France
Founding country of the European Community, France is one of the signatories, by Foreign Minister Christian Pinau, of the Treaties of Rome.
A nation with a deep neo-Latin culture, it received its first form of unitary state in the 5th century A.D. by King Clovis of the Salian Franks.
Under the reign of Louis VII, who died in 1180, the Kingdom of France (which from the early Middle Ages began to take on this name instead of ‘Frank’) was extended to its present-day borders with Spain.
The final boundary with Italy was set after the Second World War by the Treaty of Paris of 1947.
It can be considered the home, together with Italy, of modern public law.
Mention should be made in this regard of the state organisation accomplished under Louis XIV, which, although incomprehensible to observers born in the 20th century, represented a peculiar form of centralisation of power (l’etàt c'est moi is an institutional form alien to the Constituent Fathers of the European democracies, but was proposed precisely as a centripetal idea of subversion of local powers) in the unitary state with the consequent overcoming of feudalism.
With the Revolution of 1789, the subsequent transfer of powers takes place whereby the authority of the unitary state, no longer in question but still centralised in the person of the Sovereign, is divided between the Legislative Power, the Executive Power and the Judicial Power: this is the birth of Constitutional Law.
The foreign policy of France, holder of a dissolved Colonial Empire between the 1950s and 1960s, turned after World War II to a fruitful international collaboration with a pro-European and Atlanticist orientation.
One of the founding countries of NATO in 1949, it left its Integrated Command in 1966 to rejoin it in 2009.
France is, together with Spain, the only European country bordering both the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. This position, useful in past centuries for wars of conquest on both fronts, is now a source of dialogue with Italy on one side and the USA on the other.
Immigration from other European nations, primarily Italy, Spain and Portugal, as well as North Africa, has made it a country permeated by multiculturalism to which the presence of an active Jewish community also contributes.
The secularity of the State, proclaimed since the Revolution, is no obstacle to the presence of numerous religious denominations, the most widespread of which are Christianity, Islam and, as mentioned above, Judaism.
France’s economy is seventh in the world in terms of GDP with excellence in sectors such as the automobile industry, telecommunications, aerospace, defence, tourism and clothing.
A country, like Italy, poor in fossil energy resources, it has therefore developed nuclear power, of which it is the world's leading producer.
It is the world’s fourth largest exporter.
The main importing countries for French products in 2023 were, in descending order, Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK.
The main exporting countries to the French market were in 2023, in descending order, Germany, China, Belgium and Italy.
| Head of state | Emmanuel Macron |
| Head of Government | Gabriel Attal |
| Institutional Form | Semi-presidential republic |
| Capital | Paris |
| Legislative Power | Bicameral Parliament, Senate or Senat (348 seats), National Assembly or Assemblee Nationale (577 seats) |
| Judicial Power | Court of Cassation, Constitutional Council |
| Ambassador to Italy | Martin Briens |
| Total Area kmq | 643.801 km2; 551.500 km2 (metropolitan France) |
| Land | 640.427 km2; 549.970 km2 (metropolitan France) |
| Weather | Continental with cool winters and mild summers in metropolitan France; tropical and subtropical in oversea territories |
| Natural resources | Metropolitan France: coal, iron ore, bauxite, zinc, uranium, antimony, arsenic, potash, feldspar, fluorspar, gypsum, timber, arable land, fish; Oversea territories: gold deposits, petroleum, kaolin, niobium, tantalum, clay. |
| Economic summary | Among the major economies of the eurozone, France has also felt the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic first, and subsequently, the war in Ukraine. This has contributed to the slowdown in economic growth and the increase in inflation. Despite this, the economy is expected to resume growth, thereby fostering an overall improvement in economic conditions. | ||
| GDP | €2.711 billion (2023) | ||
| Pro-capite GDP (Purchasing power parity) | $47.204 (2023) | ||
| Exports | Aircraft, packaged medicine, cars, natural gas, vehicle parts/accessories (2022) |
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| Export partner | Germany, Italy, US, Belgium, Spain (2022) | ||
| Imports |
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| Import partner | Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Netherlands (2022) | ||
| Trade With Italy | €109.895 mln (2023) |
| Population | 68.374.591 (2024) |
| Population Growth | 0,2% (2024) |
| Ethnicities | Celtic and Latin with Teutonic, Slavic, North African (Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian), Indochinese, Basque minorities |
| Languages | French (lingua officiale) |
| Religions | Catholics 47%, Muslims 4%, Protestants 2%, Buddhists 2%, Orthodox 1%, Jews 1%, no identification 33%, unspecified 10%. |
| Urbanization | 81,8% (2023) |
Founding country of the European Community, France is one of the signatories, by Foreign Minister Christian Pinau, of the Treaties of Rome.
A nation with a deep neo-Latin culture, it received its first form of unitary state in the 5th century A.D. by King Clovis of the Salian Franks.
Under the reign of Louis VII, who died in 1180, the Kingdom of France (which from the early Middle Ages began to take on this name instead of ‘Frank’) was extended to its present-day borders with Spain.
The final boundary with Italy was set after the Second World War by the Treaty of Paris of 1947.
It can be considered the home, together with Italy, of modern public law.
Mention should be made in this regard of the state organisation accomplished under Louis XIV, which, although incomprehensible to observers born in the 20th century, represented a peculiar form of centralisation of power (l’etàt c'est moi is an institutional form alien to the Constituent Fathers of the European democracies, but was proposed precisely as a centripetal idea of subversion of local powers) in the unitary state with the consequent overcoming of feudalism.
With the Revolution of 1789, the subsequent transfer of powers takes place whereby the authority of the unitary state, no longer in question but still centralised in the person of the Sovereign, is divided between the Legislative Power, the Executive Power and the Judicial Power: this is the birth of Constitutional Law.
The foreign policy of France, holder of a dissolved Colonial Empire between the 1950s and 1960s, turned after World War II to a fruitful international collaboration with a pro-European and Atlanticist orientation.
One of the founding countries of NATO in 1949, it left its Integrated Command in 1966 to rejoin it in 2009.
France is, together with Spain, the only European country bordering both the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. This position, useful in past centuries for wars of conquest on both fronts, is now a source of dialogue with Italy on one side and the USA on the other.
Immigration from other European nations, primarily Italy, Spain and Portugal, as well as North Africa, has made it a country permeated by multiculturalism to which the presence of an active Jewish community also contributes.
The secularity of the State, proclaimed since the Revolution, is no obstacle to the presence of numerous religious denominations, the most widespread of which are Christianity, Islam and, as mentioned above, Judaism.
France’s economy is seventh in the world in terms of GDP with excellence in sectors such as the automobile industry, telecommunications, aerospace, defence, tourism and clothing.
A country, like Italy, poor in fossil energy resources, it has therefore developed nuclear power, of which it is the world's leading producer.
It is the world’s fourth largest exporter.
The main importing countries for French products in 2023 were, in descending order, Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK.
The main exporting countries to the French market were in 2023, in descending order, Germany, China, Belgium and Italy.
