Esperanto

Adverb

france

1. in French

Territory of the French Republic in the world (excl. Antarctica where sovereignty is suspended)

France (pronounced /ˈfrænts/ ( listen) frantss or /ˈfrɑːnts/ frahnts; French pronunciation (help·info): [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française, pronounced: [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a state in Western Europe with several of its overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as L’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is bordered (clockwise from the north) by Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, Spain and Andorra. France's overseas departments and collectivities also share land borders with Brazil and Suriname (bordering French Guiana), and the Netherlands Antilles (bordering Saint-Martin). France is linked to the United Kingdom by the Channel Tunnel, which passes underneath the English Channel.

France is a founding member state of the European Union, the largest one by area. France has been a major power for several centuries with strong economic, cultural, military and political influence. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Pacific islands.

France is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its main ideals expressed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. France is one of the most developed countries and possesses the fifth largest economy by nominal GDP and seventh largest economy by purchasing power parity. France enjoys a high standard of living as well as a high public education level, and has also one of the world's highest life expectancies. It is the most visited country in the world, receiving 82 million foreign tourists annually. France is a founding member of the United Nations, and a member of the Francophonie, the G8, G20, NATO, OECD, WTO, and the Latin Union. It is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and possesses the third largest nuclear weapons stockpile in the world.

France is a country in Western Europe.

Contents

• 1 Source
• 2 Attributed
• 3 Anonymous
• 4 External links

Source

• The creation of Modern France through expansion goes back to the establishment of a small kingdom in the area around Paris in the late tenth century and was not completed until the incorporation of Nice and Savoy in 1860. The existing “hexagon” was the result of a long series of wars and conquests involving the triumph of French language and culture over what once were autonomous and culturally distinctive communities. The assimilation of Gascons, Savoyards, Occitans, Basques, and others helped to sustain the myth that French overseas expansionism in the nineteenth century, especially to North and West Africa, was a continuation of the same assmilationist project.
  • George M. Fredrickson, Race, Ethnicity, and National Identity in France and the United States: A Comparative Historical Overview, November 8, 2003

• And threat'ning France, plac'd like a painted Jove, Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand.
  • John Dryden, Annus Mirabilis (1667), stanza 39.

• That sweet enemy, France.
  • Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella (1581), Sonnet 41, line 4.

From Wikiquote under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Tue Jul 27 11:05:03 2010