France
Coordinates: 47°N 2°E / 47°N 2°E
French Republic | |
|---|---|
| Motto: "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" | |
| Anthem: "La Marseillaise" | |
| Great Seal: | |
Location of France (red or dark green) – in Europe (green & dark grey) | |
| Capital and largest city | Paris 48°51′N 2°21′E / 48.850°N 2.350°E |
| Official language and national language | French[I] |
| Nationality (2018) | |
| Religion (2020) |
|
| Demonym(s) | French |
| Government | Unitary semi-presidential constitutional republic |
| Emmanuel Macron | |
| Jean Castex | |
| Legislature | Parliament |
| Senate | |
| National Assembly | |
| Establishment | |
• Reign of Clovis I as King of the Franks | 500 |
| 10 August 843 | |
| 3 July 987 | |
| 22 September 1792 | |
| 1 January 1958 | |
| 4 October 1958 | |
| Area | |
• Total | 640,679 km2 (247,368 sq mi)[4] (42nd) |
• Water (%) | 0.86 (as of 2015)[5] |
| 551,695 km2 (213,011 sq mi)[V] (50th) | |
• Metropolitan France (Cadastre) | 543,940.9 km2 (210,016.8 sq mi)[VI][6] (50th) |
| Population | |
• May 2021 estimate |  67,413,000[7] (20th) |
• Density | 104.7109/km2 (106th) |
• Metropolitan France, estimate as of May 2021[update] | 65,239,000[8] (23rd) |
• Density | 116/km2 (300.4/sq mi) (89th) |
| GDP (PPP) | 2021 estimate |
• Total |  $3.232 trillion[9] (9th) |
• Per capita | $49,492[9] (25th) |
| GDP (nominal) | 2021 estimate |
• Total | $2.938 trillion[9] (7th) |
• Per capita | $44,995[9] (24th) |
| Gini (2019) |  29.2[10]low |
| HDI (2019) | 0.901[11] very high · 26th |
| Currency | |
| Time zone | UTC+1 (Central European Time) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC +2 ( horario de verano de Europa Central [X] ) |
| Nota: Se observan varias otras zonas horarias en Francia de ultramar. [IX] Aunque Francia está en la zona UTC (Z) ( Hora de Europa Occidental ), UTC + 01: 00 ( Hora de Europa Central ) se aplicó como la hora estándar desde el 25 de febrero de 1940, tras la ocupación alemana en la Segunda Guerra Mundial , con un +0 Desplazamiento: 50: 39 (y +1: 50: 39 durante el horario de verano ) desde París LMT (UTC + 0: 09: 21). [12] | |
| Formato de fecha | dd / mm / aaaa ( AD ) |
| Electricidad de red | 230 V – 50 Hz |
| Lado de conducción | Derecha |
| Código de llamada | +33 [XI] |
| Código ISO 3166 | FR |
| TLD de Internet | .fr [XII] |
Source gives area of metropolitan France as 551,500 km2 (212,900 sq mi) and lists overseas regions separately, whose areas sum to 89,179 km2 (34,432 sq mi). Adding these give the total shown here for the entire French Republic. The CIA reports the total as 643,801 km2 (248,573 sq mi). | |
France (French: [fʁɑ̃s] 
), officially the French Republic (French: République française),[1] is a transcontinental country spanning Western Europe and overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.[XIII] Including all of its territories, France has twelve time zones, the most of any country. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea; overseas territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and several islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Due to its several coastal territories, France has the largest exclusive economic zone in the world. France borders Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Monaco, Italia , Andorra y España en Europa, además de Holanda , Surinam y Brasil en América. Sus dieciocho regiones integrales (cinco de las cuales están en el extranjero) abarcan un área combinada de 643,801 km 2 (248,573 millas cuadradas) y más de 67 millones de personas (a mayo de 2021 [update]). [13] Francia es una república unitaria semipresidencialista con su capital en París , la ciudad más grande del país y el principal centro cultural y comercial; Otras áreas urbanas importantes incluyen Lyon ,Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice.
Inhabited since the Palaeolithic era, the territory of Metropolitan France was settled by Celtic tribes known as Gauls during the Iron Age. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, leading to a distinct Gallo-Roman culture that laid the foundation of the French language. The Germanic Franks arrived in 476 and 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 becoming the Kingdom of France in 987.
In the High Middle Ages, France was a powerful but highly decentralised feudal kingdom in which the king's authority was barely felt. King Philip Augustus achieved remarkable success in the strengthening of royal power and the expansion of his realm, defeating his rivals and doubling its size. By the end of his reign, the kingdom had emerged as the most powerful state in Europe. From the mid-14th to the mid-15th century, France was plunged into a series of dynastic conflicts for the French throne, collectively known as the Hundred Years' War, and a distinct French identity emerged as a result. The French Renaissance saw art and culture flourish, various wars with rival powers, and the establishment of a global colonial empire, which by the 20th century would become the second-largest in the world.[14] The second half of the 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Catholics and Huguenots that severely weakened the country. But France once again emerged as Europe's dominant cultural, political and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV following the Thirty Years' War.[15] Inadequate economic policies, an inequitable taxation system as well as endless wars (notably a defeat in the Seven Years' War and costly involvement in the American War of Independence), left the kingdom in a precarious economic situation by the end of the 18th century. This precipitated the French Revolution of 1789, which overthrew the absolute monarchy, replaced the Ancien Régime with one of history's first modern republics and produced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 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 much of continental Europe and establishing the First French Empire. The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of European and world history. The collapse of the empire initiated a period of relative decline, in which France endured a tumultuous succession of governments until the founding of the French Third Republic during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Subsequent decades saw a period of optimism, cultural and scientific flourishing, as well as economic prosperity 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 Allied powers of the World War II, but was soon occupied by the Axis in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, the short-lived Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of 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 fifth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the world's leading tourist destination, receiving over 89 million foreign visitors in 2018.[16] France is a developed country with the world's seventh-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by PPP; in terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world.[17] France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy and human development.[18][19] It remains a great power in global affairs,[20] 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,[21] as well as a key member of the Group of Seven, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and La Francophonie.
Etimología y pronunciación
Originalmente aplicado a todo el Imperio franco , el nombre Francia proviene del latín Francia , o "reino de los francos ". [22] La Francia moderna todavía se llama hoy Francia en italiano y español, mientras que Frankreich en alemán, Frankrijk en holandés y Frankrike en sueco significan "Tierra / reino de los francos".
The name of the Franks is related to the English word frank ("free"): the latter stems from the Old French franc ("free, noble, sincere"), ultimately from Medieval Latin francus ("free, exempt from service; freeman, Frank"), a generalization of the tribal name that emerged as a Late Latin borrowing of the reconstructed Frankish endonym *Frank.[23][24] It has been suggested that the meaning "free" was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation,[25] or more generally because they had the status of freemen in contrast to servants or slaves.[24]
The etymology of *Frank is uncertain. It is traditionally derived from the Proto-Germanic word *frankōn, which translates as "javelin" or "lance" (the throwing axe of the Franks was known as the francisca),[26] although these weapons may have been named because of their use by the Franks, not the other way around.[24]
In English, 'France' is pronounced /fræns/ FRANSS in American English and /frɑːns/ FRAHNSS or /fræns/ FRANSS in British English. The pronunciation with /ɑː/ is mostly confined to accents with the trap-bath split such as Received Pronunciation, though it can be also heard in some other dialects such as Cardiff English, in which /fr ɑː n s /está en variación libre con/ f r æ n s /. [27][28]
Historia
Prehistoria (antes del siglo VI a.C.)
Los rastros más antiguos de vida humana en lo que hoy es Francia datan de hace aproximadamente 1,8 millones de años. [30] Durante los siguientes milenios, los humanos se enfrentaron a un clima severo y variable, marcado por varios períodos glaciares . Los primeros homínidos llevaban una vida nómada de cazadores-recolectores . [30] Francia tiene una gran cantidad de cuevas decoradas de la era del Paleolítico superior , incluida una de las más famosas y mejor conservadas, Lascaux [30] (aproximadamente 18.000 aC). Al final del último período glacial (10.000 aC), el clima se volvió más suave; [30]aproximadamente desde el 7.000 a. C., esta parte de Europa Occidental entró en el Neolítico y sus habitantes se volvieron sedentarios .
Después de un fuerte desarrollo demográfico y agrícola entre el cuarto y el tercer milenio, la metalurgia apareció a fines del tercer milenio, inicialmente trabajando el oro, el cobre y el bronce, y luego el hierro. [31] Francia tiene numerosos sitios megalíticos del período Neolítico, incluido el sitio excepcionalmente denso de piedras de Carnac (aproximadamente 3300 aC).
Antigüedad (siglo VI a.C.-siglo V d.C.)
En el 600 a. C., los griegos jónicos de Phocaea fundaron la colonia de Massalia (actual Marsella ), a orillas del mar Mediterráneo . Esto la convierte en la ciudad más antigua de Francia. [32] [33] Al mismo tiempo, algunas tribus galos celtas penetraron partes del este y norte de Francia, extendiéndose gradualmente por el resto del país entre los siglos V y III a. C. [34] El concepto de Galia surgió durante este período, correspondiente a los territorios de asentamiento celta que se extienden entre el Rin , el Océano Atlántico, los Pirineosy el mediterráneo. Las fronteras de la Francia moderna corresponden aproximadamente a la antigua Galia, que fue habitada por galos celtas . Galia era entonces un país próspero, cuya parte más meridional estaba fuertemente sujeta a las influencias culturales y económicas griegas y romanas.
Around 390 BC, the Gallic chieftain Brennus and his troops made their way to Italy through the Alps, defeated the Romans in the Battle of the Allia, and besieged and ransomed Rome.[35] The Gallic invasion left Rome weakened, and the Gauls continued to harass the region until 345 BC when they entered into a formal peace treaty with Rome.[36] But the Romans and the Gauls would remain adversaries for the next centuries, and the Gauls would continue to be a threat in Italy.[37]
Around 125 BC, the south of Gaul was conquered by the Romans, who called this region Provincia Nostra ("Our Province"), which over time evolved into the name Provence in French.[38] Julius Caesar conquered the remainder of Gaul and overcame a revolt carried out by the Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix in 52 BC.[39]
Gaul was divided by Augustus into Roman provinces.[40] Many cities were founded during the Gallo-Roman period, including Lugdunum (present-day Lyon), which is considered the capital of the Gauls.[40] These cities were built in traditional Roman style, with a forum, a theatre, a circus, an amphitheatre and thermal baths. The Gauls mixed with Roman settlers and eventually adopted Roman culture and Roman speech (Latin, from which the French language evolved). The Roman polytheismse fusionó con el paganismo galo en el mismo sincretismo .
Desde los años 250 al 280 d.C., la Galia romana sufrió una grave crisis con sus fronteras fortificadas siendo atacadas en varias ocasiones por los bárbaros . [41] Sin embargo, la situación mejoró en la primera mitad del siglo IV, que fue un período de renacimiento y prosperidad para la Galia romana. [42] En 312, el emperador Constantino I se convirtió al cristianismo. Posteriormente, los cristianos, que habían sido perseguidos hasta entonces, aumentaron rápidamente en todo el Imperio Romano. [43] Pero, desde principios del siglo V, se reanudaron las invasiones bárbaras . [44] Las tribus teutónicas invadieron la región desde la actual Alemania, los visigodosasentarse en el suroeste, los borgoñones a lo largo del valle del río Rin y los francos (de quienes los franceses toman su nombre) en el norte. [45]
Alta Edad Media (siglos V-X)
Al final del período de la Antigüedad , la antigua Galia se dividió en varios reinos germánicos y un territorio galo-romano restante, conocido como el Reino de Syagrius . Simultáneamente, los celtas británicos , que huían del asentamiento anglosajón de Gran Bretaña , se establecieron en la parte occidental de Armórica . Como resultado, la península de Armórica pasó a llamarse Bretaña , la cultura celta revivió y surgieron pequeños reinos independientes en esta región.
The first leader to make himself king of all the Franks was Clovis I, who began his reign in 481, routing the last forces of the Roman governors of the province in 486. Clovis claimed that he would be baptized a Christian in the event of his victory against the Visigoths, which was said to have guaranteed the battle. Clovis regained the southwest from the Visigoths, was baptized in 508, and made himself master of what is now western Germany.
Clovis I fue el primer conquistador germánico después de la caída del Imperio Romano en convertirse al cristianismo católico, en lugar del arrianismo ; así Francia recibió el título de "Hija mayor de la Iglesia" (en francés: La fille aînée de l'Église ) por el papado, [46] y los reyes franceses serían llamados "los reyes más cristianos de Francia" ( Rex Christianissimus ).
Los francos abrazaron la cultura cristiana galo-romana y la antigua Galia finalmente pasó a llamarse Francia ("Tierra de los francos"). Los francos germánicos adoptaron las lenguas románicas , excepto en el norte de la Galia, donde los asentamientos romanos eran menos densos y donde surgieron las lenguas germánicas . Clovis hizo de París su capital y estableció la dinastía merovingia , pero su reino no sobreviviría a su muerte. Los francos trataron la tierra simplemente como una posesión privada y la dividieron entre sus herederos, por lo que cuatro reinos surgieron de Clovis: París, Orleans , Soissons y Reims . Los últimos reyes merovingios perdieron el podera sus alcaldes de palacio (cabeza de familia). Un alcalde del palacio, Charles Martel , derrotó una invasión islámica de la Galia en la Batalla de Tours (732) y se ganó el respeto y el poder dentro de los reinos francos. Su hijo, Pipino el Breve , arrebató la corona de Francia a los debilitados merovingios y fundó la dinastía carolingia . El hijo de Pepino, Carlomagno , reunió a los reinos francos y construyó un vasto imperio en Europa occidental y central.
Proclamado emperador del Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico por el Papa León III y estableciendo así seriamente la asociación histórica del gobierno francés con la Iglesia Católica , [47] Carlomagno trató de revivir el Imperio Romano Occidental y su grandeza cultural. El hijo de Carlomagno, Luis I (emperador 814-840), mantuvo unido el imperio; sin embargo, este Imperio Carolingio no sobreviviría a su muerte. En 843, bajo el Tratado de Verdún , el imperio se dividió entre los tres hijos de Luis, con Francia Oriental yendo a Luis el Alemán , Francia Media a Lotario Iy West Francia a Carlos el Calvo . Francia occidental se aproximaba al área ocupada y precursora de la Francia moderna. [48]
During the 9th and 10th centuries, continually threatened by Viking invasions, France became a very decentralized state: the nobility's titles and lands became hereditary, and the authority of the king became more religious than secular and thus was less effective and constantly challenged by powerful noblemen. Thus was established feudalism in France. Over time, some of the king's vassals would grow so powerful that they often posed a threat to the king. For example, after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror added "King of England" to his titles, becoming both the vassal to (as Duke of Normandy) and the equal of (as king of England) the king of France, creating recurring tensions.
Alta y Baja Edad Media (siglos X-XV)
La dinastía carolingia gobernó Francia hasta 987, cuando Hugo Capeto , duque de Francia y conde de París, fue coronado rey de los francos . [49] Sus descendientes —los Capetos , la Casa de Valois y la Casa de Borbón— unificaron progresivamente el país mediante guerras y herencia dinástica en el Reino de Francia, que fue declarado plenamente en 1190 por Felipe II de Francia ( Philippe Auguste ). Los reyes posteriores ampliarían su dominio real directamente poseídopara cubrir más de la mitad de la Francia continental moderna en el siglo XV, incluida la mayor parte del norte, centro y oeste de Francia. Durante este proceso, la autoridad real se volvió cada vez más asertiva, centrada en una sociedad concebida jerárquicamente que distinguía a la nobleza , el clero y los plebeyos .
The French nobility played a prominent role in most Crusades to restore Christian access to the Holy Land. French knights made up the bulk of the steady flow of reinforcements throughout the two-hundred-year span of the Crusades, in such a fashion that the Arabs uniformly referred to the crusaders as Franj caring little whether they really came from France.[50] The French Crusaders also imported the French language into the Levant, making French the base of the lingua franca (litt. "Frankish language") of the Crusader states.[50] French knights also made up the majority in both the Hospitaly las órdenes del templo . Este último, en particular, tenía numerosas propiedades en toda Francia y en el siglo XIII eran los principales banqueros de la corona francesa, hasta que Felipe IV aniquiló la orden en 1307. La Cruzada contra los albigenses se lanzó en 1209 para eliminar a los cátaros heréticos en la zona suroeste. de la Francia actual. Al final, los cátaros fueron exterminados y el condado autónomo de Toulouse fue anexado a las tierras de la corona de Francia . [51]
From the 11th century, the House of Plantagenet, the rulers of the County of Anjou, succeeded in establishing its dominion over the surrounding provinces of Maine and Touraine, then progressively built an "empire" that spanned from England to the Pyrenees and covering half of modern France. Tensions between the kingdom of France and the Plantagenet empire would last a hundred years, until Philip II of France conquered, between 1202 and 1214 most of the continental possessions of the empire, leaving England and Aquitaine to the Plantagenets. Following the Battle of Bouvines.
Carlos IV el Hermoso murió sin heredero en 1328. [52] Según las reglas de la ley sálica, la corona de Francia no podía pasar a una mujer ni la línea de la realeza podía pasar por la línea femenina. [52] En consecuencia, la corona pasó a Felipe de Valois, en lugar de a través de la línea femenina a Eduardo de Plantagenet, que pronto se convertiría en Eduardo III de Inglaterra . Durante el reinado de Felipe de Valois , la monarquía francesa alcanzó el apogeo de su poder medieval. [52] Sin embargo, el asiento de Felipe en el trono fue disputado por Eduardo III de Inglaterra en 1337, e Inglaterra y Francia entraron en la Guerra de los Cien Años . [53] Los límites exactos cambiaron mucho con el tiempo, pero las propiedades de los reyes ingleses dentro de Francia siguieron siendo extensas durante décadas. Con líderes carismáticos, como Juana de Arco y La Hire , los fuertes contraataques franceses recuperaron la mayoría de los territorios continentales ingleses. Como el resto de Europa, Francia fue golpeada por la Peste Negra; murió la mitad de los 17 millones de habitantes de Francia. [54] [55]
Período moderno temprano (siglo XV-1789)
El Renacimiento francés vio un desarrollo cultural espectacular y la primera estandarización del idioma francés, que se convertiría en el idioma oficial de Francia y el idioma de la aristocracia europea. También vio una larga serie de guerras, conocidas como las guerras italianas , entre Francia y la Casa de Habsburgo . Exploradores franceses, como Jacques Cartier o Samuel de Champlain , reclamaron tierras en las Américas para Francia, allanando el camino para la expansión del primer imperio colonial francés . El auge del protestantismo en Europa llevó a Francia a una guerra civil conocida como las Guerras de Religión francesas , donde, en el incidente más notorio, miles de hugonotesfueron asesinados en la masacre del día de San Bartolomé de 1572. [56] Las guerras de religión terminaron con el Edicto de Nantes de Enrique IV , que concedió cierta libertad de religión a los hugonotes. Las tropas españolas , el terror de Europa Occidental, [57] ayudaron al bando católico durante las Guerras de Religión en 1589-1594, e invadieron el norte de Francia en 1597; después de algunas escaramuzas en las décadas de 1620 y 1630, España y Francia volvieron a la guerra total entre 1635 y 1659. La guerra le costó a Francia 300.000 bajas. [58]
Bajo Luis XIII , el enérgico cardenal Richelieu promovió la centralización del estado y reforzó el poder real desarmando a los poseedores del poder nacional en la década de 1620. Destruyó sistemáticamente castillos de señores desafiantes y denunció el uso de la violencia privada (duelo, portación de armas y mantenimiento de ejércitos privados). A fines de la década de 1620, Richelieu estableció "el monopolio real de la fuerza" como doctrina. [59] Durante la minoría de Luis XIV y la regencia de la reina Ana y el cardenal Mazarino , ocurrió un período de problemas conocido como la Fronda en Francia. Esta rebelión fue impulsada por los grandes señores feudales y los tribunales soberanos.como reacción al surgimiento del poder real absoluto en Francia.
La monarquía alcanzó su apogeo durante el siglo XVII y el reinado de Luis XIV (1643-1715). Al convertir a los poderosos señores feudales en cortesanos en el Palacio de Versalles , el poder personal de Luis XIV quedó indiscutido. Recordado por sus numerosas guerras, convirtió a Francia en la principal potencia europea. Francia se convirtió en el país más poblado de Europa y tuvo una tremenda influencia sobre la política, la economía y la cultura europeas. El francés se convirtió en el idioma más utilizado en la diplomacia, la ciencia, la literatura y los asuntos internacionales, y permaneció así hasta el siglo XX. [60] Francia obtuvo muchas posesiones de ultramar en América, África y Asia. Luis XIV también revocó el Edicto de Nantes, obligando a miles de hugonotes al exilio.
Under the wars of Louis XV (r. 1715–1774), France lost New France and most of its Indian possessions after its defeat in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). Its European territory kept growing, however, with notable acquisitions such as Lorraine (1766) and Corsica (1770). An unpopular king, Louis XV's weak rule, his ill-advised financial, political and military decisions – as well as the debauchery of his court– discredited the monarchy, which arguably paved the way for the French Revolution 15 years after his death.[61][62]
Luis XVI (r. 1774-1793) apoyó activamente a los estadounidenses con dinero, flotas y ejércitos , ayudándolos a obtener la independencia de Gran Bretaña . Francia se vengó, pero gastó tanto que el gobierno estuvo al borde de la bancarrota, un factor que contribuyó a la Revolución Francesa. Gran parte de la Ilustración se produjo en los círculos intelectuales franceses, y los científicos franceses lograron importantes avances e invenciones científicas, como el descubrimiento del oxígeno (1778) y el primer globo aerostático que transportaba pasajeros (1783). Exploradores franceses, como Bougainville y Lapérouse , participaron en los viajes de exploración científicaa través de expediciones marítimas alrededor del mundo. La filosofía de la Ilustración, en la que se defiende la razón como la principal fuente de legitimidad , socavó el poder y el apoyo a la monarquía y también fue un factor en la Revolución Francesa.
Francia revolucionaria (1789-1799)
Facing financial troubles, King Louis XVI summoned the Estates-General (gathering the three Estates of the realm) in May 1789 to propose solutions to his government. As it came to an impasse, the representatives of the Third Estate formed into a National Assembly, signalling the outbreak of the French Revolution. Fearing that the king would suppress the newly created National Assembly, insurgents stormed the Bastille on 14 July 1789, a date which would become France's National Day.
In early August 1789, the National Constituent Assembly abolished the privileges of the nobility such as personal serfdom and exclusive hunting rights. Through the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen(27 de agosto de 1789) Francia estableció los derechos fundamentales del hombre. La Declaración afirma "los derechos naturales e imprescriptibles del hombre" a "la libertad, la propiedad, la seguridad y la resistencia a la opresión". Se declaró la libertad de expresión y de prensa y se prohibieron las detenciones arbitrarias. Pidió la destrucción de los privilegios aristocráticos y proclamó la libertad y la igualdad de derechos para todos los hombres, así como el acceso a cargos públicos basado en el talento más que en el nacimiento. En noviembre de 1789, la Asamblea decidió nacionalizar y vender todas las propiedades de la Iglesia Católica, que había sido el mayor terrateniente del país. En julio de 1790, una Constitución Civil del Clero reorganized the French Catholic Church, cancelling the authority of the Church to levy taxes, et cetera. This fueled much discontent in parts of France, which would contribute to the civil war breaking out some years later. While King Louis XVI still enjoyed popularity among the population, his disastrous flight to Varennes (June 1791) seemed to justify rumours he had tied his hopes of political salvation to the prospects of foreign invasion. His credibility was so deeply undermined that the abolition of the monarchy and establishment of a republic became an increasing possibility.
In August 1791, the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia in the Declaration of Pillnitz threatened revolutionary France to intervene by force of arms to restore the French absolute monarchy. In September 1791, the National Constituent Assembly forced King Louis XVI to accept the French Constitution of 1791, thus turning the French absolute monarchy into a constitutional monarchy. In the newly established Legislative Assembly (October 1791), enmity developed and deepened between a group, later called the 'Girondins', who favoured war with Austria and Prussia, and a group later called 'Montagnards 'o' jacobinos ', que se opusieron a tal guerra. Sin embargo, una mayoría en la Asamblea en 1792 vio una guerra con Austria y Prusia como una oportunidad para impulsar la popularidad del gobierno revolucionario y pensó que Francia ganaría una guerra contra esas monarquías reunidas. El 20 de abril de 1792, por tanto, declararon la guerra a Austria .
El 10 de agosto de 1792, una multitud enfurecida amenazó el palacio del rey Luis XVI , quien se refugió en la Asamblea Legislativa. [63] [64] Un ejército prusiano invadió Francia más tarde en agosto de 1792. A principios de septiembre, los parisinos, enfurecidos por la captura del ejército prusiano de Verdún y los levantamientos contrarrevolucionarios en el oeste de Francia, asesinaron entre 1.000 y 1.500 prisioneros al asaltar la ciudad parisina. prisiones. La Asamblea y el Ayuntamiento de París parecían incapaces de detener ese derramamiento de sangre. [63] [65] La Convención Nacional , elegida en las primeras elecciones por sufragio universal masculino , [63]el 20 de septiembre de 1792 sucedió a la Asamblea Legislativa y el 21 de septiembre abolió la monarquía proclamando la Primera República Francesa . El ex rey Luis XVI fue condenado por traición y guillotinado en enero de 1793 . Francia había declarado la guerra a Gran Bretaña y la República Holandesa en noviembre de 1792 e hizo lo mismo con España en marzo de 1793; en la primavera de 1793, Austria y Prusia invadieron Francia; en marzo, Francia creó una " república hermana " en la " República de Mainz " y la mantuvo bajo control.
También en marzo de 1793, comenzó la guerra civil de Vendée contra París , evocada tanto por la Constitución Civil del Clero de 1790 como por el reclutamiento militar nacional a principios de 1793; en otras partes de Francia también se estaba gestando la rebelión. Una disputa entre facciones en la Convención Nacional, latente desde octubre de 1791, llegó a un clímax con el grupo de los " girondinos " el 2 de junio de 1793 que se vio obligado a dimitir y abandonar la convención. La contrarrevolución, iniciada en marzo de 1793 en Vendée, en julio se había extendido a Bretaña., Normandía, Burdeos, Marsella, Toulon y Lyon. El gobierno de la Convención de París entre octubre y diciembre de 1793, con medidas brutales, logró dominar la mayoría de los levantamientos internos, a costa de decenas de miles de vidas. Algunos historiadores consideran que la guerra civil duró hasta 1796 con un saldo de posiblemente 450.000 vidas. [66] [67] A fines de 1793, los aliados habían sido expulsados de Francia. Francia en febrero de 1794 abolió la esclavitud en sus colonias americanas , pero la reintroduciría más tarde.
Los desacuerdos políticos y la enemistad en la Convención Nacional entre octubre de 1793 y julio de 1794 alcanzaron niveles sin precedentes, lo que llevó a decenas de miembros de la Convención a ser condenados a muerte y guillotinados. Mientras tanto, las guerras exteriores de Francia en 1794 prosperaron, por ejemplo en Bélgica. En 1795, el gobierno pareció volver a la indiferencia hacia los deseos y necesidades de las clases bajas con respecto a la libertad de religión ( católica ) y la distribución justa de los alimentos. Hasta 1799, los políticos, además de inventar un nuevo sistema parlamentario (el ' Directorio '), se ocuparon de disuadir al pueblo del catolicismo y del monarquismo.
Napoleón y el siglo XIX (1799-1914)
Napoleón Bonaparte tomó el control de la República en 1799 y se convirtió en primer cónsul y más tarde en emperador del Imperio francés (1804-1814; 1815). Como continuación de las guerras desencadenadas por las monarquías europeas contra la República Francesa, conjuntos cambiantes de Coaliciones europeas declararon guerras al Imperio de Napoleón. Sus ejércitos conquistaron la mayor parte de Europa continental con rápidas victorias como las batallas de Jena-Auerstadt o Austerlitz . Los miembros de la familia Bonaparte fueron nombrados monarcas en algunos de los reinos recién establecidos. [69]
Estas victorias llevaron a la expansión mundial de los ideales y reformas revolucionarios franceses, como el sistema métrico , el Código Napoleónico y la Declaración de los Derechos del Hombre. En junio de 1812, Napoleón atacó Rusia y llegó a Moscú. A partir de entonces, su ejército se desintegró debido a problemas de suministro, enfermedades, ataques rusos y, finalmente, el invierno. Después de la catastrófica campaña rusa y el consiguiente levantamiento de las monarquías europeas contra su gobierno, Napoleón fue derrotado y la monarquía borbónica fue restaurada . Aproximadamente un millón de franceses murieron durante las guerras napoleónicas . [69] Después de su breve regresoDesde el exilio, Napoleón fue finalmente derrotado en 1815 en la Batalla de Waterloo , se restableció la monarquía (1815-1830), con nuevas limitaciones constitucionales.
La desacreditada dinastía borbónica fue derrocada por la Revolución de julio de 1830, que estableció la Monarquía constitucional de julio . En ese año, las tropas francesas conquistaron Argelia, estableciendo la primera presencia colonial en África desde la abortada invasión de Egipto por Napoleón en 1798. En 1848, los disturbios generales llevaron a la Revolución de Febrero y al final de la Monarquía de Julio. La abolición de la esclavitud y la introducción del sufragio universal masculino , que se promulgaron brevemente durante la Revolución Francesa, se volvieron a promulgar en 1848. En 1852, el presidente de la República Francesa, Luis Napoleón Bonaparte , sobrino de Napoleón I, fue proclamado emperador de el segundo imperio, como Napoleón III. Multiplicó las intervenciones francesas en el exterior, especialmente en Crimea , en México e Italia, lo que resultó en la anexión del Ducado de Saboya y del Condado de Niza , entonces parte del Reino de Cerdeña . Napoleón III fue derrocado tras la derrota en la guerra franco-prusiana de 1870 y su régimen fue reemplazado por la Tercera República . En 1875, la conquista francesa de Argelia se completó y aproximadamente 825.000 argelinos murieron como resultado. [70]
France had colonial possessions, in various forms, since the beginning of the 17th century, but in the 19th and 20th centuries, its global overseas colonial empire extended greatly and became the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. Including metropolitan France, the total area of land under French sovereignty almost reached 13 million square kilometres in the 1920s and 1930s, 8.6% of the world's land. Known as the Belle Époque, the turn of the century was a period characterised by optimism, regional peace, economic prosperity and technological, scientific and cultural innovations. In 1905, state secularism was officially established.
Período contemporáneo (1914-presente)
Francia fue invadida por Alemania y defendida por Gran Bretaña para comenzar la Primera Guerra Mundial en agosto de 1914. Una rica zona industrial en el noreste fue ocupada. Francia y los aliados salieron victoriosos contra las potencias centrales con un tremendo costo humano y material. La Primera Guerra Mundial dejó 1,4 millones de soldados franceses muertos, el 4% de su población. [71] Entre el 27 y el 30% de los soldados reclutados entre 1912 y 1915 murieron. [72] Los años de entreguerras estuvieron marcados por intensas tensiones internacionales y una variedad de reformas sociales introducidas por el gobierno del Frente Popular (vacaciones anuales , jornadas laborales de ocho horas , mujeres en el gobierno).
In 1940, France was invaded and quickly defeated by Nazi Germany. France was divided into a German occupation zone in the north, an Italian occupation zone in the southeast and an unoccupied territory, the rest of France, which consisted of the southern French metropolitan territory (two-fifths of pre-war metropolitan France) and the French empire, which included the two protectorates of French Tunisia and French Morocco, and French Algeria; the Vichy government, a newly established authoritarian regime collaborating with Germany, ruled the unoccupied territory. Free France, the government-in-exile led by Charles de Gaulle, was set up in London.[full citation needed]
From 1942 to 1944, about 160,000 French citizens, including around 75,000 Jews,[73][74][75] were deported to death camps and concentration camps in Germany and occupied Poland.[76] In September 1943, Corsica was the first French metropolitan territory to liberate itself from the Axis. On 6 June 1944, the Allies invaded Normandy and in August they invaded Provence. Over the following year the Allies and the French Resistance emerged victorious over the Axis powers and French sovereignty was restored with the establishment of the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF). This interim government, established by de Gaulle, aimed to continue to wage war against Germany and to purge collaborators from office. It also made several important reforms (suffrage extended to women, creation of a social security system).
La GPRF sentó las bases para un nuevo orden constitucional que resultó en la Cuarta República , que experimentó un crecimiento económico espectacular ( les Trente Glorieuses ). Francia fue uno de los miembros fundadores de la OTAN (1949). Francia intentó recuperar el control de la Indochina francesa, pero fue derrotada por el Viet Minh en 1954 en la batalla culminante de Dien Bien Phu . Solo meses después, Francia enfrentó otro conflicto anticolonialista en Argelia . La tortura y represión sistemática, así como las ejecuciones extrajudiciales que se perpetraron para mantener el control de Argelia, luego tratado como parte integral de Francia y hogar de más de un millón de colonos europeos , [77] [78] sacudió el país y casi condujo a un golpe de estado y una guerra civil. [79]
En 1958, la débil e inestable Cuarta República dio paso a la Quinta República , que incluyó una Presidencia fortalecida. [80] En el último papel, Charles de Gaulle logró mantener unido al país mientras tomaba medidas para poner fin a la guerra de Argelia . La guerra concluyó con los Acuerdos de Évian en 1962 que llevaron a la independencia de Argelia. La independencia de Argelia tuvo un alto precio: a saber, el gran número de víctimas que sufrió la población argelina. Resultó en medio millón a un millón de muertes y más de 2 millones de argelinos desplazados internamente. [81] [82] [83] Un vestigio del imperio colonial son los departamentos y territorios franceses de ultramar .
En el contexto de la Guerra Fría , De Gaulle siguió una política de "independencia nacional" hacia los bloques occidental y oriental . Con este fin, se retiró de la OTAN mando integrado militares 's (mientras permanezcan en la alianza de la OTAN en sí), puso en marcha un programa de desarrollo nuclear y convirtió a Francia en la cuarta potencia nuclear . Se restauró cordiales relaciones franco-alemán para crear un contrapeso europeo entre las esferas estadounidenses y soviéticos de influencia. Sin embargo, se opuso a cualquier desarrollo de una Europa supranacional , favoreciendo una Europa de naciones soberanas.. A raíz de la serie de protestas mundiales de 1968 , la revuelta de mayo de 1968 tuvo un enorme impacto social. En Francia, fue el momento decisivo cuando un ideal moral conservador (religión, patriotismo, respeto por la autoridad) cambió hacia un ideal moral más liberal ( laicismo , individualismo , revolución sexual ). Aunque la revuelta fue un fracaso político (ya que el partido gaullista emergió aún más fuerte que antes) anunció una división entre el pueblo francés y De Gaulle, quien renunció poco después. [86]
In the post-Gaullist era, France remained one of the most developed economies in the world, but faced several economic crises that resulted in high unemployment rates and increasing public debt. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries France has been at the forefront of the development of a supranational European Union, notably by signing the Maastricht Treaty (which created the European Union) in 1992, establishing the Eurozone in 1999 and signing the Lisbon Treaty in 2007.[87] France has also gradually but fully reintegrated into NATO and has since participated in most NATO sponsored wars.[88]
Desde el siglo XIX, Francia ha recibido numerosos inmigrantes . Estos han sido en su mayoría trabajadores extranjeros de países católicos europeos que generalmente regresaban a casa cuando no estaban empleados. [89] Durante la década de 1970, Francia enfrentó una crisis económica y permitió que nuevos inmigrantes (principalmente del Magreb ) [89] se establecieran permanentemente en Francia con sus familias y adquirieran la ciudadanía francesa. Como resultado, cientos de miles de musulmanes (especialmente en las ciudades más grandes) vivían en viviendas públicas subvencionadas y sufrían tasas de desempleo muy altas. [90] Simultáneamente, Francia renunció a la asimilación. of immigrants, where they were expected to adhere to French traditional values and cultural norms. They were encouraged to retain their distinctive cultures and traditions and required merely to integrate.[91]
Desde los 1995 metro de París y RER bombardeos , Francia ha sido esporádicamente objetivo de las organizaciones islamistas, en particular el Charlie Hebdo ataque en enero de 2015, que provocó las mayores concentraciones públicas en la historia de Francia, reuniendo 4,4 millones de personas, [92] [93] el de noviembre de el año 2015 Ataques de París que resultaron en 130 muertes, el ataque más mortífero en suelo francés desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial [94] [95] y el más mortífero en la Unión Europea desde los atentados con bombas en el tren de Madrid en 2004 , [96] así como el ataque de un camión en Niza en 2016 , que causó 87 muertes duranteCelebraciones del Día de la Bastilla . La Opération Chammal , los esfuerzos militares de Francia para contener a ISIS , mató a más de 1.000 soldados de ISIS entre 2014 y 2015. [97] [98]
Geografía
Ubicación y fronteras
La gran mayoría del territorio y la población de Francia se encuentra en Europa occidental y se llama Francia metropolitana , para distinguirla de las diversas entidades políticas de ultramar del país. Limita con el Mar del Norte en el norte, el Canal de la Mancha.al noroeste, el océano Atlántico al oeste y el mar Mediterráneo al sureste. Sus fronteras terrestres consisten en Bélgica y Luxemburgo en el noreste, Alemania y Suiza en el este, Italia y Mónaco en el sureste, y Andorra y España en el sur y suroeste. A excepción del noreste, la mayor parte de las fronteras terrestres de Francia están delimitadas aproximadamente por límites naturales y características geográficas: al sur y sureste, los Pirineos y los Alpes y el Jura, respectivamente, y al este, el río Rin. Debido a su forma, Francia se conoce a menudo como l'Hexagone ("El Hexágono "). La Francia metropolitana incluye varias islas costeras, de las cuales la más grande es Córcega . Francia metropolitana está situada principalmente entre latitudes 41 °y 51 ° N , y longitudes 6 ° W y 10 ° E , en el borde occidental de Europa, y por lo tanto se encuentra dentro de la zona templada del norte . Su parte continental cubre unos 1000 km de norte a sur y de este a oeste.
Francia tiene varias regiones de ultramar en todo el mundo, que se organizan de la siguiente manera:
- cinco tienen exactamente el mismo estatus que las regiones y departamentos de Francia continental:
- Guayana Francesa en América del Sur ;
- Guadalupe en el Caribe ;
- Martinica en el Caribe ;
- Mayotte en el Océano Índico , frente a la costa de África Oriental;
- Reunión en el Océano Índico , frente a las costas de África Oriental.
- nueve tienen un estatus legal especial distinto de las regiones y departamentos de Francia continental:
- En el Atlántico: San Pedro y Miquelón y, en las Antillas: San Martín y San Bartolomé .
- En el Océano Pacífico: Polinesia Francesa , la colectividad especial de Nueva Caledonia , Wallis y Futuna e Isla Clipperton .
- En el Océano Índico: Islas Kerguelen , Crozet , St. Paul y Amsterdam islas, y las islas dispersas en el Océano Índico
- En la Antártida: Adélie Land .
Francia tiene fronteras terrestres con Brasil y Surinam a través de la Guayana Francesa y con el Reino de los Países Bajos a través de la parte francesa de San Martín .
Metropolitan France covers 551,500 square kilometres (212,935 sq mi),[99] the largest among European Union members.[21] France's total land area, with its overseas departments and territories (excluding Adélie Land), is 643,801 km2 (248,573 sq mi), 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 mountain ranges of the Alps in the southeast, the Massif Central in the south central and Pyrenees in the southwest.
Due to its 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), just behind the EEZ of the United States, which covers 11,351,000 km2 (4,383,000 sq mi), but ahead of the EEZ of Australia, which covers 8,148,250 km2 (3,146,000 sq mi). Its EEZ covers approximately 8% of the total surface of all the EEZs of the world.
Geology, topography and hydrography
Metropolitan France has a wide variety of topographical sets and natural landscapes. Large parts of the current territory of France were raised during several tectonic episodes like the Hercynian uplift in the Paleozoic Era, during which the Armorican Massif, the Massif Central, the Morvan, the Vosges and Ardennes ranges and the island of Corsicafueron formados. Estos macizos delimitan varias cuencas sedimentarias como la cuenca de Aquitania en el suroeste y la cuenca de París en el norte, esta última incluye varias áreas de suelo particularmente fértil como los lechos de limo de Beauce y Brie. Varias rutas de paso natural, como el Valle del Ródano, permiten una fácil comunicación. Las montañas alpina, pirenaica y jura son mucho más jóvenes y tienen formas menos erosionadas. A 4.810,45 metros (15.782 pies) [100] sobre el nivel del mar, el Mont Blanc , ubicado en los Alpes en la frontera con Francia e Italia, es el punto más alto de Europa Occidental. Aunque el 60% de los municipios están clasificados como con riesgo sísmico, estos riesgos siguen siendo moderados.
The coastlines offer contrasting landscapes: mountain ranges along the French Riviera, coastal cliffs such as the Côte d'Albâtre, and wide sandy plains in the Languedoc. Corsica lies off the Mediterranean coast. France has an extensive river system consisting of the four major rivers Seine, the Loire, the Garonne, the Rhône and their tributaries, whose combined catchment includes over 62% of the metropolitan territory. The Rhône divides the Massif Central from the Alps and flows into the Mediterranean Sea at the Camargue. The Garonne meets the Dordogne just after Bordeaux, forming the Estuario de Gironde , el estuario más grande de Europa Occidental que después de aproximadamente 100 kilómetros (62 millas) desemboca en el Océano Atlántico. [101] Otros cursos de agua drenan hacia el Mosa y el Rin a lo largo de las fronteras del noreste. Francia tiene 11 millones de kilómetros cuadrados (4,2 × 10 6 millas cuadradas) de aguas marinas dentro de los tres océanos bajo su jurisdicción, de los cuales el 97% están en el extranjero.
Clima
El territorio metropolitano francés es relativamente extenso, por lo que el clima no es uniforme, dando lugar a los siguientes matices climáticos:
• El clima mediterráneo de verano caliente ( Csa ) se encuentra a lo largo del Golfo de León . Los veranos son calurosos y secos, mientras que los inviernos son suaves y húmedos. Ciudades afectadas por este clima: Arlés , Avignon , Fréjus , Hyères , Marsella , Menton , Montpellier , Niza , Perpignan , Toulon .
• El clima mediterráneo de verano cálido ( Csb ) se encuentra en la parte norte de Bretaña . Los veranos son cálidos y secos, mientras que los inviernos son frescos y húmedos. Ciudades afectadas por este clima: Belle Île , Saint-Brieuc .
• El clima subtropical húmedo ( Cfa ) se encuentra en las llanuras interiores del Garona y el Ródano . Los veranos son calurosos y húmedos, mientras que los inviernos son frescos y húmedos. Ciudades afectadas por este clima: Albi , Carcassonne , Lyon , Orange , Toulouse , Valence .
• The oceanic climate (Cfb) is found around the coasts of the Bay of Biscay, and a little bit inland. Summers are pleasantly warm and wet, while winters are cool and damp. Cities affected by this climate: Amiens, Biarritz, Bordeaux, Brest, Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, Dunkirk, Lille, Nantes, Orléans, Paris, Reims, Tours.
• El clima oceánico degradado (degradado- Cfb ) se encuentra en las llanuras interiores y en los valles intraalpinos, lejos del océano (o mar). Los veranos son calurosos y húmedos, mientras que los inviernos son fríos y sombríos. Ciudades afectadas por este clima: Annecy , Besançon , Bourges , Chambéry , Clermont-Ferrand , Colmar , Dijon , Grenoble , Langres , Metz , Mulhouse , Nancy , Estrasburgo .
• The subalpine oceanic climate (Cfc) is found at the foot of all the mountainous regions of France. Summers are short, cool and wet, while winters are moderately cold and damp. No major cities are affected by this climate.
• The warm-summer mediterranean continental climate (Dsb) is found in all the mountainous regions of Southern France between 700 and 1,400 metres a.s.l. Summers are pleasantly warm and dry, while winters are very cold and snowy. City affected by this climate: Barcelonnette.
• El clima continental mediterráneo fresco de verano ( Dsc ) se encuentra en todas las regiones montañosas del sur de Francia entre los 1400 y los 2100 metros sobre el nivel del mar. Los veranos son frescos, cortos y secos, mientras que los inviernos son muy fríos y nevados. Lugar afectado por este clima: Isola 2000 .
• El clima continental húmedo de verano cálido ( Dfb ) se encuentra en todas las regiones montañosas de la mitad norte de Francia entre 500 y 1.000 metros sobre el nivel del mar. Los veranos son agradablemente cálidos y húmedos, mientras que los inviernos son muy fríos y nevados. Ciudades afectadas por este clima: Chamonix , Mouthe . En enero de 1985, en Mouthe , la temperatura cayó por debajo de los -41 ° C.
• El clima subalpino ( Dfc ) se encuentra en todas las regiones montañosas de la mitad norte de Francia entre 1000 y 2000 metros sobre el nivel del mar. Los veranos son frescos, cortos y húmedos, mientras que los inviernos son muy fríos y nevados. Lugares afectados por este clima: Cauterets Courchevel , Alpe d'Huez , Les 2 Alpes , Peyragudes , Val-Thorens .
• The alpine tundra climate (ET) is found in all the mountainous regions of France, generally above 2,000 or 2,500 metres a.s.l. Summers are chilly and wet, while winters are extremely cold, long and snowy. Mountains affected by this climate: Aiguilles-Rouges, Aravis, the top of Crêt de la neige (rare, altitude 1,718 m) and the top of Grand-Ballon (rare, altitude 1,423 m).
• El clima de la capa de hielo ( EF ) se encuentra en todas las regiones montañosas de Francia que tienen un glaciar . Los veranos son fríos y húmedos, mientras que los inviernos son extremadamente fríos, largos y nevados. Montañas afectadas por este clima: Aiguille du midi , Barre des Écrins , Belledonne , Grand-Casse , Mont Blanc (4.810 m), Pic du Midi de Bigorre .
• En las regiones de ultramar , hay tres tipos generales de clima:
- A tropical climate (Am) in most overseas regions including eastern French Guiana: high constant temperature throughout the year with a dry and a wet season.
- An equatorial climate (Af) in western French Guiana: high constant temperature with even precipitation throughout the year.
- A subpolar oceanic climate (Cfc), characterised by mild, wet summers and cool, but generally not cold, damp winters. Cities or places affected by this climate: Port-aux-Français, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon.
- Un clima de capa de hielo ( EF ): extremadamente frío durante todo el año en Adélie Land .
El cambio climático en Francia incluye calefacción por encima de la media. [102]
Medio ambiente
Francia fue uno de los primeros países en crear un ministerio de medio ambiente, en 1971. [103] Aunque es uno de los países más industrializados del mundo, Francia ocupa el puesto 19 en emisiones de dióxido de carbono , detrás de naciones menos pobladas como Canadá o Australia. Esto se debe a la fuerte inversión del país en la energía nuclear tras la crisis del petróleo de 1973 , [104] que ahora representa el 75 por ciento de su producción de electricidad [105] y da como resultado una menor contaminación. [106] [107] Según el Índice de Desempeño Ambiental de 2018 realizado por Yale y Columbia, France was the second-most environmentally-conscious country in the world (after Switzerland), compared to tenth place in 2016 and 27th in 2014.[108][109]
Like all European Union state members, France agreed to cut carbon emissions by at least 20% of 1990 levels by the year 2020,[110] compared to the United States plan to reduce emissions by 4% of 1990 levels.[111] As of 2009[update], French carbon dioxide emissions per capita were lower than that of China's.[112] The country was set to impose a carbon tax in 2009 at 17 euros per tonne of carbon emitted,[113] which would have raised 4 billion euros of revenue annually.[114] However, the plan was abandoned due to fears of burdening French businesses.[115]
Forests account for 31 percent of France's land area—the fourth-highest proportion in Europe—representing an increase of 7 percent since 1990.[116][117][118] French forests are some of the most diverse in Europe, comprising more than 140 species of trees.[119] France had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 4.52/10, ranking it 123rd globally out of 172 countries.[120] There are nine national parks[121] and 46 natural parks in France,[122] with the government planning to convert 20% of its Exclusive economic zone into a Marine protected area by 2020.[123] Un parque natural regional [124] (en francés: parc naturel régional o PNR) es un establecimiento público en Francia entre las autoridades locales y el gobierno nacional que cubre una zona rural habitada de extraordinaria belleza, para proteger el paisaje y el patrimonio, así como instaurar un desarrollo económico sostenible en la zona. [125] Un PNR establece objetivos y directrices para la gestión de la habitación humana, el desarrollo económico sostenible y la protección del medio ambiente natural basándose en el paisaje y el patrimonio únicos de cada parque. Los parques fomentan programas de investigación ecológica y educación pública en ciencias naturales. [126] En 2019[update]hay 54 PNR en Francia. [127]
divisiones administrativas
La República Francesa está dividida en 18 regiones (ubicadas en Europa y en el extranjero), cinco colectividades de ultramar , un territorio de ultramar , una colectividad especial - Nueva Caledonia y una isla deshabitada directamente bajo la autoridad del Ministro de Ultramar Francia - Clipperton .
Regiones
Since 2016, France is mainly divided into 18 administrative regions: 13 regions in metropolitan France (including the territorial collectivity of Corsica),[128] and five located overseas.[99] The regions are further subdivided into 101 departments,[129] which are numbered mainly alphabetically. This number is used in postal codes and was formerly used on vehicle number plates. Among the 101 departments of France, five (French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, and Réunion) se encuentran en regiones de ultramar (ROM) que también son simultáneamente departamentos de ultramar (DOM), disfrutan exactamente del mismo estatus que los departamentos metropolitanos y son parte integral de la Unión Europea.
Los 101 departamentos se subdividen en 335 distritos , que a su vez se subdividen en 2.054 cantones . [130] Estos cantones se dividen luego en 36.658 comunas , que son municipalidades con un consejo municipal elegido. [130] Tres municipios, París, Lyon y Marsella, se subdividen en 45 distritos municipales .
Las regiones, departamentos y comunas se conocen como colectividades territoriales , lo que significa que poseen asambleas locales y un ejecutivo. Distritos y cantones son divisiones meramente administrativas. Sin embargo, esto no siempre fue así. Hasta 1940, los distritos eran colectividades territoriales con asamblea electa, pero estas fueron suspendidas por el régimen de Vichy y definitivamente abolidas por la IV República en 1946.
Territorios y colectividades de ultramar
Además de las 18 regiones y 101 departamentos, la República Francesa tiene cinco colectividades de ultramar ( Polinesia Francesa , San Bartolomé , San Martín , San Pedro y Miquelón y Wallis y Futuna ), una colectividad sui generis ( Nueva Caledonia ), un territorio de ultramar ( Tierras Australes y Antárticas Francesas ), y una posesión insular en el Océano Pacífico ( Isla Clipperton ).
Las colectividades y territorios de ultramar forman parte de la República Francesa, pero no forman parte de la Unión Europea ni de su área fiscal (a excepción de San Bartolomé, que se separó de Guadalupe en 2007). Las Colectividades del Pacífico (COM) de la Polinesia Francesa, Wallis y Futuna y Nueva Caledonia siguen utilizando el franco CFP [131], cuyo valor está estrictamente vinculado al del euro. Por el contrario, las cinco regiones de ultramar utilizaron el franco francés y ahora utilizan el euro. [132]
| Nombre | Estado constitucional | Capital |
|---|---|---|
 Isla Clipperton
|
Propiedad privada estatal bajo la autoridad directa del gobierno francés | Deshabitado |
 Polinesia francés
|
Designated as an overseas land (pays d'outre-mer or POM), the status is the same as an overseas collectivity. | Papeete |
 French Southern and Antarctic Lands
|
Overseas territory (territoire d'outre-mer or TOM) | Port-aux-Français |
 New Caledonia
|
Sui generis collectivity | Nouméa |
 Saint Barthélemy
|
Overseas collectivity (collectivité d'outre-mer or COM) | Gustavia |
| Saint Martin
|
Overseas collectivity (collectivité d'outre-mer or COM) | Marigot |
 Saint Pierre and Miquelon
|
Overseas collectivity (collectivité d'outre-mer or COM). Still referred to as a collectivité territoriale. | Saint-Pierre |
 Wallis and Futuna
|
Overseas collectivity (collectivité d'outre-mer or COM). Still referred to as a territoire. | Mata-Utu |
Government and politics
Government
|
|
| Emmanuel Macron President |
Jean Castex Prime Minister |
Francia es la democracia representativa organizada como una unitaria , semi-presidencial república . [133] Como una de las primeras repúblicas del mundo moderno, las tradiciones y valores democráticos están profundamente arraigados en la cultura, la identidad y la política francesas. [134] La Constitución de la Quinta República fue aprobada en referéndum el 28 de septiembre de 1958, estableciendo un marco integrado por los poderes ejecutivo, legislativo y judicial. [135] Intentó abordar la inestabilidad de la Tercera y la Cuarta República combinando elementos de los sistemas parlamentario y presidencial, al tiempo que fortalecía en gran medida la autoridad del ejecutivo en relación con el legislativo.[134]
The executive branch has two leaders. The President of the Republic, currently Emmanuel Macron, is the head of state, elected directly by universal adult suffrage for a five-year term.[136] The Prime Minister, currently Jean Castex, is the head of government, appointed by the President of the Republic to lead the Government of France. El presidente tiene el poder de disolver el Parlamento o eludirlo presentando referendos directamente al pueblo; el Presidente también nombra jueces y funcionarios públicos, negocia y ratifica convenios internacionales, así como también se desempeña como comandante en jefe de las Fuerzas Armadas. El Primer Ministro determina la política pública y supervisa la función pública, con énfasis en los asuntos internos. [137]
The legislature consists of the French Parliament, a bicameral body comprising a lower house, the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale) and an upper house, the Senate.[138] Legislators in the National Assembly, known as députés, represent local constituencies and are directly elected for five-year terms.[139] The Assembly has the power to dismiss the government by majority vote. Senators are chosen by an electoral college for six-year terms, with half the seats submitted to election every three years.[140]Los poderes legislativos del Senado son limitados; en caso de desacuerdo entre las dos cámaras, la Asamblea Nacional tiene la última palabra. [141] El parlamento es responsable de determinar las reglas y principios relacionados con la mayoría de las áreas del derecho, la amnistía política y la política fiscal; sin embargo, el gobierno puede redactar los detalles específicos de la mayoría de las leyes.
Hasta la Segunda Guerra Mundial, los radicales eran una fuerza política fuerte en Francia, encarnada por el Partido Republicano, Radical y Radical-Socialista, que fue el partido más importante de la Tercera República. Desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial, fueron marginados mientras que la política francesa se caracterizó por dos agrupaciones políticamente opuestas: una de izquierda, centrada en la Sección francesa de la Internacional de los Trabajadores y su sucesor, el Partido Socialista (desde 1969); y la otra de derecha, centrada en el Partido Gaullista , cuyo nombre cambió con el tiempo a Rally del Pueblo Francés (1947), Unión de Demócratas por la República (1958), Rally por la República(1976), Unión por un Movimiento Popular (2007) y Los Republicanos (desde 2015). En las elecciones presidenciales y legislativas de 2017, el partido centrista radical En Marche! se convirtió en la fuerza dominante, superando tanto a socialistas como a republicanos.
El electorado está constitucionalmente facultado para votar sobre las enmiendas aprobadas por el Parlamento y los proyectos de ley presentados por el presidente. Los referendos han jugado un papel clave en la configuración de la política francesa e incluso la política exterior; los votantes han decidido sobre cuestiones como la independencia de Argelia, la elección del presidente por votación popular, la formación de la UE y la reducción de los límites del mandato presidencial. [142] La disminución de la participación cívica ha sido un tema de debate público riguroso, con una mayoría del público apoyando el voto obligatorio como una solución en 2019. Sin embargo, al menos en 2017, la participación de votantes fue del 75 por ciento durante las elecciones recientes, más alta que el promedio de la OCDE de 68 por ciento. [143]
Ley
Francia utiliza un sistema legal civil , en el que la ley surge principalmente de estatutos escritos; [99] los jueces no deben hacer la ley, sino simplemente interpretarla (aunque la cantidad de interpretación judicial en ciertas áreas la hace equivalente a la jurisprudencia en un sistema de derecho consuetudinario ). Los principios básicos del estado de derecho se establecieron en el Código napoleónico (que, a su vez, se basó en gran medida en la ley real codificada por Luis XIV ). De acuerdo con los principios de la Declaración de los Derechos del Hombre y del Ciudadano, la ley solo debe prohibir las acciones perjudiciales para la sociedad. Como Guy Canivet , primer presidente del Tribunal de Casación, escribió sobre la gestión de las cárceles: "La libertad es la regla, y su restricción es la excepción; cualquier restricción a la libertad debe estar prevista por la Ley y debe seguir los principios de necesidad y proporcionalidad". Es decir, la ley debe establecer prohibiciones solo si son necesarias y si los inconvenientes que ocasiona esta restricción no exceden los inconvenientes que se supone que la prohibición debe subsanar.
El derecho francés se divide en dos áreas principales: derecho privado y derecho público . El derecho privado incluye, en particular, el derecho civil y el derecho penal . El derecho público incluye, en particular, el derecho administrativo y el derecho constitucional . Sin embargo, en términos prácticos, el derecho francés comprende tres áreas principales del derecho: derecho civil, derecho penal y derecho administrativo. Las leyes penales solo pueden abordar el futuro y no el pasado (las leyes penales ex post facto están prohibidas). [144]Si bien el derecho administrativo es a menudo una subcategoría del derecho civil en muchos países, está completamente separado en Francia y cada cuerpo de leyes está encabezado por un tribunal supremo específico: los tribunales ordinarios (que manejan los litigios penales y civiles) están encabezados por el Tribunal de Casación. y los tribunales administrativos están encabezados por el Consejo de Estado .
Para ser aplicable, todas las leyes deben publicarse oficialmente en el Journal officiel de la République française .
Francia no reconoce la ley religiosa como motivo para la promulgación de prohibiciones; Hace tiempo que abolió las leyes sobre la blasfemia y la sodomía (la última en 1791). Sin embargo, se han utilizado "delitos contra la decencia pública " ( contraires aux bonnes mœurs ) o perturbación del orden público ( disturbios en el orden público ) para reprimir las expresiones públicas de homosexualidad o prostitución callejera. Desde 1999, se permiten las uniones civiles para parejas homosexuales, y desde 2013, el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo y la adopción LGBT son legales. [145]Las leyes que prohíben el discurso discriminatorio en la prensa datan de 1881 . Algunos consideran que las leyes sobre el discurso del odio en Francia son demasiado amplias o severas, lo que socava la libertad de expresión . [146] Francia tiene leyes contra el racismo y el antisemitismo , [147] mientras que la Ley Gayssot de 1990 prohíbe la negación del Holocausto .
Freedom of religion is constitutionally guaranteed by the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State is the basis for laïcité (state secularism): the state does not formally recognize any religion, except in Alsace-Moselle. Nonetheless, it does recognize religious associations. The Parliament has listed many religious movements as dangerous cults since 1995, and has banned wearing conspicuous religious symbols in schools since 2004. In 2010, it banned the wearing of face-covering Islamic veils in public; human rights groups such as Amnistía Internacional y Human Rights Watch describieron la ley como discriminatoria hacia los musulmanes. [148] [149] Sin embargo, es apoyado por la mayoría de la población. [150]
Relaciones Extranjeras
France is a founding member of the United Nations and serves as one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council with veto rights.[153] In 2015, it was described as "the best networked state in the world" due to its membership in more international institutions than any other country;[154] these include the G7, World Trade Organization (WTO),[155] the Pacific Community (SPC)[156] and the Indian Ocean Commission (COI).[157] It is an associate member of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS)[158] and a leading member of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) of 84 French-speaking countries.[159]
As a significant hub for international relations, France has the third-largest assembly of diplomatic missions, second only to China and the United States, which are far more populous. It also hosts the headquarters of several international organisations, including the OECD, UNESCO, Interpol, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, and the OIF.[160]
La política exterior francesa de la posguerra ha sido moldeada en gran medida por la pertenencia a la Unión Europea, de la que fue miembro fundador . Desde la década de 1960 , Francia ha desarrollado estrechos lazos con la Alemania reunificada para convertirse en la fuerza impulsora más influyente de la UE . [161] En la década de 1960, Francia trató de excluir a los británicos del proceso de unificación europea, [162] buscando construir su propia posición en la Europa continental. Sin embargo, desde 1904, Francia ha mantenido una " Entente cordiale " con el Reino Unido, y se han fortalecido los vínculos entre los países, especialmente militarmente .
Francia es miembro de la Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Norte (OTAN), pero bajo la presidencia de De Gaulle se excluyó del mando militar conjunto, en protesta por la Relación Especial entre Estados Unidos y Gran Bretaña, y para preservar la independencia del exterior y la seguridad de Francia. políticas. Bajo Nicolas Sarkozy, Francia se reincorporó al mando militar conjunto de la OTAN el 4 de abril de 2009. [163] [164] [165]
A principios de la década de 1990, el país recibió críticas considerables de otras naciones por sus pruebas nucleares subterráneas en la Polinesia Francesa . [166] Francia se opuso enérgicamente a la invasión de Irak en 2003 , [167] [168] tensas las relaciones bilaterales con los Estados Unidos [169] [170] y el Reino Unido.
Francia conserva una fuerte influencia política y económica en sus antiguas colonias africanas ( Françafrique ) [171] y ha proporcionado ayuda económica y tropas para las misiones de mantenimiento de la paz en Costa de Marfil y Chad. [172] Recientemente, después de la declaración unilateral de independencia del norte de Malí por parte del MNLA tuareg y el posterior conflicto regional del norte de Malí con varios grupos islamistas, incluidos Ansar Dine y MOJWA , Francia y otros estados africanos intervinieron para ayudar al ejército de Malí a retomar el control.
En 2017, Francia fue el cuarto mayor donante de ayuda al desarrollo del mundo en términos absolutos, detrás de Estados Unidos, Alemania y Reino Unido. [173] Esto representa el 0,43% de su PNB , el duodécimo más alto de la OCDE. [174] La ayuda es proporcionada por el Organismo de Desarrollo de Francia , que financia principalmente proyectos humanitarios en el África subsahariana , [175] con especial énfasis en "el desarrollo de la infraestructura, el acceso a la atención de la salud y la educación, la aplicación de políticas económicas adecuadas y consolidación del estado de derecho y la democracia ". [175]
Militar
The French Armed Forces (Forces armées françaises) are the military and paramilitary forces of France, under the President of the Republic as supreme commander. They consist of the French Army (Armée de Terre), French Navy (Marine Nationale, formerly called Armée de Mer), the French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l’Espace), and the Military Police called National Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie nationale), which also fulfils civil police duties in the rural areas of France. Together they are among the largest armed forcesdel mundo y el más grande de la UE. Según un estudio de 2018 de Crédit Suisse , las Fuerzas Armadas francesas están clasificadas como el sexto ejército más poderoso del mundo y el más poderoso de Europa, solo detrás de Rusia . [176]
Si bien la Gendarmería es una parte integral de las fuerzas armadas francesas (los gendarmes son soldados de carrera) y, por lo tanto, está bajo la competencia del Ministerio de las Fuerzas Armadas , está operativamente adscrita al Ministerio del Interior en lo que respecta a sus funciones de policía civil. preocupado.
Cuando actúa como fuerza policial de propósito general, la Gendarmería abarca las unidades antiterroristas del Escuadrón de Intervención en Paracaídas de la Gendarmería Nacional ( Escadron Parachutiste d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale ), el Grupo de Intervención de la Gendarmería Nacional ( Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale) ), las Secciones de Búsqueda de la Gendarmería Nacional ( Sections de Recherche de la Gendarmerie Nationale ), encargadas de las investigaciones penales, y las Brigadas Móviles de la Gendarmería Nacional ( Brigades mobiles de la Gendarmerie Nationale , o en resumen, Gendarmerie mobile ) que tienen la tarea para mantener el orden público.
Las siguientes unidades especiales también forman parte de la Gendarmería: la Guardia Republicana ( Garde républicaine ), que protege los edificios públicos que albergan a las principales instituciones francesas, la Gendarmería Marítima ( Gendarmería marítima ) que actúa como Guardia Costera, el Servicio de Preboste ( Prévôté ), que actúa como Ejército. Sección policial de la Gendarmería.
En lo que respecta a las unidades de inteligencia francesas, la Dirección General de Seguridad Exterior ( Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure ) se considera un componente de las Fuerzas Armadas bajo la autoridad del Ministerio de Defensa. La otra, la Dirección Central de Inteligencia del Interior ( Direction centrale du renseignement intérieur ) es una división de la Policía Nacional ( Direction générale de la Police Nationale ) y, por tanto, depende directamente del Ministerio del Interior. No ha habido servicio militar obligatorio nacional desde 1997. [177]
Francia tiene un cuerpo militar especial, la Legión Extranjera Francesa , fundada en 1830, que consta de ciudadanos extranjeros de más de 140 países que están dispuestos a servir en las Fuerzas Armadas francesas y convertirse en ciudadanos franceses una vez finalizado su período de servicio. Los únicos otros países que tienen unidades similares son España (la Legión Extranjera Española, llamada Tercio , fue fundada en 1920) y Luxemburgo (los extranjeros pueden servir en el Ejército Nacional siempre que hable luxemburgués).
France is a permanent member of the Security Council of the UN, and a recognised nuclear state since 1960. France has signed and ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT)[178] and acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. France's annual military expenditure in 2018 was US$63.8 billion, or 2.3% of its GDP, making it the fifth biggest military spender in the world after the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, and India.[179]
French nuclear deterrence, (formerly known as "Force de Frappe"), relies on complete independence. The current French nuclear force consists of four Triomphant class submarines equipped with submarine-launched ballistic missiles. In addition to the submarine fleet, it is estimated that France has about 60 ASMP medium-range air-to-ground missiles with nuclear warheads,[180] of which around 50 are deployed by the Air and Space Force using the Mirage 2000N long-range nuclear strike aircraft, while around 10 are deployed by the French Navy's Super Étendard Modernisé (SEM)aviones de ataque, que operan desde el portaaviones de propulsión nuclear Charles de Gaulle . El nuevo avión Rafale F3 reemplazará gradualmente a todos los Mirage 2000N y SEM en el papel de ataque nuclear con el misil ASMP-A mejorado con ojiva nuclear.
France has major military industries with one of the largest aerospace industries in the world.[181][182] Its industries have produced such equipment as the Rafale fighter, the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, the Exocet missile and the Leclerc tank among others. Despite withdrawing from the Eurofighter project, France is actively investing in European joint projects such as the Eurocopter Tiger, multipurpose frigates, the UCAV demonstrator nEUROn and the Airbus A400M. France is a major arms seller,[183][184] with most of its arsenal's designs available for the export market with the notable exception of nuclear-powered devices.
France has consistently developed its cybersecurity capabilities, which are regularly ranked as some of the most robust of any nation of the world.[185][186]
The Bastille Day military parade held in Paris each 14 July for France's national day, called Bastille Day in English-speaking countries (referred to in France as Fête nationale), is the oldest and largest regular military parade in Europe. Other smaller parades are organised across the country.
Government finance
The Government of France has run a budget deficit each year since the early 1970s. As of 2016[update], French government debt levels reached 2.2 trillion euros, the equivalent of 96.4% of French GDP.[187] In late 2012, credit rating agencies warned that growing French Government debt levels risked France's AAA credit rating, raising the possibility of a future downgrade and subsequent higher borrowing costs for the French authorities.[188] However, in July 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the French government issued 10-years bonds which had negative interest rates, for the first time in its history.[189] France also possesses in 2020 the Cuartas reservas de oro más grandes del mundo. [190]
Economía
Francia tiene una economía mixta caracterizada por una participación gubernamental considerable, diversos sectores, una mano de obra calificada y una alta innovación. Es miembro del Grupo de los Siete países industrializados líderes y una potencia económica . Durante aproximadamente dos siglos, la economía francesa se ha clasificado constantemente entre las diez más grandes del mundo; Actualmente es el noveno más grande del mundo por paridad de poder adquisitivo , el séptimo más grande por PIB nominal y el segundo más grande de la UE por ambas métricas. [192]
The French economy is highly diversified, though services dominate, representing two-thirds of both the workforce and GDP.[193] The industrial sector accounts for a fifth of GDP and a similar proportion of employment; France is the third-biggest manufacturing country in Europe, behind Germany and Italy. Less than 2 percent of GDP is generated by the primary sector, namely agriculture;[194] however, France has one of the world's most valuable agricultural sectors, and leads the European Union in agricultural production.[195]
En 2018, Francia fue la quinta nación comercial más grande del mundo y la segunda más grande de Europa, con el valor de las exportaciones que representan más de una quinta parte del PIB. [196] Su pertenencia a la zona euro y al mercado único europeo en general facilita el acceso al capital, los bienes, los servicios y la mano de obra cualificada. [197] A pesar de las políticas proteccionistas sobre ciertas industrias, particularmente en la agricultura, Francia ha sido pionera en general en el libre comercio y la integración comercial en Europa para mejorar su economía. [198] [199] En 2019 ocupó el primer lugar en Europa y el 13 en el mundo en Inversión Extranjera Directa., with European countries and the United States being leading sources.[200] According to the Bank of France, the leading recipients of FDI were manufacturing, real estate, finance and insurance.[201] The Paris region has the highest concentration of multinational firms in Europe.[201]
Bajo la doctrina del Dirigisme , el gobierno históricamente jugó un papel importante en la economía; A las políticas como la planificación indicativa y la nacionalización se les atribuye el mérito de contribuir a tres décadas de crecimiento económico de posguerra sin precedentes conocido como Trente Glorieuses . En su apogeo en 1982, el sector público representó una quinta parte del empleo industrial y más de las cuatro quintas partes del mercado crediticio. A partir de finales del siglo XX, Francia flexibilizó las regulaciones y la participación del estado en la economía, y la mayoría de las empresas líderes ahora son de propiedad privada; la propiedad estatal ahora domina únicamente el transporte, la defensa y la radiodifusión. [202]Las políticas destinadas a promover el dinamismo económico y la privatización han mejorado la posición económica de Francia a nivel mundial: se encuentra entre los 10 países más innovadores del mundo en el Índice de Innovación de Bloomberg de 2020 , [203] y el 15o más competitivo, según el Informe de Competitividad Global de 2019 (hasta dos lugares desde 2018). [204]
According to the IMF, France ranked 30th in GDP per capita, with roughly $45,000 per inhabitant. It placed 23rd in the Human Development Index, indicating very high human development. Public corruption is among the lowest in the world, with France ranking 12th on the 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index.[205][206] France is Europe's second-largest spender in research and development, at over two percent of GDP; globally, it ranks 12th.[207]
Financial services, banking and the insurance sector are an important part of the economy. Three largest financial institutions cooperatively owned by their customers are located in France.[208] The Paris stock exchange (French: La Bourse de Paris) is one of the oldest in the world, created by Louis XV in 1724.[209] In 2000, it merged with counterparts in Amsterdam and Brussels to form Euronext,[210] which in 2007 merged with the New York stock exchange to form NYSE Euronext, the world's largest stock exchange.[210] Euronext Paris, la sucursal francesa de NYSE Euronext, es el segundo mercado bursátil más grande de Europa, detrás de la Bolsa de Valores de Londres .
Las compañías francesas han mantenido posiciones clave en las industrias de seguros y banca: en 2019, AXA fue la tercera compañía de seguros más grande del mundo por activos no bancarios totales. [211] Los principales bancos franceses son BNP Paribas y Crédit Agricole , ambos clasificados entre los diez mayores bancos por activos en un informe de 2020 de S&P Global Market Intelligence ; [212] La misma fuente identificó a Société Générale y Groupe BPCE como los bancos 17º y 19º más grandes del mundo, respectivamente. [212]
Agricultura
Francia ha sido históricamente un gran productor de productos agrícolas. [213] Extensas extensiones de tierra fértil, la aplicación de tecnología moderna y las subvenciones de la UE se han combinado para convertir a Francia en el principal productor y exportador agrícola de Europa [214] (que representa el 20% de la producción agrícola de la UE) [215] y del mundo. tercer exportador de productos agrícolas. [216]
El trigo, las aves, los lácteos, la carne de res y el cerdo, así como los alimentos procesados reconocidos internacionalmente, son las principales exportaciones agrícolas francesas. Los vinos rosados se consumen principalmente dentro del país, pero los vinos de Champagne y Burdeos son las principales exportaciones, siendo conocidos en todo el mundo. Las subvenciones agrícolas de la UE a Francia han disminuido en los últimos años, pero aún ascendían a 8.000 millones de dólares en 2007. [217] Ese mismo año, Francia vendió 33.400 millones de euros de productos agrícolas transformados. [218] Francia produce ron a través de destilerías de caña de azúcar, casi todas ubicadas en territorios de ultramar como Martinica , Guadalupe y La Réunion.. La agricultura es un sector importante de la economía de Francia: el 3,8% de la población activa está empleada en la agricultura, mientras que la industria agroalimentaria total representó el 4,2% del PIB francés en 2005. [215]
Turismo
Con 89 millones de llegadas de turistas internacionales en 2018, [219] Francia se sitúa como el primer destino turístico del mundo, por delante de España (83 millones) y Estados Unidos (80 millones). Es el tercero en ingresos por turismo debido a la menor duración de las visitas. [220] Los sitios turísticos más populares incluyen (visitantes anuales): Torre Eiffel (6,2 millones), Château de Versailles (2,8 millones), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (2 millones), Pont du Gard (1,5 millones), Arc de Triomphe (1,2 millones), Mont Saint-Michel (1 millón), Sainte-Chapelle (683.000),Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg (549,000), Puy de Dôme (500,000), Musée Picasso (441,000), and Carcassonne (362,000).[221]
Paris region
Francia, especialmente París, tiene algunos de los museos más grandes y famosos del mundo, incluido el Louvre , que es el museo de arte más visitado del mundo (5,7 millones), el Musée d'Orsay (2,1 millones), principalmente dedicado al impresionismo , el Musée de l'Orangerie (1,02 millones), que alberga ocho grandes murales de nenúfares de Claude Monet , así como el Centre Georges Pompidou (1,2 millones), dedicado al arte contemporáneo . Disneyland Paris es el parque temático más popular de Europa, con 15 millones de visitantes combinados al parque Disneyland del resort yWalt Disney Studios Park in 2009.[222]
French Riviera
With more than 10 millions tourists a year, the French Riviera (French: Côte d'Azur), in Southeast France, is the second leading tourist destination in the country, after the Paris region.[223] It benefits from 300 days of sunshine per year, 115 kilometres (71 mi) of coastline and beaches, 18 golf courses, 14 ski resorts and 3,000 restaurants.[224]: 31 Each year the Côte d'Azur hosts 50% of the world's superyacht fleet.[224]: 66
Châteaux
With 6 millions tourists a year, the castles of the Loire Valley (French: châteaux) and the Loire Valley itself are the third leading tourist destination in France;[225][226] this World Heritage site is noteworthy for its architectural heritage, in its historic towns but in particular its castles, such as the Châteaux d'Amboise, de Chambord, d'Ussé, de Villandry, Chenonceau and Montsoreau. The Château de Chantilly, Versailles and Vaux-le-Vicomte, los tres ubicados cerca de París, también son atracciones para los visitantes.
Otras áreas protegidas
Francia tiene 37 sitios inscritos en la Lista del Patrimonio Mundial de la UNESCO y presenta ciudades de alto interés cultural, playas y balnearios, estaciones de esquí, así como regiones rurales que muchos disfrutan por su belleza y tranquilidad ( turismo verde ). Los pueblos franceses pequeños y pintorescos se promueven a través de la asociación Les Plus Beaux Villages de France (literalmente "Los pueblos más bellos de Francia"). La etiqueta " Jardines notables " es una lista de los más de 200 jardines clasificados por el Ministerio de Cultura . Esta etiqueta está destinada a proteger y promover jardines y parques notables. Francia atrae a muchos peregrinos religiosos en su camino hacia Santiago , o haciaLourdes , una ciudad de los Altos Pirineos que recibe varios millones de visitantes al año.
Energía
Électricité de France (EDF), the main electricity generation and distribution company in France, is also one of the world's largest producers of electricity. In 2018, it produced around 20% of the European Union's electricity,[227] primarily from nuclear power. France is the smallest emitter of carbon dioxide among the G7, due to its heavy investment in nuclear power.[228] As of 2016[update], 72% of the country's electricity is generated by 58 nuclear power plants, the highest proportion in the world.[229][230]En este contexto, las energías renovables están teniendo dificultades para despegar. Francia también utiliza represas hidroeléctricas para producir electricidad, como la represa Eguzon , Étang de Soulcem y Lac de Vouglans .
Transporte
La red ferroviaria de Francia , que se extiende por 29 473 kilómetros (18 314 millas) en 2008, [231] es la segunda más extensa de Europa Occidental después de Alemania . [232] Es operado por la SNCF , y los trenes de alta velocidad incluyen el Thalys , el Eurostar y el TGV , que viajan a 320 km / h (199 mph). [233] El Eurostar, junto con el Eurotunnel Shuttle , conecta con el Reino Unido a través del Channel Tunnel.. Existen conexiones ferroviarias con todos los demás países vecinos de Europa, excepto Andorra. Las conexiones intraurbanas también están bien desarrolladas, y la mayoría de las grandes ciudades tienen servicios de metro o tranvía que complementan los servicios de autobús.
Hay aproximadamente 1.027.183 kilómetros (638.262 millas) de carreteras en servicio en Francia, lo que la clasifica como la red más extensa del continente europeo. [234] La región de París está envuelta por la red más densa de carreteras y carreteras, que la conectan con prácticamente todas las partes del país. Las carreteras francesas también manejan un tráfico internacional considerable, conectando con ciudades vecinas de Bélgica, Luxemburgo, Alemania, Suiza, Italia, España, Andorra y Mónaco. No hay tasa de registro anual ni impuesto de circulación ; sin embargo, el uso de las autopistas, en su mayoría de propiedad privada, se realiza mediante peajes, excepto en las proximidades de grandes comunas. El mercado de automóviles nuevos está dominado por marcas nacionales como Renault , Peugeot y Citroën..[235] France possesses the Millau Viaduct, the world's tallest bridge,[236] and has built many important bridges such as the Pont de Normandie. Diesel and gasoline fuelled cars and lorries cause a large part of the country's air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.[237][238]
There are 464 airports in France.[99] Charles de Gaulle Airport, located in the vicinity of Paris, is the largest and busiest airport in the country, handling the vast majority of popular and commercial traffic and connecting Paris with virtually all major cities across the world. Air France is the national carrier airline, although numerous private airline companies provide domestic and international travel services. There are ten major ports in France, the largest of which is in Marseille,[239] which also is the largest bordering the Mediterranean Sea.[240][241] 12,261 kilometres (7,619 mi) of waterways traverse France including the Canal du Midi, which connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean through the Garonne river.[99]
Science and technology
Since the Middle Ages, France has been a major contributor to scientific and technological achievement. Around the beginning of the 11th century, Pope Sylvester II, born Gerbert d'Aurillac, reintroduced the abacus and armillary sphere, and introduced Arabic numerals and clocks to Northern and Western Europe.[243] The University of Paris, founded in the mid-12th century, is still one of the most important universities in the Western world.[244] In the 17th century, mathematician René Descartes defined a method for the acquisition of scientific knowledge, while Blaise Pascal became famous for his work on probability and fluid mechanics. They were both key figures of the Scientific Revolution, which blossomed in Europe during this period. The Academy of Sciences was founded by Louis XIV to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at the forefront of scientific developments in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is one of the earliest academies of sciences.
The Age of Enlightenment was marked by the work of biologist Buffon and chemist Lavoisier, who discovered the role of oxygen in combustion, while Diderot and D'Alembert published the Encyclopédie, which aimed to give access to "useful knowledge" to the people, a knowledge that they can apply to their everyday life.[245] With the Industrial Revolution, the 19th century saw spectacular scientific developments in France with scientists such as Augustin Fresnel, founder of modern optics, Sadi Carnot who laid the foundations of thermodynamics, and Louis Pasteur, a pioneer of microbiology. Other eminent French scientists of the 19th century have their names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.
Famous French scientists of the 20th century include the mathematician and physicist Henri Poincaré; physicists Henri Becquerel, Pierre and Marie Curie, who remain famous for their work on radioactivity; physicist Paul Langevin; and virologist Luc Montagnier, co-discoverer of HIV AIDS. Hand transplantation was developed in Lyon in 1998 by an international team that included Jean-Michel Dubernard, who afterward performed the first successful double hand transplant.[246] Telesurgery was developed by Jacques Marescaux and his team on 7 September 2001 across the Atlantic Ocean (New-York-Strasbourg, Lindbergh Operation).[247] A face transplant was first done on 27 November 2005 by Dr. Bernard Devauchelle.[248][249]
France was the fourth country to achieve nuclear capability[250] and has the third largest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world;[251] it is also a leader in civilian nuclear technology.[252][253][254] France was the third nation, after the Soviet Union and the United States, to launch its own space satellite, and the first to establish a commercial launch service provider, Arianespace. France is a founding member of the European Space Agency (ESA), which is headquartered in Paris, and its leading contributor, providing over a quarter of its budget. ESA's principal spaceport is based in French Guiana, while its main launch vehicle is the French Ariane 5.[255][256][257] France's national space program, CNES, is the oldest, largest, and most active in Europe. France was ranked 12nd in the Global Innovation Index in 2020, up from 16th in 2019.[258][259][260][261]
The European Airbus, formed partly from the French group Aérospatiale, is the world's largest airline manufacturer, designs and develops civil and military aircraft as well as communications systems, missiles, space rockets, helicopters, satellites, and related systems. France also hosts major international research instruments such as the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, the Institut Laue–Langevin, and ITER, the latter being the world's biggest mega project. It is also a major member of CERN and owns Minatec, Europe's leading nanotechnology research centre.
The SNCF, the French national railroad company, has developed the TGV, a high-speed train which holds a series of world speed records. The TGV has been the fastest wheeled train in commercial use since reaching a speed of 574.8 km/h (357.2 mph) on 3 April 2007.[262] Western Europe is now serviced by a network of TGV lines.
The Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the state research agency, is the largest research institute in Europe and among the most prominent internationally; it ranked fourth in the 2020 Nature Index for the share of articles published in scientific journals worldwide.[263] According to the same index, France as a whole had the sixth-highest share of articles published in scientific journals.[264]
As of 2018[update], 69 French people have been awarded a Nobel Prize[265] and 12 have received the Fields Medal.[266]
Demographics
With an estimated May 2021 population of 67.413 million people,[267] France is the 20th most populous country in the world, the third-most populous in Europe (after Russia and Germany), and the second most populous in the European Union (after Germany).
France is an outlier among developed countries, particularly in Europe, for its relatively high rate of natural population growth: By birth rates alone, it was responsible for almost all natural population growth in the European Union in 2006.[268] Between 2006 and 2016, France saw the second-highest overall increase in population in the EU and was one of only four EU countries where natural births accounted for most population growth.[269] This was the highest rate since the end of the baby boom in 1973 and coincides with the rise of the total fertility rate from a nadir of 1.7 in 1994 to 2.0 in 2010.
As of January 2021[update], the fertility rate declined slightly to 1.84 children per woman, below the replacement rate of 2.1, and considerably below the high of 4.41 in 1800.[270][271][272][273] France's fertility rate and crude birth rate nonetheless remain among the highest in the EU. However, like many developed nations, the French population is aging; the average age is 41.7 years, while about a fifth of French people are 65 or over.[274] Average life expectancy at birth is 82.7 years, the 12th highest in the world.
From 2006 to 2011, population growth averaged 0.6 percent per year;[275] since 2011, annual growth has been between 0.4 and 0.5 percent annually.[276] Immigrants are major contributors to this trend; in 2010, 27 percent of newborns in metropolitan France had at least one foreign-born parent and another 24 percent had at least one parent born outside Europe (excluding French overseas territories).[277]
Ethnic groups
Most French people are of Celtic-Gallic origin, with a significant admixture of Italic (Romans) and Germanic (Franks) groups reflecting centuries of respective migration and settlement.[278] Through the course of the Middle Ages, France incorporated various neighboring ethnic and linguistic groups, as evidenced by Breton elements in the west, Aquitanian in the southwest, Scandinavian in the northwest, Alemannic in the northeast, and Ligurian in the southeast.
Large-scale immigration over the last century and a half has led to a more multicultural society; beginning with the French Revolution, and further codified in the French Constitution of 1958, the government is prohibited from collecting data on ethnicity and ancestry; most demographic information is drawn from private sector organisations or academic institutions. In 2004, the Institut Montaigne estimated that within Metropolitan France, 51 million people were White (85% of the population), 6 million were Northwest African (10%), 2 million were Black (3.3%), and 1 million were Asian (1.7%).[279][280]
A 2008 poll conducted jointly by INED and the French National Institute of Statistics[281][282] estimated that the largest ancestry groups were Italian (5 million), followed by Northwest African (3-6 million),[283][284][285] Sub-Saharan African (2.5 million), Armenian (500,000), and Turkish (200,000).[286] There are also sizable minorities of other European ethnic groups, namely Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and Greek.[283][287][288] France has a significant Gitan (Romani) population, numbering between 20,000 and 400,000;[289] many foreign Roma are expelled back to Bulgaria and Romania frequently.[290]
Immigration
It is currently estimated that 40% of the French population is descended at least partially from the different waves of immigration since the early 20th century;[291] between 1921 and 1935 alone, about 1.1 million net immigrants came to France.[292] The next largest wave came in the 1960s, when around 1.6 million pieds noirs returned to France following the independence of its Northwest African possessions, Algeria and Morocco.[293][294] They were joined by numerous former colonial subjects from North and West Africa, as well as numerous European immigrants from Spain and Portugal.
France remains a major destination for immigrants, accepting about 200,000 legal immigrants annually.[295] In 2005, it was Western Europe's leading recipient of asylum seekers, with an estimated 50,000 applications (albeit 15% decrease from 2004).[296] In 2010, France received about 48,100 asylum applications—placing it among the top five asylum recipients in the world[297] and in subsequent years it saw the number of applications increase, ultimately doubling to 100,412 in 2017.[298] The European Union allows free movement between the member states, although France established controls to curb Eastern European migration,[citation needed] and immigration remains a contentious political issue.
In 2008, the INSEE (National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies) estimated that the total number of foreign-born immigrants was around 5 million (8% of the population), while their French-born descendants numbered 6.5 million, or 11% of the population. Thus, nearly a fifth of the country's population were either first or second-generation immigrants, of which more than 5 million were of European origin and 4 million of Maghrebi ancestry.[299][300][301] In 2008, France granted citizenship to 137,000 persons, mostly from Morocco, Algeria and Turkey.[302]
In 2014, the INSEE reported a significant increase in the number of immigrants coming from Spain, Portugal and Italy between 2009 and 2012. According to the French Institute, this increase resulted from the financial crisis that hit several European countries in that period.[303] Statistics on Spanish immigrants in France show a growth of 107 percent between 2009 and 2012, with the population growing from 5,300 to 11,000.[303] Of the total of 229,000 foreigners who were in France in 2012, nearly 8% were Portuguese, 5% British, 5% Spanish, 4% Italian, 4% German, 3% Romanian, and 3% Belgian.[303]
Major cities
France is a highly urbanized country, with its largest cities (in terms of metropolitan area population in 2016[304]) being Paris (12,568,755 inh.), Lyon (2,310,850), Marseille (1,756,296), Toulouse (1,345,343), Bordeaux (1,232,550), Lille (1,187,824), Nice (1,006,402), Nantes (961,521), Strasbourg (785,839) and Rennes (727,357). (Note: There are significant differences between the metropolitan population figures just cited and those in the following table, which indicates the population of the communes). Rural flight was a perennial political issue throughout most of the 20th century.
Largest cities or towns in France
2016 census | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Name | Region | Pop. | Rank | Name | Region | Pop. | ||
 Paris  Marseille |
1 | Paris | Île-de-France | 2,190,327 | 11 | Rennes | Brittany | 216,268 |  Lyon  Toulouse |
| 2 | Marseille | Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur | 862,211 | 12 | Reims | Grand Est | 183,113 | ||
| 3 | Lyon | Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes | 515,695 | 13 | Saint-Étienne | Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes | 171,924 | ||
| 4 | Toulouse | Occitanie | 475,438 | 14 | Le Havre | Normandy | 170,352 | ||
| 5 | Nice | Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur | 342,637 | 15 | Toulon | Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur | 169,634 | ||
| 6 | Nantes | Pays de la Loire | 306,694 | 16 | Grenoble | Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes | 158,180 | ||
| 7 | Montpellier | Occitanie | 281,613 | 17 | Dijon | Bourgogne-Franche-Comté | 155,090 | ||
| 8 | Strasbourg | Grand Est | 279,284 | 18 | Angers | Pays de la Loire | 151,229 | ||
| 9 | Bordeaux | Nouvelle-Aquitaine | 252,040 | 19 | Nîmes | Occitanie | 151,001 | ||
| 10 | Lille | Hauts-de-France | 232,440 | 20 | Villeurbanne | Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes | 149,019 | ||
Language
According to Article 2 of the Constitution, the official language of France is French,[305] a Romance language derived from Latin. Since 1635, the Académie française has been France's official authority on the French language, although its recommendations carry no legal weight. There are also regional languages spoken in France, such as Occitan, Breton, Catalan, Flemish (Dutch dialect), Alsatian (German dialect), Basque, and Corsican (Italian dialect). Italian was the official language of Corsica until 9 May 1859.[306]
The Government of France 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. In addition to mandating the use of French in the territory of the Republic, the French government tries to promote French in the European Union and globally through institutions such as the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. The perceived threat from anglicisation has prompted efforts to safeguard the position of the French language in France. Besides French, there exist 77 vernacular minority languages of France, eight spoken in French metropolitan territory and 69 in the French overseas territories.
From the 17th to the mid-20th century, French served as the pre-eminent international language of diplomacy and international affairs as well as a lingua franca among the educated classes of Europe.[307] The dominant position of French language in international affairs was overtaken by English, since the emergence of the United States as a major power.[60][308][309]
For most of the time in which French served as an international lingua franca, it was not the native language of most Frenchmen: a report in 1794 conducted by Henri Grégoire found that of the country's 25 million people, only three million spoke French natively; the rest spoke one of the country's many regional languages, such as Alsatian, Breton or Occitan.[310] Through the expansion of public education, in which French was the sole language of instruction, as well as other factors such as increased urbanisation and the rise of mass communication, French gradually came to be adopted by virtually the entire population, a process not completed until the 20th century.
As a result of France's extensive colonial ambitions between the 17th and 20th centuries, French was introduced to the Americas, Africa, Polynesia, South-East Asia, as well as the Caribbean. French is the second most studied foreign language in the world after English,[311] and is a lingua franca in some regions, notably in Africa. The legacy of French as a living language outside Europe is mixed: it is nearly extinct in some former French colonies (The Levant, South and Southeast Asia), while creoles and pidgins based on French have emerged in the French departments in the West Indies and the South Pacific (French Polynesia). On the other hand, many former French colonies have adopted French as an official language, and the total number of French speakers is increasing, especially in Africa.
It is estimated that between 300 million[312] and 500 million[313] people worldwide can speak French, either as a mother tongue or a second language.
According to the 2007 Adult Education survey, part of a project by the European Union and carried in France by the INSEE and based on a sample of 15,350 persons, French was the native language of 87.2% of the total population, or roughly 55.81 million people, followed by Arabic (3.6%, 2.3 million), Portuguese (1.5%, 960,000), Spanish (1.2%, 770,000) and Italian (1.0%, 640,000). Native speakers of other languages made up the remaining 5.2% of the population.[314]
Religion
France is a secular country in which freedom of religion is a constitutional right. French religious policy is based on the concept of laïcité, a strict separation of church and state under which public life is kept completely secular.
According to a survey held in 2016 by Institut Montaigne and Institut français d'opinion publique (IFOP), 51.1% of the total population of France was Christian, 39.6% had no religion (atheism or agnosticism), 5.6% were Muslims, 2.5% were followers of other faiths, and the remaining 0.4% were undecided about their faith.[315] Estimates of the number of Muslims in France vary widely. In 2003, the French Ministry of the Interior estimated the total number of people of Muslim background to be between 5 and 6 million (8–10%).[316][317] The current Jewish community in France is the largest in Europe and the third-largest in the world after Israel and the United States, ranging between 480,000 and 600,000, about 0.8% of the population as of 2016.[315]
Catholicism has been the predominant religion in France for more than a millennium, though it is not as actively practised today as it was. Among the 47,000 religious buildings in France, 94% are Roman Catholic.[318] During the French Revolution, activists conducted a brutal campaign of de-Christianisation, ending the Catholic Church as the state religion. In some cases clergy and churches were attacked, with iconoclasm stripping the churches of statues and ornaments. After alternating between royal and secular republican governments during the 19th century, in 1905 France passed the 1905 law on the Separation of the Churches and the State, which established the principle of laïcité.[319]
To this day, the government is prohibited from recognising any specific right to a religious community (except for legacy statutes like those of military chaplains and the local law in Alsace-Moselle). It recognises religious organisations according to formal legal criteria that do not address religious doctrine. Conversely, religious organisations are expected to refrain from intervening in policy-making.[320]
Certain groups, such as Scientology, Children of God, the Unification Church, or the Order of the Solar Temple are considered cults ("sectes" in French); therefore they do not have the same status as recognised religions in France.[321] Secte is considered a pejorative term in France.[322]
Health
The French health care system is one of universal health care largely financed by government national health insurance. In its 2000 assessment of world health care systems, the World Health Organization found that France provided the "close to best overall health care" in the world.[324] The French healthcare system was ranked first worldwide by the World Health Organization in 1997.[325][326] In 2011, France spent 11.6% of GDP on health care, or US$4,086 per capita,[327] a figure much higher than the average spent by countries in Europe but less than in the United States. Approximately 77% of health expenditures are covered by government funded agencies.[328]
Care is generally free for people affected by chronic diseases (affections de longues durées) such as cancer, AIDS or cystic fibrosis. Average life expectancy at birth is 78 years for men and 85 years for women, one of the highest of the European Union and the World.[329][330] There are 3.22 physicians for every 1000 inhabitants in France,[331] and average health care spending per capita was US$4,719 in 2008.[332] As of 2007[update], approximately 140,000 inhabitants (0.4%) of France are living with HIV/AIDS.[99]
Even if the French have the reputation of being one of the thinnest people in developed countries,[333][334][335][336][337][excessive citations] France—like other rich countries—faces an increasing and recent epidemic of obesity, due mostly to the replacement in French eating habits of traditional healthy French cuisine by junk food.[338][333][334][339][excessive citations] The French obesity rate is still far below that of the United States—currently equal to American rate in the 1970s—and is still the lowest of Europe.[334][336][339] Authorities now regard obesity as one of the main public health issues and fight it fiercely.[340] Rates of childhood obesity are slowing in France, while continuing to grow in other countries.[341]
Education
In 1802, Napoleon created the lycée, the second and final stage of secondary education that prepares students for higher education studies or a profession.[343] Nevertheless, Jules Ferry is considered the father of the French modern school, leading reforms in the late 19th century that established free, secular and compulsory education (currently mandatory until the age of 16).[344][345]
French education is centralized and divided into three stages: Primary, secondary, and higher education. The Programme for International Student Assessment, coordinated by the OECD, ranked France's education as near OECD average in 2018.[346][347] France was one of the PISA-participating countries where school children perceived some of the lowest levels of support and feedback from their teachers.[347] School children in France reported greater concern about the disciplinary climate and behaviour in classrooms compared to other OECD countries.[347]
Primary and secondary education are predominantly public, run by the Ministry of National Education. While training and remuneration of teachers and the curriculum are the responsibility of the state centrally, the management of primary and secondary schools is overseen by local authorities. Primary education comprises two phases, nursery school (école maternelle) and elementary school (école élémentaire). Nursery school aims to stimulate the minds of very young children and promote their socialisation and development of a basic grasp of language and numbers. Around the age of six, children transfer to elementary school, whose primary objectives are learning about writing, arithmetic and citizenship. Secondary education also consists of two phases. The first is delivered through colleges (collège) and leads to the national certificate (Diplôme national du brevet). The second is offered in high schools (lycée) and finishes in national exams leading to a baccalaureate (baccalauréat, available in professional, technical or general flavours) or certificate of professional competence (certificat d'aptitude professionelle).
Higher education is divided between public universities and the prestigious and selective Grandes écoles, such as Sciences Po Paris for Political studies, HEC Paris for Economics, Polytechnique, the École des hautes études en sciences sociales for Social studies and the École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris that produce high-profile engineers, or the École nationale d'administration for careers in the Grands Corps of the state. The Grandes écoles have been criticised for alleged elitism, producing many if not most of France's high-ranking civil servants, CEOs and politicians.[348]
Culture
France has been a centre of Western cultural development for centuries. Many French artists have been among the most renowned of their time; France is still recognised in the world for its rich cultural tradition.[349]
The successive political regimes have always promoted artistic creation. The creation of the Ministry of Culture in 1959 helped preserve the cultural heritage of the country and make it available to the public. The Ministry of Culture has been very active since its creation, granting subsidies to artists, promoting French culture in the world, supporting festivals and cultural events, protecting historical monuments. The French government also succeeded in maintaining a cultural exception to defend audiovisual products made in the country.[350]
France receives the highest number of tourists per year, largely thanks to the numerous cultural establishments and historical buildings implanted all over the territory. It counts 1,200 museums welcoming more than 50 million people annually.[351] The most important cultural sites are run by the government, for instance through the public agency Centre des monuments nationaux, which is responsible for approximately 85 national historical monuments. The 43,180 buildings protected as historical monuments include mainly residences (many castles) and religious buildings (cathedrals, basilicas, churches), but also statues, memorials and gardens. The UNESCO inscribed 45 sites in France on the World Heritage List.[352]
Art
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 first hand. 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 Baroque era, Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain, lived in Italy.
The 17th century was the period when French painting became prominent and individualised itself through classicism. Prime Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert founded in 1648 the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture under Louis XIV to protect these artists; in 1666 he also created the still-active French Academy in Rome to have direct relations with Italian artists.
French artists developed the rococo style in the 18th century, as a more intimate imitation of old baroque style, the works of the court-endorsed artists Antoine Watteau, François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard being the most representative in the country. 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. At this time France had become a centre of artistic creation, the first half of the 19th century being dominated by two successive movements, at first Romanticism with Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix, then Realism with Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet, a style that eventually evolved into Naturalism.
In the second part of the 19th century, France's influence over painting became even more important, with the development of new styles of painting such as Impressionism and Symbolism. The most famous impressionist painters of the period were Camille Pissarro, Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir.[354] The second generation of impressionist-style painters, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Georges Seurat, were also at the avant-garde of artistic evolutions,[355] as well as the fauvist artists Henri Matisse, André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck.[356][357]
At the beginning of the 20th century, Cubism was developed by Georges Braque and the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, living in Paris. Other foreign artists also settled and worked in or near Paris, such as Vincent van Gogh, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani and Wassily Kandinsky.
Many museums in France are entirely or partly devoted to sculptures and painting works. A huge collection of old masterpieces created before or during the 18th century are displayed in the state-owned Musée du Louvre, such as the Mona Lisa, also known as "La Joconde". While the Louvre Palace has been for a long time a museum, the Musée d'Orsay was inaugurated in 1986 in the old railway station Gare d'Orsay, in a major reorganisation of national art collections, to gather French paintings from the second part of the 19th century (mainly Impressionism and Fauvism movements).[358][359] The musée d'Orsay was voted in 2018 the best museum in the world.[360]
Modern works are presented in the Musée National d'Art Moderne, which moved in 1976 to the Centre Georges Pompidou. These three state-owned museums welcome close to 17 million people a year.[361] Other national museums hosting paintings include the Grand Palais (1.3 million visitors in 2008), but there are also many museums owned by cities, the most visited being the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (0.8 million entries in 2008), which hosts contemporary works.[361] Outside Paris, all the large cities have a Museum of Fine Arts with a section dedicated to European and French painting. Some of the finest collections are in Lyon, Lille, Rouen, Dijon, Rennes and Grenoble.
Architecture
During the Middle Ages, many fortified castles were built by feudal nobles to mark their powers. Some French castles that survived are Chinon, Château d'Angers, the massive Château de Vincennes and the so-called Cathar castles. During this era, France had been using Romanesque architecture like most of Western Europe. Some of the greatest examples of Romanesque churches in France are the Saint Sernin Basilica in Toulouse, the largest romanesque church in Europe,[362] and the remains of the Cluny Abbey.
The Gothic architecture, originally named Opus Francigenum meaning "French work",[363] was born in Île-de-France and was the first French style of architecture to be copied in all Europe.[364] Northern France is the home of some of the most important Gothic cathedrals and basilicas, the first of these being the Saint Denis Basilica (used as the royal necropolis); other important French Gothic cathedrals are Notre-Dame de Chartres and Notre-Dame d'Amiens. The kings were crowned in another important Gothic church: Notre-Dame de Reims.[365] Aside from churches, Gothic Architecture had been used for many religious palaces, the most important one being the Palais des Papes in Avignon.
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 with as a first reference the Château de Montsoreau.[366] Such residential castles were the Château de Chambord, the Château de Chenonceau, or the Château d'Amboise.
Following the renaissance and the end of the Middle Ages, Baroque architecture replaced the traditional Gothic style. However, in France, baroque architecture found a greater success in the secular domain than in a religious one.[367] In the secular domain, the Palace of Versailles has many baroque features. Jules Hardouin Mansart, who designed the extensions to Versailles, was one of the most influential French architect of the baroque era; he is famous for his dome at Les Invalides.[368] Some of the most impressive provincial baroque architecture is found in places that were not yet French such as Place Stanislas in Nancy. On the military architectural side, Vauban designed some of the most efficient fortresses in Europe and became an influential military architect; as a result, imitations of his works can be found all over Europe, the Americas, Russia and Turkey.[369][370]
After the Revolution, the Republicans favoured Neoclassicism although it was introduced in France prior to the revolution with such buildings as the Parisian Pantheon or the Capitole de Toulouse. Built during the first French Empire, the Arc de Triomphe and Sainte Marie-Madeleine represent the best example of Empire style architecture.[371]
Under Napoleon III, a new wave of urbanism and architecture was given birth; extravagant buildings such as the neo-baroque Palais Garnier were built. The urban planning of the time was very organised and rigorous; most notably, Haussmann's renovation of Paris. The architecture associated with this era is named Second Empire in English, the term being taken from the Second French Empire. At this time there was a strong Gothic resurgence across Europe and in France; the associated architect was Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. In the late 19th century, Gustave Eiffel designed many bridges, such as Garabit viaduct, and remains one of the most influential bridge designers of his time, although he is best remembered for the iconic Eiffel Tower.
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).[372] France's largest financial district is La Défense, where a significant number of skyscrapers are located.[373] 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 or Paul Andreu.
Literature
The earliest French literature dates from the Middle Ages, when what is now known as modern France did not have a single, uniform language. There were several languages and dialects, and writers used their own spelling and grammar. Some authors of French medieval texts are unknown, such as Tristan and Iseult and Lancelot-Grail. Other authors are known, for example Chrétien de Troyes and Duke William IX of Aquitaine, who wrote in Occitan.
Much medieval French poetry and literature were inspired by the legends of the Matter of France, such as The Song of Roland and the various chansons de geste. The Roman de Renart, written in 1175 by Perrout de Saint Cloude, tells the story of the medieval character Reynard ('the Fox') and is another example of early French writing. An important 16th-century writer was François Rabelais, whose novel Gargantua and Pantagruel has remained famous and appreciated until now. Michel de Montaigne was another major figure of French literature during that century. His most famous work, Essais, created the literary genre of the essay.[374] French poetry during that century was embodied by Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay. Both writers founded the La Pléiade literary movement.
During the 17th century, Madame de La Fayette published anonymously La Princesse de Clèves, a novel that is considered to be one of the first psychological novels of all time.[375] Jean de La Fontaine is one of the most famous fabulists of that time, as he wrote hundreds of fables, some being far more famous than others, such as The Ant and the Grasshopper. Generations of French pupils had to learn his fables, which were seen as helping teach wisdom and common sense to the young people. Some of his verses have entered the popular language to become proverbs, such as "À l'œuvre, on connaît l'artisan."[A workman is known by his chips].[376]
Jean Racine, whose incredible mastery of the alexandrine and of the French language has been praised for centuries, created plays such as Phèdre or Britannicus. He is, along with Pierre Corneille (Le Cid) and Molière, considered one of the three great dramatists of France's golden age. Molière, who is deemed to be one of the greatest masters of comedy of the Western literature,[378] wrote dozens of plays, including Le Misanthrope, L'Avare, Le Malade imaginaire, as well as Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. His plays have been so popular around the world that the French language is sometimes dubbed as "the language of Molière" (la langue de Molière),[379] just like English is considered "the language of Shakespeare".
French literature and poetry flourished even more in the 18th and 19th centuries. Denis Diderot's best-known works are Jacques the Fatalist and Rameau's Nephew. He is however best known for being the main redactor of the Encyclopédie, whose aim was to sum up all the knowledge of his century (in fields such as arts, sciences, languages, and philosophy) and to present them to the people, to fight ignorance and obscurantism. During that same century, Charles Perrault was a prolific writer of famous children's fairy tales including Puss in Boots, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Bluebeard. At the start of the 19th century, symbolist poetry was an important movement in French literature, with poets such as Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine and Stéphane Mallarmé.[380]
The 19th century saw the writings of many renowned French authors. Victor Hugo is sometimes seen as "the greatest French writer of all time"[381] for excelling in all literary genres. The preface of his play Cromwell is considered to be the manifesto of the Romantic movement. Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles are considered "poetic masterpieces",[382] Hugo's verse having been compared to that of Shakespeare, Dante and Homer.[382] His novel Les Misérables is widely seen as one of the greatest novel ever written[383] and The Hunchback of Notre Dame has remained immensely popular.
Other major authors of that century include Alexandre Dumas (The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte-Cristo), Jules Verne (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea), 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), whose works are among the most well known in France and the world. The Prix Goncourt is a French literary prize first awarded in 1903.[384] Important writers of the 20th century include Marcel Proust, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Antoine de Saint Exupéry wrote Little Prince, which has remained popular for decades with children and adults around the world.[385] As of 2014[update], French authors had more Literature Nobel Prizes than those of any other nation.[386] The first Nobel Prize in Literature was a French author, while France's latest Nobel prize in literature is Patrick Modiano, who was awarded the prize in 2014.[386] Jean-Paul Sartre was also the first nominee in the committee's history to refuse the prize in 1964.[386]
Philosophy
Medieval philosophy was dominated by Scholasticism until the emergence of Humanism in the Renaissance. Modern philosophy began in France in the 17th century with the philosophy of René Descartes, Blaise Pascal and Nicolas Malebranche. Descartes was the first Western philosopher since ancient times to attempt to build a philosophical system from the ground up rather than building on the work of predecessors."[387][388] His Meditations on First Philosophy changed the primary object of philosophical thought and raised some of the most fundamental problems for foreigners such as Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Berkeley, and Kant.
French philosophers produced some of the most important political works of the Age of Enlightenment. In The Spirit of the Laws, Baron de Montesquieu theorised the principle of separation of powers, which has been implemented in all liberal democracies since it was first applied in the United States. Voltaire came to embody the Enlightenment with his defence of civil liberties, such as the right to a free trial and freedom of religion.
19th-century French thought was targeted at responding to the social malaise following the French Revolution. Rationalist philosophers such as Victor Cousin and Auguste Comte, who called for a new social doctrine, were opposed by reactionary thinkers such as Joseph de Maistre, Louis de Bonald and Félicité Robert de Lamennais, who blamed the rationalist rejection of traditional order. De Maistre, together with the Englishman Edmund Burke, was one of the founders of European conservatism. Comte was the founder of positivism, which Émile Durkheim reformulated as a basis for social research.
In the 20th century, partly as a reaction to the perceived excesses of positivism, French spiritualism thrived with thinkers such as Henri Bergson and it influenced American pragmatism and Whitehead's version of process philosophy. Meanwhile, French epistemology became a prominent school of thought with Jules Henri Poincaré, Gaston Bachelard, Jean Cavaillès and Jules Vuillemin. Influenced by German phenomenology and existentialism, the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre gained a strong influence after World War II, and late-20th-century-France became the cradle of postmodern philosophy with Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault.
Music
France has a long and varied musical history. It experienced a golden age in the 17th century thanks to Louis XIV, who employed many talented musicians and composers in the royal court. The most renowned composers of this period include Marc-Antoine Charpentier, François Couperin, Michel-Richard Delalande, Jean-Baptiste Lully and Marin Marais, all of them composers at the court. After the death of the "Roi Soleil", French musical creation lost dynamism, but in the next century the music of Jean-Philippe Rameau reached some prestige, and today he is still one of the most renowned French composers. Rameau became the dominant composer of French opera and the leading French composer for the harpsichord.[390][full citation needed]
French composers played an important role during the music of the 19th and early 20th century, which is considered to be the Romantic music era. Romantic music emphasised a surrender to nature, a fascination with the past and the supernatural, the exploration of unusual, strange and surprising sounds, and a focus on national identity. This period was also a golden age for operas. French composers from the Romantic era included: Hector Berlioz (best known for his Symphonie fantastique), Georges Bizet (best known for Carmen, which has become one of the most popular and frequently performed operas), Gabriel Fauré (best known for his Pavane, Requiem, and nocturnes), Charles Gounod (best known for his Ave Maria and his opera Faust), Jacques Offenbach (best known for his 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann), Édouard Lalo (best known for his Symphonie espagnole for violin and orchestra and his Cello Concerto in D minor), Jules Massenet (best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty, the most frequently staged are Manon (1884) and Werther (1892)) and Camille Saint-Saëns (he has many frequently-performed works, including The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah (Opera), Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso and his Symphony No. 3).
Later came precursors of modern classical music. Érik Satie was a key member of the early-20th-century Parisian avant-garde, best known for his Gymnopédies. Francis Poulenc's best known works are his piano suite Trois mouvements perpétuels (1919), the ballet Les biches (1923), the Concert champêtre (1928) for harpsichord and orchestra, the opera Dialogues des Carmélites (1957) and the Gloria (1959) for soprano, choir and orchestra. Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy are the most prominent figures associated with Impressionist music. Debussy was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and his use of non-traditional scales and chromaticism influenced many composers who followed.[391] Debussy's music is noted for its sensory content and frequent usage of atonality. The two composers invented new musical forms[392][393][394][395] and new sounds. Ravel's piano compositions, such as Jeux d'eau, Miroirs, Le tombeau de Couperin and Gaspard de la nuit, demand considerable virtuosity. His mastery of orchestration is evident in the Rapsodie espagnole, Daphnis et Chloé, his arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and his orchestral work Boléro (1928). More recently, the middle of the 20th century, Maurice Ohana, Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Boulez contributed to the evolutions of contemporary classical music.[396]
French music then followed the rapid emergence of pop and rock music at the middle of the 20th century. Although English-speaking creations achieved popularity in the country, French pop music, known as chanson française, has also remained very popular. Among the most important French artists of the century are Édith Piaf, Georges Brassens, Léo Ferré, Charles Aznavour and Serge Gainsbourg.[397] Although there are very few rock bands in France compared to English-speaking countries,[398] bands such as Noir Désir, Mano Negra, Niagara, Les Rita Mitsouko and more recently Superbus, Phoenix and Gojira,[399] or Shaka Ponk, have reached worldwide popularity.
Other French artists with international careers have been popular in several countries, most notably female singers Dalida, Mireille Mathieu, Mylène Farmer,[399] Alizée and Nolwenn Leroy,[400] electronic music pioneers Jean-Michel Jarre, Laurent Garnier and Bob Sinclar, later Martin Solveig and David Guetta. In the 1990s and 2000s (decade), electronic duos Daft Punk, Justice and Air also reached worldwide popularity and contributed to the reputation of modern electronic music in the world.[399][401][402]
Among current musical events and institutions in France, many are dedicated to classical music and operas. The most prestigious institutions are the state-owned Paris National Opera (with its two sites Palais Garnier and Opéra Bastille), the Opéra National de Lyon, the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse and the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux. As for music festivals, there are several events organised, the most popular being Eurockéennes (a word play which sounds in French as "European"), Solidays and Rock en Seine. The Fête de la Musique, imitated by many foreign cities, was first launched by the French Government in 1982.[403][404] Major music halls and venues in France include Le Zénith sites present in many cities and other places in Paris (Paris Olympia, Théâtre Mogador, Élysée Montmartre).
Cinema
France has historical and strong links with cinema, with two Frenchmen, Auguste and Louis Lumière (known as the Lumière Brothers) credited with creating cinema in 1895.[409] The world's first female filmmaker, Alice Guy-Blaché, was also from France.[410] Several important cinematic movements, including the late 1950s and 1960s Nouvelle Vague, began in the country. It is noted for having a strong film industry, due in part to protections afforded by the Government of France. France remains a leader in filmmaking, as of 2015[update] producing more films than any other European country.[411][412] The nation also hosts the Cannes Festival, one of the most important and famous film festivals in the world.[413][414]
Apart from its strong and innovative film tradition, France has also been a gathering spot for artists from across Europe and the world. For this reason, French cinema is sometimes intertwined with the cinema of foreign nations. Directors from nations such as Poland (Roman Polanski, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Andrzej Żuławski), Argentina (Gaspar Noé, Edgardo Cozarinsky), Russia (Alexandre Alexeieff, Anatole Litvak), Austria (Michael Haneke) and Georgia (Géla Babluani, Otar Iosseliani) are prominent in the ranks of French cinema. Conversely, French directors have had prolific and influential careers in other countries, such as Luc Besson, Jacques Tourneur or Francis Veber in the United States.
Although the French film market is dominated by Hollywood, France is the only nation in the world where American films make up the smallest share of total film revenues, at 50%, compared with 77% in Germany and 69% in Japan.[415] French films account for 35% of the total film revenues of France, which is the highest percentage of national film revenues in the developed world outside the United States, compared to 14% in Spain and 8% in the UK.[415] France is in 2013 the 2nd exporter of films in the world after the United States.[416]
France historically was the cultural centre of the world,[307] although its dominant position has been surpassed by the United States. Today, France takes steps in protecting and promoting its culture, becoming a leading advocate of the cultural exception.[417] The nation succeeded in convincing all EU members to refuse to include culture and audiovisuals in the list of liberalised sectors of the WTO in 1993.[418] Moreover, this decision was confirmed in a voting in the UNESCO in 2005: the principle of "cultural exception" won an overwhelming victory with 198 countries voting for it and only 2 countries, the United States and Israel, voting against.[419]
Fashion
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.
The association of France with fashion and style (French: la mode) dates largely to the reign of Louis XIV[420] when the luxury goods industries in France came increasingly under royal control and the French royal court became, arguably, the arbiter of taste and style in Europe. But France renewed its dominance of the high fashion (French: couture or haute couture) industry in the years 1860–1960 through the establishing of the great couturier houses such as Chanel, Dior, and Givenchy. The French perfume industry is world leader in its sector and is centered on the town of Grasse.[421]
In the 1960s, the elitist "Haute couture" came under criticism from France's youth culture. In 1966, the designer Yves Saint Laurent broke with established Haute Couture norms by launching a prêt-à-porter ("ready to wear") line and expanding French fashion into mass manufacturing. With a greater focus on marketing and manufacturing, new trends were established by Sonia Rykiel, Thierry Mugler, Claude Montana, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Christian Lacroix in the 1970s and 1980s. The 1990s saw a conglomeration of many French couture houses under luxury giants and multinationals such as LVMH.
According to 2017 data compiled by Deloitte, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey (LVMH), a French brand, is the largest luxury company in the world by sales, selling more than twice the amount of its nearest competitor.[422] Moreover, France also possesses 3 of the top 10 luxury goods companies by sales (LVMH, Kering SA, L'Oréal), more than any other country in the world.[422]
Media
Best-selling daily national newspapers in France are Le Parisien Aujourd'hui en France (with 460,000 sold daily), Le Monde and Le Figaro, with around 300,000 copies sold daily, but also L'Équipe, dedicated to sports coverage.[424] In the past years, free dailies made a breakthrough, with Metro, 20 Minutes and Direct Plus distributed at more than 650,000 copies respectively.[425] However, the widest circulations are reached by regional daily Ouest-France with more than 750,000 copies sold, and the 50 other regional papers have also high sales.[426][427] The sector of weekly magazines is stronger and diversified with more than 400 specialized weekly magazines published in the country.[428]
The most influential news magazines are the left-wing Le Nouvel Observateur, centrist L'Express and right-wing Le Point (more than 400.000 copies),[429] but the highest circulation for weeklies is reached by TV magazines and by women's magazines, among them Marie Claire and ELLE, which have foreign versions. Influential weeklies also include investigative and satirical papers Le Canard Enchaîné and Charlie Hebdo, as well as Paris Match. Like in most industrialized nations, the print media have been affected by a severe crisis in the past decade. In 2008, the government launched a major initiative to help the sector reform and become financially independent,[430][431] but in 2009 it had to give 600,000 euros to help the print media cope with the economic crisis, in addition to existing subsidies.[432]
In 1974, after years of centralised monopoly on radio and television, the governmental agency ORTF was split into several national institutions, but the three already-existing TV channels and four national radio stations[434][435] remained under state-control. It was only in 1981 that the government allowed free broadcasting in the territory, ending the state monopoly on radio.[435] French television was partly liberalized in the next two-decade with the creation of several commercial channels, mainly thanks to cable and satellite television. In 2005 the national service Télévision Numérique Terrestre introduced digital television all over the territory, allowing the creation of other channels.
The four existing national channels are owned by state-owned consortium France Télévisions, funded by advertising revenue and TV licence fees. Public broadcasting group Radio France run five national radio stations. Among these public media are Radio France Internationale, which broadcasts programmes in French all over the world, as well as Franco-German TV channel TV5 Monde. In 2006, the government created global news channel France 24. Long-established TV channels TF1 (privatised in 1987), France 2 and France 3 have the highest shares, whilst radio stations RTL, Europe 1 and state-owned France Inter are some of the least listened to.
Society
According to a BBC poll in 2010, based on 29,977 responses in 28 countries, France is globally seen as a positive influence in the world's affairs: 49% have a positive view of the country's influence, whereas 19% have a negative view.[436][437] The Nation Brand Index of 2008 suggested that France has the second best international reputation, only behind Germany.[438] A global opinion poll for the BBC saw France ranked the fourth most positively viewed nation in the world (behind Germany, Canada and the United Kingdom) in 2014.[439]
According to a poll in 2011, the French were found to have the highest level of religious tolerance and to be the country where the highest proportion of the population defines its identity primarily in term of nationality and not religion.[440] As of 2011[update], 75% of French had a favourable view of the United States, making France one of the most pro-American countries in the world.[441] As of 2017[update], the favourable view of the United States had dropped to 46%.[442] In January 2010, the magazine International Living ranked France as "best country to live in", ahead of 193 other countries, for the fifth year running.[443]
The OECD Better Life Index states that "France performs well in many measures of well-being relative to most other countries in the Better Life Index".[444]
The French Revolution continues to permeate the country's collective memory. The tricolour flag of France,[445] the anthem "La Marseillaise", and the motto Liberté, égalité, fraternité, defined in Title 1 of the Constitution as national symbols, all emerged during the cultural ferment of the early revolution, along with Marianne, a common national personification. In addition, Bastille Day, the national holiday, commemorates the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789.[446]
A common and traditional symbol of the French people is the Gallic rooster. Its origins date back to Antiquity since the Latin word Gallus meant both "rooster" and "inhabitant of Gaul". Then this figure gradually became the most widely shared representation of the French, used by French monarchs, then by the Revolution and under the successive republican regimes as representation of the national identity, used for some stamps and coins.[447]
France is one of the world leaders of gender equality in the workplace: as of 2017, it has 36.8% of its corporate board seats held by women, which makes it the leader of the G20 for that metric.[448] It was ranked in 2019 by the World Bank as one of the only six countries in the world where women have the same work rights as men.[449]
France is one of the most liberal countries in the world when it comes to LGBT rights: a 2020 Pew Research Center poll found that 86% of the French think that same-sex relationships should be accepted by society, one of the highest acceptance rates in the world (comparable to that of other Western European nations).[450] France legalized same-sex marriage and adoption in 2013.[451] The government has used its diplomatic clout to support LGBT rights throughout the world, notably in the United Nations.[452]
In 2020, France was ranked fifth in the Environmental Performance Index (behind the United Kingdom), out of 180 countries ranked by Yale University in that study.[453] Being the host country of the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference, the French Government was instrumental in securing the 2015 Paris Agreement, a success that has been credited to its "openness and experience in diplomacy".[454]
Cuisine
French cuisine is renowned for being one of the finest in the world.[455][456] According to the regions, traditional recipes are different, the North of the country prefers to use butter as the preferred fat for cooking, whereas olive oil is more commonly used in the South.[457] Moreover, each region of France has iconic traditional specialties: Cassoulet in the Southwest, Choucroute in Alsace, Quiche in the Lorraine region, Beef bourguignon in the Bourgogne, provençal Tapenade, etc. France's most renowned products are wines,[458] including Champagne, Bordeaux, Bourgogne, and Beaujolais as well as a large variety of different cheeses, such as Camembert, Roquefort and Brie. There are more than 400 different varieties.[459][460]
A meal often consists of three courses, hors d'œuvre or entrée (introductory course, sometimes soup), plat principal (main course), fromage (cheese course) or dessert, sometimes with a salad offered before the cheese or dessert. Hors d'œuvres could include terrine de saumon au basilic, lobster bisque, foie gras, French onion soup or a croque monsieur. The plat principal could include a pot au feu or steak frites. The dessert could be mille-feuille pastry, a macaron, an éclair, crème brûlée, mousse au chocolat, crêpes, or Café liégeois.
French cuisine is also regarded as a key element of the quality of life and the attractiveness of France.[443] A French publication, the Michelin guide, awards Michelin stars for excellence to a select few establishments.[461][462] The acquisition or loss of a star can have dramatic effects on the success of a restaurant. By 2006, the Michelin Guide had awarded 620 stars to French restaurants, at that time more than any other country, although the guide also inspects more restaurants in France than in any other country (by 2010, Japan was awarded as many Michelin stars as France, despite having half the number of Michelin inspectors working there).[463][464]
In addition to its wine tradition, France is also a major producer of beer and rum. The three main French brewing regions are Alsace (60% of national production), Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Lorraine. France produces rum via distilleries located on islands such as Reunion Island in the southern Indian Ocean.
Sports
France hosts "the world's biggest annual sporting event", the Tour de France.[466] Other popular sports played in France include: football, judo, tennis,[467] rugby union[468] and pétanque. France has hosted events such as the 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups,[469] the 2007 Rugby World Cup,[470] and will host the 2023 Rugby World Cup. The country also hosted the 1960 European Nations' Cup, UEFA Euro 1984, UEFA Euro 2016 and 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup. The Stade de France in Saint-Denis is France's largest stadium and was the venue for the 1998 FIFA World Cup and 2007 Rugby World Cup finals. Since 1923, France is famous for its 24 Hours of Le Mans sports car endurance race.[471] Several major tennis tournaments take place in France, including the Paris Masters and the French Open, one of the four Grand Slam tournaments. French martial arts include Savate and Fencing.
France has a close association with the Modern Olympic Games; it was a French aristocrat, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who suggested the Games' revival, at the end of the 19th century.[472][473] After Athens was awarded the first Games, in reference to the Olympics' Greek origins, Paris hosted the second Games in 1900.[474] Paris was the first home of the International Olympic Committee, before it moved to Lausanne.[475] Since 1900, France has hosted the Olympics on 4 further occasions: the 1924 Summer Olympics, again in Paris[473] and three Winter Games (1924 in Chamonix, 1968 in Grenoble and 1992 in Albertville).[473]
Similar to the Olympics, France introduced Olympics for the deaf people (Deaflympics) in 1924 with the idea of a French deaf car mechanic, Eugène Rubens-Alcais who paved the way to organise the inaugural edition of the Summer Deaflympics in Paris.[476]
Both the national football team and the national rugby union team are nicknamed "Les Bleus" in reference to the team's shirt colour as well as the national French tricolour flag. Football is the most popular sport in France, with over 1,800,000 registered players and over 18,000 registered clubs.[478] The football team is among the most successful in the world, with two FIFA World Cup victories in 1998 and 2018,[479] one FIFA World Cup second place in 2006,[480] and two UEFA European Championships in 1984[481] and 2000.[482]
The top national football club competition is Ligue 1. France has produced some of the greatest players in the world, including three-time FIFA World Player of the Year Zinedine Zidane, three-time Ballon d'Or recipient Michel Platini, record holder for most goals scored at a World Cup Just Fontaine, first football player to receive the Légion d'honneur Raymond Kopa, and the record goalscorer for the French national team Thierry Henry.[483]
The French Open, also called Roland-Garros, is a major tennis tournament held over two weeks between late May and early June at the Stade Roland-Garros in Paris. It is the premier clay court tennis championship event in the world and the second of four annual Grand Slam tournaments.[484]
Rugby union is popular, particularly in Paris and the southwest of France.[485] The national rugby union team has competed at every Rugby World Cup; it takes part in the annual Six Nations Championship.
See also
Footnotes
- ^ For information about regional languages see Languages of France.
- ^ Established the Kingdom of the West Franks (the Kingdom of France) from the Carolingian Empire of Francia.
- ^ European Union since 1993.
- ^ Established the Fifth Republic
- ^ French National Geographic Institute data, which includes bodies of water.
- ^ French Land Register data, which exclude lakes, ponds and glaciers larger than 1 km2 (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) as well as the estuaries of rivers.
- ^ Whole of the except the overseas territories in the Pacific Ocean.
- ^ French overseas territories in the Pacific Ocean only.
- ^ Time zones across the span from UTC−10 (French Polynesia) to UTC+12 (Wallis and Futuna).
- ^ Daylight saving time is observed in metropolitan France and Saint Pierre and Miquelon only.
- ^ The overseas regions and collectivities form part of the French telephone numbering plan, but have their own country calling codes: Guadeloupe +590; Martinique +596; French Guiana +594; Réunion and Mayotte +262; Saint Pierre and Miquelon +508. The overseas territories are not part of the French telephone numbering plan; their country calling codes are: New Caledonia +687; French Polynesia +689; Wallis and Futuna +681.
- ^ In addition to .fr, several other Internet TLDs are used in French overseas départements and territories: .re, .mq, .gp, .tf, .nc, .pf, .wf, .pm, .gf and .yt. France also uses .eu, shared with other members of the European Union. The .cat domain is used in Catalan-speaking territories.
- ^ French Guiana is in South America; Guadeloupe and Martinique are in the Caribbean Sea; and Réunion and Mayotte are in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Africa. All five are considered integral parts of the French Republic. France also comprises Saint Pierre and Miquelon in North America; Saint Barthélemy and Saint Martin in the Caribbean; French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna and Clipperton Island in the Pacific Ocean; and the French Southern and Antarctic Lands.
- ^ The last sacre was that of Charles X, 29 May 1825.
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