
apupi
|
Yes it is........ in fact it has been since 1789
Monarchy to Republic
The monarchy ruled France until the French Revolution, in 1789. King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were executed, along with thousands of other French citizens. After a series of short-lived governmental schemes, Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of the Republic in 1799, making himself First Consul, and later Emperor of what is now known as the First French Empire (1804–1814). In the course of several wars, his armies conquered most of continental Europe, with members of the Bonaparte family being appointed as monarchs of newly established kingdoms.
Following Napoleon's final defeat in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo, the French monarchy was re-established, but with new constitutional limitations. In 1830, a civil uprising established the constitutional July Monarchy, which lasted until 1848. The short-lived Second Republic ended in 1852 when Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte proclaimed the Second French Empire. Louis-Napoléon was unseated following defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and his regime was replaced by the Third Republic.
Eugène Delacroix - La Liberté guidant le peuple ("Liberty leading the People"), a symbol of the French Revolution of 1830.
Eugène Delacroix - La Liberté guidant le peuple ("Liberty leading the People"), a symbol of the French Revolution of 1830.
France had colonial possessions, in various forms, since the beginning of the 17th century until the 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, its global colonial empire was the second largest in the world behind the British Empire. At its peak, between 1919 and 1939, the second French colonial empire extended over 12,347,000 square kilometres (4,767,000 sq. mi) of land. Including metropolitan France, the total area of land under French sovereignty reached 12,898,000 square kilometres (4,980,000 sq. mi) in the 1920s and 1930s, which is 8.6% of the world's land area.
Though ultimately a victor in World War I, France suffered enormous human and material losses that weakened it for decades to come. The 1930s were marked by a variety of social reforms introduced by the Popular Front government. During World War II, after a short but grievous and violent battle, France's political leadership chose to surrender to Germany in 1940. The policy of collaboration with the enemy, a move that some disagreed with, led to the formation of the Free French Forces outside of France and of the French Resistance inside. France was liberated by the Allies in 1944.
The French Fourth Republic was established after World War II and struggled to maintain its economic and political status as a dominant nation state. France attempted to hold on to its colonial empire, but soon ran into trouble. The half-hearted 1946 attempt at regaining control of French Indochina resulted in the First Indochina War, which ended in French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Only months later, France faced a new, even harsher conflict in its oldest major colony, Algeria. |