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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, and subsequent decades saw a period of economic prosperity and cultural and scientific flourishing known as the Belle Époque. France was one of the major participants of World War I, from which it emerged victorious at great human and economic cost. It was among the 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. 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 100 million foreign visitors in 2023. 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, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and an official nuclear-weapon state. France is a leading and founding 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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Map showing the course of the battle from 8–17 August 1944

The Falaise pocket or Battle of the Falaise pocket (German: Kessel von Falaise; 12–21 August 1944) was the decisive engagement of the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War. Allied forces formed a pocket around Falaise, Calvados, in which German Army Group B, consisting of the 7th Army and the Fifth Panzer Army (formerly Panzergruppe West), were encircled by the Western Allies. The battle resulted in the destruction of most of Army Group B west of the Seine, which opened the way to Paris and the Franco-German border.

Six weeks after the 6 June 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy, German forces were in turmoil, having expended irreplaceable resources defending the frontline and with Allied air superiority threatening the availability of food and ammunition. However, on the Allied side, British forces had expected to liberate Caen immediately after the invasion, an operation which ended up taking nearly two months, and US forces had expected to control Saint-Lô by the 7 June, yet German resistance delayed this until after Caen's liberation. (Full article...)
Honoré de Balzac on an 1842 daguerreotype by Louis-Auguste Bisson
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled, La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon.

Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multifaceted characters, who are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. His writing influenced many subsequent novelists such as Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gustave Flaubert, Benito Pérez Galdós, Marie Corelli, Henry James, William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, and Italo Calvino, and philosophers such as Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Many of Balzac's works have been made into or have inspired films, and they are a continuing source of inspiration for writers, filmmakers and critics.

An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac had trouble adapting to the teaching style of his grammar school. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. When he finished school, Balzac was an apprentice in a law office, but he turned his back on the study of law after wearying of its inhumanity and banal routine. Before and during his career as a writer, he attempted to be a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician; he failed in all of these efforts. La Comédie humaine reflects his real-life difficulties, and includes scenes from his own experience.

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A blancmange set on a glass platter

Blancmange (/bləˈmɒnʒ/, from French: blanc-manger [blɑ̃mɑ̃ʒe]) is a sweet dessert popular throughout Europe commonly made with milk or cream and sugar, thickened with rice flour, gelatin, corn starch, or Irish moss (a source of carrageenan), and often flavoured with almonds.

It is usually set in a mould and served cold. Although traditionally white (the literal English translation of the name is "white eat"), blancmanges are frequently given other colours. (Full article...)

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The landing on the eye of the Moon, the movie's most iconic scene

A Trip to the Moon (French: Le voyage dans la lune) is a 1902 French science-fiction adventure trick film written, directed and produced by Georges Méliès. Inspired by Jules Verne's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon and its 1870 sequel Around the Moon, the film follows a group of astronomers who travel to the Moon in a cannon-propelled capsule, explore the Moon's surface, escape from an underground group of Selenites (lunar inhabitants), and return to Earth with a captive Selenite. Méliès leads an ensemble cast of French theatrical performers as the main character Professor Barbenfouillis.

Although the film disappeared into obscurity after Méliès's retirement from the film industry, it was rediscovered around 1930, when Méliès's importance to the history of cinema was beginning to be recognised by film devotees. An original hand-colored print was discovered in 1993 and restored in 2011. (Full article...)
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26 July 2024 – 2024 France railway arson attacks
Arson attacks on TGV infrastructure disrupts rail services in France. (The Guardian)
26 July 2024 – 2024 Summer Olympics
The opening ceremonies of the 2024 Summer Olympics take place on the bank of the River Seine and the Jardins du Trocadéro in Paris, France. (NBC News)
24 July 2024 – 142nd IOC Session
At the International Olympic Committee's meeting in Paris, France, it is announced that the French Alps region has been conditionally approved to host the 2030 Winter Olympics and that Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, will host the 2034 Winter Olympics. (Fox News) (AP)
23 July 2024 – 2023 French pension reform law
The leftist La France Insoumise party introduces legislation to reverse pension changes and revert the legal retirement age to 62 years, with the far-right National Rally party offering support for the advancement of the legislation. (Reuters)

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Hell, as illustrated in Hortus deliciarum.

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