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Travel to France — Unbiased reviews and
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France
French Republic National
name: République Française President: Nicolas Sarkozy (2007) Prime Minister: François Fillon
(2007)
Current government officials
Land area: 210,668 sq mi (545,630 sq km);
total area: 211,209 sq mi (547,030 sq km) Population (2008 est.): 64,094,658 (growth
rate: 0.5%); birth rate: 12.7/1000; infant mortality rate: 3.3/1000;
life expectancy: 80.8; density per sq km: 100
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Paris, 9,854,000 (metro. area), 2,110,400 (city
proper) Other large cities:
Marseille, 820,700; Lyon, 443,900; Toulouse, 411,800; Nice, 332,000;
Nantes, 282,300; Strasbourg, 272,600; Bordeaux, 217,000 Monetary unit: Euro (formerly French
franc)
Languages:
French 100%, rapidly declining regional dialects
(Provençal, Breton, Alsatian, Corsican, Catalan, Basque,
Flemish)
Ethnicity/race:
Celtic and Latin with Teutonic, Slavic, North
African, Southeast Asian, and Basque minorities
Religions:
Roman Catholic 83%–88%, Protestant 2%,
Islam 5%–10%, Jewish 1%, unaffiliated 4%
National Holiday:
Fete de la Federation, July 14 Literacy rate: 99% (2003 est.) Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007 est.):
$2.047 trillion; per capita $33,200. Real growth rate: 1.9%.
Inflation: 1.6%. Unemployment: 8.3%. Arable land:
34%. Agriculture: wheat, cereals, sugar beets, potatoes, wine
grapes; beef, dairy products; fish. Labor force: 27.76 million;
services 71.5%, industry 24.4%, agriculture 4.1% (1999).
Industries: machinery, chemicals, automobiles, metallurgy,
aircraft, electronics; textiles, food processing; tourism. Natural
resources: coal, iron ore, bauxite, zinc, uranium, antimony,
arsenic, potash, feldspar, fluorospar, gypsum, timber, fish.
Exports: $558.9 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.): machinery and
transportation equipment, aircraft, plastics, chemicals,
pharmaceutical products, iron and steel, beverages. Imports:
$601.4 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.): machinery and equipment, vehicles,
crude oil, aircraft, plastics, chemicals. Major trading
partners: Germany, Spain, UK, Italy, Belgium, U.S., Netherlands
(2006). Communications: Telephones:
main lines in use: 38.433 million (2005); mobile cellular: 49.37
million (2005). Radio broadcast stations: AM 41, FM about 3,500
(this figure is an approximation and includes many repeaters),
shortwave 2 (1998). Television broadcast stations: 584 (plus
9,676 repeaters) (1995). Internet hosts: 3.149 million (2006).
Internet users: 29.945 million (2006). Transportation: Railways: total: 29,085 km
(2005). Highways: total: 956,303 km; paved: paved: 951,220 km
(including 10,490 km of expressways); unpaved: 0 km (2002).
Waterways: 8,500 km (1,686 km accessible to craft of 3,000
metric tons) (2000). Ports and harbors: Bordeaux, Calais,
Dunkerque, La Pallice, Le Havre, Marseille, Nantes, Paris, Rouen,
Strasbourg. Airports: 501 (2006 est.). International disputes: Madagascar claims
Bassas da India, Europa Island, Glorioso Islands, and Juan de Nova
Island; Comoros claims Mayotte; Mauritius claims Tromelin Island;
territorial dispute between Suriname and the French overseas
department of French Guiana; France asserts a territorial claim in
Antarctica (Adelie Land); France and Vanuatu claim Matthew and Hunter
Islands, east of New Caledonia.
Major sources and definitions
Rulers of France
French Overseas Departments
French Overseas Territories
French Territorial Collectivities
French Possessions
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Geography
France is about 80% the size of Texas. In the
Alps near the Italian and Swiss borders is western Europe's highest
point—Mont Blanc (15,781 ft; 4,810 m). The forest-covered Vosges
Mountains are in the northeast, and the Pyrénées are along
the Spanish border. Except for extreme northern France, the country may be
described as four river basins and a plateau. Three of the streams flow
west—the Seine into the English Channel, the Loire into the
Atlantic, and the Garonne into the Bay of Biscay. The Rhône flows
south into the Mediterranean. For about 100 mi (161 km), the Rhine is
France's eastern border. In the Mediterranean, about 115 mi (185 km)
east-southeast of Nice, is the island of Corsica (3,367 sq mi; 8,721 sq
km).
Government
Fifth republic.
History
Archeological excavations indicate that France
has been continuously settled since Paleolithic times. The Celts, who were
later called Gauls by the Romans, migrated from the Rhine valley
into what is now France. In about 600 B.C.
Greeks and Phoenicians established settlements along the Mediterranean,
most notably at Marseille. Julius Caesar conquered part of Gaul in
57–52 B.C., and it remained Roman until
Franks invaded in the 5th century A.D.
The Treaty of Verdun (843) divided the
territories corresponding roughly to France, Germany, and Italy among the
three grandsons of Charlemagne. Charles the Bald inherited Francia
Occidentalis, which became an increasingly feudalized kingdom. By 987,
the crown passed to Hugh Capet, a princeling who controlled only the
Ile-de-France, the region surrounding Paris. For 350 years, an unbroken
Capetian line added to its domain and consolidated royal authority until
the accession in 1328 of Philip VI, first of the Valois line. France was
then the most powerful nation in Europe, with a population of 15
million.
The missing pieces in Philip Valois's domain
were the French provinces still held by the Plantagenet kings of England,
who also claimed the French crown. Beginning in 1338, the Hundred Years'
War eventually settled the contest. After France's victory in the final
battle, Castillon (1453), the Valois were the ruling family, and the
English had no French possessions left except Calais. Once Burgundy and
Brittany were added, the Valois dynasty's holdings resembled modern
France. Protestantism spread throughout France in the 16th century and led
to civil wars. Henry IV, of the Bourbon dynasty, issued the Edict of
Nantes (1598), granting religious tolerance to the Huguenots (French
Protestants). Absolute monarchy reached its apogee in the reign of Louis
XIV (1643–1715), the Sun King, whose brilliant court was the center
of the Western world.
After a series of costly foreign wars that
weakened the government, the French Revolution plunged France into a
bloodbath beginning in 1789 with the establishment of the First Republic
and ending with a new authoritarianism under Napoléon Bonaparte,
who had successfully defended the infant republic from foreign attack and
then made himself first consul in 1799 and emperor in 1804. The Congress
of Vienna (1815) sought to restore the pre-Napoléonic order in the
person of Louis XVIII, but industrialization and the middle class, both
fostered under Napoléon, built pressure for change, and a
revolution in 1848 drove Louis Philippe, last of the Bourbons, into exile.
Prince Louis Napoléon, a nephew of Napoléon I, declared the
Second Empire in 1852 and took the throne as Napoléon III. His
opposition to the rising power of Prussia ignited the Franco-Prussian War
(1870–1871), which ended in his defeat, his abdication, and the
creation of the Third Republic.
A new France emerged from World War I as the
continent's dominant power. But four years of hostile occupation had
reduced northeast France to ruins. Beginning in 1919, French foreign
policy aimed at keeping Germany weak through a system of alliances, but it
failed to halt the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi war machine. On May
10, 1940, Nazi troops attacked, and, as they approached Paris, Italy
joined with Germany. The Germans marched into an undefended Paris and
Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain signed an armistice on June 22.
France was split into an occupied north and an unoccupied south, Vichy
France, which became a totalitarian German puppet state with Pétain
as its chief. Allied armies liberated France in Aug. 1944, and a
provisional government in Paris headed by Gen. Charles de Gaulle was
established. The Fourth Republic was born on Dec. 24, 1946. The empire
became the French Union; the national assembly was strengthened and the
presidency weakened; and France joined NATO. A war against Communist
insurgents in French Indochina, now Vietnam, was abandoned after the
defeat of French forces at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. A new rebellion in
Algeria threatened a military coup, and on June 1, 1958, the assembly
invited de Gaulle to return as premier with extraordinary powers. He
drafted a new constitution for a Fifth Republic, adopted on September 28,
which strengthened the presidency and reduced legislative power. He was
elected president on Dec. 21, 1958.
France next turned its attention to
decolonialization in Africa; the French protectorates of Morocco and
Tunisia had received independence in 1956. French West Africa was
partitioned and the new nations were granted independence in 1960.
Algeria, after a long civil war, finally became independent in 1962.
Relations with most of the former colonies remained amicable. De Gaulle
took France out of the NATO military command in 1967 and expelled all
foreign-controlled troops from the country. De Gaulle's government was
weakened by massive protests in May 1968 when student rallies became
violent and millions of factory workers engaged in wildcat strikes across
France. After normalcy was reestablished in 1969, de Gaulle's successor,
Georges Pompidou, modified Gaullist policies to include a classical
laissez-faire attitude toward domestic economic affairs. The conservative,
pro-business climate contributed to the election of Valéry Giscard
d'Estaing as president in 1974.
Socialist François Mitterrand attained a
stunning victory in the May 10, 1981, presidential election. The victors
immediately moved to carry out campaign pledges to nationalize major
industries, halt nuclear testing, suspend nuclear power-plant
construction, and impose new taxes on the rich. The Socialists' policies
during Mitterrand's first two years created a 12% inflation rate, a huge
trade deficit, and devaluations of the franc. In March 1986, a
center-right coalition led by Jacques Chirac won a slim majority in
legislative elections. Chirac became prime minister, initiating a period
of “cohabitation” between him and the Socialist president,
Mitterrand. Mitterrand's decisive reelection in 1988 led to Chirac being
replaced as prime minister by Michel Rocard, a Socialist. Relations,
however, cooled with Rocard, and in May 1991 Edith Cresson—also a
Socialist—became France's first female prime minister. But Cresson's
unpopularity forced Mitterrand to replace Cresson with a more well-liked
Socialist, Pierre Bérégovoy, who eventually was embroiled in
a scandal and committed suicide. Mitterrand did succeed in helping to
draft the Maastricht Treaty and, after winning a slim victory in a
referendum, confirming close economic and security ties between France and
the European Union (EU).
On his third try Chirac won the presidency in
May 1995, campaigning vigorously on a platform to reduce unemployment.
Elections for the national assembly in 1997 gave the Socialist coalition a
majority. Shortly after becoming president, Chirac resumed France's
nuclear testing in the South Pacific, despite widespread international
protests as well as rioting in the countries affected by it. Socialist
leader Lionel Jospin became prime minister in 1997. In the spring of 1999,
the country took part in the NATO air strikes in Kosovo, despite some
internal opposition.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the right-wing
anti-immigrant National Front Party, shocked France in April 2002 with his
second-place finish in the first round of France's presidential election.
He took 17% of the vote, eliminating Lionel Jospin, the Socialist prime
minister, who tallied 16%. Jospin, stunned by the result, announced that
he was retiring from politics and threw his support behind incumbent
president Jacques Chirac, who won with an overwhelming 82.2% of the vote
in the runoff election. Chirac's center-right coalition won an absolute
majority in parliament. In July 2002, Chirac survived an assassination
attempt by a right-wing extremist.
During the fall 2002 and winter 2003 diplomatic
wrangling at the United Nations over Iraq, France repeatedly defied the
U.S. and Britain by calling for more weapons inspections and diplomacy
before resorting to war. Relations between the U.S. and France have
remained severely strained over Iraq.
France sent peacekeeping forces to assist two
African countries in 2002 and 2003, Côte d'Ivoire and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo.
Prime Minister Raffarin's plan to overhaul the
national pension system sparked numerous strikes across France in May and
June 2003, involving tens of thousands of sanitation workers, teachers,
transportation workers, and air traffic controllers. In August, a deadly
heat wave killed an estimated 10,000 people, mostly elderly. The
catastrophe occurred during two weeks of 104°F (40°C)
temperatures.
In 2004, the French government passed a law
banning the wearing of Muslim headscarves and other religious symbols in
schools. The government maintained that the wearing of conspicuous
religious symbols threatened the country's secular identity; others
contended that the law curtailed religious freedom.
In March 2004 regional elections, the Socialist
Party made enormous gains over Chirac's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP)
Party. Unpopular economic reforms are credited for the UMP's defeat.
On May 29, 2005, French voters rejected the
European Union constitution by a 55%–45% margin. Reasons given for
rejecting the constitution included concerns about forfeiting too much
French sovereignty to a centralized European government and alarm at the
EU's rapid addition of 10 new members in 2004, most from Eastern Europe.
In response, President Chirac, who strongly supported the constitution,
replaced Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin with Dominique de Villepin, a
former foreign minister.
Rioting erupted on Oct. 27, 2005, in the
impoverished outskirts of Paris and continued for two weeks, spreading to
300 towns and cities throughout France. It was the worst violence the
country has faced in four decades. The rioting was sparked by the
accidental deaths of two teenagers, one of French-Arab and the other of
French-African descent, and grew into a violent protest against the bleak
lives of poor French-Arabs and French-Africans, many of whom live in
depressed, crime-ridden areas with high unemployment and who feel
alienated from the rest of French society.
In March and April 2006, a series of huge and
ongoing protests took place over a proposed labor law that would allow
employers to fire workers under age 26 within two years without giving a
reason. The law was intended to control high unemployment among France's
young workers. The protests continued after President Chirac signed a
somewhat amended bill into law. But on April 10, Chirac relented and
rescinded the law, an embarrassing about-face for the government.
Presidential elections held in April 2007 pitted
Socialist Ségolène Royal against conservative Interior
Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the nominee for the Union for a Popular
Movement. Late in the race, centrist candidate Francois Bayrou emerged as
a contender. Sarkozy, with 30.7%, and Royal, taking 25.2%, prevailed in
the first round of voting. Sarkozy went on to win the runoff election,
taking 53.1% of the vote to Royal's 46.9%.
Sarkozy immediately extended an olive branch to
the United States, saying "I want to tell them [Americans] that France
will always be by their side when they need her, but that friendship is
also accepting the fact that friends can think differently." The dialogue
signalled a marked shift from the tense French-American relationship under
Chirac.
On his first day in office, Sarkozy named former
social affairs minister François Fillon as prime minister,
succeeding Dominique de Villepin. He also appointed Socialist Bernard
Kouchner, a co-founder of the Nobel-prize-winning Médecins Sans
Frontières, as foreign minister. Workers in the public sector
staged 24-hour strike in October to protest Sarkozy's plan to change their
generous retirement packages that allow workers to retire at age 50 with a
full pension. On the same day of the strike, Sarkozy confirmed that he and
his wife, Cécilia, had separated and planned to divorce. Rail
workers staged a strike in November to protest Sarkozy's plan to end
generous benefits that allow workers to retire in their 50s with full
pension benefits. Strikers relented after nine days and agreed to
negotiate.
In Feb. 2008, Sarkozy married Italian-born Carla
Bruni, a former model turned pop star.
In July, Sarkozy launched the Union for the
Mediterranean—an international body of 43 member nations. The union
seeks to end conflict in the Middle East by addressing regional unrest and
immigration
On July 21, 2008, Sarkozy won a narrow victory
(539 to 357 votes—one vote more than the required three-fifths
majority) for constitutional changes that strengthen parliamentary power,
limit the presidency to two five-year terms, and end the president's right
of collective pardon. The changes, approved in July, also allow the
president to address Parliament for the first time since 1875. The
Socialist opposition asserts that the changes actually boost the power of
the presidency, making France a "monocracy."
The French Parliament approved a bill in July
2008 that ends the 35-hour work week and tightens criteria for strikes and
unemployment payments. The new bill is intended to decrease unemployment
and allow businesses and employees to negotiate directly about working
hours.
In November 2008, the Socialist party voted for
a new party leader, revealing a deeply divided member body. Martine Aubry,
the mayor of Lille, defeated former party leader Segolene Royal by only 42
votes. Over 40 percent of Socialist party members declined to vote and
internal disputes ensued.
Five sticks of dynamite were planted in a
Parisian Printemps on December 15, 2008, by a previously unknown group
called the Afghan Revolutionary Front, which demanded the withdrawal of
French troops from Afghanistan and warned of another strike if Sarkozy did
not remove troops.
See also French dependencies. See
also Encyclopedia: France. U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
France National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies
(INSEE) (In French only) www.insee.fr/fr/home/home_page.asp .
National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) www.ined.fr .
Information Please® Database, © 2008 Pearson
Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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