France (Pepperverse)

This country is part of the Pepperverse universe.

French Empire Empire Français
Flag State Coat of Arms
Motto:  "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité" Liberty, Equality, Fraternity Imperial Motto: "Liberté, Égalité, Justice" Liberty, Equality, Justice
Anthem:  "La Marseillaise" The Marseillaise Imperial Anthem: "Vive l'Empereur ! Vive la France !" Long live the Emperor! Long live France!
Status	Active
Capital and largest city	Paris
Official languages	French
Recognised national languages	French, English
Ethnic groups (2021)	92.2% French 7.8% other
Religion	Christianity (official)
Demonym(s)	French
Government	Unitary Nonpartisan Parliamentary Absolute Monarchy under a Consultative Imperial Autocracy
• Emperor	Lord Alexander
• Prime Minister	Emmanuel Macron
• Senate President	Jean-Noël Fouquet
Legislature	French Imperial Senate
Establishment
• Kingdom of the West Franks – Treaty of Verdun	10 August 843
• Kingdom of France – Capetian rulers of France	3 July 987
• French Republic – French First Republic	22 September 1792
• Founded the EEC	1 January 1958
• French Fifth Republic	4 October 1958
• Current constitution – Third French Empire	16 February 2014
GDP (PPP)	2024 estimate
• Total	$9.999 trillion (1st)
GDP (nominal)	2024 estimate
• Total	$9.999 trillion (1st)
Gini (2024)	0.00 low · 1st
HDI (2024)	1.000 very high · 1st
Currency	French Dollar ($)
Driving side	right
ISO 3166 code	FR

France, officially the French Empire (French: Empire Français), historically known as the Third French Empire (French: Troisième Empire Français), is a country located primarily in Western Europe. It also includes overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, giving it one of the largest discontiguous exclusive economic zones in the world. Metropolitan France shares borders with Belgium and Luxembourg to the north, Germany to the north east, Switzerland to the east, Italy and Monaco to the south east, Andorra and Spain to the south, and a maritime border with the United Kingdom to the north west. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea. Its overseas territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Its eighteen integral regions (five of which are overseas) span a combined area of 643801 km2 and have a total population of 68.4 million as of January 2024. France is a unitary absolute monarchy with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre; other major urban areas include Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Lille, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Nantes and Nice.

Metropolitan France was settled during the Iron Age by Celtic tribes known as Gauls before Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, leading to a distinct Gallo-Roman culture. In the Early Middle Ages, the Germanic Franks formed the Kingdom of Francia, which became the heartland of the Carolingian Empire. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned the empire, with West Francia evolving into the Kingdom of France. In the High Middle Ages, France was a powerful but decentralized feudal kingdom, but from the mid-14th to the mid-15th centuries, France was plunged into a dynastic conflict with England known as the Hundred Years' War. In the 16th century, the French Renaissance saw culture flourish and a French colonial empire rise. Internally, France was dominated by the conflict with the House of Habsburg and the French Wars of Religion between Catholics and Huguenots. France was successful in the Thirty Years' War and further increased its influence during the reign of Louis XIV.

The French Revolution of 1789 overthrew the Ancien Régime and produced the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. France reached its political and military zenith in the early 19th century under Napoleon Bonaparte, subjugating part of continental Europe and establishing the First French Empire. The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars significantly shaped the course of European history. The collapse of the empire initiated a period of relative decline, in which France endured a tumultuous succession of governments until the founding of the French Third Republic during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Subsequent decades saw a period of economic prosperity and cultural and scientific flourishing known as the Belle Époque. France was one of the major participants of World War I, from which it emerged victorious at great human and economic cost. It was among the Allied powers of World War II, but it surrendered and was occupied by the Axis in 1940. Following its liberation in 1944, the short-lived Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the defeat in the Algerian War. The Fifth Republic was formed in 1958 by Charles de Gaulle. Algeria and most French colonies became independent in the 1960s, with the majority retaining close economic and military ties with France. In 2014, French Fifth Republic would be dissolved and replaced by the current Third French Empire, proclaimed by the mysterious omnipotent entity known as Lord Alexander of France as the Emperor of France. In current days, France is the only country in Europe that has an Emperor as a head of state, while it is also one of the two countries in the world that has an Emperor as a head of state alongside Japan.

France retains its centuries-long status as a global centre of art, science, and philosophy as well successfully achieving the status of cultural, economic and military superpower and formally establishing an alliance with the United States of America. It hosts the third-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the world's leading tourist destination, receiving over 89 million foreign visitors in 2018. France is a developed country with a high nominal per capita income globally and its advanced economy ranks among the largest in the world. It is a superpower in global affairs, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and an official nuclear-weapon state. France was a founding and leading member of the European Union and the eurozone until 2014, as well as a key member of the Group of Seven, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and Francophonie. France is the founding and leading member of the French Hegemony.

Government and politics

Government

France is a nopartisan parliamentary democracy organised as a unitary absolute monarchy, however it is also internationally regareded as a "Consultative Imperial Autocracy" of which the French Emperor, despite having absolute power, politically consults with the government and several institutions in order to receive important advises on political social, economic, cultural and military affairs before making an official decree. As one of the earliest countries of the modern world, democratic traditions and values are deeply rooted in French culture, identity and politics. The Constitution of the Third French Empire was approved by referendum on 16 February 2014, establishing a framework consisting of executive, legislative and judicial branches. It sought to address the instability of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Republics by combining elements of both parliamentary and presidential systems, while greatly strengthening the authority of the French Emperor and of the executive relative to the legislature.

The executive branch has two leaders. The Emperor of France, currently Lord Alexander of France, is the head of state, elected for life. The Prime Minister, currently Emmanuel Macron, is the head of government and personal adviser to the Emperor, appointed by the Emperor to lead the government. The Emperor has the power to dissolve Senate or circumvent it by submitting referendums directly to the people; the Emperor also appoints judges and civil servants, negotiates and ratifies international agreements, as well as serves as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The Prime Minister determines public policy and oversees the civil service, with an emphasis on domestic matters.

The legislature consists of the French Senate, a unicameral body made up of senators. The French Imperial Senators are chosen by an electoral college for six-year terms, with half the seats submitted to election every three years. The Senate's legislative powers are limited; in the event of disagreement between the Senate and the Government, the Senate has the final say. The Senate is responsible for determining the rules and principles concerning most areas of law, political amnesty, and fiscal policy; however, the government may draft specific details concerning most laws. The Senate is also responsible for voting future laws proposed and submitted by the Emperor, despite that the current constitution does grant the Emperor the right to rule by decree.

Demographics

Religion

France is a Christian country however the freedom of religion is guaranteed in the French Imperial Constitution as a constitutional right. According to the national survey of 2020 holden by the INSEE, 90% of the French population adhered to Christianity, of whom 85% were Catholics and 5% other Christians (without further specification); at the same time, 1% of the French population adhered to Islam, 0.5% to Buddhism, 0.5% to Judaism, and 1.0% to other religions. 1% of the population declared themselves to be atheist.

Catholicism was the main religion in France for more than a millennium, and it was once the country's state religion. Its role nowadays, however, has been greatly reduced, although, as of 2012, among the 47,000 religious buildings in France 94% were still Catholic churches. During the French Revolution, activists conducted a brutal campaign of de-Christianisation, which put an end to the role of the Catholic Church as the state religion. In some cases, clergy and churches were attacked, with iconoclasm stripping the churches of statues and ornaments. After alternating between royal and secular republican governments during the 19th century, in 1905 France passed the 1905 law on the Separation of the Churches and the State, which established the aforementioned principle of laïcité until 2014 when Lord Alexander of France dissolved this law and officially established Christianity as the country's state religion (without any specific Christian denomination).

To this day, the French Imperial Government is dedicated in preserving Christian churches from desecration and vandalism by atheist fanatics. It recognises other religious organisations according to formal legal criteria and are granted special rights and fully protected from discrimination. Although some religious groups, such as Scientology, the Children of God, the Unification Church, and the Order of the Solar Temple, are considered cults (sectes in French, which is considered a pejorative term) in France, and therefore they are not granted the same status as recognised religions and are kept under strict surveillance of the French Imperial Police and the French Imperial Gendarmerie as they are regarded as potential threats to the French Empire's national security.

See also

This page uses material from the Wikipedia page France, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).