Republic of France is a country in Western Europe. It shares borders with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, Andorra and Spain. France is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8 Group and founder of the European Economic Community, today's European Union. 
Today's match with France, ancient Gaul, which was inhabited by Gauls, a Celtic people. The Romans conquered Gaul in the 1st century BC, and the Gauls adopted the Romance language and culture. Christianity is seated in Gaul in the 2nd and 3 century AD. Eastern border of Gaul by the Rhine won the Germanic tribes in the 4th century, principally the Franks, from whom comes the old name of the country, "Francie". 
Although the establishment of the French kingdom usually placed in the 5th century, France is recognized as a separate country of 9 century, when the Frankish kingdom of Charlemagne divided the eastern and western part. The eastern part was the founding of modern Germany, and western France. 
Heirs of Charlemagne ruled France until the 987th , when the Duke Hugo Ćapeta krinisan king of France. On the throne for the next eight hundred years have changed the three dynasties: Ćapeta, Valois and Bourbon. Kingdom was abolished 1792nd , when the French Revolution (begun 1789th) established a republic. 
The Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815.) France has won most of Europe and became a kingdom, but then returned to the old border. In the 19th century have alternated various government, to the Franco-Prussian War (1870). republics taken root. 
France during the 19th and 20 century has lost a number of colonies, wealth and position among the leading countries of the world. In the First and Second World War was on the side of a winner. Since 1958. The French presidential democracy is a stable known as the Fifth Republic. 
Post-war rapprochement of France and Germany it is essential for the economic integration of Europe, and in January 1999. The euro was introduced. Today, France is committed to further political, military and security unification of Europe. 
France has a varied relief, the coastal lowland to the north and west, where France mourns the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south mountain chains (Pyrenees) and southeast (the Alps). The highest peak is Mont Blanc (4810 m) in the Alps, also the highest peak in Europe. 
Between these extremes are the Massif Central mountains and the Vosges mountains, and wide Porecje Loire, Rhône, Garonne and the Seine. 
Bigger and more important cities are Lyon, Marseille, Bordeauk, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Nizza, Nantes, Lille, Orleans and others. 
Three quarters of French people living in cities. 
The vast majority of residents are French. Indigenous minority in the far north, Flemish, Bretons in Brittany, in the southwest of Basques, Catalans in the eastern Pyrenees, Elzašani Korzikanci in Alsace and in Corsica. e 
I do not know the correct information about minorities, because the term "ethnic minorities" is almost unknown in France. Namely, since the French Revolution, the state implemented "law of soil" (droit du sol), which states that the residence and ethnic identity are inseparable, that is.one who lives in France automatically by a Frenchman. Ethnic minorities are assimilated throughout history in all ways, and very successful. Only recently, under pressure from the European Union, France has given important rights of ethnic minorities. 
The official language is French, but there are several local languages: Basque, Breton, Catalan, korzički, Flemish, German (elzaški), Occitan. The French government and education were only recently allowed their use. Regional languages is now taught in some schools, but French remains the only official language, both at local and state level. 
The main religion is Catholicism in France. More than 80% of the population speak as Catholics, but it's really just a traditional religious background, because most people do not hold with the Catholic ritual, as the French since the French Revolution, a very secular country.However, it includes Lourdes, perhaps the most famous Catholic pilgrimage site in the world.Islam in the past fifty years due to the very extended French Muslim immigrants from former colonies in North Africa. Today about 9% of the population practiced Islam of France. 
Protestantism is significantly reduced after the persecutions in the 16th and 17 century, and the Protestants now make up only 2% of the population. 
Jews make up only 1% of the population, but it's even one-third of the total number of Jews in Europe. The Jewish community is always played an important role in France, both economically and culturally. 
  

France has made a huge contribution to world culture. In the 17th and 18 century, its cultural impact was so great that French was the lingua franca of Europe, as well as English today. 
Among the countless great a genius, just mention a few: 
architect Le Corbusier 
inventor André-Gustave Citroën 
philosophers Calvin, Descartes, Pascal, Sartre and Rousseau, Voltaire 
physicist Becquerel 
chemists Lavoisier, a married couple Marie and Pierre Curie 
sculptor Rodin 
Writers Prudhomme, Lamartine, La Fontaine, Dumas, Dumas, de Saint-Exupéry, faithful, Rousseau, Camus, Gide, Stendhal, Flaubert, France, Ionesco, Nostradamus, Rabelais, Hugo, Balzac, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Zola, Prevert, Moliere and Proust 
directors, Truffaut and Godard 
Debussi composer, Berlioz, Ravel and Bizet 
painters Manet, Monet, Cézanne, Renoir and Matisse