France (The British Ain't Coming)

France (Dutch:Frankrijk, German: Frankreich; Spanish: Francia), or the French Republic, is a nation in western Europe south of the Netherlands, west of Germany, north of Spain and east of the United Kingdom of Guernsey and Jersey. It spans the continent from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean with its eastern border at the Rhine River. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial center.

Inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people, the area was annexed by the Roman Republic in 51 BC. In AD 486, the Germanic Franks conquered the region and formed the Kingdom of France. The kingdom emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, having weathered civil and regional wars to hone its state-building and political prowess by the middle of the 15th century. In the 16th century, it would become the main battleground in religious wars between the Catholic and Caluinian Churches.

During the Age of Exploration, France would establish an Empire that circled the globe. It would be the world's largest empire. It would be said that "Le soleil ne se couche jamais sur l'Empire français" (English: The sun never sets on the French Empire). The center of global wars in the 20th century, France lost most of its colonies, the last becoming independent in the relative peaceful 1960's.

France is a developed country with the world's fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP and sixth-largest by purchasing power. In terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, and human development.