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France

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France is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe whose statehood has no single founding year. A kingdom for roughly a thousand years, it became a republic through the French Revolution of 1789 to 1799, has been reconstituted as a republic five times since, and reaches its current Fifth Republic in 1958 under the constitution Charles de Gaulle's government wrote. The Revolution, not any one founding date, is the event through which the country understands its own political identity.

Facts
Disputed
Founding Year
1792 1
Second of three recorded candidate founding years for France (see the 987 entry for the fuller note); 1792 marks the abolition of the monarchy and the founding of the First Republic.
Founding Year
1958 2
Third of three recorded candidate founding years for France (see the 987 entry for the fuller note); 1958 marks the founding of the current Fifth Republic, the constitutional order still in force.
Founding Year
987 3
France has no single agreed founding year. 987 marks Hugh Capet's accession and the start of the continuous Capetian monarchy, widely treated as the beginning of the French state; two other candidate years are recorded alongside this one: 1792 (First Republic) and 1958 (current Fifth Republic). No one date is treated here as definitive.
Foreign relations and policy

Current government: Macron Presidency (since 2022)

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

This source names France directly: "with rulers such as Louis XIV of France, though the term also applies to present-day monarchies, including Saudi Arabia, Brunei, Eswatini and Oman, where a king or sultan still exercises executive..."

This source names France directly: "October 1945 once ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and a majority of other signatories."

This source names France directly: "his Reflections on the Revolution in France."

This source names France directly: "whose Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) warned that the Revolution's rejection of inherited institutions and tradition would end in terror and dictatorship."

This source names France directly: "by a gentleman's agreement after France had pushed for Jean-Claude Trichet, who succeeded Duisenberg in November 2003."

This source names France directly: "James fled to France in December 1688 with little resistance, and the new monarchs accepted the Bill of Rights of 1689, which barred a Catholic from the throne and established that the crown could..."

This source names France directly: "serving as Sweden's ambassador to France."

This source names France directly: "the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union under the London Agreement and Charter of August 8, 1945, to try major officials of Nazi Germany for war crimes committed during..."

This source names France directly: "The doctrine was formally developed by the Physiocrats in France from about 1756 to 1778 and gained strong theoretical support from classical economics following Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, with..."

This source names France directly: "the country gained independence from France, and served until his voluntary retirement on 31 December 1980, when he handed power to his chosen successor Abdou Diouf, one of very few African heads of..."

This source names France directly: "finished goods, most prominently in France, Spain, Portugal, Britain, and the Netherlands."

This source names France directly: "members, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States, on 4 April 1949 at the Departmental Auditorium in..."

This source names France directly: "the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union, prosecuted surviving leaders and officials of Nazi Germany for crimes committed before and during the Second World War."

William III's chief concern in accepting the English crown was checking Louis XIV's French power in Europe.

Referendum, Political Mechanisms

Napoleon's autocratic plebiscites are cited as a distortion of the popular-sovereignty tradition proclaimed in the French Revolution.

This source names France directly: "in Paris on 18 April 1951 by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany, and in force from 23 July 1952 until its fifty-year term expired on 23 July 2002, this treaty..."

This source names France directly: "covering its independence from France, the 2011 revolution and its subsequent constitutional history."

WorldAtlas calls France "the classic example of a centralized administrative system."

This source names France directly: "It has fifteen members: five permanent (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) each holding a veto over substantive resolutions, and ten elected for two-year terms."

France is one of the five permanent, veto-holding members of the UN Security Council.

Governed By

Practices

Shaped By

In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. French First Republic (Wikipedia)
Wikipedialead paragraph
Quote, lead paragraph
founded on 21 September 1792 during the French Revolution.
View the Source
2. French Fifth Republic (Wikipedia)
Wikipedialead paragraph
Quote, lead paragraph
It was established on 4 October 1958 by Charles de Gaulle under the Constitution of the Fifth Republic.
View the Source
3. Kingdom of France (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHigh Middle Ages section
Quote, High Middle Ages section
the accession in 987 of Hugh Capet, Duke of France and Count of Paris, established the Capetian dynasty on the throne.
View the Source
France (Britannica)
Encyclopaedia BritannicaView the Source
Duverger's Concept: Semi-Presidential Government Revisited (European Journal of Political Research)
European Journal of Political ResearchAssociated With: Semi-Presidential SystemView the Source
Treaty of Pressburg (1805) (Wikipedia)
WikipediaAssociated With: Treaty of Pressburg, Signatory Parties
Quote, Associated With: Treaty of Pressburg, Signatory Parties
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand for France
View the Source
Sebastien Lecornu (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationGoverned By: Lecornu Government, Lead section, opening sentence
Quote, Governed By: Lecornu Government, Lead section, opening sentence
is a French politician who has served as Prime Minister of France since September 2025
View the Source
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