France (Mere Men)

This Mere Men article has not been expanded past 1954 yet.

French Republic République française (French) Timeline: Mere Men OTL equivalent: France
Flag Coat of arms
Motto:  Travail, Famille, Patrie
Anthem:  La Marseillaise
Capital (and largest city)		Paris
Official languages		French • Occitan • German • Breton • Basque • Catalan • Dutch • Italian
Religion		Roman Catholic, other
Demonym		French
Government		Unitary semi-presidential republic
-	President
-	Prime Minister
Legislature		Parliament
Establishment
-	Treaty of Verdun	10 August 843
-	French First Republic	22 September 1792
-	French Fourth Republic	1953
Area
-	Total	557,528 km2  215,261 sq mi
-	Water (%)	1.4
Currency		French franc
Time zone		CET

France, officially the French Republic (French: République française), is a country located primarily in Western Europe. It borders Spain and Andorra to the south and Monaco, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium, but also possesses a number of overseas territories. Although an unitary state, mainland France is divided into 21 devolved regions, including the capital Paris.

History

Second World War

France declared war on Germany together with Britain on 3 September 1939 after the invasion of Poland, but did not significantly engage German forces, hoping to avoid a repeat of the First World War. Nearing the end of the Winter War, large portion of French right-wing politicians such as Paul Reynaud called for French support of Finland against the Soviet Union, which forced the Prime Minister Édouard Daladier to prepare an invasion of Norway with Britian, starting the Battle of Scandinavia in late March 1940. In late May, Germany invaded France through the Benelux, which took the French government by surprise. Daladier's government collapsed and a popular hero of the First World War, Marshal Philippe Pétain, was asked with leading the government.

Despite the pledge of the Allies to not sign separate peace with Germany and proposals for a Franco-British Union by the British Prime Minister Amery, Pétain signed an armistice with Germany, allowing it to occupy northern and western portions of the country. Pétain also used the opportunity to proclaim himself the Chief of State shortly after the armistice took effect. A proposal for an armistice from Moscow was, however, rejected. Although the French government collaborated with Germany, Pétain was wary of the emerging German-Soviet alliance and even removed the pro-German Chief of Government Pierre Laval in December, replacing him with Pierre-Étienne Flandin and later François Darlan in 1941. While Pétain and Darlan granted the necessary concessions to Germany, they tried to avoid conflict with Britain so that they could later rejoin them in the war with the Soviet Union and repeatedly rejected German calls for the French navy to help in the Battle of Britain.

When the Soviet Union invaded Germany in 1943, Pétain first reacted by sending an expeditionary force to the Polish frontline. Later that year, however, after the French navy was scuttled following an attempt by German forces to capture it, southern France was occupied by the Wehrmacht and Pierre Laval was reinstated as Prime Minister to ensure cooperation. French troops on the frontline were interned in Germany to prevent them from responding to the occupation. This shocked Pétain and compelled him to allow Allied soldiers to land in North Africa, being promised territorial expansion into Germany and Italy by London and Washington.

Post-war France

In late 1944, Germany withdrew most of its troops from France following the development of the frontlines in Poland and Italy and entrusted Laval with keeping France in a pro-German position. Pétain, however, dismissed Laval, returning Darlan to the position, and ordered the arrest of German officers still present in France. This infuriated Hitler, who ordered heavy bombing campaigns of Paris and other cities. Near the end of the war, French forces liberated portions of Italy and the Benelux as well as majority of the German territories west of the Rhine, where they started preparing for annexation. France was, however, not invited to the Havana Conference negotiations and in the peace conference it only gained Saarland and Aosta Valley and administration of Fezzan until Libya would gain independence in the following years. France even lost territories in Indochina to Thailand, which were occupied since the Franco-Thai War in 1941.

Pétain continued to rule France as an authoritarian leader, but after 1947 his health started to decline and in 1949 he was transferred to the Val-de-Grâce military hospital. Although he was nominally still the Chief of State, Darlan assumed most of his powers, ruling on Pétain's behalf until his death in 1951. During this time, a conflict began to grow between Darlan, who advocated for return to republican regime in France, and Charles de Gaulle, who supported the continuation of the authoritarian French State. After Darlan officially became the Chief of State, Pétain's idea of révolution nationale slowly faded until 1952, when Darlan, himself very old, held the first parliamentary election in over a decade. Despite Darlan's attempt to unify the French right-wing scene under the Democratic Alliance (French: Alliance démocratique) the election was won by the socialist French Section of the Workers' International (French: Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière) and its leader Guy Mollet became the first democratically elected Prime Minister since the fall of France, replacing Charles Huntziger who was appointed by Darlan in 1951. The election was boycotted by the French communist, who were not allowed to run. With the new Parliament, Darlan introduced a new constitution in 1953, which replaced Pétain's French State regime with the Fourth French Republic. In 1954, Darlan resigned as President due to old age and endorsed Huntziger as his successor, but the election was won by the socialist candidate Paul Ramadier.

Administrative division

The Kingdom of France was divided into a number of provinces, which were dissolved during the French Revolution and replaced by departments. Upon assuming power in France, Philippe Pétain prepared for the dissolution of the departments and formation of twenty new provinces in 1941 to simplify administration through decentralisation. Because of the German occupation, Pétain's plan didn't go through until after the war in 1947. Due to French annexation of the Saarland, the planned Champagne-Lorraine province was divided in two, bringing the total number of provinces to 21. Each province is governed by a local government headed by a governor. At first the local governments were appointed from Paris, but with the Fourth Republic introduced elected local government.

No. on map	Province	Capital	Governor
1	Paris	Paris
2	Île-de-France	Fontainebleau
3	Flandre-Artois-Picardie	Lille
4	Normandie	Rouen
5	Bretagne	Rennes
6	Val-de-Loire	Tours
7	Vendée-Charentes-Poitou	Poitiers
8	Berry-Bourbonnais-Nivernais	Bourges
9	Limousin	Limoges
10	Guyenne-Périgord	Bordeaux
11	Béarn-Gascogne et Pays Basque	Pau
12	Languedoc	Toulouse
13	Bas-Languedoc-Rosillon	Montpellier
14	Provence	Aix-en-Provence
15	Dauphiné-Savoie-Val-d'Aoste	Chambéry
16	Rhône-et-Loire	Lyon
17	Auvergne	Clermon-Ferrand
18	Bourgogne	Dijon
19	Champagne	Troyes
20	Lorraine-et-Sarre	Nancy
21	Alsace	Strassbourg

Cartouche of the French Republic, used on embassies and diplomatic missions abroad.