France

France is one of the great “hinge countries” of world history: a bridge between the Mediterranean and Northern Europe, a crossroads of Latin, Germanic, and Atlantic worlds, and a constant exporter of ideas—about citizenship, rights, secularism, art, and the state. From Roman Gaul to the Franks and the rise of the Capetian monarchy, France gradually became a coherent kingdom, then a centralizing early-modern state whose court culture and military power shaped Europe. Modern France’s global imprint is even bigger: the Revolution remade political language everywhere, Napoleon spread legal-administrative models across the continent, and the country’s republics wrestled with industrialization, world wars, decolonization, and European integration. To understand modern politics, modern cities, modern cuisine and taste, and the modern meaning of “nation,” you keep running into France—again and again.

1. 1 France remains a core political and economic engine of the European Union—central to debates on sovereignty, industrial policy, and Europe’s strategic autonomy.
2. 2 Its model of secular republicanism (laïcité) and civic identity sits at the center of current global arguments about pluralism, religion in public life, and immigration.
3. 3 France is a major diplomatic and military actor (UN Security Council permanent member) with enduring influence in Africa, the Middle East, and global climate policy.
4. 4 The French state’s tradition of central planning, regulation, and cultural protection shapes contemporary fights over markets vs. the public sector—from pensions to tech policy.
5. 5 French culture—literature, cinema, art, fashion, food, and the very idea of the “modern city”—continues to define global standards and aspirations.