France

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France, officially the French Republic (French: République française),[XVII] is a sovereign state
comprising territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories.[XVIII] The
European part of France, called Metropolitan France, extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the
English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. France spans 640,679
square kilometres (247,368 sq mi) and has a total population of 67 million.[XIX] It is a unitary semipresidential republic with the capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and
commercial centre. The Constitution of France establishes the state as secular and democratic, with
its sovereignty derived from the people.

During the Iron Age, what is now Metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people.
The Gauls were conquered in 51 BC by the Roman Empire, which held Gaul until 486. The GalloRomans faced raids and migration from the Germanic Franks, who dominated the region for
hundreds of years, eventually creating the medieval Kingdom of France. France emerged as a major
European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years' War (1337 to 1453)
strengthening French state-building and paving the way for a future centralized absolute monarchy.
During the Renaissance, France experienced a vast cultural development and established the
beginning of a global colonial empire. The 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars
between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots).

France became Europe's dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV.[16] French
philosophers played a key role in the Age of Enlightenment during the 18th century. In 1778, France
became the first and the main ally of the new United States in the American Revolutionary War. In
the late 18th century, the absolute monarchy was overthrown in the French Revolution. Among its
legacies was the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, one of the earliest documents
on human rights, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. France became one of modern
history's earliest republics until Napoleon took power and launched the First French Empire in 1804.
Fighting against a complex set of coalitions during the Napoleonic Wars, he dominated European
affairs for over a decade and had a long-lasting impact on Western culture. Following the collapse of
the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments: the monarchy was restored, it
was replaced in 1830 by a constitutional monarchy, then briefly by a Second Republic, and then by a
Second Empire, until a more lasting French Third Republic was established in 1870. By the 1905 law,
France adopted a strict form of secularism, called laïcité, which has become an important federative
principle in the modern French society.

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