France (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

France, officially the French Republic (French: République française), is a unitary semi-presidential republic located mostly in Western Europe, with several overseas regions and territories. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. France is the largest country in Western Europe and the third-largest in Europe as a whole. France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military, and political influence in Europe and around the world.

The French Revolution in 1789 abolished Ancien Régime absolute monarchy and established a constitutional monarchy in France. Through the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, France established fundamental rights for French citizens and all men without exception. As a result of the spike in public violence and the political instability of the constitutional monarchy, the Republic was proclaimed on 22 September 1792.

Napoleon Bonaparte took control of the Republic in 1799. He later made himself Emperor of the First Empire (1804–1814). His armies conquered most of continental Europe. After Napoleon's final defeat in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo, another monarchy arose. Later Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte created the Second Empire in 1852. Louis-Napoléon was removed after the defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. The Third Republic replaced his regime.

From the 17th to the early 20th century, France built the second-largest colonial empire of the time, ruling large portions of first North America and India and then Northwest and Central Africa; Madagascar; Indochina and southeast China; and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.

France was a member of the Triple Entente when World War I broke out. A small part of Northern France was occupied, but France and its allies eventually emerged victorious against the Central Powers, at a tremendous human and material cost.

The interbellum years were marked by intense international tensions and a variety of social reforms introduced by the Popular Front government. France was occupied following the German Blitzkrieg campaign in World War II, with metropolitan France divided into an German occupation zone in the north and Vichy France, a newly established authoritarian regime collaborating with Germany, in the south. The Allies and the French Resistance eventually emerged victorious from the Axis powers and French sovereignty was restored in 1945.