French Republic

The 5th French Republic, commonly known as the French Republic or simply as France, is a unitary semi-presidential republic composed of 27 colonized worlds, 42 star systems, 1 cluster, and a series of unincorporated colonies. The French Republic is the Milky Way's sixth largest nation in total area. With a population of around 5 billion people, France is the seventh-most populous country. The capital of Paris on the colony of Versailles is both the political, cultural and economic capital of the French Republic and the largest world by population. Each colonized world on average is comprised of 40 administrative regions and several dozen metropolitian regions formed when a city grows to a scale required for such administration. The colony of French Ecuador is the furthest French affiliated colony world from Versailles and is located in Southern American space, bordering the Brazilian Federation and the Second Argentine Republic and due to this location it has been host to numerous diplomatic incidents in recent years as the political situation in the Second Argentine Republic destablizes. Similarly to their British and German counterparts, the French Republic has established numerous small colonies in the Channel Rift where the Marine Nationale has several dozen installations both in orbit and planetside established. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the French Republic and all of its worlds both in Earth and Milky Way life make it one of the Milky Way's 28 megadiverse countries.

The history of France is a long and interesting one. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476, who formed the Kingdom of France. France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages following its victory in the Hundred Years' War (1337 to 1453). During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would be the second largest in the world. The 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). France became Europe's dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV. In the late 18th century, the French Revolution overthrew the absolute monarchy, established one of modern history's earliest republics, and saw the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day.

In the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire. His subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. France was a major participant in World War I, from which it emerged victorious, and was one of the Allies in World War II, but came under occupation by the Axis powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War. The Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains today. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s and typically retained close economic and military connections with France.

France has long been an interstellar centre of art, science, and philosophy. It hosts the Milky Way's fourth-largest number of UNESCO Human Heritage Sites and leads the Milky Way in tourism, receiving around 456 million foreign visitors annually. France is a developed country with the Milky Way's seventh-largest economy by nominal GDP, and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the Milky Way. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, and human development. France is globally considered a great military, economic and political power in the Milky Way, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and also being an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a leading member state of the European Security Council and the United Nations. It is also a member of the Group of 7, Federation of Allied Nations (FAN), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Interstellar Trade Organization (ITO), and La Francophonie.