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. It also includes overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, 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 north east, Switzerland to the east, Italy and Monaco to the south east, Andorra and Spain to the south, and a maritime border with the United Kingdom to the north west. 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 overseas 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. 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 . France is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre; other major urban areas include Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Lille, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Nantes and Nice.

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 Germanic 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 French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars significantly shaped the course of European history. 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 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 Allied powers of World War II, but it surrendered and was occupied by the Axis 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 and Moroccan War of Independence. 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 third-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the world's leading tourist destination, receiving over 89 million foreign visitors in 2018. France is a developed country with a high nominal per capita income globally and its advanced economy ranks among the largest in the world. It is a great power in global affairs, 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 key 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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The France national rugby union team (French: Équipe de France de rugby à XV) represents the French Rugby Federation (FFR; Fédération française de rugby) in men's international rugby union matches. Colloquially known as Le XV de France (French for "The XV of France"), the team traditionally wears blue shirts with a Gallic rooster embroidered on the chest, white shorts and red socks in reference to the French national flag. Les Bleus (French for "The Blues") mostly play home matches at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, near Paris. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship along with England, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. France have won the tournament on 26 occasions (as well as sharing 8 victories), winning the Grand Slam 10 times.

Rugby was introduced to France in 1872 by the British before a first France national team was formed in 1893 (as a selection of the best Parisian-club players under the USFSA governance) to face a club in England. A few years later, on New Year's Day 1906, the national side played its first test match against New Zealand in Paris. France then played sporadically against the Home Nations until they joined them in 1910 to form the Five Nations Championship. France also competed in the rugby competitions at early Summer Olympics, winning the gold medal in 1900 and two silver medals in the 1920s. The national team came of age during the 1950s and 1960s, winning their first Five Nations title outright in 1959. They won their first Grand Slam in 1968. Their last win in the tournament dates back to 2022 under head coach and former team-captain Fabien Galthié, who is currently in charge of the selection. (Full article...)

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Nostradamus: original portrait by his son Cesar
Michel de Nostredame (14 or 21 December 1503 – 2 July 1566), usually Latinised as Nostradamus, was a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous worldwide. He is best known for his book Les Propheties (The Prophecies), the first edition of which appeared in 1555. Since the publication of this book, which has rarely been out of print since his death, Nostradamus has attracted a following that, along with much of the popular press, credits him with predicting many major world events.

Most academic sources maintain that the associations made between world events and Nostradamus's quatrains are largely the result of misinterpretations or mistranslations (sometimes deliberate) or else are so tenuous as to render them useless as evidence of any genuine predictive power. Nevertheless, occasional commentators have successfully used a process of free interpretation and determined 'twisting' of their words to predict an apparently imminent event.

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A Rouennaise duckling served with Rouennaise sauce
Pressed duck (French: canard à la presse, caneton à la presse, canard à la rouennaise, caneton à la rouennaise or canard au sang) is a traditional French dish. The complex dish is a specialty of Rouen and its creation attributed to an innkeeper from the city of Duclair. Since the 19th century, it has also been a specialty of the Tour d'Argent restaurant in Paris where it is formally known as the Caneton Tour d'Argent (Tour d'Argent duckling). It consists of various parts of a duck served in a sauce of its blood and bone marrow, which is extracted by way of a press. It has been considered "the height of elegance." (Full article...)

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General Count Nansouty

Étienne-Marie-Antoine Champion, comte de Nansouty (French pronunciation: [etjɛn maʁi ɑ̃twan ʃɑ̃pjɔ̃ kɔ̃t nɑ̃suti]; 30 May 1768 – 12 February 1815) was a French cavalry commander during the French Revolutionary Wars who rose to the rank of General of Division in 1803 and subsequently held important military commands during the Napoleonic Wars.

Of noble Burgundian descent, he was a student at the Brienne military school, then was a graduate of the Paris military school. Nansouty began his military career in 1785, as a sub-lieutenant in the regiment Bourgogne-Infanterie, where his father had served during the wars of Louis XV. A cavalry officer at the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1792, Nansouty was commissioned as an aide-de-camp to Marshal Nicolas Luckner. During the First Coalition, he saw service as a lieutenant-colonel and squadron commander in the 9th (heavy) Cavalry Regiment, campaigning with the French armies on the Rhine and in Germany. Promoted to colonel in 1793 and given the command of the 9th Cavalry, he was noted for several well-led cavalry actions. Finally made a brigadier general in 1799, after he had refused the promotion several times in the past, Nansouty fought the next year under General Jean Victor Moreau in southern Germany, in a decisive campaign of the Second Coalition. (Full article...)
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14 May 2024 –
The 77th annual Cannes Film Festival opens in Cannes, France, with an honorary Palme d'Or award for Meryl Streep. (AP)
Two prison guards are killed and three are critically injured during an ambush against a prison van near Rouen, Normandy, France. An inmate escaped alongside the attackers. (BBC News)
8 May 2024 – 2024 Summer Olympics torch relay
The ship Belem arrives in Marseille, France, with the Olympic flame. (AP)
4 May 2024 – International reactions to the Israel–Hamas war
Palestinian doctor and rector at the University of Glasgow Ghassan Abu-Sittah is denied entry into France after landing at Charles de Gaulle airport on his way to speak at the French Senate. Last month, he was denied entry into Germany. (Al Jazeera)

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Vannes Cathedral.

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