to the English comma rules.

I was still 50% right. All right, I should have said "Danes, Poles and God knows who else."

Jacek

„En in het Nederlands”, zei Scott, „men doet het dus.”

Nanna vroeg: „Wil je niet naar Ribe?”
Scott zei: „Alleen als je daar echte Jutse droogvis hebt!”

Hmm, as a doubting Thomas I consulted my old Bordas and, sure enough, their « ponctuation se place de cette façon ». Now, I don't know how it is in the numerous French pages I recently quoted because I had to struggle with my scanner and basically adjust all the inverted commas manually, so I will not know for sure what the original convention there was until I retrieve those books.

Jacek
 

Not when quoting a whole sentence. I have just double-checked the usage in the French press.
However, when quoting a single word or expression at the end of a sentence, the period will be left outside the quotes.
That's French « logic ».

Laurent

" En français ", rétorqua Sarah, " le point final est à l'extérieur, à la fin comme son nom l'indique ".

Once again, I'm referring to the current usage in the French press, as applied by the secrétaires de rédaction.

See for example: http://correcteurs.blog.lemonde.fr/correcteurs/la_typo_cest_pas_sorcier/index.html

and look for "L'art d'accommoder les citations (3)":

"Abordons la question de la ponctuation de fin de citation. Si la citation est courte, pas de problème : elle n'est qu'une proposition de la phrase, ou même un complément, et le point final se mettra après les guillemets fermants. [...] le point est après le [guillemet] fermant [...] Par contre, si la citation forme une phrase complète, se suffit à elle-même, la ponctuation finale de la citation sera aussi celle de la phrase. [...] Le point est avant !"
(pardon my French!)

Laurent

It is logical. « I have checked Bordas and they also place entire quoted sentences inside the inverted commas like this. » What's more, I have checked Polish punctuation rules and they are based on the same French logic: a final word is „quoted like this”. „An entire sentence, on the other hand, like this.”

Jacek