France, republic (211,969 sq mi/549,000 sq km; 1990 population 58,000,000; 2004 estimated population 60,424,213), in W Europe; (cap.) Paris; 48°52'N 02°20'E.
Regions, Distrcits, Departments, Cantons, Communes
France is divided into the following twnety-two administrative regions: Alsace, Aquitaine, Auvergne, Bourgogne (Burgundy), Bretagne (Brittany), Centre, Champagne-Ardenne, Corse (Corsica), Franche-Comté, Île-de-France, Languedoc-Roussillon, Limousin, Lorraine, Midi-Pyrénées, Nord Pas-De-Calais, Basse-Normandie, Haute-Normandie, Pays de la Loire, Picardie, Poitou-Charentes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, and Rhône-Alpes; these regions are governed by directly elected regional councils. Each administrative region is further divided into two or more departments (96 total), which in turn are governed by locally elected councils (with considerably increased powers since 1982). The deptartments are further subdivided into districts, cantons, and communes; the districts and cantons have little modern political significance (except for the Parisian districts), but the communes, the smallest legal subdivisions, are more powerful because they are responsible for municipal services, including schools, and each commune is represented in the national government by its mayor.
Overseas Regions, Departments, Territories
Corsica is treated as a region, although it is formally called a territorial collective. The republic also includes four overseas departments. (French départements d’outre-mer), Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion, and Guyana; two tiny territorial collectives, Mayotte and Saint Pierre and Miquelon; and several overseas territories (French territoires d’outre-mer)— French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna Islands, and the French Austral and Antarctic territories.
Geography
The physical geography of France is a reflection of her situation as the apex of the European triangle, which is itself the prolongation of the Eurasian landmass. Just as Europe displays, in a compressed form, the major lineaments of the Eurasian landforms, so does France with respect to the rest of Europe. The North European Plain is represented by N France and the Paris and Aquitaine Basins; the zone of low mountains of Hercynian age (c.300 million years) is represented by the Ardennes, Armorica, and the Massif Central; and the Alpine zone of Tertiary age (c.60 million years), consisting of young rugged mountains with enclosed lowland basins, continues W in the Alps and Pyrenees, and the Rhône-Saône lowland. France is also an isthmus between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. There are four major river systems: those of the Garonne (SW), the Loire (center), the Seine (N), and Rhône (SE) rivers; the Rhine is an important peripheral river. The antiquity of settlement and of agriculture is responsible for the virtual disappearance of natural vegetation, but man-made and maintained forests now occupy about 25% of the land, and the human landscape of fields and gardens, where it has not been replaced by urban sprawl, is sufficiently traditional to appear “natural.”
Climate
The climate of France, owing to its latitude and the prevalence of W winds, warmed by Gulf Stream waters, is predominantly maritime with mild winters, cool summers, and moderate precipitation evenly distributed through the year (Paris averages 39°F/4°C in January, 67°F/19°C in July; 25 in/64 cm of precipitation), but other climates are also found, in attenuated form, on the periphery: the overcast weather and slightly more continental temperatures of the N, the high autumnal and winter precipitation and very mild winters of the Atlantic coast, the increased continentality E of the Vosges (warmer summers, colder winters, and summer concentration of reduced precipitation), and the Mediterranean climates, with hot summers, mild and dry winters, from the Languedoc to Provence (Nice averages 47°F/8°C in January, 73°F/23°C in July; 37 in/94 cm of precipitation).
Population
Demographically, France is beginning to grow at a reduced rate (less than 0.4% per year) because of a low birth rate (less than 15 per thousand) and an aging population (more than 16,4% of the population is 65 or older and only 18.5% is younger than 15); several departments in S France now register more deaths than births in a given year. Immigrants represent 8% of the total population, and as much as 15% in urban areas. About 75% of the French population lives in cities, of which forty have more than 100,000 inhabitants; and more than one out of six live in the Paris agglomeration.
Economy
The labor force total twenty-seven million; agriculture employs 4.1%, manufacturing 24.4%, services 71.5%. French industry has followed similar patterns as other industrialized countries as it confronts the modern world of global commerce; traditional industries such as textiles or steel have declined, whereas motor vehicle manufacture, aircraft construction, chemicals and food processing have done better. The economy of some regions, such as the North and Lorraine, which had long-standing industries based on coal or iron ore, has been seriously hurt. Nuclear energy furnishes 75% of all electricity produced in France, and has compensated for the continuing decline of coal production, and the more recent reduction in the use of petroleum (almost all imported). The modernization of the railroad network continues in the form of increasing lines of high speed trains (T.G.V.); and the highway system now has more than 6,000 mi/9,600 km of limited-access four-lane highways (most of them toll roads). The continuing rural exodus has not kept France from being the most agriculturally productive country in Western Europe, notably producing wheat, wine, meat, and dairy products. More than half of France’s trade is with other members of the EU. France exports mainly industrial products (motor vehicles, aircraft) but also agricultural surpluses; the trade balance has recently been favorable despite imports of raw materials (ores and hydrocarbons).
Geography and Economy by Region
There are ten broadly defined geographic regions that can be identified in France, and within those regions, though supplanted administratively, are the historic provinces that still retain much of their identity. In the North, Flanders and Artois are part of the North European Plain and the have an oceanic climate (akin to that of the Low Countries). Early mining stimulated industry (metallurgy and textiles); but these are in decline and are slowly being replaced by high-tech industries; once a region of strong in-migration (particularly Belgians), it is now a zone of out-migration. Agriculture (wheat, sugar beets, flax) is still important in this heavily urbanized area. The dense population includes many medium-sized towns and channel ports (Dunkerque, Boulogne, Calais), that are all dwarfed by the Lille-Roubaix-Tourcoing agglomeration (over 1,000,000 people).
The Paris Basin is a region of depressed sedimentary layers with centripetal drainage and out-facing cuestas; it includes Picardy, Eastern Normandy, the Ile-de-France, much of Champagne, and part of Orléanais. The climate is typically oceanic with moderate temperatures and precipitation. Dominated by Paris, the political, economic, social, and cultural center of France., this region has few other cities except on the extreme periphery (Amiens in the N, Rouen and Le Havre in the W, and Orléans in the S). A large share of France’s imports (especially hydrocarbons) come to Paris by way of Le Havre and the Seine River. Agriculture is important (wheat and maize in the Beauce and Orléanais, dairying in the Brie, vegetable crops in Picardy, stock raising in Normandy, and wines in Champagne). Out-migration from the city of Paris is more than compensated by strong migration to the suburbs and to the furthermost reaches of the Ile-de-France.
The W peninsulas of the Cotentin and Brittany are part of the Armorican Massif, a Hercynian bloc of old Paleozoic sediments, metamorphosed, uplifted, and eroded into a low-lying hilly region: its climate is more oceanic than that of the Paris Basin, with cool summers and very mild winters. Agriculture and fishing are the principal economic activities (animal husbandry and horticulture in the Cotentin; fishing and specialty crops in Brittany). Rennes is the chief city, Brest and Cherbourg the principal ports.
In the Northeast region, Lorraine and Alsace occupy the extreme E cuestas of the Paris Basin, the Vosges Mountains, and the Alsatian Plain. Industry was once much more important in Lorraine than in Alsace, but its iron ores are low-grade and its coal mines are increasingly expensive to exploit; both mining and the metallurgy based on it are in decline. Lorraine, like the N, has become a zone of out-migratIon; this exodus, much of it rural, has allowed the remaining farmers to profit from economies of scale on larger holdings. In Alsace, the once profitable agriculture, based on polyculture in the plains (cereals, hops, sugar beets, forage crops), on viticulture on the lower slopes of the Vosges, and horticulture in the valleys, is still productive but provides a lower standard of living than in the past. The mineral wealth of Alsace was insignificant compared to that of Lorraine, but the early industrialization of the region, the importance of Strasbourg as a port on the Rhine, and the significance of bi-lingual and bi-cultural Alsace in the new Europe have all led to prosperity in the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy. The principal cities are Nancy and Metz, in Lorraine and Strasbourg, Colmar, and Mulhouse in Alsace.
The Loire is known as the “garden of France,” where chateaux and their formal gardens reproduce in abstract the well-kept countryside of the Loire Valley. vineyards and fields succeed each other down the Loire Valley, past Blois, Tours, and Angers to the urbanized and industrialized areas of Nantes and St.-Nazaire and the summer resorts of the Atlantic coast, the massif central, which contains the Auvergne and parts of surrounding provinces, is a hercynian block of ancient crystalline and sedimentary rocks, strongly perturbed by the tertiary movements that created the Alps, tilted the massif (E-W), and produced the volcanic forms characteristic of the region. Its winters are more severe than those of the lowlands; rainfall is higher. Agricultural potential is small, and manufacturing is limited to the peripheral cities, Limoges (W), Clermont-Ferrand (N), and Sainte Ettiene (NE).
The narrow corridor of the Rhône Valley between the Alps and the massif central is the N limit of Mediterranean climes and landscapes. It is a major contributor to the French economy (and a zone of strong in-migration), based on the hydroelectric resources of the Alps and its function as a N-S transportation route, but there is only one large city, Lyon,
France’s second largest urban agglomeration, in the S, the Midi Region has a distinct Mediterranean climate, distinct Mediterranean agriculture (olives, citrus, grapes); a trade orientation toward the Mediterranean rather than the Atlantic, and a distinct culture that have combined to give Languedoc and Provence, France’s Mediterranean provinces, their distinctive flavor. A booming economy has made the Midi second only to Paris in attracting migrants. Marseille (France’s leading commercial port, importer of Algerian and Near East oil) and Nice are the major cities; other medium-sized cities in the Languedoc are Avignon, Nîmes, Montpellier, and Perpignan.
The Aquitaine, in the SW of France, is the most W extension of the North European plain. This region of mild Atlantic climate and gently rolling, well-watered terrain, is remarkable for its diversity: it has everything from the vineyards of Bordeaux to the aircraft factories of Toulouse, and from Paleolithic art to seashore tourism. The Alps and the Pyrenees are the mountain regions of France, long thought of mainly as passage-ways through poor regions of out-migration, and are now experiencing an economic boom, based mainly on hydroelectric potential and tourism. Grenoble is the major city.
History to 732
Some of the earliest archaeological remains in Europe, ranging from the Mousterian to the Magdalenian (c.70,000 B.C.–10,000 B.C.) have been found in France. Phoenician and Greek colonies (Nice, Antibes, Marseille) were established along France’s Mediterranean coast as early as 600 B.C., but the country, known to the Romans as Gallia and inhabited largely by Celts, first appears in history as the result of Caesar’s intervention against an invasion by the Helvetii (58 B.C.). The Roman influence was profound, almost obliterating the Celtic heritage. It brought cities, Roman engineering, Roman law, and Christianity. Barbarian incursions began in the 4th century A.D.; Visigoths, Burgundians, and Franks descended on Gaul, and in 486 the Franks under Clovis defeated Syagrius, the last Gallo-Roman governor. Clovis founded the dynasty of the Merovingians, but did not provide for the unity of the country since, as was customary, he divided his lands among his sons at his death. Throughout the next two centuries, Gaul was torn by fratricidal strife between the kings of Neustria and Austria, the two realms that eventually emerged from Clovis’s division. The land was depopulated, cities left in ruin, commerce destroyed, and the arts and sciences ignored. Of the Roman legacy, only the church remained, and, in the 8th century, it too was threatened by the Saracen invasion from Spain.
History - 732 to Louis IX
This threat was met by Charles Martel’s victory (732) over the invaders between Poitiers and Tours. Charles was a member of a new, more vigorous dynasty, the Carolingians, who were hereditary mayors of the palace and de facto rulers of the kingdom. Charles’s grandson, Charlemagne, was crowned emperor of the West in 800. His efforts to administer efficiently, restore prosperity, and revive learning did not survive the family squabbles that characterized each new generation. The weakness of central authority under the Carolingians was a major reason for the development of feudalism and the manorial system. Raids by Norsemen, beginning in the late 8th century contributed to the decline of royal authority, increasingly usurped by feudal lords. When the Carolingian dynasty died out in France, the nobles chose (987) Hugh Capet as king. It is from this date that the history of France as a separate kingdom is usually reckoned, though it consisted of only a tiny territory around Paris. However, by unremitting effort, the Capetians gradually extended their domain and held their own against their powerful vassals. In the 11th century towns had begun to regain population and wealth; commerce revived, and the great fairs of Champagne made France a meeting place of merchants.
History - Louis IX to 1453
Under Louis IX (St. Louis), French courtly poetry and manners became European models, especially in England whose Norman rulers not only spoke French but also held vast fiefs in France. This brought the two kingdoms into centuries of conflict. Philip II repeatedly clashed with Richard I and John over the lands they claimed in France. Philip’s victories over his English rivals established the military prestige of France, and a greater France emerged during his reign. However, the extinction of the Capetian line in 1328, stopped the progress toward French national unification, and France was rent by warfare and internal upheaval during the Hundred Years War (1337–1453). French defeats at the hands of the English, the Black Death, local insurrections, and peasant revolts forced the French to make humiliating peace treaties; by 1422, the English held most of France, including Paris. Under Charles VII (1422–1461) French fortunes changed, and with the aid of Joan of Arc at the raising of the siege of Orléans, the English hold was broken; by 1453 the English were left with Calais as their only foothold in France.
History - 1453 to Napoleon
There followed a long period of consolidation and centralization, in which first the Italian Renaissance and later the Protestant Reformation changed the country. The acme of French power and splendor was the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715). French art, literature, and architecture became dominant in Europe; and a colonial empire was founded in N. America and India. But the cost was huge. Much of the national revenue was spent on the dynastic wars that pitted France against the Hapsburgs and aligned the monarchy with the Protestant princes of Germany, while the King was persecuting his own Protestant minority. Under Louis XV (1715–1774), the dynastic wars of succession continued to drain the national finances, and the English managed to oust France from India and Canada. Attempts to solve the problems of recurrent financial crises were foiled by the intransigence of the nobility. The States General were finally convoked and set in motion the events that eventually led to the French Revolution, the First Republic, and political reforms, many of which were abrogated under the rising power of Napoleon Bonaparte.
History - Napoleon I to World War I
Napoleon conquered Europe, but was finally defeated by a coalition of Russians, Prussians, Austrians, and English at Waterloo. The Restoration of the Bourbons lasted only sixteen years, and succeeding regimes came and went quickly: the July monarchy of Louis-Philip (1830–1848), the Second Republic (1848–1852); the Second Empire of Napoleon III (1858–1870), and finally the relative stability of the Third Republic (1871–1940). Under Napoleon III, France entered the industrial age (somewhat later than Belgium and Britain), and began to build a new colonial empire in Algeria. It was the golden age of the wealthy bourgeoisie, of grandiose financial schemes, and for the undertaking of large-scale public works (railroads, ports, city beautification). The Franco-Prussian War, light-heartedly declared and disastrously terminated, caused the fall of Napoleon III. The country recovered quickly from the war and the large indemnity imposed by the victorious Prussians, and the new republic surprised everyone by its continuing existence. France built a colonial empire in tropical Africa, Madagascar, andIndochina. The several international expositions in Paris displayed the economic strength and cultural élan of the Third Republic, best exemplified by the erection of the Eiffel Tower (1889).
History - World War I to Present
World War I bled the country (nearly 1,500,000 dead) and led to an uneasy period of defeatism and appeasement of the growing power of Hitler and Mussolini. World War II was another disaster for France; the immediate losses were less, but the crushing defeat by the German blitzkrieg and the collaboration of the Vichy government tarnished the prestige of France. Charles de Gaulle emerged as the leader of the Free French, and of postwar France. Economic recovery under the Fourth Republic, aided by the Marshall Plan, was fairly rapid. France participated in the early attempts at unifying the European economy (ECSC, EEC) but was torn by colonial problems in Vietnam and North Africa. De Gaulle was called back to power, and created the Fifth Republic with the ratification of a new constitution granting enormously strengthened powers to the presidency. Vietnam and Algeria were granted independence, but only after bitter fighting; most of the French colonists were repatriated from North Africa. The riots of 1968 underlined the dissatisfaction of the working class and the disaffection of the student protesters; the country, frightened by the intensity of the protests, gave De Gaulle an impressive vote of confidence, but he resigned in 1969 after the failure of two of his referendums. Center-right parties continued to govern France under Georges Pompidou and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, but were replaced by socialist governments under the presidency of François Mitterand. In 1986, a right wing coalition led by Jacques Chirac won a majority in parliament, and Chirac was appointed prime minister and began a program of denationalization of banks, large corporations, and the media. Two years later Chirac ran against Mitterand for the presidency and lost. In the 1991 parliamentary elections, the Socialists regained power, but lost it again in 1993. In 1995, Chirac was elected president on a platform of austerity and reform of the social security system, but his plans for reform have met with considerable opposition. France's currency changed from the franc to the euro on January 1, 1999.
Government
France is governed by the 1958 constitution which established the Fifth Republic. It provides for a strong president elected by direct universal suffrage for a seven-year term. A premier and cabinet, appointed by the president are responsible to the national assembly, but are subordinate to the president. The parliament consists of the national assembly (deputies elected from single-member dists. for five-year terms) and the senate (senators elected by departmental electoral colleges for nine-year terms). President Chirac is still chief of state, with Jean-Pierre Raffarin (since 2002) as prime minister. Next elections to be held in 2007.
