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France is a democracy organised as a unitary semi-presidential republic. It is a developed nation whose modern economy is the fifth-largest in the world in 2003. Its main values are expressed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

France's founding membership in the European Union largely defines France's current foreign policy. The French Republic is furthermore a member of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and of the Indian Ocean Commission (COI), and an associate member of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS). France is also a leading member or the International Organisation of Francophonie (OIF) which gathers 51 fully or partly French-speaking countries.

Barely were the Italian Wars over than France was plunged into a domestic crisis with far-reaching consequences. Despite the conclusion of a Concordat between France and the Papacy (1516), granting the crown unrivalled power in senior ecclesiastical appointments, France was deeply affected by the Protestant Reformation's attempt to break the unity of Roman Catholic Europe.

A growing urban-based Protestant minority (later dubbed Huguenots) faced ever harsher repression under the rule of King Henri II. Renewed Catholic reaction headed by the powerful dukes of Guise culminated in a massacre of Huguenots (1562), starting the first of the French Wars of Religion, during which English, (Scottish?), German and Spanish forces intervened on the side of rival Protestant and Catholic forces.

France has a system of civil law, but jurisprudence plays an important role similar to that of case law. France uses a civil law system; that is, law arises primarly from written statutes; judges are supposed not to make law, but to merely interpret it (though the amount of judge interpretation in certain areas makes it equivalent to case law). Many fundamental principles of French Law were laid in the Napoleonic Codes. Basic principles of the rule of law were laid in the Napoleonic Code: laws can only address the future and not the past (ex post facto laws are prohibited); to be applicable, laws must have been officially published (see Journal Officiel).

After the Allied landings in North Africa (Operation Torch) the German Army occupied southern France as well (Case Anton), leading to the scuttling of the French Fleet at Toulon. After four years of occupation and strife, Allied forces, including Free French Forces, liberated France in 1944.France emerged from World War II to face a series of new problems. After a short period of provisional government initially led by General Charles de Gaulle, a new constitution (October 13, 1946) established the Fourth Republic under a parliamentary form of government controlled by a series of coalitions. The mixed nature of the coalitions and a consequent lack of agreement on measures for dealing with colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria caused successive cabinet crises and changes of government. The war in Indochina ended with French withdrawal in 1954.

Although ultimately a victor in World Wars I and II, France - much like Britain - suffered extensive losses in its empire, comparative economic status, working population, and status as a dominant nation-state. Since 1958, it has constructed a semi-presidential democracy (known as the Fifth Republic) that has not succumbed to the instabilities experienced in earlier, more parliamentary regimes.

Parliament meets for one 9-month session each year: under special circumstances the president can call an additional session. Although parliamentary powers have diminished from those existing under the Fourth Republic, the National Assembly can still cause a government to fall if an absolute majority of the total Assembly membership votes to censure.

Following the Second World War, and especially the Fifth Republic, France embarked on an ambitious and mostly very successful program of modernization, under state impulse and coordination. This program of dirigisme, mostly implemented by right-wing governments, involved the state control of a minority of the industry, such as transportation, energy and telecommunication infrastructures, as well as various incentives for private corporations to merge or engage in certain projects.

Due to its numerous overseas departments and territories scattered on all oceans of the planet, France possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the world, covering 11,035,000 kmē (4,260,000 sq. miles), just behind the EEZ of the United States (11,351,000 kmē / 4,383,000 sq. miles), but ahead of the EEZ of Australia (8,232,000 kmē / 3,178,000 sq. miles). According to a different calculation cited by the Pew Research Center, the EEZ of France would be 10,084,201 kmē (3,893,532 sq. miles), behind the United States (12,174,629 kmē / 4,700,651 sq. miles), but ahead of Australia (8,980,568 kmē / 3,467,416 sq. miles) and Russia (7,566,673 kmē / 2,921,508 sq. miles).

Louis XVI's reign (1774-1792) saw a temporary revival of French fortunes through intervention (1778-1783) in support of Britain's rebel American colonies. But the over-ambitious projects and military campaigns the past century had produced chronic financial problems. Deteriorating economic conditions, popular resentment against the complicated system of privileges granted the nobility and clerics, and a lack of alternate avenues for change were among the principal causes of the French Revolution. This led to the formation of the First Republic on September 21, 1792.

The French Republic or France is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents.