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

Metropolitan France was settled during the Iron Age by Celtic tribes known as Gauls before Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, leading to a distinct Gallo-Roman culture. In the Early Middle Ages, the Franks formed the Kingdom of Francia, which became the heartland of the Carolingian Empire. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned the empire, with West Francia evolving into the Kingdom of France. In the High Middle Ages, France was a powerful but decentralized feudal kingdom, but from the mid-14th to the mid-15th centuries, France was plunged into a dynastic conflict with England known as the Hundred Years' War. In the 16th century, 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 collapse of the empire initiated a period of relative decline, in which France endured the Bourbon Restoration until the founding of the French Second Republic which was succeeded by the Second French Empire upon Napoleon III's takeover. His empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. This led to the establishment of the Third French Republic, and subsequent decades saw a period of economic prosperity and cultural and scientific flourishing known as the Belle Époque. France was one of the major participants of World War I, from which it emerged victorious at great human and economic cost. It was among the Allies of World War II, but it surrendered and was occupied in 1940. Following its liberation in 1944, the short-lived Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the defeat in the Algerian War. The current Fifth Republic was formed in 1958 by Charles de Gaulle. Algeria and most French colonies became independent in the 1960s, with the majority retaining close economic and military ties with France.

France retains its centuries-long status as a global centre of art, science, and philosophy. It hosts the fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the world's leading tourist destination, receiving 100 million foreign visitors in 2023. A developed country, France has a high nominal per capita income globally, and its advanced economy ranks among the largest in the world. It is a great power, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and an official nuclear-weapon state. France is a founding and leading member of the European Union and the eurozone, as well as a member of the Group of Seven, 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...)

Monteux during his conductorship of Les Ballets Russes, c. 1912
Pierre Benjamin Monteux (4 April 1875 – 1 July 1964) was a French (later American) conductor. After violin and viola studies, and a decade as an orchestral player and occasional conductor, he began to receive regular conducting engagements in 1907. He came to prominence when, for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company between 1911 and 1914, he conducted the world premieres of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and other prominent works including Petrushka, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé, and Debussy's Jeux. Thereafter he directed orchestras around the world for more than half a century.

From 1917 to 1919 Monteux was the principal conductor of the French repertoire at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He led the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1919–24), Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra (1924–34), Orchestre Symphonique de Paris (1929–38) and San Francisco Symphony (1936–52). In 1961, aged eighty-six, he accepted the chief conductorship of the London Symphony Orchestra, a post which he held until his death three years later. Although known for his performances of the French repertoire, his chief love was the music of German composers, above all Brahms.

In 1932 he began a conducting class in Paris, which he developed into a summer school that was later moved to his summer home in Les Baux in the south of France. After moving permanently to the US in 1942, and taking American citizenship, he founded a school for conductors and orchestral musicians in Hancock, Maine.

Selected fare or cuisine – show another

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

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

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The Société Anonyme de Véhicules Industriels et d'Équipements Mécaniques (French pronunciation: [sɔsjete anɔnim veikyl ɛ̃dystʁijɛl e dekipmɑ̃ mekanik]), commonly known by the acronym Saviem (French pronunciation: [savjɛm]), was a French manufacturer of trucks and buses/coaches part of the Renault group, headquartered in Suresnes, Île-de-France. The company was established in 1955 by merging Renault heavy vehicle operations with Somua and Latil and disappeared in 1978 when was merged with former rival Berliet to form Renault Véhicules Industriels.

The company initially had various factories for vehicle production around France (mainly at the Paris area) which came from its predecessors and Chausson, but it soon centred assembly on Blainville-sur-Orne (trucks) and Annonay (buses and coaches). Saviem formed partnerships with other manufacturers, leading to technology-sharing agreements. (Full article...)

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11 October 2024 – France–Israel relations, Israel–Hezbollah conflict
France summons the Israeli ambassador to France over recent attacks against United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon, calling the attacks a violation of international law and asking Israel to explain itself. (Le Monde)
4 October 2024 – 2024 French political crisis, French anti-Barnier government protests
The left-wing New Popular Front coalition files a motion of no confidence against the new right-wing Barnier government amid ongoing political protests in France. (Reuters)
25 September 2024 – Crime in France, Immigration to France
The center-right Macron-appointed Barnier government expresses a willingness to work with the far-right National Rally's proposals to strengthen French immigration and crime laws following the murder of a 19-year-old woman in Paris last week. The suspect, who was arrested in Geneva, Switzerland, is a Moroccan convicted rapist who was released from prison this month and was meant to be deported. (Reuters)
23 September 2024 – Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest
Climate researchers report that since 1985, deforestation in the Amazon has caused the loss of an area of rainforest equal to the combined area of France and Germany. (France 24)

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Cathedral St. Nazaire and Pont Vieux at Béziers.

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