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Portal:France

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Map of France in the world and position of its largest single land territory in continental Europe

France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean, giving it one of the largest discontiguous exclusive economic zones in the world. Metropolitan France shares borders with Belgium and Luxembourg to the north, Germany to the northeast, Switzerland to the east, Italy and Monaco to the southeast, Andorra and Spain to the south, and a maritime border with the United Kingdom to the northwest. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea. Its eighteen integral regions (five of which are overseas) span a combined area of 643,801 km2 (248,573 sq mi) and have a total population of 68.4 million as of January 2024. France is a semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre.

Metropolitan France was settled during the Iron Age by Celtic tribes known as Gauls before Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, leading to a distinct Gallo-Roman culture. In the Early Middle Ages, the Franks formed the Kingdom of Francia, which became the heartland of the Carolingian Empire. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned the empire, with West Francia evolving into the Kingdom of France. In the High Middle Ages, France was a powerful but decentralized feudal kingdom, but from the mid-14th to the mid-15th centuries, France was plunged into a dynastic conflict with England known as the Hundred Years' War. In the 16th century, the French Renaissance saw culture flourish and a French colonial empire rise. Internally, France was dominated by the conflict with the House of Habsburg and the French Wars of Religion between Catholics and Huguenots. France was successful in the Thirty Years' War and further increased its influence during the reign of Louis XIV.

The French Revolution of 1789 overthrew the Ancien Régime and produced the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. France reached its political and military zenith in the early 19th century under Napoleon Bonaparte, subjugating part of continental Europe and establishing the First French Empire. The collapse of the empire initiated a period of relative decline, in which France endured the Bourbon Restoration until the founding of the French Second Republic which was succeeded by the Second French Empire upon Napoleon III's takeover. His empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. This led to the establishment of the Third French Republic, and subsequent decades saw a period of economic prosperity and cultural and scientific flourishing known as the Belle Époque. France was one of the major participants of World War I, from which it emerged victorious at great human and economic cost. It was among the Allies of World War II, but it surrendered and was occupied in 1940. Following its liberation in 1944, the short-lived Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the defeat in the Algerian War. The current Fifth Republic was formed in 1958 by Charles de Gaulle. Algeria and most French colonies became independent in the 1960s, with the majority retaining close economic and military ties with France.

France retains its centuries-long status as a global centre of art, science, and philosophy. It hosts the fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the world's leading tourist destination, receiving 100 million foreign visitors in 2023. France is a developed country with a high nominal per capita income globally, and its advanced economy ranks among the largest in the world. It is a great power, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and an official nuclear-weapon state. France is a founding and leading member of the European Union and the eurozone, as well as a member of the Group of Seven, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and Francophonie. (Full article...)

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A roughly triangular track, with Le Mans at the western corner, La Ferté-Bernard at the north-east corner and Saint-Calais at the south-east corner. The track begins on the north-west side, and travels anti-clockwise.

The 1906 Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France, commonly known as the 1906 French Grand Prix, was a motor race held on 26 and 27 June 1906, on closed public roads outside the city of Le Mans. The Grand Prix was organised by the Automobile Club de France (ACF) at the prompting of the French automobile industry as an alternative to the Gordon Bennett races, which limited each competing country's number of entries regardless of the size of its industry. France had the largest automobile industry in Europe at the time, and in an attempt to better reflect this the Grand Prix had no limit to the number of entries by any particular country. The ACF chose a 103.18-kilometre (64.11 mi) circuit, composed primarily of dust roads sealed with tar, which would be lapped six times on both days by each competitor, a combined race distance of 1,238.16 kilometres (769.36 mi). Lasting for more than 12 hours overall, the race was won by Ferenc Szisz driving for the Renault team. FIAT driver Felice Nazzaro finished second, and Albert Clément was third in a Clément-Bayard.

Paul Baras of Brasier set the fastest lap of the race on his first lap. He held on to the lead until the third lap, when Szisz took over first position, defending it to the finish. Hot conditions melted the road tar, which the cars kicked up into the faces of the drivers, blinding them and making the racing treacherous. Punctures were common; tyre manufacturer Michelin introduced a detachable rim with a tyre already affixed, which could be quickly swapped onto a car after a puncture, saving a significant amount of time over manually replacing the tyre. This helped Nazzaro pass Clément on the second day, as the FIAT—unlike the Clément-Bayard—made use of the rims. (Full article...)
Nostradamus: original portrait by his son Cesar
Michel de Nostredame (14 or 21 December 1503 – 2 July 1566), usually Latinised as Nostradamus, was a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous worldwide. He is best known for his book Les Propheties (The Prophecies), the first edition of which appeared in 1555. Since the publication of this book, which has rarely been out of print since his death, Nostradamus has attracted a following that, along with much of the popular press, credits him with predicting many major world events.

Most academic sources maintain that the associations made between world events and Nostradamus's quatrains are largely the result of misinterpretations or mistranslations (sometimes deliberate) or else are so tenuous as to render them useless as evidence of any genuine predictive power. Nevertheless, occasional commentators have successfully used a process of free interpretation and determined 'twisting' of their words to predict an apparently imminent event.

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Veal cutlet à la Maréchale
À la Maréchale ("marshal-style" in French) is a method of food preparation in haute cuisine. Dishes à la Maréchale are made from tender pieces of meat, such as cutlets, escalopes, supremes, sweetbreads, or fish, which are treated à l'anglaise ("English-style"), i.e. coated with eggs and bread crumbs, and sautéed. (Full article...)

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General Antoine Jules Joseph Huré (11 February 1873 – December 1949) was a French army officer and engineer noted for his service in Morocco. Huré joined the army as a volunteer in 1893 and after training at the École Polytechnique and École d'Application de l'Artillerie et du Génie he was commissioned into the 3rd Regiment of Engineers. He spent a number of years with his regiment and on staff appointments in France before transferring to Algeria first with the 19th Army Corps, and then the 15th Army Corps. In 1912 Huré transferred to the general staff in eastern Morocco and earned the Colonial Medal.

Huré was recalled to France at the start of the First World War and was shot in the chest whilst serving with the 1st Moroccan Infantry Division, being mentioned in dispatches for continuing with his duties despite his wound. He was posted back to Morocco in 1916 to become military commander of the Fes region. In January 1919 he took over command of French operations against the uprising led by Sidi Mhand n'Ifrutant in the Tafilalt after General Joseph-François Poeymirau was wounded. Huré suppressed the uprising within a month. In April 1919 he led a column to the relief of a French garrison at Aïn Médiouna which had put up a defence against a Moroccan force twenty times their number for four days during another uprising against French rule. Huré then launched further operations that stabilised the military situation in the area within the month. In July he was appointed commander of French troops in Southern Morocco. (Full article...)
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17 September 2024 – Mazan rapes
Dominique Pélicot, the 71-year-old man accused of drugging his wife to sleep and recruiting dozens of men to rape her for more than ten years, admits to all of the charges against him in his first testimony since the trial opened on September 2. (BBC News)
10 September 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that Russia has received a shipment of Fath 360 tactical ballistic missiles from Iran, and expects their deployment "within weeks". Iran denies the claim, calling it "psychological warfare". In response, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany announce new sanctions on Iran for supplying Russia with ballistic missiles. (BBC News) (The Telegraph)
7 September 2024 – French anti-Barnier government protests
Nationwide protests against Emmanuel Macron's appointment of Michel Barnier as the new prime minister break out in 130 cities and towns across France, with left-wing coalition New Popular Front claiming that Macron stole the election. (Reuters)
5 September 2024 –
Michel Barnier is appointed Prime Minister of France, succeeding caretaker Gabriel Attal, who announced his resignation in the aftermath of the legislative elections in July. (The Washington Post)

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French Chasseurs d'Afrique on outpost in Tunis, 1881.

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