Cheap Ferry Crossing To France From Dover Sources of cheap ferry crossing to france from dover resources from the Web

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.

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.

The Palace of Versailles is the prime tourist destination in France followed by the great châteaux of the Loire Valley.

Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of the republic in 1799, making himself First Consul. His armies engaged in several wars across Europe, conquered many countries and established new kingdoms with Napoleon's family members at the helm. Following his defeat in 1815, the French monarchy was re-established, which was then legislatively abolished and followed by a Second Republic in 1848. The Second Republic ended when the late Emperor's nephew, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was elected President and proclaimed a Second Empire in 1852. Less ambitious than his uncle, the second Napoleon was also ultimately unseated, and republican rule returned for a third time in the Third Republic (1870).

Government economic policy aims to promote investment and domestic growth in a stable fiscal and monetary environment. Creating jobs and reducing the high unemployment rate has been a top priority. The Government of France has successfully reduced a double-digit unemployment rate in excess of 10% to 8%-9%, recently. France joined 10 other European Union countries in adopting the euro as its currency in January 1999. Henceforth, monetary policy will be set by the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.

Membership in France's labour unions accounts for less than 10% of the private sector workforce (in 2003, 8.2% of the workforce) and is concentrated in the education, manufacturing, transportation, and heavy industry sectors. Most unions are affiliated with one of the competing national federations, the largest and most powerful of which are the CGT, FO, and CFDT.

The May 1958 seizure of power in Algiers by French army units and French settlers opposed to concessions in the face of Arab nationalist insurrection led to the fall of the French government and a presidential invitation to de Gaulle to form an emergency government to forestall the threat of civil war. Swiftly replacing the existing constitution with one strengthening the powers of the presidency, he became the elected president in December of that year, inaugurating France's Fifth Republic.

In 1959, in an occasion marking the first time in the 20th century that the people of France went to the polls to elect a president by direct ballot, de Gaulle won re-election with a 55% share of the vote, defeating François Mitterrand.

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.

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.

One of the most important events during the Third Republic was the Dreyfus Affair, a political scandal that highlighted the dangerous levels of Anti-semitism and clerical power in the higher reaches of the French political and military systems, towards the end of the 19th century, which ultimately led to the speedy passing of the 1905 law on laïcité, split the whole nation and is referred to in most of the issues in France since that date.

After the war of 1689-1697 gained France only Haiti (lost to a slave revolt a century later), the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713) ended with the undoing of Louis's dreams of a Franco-Spanish Bourbon empire: the two conflicts strained French resources already weakened by disastrous harvests in the 1690s and in 1709, as well as by the revocation (1685) of the Edict of Nantes and the consequent loss of Huguenot support and manpower.

The national government of France is divided into an executive branch, a legislative branch and a judiciary branch. The President of France has some direct executive power but most of the formal power resides in his appointee the Prime Minister of France, the choice of which in practice has to be approved by the French National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament (see below for a discussion of the division of power between the President and Prime Minister). Parliament passes statutes and votes the budget; it also controls the action of the executive through questioning and enquiry commissions. The constitutionality of the statutes is checked by the Constitutional Council. Finally, the independent judiciary is divided into the judicial branch (dealing with civil and criminal law) and the administrative branch (dealing with recourses against executive decisions), each with their own independent supreme court. In addition, the French government comprises various bodies checking against possible abuses of power and independant agencies.