Victor Hugo is sometimes seen as “the greatest French writer of all time”314 for excelling in all literary genres. Hugo’s verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Dante and Homer.315 His novel Les Misérables is widely seen as one of the greatest novels ever written,316 and The Hunchback of Notre Dame has remained immensely popular. Other major authors of the 19th century include Alexandre Dumas (The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo), Jules Verne (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas), Émile Zola (Les Rougon-Macquart), Honoré de Balzac (La Comédie humaine), Guy de Maupassant, Théophile Gautier and Stendhal (The Red and the Black, The Charterhouse of Parma). The final victory in the Hundred Years’ War marked an important stage in the evolution of French architecture. It was the time of the French Renaissance and several artists from Italy were invited to the French court; many residential palaces were built in the Loire Valley, from 1450 as a first reference the Château de Montsoreau.303 Examples of such residential castles include the Château de Chambord, the Château de Chenonceau, or the Château d’Amboise. French artists developed the rococo style in the 18th century, as a more intimate imitation of the Baroque style, the works of the court-endorsed artists Antoine Watteau, François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard being the most representative in the country.
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A developed country, France has a high nominal per capita income globally, and its economy ranks among the largest in the world by both nominal GDP and PPP-adjusted GDP. It is a great power, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and an official nuclear-weapon state. Historically and culturally among the most important nations in the Western world, France has also played a highly significant role in international affairs, with former colonies in every corner of the globe. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, the Alps and the Pyrenees, France has long provided a geographic, economic, and linguistic bridge joining northern and southern Europe. It is Europe’s most important agricultural producer and one of the world’s leading industrial powers.
In the 16th century French culture flourished during the French Renaissance, and a French colonial empire emerged. Internally, France was dominated by the conflict with the House of Habsburg and the French Wars of Religion between Catholics and Huguenots. France was successful in the Thirty Years’ War and further increased its influence during the reign of Louis XIV. Both the national football team and the national rugby union team are nicknamed “Les Bleus”. Football is the most popular sport in France, with over 1,800,000 registered players and over 18,000 registered clubs.384 Rugby union is popular, particularly in Paris and the southwest of France.385 The national rugby union team has competed at every Rugby World Cup; it takes part in the annual Six Nations Championship.
The French Revolution brought great changes, as Napoleon favoured artists of neoclassic style such as Jacques-Louis David and the highly influential Académie des Beaux-Arts defined the style known as Academism. Rail connections exist to all other neighbouring countries in Europe except Andorra. Intra-urban connections are also well developed, with most major cities having underground chicken road or tramway services complementing bus services. It is a party to both the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty154 and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The French nuclear force (formerly known as “Force de Frappe”) consists of four Triomphant-class submarines equipped with submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
- Suicide bombers strike at outside the Stade de France in Saint-Denis during a football match.
- The most difficult buildings to integrate within French cities are skyscrapers, as they are visible from afar.
- France was one of the major participants of World War I, from which it emerged victorious at great human and economic cost.
- Algeria grains independence from French colonial rule.OAS (Organisation armée secrète) far-right paramilitaries attempt to kill De Gaulle for what they see as his abandonment of French settlers in Algeria by machine-gunning his presidential car.
- In the April 2022 presidential election, Macron again defeated Le Pen in the second round of voting.
Metropolitan France covers 551,500 square kilometres (212,935 sq mi),83 the largest among European Union members.73 France’s total land area, with its overseas departments and territories (excluding Adélie Land), is 643,801 km2 (248,573 sq mi),84 0.45% of the total land area on Earth. France possesses a wide variety of landscapes, from coastal plains in the north and west to the mountain ranges of the Alps in the southeast, the Massif Central in the south-central and Pyrenees in the southwest. With numerous overseas departments and territories scattered across the planet, France possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the world, covering 11,035,000 km2 (4,261,000 sq mi). The government does not regulate the choice of language in publications by individuals, but the use of French is required by law in commercial and workplace communications. The French government tries to promote French in the EU and globally through institutions such as the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie.
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A former economy minister who had never held elected office before, Emmanuel Macron won the May 2017 presidential election run-off by a decisive margin over his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen. Fashion has been an important industry and cultural export of France since the 17th century, and modern “haute couture” originated in Paris in the 1860s. Today, Paris, along with London, Milan, and New York City, is considered one of the world’s fashion capitals, and the city is home or headquarters to many of the premier fashion houses. The expression Haute couture is, in France, a legally protected name, guaranteeing certain quality standards. France uses a civil legal system, wherein law arises primarily from written statutes;83 judges are not to make law, but merely to interpret it (though the amount of judicial interpretation in certain areas makes it equivalent to case law in a common law system). Basic principles of the rule of law were laid in the Napoleonic Code (which was largely based on royal law codified under King Louis XIV).
18,000 BC.17 At the end of the Last Glacial Period (10,000 BC), the climate became milder;17 from approximately 7,000 BC, this part of Western Europe entered the Neolithic era, and its inhabitants became sedentary.
France has also been influential in government and civil affairs, giving the world important democratic ideals in the age of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution and inspiring the growth of reformist and even revolutionary movements for generations. The present Fifth Republic has, however, enjoyed notable stability since its promulgation on September 28, 1958, marked by a tremendous growth in private initiative and the rise of centrist politics. Although France has engaged in long-running disputes with other European powers (and, from time to time, with the United States, its longtime ally), it emerged as a leading member in the European Union (EU) and its predecessors. As one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—together with the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, and China—France has the right to veto decisions put to the council. France retains its centuries-long status as a global centre of art, science, and philosophy. It hosts the fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the world’s leading tourist destination, having received 100 million foreign visitors in 2023.
- In the 16th century French culture flourished during the French Renaissance, and a French colonial empire emerged.
- The French Revolution of 1789 overthrew the Ancien Régime and produced the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which expresses the nation’s ideals to this day.
- The appointment of Attal, the former education minister, does not necessarily signal any major political shift, but signals a desire by President Macron to try and move beyond 2023’s unpopular pension and immigration reforms and improve his party’s chances in the EU parliamentary elections in June 2024.
- France retains its centuries-long status as a global centre of art, science, and philosophy.
- President Macron appointed Gabriel Attal as France’s prime minister in January 2024, in a move aimed at reviving his presidency with a new government.
The Carolingian dynasty ruled France until 987, when Hugh Capet was crowned king of the Franks.37 His descendants unified the country through wars and inheritance. From 1190, the Capetian rulers began to be referred as “kings of France” rather than “kings of the Franks”.38 Later kings expanded their directly possessed domaine royal to cover over half of modern France by the 15th century. Royal authority became more assertive, centred on a hierarchically conceived society distinguishing nobility, clergy, and commoners. French army in Algeria carries out coup attempt due to fears party politics in the unstable Fourth Republic will undermine the security of French’s hold on Algeria. French army factions see wartime leader Charles De Gaulle as a guarantor that Algeria will remain French.
In agreement with the principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the law should only prohibit actions detrimental to society. France retains strong political and economic influence in its former African colonies (Françafrique)146 and has supplied economic aid and troops for peacekeeping missions in Ivory Coast and Chad.147 From 2012 to 2021, France and other African states intervened in support of the Malian government in the Mali War. The 101 departments are subdivided into 335 arrondissements, which are, in turn, subdivided into 2,054 cantons.129 These cantons are divided into 36,658 communes, which are municipalities with an elected municipal council.129 Three communes—Paris, Lyon and Marseille—are subdivided into 45 municipal arrondissements. Emmanuel Macron breaks the Gaullist/Republican-Socialist hold on the presidency through his La République En Marche! Jacques Chirac elected president, ending 14 years of Socialist presidency under Mitterrand.
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This interim government, established by de Gaulle, continued to wage war against Germany and to purge collaborators from office. It made important reforms e.g. suffrage extended to women and the creation of a social security system. France was invaded by Germany and defended by Great Britain at the start of World War I in August 1914. France and the Allies emerged victorious against the Central Powers at tremendous human cost. It left 1.4 million French soldiers dead, 4% of its population.6263 Interwar was marked by intense international tensions and social reforms introduced by the Popular Front government (e.g., annual leave, eight-hour workdays, women in government).
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Other foreign artists also settled and worked in or near Paris, such as Vincent van Gogh, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani and Wassily Kandinsky. The origins of French art were very much influenced by Flemish art and by Italian art at the time of the Renaissance. Jean Fouquet, the most famous medieval French painter, is said to have been the first to travel to Italy and experience the Early Renaissance firsthand. The Renaissance painting School of Fontainebleau was directly inspired by Italian painters such as Primaticcio and Rosso Fiorentino, who both worked in France. Two of the most famous French artists of the time of the Baroque era, Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain, lived in Italy. France has 52 sites inscribed in UNESCO’s World Heritage List and features cities of high cultural interest, beaches and seaside resorts, ski resorts, as well as rural regions that many enjoy for their beauty and tranquillity (green tourism).
France had colonial possessions since the beginning of the 17th century, but in the 19th and 20th centuries its empire extended greatly and became the second-largest behind the British Empire.61 Including metropolitan France, the total area reached almost 13 million square kilometres in the 1920s and 1930s, 9% of the world’s land. Known as the Belle Époque, the turn of the century was characterised by optimism, regional peace, economic prosperity and technological, scientific and cultural innovations. Metropolitan France was settled during the Iron Age by Celtic tribes known as Gauls before Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, leading to a distinct Gallo-Roman culture.
Tensions between France and the Plantagenet empire would last a hundred years, until Philip II of France conquered, between 1202 and 1214, most continental possessions of the empire, leaving England and Aquitaine to the Plantagenets. The first leader to unite all Franks was Clovis I, who began his reign as king of the Salian Franks in 481, routing the last forces of the Roman governors in 486. Clovis said he would be baptised a Christian in the event of victory against the Visigothic Kingdom, which was said to have guaranteed the battle. Clovis was the first Germanic conqueror after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire to convert to Catholic Christianity; thus France was given the title “Eldest daughter of the Church” by the papacy,33 and French kings were called “the Most Christian Kings of France”. InJuly and August, France’s Mediterranean beaches tend to be prettypacked; this is particularly the case in the famous resorts of Provence andthe French Riviera. Away from the resorts, Brittanyoffers plenty of good beaches, with the added fun of tides and goodwaves; and France’s Atlantic coast, south of the Loire, has plenty oflong sandy beaches, in the regions of Poitou-Charentesand Aquitaine.South of Bordeaux, there are mile upon mile of fine beaches.For more information see guide to the French coast.
The Alpine, Pyrenean and Jura Mountains are much younger and have less eroded forms. At 4,810.45 metres (15,782 ft)85 above sea level, Mont Blanc in the Alps is the highest point in Western Europe. These victories led to the worldwide expansion of French revolutionary ideals and reforms, such as the metric system, Napoleonic Code and Declaration of the Rights of Man. Thereafter his army disintegrated through supply problems, disease, Russian attacks, and finally winter. After this catastrophic campaign and the ensuing uprising of European monarchies against his rule, Napoleon was defeated. About a million Frenchmen died during the Napoleonic Wars.59 After his brief return from exile, Napoleon was finally defeated in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo, and the Bourbon monarchy was restored with new constitutional limitations.
Louis XIV revokes the Edict of Nantes, forcing thousands of Huguenots into exile and publishes the Code Noir providing the legal framework for slavery and expelling Jewish people from French colonies. 1620s – Huguenot rebellions against French state’s centralising power and its increasing intolerance to Protestantism. Appointed at the age of 34, Attal is the youngest prime minister in modern French history.
A third group carries out mass shootings at a music concert at the Bataclan theatre. A failed coup attempt by four retired army general to force De Gaulle not to abandon French settlers in Algeria, and to deny Algeria independence. The president of the French Republic, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I’s nephew, is proclaimed Napoleon III, emperor of the Second Empire. Amid revolutions across Europe, Louis Phillippe is overthrown and a Second Republic is established. The flagship network, TF1, is privately-owned and public France Televisions is funded from the TV licence fee and advertising revenue.
In the 20th century, French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier designed several buildings in France. More recently, French architects have combined both modern and old architectural styles. The Louvre Pyramid is an example of modern architecture added to an older building. The most difficult buildings to integrate within French cities are skyscrapers, as they are visible from afar. For instance, in Paris since 1977, new buildings had to be under 37 metres (121 ft).309 A significant number of skyscrapers are located in the La Défense financial district.310 Other massive buildings that are a challenge to integrate into their environment are large bridges; an example of the way this has been done is the Millau Viaduct. Some famous modern French architects include Jean Nouvel, Dominique Perrault, Christian de Portzamparc and Paul Andreu.