FRANCE

France’s (official: Republic of France) mainland is found in Western Europe but also has a lot of land found in many parts of the world. The French mainland has a coast onthe Mediterranean in the south and on the English Channel and North Sea to north. It covers an area that spans out to the Rhine River in the east and the Atlantic in the west. Te French call their land the Hexagon (L'Hexagone,read as: "l'?-gza-gon") due to the shape of the land. France is a unitary state that implements a semi-presidential system in government. The countries fundamental principles and ideals were defined in theDeclaration of Citizen’s Rights (La D?claration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen). European France’s neighbors are Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland,Italy, Spain, Monaco and Andorra. Corsica Island, just 12 kilometers off Sardinia Island (which belongs to Italy), also belongs to France. Through its international states like French Guiana, it borders Brazil and Surinamand with Saint Martin Island it borders the Dutch Antilles. France is also connected to the United Kingdom via a tunnel built beneath the English Channel.France has played a key role in international relations since the 17^th century. Between the 18^th and 19^th centuries, France had formed the biggest colonial empire of its time. During this time France’s borders had reached West Africa and Southeast Asia.Frances influence in the countries it occupied is seen in those countries’ cultures and politics. Frances nominal GDP comes at 6^th in the world and its PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) places its advanced economy at 8^th in the world and holds it among the most developed countries in the world. France is the most visited country in the world, when trips of less than24 hours are excluded and business trips included, at 82 million tourists a year. France is one of the founding members of the European Union’s political and economic foundations and is the largest in landmass amongst allof the members of the Union.

France, along with this, is one of the founders of the UN and plays key roles in the Francophone, G8 summits, the Latin Union and NATO. The country is one of 5 permanent membersof the United Nations Security Council. With 360 nuclear warheads and 59 nuclear power plants, France is a powerful nuclear force.
 

Etymology

The name “France” come from the word Francia, which means the land of the Franks.

But there are many claims as to the origin of the word frank. One of these states that the word means javelin, pike and spear, and come from the pre-Germanic word frankona. Anotherhypothesis states that the term frank comes from the word frei, which meant freedom in the pre-Germanic language family. The word Frank lives on in the form of franc and was used to name the French currency up until 2000,when the Euro became the official currency of France. Even in modern German France is called Frankreich (English: Frank Empire). But to distinguish between Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire, the old kingdom is called Frankenreich.The word Frank, since the fall of the Roman Empire up until the Middle Ages was used less prominently but after Hugh Capet was crowned the new French King, the word spreadrapidly to bear the meaning of the French Kingdom.
       
History

Modern France’s borders are almost exactly the same as the borders of the land in ancient Gaul, inhabited by the Celtic Gaul’s.

Gaul, after being taken over by Julius Caesar in the 1^st century BC had lost its original culture and accepted that of the Romans, along with the Roman language.

The language subsequently transformed into the basis of modern French.

Christianity was witnessed on French land in the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries AD and in the following 200 years spread so rapidly that Saint Jerome had written of Gaulas being the only place “rid of heresy”. In the 4^th century AD, Gaul’s eastern borders on the Rhine River were being ruled by Germanicclans. Of these clans, the strongest were the Franks, who as a result gave France its modern name. The term “France”, used today, came from the region of the feudality ruled by the Capet kings. After the fall of the RomanEmpire, it was the Franks of the Germanic clans who were of the first to accept Catholicism and not Aryanism. For the reason France was bestowed “the eldest daughter of the church” (La fille ain?e de l’?glise)and the Franks, based on this name, had claimed to be “the best Christians in France”.

As an independent state, France’s history began in 843 with the Treaty of Verdun where the Carolingian Empire divided the state up into the East Frank Kingdom, the West FrankKingdom and Central Frank Kingdom. The West Frank Kingdom covers almost exactly the same area that today’s France does and thus the foundations of modern France were established on this kingdom. The Carolingian dynasty ruledover France until 987, when the French Duke and Count of Paris Hugh Capet was crowned King of France. Those of his, the Valois and the Bourbon lineage ensured the unity of France in a series of wars. The kingdom peaked inthe 17h century in the period of Louis XIV. In this process France became the most populated country in Europe and the European culture, politics and its economic structure was influenced mostly by the French. French was thediplomatic language of the time and maintained this position for a long period. The Age of Enlightenment was also, in the most part, realized in the intellectual circles of the French. French scientists were responsible formany great scientific findings in the 18^th century. France, in this time, had also acquired a great amount of land in Africa, Americaand Asia.