<text><span class="style42"></span><span class="style12">FRANCE</span><span class="style14"></span><span class="style42">Official name:</span><span class="style13"> La République française (The French Republic)</span><span class="style42">Member of: </span><span class="style13">UN, EU/EC, NATO, OSCE, G7, OECD, WEU</span><span class="style42">Area: </span><span class="style13">543965 km2 (210026 sq mi) – ‘metropolitan’ France, excluding overseas départements and collectivités territoriales (whose status is between that of an overseas département and an overseas territory)</span><span class="style42">Population: </span><span class="style13">57456 000 (1993 est) – ‘metropolitan’ France</span><span class="style42">Capital: </span><span class="style13">Paris 9063000 (city 2175000; 1990 census)</span><span class="style42">Other major cities: </span><span class="style13">Lyon 1262000 (city 422000), Marseille 1087000 (city 808000), Lille 950000 (city 178000), Bordeaux 686000 (city 213000), Toulouse 608000 (city 366000), Nantes 492000 (city 252000), Nice 476000 (city 346000), Toulon 438000 (city 170000), Grenoble 400000 (city 154000), Strasbourg 388000 (city 256000), Rouen 380000 (city 105000), Valenciennes 336000 (town 39000), Cannes 336000 (city 69000), Lens 323000 (town 35000), Saint-Etienne 313000 (city 202000), Nancy 311000 (city 102000), Tours 272000 (city 133000), Béthune 260000 (town 26000), Clermont-Ferrand 254000 (city 140000), Le Havre 254000 (city 197000) (1990 census)</span><span class="style42">Languages: </span><span class="style13">French (official; over 93% as a first language), Arabic (over 2% as a first language), with German, Breton and Basque minorities</span><span class="style42">Religions: </span><span class="style13">Roman Catholic (74%), Sunni Islam (over 2%)</span><span class="style42">Overseas départements</span><span class="style13"> – integral parts of the French Republic (with areas, populations and capitals):Guadeloupe – 1705 km2 (658 sq mi), 378000 (1991 census), Basse-Terre.Guyane (French Guiana) – 90000 km (34750 sq mi), 115000 (1990 census), Cayenne.Martinique – 1100 km2 (425 sq mi), 360000 (1990 census), Fort-de-France.Réunion – 2512 km2 (970 sq mi), 597000 (1990 census), Saint-Denis.</span><span class="style42">Collectivités territoriales</span><span class="style13"> – integral parts of the French Republic (with areas, population and capitals):Mayotte – 376 km2 (145 sq mi), 94400 (1990 census), Mamoudzou.Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon – 242 km2 (93 sq mi), 6400 (1990 census), Saint-Pierre.</span><span class="style42">Overseas territories </span><span class="style13">(with areas, populations and capitals):French Polynesia – 4200 km2 (1622 sq mi), 199000 (1991 est), Papeete.New Caledonia – 19103 km2 (7376 sq mi), 168000 (1990 est), Nouméa.Southern and Antarctic Territories – 439797 km2 (169806 sq mi), no permanent population.</span><span class="style42">Wallis and Futuna Islands – 274 km2 (106 sq mi), 13700 (1990 est), Mata-Utu.</span><span class="style13"></span><span class="style42">GOVERNMENT</span><span class="style13">Executive power is vested in the President, who is elected for a 7-year term by universal adult suffrage. The President appoints a Prime Minister and a Council of Ministers – both responsible to Parliament – but it is the President, rather than the PM, who presides over the Council of Ministers. The Senate (the upper house) comprises 321 members – 296 of whom represent individual départements and 13 representing overseas départements and territories – elected by members of municipal, local and regional councils. The remaining 12 senators are elected by French citizens resident abroad. Senators serve for nine years, with one third of the Senate retiring every three years. The National Assembly (the lower house) comprises 577 deputies elected for a five-year term by universal adult suffrage from single-member constituencies, with a second ballot for the leading candidates if no candidate obtains an absolute majority in the first round.</span><span class="style42">GEOGRAPHY</span><span class="style13">The Massif Central – a plateau of old hard rocks, rising to almost 2000 m (6500 ft) – occupies the middle of France. The Massif is surrounded by four major lowlands, which together make up over 60% of the total area of France. The Paris Basin – the largest of these lowlands – is divided by low ridges and fertile plains and plateau, but is united by the river system of the Seine and its tributaries. To the east of the Massif Central is the narrow Rhône-Saône Valley, while to the west the Loire Valley stretches to the Atlantic. Southwest of the Massif Central lies the Aquitaine Basin, a large fertile region drained by the River Garonne and its tributaries. A discontinuous ring of uplands surrounds France. In the northwest the Armorican Massif (Brittany) rises to 411 m (1350 ft). In the southwest the Pyrenees form a high natural boundary with Spain. The Alps in the southeast divide France from Italy and contain Europe’s highest peak, Mont Blanc (4807 m / 15 771 ft). The lower Jura – in the east – lie on the Swiss border, while the Vosges Mountains separate the Paris Basin from the Rhine Valley. In the northeast the Ardennes extend into Belgium. The Mediterranean island of Corsica is an ancient massif rising to 2710 m (8891 ft). </span><span class="style42">Principal rivers: </span><span class="style13">Rhine (Rhin) 1320 km (820 mi), Loire 1020 km (634 mi), Rhône 812 km (505 mi). </span><span class="style42">Climate: </span><span class="style13">The Mediterranean south has warm summers and mild winters. The rest of France has a temperate climate, although the more continental east experiences warmer summers and colder winters. Rainfall is moderate, with highest falls in the mountains and lowest falls around Paris.</span><span class="style42">ECONOMY</span><span class="style13">Nearly two thirds of France is farmed. The principal products include cereals (wheat, maize, barley), meat and dairy products, sugar beet and grapes for wine. France is remarkably self-sufficient in agriculture, with tropical fruit and animal feeds being the only major imports. However, the small size of land holdings remains a problem despite consolidation and the efforts of cooperatives. Reafforestation is helping to safeguard the future of the important timber industry. Natural resources include coal, iron ore, copper, bauxite and tungsten, as well as petroleum and natural gas, and plentiful sites for hydroelectric power plants. Major French industries include textiles, chemicals, steel, food processing, motor vehicles, aircraft, and mechanical and electrical engineering. Traditionally French firms have been small, but mergers have resulted in larger corporations able to compete internationally. France is the world’s fourth industrial power after the USA, Japan and Germany. During the later 1980s many state-owned corporations were privatized. Over 50% of the labor force is involved in service industries, in particular administration, banking, finance, and tourism. </span><span class="style42">Currency: </span><span class="style13">French franc.</span><span class="style42">HISTORY</span><span class="style13">The Gauls gradually spread over France from the east about 1500 bc. The ancient Greeks established settlements on the Mediterranean coast from the 7th century bc, and the Romans conquered Gaul from 123 bc. After the Romans departed in the 5th century ad, Germanic tribes invaded, among whom the Franks became dominant. The Frankish Carolingians built an empire under Charlemagne (reigned 768–814), and when his realm was divided in the 9th century, the western part became the ancestor of modern France.The French nation state was slow to emerge, however. In medieval times, a series of dynasties sought to extend their power over the area that is now France: the Carolingians (768–987), the Capetians (987–1328), and the Valois (1328–1589). Territorial gains were repeatedly countered by invasion, while the strengthening of the monarchy did not occur without frequent dynastic crises. At the beginning of the Valois period (1328), Aquitaine, Brittany, Burgundy and Flanders were still outside the French royal domain, but by the 16th century they had all been included in the French state. For much of the medieval period, the French kings struggled to wrest control of northern and western France from the English, particularly in the Hundred Years’ War. By 1453, however, only Calais remained in English hands. The question of frontiers – especially in the east – continued up to the Revolution and beyond. Between the 16th and 18th centuries conflict with Britain and France’s other neighbors continued, particularly over colonial possessions and over control of the Low Countries and the Rhineland.Religious conflicts worked against the consolidation of France. The 16th century was scarred by civil wars between Catholics and Protestant Huguenots. The Protestant Bourbon Henry of Navarre (1553–1610) succeeded the extinct Valois dynasty as Henry IV. Converting to Catholicism, he granted toleration to the Huguenots, but the 17th century saw the gradual and often brutal suppression of these liberties, and the status of Protestants remained a sensitive issue until the Revolution. Provincial independence also hindered national unity, despite the efforts of the Bourbon monarchs – in particular Louis XIV (1638–1715) and his ministers – to weaken them.By the 18th century France had achieved a high degree of centralization, and its glorification of the monarchy – typified by the palace of Versailles – was impressive. However, the Bourbon state was overextended. The national assembly, the Estates General, was unsummoned from 1614 to 1789, antagonizing the men of the Enlightenment. The Revolution of 1789 sprang from a detestation of heavy and unfair taxes and from a hatred of the economic privileges of the nobility and the Church. However, the Revolutionary regimes that followed the downfall of the monarchy took centralization further, attempting far more than they could achieve – for example, the suppression of the Church and the implementation of dramatic cultural reforms. The Revolutionary regimes also attempted to spread their ideas throughout Europe, especially under Napoleon (1769–1821), whose centralized empire briefly outshone the monarchy of Louis XIV.After Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo (1815), the less powerful monarchies of the first half of the 19th century – the restored Bourbons (1815–30) and the Orléanist monarchy (1830–48) – were toppled by revolt fed by popular memories of the liberties enjoyed under the Republic. The coup of Louis-Napoleon (a nephew of Napoleon I) turned the Second Republic into the Second Empire, with himself as Napoleon III. However, his reign (1852–70) was brought to an end by defeat in the Franco-Prussian war (1870–71). After this defeat, the Third Republic (1871–1940) was established, and immediately faced the revolt of the Paris Commune. Controversy over the role of religion in the state – particularly the question of religious-based or secular education – did not end until Church and state were finally separated in 1905.In the 1890s the French colonial empire reached its greatest extent, in particular in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The Third Republic also saw continuing conflict over France’s own boundaries – Alsace-Lorraine was lost in 1870 but recovered in 1918 at the end of World War I, during which trench warfare in northern France claimed countless lives. In World War II, Germany rapidly defeated the French in 1940 and completely occupied the country in 1942. Marshal Philippe Pétain (1856–1951) led a collaborationist regime in the city of Vichy, while General Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) headed the Free French in exile in London from 1940. After the war, the Fourth Republic (1946–58) was marked by instability, the Suez Crisis of 1956, and nationalist revolts in some of the colonies, notably Vietnam and Algeria. The troubles in Algeria – including the revolt of the French colonists and the campaign of their terrorist organization, the OAS – led to the end of the Fourth Republic and to the accession to power of General de Gaulle in 1959.As first president of the Fifth Republic, de Gaulle granted Algeria independence (1962). While the French colonial empire – with a few minor exceptions – was being disbanded, France’s position within Western Europe was being strengthened, especially by vigorous participation in the European Community. At the same time, de Gaulle pursued a foreign policy independent of the USA, building up France’s non-nuclear armaments and withdrawing French forces from NATO’s integrated command structure. Although restoring political and economic stability to France, domestic dissatisfaction – including the student revolt of 1968 – led de Gaulle to resign in 1969. De Gaulle’s policies were broadly pursued by his successors as president, Georges Pompidou (in office 1969–74) and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (1974–81). The modernization of France continued apace under the country’s first Socialist president, François Mitterrand (1981–95).</span></text>
