France
France is a unitary semi-presidential state in Western Europe. It is one of the members of the Catholic Treaty. France is an agro-based state with a shrinking military industry. After the Energy Crisis of 2065, the French urban areas were largely abandoned and most of the population shifted to agriculture. A large part of this population now serves to grow food as nearly all food production equipment has become non-existent. The current French President is Louise Beaumont, and she has been in power since 2077. In 2085, Beaumont removed term limits and got re-elected for the fifth consecutive term in 2097.
During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476, who formed the Kingdom of France. France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages following its victory in the Hundred Years' War (1337 to 1453). During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would be the second largest in the world.
In the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire. His subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. France was a major participant in World War I, from which it emerged victorious, and was one of the Allied Powers in World War II, but came under occupation by the Axis powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War. The Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and was dissolved with the formation of the Catholic Treaty. In 2037, President Arthur Durand announced the Sixth Republic, which is the current republic. The Sixth Republic had a heavier focus on religion and morality in governance. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s and typically retained close economic and military connections with France. Other offshore territories were slowly lost after the energy crisis of 2065 as France could no longer enforce its government.
France has long been a global centre of art, science, and philosophy. In recent years, the French economy has taken a significant dip. It has a high GDP, however, most of the production is in the form of high-demand foodgrain that is consumed within the state. After 2065, the only French industries to still have any power are the medical, agricultural and military industries. Most of France is dependent on a speculated 7 offshore nuclear plants. However, there have been reports of British attacks on the same.
France is a former member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and used to be a permanent member of the now dissolved UN Security Council.
Demographics
80% of the French population live in semi-rural villages. 70% of the population is engaged in agriculture or agriculture-based industries. The only remaining metropolitan area in France is Paris, with a population of nearly 2 million. Other metropolitan areas do exist, however they comprise of administrative and military personnel only. The richest of the French are the ruling elite, followed closely by the surprisingly wealthy middle-class medical personnel. Around 2% of the population is engaged in medicine, and the high demand makes it a highly sought after skills.
Other professions include factory working, but with the lack of industrial power, that has become a profession where there is scarcely a job opening. Medieval professions have made a surprising comeback, with blacksmithery skyrocketing as certain Gendarmerie using swords and people in households also desiring swords and hand-held weapons for self-defence.
86% of the population is estimated Roman-Catholic, though the exact number is unverified.
Government
France is a constitutional republic. The Government of the French Republic exercises executive power in France. It is composed of a prime minister, who is the head of government, and both junior and senior ministers. Senior ministers are titled as Ministers, whereas junior ministers are titled as Secretaries of State. A smaller and more powerful executive body, called the Council of Ministers, is composed only of the senior ministers, though some Secretaries of State may attend Council meetings.
All members of the French government are appointed by the President of the Republic on the advice of the Prime Minister. Members of the government are ranked in a precise order, which is established at the time of government formation. In this hierarchy, the Prime Minister is the head of government. He is appointed by the President of the Republic.
The French President holds supreme power since the establishment of the Sixth Republic.
Defences
The French Armed Forces encompass the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the National Guard and the Gendarmerie of the French Republic. The French Army is a relatively well-equipped, however, the weapons are fairly outdated, with most of the infantry using FAMAS F1 infantry rifles. The Gendarmerie is the organisation that enforce the laws, however, it is very underequipped. The Gendarmerie is highly independent in its functioning and often Gendarmerie enforce personal laws instead of state laws, despite the heavy brainwashing during the training process. Some reports of Gendarmerie using medieval weaponry have also surfaced, however, they are mostly unconfirmed.
Army: 115,450 active personnel, 20,755 reserved personnel
Navy: 42,347 personnel, 195 ships, 260 aircraft
Air Force: 47,100 personnel, 715 aircraft
Gendarmerie: 109,000 active personnel, 29,500 reserved personnel
National Guard: 81,700 personnel
Industry & Trade
France depends heavily on the assets it receives from the Papal States and the Catholic Treaty. It is supported heavily by the Papal States in terms of military weapons and equipment, as well as training programmes. France has made several requests for synthetic fuel from fellow Catholic Treaty members, but all such requests have been refused.
Infrastructure
Most of the French infrastructure is made up of abandoned buildings after 2065. The only functioning industrial zone is the Paris-area where weapons as well as necessary equipment for the running of the nuclear plants are produced. Most of the electrical equipment is barely working, and it is estimated that 30% of the country does not have electricity.
Despite this, the French military is reasonable equipped, though the Gendarmerie is severely underequipped. The nuclear power sources are still in function post the deconstruction of the nuclear weapons, however France does face a uranium shortage in the current day. All attempts to synthesize oil have thus far failed to reveal any result with a high enough energy production that could allow for the resettlement of French metropolitan areas.
70% of French land is under agriculture, with any fertile land being used for crop production. Non-fertile land is chemically treated to increase fertility. The rest of the land is either non-fertile barren, abandoned metropolitan, or concentrated around the Paris region.
History
The oldest traces of human life in what is now France date from approximately 1.8 million years ago. Humans were then confronted by a harsh and variable climate, marked by several glacial eras. In 600 BC, Ionian Greeks, originating from Phocaea, founded the colony of Massalia (present-day Marseille), on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. This makes it France's oldest city. At the same time, some Gallic Celtic tribes penetrated parts of the current territory of France, and this occupation spread to the rest of France between the 5th and 3rd century BC. The Roman-era Theatre of Autun (Latin: Augustodunum) in Saône-et-Loire is one of the main historical sites of Burgundy.
The concept of Gaul emerged at that time; it corresponds to the territories of Celtic settlement ranging between the Rhine, the Atlantic Ocean, the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean. The borders of modern France are roughly the same as those of ancient Gaul, which was inhabited by Celtic Gauls. Gaul was then a prosperous country, of which the southernmost part was heavily subject to Greek and Roman cultural and economic influences.
The pagan Franks, from whom the ancient name of "Francie" was derived, originally settled the north part of Gaul, but under Clovis I conquered most of the other kingdoms in northern and central Gaul. In 498, Clovis I was the first Germanic conqueror after the fall of the Roman Empire to convert to Catholic Christianity.
The Carolingian dynasty ruled France until 987, when Hugh Capet, Duke of France and Count of Paris, was crowned King of the Franks. His descendants—the Capetians, the House of Valois, and the House of Bourbon—progressively unified the country through wars and dynastic inheritance into the Kingdom of France, which was fully declared in 1190 by Philip II Augustus. The French nobility played a prominent role in most Crusades in order to restore Christian access to the Holy Land. The monarchy reached its peak during the 17th century and the reign of Louis XIV. By turning powerful feudal lords into courtiers at the Palace of Versailles, Louis XIV's personal power became unchallenged. Remembered for his numerous wars, he made France the leading European power. France became the most populous country in Europe and had tremendous influence over European politics, economy, and culture. French became the most-used language in diplomacy, science, literature and international affairs, and remained so until the 20th century.
Facing financial troubles, King Louis XVI summoned the Estates-General (gathering the three Estates of the realm) in May 1789 to propose solutions to his government. As it came to an impasse, the representatives of the Third Estate formed into a National Assembly, signalling the outbreak of the French Revolution. Fearing that the king would suppress the newly created National Assembly, insurgents stormed the Bastille on 14 July 1789, a date which would become France's National Day.
In early August 1789, the National Constituent Assembly abolished the privileges of the nobility such as personal serfdom and exclusive hunting rights. Through the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (27 August 1789) France established fundamental rights for men. The Declaration affirms "the natural and imprescriptible rights of man" to "liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression". Freedom of speech and press were declared, and arbitrary arrests outlawed. It called for the destruction of aristocratic privileges and proclaimed freedom and equal rights for all men, as well as access to public office based on talent rather than birth.
In November 1789, the Assembly decided to nationalize and sell all property of the Roman Catholic Church which had been the largest landowner in the country. In July 1790, a Civil Constitution of the Clergy reorganised the French Catholic Church, cancelling the authority of the Church to levy taxes, et cetera. This fueled much discontent in parts of France, which would contribute to the civil war breaking out some years later. While King Louis XVI still enjoyed popularity among the population, his disastrous flight to Varennes (June 1791) seemed to justify rumours he had tied his hopes of political salvation to the prospects of foreign invasion. His credibility was so deeply undermined that the abolition of the monarchy and establishment of a republic became an increasing possibility.
In August 1791, the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia in the Declaration of Pillnitz threatened revolutionary France to intervene by force of arms to restore the French absolute monarchy. In September 1791, the National Constituent Assembly forced King Louis XVI to accept the French Constitution of 1791, thus turning the French absolute monarchy into a constitutional monarchy. In the newly established Legislative Assembly (October 1791), enmity developed and deepened between a group, later called the 'Girondins', who favoured war with Austria and Prussia, and a group later called 'Montagnards' or 'Jacobins', who opposed such a war. A majority in the Assembly in 1792, however, saw a war with Austria and Prussia as a chance to boost the popularity of the revolutionary government and thought that France would win a war against those gathered monarchies. On 20 April 1792, therefore, they declared war on Austria.
On 10 August 1792, an angry crowd threatened the palace of King Louis XVI, who took refuge in the Legislative Assembly. A Prussian army invaded France later in August 1792. In early September, Parisians, infuriated by the Prussian army capturing Verdun and counter-revolutionary uprisings in the west of France, murdered between 1,000 and 1,500 prisoners by raiding the Parisian prisons. The Assembly and the Paris city council seemed unable to stop that bloodshed. The National Convention, chosen in the first elections under male universal suffrage, on 20 September 1792 succeeded the Legislative Assembly and on 21 September abolished the monarchy by proclaiming the French First Republic. Ex-King Louis XVI was convicted of treason and guillotined in January 1793. France had declared war on England and the Dutch Republic in November 1792 and did the same on Spain in March 1793; in the spring of 1793, Austria, Great Britain and the Dutch Republic invaded France; in March, France created a "sister republic" in the "Republic of Mainz".
Also in March 1793, the civil war of the Vendée against Paris started, evoked by both the Civil Constitution of the Clergy of 1790 and the nationwide army conscription early 1793; elsewhere in France rebellion was brewing too. A factionalist feud in the National Convention, smouldering ever since October 1791, came to a climax with the group of the 'Girondins' on 2 June 1793 being forced to resign and leave the Convention. The counter-revolution, begun in March 1793 in the Vendée, by July had spread to Brittany, Normandy, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Toulon, Lyon. Paris' Convention government between October and December 1793 with brutal measures managed to subdue most internal uprisings, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives. Some historians consider the civil war to have lasted until 1796 with a toll of possibly 450,000 lives. France in February 1794 abolished slavery in its American colonies but would reintroduce it later.
Political disagreements and enmity in the National Convention between October 1793 and July 1794 reached unprecedented levels, leading to dozens of Convention members being sentenced to death and guillotined. Meanwhile, France's external wars in 1794 were going prosperous, for example in Belgium. In 1795, the government seemed to return to indifference towards the desires and needs of the lower classes concerning freedom of (Catholic) religion and fair distribution of food. Until 1799, politicians, apart from inventing a new parliamentary system (the 'Directory'), busied themselves with dissuading the people from Catholicism and from royalism.
Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of the Republic in 1799 becoming First Consul and later Emperor of the French Empire (1804–1814; 1815). As a continuation of the wars sparked by the European monarchies against the French Republic, changing sets of European Coalitions declared wars on Napoleon's Empire. His armies conquered most of continental Europe with swift victories such as the battles of Jena-Auerstadt or Austerlitz. Members of the Bonaparte family were appointed as monarchs in some of the newly established kingdoms. These victories led to the worldwide expansion of French revolutionary ideals and reforms, such as the Metric system, the Napoleonic Code and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. After the catastrophic Russian campaign, and the ensuing uprising of European monarchies against his rule, Napoleon was defeated and the Bourbon monarchy restored. About a million Frenchmen died during the Napoleonic Wars. After his brief return from exile, Napoleon was finally defeated in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo, the monarchy was re-established (1815–1830), with new constitutional limitations.
The discredited Bourbon dynasty was overthrown by the July Revolution of 1830, which established the constitutional July Monarchy. In that year, French troops conquered Algeria, establishing the first colonial presence in Africa since Napoleon's abortive invasion of Egypt in 1798. According to historian Ben Kiernan, the French conquest and pacification of Algeria from 1830 until the early twentieth century slaughtered 825,000 Algerian people. French losses from 1831–51 were 3,336 killed in action and 92,329 dead in the hospital.
France was a member of the Triple Entente when World War I broke out. A small part of Northern France was occupied, but France and its allies emerged victorious against the Central Powers at a tremendous human and material cost. In 1940, France was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany. Metropolitan France was divided into a German occupation zone in the north and Vichy France, a newly established authoritarian regime collaborating with Germany, in the south, while Free France, the government-in-exile led by Charles de Gaulle, was set up in London. On 6 June 1944 the Allies invaded Normandy and in August they invaded Provence. Over the following year the Allies and the French Resistance emerged victorious over the Axis powers and French sovereignty was restored with the establishment of the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF). This interim government, established by de Gaulle, aimed to continue to wage war against Germany and to purge collaborators from office. It also made several important reforms (suffrage extended to women, the creation of a social security system). The GPRF laid the groundwork for a new constitutional order that resulted in the Fourth Republic, which saw spectacular economic growth. France was one of the founding members of NATO (1949).
France was a founding member of the Catholic Treaty (2037). As the Energy Crisis of 2065 drew closer, France launched multiple programmes to create a synthetic fuel, but failed to do so. Most of French society collapsed and turned agrarian as the government slowly turned into a dictatorial regime with bare token power, ensured by religious manipulation.
Geography
France is bordered by the North Sea in the north, the English Channel in the northwest, the Atlantic Ocean in the west and the Mediterranean sea in the southeast. Its land borders consist of Belgium and Luxembourg in the northeast, the Papal States in the east, Italy and Monaco in the southeast, and Andorra and Spain in the south and southwest. With the exception of the northeast, most of France's land borders are roughly delineated by natural boundaries and geographic features: to the south and southeast, the Pyrenees and the Alps and the Jura, respectively, and to the east, the Rhine river. The terrain of France is mostly flat plains or gently rolling hills in the north and west and mountainous in the south, including the Pyrenees and the east, the highest points being in the Alps mountain range.
Natural Resources
Although diverse, the natural resources of France are relatively limited in quantity. France has some coal, iron ores, bauxite, and uranium; but the coal veins are deep and difficult to work and are unsuitable for use in the manufacture of steel. Iron ores are of a low grade, and the uranium ore is found only in small quantities. France depends on imports to satisfy its industrial needs.
Other natural resources include zinc, antimony, arsenic, potash, feldspar, fluorspar, gypsum etc.
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