Jump to content

Portal:France

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Portal:French Republic)
Main Page   Gazetteer  

Welcome to the France Portal!
Bienvenue sur le Portail France !

Flag France
Map of France in the world and position of its largest single land territory in continental Europe

France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean, giving it one of the largest discontiguous exclusive economic zones in the world. Metropolitan France shares borders with Belgium and Luxembourg to the north, Germany to the northeast, Switzerland to the east, Italy and Monaco to the southeast, Andorra and Spain to the south, and a maritime border with the United Kingdom to the northwest. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea. Its eighteen integral regions—five of which are overseas—span a combined area of 643,801 km2 (248,573 sq mi) and have a total population of nearly 68.4 million as of January 2024. France is a semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre.

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. In the Early Middle Ages, the Franks formed the Kingdom of Francia, which became the heartland of the Carolingian Empire. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned the empire, with West Francia evolving into the Kingdom of France. In the High Middle Ages, France was a powerful but decentralized feudal kingdom, but from the mid-14th to the mid-15th centuries, France was plunged into a dynastic conflict with England known as the Hundred Years' War. 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.

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. France reached its political and military zenith in the early 19th century under Napoleon Bonaparte, subjugating part of continental Europe and establishing the First French Empire. The collapse of the empire initiated a period of relative decline, in which France endured the Bourbon Restoration until the founding of the French Second Republic which was succeeded by the Second French Empire upon Napoleon III's takeover. His empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. This led to the establishment of the Third French Republic, and subsequent decades saw a period of economic prosperity and cultural and scientific flourishing known as the Belle Époque. France was one of the major participants of World War I, from which it emerged victorious at great human and economic cost. It was among the Allies of World War II, but it surrendered and was occupied in 1940. Following its liberation in 1944, the short-lived Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the defeat in the Algerian War. The current Fifth Republic was formed in 1958 by Charles de Gaulle. Algeria and most French colonies became independent in the 1960s, with the majority retaining close economic and military ties with France.

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, receiving 100 million foreign visitors in 2023. A developed country, France has a high nominal per capita income globally, and its advanced 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. France is a founding and leading member of the European Union and the eurozone, as well as a member of the Group of Seven, NATO, OECD, and Francophonie. (Full article...)

Read more about France, its history and people
This is a Featured article, which represents some of the best content on English Wikipedia..

Catherine de' Medici, by François Clouet

The French queen Catherine de' Medici was patron for building projects including the Valois chapel at the Basilica of Saint-Denis, the Tuileries Palace, and the Hôtel de la Reine in Paris, and extensions to the Château de Chenonceau, near Blois. Born in 1519 in Florence, Catherine de' Medici was a daughter of both the Italian and the French Renaissance. She grew up in Florence and Rome under the wing of the Medici popes, Leo X and Clement VII. In 1533, at the age of fourteen, she left Italy and married Henry, the second son of King Francis I of France. On doing so, she entered the greatest Renaissance court in northern Europe.

King Francis set his daughter-in-law an example of kingship and artistic patronage that she never forgot. She witnessed his huge architectural schemes at Chambord and Fontainebleau. She saw Italian and French craftsmen at work together, forging the style that became known as the first School of Fontainebleau. Francis died in 1547, and Catherine became queen consort of France. But it wasn't until her husband King Henry's death in 1559, when she found herself at forty the effective ruler of France, that Catherine came into her own as a patron of architecture. Over the next three decades, she launched a series of costly building projects aimed at enhancing the grandeur of the monarchy. During the same period, however, religious civil war gripped the country and brought the prestige of the monarchy to a dangerously low ebb. (Full article...)

Henry with the New York Red Bulls
Thierry Daniel Henry is a French footballer who plays as a striker for New York Red Bulls in Major League Soccer. Henry was born in Les Ulis, Essonne (a suburb of Paris) where he played for an array of local sides as a youngster. He was spotted by AS Monaco in 1990 and signed instantly, making his professional debut in 1994. Good form led to an international call-up in 1998, after which he signed for the Serie A defending champions Juventus. He had a disappointing season playing on the wing, before joining Arsenal for £11 million in 1999.

Henry emerged as Arsenal's top goal-scorer for almost every season of his tenure there. Under long-time mentor and coach Arsène Wenger, Henry became a prolific striker and Arsenal's all-time leading scorer with 228 goals in all competitions. The Frenchman won two league titles and three FA Cups with the Gunners; he was nominated for the FIFA World Player of the Year twice, was named the PFA Players' Player of the Year twice, and the FWA Footballer of the Year three times. Henry spent his final two seasons with Arsenal as club captain, leading them to the 2006 UEFA Champions League Final.

In June 2007, after eight years with Arsenal, he transferred to Barcelona for a fee of €24 million. His first honours with the Catalan club came in 2009 when they won the La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League treble. In 2010, he joined the New York Red Bulls of the Major League Soccer, and won the Eastern Conference title with them in 2010.

Henry enjoyed similar success with the French national team, having won the 1998 FIFA World Cup, UEFA Euro 2000 and 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup. Henry retired from international football after the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Off the pitch, Henry is an active spokesperson against racism in football, partially due to his own experiences.

Selected fare or cuisine – show another

The madeleine (French pronunciation: [mad.lɛn], English: /ˈmædln/ or /ˌmædlˈn/) or petite madeleine ([pə.tit mad.lɛn]) is a traditional small cake from Commercy and Liverdun, two communes of the Lorraine region in northeastern France.

Madeleines are very small sponge cakes with a distinctive shell-like shape acquired from being baked in pans with shell-shaped depressions. Madeleine-style cookies are popular in a number of culinary traditions. (Full article...)

Good article – show another

This is a Good article, an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.

French prisoners of war being marched away from the front, May 1940

Although no precise estimates exist, the number of French soldiers captured by Nazi Germany during the Battle of France between May and June 1940 is generally recognised around 1.8 million, equivalent to around 10 percent of the total adult male population of France at the time. After a brief period of captivity in France, most of the prisoners were deported to Germany. In Germany, prisoners were incarcerated in Stalag or Oflag prison camps, according to rank, but the vast majority were soon transferred to work details (Kommandos) working in German agriculture or industry. Prisoners from the French colonial empire, however, remained in camps in France with poor living conditions as a result of Nazi racial ideologies.

During negotiations for the Armistice of 22 June 1940, the Vichy French government adopted a policy of collaboration in hopes for German concessions allowing repatriation. The Germans nevertheless deferred the return of prisoners until the negotiation of a final peace treaty, which never occurred due to the United Kingdom's refusal to surrender and Germany's defeat in the Battle of Britain. The absence of a large proportion of the male population of France also had important consequences on the position of women in occupied France and charity fundraising on behalf of the prisoners played an important role in French daily life until late in the occupation. Limited repatriation of certain classes of POWs did occur from 1940 and the government was keen to encourage the return of prisoners, even launching the unpopular relève system in order to exchange prisoners of war for French labourers going to work in Germany. Nevertheless, many prisoners remained in German captivity until the defeat of Germany in 1945. Prisoners who returned to France, either by repatriation or through escaping, generally found themselves stigmatised by the French civilian population and received little official recognition. (Full article...)

List of Good articles

In the news

Read and edit Wikinews
Read and edit Wikinews
23 December 2024 – 2024 French political crisis
Following the collapse of the Barnier government, French President Emmanuel Macron announces a new administration led by François Bayrou as the new Prime Minister. (DW)
19 December 2024 –
France's Directorate-General for External Security reports that four French nationals detained in Burkina Faso on allegations of being foreign intelligence agents have been released following mediation by Morocco. (ABC News)
19 December 2024 – Mazan rapes
The Judicial Court in Avignon, France, finds Dominique Pelicot guilty of the aggravated rape of his ex-wife Gisèle Pelicot, and imposes the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The 50 other defendants in the case are also convicted of crimes ranging from attempted rape to aggravated rape, and receive prison sentences ranging from three to 15 years. (Reuters)
18 December 2024 – Armenia–Azerbaijan border crisis
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev says that arms sent by France to Armenia pose a threat to Azerbaijan. (Trend News Agency)

Did you know – show different entries

Grenoble trolleybus 637.

Topics

Major articles. Linked categories are listed in bold typeface.

Geographic topics

Major articles. Linked categories are listed in bold typeface.

Categories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories

Things you can do

Wikipedia:France-related tasks
vieweditdiscusshistorywatch

French Wikipedia

There is a French version of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Wikiproject

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

More portals

Discover Wikipedia using portals

Parent portals: Europe | European Union