France was twice the size of England and about the same as Germany. The country was prosperous, its people worked hard and they had god systems for transportation. But the France was weaker than both England and Germany. Its agriculture and industry produced less and the population was falling. Another weakness was that the frenchmen had lost much of their national pride in 1870 when they lost the war to Prussia.
The French empire was the second largest in the world. Most of their colonies were placed in Africa. In these colonies the natives liked the frenshmen as they had build schools, hospitals roads and harbours. The other main frence colonies was placed in Indo-China. The native freedomfighters fought a war with the frenchmen for independence. This drained France for both money and soldiers which weakened the french position in Europe.
