France (in French La France, officially known as the French Republic) is a state whose majority of its territory is located in Western Europe.
The French Republic is made up of the so-called Overseas France, which includes territories in the Caribbean, North and South America, the Indian Ocean and Oceania.
With 67 million inhabitants, France is the fourth most populous country in Europe and the second most populous country in the European Union (after Germany). The area is the largest EU country.
France is a member of the North Atlantic Alliance and is one of the founding members of the European Union and the United Nations. He is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council with veto power, one of the eight recognized nuclear powers and a member of the association of the eight most advanced G8 countries. France is also a member of the euro area.
The political system has parliamentary democratic, republican and semi-presidential. The capital of Paris is not only the commercial and cultural center of France, but especially in the past it was the world's main center of art and thought. As a result, it is now the seat of a number of international organizations such as OECD, UNESCO, Interpol and others. Other major cities are Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice. French culture, philosophy, and French history strongly influenced all of Europe (especially the Hundred Years' War, the Great French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars).
Along with the United Kingdom, France is the only existing colonial power to date. In the 19th century, the French colonial empire was the second largest in the world (after the British). France has traditionally placed great emphasis on the protection and promotion of the French language and maintains close ties with other French-speaking countries and regions of the world.
The oldest traces of human settlement in today's France date back to 1.8 million BC France has a large number of Palaeolithic monuments, including cave paintings, the most famous of which are those in Lascaux, which originated about 18,000 years BC In the last glacial period (10,000 BC) the climate became milder and around 7,000 BC this part of Europe entered the Neolithic age and its inhabitants began to live a settled lifestyle. At the end of the 3rd millennium BC metallurgy appeared, gold, copper and bronze were processed, later also iron. There are also numerous megalithic sites in France, the most famous being the Carnac region. A series of menhirs were erected around 3300 BC.
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