| Capital | Paris 48°51.4′N 2°21.05′E | |
Official languages
| French | |
|---|---|---|
Demonym
| French | |
Government
| Unitary semi-presidentialconstitutional republic | |
France, officially the French Republic, is a unitary semi-presidential republic located mostly in Western Europe, with several overseas regions and territories. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. From its shape, it is often referred to in French.
France is the largest country in Western Europe and the third-largest in Europe as a whole. It possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world. France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military, and political influence in Europe and around the world. France has its main ideals expressed in the 18th-century Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second-largest colonial empire of the time, ruling large portions of first North America and India and then Northwest and Central Africa; Madagascar; Indochina and southeast China; and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.
France is a developed country, possessing the world's fifth-largest and Europe's second-largest economy by nominal GDP. It is also the world's ninth-largest by GDP at purchasing power parity. France is the wealthiest nation in Europe – and the fourth-wealthiest in the world – in aggregate household wealth. French citizens enjoy a high standard of living, high public education level, and one of the world's longest life expectancies. France has been listed as the world's "best overall health care" provider by the World Health Organization. It is the most-visited country in the world, receiving 79.5 million foreign tourists annually.
France has the world's fifth-largest nominal military budget, as well as (in terms of personnel) the largest military in the EU, the third-largest deployable force in NATO, and the 26th-largest military in the world. France also possesses the third-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world – with around 300 active warheads as of 25 May 2010 – and the world's second-largest diplomatic corps (behind the United States).France is a founding member of the United Nations, one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and a member of the Francophonie, the G8, G20, NATO, OECD, WTO, and the Latin Union. It is also a founding and leading member state of the European Union and the largest EU state by area. In 2013, France was listed 20th on the Human Development Index and, in 2010, 24th on the Corruption Perceptions Index.
Foreign relations
France is a member of the United Nations and serves as one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council with veto rights. It is also a member of the G8, World Trade Organization (WTO), the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Indian Ocean Commission (COI). It is an associate member of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) and a leading member of the International Francophone Organisation (OIF) of fifty-one fully or partly French-speaking countries.
France is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), but under President de Gaulle, it excluded itself from the joint military command to protest thespecial relationship between the United States and Britain and to preserve the independence of French foreign and security policies. France vigorously opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, straining bilateral relations with the US and the UK. However, as a result of Nicolas Sarkozy's (much criticised in France by the leftists and by a part of the right pro-American politics, France rejoined the NATO joint military command on 4 April 2009.France hosts the headquarters of the OECD, UNESCO,Interpol, Alliance Base and the International Bureau for Weights and Measures. France has the second largest network of diplomatic missions in the world, second only to the USA. In 1953, France received a request from the United Nations to pick a coat of arms that would represent it internationally. Thus the French emblem was adopted and is currently used on passports.
Postwar French foreign policy has been largely shaped by membership of the European Union, of which it was a founding member. Since the 1960s, France has developed close ties with reunified Germany to become the most influential driving force of the EU. In the 1960s, France sought to exclude the British from the European unification process, seeking to build its own standing in continental Europe. However since 1904, France has maintained an "Entente cordiale" with the United Kingdom, and there has been a strengthening of links between the countries, especially on a military level.
In the early 1990s, the country drew considerable criticism from other nations for its underground nuclear tests in French Polynesia
France retains strong political and economic influence in its former African colonies (Françafrique) and has supplied economic aid and troops for peace-keeping missions in Côte d'Ivoire and Chad. Recently, after the unilateral declaration of independence of northern Mali by the Tuareg MNLA and the subsequent regional conflict with several Islamist groups including Ansar Dine and MOJWA, France and other African states intervened to help the Malian Army to retake control.
In 2009, France was the second largest (in absolute numbers) donor of development aid in the world, behind the US, and ahead of Germany, Japan and the UK. This represents 0.5% of its GDP, in this regard rating France as tenth largest donor on the list. The organisation managing the French help is the French Development Agency, which finances primarily humanitarian projects in sub-Saharan Africa. The main goals of this help are "developing infrastructure, access to health care and education, the implementation of appropriate economic policies and the consolidation of the rule of law and democracy."
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