France country profile – BBC News

France is known the world over for its cuisine, fashion, culture and language.

A key player on the global stage and a country at the political heart of Europe, France paid a high price in both economic and human terms during the two world wars.

The years which followed saw protracted conflicts culminating in independence for Algeria and most other French colonies in Africa, as well as decolonisation in south-east Asia.

France was one of the key players in European integration as the continent sought to rebuild after the devastation of World War Two.

President: Emmanuel Macron

A former economy minister who had never held elected office before, Emmanuel Macron won the May 2017 presidential election run-off by a decisive margin over his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen.

The former banker launched an independent campaign for the presidency little over a year before the election, and his En Marche! movement galvanised enough support from the centre-right and left to knock the traditional Socialist and Republican party candidates out in the first round of voting.

The following year saw President Macron’s popularity fall as he tried to overhaul the economy, with major street protests in November 2018 over his attempt to wean the public off fossil fuels through price hikes.

In the April 2022 presidential election, Macron again defeated Le Pen in the second round of voting.

Prime Minister: Gabriel Attal

President Macron appointed Gabriel Attal as France’s prime minister in January 2024, in a move aimed at reviving his presidency with a new government.

Appointed at the age of 34, Attal is the youngest prime minister in modern French history. He replaced Élisabeth Borne, who resigned after 20 months in office.

Throughout that time she struggled with a lack of a majority in parliament.

The appointment of Attal, the former education minister, does not necessarily signal any major political shift, but signals a desire by President Macron to try and move beyond 2023’s unpopular pension and immigration reforms and improve his party’s chances in the EU parliamentary elections in June 2024.

Television is France’s most popular medium. The flagship network, TF1, is privately-owned and public France Televisions is funded from the TV licence fee and advertising revenue.

Satellite and cable offer a proliferation of channels. France is also a force in international TV and radio broadcasting.

Some key dates in France’s history:

507 – Frankish leader Clovis defeats a Visigothic army at the battle of Vouillé and conquers Gallia Aquitania (southwest France) forming the basis of modern-day France.

732 – Battle of Tours: Frankish and Burgundian soldiers under the Charles Martel inflict a significant defeat on invading Arab armies.

742-814 – Charlemagne expands the Frankish state and unites most of western and central Europe, becoming the first recognized emperor to rule from western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

987 – Hugh Capet, Duke of France and Count of Paris founds the Capetian dynasty. His descendants gradually unify the country through wars and dynastic inheritance.

11th Century – The Plantagenets, the rulers of Anjou, progressively build an empire from England to the Pyrenees that covers half of modern France. Tensions between French kings and the Plantagenets last until 1202-14 when Philip II of France conquers most of their continental possessions, leaving them England and Aquitaine.

1337-1453 – Hundred Years’ War: A series of armed conflicts between England and France originating from English claims to the French throne. The war leads to a broader power struggle involving factions from across Western Europe, fuelled by emerging nationalism on both sides.

1415 – An English army under Henry V renews English claims to the French throne and decisively defeats a French army at Agincourt.

1428-29 – Siege of Orleans: The watershed of the Hundred Years’ War, taking place at the pinnacle of English power during the later stages of the war. The city held strategic and symbolic significance for both sides. The English besiegers are defeated by revitalised French defenders after the arrival of Joan of Arc.

1453 – Battle of Castillon: decisive French victory ends the wear and sees England lose all its continental possessions except Calais, which France takes in 1558.

1562-98 – French Wars of Religion: Civil war between French Catholics and Protestants or Huguenots. Up to four million people die from violence, famine or diseases. The fighting ends in 1598 when Henri of Navarre, who had converted to Catholicism in 1593, is proclaimed Henri IV. A pragmatic ruler, he issues the Edict of Nantes, which gives rights and freedoms to Huguenots, in order to end the religious warfare. He is assassinated in 1610 by a Catholic zealot.

1620s – Huguenot rebellions against French state’s centralising power and its increasing intolerance to Protestantism.

1638-1715 – Louis XIV. France emerges as the leading European power during his long reign, which is marked by major conflicts, including the Franco-Spanish War (1635-1659), Franco-Dutch War (1672-78), the Nine Years’ War (1688-1697) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1715).

1685 – Louis XIV revokes the Edict of Nantes, forcing thousands of Huguenots into exile and publishes the Code Noir providing the legal framework for slavery and expelling Jewish people from French colonies.

1789 – Facing financial troubles, Louis XVI summons the Estates-General to propose solutions. Representatives of the Third Estate form a National Assembly, signalling the outbreak of the French Revolution.

1792 – Monarchy is abolished and First Republic proclaimed.

1793 – Louis XVI is convicted of treason and guillotined.

1799 – Napoleon Bonaparte seizes control of the Republic

1804-1814 – Napoleon crowns himself emperor of First French Empire. A series of military successes brings most of continental Europe under his control.

1815 – Napoleon is defeated at Battle of Waterloo by an allied coalition – ending 23 years of war across Europe – and the Bourbon monarchy is re-established.

1830 – The Bourbons are overthrown in the July Revolution, a constitutional monarchy under Louis Philippe I is introduced.

1848 – Amid revolutions across Europe, Louis Phillippe is overthrown and a Second Republic is established.

1852 – The president of the French Republic, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I’s nephew, is proclaimed Napoleon III, emperor of the Second Empire.

1870-71 – Franco-Prussian War. Prussian and German forces defeat French army, invade France and besiege Paris. Napoleon III overthrown. Third Republic proclaimed. Revolutionary government seizes control of Paris – the Paris Commune. Commune is bloodily suppressed by French government troops.

1914-18 – World War One: massive casualties in trenches in north-east France; 1.3 million Frenchmen are killed and many more wounded by the end of the war.

1939-45 – World War Two: Germany occupies much of France. Vichy regime in unoccupied south collaborates with Nazis. General de Gaulle, undersecretary of war, establishes government-in-exile in London and later in Algiers. Rise of French Resistance. Germans occupy all of France in 1942.

1946-58 – Fourth Republic is marked by economic reconstruction and the start of the process of independence for many of France’s colonies.

1946-54 – Bitter war in French Indochina – Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia – for independence, between the Communist Viet Minh and French forces. France leaves after its army suffers major defeat at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

1954-62 – France faces another bitter anti-colonialist conflict in Algeria, which it treats as an integral part of France and is home to over one million European settlers. The conflict nearly leads to a coup and civil war in France itself.

1957 – France joins West Germany and other European nations in the forming of the European Economic Community (EEC), now known as the European Union.

1958 – French army in Algeria carries out coup attempt due to fears party politics in the unstable Fourth Republic will undermine the security of French’s hold on Algeria. French army factions see wartime leader Charles De Gaulle as a guarantor that Algeria will remain French.

1958 – De Gaulle returns to power on back of the crisis and founds the Fifth Republic, with a stronger presidency.

1961 – French voters vote in favour of self-determination for Algeria in a referendum. Generals’ Putsch. A failed coup attempt by four retired army general to force De Gaulle not to abandon French settlers in Algeria, and to deny Algeria independence.

1962 – Algeria grains independence from French colonial rule.OAS (Organisation armée secrète) far-right paramilitaries attempt to kill De Gaulle for what they see as his abandonment of French settlers in Algeria by machine-gunning his presidential car. The attack fails.

1968 – Civil unrest throughout France, with demonstrations, general strikes, and the occupation of universities and factories. The unrest begins with student protests against capitalism, heavy police repression sees sympathy strikes, which eventually involve almost a quarter of France’s workforce.

1969 – De Gaulle leaves office. Georges Pompidou elected president.

1981 – Socialist candidate Francois Mitterrand is elected president.

1995 – Jacques Chirac elected president, ending 14 years of Socialist presidency under Mitterrand.

2015 – Seventeen people are killed in Islamist terrorist attacks, including at offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and at a Jewish supermarket in Paris.

A series of coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks kill 130 people and injure 416 people in Paris – the deadliest in France since World War Two. Suicide bombers strike at outside the Stade de France in Saint-Denis during a football match. Others fire on cafés and restaurants. A third group carries out mass shootings at a music concert at the Bataclan theatre.

2017 – Emmanuel Macron breaks the Gaullist/Republican-Socialist hold on the presidency through his La République En Marche! movement, drawing support from both the centre-right and centre-left.

2022 – President Macron is returned to power for a second term.