Portal:France

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

France, officially the French Republic,, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. It also includes overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, giving it one of the largest discontiguous exclusive economic zones in the world. Metropolitan France shares borders with Belgium and Luxembourg to the north, Germany to the north east, Switzerland to the east, Italy and Monaco to the south east, Andorra and Spain to the south, and a maritime border with the United Kingdom to the north west. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea. Its overseas territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Its eighteen integral regions (five of which are overseas) span a combined area of 643,801 km2 (248,573 sq mi) and have a total population of 68.4 million . France is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre; other major urban areas include Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Lille, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Nantes and Nice.

Metropolitan France was settled during the Iron Age by Celtic tribes known as Gauls before Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, leading to a distinct Gallo-Roman culture. In the Early Middle Ages, the Germanic Franks formed the Kingdom of Francia, which became the heartland of the Carolingian Empire. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned the empire, with West Francia evolving into the Kingdom of France. In the High Middle Ages, France was a powerful but decentralized feudal kingdom, but from the mid-14th to the mid-15th centuries, France was plunged into a dynastic conflict with England known as the Hundred Years' War. In the 16th century, the French Renaissance saw culture flourish and a French colonial empire rise. Internally, France was dominated by the conflict with the House of Habsburg and the French Wars of Religion between Catholics and Huguenots. France was successful in the Thirty Years' War and further increased its influence during the reign of Louis XIV.

The French Revolution of 1789 overthrew the Ancien Régime and produced the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. France reached its political and military zenith in the early 19th century under Napoleon Bonaparte, subjugating part of continental Europe and establishing the First French Empire. The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars significantly shaped the course of European history. The collapse of the empire initiated a period of relative decline, in which France endured the Bourbon Restoration until the founding of the French Second Republic which was succeeded by the Second French Empire upon Napoleon III's takeover. His empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. This led to the establishment of the Third French Republic Subsequent decades saw a period of economic prosperity and cultural and scientific flourishing known as the Belle Époque. France was one of the major participants of World War I, from which it emerged victorious at great human and economic cost. It was among the Allied powers of World War II, but it surrendered and was occupied by the Axis in 1940. Following its liberation in 1944, the short-lived Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the defeat in the Algerian War and Moroccan War of Independence. 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 third-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the world's leading tourist destination, receiving over 89 million foreign visitors in 2018. France is a developed country with a high nominal per capita income globally and its advanced economy ranks among the largest in the world. It is a great power in global affairs, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and an official nuclear-weapon state. France is a founding and leading member of the European Union and the eurozone, as well as a key member of the Group of Seven, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and Francophonie. (Full article...)

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Battle of Austerlitz, 2 December 1805, romanticized painting by French artist François Gérard, c. 1810

The Battle of Austerlitz (2 December 1805/11 Frimaire An XIV FRC), also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most important military engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle occurred near the town of Austerlitz in the Austrian Empire (now Slavkov u Brna in the Czech Republic). Around 158,000 troops were involved, of which around 24,000 were killed or wounded. The battle is often cited by military historians as one of Napoleon's tactical masterpieces, in the same league as other historic engagements like Cannae or Gaugamela. The military victory of Napoleon's Grande Armée at Austerlitz brought the War of the Third Coalition to an end, with the Peace of Pressburg signed by the French and Austrians later in the month. These achievements did not establish a lasting peace on the continent. Austerlitz had driven neither Russia nor Britain, whose armies protected Sicily from a French invasion, to settle. Prussian resistance to the growing power of French military invasions in Central Europe led to the War of the Fourth Coalition in 1806.

After eliminating an Austrian army during the Ulm campaign, French forces seized Vienna in November 1805. The Austrians avoided further conflict until the arrival of the Russians, who helped increase the allied numbers. Napoleon sent his army north in pursuit of the Allies but then ordered his forces to retreat so he could feign a grave weakness to lure the Allies into thinking that they were facing a weak army, while it was in fact formidable. Napoleon gave every indication in the days preceding the engagement that the French army was in a pitiful state, even abandoning the dominant Pratzen Heights near Austerlitz. He deployed the French army below the Pratzen Heights and weakened his right flank, enticing the Allies to launch an assault there to roll up the French line. A forced march from Vienna by Marshal Davout and his III Corps plugged the gap left by Napoleon just in time. The Allied deployment against the French right weakened the Allied centre on the Pratzen Heights, which was attacked by the IV Corps of Marshal Soult. With the Allied center demolished, the French swept through both flanks and routed the Allies, which enabled the French to capture thousands of prisoners. (Full article...)

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Prost in 2012
Alain Marie Pascal Prost, OBE, Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur is a French racing driver. A four-time Formula One Drivers' Champion, Prost has won more titles than any driver except for Juan Manuel Fangio (five championships), and Michael Schumacher (seven championships). From 1987 until 2001 Prost held the record for most Grand Prix victories. Schumacher surpassed Prost's total of 51 victories at the 2001 Belgian Grand Prix. In 1999, Prost received the World Sports Awards of the Century in the motor sport category.

Prost discovered karting at the age of 14 during a family holiday. He progressed through motor sport's junior ranks before joining the McLaren Formula One team in 1980 at the age of 25. He finished in the points on his Formula One début in Argentina and took his first race victory at his home Grand Prix in France a year later, while he was driving for the factory Renault team.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Prost formed a fierce rivalry with mainly Ayrton Senna, but also Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell. In 1986, at the last race of the season, he managed to pip Mansell and Piquet of Williams to the title. Senna joined Prost at McLaren in 1988 and the two had a series of controversial clashes, including a collision at the 1989 Japanese Grand Prix that gave Prost his third Drivers' Championship. Before the end of a winless 1991 season Prost was fired by Ferrari for his public criticism of the team. After a sabbatical in 1992, Prost joined the Williams team. With a competitive car, Prost won the 1993 championship and retired from driving at the end of the year.

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A portion of a french mille-feuille

A mille-feuille (French: [mil fœj]; lit.'thousand-sheets'), also known by the names Napoleon in North America, vanilla slice in the United Kingdom, and custard slice, is a French dessert made of puff pastry layered with pastry cream. Its modern form was influenced by improvements made by Marie-Antoine Carême.

Traditionally, a mille-feuille is made up of three layers of puff pastry (pâte feuilletée), alternating with two layers of pastry cream (crème pâtissière). The top pastry layer is finished in various ways: sometimes it is topped with whipped cream, or it may be dusted with icing sugar, cocoa, pastry crumbs, or sliced almonds. It may also be glazed with icing or fondant alone, or in alternating white (icing) and brown (chocolate) or other colored icing stripes, and combed to create a marbled effect. (Full article...)

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Route of the 2018 Tour de France

The 2018 Tour de France was the 105th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's three Grand Tours. The 3,351 km (2,082 mi)-long race consisted of 21 stages, starting on 7 July in Noirmoutier-en-l'Île, in western France, and concluding on 29 July with the Champs-Élysées stage in Paris. A total of 176 riders from 22 teams participated in the race. The overall general classification was won by Geraint Thomas of Team Sky. Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) placed second, with Thomas's teammate and four-time Tour winner Chris Froome coming third.

The opening stage was won by Fernando Gaviria of Quick-Step Floors, who became the Tour's first rider to wear the general classification leader's yellow jersey. Peter Sagan (Bora–Hansgrohe) then took the race lead on the following stage. BMC Racing Team won stage three's team time trial, putting their rider Greg Van Avermaet in yellow. He held the jersey for eight days until the second stage of the three Alpine stages, which Thomas won and took the lead in. He successfully defended it from Dumoulin for the rest of the Tour, which included three stages in the Pyrenees and the penultimate stage's individual time trial, the latter won by Dumoulin. (Full article...)
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19 May 2024 – 2024 New Caledonia unrest
France deploys law enforcement to New Caledonia to regain control of the road to La Tontouta International Airport, which is currently controlled by protesters. (Reuters)
17 May 2024 – Azerbaijan–France relations, 2024 New Caledonia unrest
France accuses Azerbaijan of being behind the protests and violence in New Caledonia after Azerbaijani and Togolese flags are seen alongside indigenous Kanak symbols at the protests. Azerbaijan has previously spoken out against French colonialism and supported pro-independence participants, in response to French support for Armenia. (Al Jazeera)
17 May 2024 –
A man is shot dead by police after trying to set a synagogue on fire in Rouen, France. (BBC News)
16 May 2024 – 2024 New Caledonia unrest
France deploys 1,000 police officers to New Caledonia in an attempt to control the ongoing riots. (Reuters)

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Henri Rougier and the victorious 45Hp Turcat-Méry.

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