France Education

Universities I Colleges I Schools I Private Training I English Schools

Education
French centers of learning, beginning with the French universities of the Middle Ages, particularly in the University of Paris, founded in the 12th century, and continuing down to the modern universities and technical schools, all have served as academic models throughout the world. Among the French educators who had notable influence are Peter Abelard in the 12th century, Michel de Montaigne in the 16th century, François Fénelon and Jean Jacques Rousseau in the 18th century, and Victor Cousin in the 19th century.
 

The centralization of school administration, with the state as the fundamental power in education, evolved under the leadership of Napoleon between 1806 and 1808. The modern educational system is based on laws enacted between 1881 and 1886 under the influence of Jules Ferry, minister of education. These laws provided for free, compulsory public education entirely under government control. Among later modifications were the establishment of free tuition in secondary and technical schools; the separation of church and state in education in 1905; the legislation of aid to private schools, including those with religious affiliations, in 1951 and 1959; and, in 1959, the extension of compulsory school attendance to the age of 16. In response to strong student demands, educational reforms were approved in 1968 by President Charles de Gaulle and his cabinet. Specifically, the new system did away with the control of budgets, curricula, and hiring throughout the nation by the ministry of education. Instead, it established educational units at various levels, gave faculties control of hirings and promotions, and gave students a greater voice in university life. The authority of university professors occupying lifetime chairs to vote on new appointments was abolished, and the establishment of more democratic departmental structures on a subject basis was indicated for universities. Several of the large universities were restructured into smaller units, and the number of French universities increased from 23 to about 70 in the 1980s.

Elementary and Secondary Schools
For administrative purposes, the country is divided into 27 educational districts called académies. In the late 1980s some 4.1 million pupils annually attended about 47,000 elementary schools. In addition, about 5.4 million students attended some 11,200 secondary schools.

Universities and Colleges
Approximately 1.2 million students were enrolled annually at university and college facilities in France in the late 1980s. Besides the Universities of Paris I-XIII, noted French institutes of higher education include the Universities of Aix-Marseille I-III, the Universities of Lille I-III, the Universities of Lyon I-III, the Universities of Nancy I-II, and the Universities of Strasbourg I-III.

France (French République Française), republic in western Europe, bounded on the north by the English Channel, the Strait of Dover, and the North Sea (which separate it from Great Britain); on the northeast by Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany; on the east by Germany, Switzerland, and Italy; on the southeast by the Mediterranean Sea; on the south by Spain; and on the west by the Bay of Biscay (an arm of the Atlantic Ocean). France is approximately hexagonal in shape, with an extreme length from north to south of about 965 km (about 600 mi) and a maximum width of about 935 km (about 580 mi). The capital and largest city is Paris. The republic of France includes ten overseas possessions. These include the overseas departments of French Guiana, in South America; Martinique and Guadeloupe, in the West Indies; and Reunion, in the Indian Ocean. Territorial collectivities and dependencies include Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Mayotte, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, the Southern and Antarctic Territories, and Wallis and Futuna Islands. The total area of metropolitan France, which also includes the island of Corsica in the Mediterranean, is 543,965 sq km (210,026 sq mi).

Land and Resources
The chief physiographic features of France are its natural eastern and southern boundaries, a south central plateau, and, contiguous to the plateau, a vast region of rolling plains. A series of massive mountain ranges, including a number of ranges of the Alps and the Jura, form natural boundaries at the Franco-Italian and most of the Franco-Swiss borders. With flanking chains and foothills, these ranges dominate the area east of the south central plateau. Many of the Alpine mountains extending across and along the French border are more than 3962 m (13,000 ft) above sea level; Mont Blanc (4807 m/15,771 ft) is the second highest peak on the continent. The Jura, which have a maximum elevation, on the Franco-Swiss boundary, of about 1710 m (about 5600 ft), delineate the eastern frontier of France from the eastern extension of the Rhône River Valley to the Belfort Gap, the broad depression linking the basins of the Rhine and the Saone rivers. From the edge of the Belfort Gap to the northeastern corner of France, the Franco-German border is formed by the Rhine River. The Vosges mountains, extending north from the Belfort Gap, dominate the region between the Moselle and the Rhine rivers. The highest elevations in the Vosges Mountains reach about 1435 m (about 4700 ft). The Pyrenees, which extend along the Franco-Spanish frontier from the Mediterranean Sea to the Bay of Biscay, form the other mountain boundary of France. Pic de Vignemale (3298 m/10,820 ft) is the highest French peak in the Pyrenees. The Pyrenees are traversed by few passes, a circumstance that has traditionally hampered commerce between France and Spain. The Alpine and other ranges in the east are, however, broken by gaps and passes, notably the passes of Saint Bernard (see SAINT BERNARD, GREAT).
The south central plateau, known as the Massif Central, is separated from the eastern highland region by the valley of the Rhône River. This elevated region has an irregular relief and conformation. The plateau, rising gradually from the plains region on the north and west, is characterized by volcanic outcroppings; by deeply eroded limestone tablelands to the south of the region of extinct volcanoes; and, farther to the south, by the Cevennes, a series of highlands rising from the Mediterranean coastal depressions.
The plains region, by far the most extensive section of the terrain of France, is a projection of the Great Plain of Europe. Except for a few hilly outcroppings, chiefly in the west central portion, the French plains consist of gently undulating lowlands, with an elevation of about 200 m (about 650 ft) above sea level. The outstanding features of the plains region, the most fertile in France, are the valleys of the Seine, Loire, and Garonne rivers. Together with numerous tributaries, these rivers drain the Atlantic watershed of France. The Rhône River is the largest in the country in terms of volume of discharge. With its tributaries, particularly the Saône, Isère, and Durance rivers, it drains the French Alpine region. Among the principal tributaries of the Seine River, which is the main artery of the national inland waterway system, are the Aube, Marne, Oise, and Yonne rivers. Nearly all of the French streams, totaling more than 200, are commercially navigable for varying distances. France has only a few lakes. Lake Geneva, situated astride the Franco-Swiss frontier, lies mainly in Switzerland.
The coastline of France, about 3140 km (about 1950 mi) long, has relatively few natural harbors. The northern coast, along the English Channel and the North Sea, is about 1130 km (about 700 mi) long and is broken by a number of promontories, river estuaries, and minor indentations, few of which provide safe anchorages. Le Havre Harbor is the one outstanding exception. As at Cherbourg, a number of harbors have been formed in this region by the construction of breakwaters. The western coastline of France along the Atlantic, including the Bay of Biscay, is about 1390 km (about 865 mi) long. From the Brittany peninsula to the Gironde, the Atlantic coastline of France is irregular in outline, and, except in Brittany, is low and sandy. The principal harbors on this part of the coast are those of Brest, Lorient, and Saint-Nazaire. Bordeaux is inland on the Gironde. Southward of the Gironde, the coastline consists of an almost continuous stretch of dunes, bordered by arid moors. The best natural harbors of France, including the harbors of Marseille, Toulon, and Nice, are on the Mediterranean. A major part of the French Mediterranean coast, which is about 620 km (385 mi) long, is bounded, however, by rocks or shallow water.

Climate
The climate of France is generally temperate, but wide regional contrasts occur, as in the Mediterranean coastal area, where semitropical conditions prevail, and in the plateau and eastern highlands regions, where the climate is uniformly bleak. Temperatures along the Atlantic seaboard are equalized by ocean currents and the prevailing southwestern winds. In the interior, particularly the northeastern region, severe winters and hot summers are usual. The mean temperature in Paris is 3° C (37° F) in January and 18° C (64° F) in July. At Lyon, the January average is the same as in Paris, and the July temperature is 20° C (68° F). Precipitation is 573 mm (22.6 in) per year in Paris, and 764 mm (30.1 in) annually in Lyon. The heaviest rainfalls occur in June and October. Regional variations in precipitation range between 1397 mm (55 in) annually in the mountainous areas and 254 mm (10 in) annually in certain northern lowland areas. One of the meteorological peculiarities of southern France is the mistral, a violent northern wind of the Mediterranean region, originating in the central plateau region.

Natural Resources
France is richly endowed with an excellent balance of both mineral and agricultural resources. The nation is among the leading producers in the world of both iron ore and coal. In addition, France has sizable deposits of antimony, bauxite, magnesium, pyrites, tungsten, salt, potash, radioactive materials, lead, and zinc. Production of natural gas, petroleum, and sulfur is being developed.
France has extensive tracts of fertile soils, the richest of which are the marine sediments of the Paris Basin and the well-watered alluvial soils of the lower valleys of the Seine and Somme rivers.

Plants and Animals
The native plant life of France shows the variety characteristic of continental Europe. It ranges from arctic-alpine lichens and mosses to such semitropical species as olive and orange trees. Various species of both coniferous and deciduous trees are found in the forests, which cover about 14.7 million hectares (about 36.3 million acres), or about 27 percent of the area of France. The principal forest trees are the chestnut, beech, oak, cork, walnut, fir, and pinaster. Like that of western Europe generally, the fauna of France includes few specimens of the larger mammals; the most common of these are the deer and the fox. The chamois is found in the higher Alpine regions, and the wolf and wild boar survive in remote forest areas. Among the smaller animals found in the region are the porcupine and several carnivores of the weasel family. France has a wide variety and abundance of birdlife, including both indigenous and migratory species. Reptiles are rare, and the only venomous type of reptile in France is the adder. Cyprinoids are the most characteristic freshwater fish found in the country. The Atlantic and Mediterranean coastal waters contain numerous species of fish, including cod, herring, whiting, mackerel, flounder, sardine, and tuna.

Population
More than 85 percent of the French are native-born, and the population is mostly white. The largest foreign-born groups are Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Poles, West Africans, and North Africans.

Population
The population of France was estimated at 57,566,091 in 1993, giving the country an overall population density of about 106 people per sq km (about 274 per sq mi). About three-fourths of the population is classified as urban.

Political Divisions
Metropolitan France, including Corsica, is composed of 22 regions, which are subdivided into 96 departments. The regions are Île-de-France, Rhône-Alps, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Alsace, Aquitaine, Auvergne, Basse-Normandie, Burgundy, Brittany, Centre, Champagne-Ardenne, Corsica, Franche-Comte, Haute-Normandie, Languedoc-Roussillon, Limousin, Lorraine, Midi-Pyrénées, Pays de la Loire, Picardie, Poitou-Charentes, and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azure.

Principal Cities
The capital and largest city of France is Paris, which had a population (1990) of 2,152,423/metropolitan area, 9,060,297. Marseille (800,550/1,231,000) is a chief port, and Lyon (415,487/1,262,000) is an industrial center, specializing in textiles. Other major cities include Toulouse (358,688/608,430), an industrial and trade center; Nice (342,439/475,507), a resort; Strasbourg (252,338/388,483), a Rhine River port and industrial and commercial center; Nantes (244,995/492,255), noted for sugar refining, shipbuilding, and a variety of other industries; Bordeaux (210,336/685,456), a seaport and wine and industrial center; and Montpellier (207,996/236,788), a commercial and manufacturing center. More than 25 additional cities had populations of more than 100,000 in 1990.

Religion
Roman Catholicism is the faith of about 75 percent of French churchgoers. Islam, Protestantism, and Judaism are next in importance. During the 19th century, the Christian and Jewish religions were subsidized by the state. In 1905, because of popular opposition to the political influence of the Roman Catholic church and to Catholic control of public education, legislation prohibited the payment of public funds to the Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish clergy. By the provisions of that and subsequent legislation, the French government withdrew official recognition of religious denominations.

Language
French, the official language, is used by the great majority of persons in France. In addition, regional languages remain in some areas. For example, Breton is spoken in Brittany, Basque and Catalan are spoken in the Pyrenees Mountain region, Provençal is spoken in Provence, Dutch is spoken in Flanders, and German is spoken in Alsace and Lorraine. The German dialect spoken in Alsace is called Alsatian. See FRENCH LANGUAGE; PROVENCAL LANGUAGE; BASQUE LANGUAGE; CATALAN LANGUAGE; GERMAN LANGUAGE.

Education and Cultural Activity
French education and culture have had far-reaching influence throughout its long history.



Culture
The culture of France has profoundly influenced that of the entire Western world, particularly in the areas of art and letters, and Paris has long been regarded as the fountainhead of French culture. France first attained cultural preeminence in Europe during the Middle Ages; later, the wealth of the French crown in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries provided a subsidization of art on a scale comparable to that of the papacy in Rome, attracting to Paris many of Europe's most talented artists and artisans. Wealth also created a leisure class, which had both the time and the means for developing elegance in dress, manners, furnishings, and architecture. French styles still pervade much of Western culture. In the 20th century French cinematography assumed a leading world position, particularly in the 1960s with the nouvelle vague (“new wave”) group of film directors.

Literature
See FRENCH LITERATURE.

Art and Architecture
France has produced many world-famous painters, and several influential schools of painting, including impressionism, were developed here. Among French Mannerist painters of the 16th century were Jean Clouet and his son François; 17th-century baroque artists included Georges de La Tour, Nicolas Poussin, and Claude Lorrain. The most renowned French rococo masters of the 18th century were Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, Jean Fragonard, Jean Chardin, and Jean Greuze. Paris became the chief art center of Europe in the 19th century. Jacques Louis David, whose highly influential career began in the last quarter of the 18th century, was most active in the early 19th century, as were the romantic painters J. A. D. Ingres, Eugène Delacroix, and Théodore Géricault. Noted realist artists of the mid-19th century were Gustave Courbet, Honoré Daumier, Jean François Millet, and Jean Baptiste Camille Corot. The impressionist school, influenced by Édouard Manet, emerged around 1872; its most important members were the painters Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre Auguste Renoir. Major French postimpressionist painters of the late 19th century were Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, and Paul Gauguin; also active in this period were Henri Rousseau and Gustave Moreau. Internationally known French artists of the 20th century include Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Georges Roualt, Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger, Pierre Bonnard, and Jean Dubuffet.
France is renowned for its great Gothic churches, built from the 12th to 15th century. Particularly significant are the abbey church at Saint-Denis, the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, and the cathedrals at Amiens, Chartres, Paris, and Reims. Splendid Renaissance structures include the palace at Fontainebleau and the famous châteaux of the Loire River valley. The outstanding baroque buildings in France are the neoclassicized enlargements of the enormous royal palace at Versailles and the Louvre, in Paris. Among the outstanding structures of the 19th century are the Second Empire Paris Opera (1861-1875) of Charles Garnier and the wrought-iron Eiffel Tower (1889), the symbol of Paris. The pioneering 20th-century architect Auguste Perret and the very influential Le Corbusier (a Swiss living in Paris) were noted for designing daring structures, mainly of concrete and steel.

Music
France has a long and distinguished musical tradition. From the 11th to the 13th century, chansons de geste (“song of deeds”), epic poems sung by minstrels, were produced in northern France, and the troubadours, aristocratic poet-musicians who wrote famous songs dealing chiefly with courtly love, war, and nature, were active in southern France.
The most influential French composer of the 14th century was Guillaume de Machaut, who contributed to the polyphonic form of composition. In the 15th and 16th centuries, songs, motets, and settings of parts of the Mass were among the leading French musical compositions.
In the second half of the 17th century, the Italian-born composer Jean Baptiste Lully created a French operatic style by combining traditional court spectacle with plots of contemporary French dramas, set to musical forms from ballet, dance, and Italian opera. In the early 18th century noted works for harpsichord were composed by François Couperin and Jean Rameau; the latter is also known for his operas.
In the late 18th and 19th centuries, many foreign-born opera composers were active in Paris; these included C. W. von Gluck, Luigi Cherubini, A. E. M. Grétry, Giacomo Meyerbeer, and Jacques Offenbach. French-born opera composers of the 19th century included Jacques Halévy, Charles Gounod, Georges Bizet, and Jules Massenet.
The chief French composer of orchestral music in the early 19th century was Hector Berlioz. Camille Saint-Saëns became active in the 1850s, and he later taught Gabriel Fauré, who composed in a wide variety of forms. Toward the end of the 19th century Claude Debussy composed noted works in new styles influenced by trends in literature and painting.
In the early 20th century Maurice Ravel produced works with more formal outlines. Les Six, a group of neoclassic composers formed in 1918-1919, included Erik Satie, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, and Georges Auric. The influential Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky worked in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. More recent French composers include Olivier Messiaen and Pierre Boulez.

Libraries and Museums
Most provincial cities in France have municipal libraries and museums. The largest concentration of such facilities is, however, in Paris. Major libraries in Paris include the Bibliothèque Nationale, with more than 9 million books, and the libraries of the Universities of Paris. The Louvre, also in Paris, contains one of the largest and most important art collections in the world. Another Parisian museum, the Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges-Pompidou, also contains major collections, notably of 20th-century painting and design. Many of the great masterpieces of French architecture, such as churches, cathedrals, castles, and châteaux, are maintained as national monuments.


Economy
France, once primarily agricultural, has become increasingly industrialized since World War II (1939-1945). During the postwar period, the government instituted a series of wide-ranging plans designed to foster national recovery and increase governmental direction of the economy. Included in the so-called Monnet plans was the principle of nationalization of certain industries, notably railroad and air transportation systems, major banks, and coal mines. The government, in addition, became a major shareholder in the automotive, electronics, and aircraft industries, as well as the primary investor in the development of both oil and natural-gas reserves. Partly as a result of such plans and programs, the national product of France increased by nearly 50 percent between 1949 and 1954, by 46 percent between 1956 and 1964, and at an average annual rate of 3.8 percent during the 1970s. In 1981 the new Socialist government began a major program of nationalizing industries; the election of a conservative government in 1986, however, led to a reduction of the state role in the economy. In 1992 France's gross domestic product totaled $1.27 trillion, or about $22,060 per capita. The national budget included $169.6 billion in revenues and $184.5 billion in expenditures.

Agriculture
About 35 percent of the total area of France is arable, and about 6 percent of the labor force is engaged in agricultural pursuits, along with forestry and fishing. Under normal conditions French farms, which are mainly small-scale enterprises averaging about 15 hectares (about 37 acres) each, produce sufficient cereal grains and other basic foodstuffs for national domestic needs. A valuable product of the soil is the wine grape. France and Italy lead the world in the production of wine; yearly French output in the late 1980s was about 7 billion liters (about 1.8 billion gal).
Annual production of the principal field crops in 1991 included sugar beets (29.3 million metric tons), wheat (34.5 million), potatoes (6.3 million), corn (12.8 million) and barley (10.7 million). Other important field crops include rye, oats, turnips, artichokes, flax, hemp, and tobacco. In some parts of the country silk culture is important. Fruit-growing figures prominently in the economy of the French countryside, and large crops of eating and cider apples, pears, plums, peaches, apricots, berries, cherries, olives, citrus fruits, and nuts are harvested. Pastoral enterprises are also an important source of farm income. In 1990 livestock on the farms of France included about 21.4 million cattle, 11.5 million sheep, 12.2 million pigs, 1.2 million goats, and 322,000 horses, as well as more than 200 million poultry.

Forest and Fishing Industries
Of a total of about 14.7 million hectares (about 36.3 million acres) of forest and woodland, some two-thirds are privately owned. About 70 percent of the forests consist of oak, beech, and poplar. Production of roundwood was about 44.7 million cu m (about 1.57 billion cu ft) in 1990. Resin, turpentine, and cork are also important forest products.
About 18,400 fishers are employed on the 12,940 French fishing craft that ply coastal waters and the high seas. In 1990 the marine catch, mainly oysters, totaled about 896,800 metric tons annually. The catch included over 250,000 metric tons of shellfish. Pollock, cod, hake, whiting, and tuna are the most important commercial finfish.

Mining
France has a broad diversity of mineral resources. French iron-ore deposits are among the richest in the world, and annual production totals about 2.9 million metric tons (metal content). Production of bauxite was about 550,000 metric tons in 1989. Coal production, concentrated mainly in the north, totaled about 12 million tons a year during the same period. Small deposits of petroleum are located in the Landes region in the southwest. Annual production of petroleum totaled about 23.7 million barrels and of natural gas about 3.7 billion cu m (about 131 billion cu ft). Lignite, pyrites, potash salts, salt, lead, gold,uranium, and zinc are also mined in France in significant quantities.

Manufacturing
The manufacturing industries of France compare favorably in volume, variety, and quality of output with those of other nations of Western Europe. About 29 percent of the workforce is employed in manufacturing and industry. Among industries producing durable goods (other than metals), the manufacturing of motor vehicles ranks high; the output of passenger cars was about 3.4 million annually in the late 1980s. The largest manufacturer of automobiles in France is the nationalized Renault firm. Other durable goods produced in significant quantities in France are aircraft, household appliances, nonelectrical machinery, electronic equipment, and chemicals. Crude steel production was about 19.3 million metric tons in 1989. The French spinning and textile industry is among the largest in the world; the annual production of yarn and cloth from wool, cotton, silk, and synthetic fibers is more than 500,000 metric tons. Sugar-beet refining is another important industry, as are food processing, liquor distilling, and the manufacture of various specialized products. In the last-named field, several branches of French industry are internationally renowned for the quality of the articles produced, such as perfumes, gloves, lace, women's hats, women's clothing, tapestry, shawls, clocks, china, glass articles, pottery, furniture, and numerous other luxury items.

Energy
Only about 10 percent of France's electricity output is generated in thermal installations using coal, petroleum products, or natural gas. About 19 percent is produced by hydroelectric facilities. No nation is more dependent on atomic power; about 71 percent of France's electricity is generated by nuclear power plants. A tidal power facility makes use of the tides of the English Channel in the lower Rance River, near Saint-Malo. In the late 1980s France had an installed electricity generating capacity of about 97.6 million kilowatts, and annual production was approximately 356 billion kilowatt hours.

Currency and Banking
The franc, equal to 100 centimes, is the basic unit of currency of France. The French franc is convertible (5.57 francs equal U.S.$1; 1994). The Banque de France, founded in 1800 and nationalized in 1946, is the bank of issue. Among other leading banks are three nationalized in 1945—Banque Nationale de Paris, Crédit Lyonnais, and Société Générale. Other major banks were nationalized in 1981 and 1982. About 10 percent of the French work in business and finance.

Commerce and Foreign Trade
Paris is the leading center of France's domestic and foreign trade, but other large cities, such as Marseille and Lyon, also play an important role in the country's commercial life. French commerce has long been characterized by a preponderance of small shops, and most stores are still of the privately owned, small-scale variety, despite a growing trend toward big department stores and supermarkets. About 55 percent of the labor force is employed in trade and services.
France is one of the world's great trading nations, and its foreign commerce includes a wide variety of goods. Throughout the 1980s the country imported more than it exported each year, mainly because of its heavy foreign purchases of crude petroleum. In the late 1980s French imports cost about $181.7 billion annually and were made up chiefly of crude petroleum, food and live animals, machinery, chemicals, iron and steel, transportation equipment, and other manufactured items, such as precision instruments, clothing, and textiles. In the same period exports earned about $171.3 billion a year. They included machinery, transportation equipment, chemicals, iron and steel, food and live animals, refined petroleum, clothing, textiles, and wine. More than half of France's foreign trade is with the European Union, especially Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Italy; the United States, the Netherlands, Great Britain, the successor republics of the USSR, and Japan also are important trade partners. France plays a leading role in the foreign commerce of some of its former overseas possessions, such as Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Côte d'Ivoire.

Transportation
France has one of the most highly developed transportation systems in Europe. The nation has more than 28,500 km (17,710 mi) of national highways, including some 6440 km (4000 mi) of limited-access autoroutes; in all, the road network measures more than 804,900 km (more than 500,100 mi). In the late 1980s about 26 million motor vehicles were in use; approximately 22 million of these were passenger cars. The French railroads were partly nationalized in 1938. In the late 1980s there were about 34,650 km (about 21,530 mi) of railroad track, one-third of which was electrified. France is particularly noted for the high-speed train à grande vitesse (TGV) between Paris and Lyon. France has about 8625 km (about 5360 mi) of navigable inland waterways, including some 4425 km (some 2750 mi) of canals. The French merchant marine, one of the world's largest, comprises about 930 vessels of more than 100 gross registered tons. France has two state-run airlines: Air France, which operates flights to most parts of the world, and Air Inter, which offers service within the country. One large private international airline, Union de Transports Aériens (UTA), also operates, along with several small private companies offering national and international service. The chief airports are Orly and Charles de Gaulle, both near Paris.

Communications
The French postal, telegraph, and telephone systems are operated by the government. More than 33.3 million telephones were in use in the late 1980s. Radio and television services are conducted by independent, publicly financed organizations, as well as by private commercial operators. Two state-run television channels were in operation in the late 1980s, along with satellite and cable services. About 49 million radios and some 22 million television sets were in use.
In the late 1980s France had some 112 daily newspapers, with a total circulation of more than 9.4 million. The most influential newspapers are published in Paris. These include Le Monde (circulation 362,400), Le Figaro (433,500), L'Aurore (35,000), France-Soir (410,700), and Le Parisien Libéré (339,300). The country's leading periodicals include Paris-Match (circulation 690,000), L'Express (669,600), Le Canard Enchaîné (450,000), Le Nouvel Observateur (324,200), and Elle (395,000).

Labor
The French labor force totaled about 24.6 million persons in 1991. About 20 percent of French workers were members of labor unions. Some 1.6 million belong to the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), the largest labor organization in France. The Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (CFDT), a Roman Catholic-oriented organization, has some 900,000 members, and the Force Ouvrière has about 1.1 million members. Minimum wages are established by government decree, but pay scales are determined by collective bargaining. The government administers comprehensive insurance programs for workers.

Government
The governmental system of France is a presidential republic and is based on the constitution that was promulgated in October 1958. This document reduces the power of parliament to overthrow cabinets and markedly enlarges the authority of the president. It vests the sovereignty of the republic in the French people, who can exercise their political power through a representative parliament as well as through referenda. The French Parliament consists of the National Assembly (577 deputies) and the Senate (321 members). The former body is elected by direct universal suffrage, with each party's representation proportionate to its showing in the popular vote; deputies serve terms of up to five years. Senators are elected to nine-year terms by indirect popular suffrage—that is, by the membership of other representative bodies. The constitution of 1958 established a new body, the Constitutional Council, which has general power to supervise elections and referenda and to decide constitutional questions; the council consists of nine appointed members and all former presidents of the republic. France has a voting age of 18.

Central Government
The president is elected for a seven-year term by direct popular vote. (The president was chosen by an electoral college of governmental bodies until 1962, when a constitutional amendment changed the method.) The president is commander of the armed forces and presides over the High Council of the Judiciary, the Committee of National Defense, and the Council of Ministers (cabinet). The president designates the prime minister (premier) and appoints cabinet ministers.
The prime minister and the Council of Ministers are responsible only to the National Assembly, although the premier has the right to ask the Senate for approval of a general declaration of policy. When the National Assembly adopts a motion of censure, or when it disapproves the program or a declaration of general policy of the cabinet, the premier must resign.

Legislature
The French Parliament consists of two chambers with supreme legislative authority vested in the National Assembly. The Senate is an advisory body with the right to examine and render opinions on legislation and policies initiated in the National Assembly and to delay, but not prevent, the passage of legislation. If the two chambers disagree on a bill, final decision rests with the National Assembly, which may either accept the Senate's version or, after a specified period, readopt its own. Acting in an advisory capacity on economic matters to the National Assembly and the Council of Ministers is the Economic and Social Council, consisting of representatives from groups of workers and employers, and from professional and cultural organizations. The Constitution of 1958 limits the National Assembly to two regular sessions annually totaling five and one-half months, permits the adoption of votes of censure against the government by an absolute majority only (instead of a majority of those voting, as previously), and forbids sponsors of an unadopted motion of censure to introduce another such motion during the same session. Constitutional amendments may be adopted after approval by both chambers of Parliament and by a subsequent popular referendum, or merely by approval of three-fifths of Parliament.

Political Parties
France has often had numerous political groups, many of which differ from one another on only minor points of theory or policy. The legislative requirements of the Fifth Republic, however, have tended to force the merger or coalition of independent political parties. Four major groups—two center-right organizations and two leftist parties—dominated French politics in the 1980s and early 1990s. The Rassemblement pour la République (Rally for the Republic), or RPR, founded in 1976 by the former premier Jacques Chirac, claimed affinity with the ideas of the former president Charles de Gaulle. The Union for French Democracy (UDF), a coalition built around the Republican party, was closely tied to the former president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. On the left were the Socialist party, led by the French President François Mitterrand, and the French Communist party, headed by Georges Marchais. In the 1993 parliamentary elections a coalition of the RPR and UDF drove the Socialists from power by winning more than 80 percent of the seats in the National Assembly. With Mitterrand determined to remain in office until the presidential elections of 1995, France entered a period of “cohabitation” government.

Departmental and Local Government
France's 96 metropolitan departments are organized into 22 regions. In 1981 the government of President Mitterrand introduced a plan that abolished the system of prefects appointed by the central government and increased the powers of elected departmental councils.
The departments are divided into communes, which are governed by municipal councils of between 10 and 36 members, who are elected for six-year terms. Each council elects, from its membership, a mayor, who represents the national government. Metropolitan France has more than 36,000 communes. The communes, differing greatly in area and population, are often identical with municipalities. Other units of local government are the arrondissement and the canton.

Health and Welfare
French health insurance partially covers medical, pharmaceutical, and hospitalization costs in most cases, and the complete costs of such services for low-income groups, the unemployed, and children under ten years of age. Health and all other social insurance is under the jurisdiction of the Social Security Administration. Social insurance includes family allowances, workers' compensation, maternity benefits, and disability and old-age insurance. Approximately 98 percent of the total population of France is covered by the compulsory plan.

Judiciary
Justice is administered in France in petty criminal and civil cases by local courts called Tribunals of Instance and Tribunals of Great Instance. Crimes punishable by prison terms of five years or less and major civil cases are tried in correctional courts. Appeals from all of these lower courts are heard by courts of appeal. Major criminal cases are tried before the courts of assizes. Appeals from decisions of the courts of assizes and the courts of appeal may be reviewed by the court of cassation, which may annul judgments and order new trials.

Defense
National service is compulsory for 10 months for males between the ages of 18 and 35. Defense expenditures in 1993 totaled about $35.8 billion. The army numbered about 241,400, the navy about 65,400, and the air force about 90,600. Although France remained a member of the council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), French military forces were withdrawn from the NATO command in October 1966. France has developed a nuclear force, including nuclear submarines and ballistic missiles. In the early 1990s, French forces were stationed in Germany and several African countries, notably Chad. In 1990, France took part in the Persian Gulf War, sending troops and warships to the Persian Gulf after Iraq took over Kuwait.

History
Archaeological evidence indicates that human beings have lived in what is now France for at least 100,000 years.

Prehistoric Cultures
The oldest identifiable cultures are those of the Old Stone or Paleolithic Age (50,000 BC-8000 BC). These cultures left to posterity a rich artistic heritage of paintings on cave walls; the most famous of these cave paintings are at Lascaux in the Dordogne region of southwestern France.
The Middle Stone or Mesolithic Age (8000-4000 BC) people were food gatherers like their ancestors but left relatively few remains. The peasants of the New Stone (Neolithic) Age (4000 BC-2000 BC), on the other hand, left several thousand remarkable stone monuments in France, including the menhirs in Brittany, the statue-menhirs of southern France, and the dolmens, or chamber tombs, of the Loire Valley, the Parisian Basin, and Champagne.
More sophisticated cultures emerged in the Bronze Age (2000-800 BC) and the Iron Age (8th-2nd century BC). By about 800 BC the techniques of working with iron had been introduced by the Hallstatt people—warriors and shepherds who had spread from their native Alpine region into much of France. In the period that followed, the Celts, or Gauls, became the dominant group.
Contact with Mediterranean culture began when the Greeks explored the western Mediterranean in the 7th century BC, established a colony at Marseille, and traded with the interior via the Rhône Valley. In the 5th century BC the La Tène culture—characterized by finely crafted jewelry, weapons, and pottery—spread from eastern Gaul through the rest of the Celtic world. See CELTS.

Roman Gaul
In 121 BC the Romans established a protectorate over the old Greek colony at Massilia (now Marseille) and then founded another settlement farther inland at Narbonne, which in turn became the center of the flourishing province of Gallia Narbonensis.
Julius Caesar conquered the rest of Gaul several decades later, between 58 and 51 BC. The newly conquered lands were called Gallia Belgica, Gallia Lugdunensis, and Aquitania. The main center of administration was Lugdunum (modern Lyon).
After the Romans consolidated control over Gaul, their main problem was the long, exposed northeastern frontier with the Germanic tribes. Rome intended to conquer the German lands beyond the Rhine and make Colonia Agrippinensis (modern Cologne, Germany) a base somewhat equivalent to Lyon. After being defeated by the Germans in AD 9, however, the Romans limited themselves to defending the Rhine frontier. Many Gauls served in the frontier legions, and the first two centuries under Roman domination were generally peaceful and prosperous for the Gauls and the Romans alike.
In the 3rd century AD, as the Roman Empire began its decline, Gaul was afflicted by a variety of ills: political instability, a dwindling supply of slaves, plague, rising inflation and its complement of economic insecurity, mounting pressure from the Germanic tribes along the frontier, and a general breakdown of law and order. Temporary respite was gained in the time of the emperor Diocletian, whose military and fiscal reorganization was carried out in part from an imperial residence in Gaul at Trier (now in Germany).
Christianity, which had been introduced as a persecuted sect in the 2nd century, flourished under imperial protection in this period of personal insecurity and political disorder. By the 5th century, even the Gallo-Roman aristocracy was converting; men from old senatorial families moved rather easily into episcopal positions.
Throughout the 4th century small groups of Germans had been settling in Gaul with the permission of the Roman authorities. In 406 this movement became an invasion when the Vandals, Suevi, and Alans broke through the frontier, moved rapidly across Gaul on a southwesterly course, and crossed into Spain. In 412 the Visigoths freely entered southern Gaul from Italy, and about 440 the Burgundians settled in eastern Gaul. In the northwest, Celtic refugees from Britain, which had also been invaded by Germanic tribes, sought and gained refuge and gave their name to the region of Brittany. In 451 Germans, Romans, and Gauls united to defeat a new horde of invaders—the Huns under Attila.

The Emergence of France
In the last quarter of the 5th century, as Roman imperial authority collapsed in the West, Gaul was conquered by another Germanic tribe, the Salian Franks. Their leader Clovis was a tough warrior, unhesitatingly violent and, when he saw fit, treacherous. Married to a Christian Burgundian princess, he became a Christian himself in 496. By adopting the Catholic form of Christianity favored by the Gallo-Romans instead of the Arian Christianity espoused by the Visigoths, he was able to strengthen his hold over the country.

The Merovingians
Clovis's dynasty, the Merovingian, named after its founder, Merovech or Merowig (reigned 448-458), ruled until 751. According to Frankish custom all the king's possessions, including the royal title, were divided among his sons. Because of this practice, Merovingian France was beset by continual disunity and civil war in the 6th century. The kingdom was again unified in 613 under Clotaire II and Dagobert I. Thereafter it went into severe decline under a series of weak, incompetent kings. During this period power came to be concentrated in the hands of the mayors of the palace, royal officials who had charge of the king's estates. Struggles broke out among the mayors that were reminiscent of those among earlier kings. Late in the 7th century, one palace mayor in particular, Pepin of Herstal, a member of the Arnulfung family of Austrasia (in eastern France and western Germany), achieved superiority over his rivals, successfully extending his authority over the Frankish kingdoms of Neustria and Burgundy to the west and south. He was succeeded by his son, Charles Martel, whose glory was to rally a Frankish army that repulsed a Muslim invasion from Spain in 732. In 751 Martel's son and successor, Pepin the Short, deposed the last Merovingian ruler and had himself crowned king of the Franks.

The Carolingians
The new dynasty—eventually named Carolingian, for its most famous member, Charlemagne, or Charles (Carolus) the Great—was strengthened by Pepin's alliance with the papacy. In return for Frankish help against the Lombards, who were encroaching on papal territory in Italy, Pope Stephen II approved the Carolingian seizure of the throne.
In 754 the pope journeyed to France to anoint Pepin and his sons with holy oil as the biblical kings of Israel had been anointed by the prophets. Pepin in turn fought campaigns in Italy on the pope's behalf in 754 and 756. The king then turned over the lands he conquered in Italy to Pope Stephen II and these became the Papal States—territory governed directly by the papacy. Pepin's rule was divided, at his death in 768, between his sons Charles (the future Charlemagne) and Carloman. Carloman died three years later, however, and Charlemagne was the sole ruler of the Franks for more than four decades, until his death in 814.

Charlemagne
Military campaigns occupied Charlemagne in the early years of his reign. Like his father, he fought in Italy, both on the pope's behalf and on his own, conquering the Lombards and taking the Lombard royal title for himself. He campaigned in Spain against both the Muslims and the Basques and established a frontier territory called the Spanish March. In the east he fought the Bavarians and the Avars and absorbed them into his realm. For three decades he campaigned against the Saxons in Germany, eventually bringing them under his control and forcing them to convert to Christianity.
In the year 800, Charlemagne was crowned in Rome by Pope Leo III and received the title emperor of the Romans. There had not been a Roman emperor in the western provinces since the late 5th century. He established a vast administrative system, divided into some 250 counties, for governing his empire. He assembled the leading scholars of Europe and fostered a program of intellectual and religious reforms. Charlemagne established a principal royal residence at Aix-la-Chapelle, his favorite sulfur-spring spa (now Aachen, Germany).

Charlemagne's Successors
Even before 800, Viking raiders from Scandinavia had begun to attack the coastal areas of the Carolingian realm. The full impact of these raids, however, was not felt until the reign of Charlemagne's successor, Louis I the Pious, whom Charlemagne himself crowned emperor in 813. The Viking attacks and succession problems after Louis the Pious made a shambles of the Carolingian Empire.
Louis sought to provide for an orderly succession by decreeing in 817 that his eldest son, Lothair, would inherit the empire and that his two younger sons, Pepin of Aquitaine and Louis II (Louis the German), would hold subordinate kingdoms within the empire. The emperor then had a fourth son, Charles, by his second wife, who was determined that her son would not be excluded from the royal inheritance.
The sons fought bitterly among themselves and sometimes against their father as well. One temporary settlement among three of the brothers is of particular historical interest. By the Treaty of Verdun (843), Lothair was to get the imperial title plus a long strip of territory stretching from the North Sea at the mouth of the Rhine all the way down to and including Rome. Louis the German received the lands east of the Rhine, and Charles the Bald those west of the Rhône, the Saône, the Meuse, and the Schelde. Louis's territory was a forerunner of modern Germany, Charles's a forerunner of modern France, and Lothair's a forerunner of the lands in between that have been so often fought over by France and Germany in modern times. Although this particular division did not prove lasting, the separation of Francia Occidentalis (the West Frankish Kingdom, or France) from Francia Orientalis (the East Frankish Kingdom, or Germany) became permanent at this time.

The Vikings and the Foundation of Normandy
The disunity of the Franks facilitated the raiding missions of the Vikings. Seaports, river towns, and monasteries situated near waterways became their victims. Rouen and Paris on the Seine River, Nantes, Tours, Blois, and Orleans on the Loire, Bordeaux on the Garonne, and many other towns were pillaged by the Vikings. The same was true for the abbeys of Saint Denis, Saint Philibert, Saint Martin, Saint Benoît, and others. One of the few effective defenders against these raids was Robert the Bold, a magnate in the Seine Valley in the mid-9th century.
The Vikings set up bases for their operations, usually at the mouths of rivers, but eventually they sought to make permanent settlements. In 911 a large company of Vikings (French Normands), under their leader Rollo, accepted from the West Frankish king Charles III the Simple the territory in the lower Seine Valley that became known as Normandy.
In 888 the West Frankish crown was offered to Count Odo, or Eudes, son of Robert the Bold. After his death it reverted to the Carolingians, but they had little influence. By the time of Louis V (967-987), effective power had filtered down to the level of the castellan, a strongman with a retinue of fighters who controlled a castle and its immediate surroundings.

The Early Capetians, 987-1180
When Louis V died, the magnates turned to Hugh Capet, duke of France and descendant of Robert the Bold and of Odo. Hugh was elected king not because he was strong but precisely because he would not be strong enough to control the other magnates; in fact, he secured election only by giving much of his land to the electors.
The French nobles may have had no intention of installing the Capetians as a dynasty, but Hugh moved quickly to have his son Robert crowned. When Robert became king (as Robert II) in 996, he named his son Hugh as his successor, but due to Hugh's death, another son, Henry, became king in 1031. The Capetians eventually passed the crown through a direct male line for more than three centuries, from 987 through 1328.
The earliest Capetians remained subservient to the feudal princes, but the rebuilding of a royal administration, indicated by a new importance of royal provosts, was evident by the 1040s. Nevertheless, in the late 11th century, William the Conqueror, duke of Normandy, and Hugh the Great, abbot of the monastery of Cluny, although nominally vassals of the king, were far more powerful than the Capetian king Philip I (reigned 1060-1108).
Philip's successor, Louis VI (reigned 1108-1137), consolidated royal power once and for all in the Île-de-France, a region centering on Paris that covers about 160 km (about 100 mi) from north to south and 80 km (50 mi) from east to west. Here he systematically suppressed all feudal opposition to the royal government. He had his son, the future Louis VII, brought up at the abbey of Saint Denis, north of Paris, and in 1137 arranged for him to marry Eleanor, heiress to the duchy of Aquitaine.
Eleanor's possessions were far larger than the Île-de-France, and by making her his wife, Louis VII won control of extensive territories between the Loire River and the Pyrenees. In 1147 Louis went on a Crusade to the Holy Land, taking Eleanor along with him. While they were in the East it was rumored that she had committed adultery. Since the marriage had never been agreeable to Eleanor, and had not produced a male heir, both spouses wanted the papal annulment of the marriage, granted in 1152. Two months later Eleanor married Henry, count of Anjou and duke of Normandy, who in 1154 became king of England as Henry II. Thus, Aquitaine passed from the French crown to the English crown, and the lands controlled by Henry in France (the Angevin Empire) vastly exceeded in size those of his feudal lord, Louis VII.

The Later Capetians
The fortunes of the Capetian dynasty improved under Louis VII's successor, Philip II Augustus.

The Reign of Philip Augustus, 1180-1223
Through his first marriage, Philip acquired new territories in northern France—Artois, Valois, and Vermandois. He also secured royal control of the Vexin, a small but critical area on the Seine at the juncture of Normandy and the Île-de-France. Philip served briefly in the Third Crusade (1190-1191).
His chance to move against the Angevin Empire came when King John of England married a princess already betrothed to another of Philip's vassals. Philip summoned John to his court three times, and when John failed to appear, Philip was able to condemn John and declare his lands forfeited. In 1204 Philip undertook the military conquest of Normandy and Anjou. Ten years later he secured his conquests by defeating the combined armies of England and the Holy Roman Empire at the Battle of Bouvines.
An opportunity for northern French intervention in the south was furnished by the Cathari, or Albigenses, a dissident religious sect particularly strong in Provence and Languedoc. St. Bernard and others had preached against the Cathars in the 12th century, but without much success. Pope Innocent III (reigned 1198-1216) encouraged new preaching missions until one of his representatives in the region, Peter of Castelnau, was assassinated in 1208. Innocent thereupon adopted the weapon of the Crusade, which until then had only been used against Muslims, as a means of fighting the Cathar heretics. Crusaders were promised the land they succeeded in taking from the heretics, and northern French knights under Count Simon de Montfort rushed to participate. Philip Augustus was too occupied with the English to join in the first phase of the Albigensian Crusade, but his son Louis VIII led a successful campaign that resulted in the extension of the royal domain south to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. One price of this political integration of the south into the kingdom of France was the destruction of the independent culture of Provence and Languedoc. Another was the life of Louis VIII, who was killed in the Crusade. See PROVENCAL LANGUAGE; PROVENCAL LITERATURE; PROVENCE.

Louis IX
Louis IX (reigned 1226-1270) ascended the throne at the age of 12, with his mother Blanche of Castile as regent. Some of the French barons, thinking this an appropriate moment to rebel against the royal government, joined forces with the English, who were eager to regain their lost territories, but Blanche was able to put down all their plots and rebellions.
Louis's great accomplishment at home was to gain the loyalty of the conquered provinces by means of a just and humane administration. He was careful to guard against corruption or the abuse of authority by sending out investigators from his court to hear complaints from his subjects about royal officials. Under him, the royal government became larger, more professional, and more specialized.
A devoutly religious man, Louis wished to crown his career with a Crusade. He put his affairs in order in 1247 and left for the Middle East. He launched an attack in Egypt at Damietta, but his advance was soon halted by the Muslim defenders. He then went to the Holy Land to supervise the strenghtening of the Christian fortifications there. In 1270 he again went on Crusade; this time, along with many of his soldiers, he was struck down by disease and died while attacking Tunis. Despite these two ill-fated expeditions, Louis was loved and respected. After his death miracles were attributed to him and in 1297 he was officially declared a saint.
Philip III (reigned 1270-1285) was the fifth French king in a row to go on a Crusade—this one to fight the Moors in Spain—and the third in a row to die on one. He had, however, arranged for the marriage of his son to the heiress of the county of Champagne, thus adding to the possessions of the royal house.

Philip IV the Fair
Philip the Fair, last of the great Capetian kings, greatly strengthened the powers of the royal government. He chose capable and ambitious advisers to serve his late 13th-century administration, of whom the best known were William of Nogaret and Pierre Dubois. Together they sought to remove limitations on royal authority, a process that involved persistently chipping away at local practices, special privileges, or provincial prerogatives. Bishops, barons, and towns were compelled to cooperate with the king, whether in connection with the demands of royal justice or with those of the royal treasury. Philip successfully annexed Franche-Comté, Lyon, and parts of Lorraine, but failed in his attempt to gain control of Flanders.
Philip's intervention in Flanders was one of the costly policies that led him to try to tax the clergy, and this in turn brought him into sharp conflict with Pope Boniface VIII. In 1297 Boniface conceded that for the exceptional purposes of the “defense of the realm” a king might place a tax on the clergy without consulting the pope. The papacy continued, however, to deny the king's right to arrest a priest on a secular charge. Legal arguments supplemented by slanderous propaganda attacks were exchanged. Nogaret led an expedition to Italy supposedly to arrest Boniface and bring him back to France for trial. A violent confrontation took place at Anagni, and shortly afterward the elderly pope died. The dispute was essentially over the issue of sovereignty, although that term was not yet in use. In 1305 Philip's influence secured the election of a French pope, Clement V, who moved the papal court from Rome to Avignon in 1309 and eventually cleared Philip and his counselors of any charge of impropriety in their dealings with Boniface.
Philip's insatiable hunger for money led him to expel the Jews from the kingdom and confiscate their wealth. For the same reason he persecuted and suppressed the Templars, a wealthy order of crusading knights.
Philip succeeded in strengthening the royal government, but by his high-handed methods he squandered much of the monarchy's store of goodwill and respect. The administrative system continued to function well through the 14th and 15th centuries, but the prestige of the monarchy was much reduced and its prerogatives often challenged. This decline in prestige was accompanied by a break in the line of succession: Between 1314 and 1328, three sons of Philip IV—Louis X, Philip V, and Charles IV—held the throne successively, and each died without male heirs (a posthumous child of Louis X reigned for a few days as John I in 1316).

France Under the Early Valois
On the death of Charles IV, the crown passed to Philip IV's nephew, Philip of Valois, who reigned as Philip VI from 1328 to 1350. The English king Edward II had married a daughter of Philip IV, and at first this marriage did not seem to pose any problem for the French succession. Later, however, Edward III (reigned 1327-1377) became the rival of Philip VI for control of Flanders, and Philip supported Scotland against Edward. In 1337 Edward put forward a claim to the French throne as the grandson of Philip the Fair. Philip VI replied by declaring void the English claim to Gascony, and the two kings began a war that was to last for more than a century.

The Hundred Years' War, 1337-1453
The English began by taking control of the English Channel with a smashing naval victory off Sluis in the Netherlands and then freely attacked northern France. The first major encounter on land took place near the channel coast at Crécy in 1346 and was a thorough victory for the English. The English subsequently undertook an exhaustive siege of Calais, which capitulated after two years.

The Black Death
In 1348 the bubonic plague entered France from the Mediterranean via Marseille. The resulting pandemic engulfed the country in two years, killing as much as one-third of the population. The value of the labor of those who survived was notably enhanced. Prices and wages rose sharply, and the government tried to impose wage ceilings.
The second half of the 14th century was a dismal period marked by various manifestations of social unrest. The plague returned in 1361, 1362, 1369, 1372, 1382, 1388, and 1398. Children born after an outbreak were especially vulnerable in a new outbreak, which further affected the already great decline in population. The psychological disruption wrought by these disasters was apparent in a pervading obsession with death and in the proliferation of fanatical and aberrant religious movements. Social disruption included fierce rebellions by peasants caught between high prices and landlords who tried to increase production and keep a lid on wages. The most famous and widespread peasant uprising was the Jacquerie of 1358. The countryside was also prey to French and English mercenary bands that lived off the land between battles. Urban unrest also resulted in violent uprisings, exemplified by the Parisian insurrection led by Étienne Marcel in 1358. In a depressed economy the costs of war continued to mount, including the ransom paid for King John II, who had been taken prisoner by the English at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. During this period the Estates-General, an assembly of clergy, nobles, and commoners first summoned by Philip IV, acquired great power.

Joan of Arc and Recovery
France's fortunes were not improved by the 42-year reign of the insane King Charles VI beginning in the late 14th century. The English king Henry V invaded France in 1415, crushed the French army at Agincourt, and took control of most of France north of the Loire.
The French revival under Charles VII (reigned 1422-1461) was begun by the inspired and charismatic peasant, Joan of Arc. She made her way to Charles's court in 1429 and took the lead in lifting the English siege of Orléans. The war dragged on for more than 20 years, but the French never lost the momentum gained from the brief intervention of the dynamic young woman from Lorraine. In 1453 Charles entered Bordeaux, and the English lost the Hundred Years' War and surrendered all their territory on the Continent except Calais.
Economic and social recovery accompanied the political recovery. During the middle and later years of the 15th century the strength of the economy and the size of the population returned to their preplague levels. Louis XI (reigned 1461-1483) consolidated royal authority to a greater extent than ever before, creating a paid standing army and acquiring the power to levy a tax—the taille—without the prior consent of those taxed. He incorporated most of the duchy of Burgundy into the kingdom and used royal revenue to protect, facilitate, and stimulate economic development.
Charles VIII (reigned 1483-1498) succeeded to the throne at 13 years of age. His sister, who served as regent, arranged for his marriage to Anne, duchess of Brittany. By this marriage, the last independent feudal principality was incorporated into the French royal domain. When his sister's regency ended in 1492, Charles agreed to the Treaty of Étaples, which settled France's outstanding difference with England.

The Renaissance and Reformation
By the end of the 15th century France had emerged from the divisions of its feudal past and had become a national monarchy incorporating lands stretching from the Pyrenees to the English Channel. The social structure was still dominated by the landed aristocracy, and land remained the principal form of wealth. In the next half-century, however, domestic peace, growing population, an influx of gold and silver brought to Europe from America by the Spaniards, and the government's public works and military orders stimulated economic growth, which raised wholesale merchants, bankers, and tax collectors to a more important place in society. The nobility, on the other hand, dependent on fixed monetary rents and dues, saw both their economic power and their social position threatened by inflation.
The first three monarchs of the period—Charles VIII, Louis XII (reigned 1498-1515), and Francis I (reigned 1515-1547)—took advantage of the nation's growing strength and internal security to lead armies into Italy to enforce claims to the kingdom of Naples and the duchy of Milan. In the 1520s the Italian wars merged into a larger struggle between France and the Habsburg dynasty of Spain and Austria over conflicting territorial claims, a struggle that continued intermittently for a century and a half. The Italian wars were finally terminated by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559), negotiated by Francis I's son, Henry II (reigned 1547-1559). France gave up all claims to Italy but acquired three strategically located territories on its eastern frontier—the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun.

Francis I
Francis I significantly increased both the power and the prestige of the Crown. He imposed himself as the monarchy's sole Lawmaker and never called the Estates-General. By the Concordat of Bologna (1516), negotiated with Pope Leo X, he won for the French king the power to fill all bishoprics and other benefices with persons of his choice, thus assuring a manageable clergy. In 1539 he banned Latin, the language of the church, from use in judicial acts and required the exclusive use of French. He was a generous and discerning patron of the arts and learning, and the flowering of the French Renaissance owed much to his support. Buildings surviving from his reign still attest to his influence and to the power and wealth of the monarchy.

The Wars of Religion
The latter half of the century was a succession of difficult and agitated decades in France. Rising population, without a compensating rise in productivity, and monetary inflation reduced much of the populace to poverty. The Protestant Reformation, spreading from Germany during the reign of Francis I, had attracted few followers, but in the 1540s and 1550s the French Protestant John Calvin created the doctrine and the institutions of a distinctively French form of Protestantism, and it won many powerful followers in the nobility and thousands of lower rank. Henry II considered Calvinism a threat to royal authority, and he tried to stamp it out. Under his three sons, who succeeded him, the country was torn by the Wars of Religion, wars in which religious, political, and dynastic conflicts were inextricably mixed. The fanaticism of the religious combatants and the brutality of mercenaries made it a struggle in which pillage, cruelty, and atrocities were normal.

The Regime of Catherine de Médicis
The death of Henry II in 1559 brought to the throne his sickly 15-year-old son Francis II (reigned 1559-1561), who succeeded his father for only two years. His successor was his 13-year-old brother, Charles IX (reigned 1561-1574). The queen mother, Catherine de Médicis, was the virtual ruler during most of their reigns and she continued to be influential in the reign (1574-1589) of her third son, Henry III. Catherine's first concern was the defense of her sons' royal authority. She repeatedly pressed the religious contenders to compromise on a settlement that would enable both to believe and worship as they pleased, but unfortunately for France she was powerless against their fanaticism. She herself became its tool in sanctioning the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris in August 1572, when Roman Catholics fell upon assembled Protestant leaders and their followers and murdered about 2000 of them.

The Rise of Henry of Navarre
Henry III's last surviving brother died in 1584, and Henry of Bourbon, king of Navarre, a descendant of Louis IX and the leader of the Protestant, or Huguenot, party, became next in line to the throne (see HUGUENOTS). Repelled by the prospect of a heretic king, some members of the Roman Catholic party plotted to forestall his succession by replacing Henry III with Henry, duke of Guise, the leader of the Catholic League. Warned of this, Henry III summoned Guise to a conference at Blois in 1588 and there had him assassinated. The following year King Henry himself—the last of the Valois dynasty—fell victim to an assassin's blade.
Henry of Navarre, as the legal heir, took the title Henry IV of France, but he was, in fact, only king of the Huguenots. He had to defend his claim to the throne against the Catholic League and against their Spanish allies, who occupied Paris. Henry understood that, although he and his followers were Protestant by conviction, most of the French were faithful Roman Catholics, and in 1593 he publicly converted to Roman Catholicism. The next year he was crowned in Chartres Cathedral and soon after was welcomed into Paris, establishing the Bourbon dynasty on the French throne.

France Under the Bourbons
In 1598, with the expulsion of the last Spanish troops from French territory, the long years of war were ended. In the same year Henry, seeking to assure the domestic tranquility of his realm, issued the Edict of Nantes, which granted freedom of religious conscience to all his subjects; it guaranteed the Huguenots freedom of public worship in specified castles and towns and assured them equal access to public office. Never before had a European ruler formally accorded freedom of religious conscience and worship to his or her subjects.
The reign of Henry IV after 1598 was for France a period of recovery from the devastation and disruption of the Wars of Religion and the beginning of renewed economic growth. During most of the period the country was at peace. The royal finances were restored. In aid of the peasantry, who made up 90 percent of the population and who had suffered heavily from the pillage and devastation of war, Henry canceled arrears in land taxes, forbade seizure of livestock or tools by creditors, made public lands available for purchase below market price, and restricted nobles' hunting rights over cultivated fields. To promote commerce he built canals, improved rivers, and restored and built bridges and roads. He brought foreign artisans to France to develop new industries and introduced the cultivation of mulberry trees, on which silkworms subsist, to ensure a domestic supply of raw silk for the silk industry.
By the close of the 17th century's first decade, the economy was thriving and royal authority was again firmly established. The Roman Catholic clergy, however, were united in opposition to the official toleration of the Huguenots. In 1610 a religious fanatic—or an agent of the Habsburgs (the record is not clear)—assassinated the king. Henry, rejected by his people as a heretic in 1589, was, in death, almost universally mourned. In succeeding decades and centuries he became the “good King Henry,” the most acclaimed and beloved of French kings.

Louis XIII and Cardinal de Richelieu
Henry was succeeded by his nine-year-old son, Louis XIII. For the first decade and a half of his reign the country drifted or slipped backward under the ineffectual direction of the queen mother, Marie de Médicis, and later under the irresolute leadership of the inexperienced young king.
In 1624 Louis chose as his first minister Armand du Plessis, cardinal de Richelieu, who was the effective ruler of France for the next 18 years. Richelieu's primary goals were to eliminate all rivals to the royal power and to contain threats from abroad.

Internal Developments
To break the political power of the nobility Richelieu executed several of its eminent and dangerous members and battered down castles that could be used as centers of resistance. To undermine their local authority and to ensure faithful execution of royal policies in the provinces, Richelieu divided the country into 30 new administrative districts and over each placed an intendant, a royal officer appointed from among loyal middle-class officials. The intendants gradually assumed enormous police, judicial, and financial powers in their districts. Huguenots were deprived of the privileges granted by the Edict of Nantes, but freedoms of conscience and worship were reaffirmed.
Richelieu encouraged the development of a merchant fleet, chartered foreign-trade companies, and supported colonial expansion. Systematic colonization was begun in French Canada, and the first French trading posts were established in Africa and the West Indies. For the protection of trade and colonies he founded the French navy, building a galley fleet on the Mediterranean and a fleet of 40 sailing vessels on the Atlantic.
Inflation, mounting taxes, and, after 1635, the devastation wrought by invading armies reduced much of the peasantry to new depths of misery. Peasant revolts occurred in Burgundy in 1625-1630, in the south in 1636-1637, and in Normandy in 1639. All were mercilessly repressed.

Foreign Policy
When Richelieu became the king's first minister in 1624, the Thirty Years' War, a German civil and religious war that was becoming a general European war, was in its first decade. In 1635, when it appeared that the Habsburg Holy Roman emperor might unite all Germany under his rule, Richelieu took France into the war as the ally of Protestant Sweden and the Netherlands against the Roman Catholic Habsburgs. The peace settlement in 1648 brought most of Alsace to the French crown and ensured the continued division and weakness of Germany. In the peace with Spain in 1659 France acquired Artois in the north and Roussillon on the Spanish frontier. Habsburg ambitions had been blocked, and France emerged from the war as the great victor.

The Reign of Louis XIV
Richelieu died in 1642 and Louis XIII died in 1643, leaving the throne to Louis's five-year-old son, Louis XIV.

Mazarin and the Fronde
Richelieu's protégé and successor, Cardinal Jules Mazarin, continued his master's policies, bringing the war with the Habsburgs to a victorious conclusion and at home defeating the first concerted effort by disgruntled aristocrats and bourgeois to reverse Richelieu's concentration of power in the king.
In 1648 hereditary judges of the Parlement of Paris, the highest judicial court of the realm, in alliance with Parisian bourgeois protesting heavy taxes, and with support from the city's workers, set off a rebellion, called the Fronde, against the Crown. Soon after it was ended, disaffected nobles in the south rebelled, and again parts of France were ravaged by civil war before the revolt was suppressed. The Fronde failed to stop the centralization of power, and not until the 1780s did the privileged orders again seriously challenge the authority of the Crown.

Louis's Absolutism
On the death of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661 Louix XIV announced that henceforth he would be his own first minister. For the next 54 years he ruled France personally and conscientiously and established himself as the model of the divine-right, absolutist monarch in the European Age of Absolutism.
Early in the period of his personal rule Louis established the structure of the absolute state. He organized a number of councils to advise him and to carry out his instructions, and he staffed them with able men, completely dependent on him for position and income. The claims of the parlements to a veto over royal decrees were effectively silenced. The potentially dangerous nobility of the sword (descendants of the old feudal nobility) were attached to the court in prestigious but ceremonial offices, which left them no time for political activity. The wealthy bourgeoisie was kept politically satisfied by the government's assurance of order at home, its active promotion of commerce and industry, and by the opportunities to make fortunes from the state's expenditures.

Louis and the Church
The power to appoint bishops gave the king a firm grip on the hierarchy of the church. The king ruled as the representative of God on earth, and the obedient clergy provided the theological justification of his divine right. A dissident movement, Jansenism, which developed in the 17th century, was politically threatening in its emphasis on the supremacy of individual conscience, and Louis combated it from the beginning of his reign.

Patronage of the Arts
The great palace that Louis built at Versailles was—and remains—unmatched in size and magnificence, and it stands as a monument of French architecture, painting, sculpture, interior decoration, landscape gardening, and building technology. Louis was a munificent patron of the arts. He sought to raise standards of taste by founding the Academy of Fine Arts and the French Academy in Rome. He supported authors with pensions and by performance of their works, appointed a surintendant of music to develop French musical composition and performance, and established the Academy of Science.

Regulation of the Economy
Louis's minister for commerce and finance, Jean Baptiste Colbert, was the age's great exponent of mercantilism. He subsidized industries, raised barriers against foreign competition, established quality controls on industry, developed colonial markets closed to all but French traders, chartered overseas trading companies, rebuilt the navy, and at home constructed roads, bridges, and canals.

The Persecution of the Huguenots
Before the end of the reign the costs of Louis's wars had undone much of Colbert's work of economic development, and in 1685 Louis struck a blow at the economy by revoking the Edict of Nantes. Convinced that most Huguenots had converted to Roman Catholicism, he withdrew the edict granted by Henry IV. Public Protestant worship was forbidden; preachers were expelled from the country; and meeting houses were ordered demolished. Despite the threat of heavy punishment, between 200,000 and 300,000 Huguenots left France. They were skilled artisans, intellectuals, army officers—valuable subjects whom France could ill afford to lose.

The Wars of Louis XIV
Louis led his country into four costly wars. In all of them he followed established national policies of containing and reducing the power of the Habsburgs, extending France's frontiers to defensible positions, and winning economic advantages. His minister of war, the marquis de Louvois, provided him with a powerful army of 300,000 trained, disciplined, and well-equipped men. In 1667 he used it to enforce a claim, based on his marriage in 1660 to Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV of Spain, to a province of the Spanish Netherlands. A hostile alliance of maritime powers induced him to negotiate a compromise peace in 1668. France's reward was 11 fortified places on the northeast frontier.
In 1672 strategic and economic considerations moved Louis to attack the Dutch Republic, where he soon found himself confronted not only by the tenacious Dutch but also by a powerful coalition. France emerged from six years of war with two territorial gains—the Franche-Comté on the eastern frontier and a dozen fortified towns in the southern Netherlands.
In 1689 an alliance of European powers went to war with Louis to put a stop to his practice of annexing territories adjoining towns ceded by earlier treaties. Eight years of war ended in a settlement in which both sides returned their conquests, although France did retain the city of Strasbourg in Alsace.
The combatants had been disposed to settle their differences because a new international crisis loomed on the near horizon. The sickly Charles II, king of Spain, had no direct heir. A month before his death he willed his entire kingdom to Louis XIV's grandson, Philip of Anjou. Although Louis had earlier advocated a division of the inheritance, he now chose to support his grandson's claim to all of it. The other European states feared the consequences of so great an extension of Bourbon power and joined in a coalition to prevent it. The consequent War of the Spanish Succession went on for 13 exhausting years. In the end Louis achieved his primary objective—his grandson was confirmed in possession of Spain and the Spanish colonies.

The End of Louis's Reign
The war, combined with a devastatingly cold winter in 1709 and poor harvests, brought to France crushing hardship, food riots, and angry demands for political and fiscal reform. A smallpox epidemic in 1711-1712 took in quick succession three heirs to the throne, leaving a single surviving heir in the direct line, Louis's five-year-old great-grandson. Louis died at Versailles on September 1, 1715, in the 73rd year of his reign.

France in the 18th Century
Louis XV (reigned 1715-1774) and his grandson, Louis XVI (reigned 1774-1792), were well-intentioned rulers, but both lacked the abilities needed to adapt their country's institutions to the changing conditions of the 18th century. Louis XV was indolent, bored by affairs of state, and quick to seek escape in the pleasures that wealth and position opened to him. He discredited the monarchy, and at his death he was so unpopular that his body was buried secretly. Louis XVI, only 20 years old when he began his reign, was weak-willed and easily influenced by those around him. His young queen, Marie Antoinette, frivolous and extravagant, intervened with him to block needed reforms.
The 18th century was, nonetheless, one of the great ages of the country's history. France was the richest and most powerful nation on the Continent. French taste and styles in architecture, interior decoration, dress, and manners were copied throughout the Western world. The political and social ideas of French writers influenced both thought and action throughout Europe and America, and French became the language of educated people around the world (see ENLIGHTENMENT, AGE OF).

The Economy
The century was a period of extraordinary economic growth. The population rose from 21 million in 1700 to 28 million in 1790. Agricultural income increased by 60 percent. French economic historians place the beginnings of France's industrial revolution in the 18th century, when the country was the leading industrial power in the world. The Corps des Ponts et Chausseés (Department of Bridges and Highways), founded in 1733, had by 1780 given France the best highway system in Europe. The French merchant marine expanded to more than 5000 ships, which engaged in lucrative trade with Africa, America, and India and enriched the merchants of the French Atlantic ports. The income of urban laborers and artisans, however, barely kept pace with inflation, and most peasants, with little surplus to sell and heavily burdened by taxes, tithes, and feudal obligations, continued to eke out only a miserable existence.

Taxation
The government itself was excluded from the new prosperity. The tax system, which exempted the lands of the nobility and the clergy (about 35 percent of the cultivated land) from the principal land tax, failed to tap all the nation's wealth and put an inequitable burden on the peasantry and the bourgeoisie. Successive ministries from midcentury on attempted to establish equitable taxation of all fortunes, but they were foiled by the opposition of privileged groups and by the failure of the king to support reforms against such opposition.

Opposition to the Monarchy
The nobility of the robe (whose titles were originally purchased from the Crown) in the parlements led the opposition to the royal initiatives. They proclaimed the doctrine that the king's decrees were subject to their approval. They posed as defenders of public liberties against royal despotism, making their cause a popular one, but they were actually defending their own privileges and advocating a return to government by the aristocracy.
Intellectual opposition to the monarchy was led by the philosophes, French 18th-century writers on political, social, and economic problems. Rejecting custom and tradition as guides to action, they urged their compatriots to use reason to discover the natural laws governing human relations and then to shape new institutions of government and society in conformity with them. They also argued that all people had certain natural rights—life, liberty, and property—and that governments existed to guarantee these rights. Some, in the latter part of the century, advocated the right of self-government. These ideas were especially congenial to the bourgeoisie, which was growing in number, wealth, and ambition and coveted a voice in government. Through the bourgeoisie ideas filtered down to the lower levels of society and became part of the popular vocabulary of revolution.

The Financial Crisis
The government's financial problems were made worse after 1740 by the renewal of costly wars. The War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) were European wars over the domination of central Europe and colonial and commercial wars between France and Great Britain. At their end, in 1763, France lost almost all of its vast colonial empire in America and in India. In 1778 the French intervened against Britain in the American Revolution, thereby hoping to weaken its old colonial rival and to recover lost colonies. The hopes of the French were not realized, however, and their participation in the war increased an already burdensome national debt.
The tasks of coping with the worsening financial crisis fell to the irresolute young Louis XVI. After all his ministers' reform programs had been blocked by the parlements and an improvised Assembly of Notables, Louis in May 1788 forced the Parlement of Paris to accept edicts depriving the parlements of their political powers. Judges, nobles, and clergy resisted and tried to prevent application of the king's decree, winning support from the army and from the public, alienated by high unemployment and the highest bread prices of the century. In July the assembly of one of the southern provinces voted to withhold payment of taxes until the king called into session the Estates-General, dormant since 1615. On July 5, 1788, Louis agreed to summon the Estates-General and in August scheduled its opening for May 1789. The aristocracy had triumphed in the first stage of the French Revolution.

The Revolution of 1789
On May 5, 1789, 1200 deputies elected to the Estates-General met in Versailles. The government had no plan of action to meet the expectations of the deputies and the nation, and the members of the third estate, taking the initiative, on June 17 declared themselves the National Assembly of France. They invited the other estates to join them and took a solemn oath not to separate until they had given France a constitution.

The End of the Old Regime
When the government moved to disperse the assembly by force in July, the people of Paris rebelled, seized the royal fortress of the Bastille, and forced the king to accept the National Assembly. A peasant revolt spread across the countryside and moved the alarmed assembly—in a single, all-night session on August 4-5—to abolish all feudal dues and privileges, hereditary nobility, and titles.
The National Assembly, sitting from 1789 to 1791, remade the institutional structure of France. To deal with the pressing financial problem it confiscated the property of the church and issued paper money, using the lands as security. It reorganized the church under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. It established a new provincial administrative system and a new judicial system, which shifted control to locally elected officials and judges, reversing the centuries-long process of centralization. The constitution adopted in 1791 created a parliamentary government with a hereditary monarch and an assembly indirectly elected by taxpaying citizens.
The constitutional monarchy lasted only one year. Louis was unwilling to play the role of constitutional monarch, and the militant Republicans were determined to establish a French republic. Successive defeats in the war with Austria and Prussia, which began in April 1792, provided the occasion for the overthrow of the monarchy by a popular insurrection on August 10, 1792. A new constituent assembly—the National Convention—was elected by universal male suffrage, and in September 1792 it established the First French Republic.

Jacobin Rule
In the crisis created by foreign invasion, domestic rebellion, food shortages, and uncertain loyalties among high officials, the convention permitted executive power to be concentrated in its Committee of Public Safety. The committee, dominated by the radical Jacobin faction, instituted the Reign of Terror to eliminate enemies and suspects and to coerce the undecided. The king was tried and executed in January 1793 and the queen in October, and thousands of nobles, priests, and commoners suffered the same fate. The committee instituted price controls, requisitioning, rationing, and conscription, and it also organized and equipped the new citizen armies.

The Directory
In 1794, when the victorious French forces were moving into enemy territory and domestic rebellion had been brought under control, the coercive regime was relaxed. The next year the National Convention adopted a constitution providing for a republic with the executive power vested in a five-man Directory and legislative power divided between two houses, indirectly elected in a way that ensured control by citizens of substantial property.
The Directory governed France through four difficult years of adjustment to the upheaval of revolution and continuing war. At home it was threatened from the Right by Royalists eager to restore the monarchy and on the Left by Jacobins determined to establish a democratic republic. A number of men in key positions saw the need for a more effective government, and they selected the young general Napoleon Bonaparte to stage a coup d'etat. In November 1799 he and his supporters overthrew the Directory and a month later established the Consulate.

The Consulate and the Empire
After his overthrow of the Directory, Napoleon Bonaparte quickly made himself master of the state and country. The new constitution, which he shaped, placed all essential powers in the office he assumed, that of first consul. He presented himself to the French as a man of peace who would end the long years of war, but once in power he insisted that the way to peace was through victory over the enemies of France still allied in the Second Coalition. He led an army into Italy and sent another into southern Germany, and their victories forced Austria to make peace in 1801. The coalition disintegrated, and Britain, without allies and losing trade with an increasingly French-dominated Europe, agreed to the Treaty of Amiens (1802), which ended hostilities between the two countries.

Napoleon's Internal Policies
First Consul Bonaparte sought to heal the wounds of the Revolution, to reconcile old enemies, and to create and consolidate the institutions of a stable government. He welcomed into his service