France remains one of the world's most talked-about and written-about destinations. It's packed with diversions and distractions of every sort: cultural, culinary, sensual, you name it. And perhaps that's why France has been called le deuxième pays de tout le monde (everyone's second country).
The French claim credit for developing Gothic-style architecture and the cathedrals that stand as legacies of soaring stone. Ever since the Middle Ages, creators of everything from palaces to subway stations have drawn at least some inspiration from designs born in France. The monuments tell the stories of a land that has shaped, and been shaped by, the rise and fall of rulers and empires since ancient times, a country that has been the scene of and the subject of bloody battles. France entered the new millennium as part of an ever more unified Europe, but it remains, and always will remain, indescribably, unalterably French.
The French Republic or France (French: République française or France) is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents.
France is a democracy organised as a unitary semi-presidential republic. It is a developed nation with the fifth-largest economy in the world in 2004. Its main values are expressed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
France is one of the founding members of the European Union, and has the largest land area of all members. France is also a founding member of the United Nations. It is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council wielding veto power, and it is also one of only seven acknowledged nuclear powers in existence.
While the main territory of France (metropolitan France; French: la Métropole, or France métropolitaine) is located in Western Europe, France is also constituted from territories in North America, the Caribbean, South America, the western and southern Indian Ocean, the northern and southern Pacific Ocean, and Antarctica (sovereignty claims in Antarctica are not recognised by most countries, see Antarctic Treaty).
Satellite image of western Europe, including metropolitan FranceMetropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the North Sea, and from the Rhine River to the Atlantic Ocean; it is bordered by the United Kingdom, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, Andorra, and Spain. The French Republic also shares land borders overseas with Brazil, Suriname, and the Netherlands.
France possesses a large variety of landscapes, ranging from coastal plains in the north and west, where France borders the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, to the mountain ranges in the south (the Pyrenees) and the south-east (the Alps), the latter containing the highest point in western Europe, Mont Blanc at 4810 m.
Field of sunflowers in France.In between are found other elevated regions such as the Massif Central or the Vosges mountains and extensive river basins such as those of the Loire River, the Rhone River, the Garonne and Seine.
Due to its numerous overseas departments and territories scattered on all oceans of the planet, France possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the world, covering 11,035,000 km² (4,260,000 sq. miles), just behind the EEZ of the United States (11,351,000 km² / 4,383,000 sq. miles), but ahead of the EEZ of Australia (8,232,000 km² / 3,178,000 sq. miles). According to a different calculation cited by the Pew Research Center, the EEZ of France would be 10,084,201 km² (3,893,532 sq. miles), still behind the United States (12,174,629 km² / 4,700,651 sq. miles), and still ahead of Australia (8,980,568 km² / 3,467,416 sq. miles) and Russia (7,566,673 km² / 2,921,508 sq. miles).
The EEZ of France covers approximately 8% of the total surface of all the EEZs of the world, whereas the land area of the French Republic is only 0.45% of the total land area of the Earth.
The borders of modern France closely align with those of the ancient territory of Gaul, inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. Gaul was conquered by the Romans in the first century BC, and the Gauls eventually adopted Romance speech and culture. Christianity also took root in the second and third centuries AD. Gaul's eastern frontiers along the Rhine were overrun by Germanic tribes in the fourth century AD, principally the Franks, from which the ancient name of "Francie" derived. The modern name "France" derives from the name of the feudal domain of the Capetian Kings of France around Paris. Existence as a separate entity begins with the division, in 843, of Charlemagne's Frankish empire into eastern, central and western parts. The eastern part (which would soon unite with the central portion as the Holy Roman Empire) can be regarded the beginnings of what is now Germany, the western part that of France.
Charlemagne's descendants ruled France until 987, when Hugh Capet, Duke of France and Count of Paris, was crowned King of France. His descendants (which formed the Capetian, Valois and Bourbon dynasties) ruled France until 1792, when the French Revolution established a Republic, in a period of increasingly radical change that began in 1789.
Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of the republic in 1799, making himself First Consul. His armies engaged in several wars across Europe, conquered many countries and established new kingdoms with Napoleon's family members at the helm. Following his defeat in 1815, the French monarchy was re-established, which was then legislatively abolished and followed by a Second Republic in 1848. The Second Republic ended when the late Emperor's nephew, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, was elected President and proclaimed a Second Empire in 1852. Less ambitious than his uncle, the second Napoleon was also ultimately unseated, and republican rule returned for a third time in the Third Republic (1870).
Although ultimately a victor in World Wars I and II, France - much like Britain - suffered extensive losses in its empire, comparative economic status, working population, and status as a dominant nation-state. After World War II, the Fourth Republic was established. In 1958, it devised a semi-presidential democracy (known as the Fifth Republic) that has not succumbed to the instabilities experienced in earlier, more parliamentary regimes.
In recent decades, France's reconciliation and cooperation with Germany have proved central to the political and economic integration of Europe, including the introduction of the Euro in January 1999.
France has been at the forefront of European states seeking to exploit the momentum of monetary union to advance the creation of a more unified and capable European political, defence and security apparatus. However its population voted against ratification of the European Constitutional Treaty in May 2005.
It is also one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and holds nuclear weapons.
Symbol of the French governmentThe constitution of the Fifth Republic was approved by public referendum on September 28, 1958. It greatly strengthened the authority of the executive in relation to Parliament. Under the constitution, the president is elected directly for a 5-year (originally 7-year) term. Presidential arbitration assures regular functioning of the public powers and the continuity of the state. The president names the prime minister, presides over the cabinet, commands the armed forces, and concludes treaties.
The National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale) is the principal legislative body. Its deputies are directly elected to 5-year terms, and all seats are voted on in each election. The Assembly has the power to dismiss the cabinet, and thus the majority in the Assembly determines the choice of government. Senators are chosen by an electoral college for 6-year terms, and one half of the Senate is renewed every 3 years (starting 2007). The Senate's legislative powers are limited; the National Assembly has the last word in the event of a disagreement between the two houses, except for constitutional laws (amendments to the constitution & "lois organiques"). The government has a strong influence in shaping the agenda of Parliament.
French politics, for the past 30 years, have been characterised by the opposition of two political groups: one left-wing, centred around the French Socialist Party, and one right-wing, centred around the Rassemblement pour la République (RPR), then its successor the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP). The Front National nationalist / hard right party, seizing on voters' growing concerns of their country's perceived decline, as well as 'national dissolution' brought about by immigration and globalisation, and advocating tougher law-and-order and immigration policies, has made inroads since the early 1980s, but has lately remained stable at around 16% of the votes.
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