Transcript Slide 1

FRANCE
France is an independent nation in Western
Europe and the center of a large overseas
administration. It is the third-largest
European nation after Russia and Ukraine.
Since the 17th century, France has played a
major role in European and world events. In
the 20th century, it has experienced numerous
crises, including the devastation of two world
wars, political and social upheavals, and the
loss of a large empire in Indochina, Algeria,
and West and Equatorial Africa. It has,
however, survived and emerged from the ruins
of World War II to become an important world
supplier of agricultural and industrial products
and a major partner in the EUROPEAN
COMMUNITY .
Today the term metropolitan France refers to the
mainland departments and Corsica a large island located
in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Italy that has
been a part of France since 1768. France has six overseas
departments: FRENCH GUIANA in South America;
GUADELOUPE and MARTINIQUE in the West Indies;
MAYOTTE, an island formerly part of the Comoros,
located in the Indian Ocean; REUNION, an island in the
Indian Ocean; and SAINT PIERRE AND MIQUELON, islands
off the east coast of Canada. In addition, France has
numerous small possessions called overseas territories.
These include a group of widely scattered islands in the
South Pacific, which are administered from Tahiti and are
known collectively as French Polynesia French southern
and Antarctic territories New Caldon and Wallies and
Futna islands and many small islands in the southern
oceans, including the Kerguelen and Crozet archipelagos
and the islands of St.Paul and Amsterdam Indian Ocean.
The overseas departments and territories are
represented in the French National Assembly.
• .
France is about 80% the size of Texas.
The missing pieces in Philip Valois's domain
were the French provinces still held by the
Plantagenet kings of England, who also
claimed the French crown. Beginning in 1338,
the Hundred Years' War eventually settled the
contest.
A new France emerged from World War I as the continent's dominant
power. But four years of hostile occupation had reduced northeast France
to ruins. Beginning in 1919, French foreign policy aimed at keeping
Germany weak through a system of alliances, but it failed to halt the rise
of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi war machine. On May 10, 1940, Nazi troops
attacked, and, as they approached Paris, Italy joined with Germany. The
Germans marched into an undefended Paris and Marshal Henri Philippe
Petain signed an armistice on June 22. France was split into an occupied
north and an unoccupied south, Vichy France, which became a totalitarian
German puppet state with Petain as its chief. Allied armies liberated
France in Aug. 1944, and a provisional government in Paris headed by
Gen. Charles de Gaulle was established. The Fourth Republic was born on
Dec. 24, 1946. The empire became the French Union; the national
assembly was strengthened and the presidency weakened; and France
joined NATO. A war against Communist insurgents in French Indochina,
now Vietnam, was abandoned after the defeat of French forces at Dien
Bien Phu in 1954. A new rebellion in Algeria threatened a military coup,
and on June 1, 1958, the assembly invited de Gaulle to return as premier
with extraordinary powers. He drafted a new constitution for a Fifth
Republic, adopted on September 28, which strengthened the presidency
and reduced legislative power. He was elected president on Dec. 21, 1958.
Since prehistoric times, France has been a
crossroads of trade, travel, and invasion. Three
basic European ethnic stocks--Celtic, Latin, and
Teutonic (Frankish)--have blended over the
centuries to make up its present population.
France's birth rate was among the highest in
Europe from 1945 until the late 1960s. Since
then, its birth rate has fallen but remains
higher than that of most other west European
countries. Traditionally, France has had a high
level of immigration.
Education is free, beginning at age 2 and
mandatory between ages 6 and 16. The public
education system is highly centralized. Private
education is primarily Roman Catholic. Higher
education in France began with the founding
of the University of Paris in 1150. It now
consists of 91 public universities and 175
professional schools, such as the post-graduate
Grandes Ecoles. Private, college-level
institutions focusing on business and
management with curriculums structured on
the American system of credits and semesters
have been growing in recent years.
National Day (Bastille Day) on 14th July, the
national anthem the "Marseillaise", the
“tricolour” blue, white and red French flag,
the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of
Citizens of 1789, the allegorical figure of
Marianne. The French education system is
also based on fundamental principles:
academic freedom, free education, neutrality,
secularism, compulsory schooling between
the ages of 6 and 16 for all French and foreign
children living in France.
French people cheek kiss to greet each others
between family and friends, even between
men. The number of kisses varies according to
the region, from 1 in the tip of Brittany to 4
Paris and most of the North,and occasionally
up to 5 in Corsica.
France is the only continental European
country or eurozone member where cheques
are still used as one of the main forms of
payment. Most of European countries stopped
using them since the 1990's because it was not
deemed a safe method of payment.
www.france.fr/en
.wikipedia.org/wiki/France