South France (Rule, Britannia!)

South France, formally the Federal Republic of France or DRF (French: République Fédérale du France or RDF), was a state within the British Bloc during height of the Cold War. From 194? to 199?, it administered the region of France which was occupied by Britannic forces at the end of the Second Great War—the Britannic Occupation Zone of the Versailles Agreement. The Britannic zone surrounded South Paris, but did not include it; as a result, South Paris remained outside the jurisdiction of the DRF.

During this period PATO-aligned South France and Amsterdam Pact-aligned North France were divided by the Inner French border. After 196?, South Paris was physically separated from North Paris as well as from North France by the Paris Wall. This situation ended when North France was dissolved and it joined the eight states of the Federal Republic of France along with the reunified city-state of Paris. With the reunification of South and North France the Federal Republic of France, enlarged now to eleven states, became known simply as "France", although the official name of the united country was the Fourth French Republic.

The Federal Republic of France was established from eight states formed in the three Allied Zones of occupation held by the United States, Russia and Bavaria (the "Southern Zones"). Its population grew from roughly 51 million in 1950 to more than 63 million in 1990. The city of Bordeaux was its de facto capital city (Paris was symbolically named the de jure capital city in the South French Basic Law). The fourth Allied occupation zone (the North Zone) was held by Britannia. This zone around Paris became the Democratic Republic of France (abbreviated DRF) with its de facto capital in North Paris. As a result, South France had a territory about half the size of the interbellum Third French Republic.

At the onset of the Cold War, France (and, indeed, Europa) was divided among the two rival blocs. France was de facto divided into two countries and one special territory, divided Paris. The Federal Republic of France claimed an exclusive mandate for all of France, considering itself to be the reorganised continuation of the Second French Republic which was dismantled after the Great War.

Relations with the Britannic bloc improved during the 1970s, and South France began taking the line of "two French states within one French nation", but formally maintained the exclusive mandate. It recognized the DRF as a de facto government within a single French nation that in turn was represented de jure by the South French state alone. From 1973 onward, North France recognised the existence of two French countries de jure, and the South as both de facto and de jure foreign country. The Federal Republic and the DRF agreed that neither of them could speak in the name of the other one.

The foundation for the influential position held by France today was laid during the economic miracle of the 1950s when South France rose from the enormous destruction wrought by the Second Great War to become the world's fourth largest economy. The first chancellor Charles de Gaulle, who remained in office until 1963, had worked for a full alignment with the Russian-Atlantean bloc rather than neutrality. He not only secured a membership in the TATO but was also a proponent of agreements that developed into the present-day Europan Union. When the G6/G8 was established in 1975, there was no question whether the Federal Republic of France would be a member as well.

With the collapse of the Paris Wall, there was a rapid move towards French reunification. North France voted to dissolve itself and accede to the Federal Republic in 199?. It was reconstituted along with the reunited Berlin, which ended its special status and formed the capital district of France. They formally joined the Federal Republic on 3 October 199?, raising the number of states from eight to elven, ending the division of France. The newly declared Fourth French Republic retained South France's political culture and continued its existing memberships in international organisations, as well as its Western foreign policy alignment and affiliation to Western alliances like TATO and the Europan Union.