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French Republic
République française
Timeline: Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum
OTL equivalent: France without Corsica
Flag of France (Myomi Republic) Napoleonic Eagle
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: 
Liberté, égalité, fraternité (French)
("Liberty, Equality, Fraternity")
Anthem: 
La Marseillaise

Location of France (CPC)
Location of Metropolitan France (in green)
CapitalParis
Ethnic groups  French; Afro-French; Vietnamese
Religion Christianity; Irreligion; Islam; Buddhism
Demonym French
Government Unitary semi-presidential republic
 -  President Bruno Le Maire
 -  Prime Minister Édouard Philippe
Legislature National Assembly of France
 -  Upper house Senate
 -  Lower house Chamber of Representatives
Establishment
 -  Proclamation of the Abolition of the Monarchy September 22, 1792 
 -  Current constitution October 4, 1958 
Population
 -   estimate 65,350,000 
Currency Euro (EUR)
Time zone CET (UTC+1)
Internet TLD .fr
Calling code +33
Membership international or regional organizations United Nations; European Community; French Community

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. The metropolitan area in Western Europe is bordered with Spain and Andorra to the south, Belgium and Wallonia to the north, Littleborough and West Germany to the northeast, Switzerland to the east and Italy to the southeast. In the Americas, it borders with the Netherlands to the west and Brazil to the south via French Guiana.

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. France is a developed country with the world's seventh-largest economy by nominal GDP. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy and human development. France is one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is also is a founding and leading member of the European Union and the Eurozone, 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 La Francophonie.

Politics and government[]

History[]

French Empire (1804–1871)[]

Napoleon I reign (1804–1814)[]

Ingres, Napoleon on his Imperial throne

Napoleon I (1769-1815), the Emperor of the French (r.1804–1814)

After a short-lived governmental scheme, Napoleon Bonaparte took control of the Republic in 1799. He later made himself first Emperor of the French. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the European monarchies against the French Republic, changing sets of European Coalitions declared wars on the French Empire. His armies conquered most of continental Europe, while members of the Bonaparte family were appointed as monarchs in some of the newly established kingdoms.

These victories led to the worldwide expansion of French revolutionary ideals and reforms, such as the Metric system, the Napoleonic Code or the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Napoleon launched an invasion on Russia in June 1812, capturing Moscow. Following that, his army collapsed due to supply issues, disease, Russian assaults, and, eventually, winter. The catastrophic campaign was followed by Prussia and Austria joined Russia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Portugal and the rebels in Spain who were already at war with France, which altogether formed the Sixth Coalition in 1813. With their armies reorganized, the Coalition successfully drove Napoleon out of Germany in 1813.

Napoleons retreat from moscow

Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, painting by Adolph Northen

The Allies offered peace terms in the Frankfurt proposals in November 1813. Napoleon would remain as Emperor of the French, but France would be reduced to its "natural frontiers". That meant that it could retain control of Belgium, Savoy and the Rhineland (the west bank of the Rhine River), while giving up control of all the rest, including all of Spain and the Netherlands, and most of Italy and Germany. Metternich told Napoleon these were the best terms the Allies were likely to offer; after further victories, the terms would be harsher and harsher. Metternich's motivation was to maintain France as a balance against Russian threats, while ending the highly destabilizing series of wars.

Although initially refused to accept the terms, Napoleon was convinced by his empress to accept it. Napoleon eventually withdrew back into France with his army reduced to 70,000 soldiers and little cavalry; he faced more than three times as many Allied troops. On April 2, 1814, the Sénat Conservateur passed the Emperor's Demise Act (Acte de déchéance de l'Empereur), which declared Napoleon deposed. Napoleon exiled himself to Elba and died a year later. After Napoleon was deposed, his four-year old son, Napoleon II, replaced him. The infant emperor was under the regency of his mother, Austrian-born Marie Louise, and Austria took this opportunity to break France up through the Congress of Vienna.

Liberal hegemony (1814–1844)[]

Napoleon II

Napoleon II (1811–1832), the Emperor of the French (r.1814–1832).

After two decades of conflicts, the reigns of Napoleon II and his successors were marked with restoration of peace and prosperity to the country. With economic stability, the French culture flourished. France refrained from being involved with inter-European affairs and, instead, redirected its interests to overseas conquers. The conquest of Algeria in 1830 revived the French colonial empire. An effort was also made to reform the Empire into a constitutional monarchy. Prince Lucien Bonaparte recruited political scholar Benjamin Constant to work on a new, more liberal-nuanced constitution. The Additional Act to the Constitutions of the Empire (Acte additionnel aux constitutions de l'Empire) was passed on May 11, 1815 as a result.

Revising the previous Constitution of the Year XII, the Act made the ministers to be responsible to the Parliament for their actions, rather than to the Emperor. As Napoleon II reigned mostly during his minority, the successive series of cabinets were free from being intervened by the monarch, establishing a de facto parliamentary sovereignty. It was also coincided with rise of Liberals led by Marquis de Lafayette and Benjamin Constant which dominated the elections until the 1830s. Lafayette served as the prime minister for a total of 12 years. Napoleon II died on July 22, 1832, at age of 21 and unmarried; his uncle, Joseph, became the successor.

Ary Scheffer - Marquis De Lafayette - NPG.82

Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834), the three-times Prime Minister of France (1815–1817; 1820–1826; 1828–1832).

Ruled as Joseph I from 1832 until his death in 1844, the emperor quickly displayed a rocky relationship with the parliament, especially with the Liberals, as the former wanted to exercise his constitutional powers over established conventions. Joseph refused to reinstate Lafayette to the premiership although the Liberals have regained majority in the 1832 election. The monarch appointed Liberal peer Étienne Macdonald instead as the head of government on September 12, 1832. Lafayette soon retired himself from political life and, without his leadership, the Liberals soon split between conservative Les Authentiques and liberal Les Irrépressibles ("The Irrepresibles").

On July 28, 1844, Joseph I died at the age of 76. As Joseph bore no male heirs, his brother Louis ascended to the throne on August 1 as Emperor Louis I. Marred by bouts of depression for the rest of his life, Louis I refrained himself to actively partake in decision-making. His reign was brief, lasted only two years when the emperor died on July 25, 1846. His son, Prince Charles Louis Bonaparte, succeeded Louis; he took regnal name Napoleon III, rather than as Louis II. Unlike his predecessors, Napoleon III was an active ideologist of the Empire; he laid the foundations of his imperial governance on his 1839's writing, Les Idées napoléoniennes. He strongly believed on universal suffrage as well as the active role of monarchy above party politics.

Napoleon III era (1846–1871)[]

Napoleon III Flandrin

Napoleon III (1808–1873), the Emperor of the French (r.1846–1870).

Early on his reign, Napoleon III quarreled often with the parliament, even more than Joseph I. However, as his role was limited by the constitution, Napoleon III was kept from actively intervening on the governance affairs. The emperor's outspoken nature, especially on the elimination of poverty, made him enemy of more conservative politicians, but gained him supports and sympathies from the working classes. Napoleon's political fortune, however, has reversed in 1848. Reactionary policies of François Guizot, the leader of Les Authentiques, such as opposition to universal suffrage and ban of political meetings, resulted to the outbreak of Revolution of 1848.

In March 1848, nine departments in the northern border with the Netherlands revolted against Paris. Flemish-speaking population, mostly of peasant background, in Deux-Nèthes, Dyle, Escaut, Lys, and Meuse-Inférieure rose up to resist Francization of Flanders. Those Flemish revolutionaries were joined by the French-speaking workers and rebellious soldiers of the Belgian Legion in Forêts, Jemmape, Ourthe, and Sambre-et-Meuse which intended to create a Belgian republic. French Army was so overwhelmed by the revolt in Belgium and was ordered to out of these departments as Paris itself faced demonstrations and violent street fighting. Belgium later declared its independence on August 25, 1848.

As the parliament struggled to maintain control over the country, Napoleon III promised to the citizens for a wide range of social and political reforms. Revolts were calmed as the Additional Act of 1848 was passed, establishing universal male suffrage and limiting the powers of upper chamber. However, the conservatives gradually scrapped universal suffrage through a series of laws. To advance his own cause, the emperor travelled the country to gain popular support. He distanced himself from the parliament and promised to restore universal suffrage. At the end, Napoleon III dissolved the parliament and imposed martial law in 1851. Napoleon III drafted his own constitution and it was to be approved not by the parliament, but rather by the citizens themselves.

A plebiscite on January 14, 1852 ratified the so-called "Sulphur Constitution" (Constitution du soufre) as its promulgation coincided with Nivose 4 of the Year LX of the French Republican calendar. All powers were bestowed to the emperor who, as supreme representative of the nation, was solely responsible to the people. The Corps Législatif was nominally elected by universal suffrage, but it had no right of initiative; all laws proposed by the emperor were to be approved directly by the citizens through series of plebiscites. Almost an absolute monarch, Napoleon III pursued an energetic foreign policy to re-strengthen French influence in Europe and the French colonial empire. He stood opposed to the reactionary policies imposed at Vienna in 1815 and instead was an exponent of popular sovereignty, and a supporter of nationalism.

Yvon Bataille de Solferino Compiegne

At the Battle of Solferino, Napoleon III led the French forces to victory, ensuring Austrian retreat from Italy. The fatalities appalled him, and he ended the war immediately after the battle.

The emperor strengthened French control over Algeria, established bases in Africa, began the takeover of Indochina, and opened trade with China. He facilitated a French company building the Suez Canal, which Britain could not stop. However, his policy over Europe was a great failure. The French participation with the Allies in Crimean War of 1854–1856 against Russia produced no gains. Napoleon III also plotted with Count of Cavour, the Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, to expel Austria and set up a confederation of four Italian states headed by the Pope. Events in 1859 ran out of his control. Austria was quickly defeated, but instead of four new states all of Italy was united by Piedmont-Sardinia and Corsica.

Napoleon III also envisioned a "Grand Scheme for the Americas", including recognition of the Confederate States of America, reintroducing monarchical rule to Latin America and increasing French trade throughout the region and the creation of a buffer state, in the form of the Second Mexican Empire, under Maximilian I. While his first scheme was successful, the second and the third ones were a total failure. Maximilian I was overthrown and executed by the Mexican republicans. The final blow to France came when Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a Prussian prince from the Swabian branch of the House of Hohenzollern, was placed to the throne of Spain, causing a conflict between France and Prussia.

Gambetta proclaiming the Republic of France - Project Gutenberg eText 16910

Leon Gambetta proclaimed the founding of the Second Republic.

Napoleon III who feared the expansion of Prussian influence and the encirclement of France then declared war to Prussia in July 1870, resulted to the Franco-Prussian War. German nationalism united the German states, with the exception of Austria, against Napoleon III. The French Empire was defeated decisively at Metz and Sedan and finally surrendered on September 2, 1870. Two days later, the French Empire was abolished and the Second French Republic was declared by Leon Gambetta at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris on September 4, ending the 67-year Bonapartist rule. Belgium, which was occupied by the Prussians, was carved out from France and the Belgian nationalists declared independence on September 5.

The Emperor and his aides were held captive by the Prussians at Schloss Wilhelmshöhe near Kassel. On March 1, 1871, the National Assembly officially deposed Napoleon III and blamed the county's defeat on him. When peace was arranged between France and Germany, Bismarck released Napoleon; the emperor decided to go into exile in England. Having limited funds, Napoleon sold properties and jewels and arrived in England on March 20, 1871. The former Emperor passed his time writing and designing a stove which would be more energy efficient. In the summer of 1872, his health began to worsen. Napoleon III eventually passed away at London on January 9, 1873.

Second French Republic (1870–1940)[]

Attempts at parliamentary monarchy (1870–1879)[]

Barricade18March1871

A barricade thrown up by the National Guard in Paris on March 18, 1871, establishing the Paris Commune.

The legislative election in February 1871 resulted to a monarchist majority in the parliament that was favorable to making a peace agreement with Prussia. The French parliament elected Adolphe Thiers as head of a provisional government which seated in Versailles. The new government negotiated a peace settlement, the Treaty of Frankfurt, with the newly founded German Empire, that signed on May 10, 1871. In response to this political development, soldiers of the National Guard in Paris, joined by the radicalized workers, formed the Paris Commune in March.

The Commune governed Paris for two months, establishing left-wing policies such as the separation of church and state, remission of rent, and the right of employees to take over an enterprise deserted by its owner. In May, the regular French Armed Forces, under the command of Patrice de MacMahon and the Versailles government, marched on Paris and succeeded in dismantling the Commune during what would become known as "The Bloody Week" (La semaine sanglante). The defeat of the Commune severely weakened the labour movement in France and strengthened the conservative government under Thiers.

Henri V of France

Henri, Duke of Bordeaux (1820–1883), the Bourbon pretender to the French throne (1844–1883).

The Second Republic was originally intended to be temporary and the hope for the monarchists to restore the monarchy was still high. The monarchist bloc, however, was divided into three currents: Bonapartism, Legitimism and Chartism. The Bonapartists supported Louis-Napoléon, Prince Imperial, to reclaim the throne back to the House of Bonaparte, while the Legitimists wanted to restore the House of Bourbon under the Bourbon pretender, Henri, Duke of Bordeaux. The third group, Chartists, believed the issue of who shall inherit the throne should be decided after a royal constitution (charte royale) with guarantee of individual rights and liberties has been enacted.

Due to the defeat of Napoleon III, Bonapartism had lost legitimacy during the February 1871 election, making the Duke of Bordeaux the strongest candidate for the throne. However, the Duke's insistence to replace the tricolor flag with the royalist fleur de lys flag and support on the absolutist legacies of Ancien Regime over of the French Revolution made him unacceptable to the liberal Chartists, including Thiers himself. The crisis among the monarchists strengthened the position of the republicans in the legislature. Thiers convinced the unwilling monarchist majority in the parliament to change his title formally as the "President of the Republic", successfully imposing a Republican regime in France. In February 1875, a series of parliamentary acts established the constitutional laws of the new republic.

Crise du 16 mai 1877 - caricature de Mac-Mahon et Gambetta

A contemporary cartoon on the 1877 political crisis, depicting President de MacMahon confronted by Léon Gambetta.

In 1873, after losing the confidence of the Assembly, Thiers resigned and Patrice de MacMahon, a Legitimist, was elected president. The issue of whether a monarchy should replace or oversee the republic still dominated public debate during the 1870s. The elections of 1876 demonstrated strong public support for republicanism. In May 1877, President de MacMahon forced Moderate Republican prime minister Jules Simon to resign, triggering a political crisis. De MacMahon then dissolved the lower house and the elections in October 1877 brought a clear Republican majority, ending the hope for a monarchist restoration.

The electoral defeat of the monarchists in 1877 led to the strengthening of parliamentary system and the triumph of republican form of government in France. When the Republicans controlled the Senate, the last bastion of the monarchists, in January 1879, President de MacMahon resigned on January 30, 1879 and was succeeded by the moderate Republican Jules Grévy. The moderate and radical Republicans then consolidated themselves and formed the common governments despite the personal antagonism between Grévy and Gambetta, the radical leader, who died in 1882. In the same year, the Prince Imperial's sudden death in June weakened the monarchist force, before it was sealed off completely with the death of Duke of Bordeaux in 1883.

Opportunist Republicanism (1879–1889)[]

Bonnat Portrait of Jules Grevy

Jules Grévy (1807–1891), the President of France (1879–1887)

While the Monarchists had developed the Republican constitution after the Imperial one, in which the President was modeled on Napoleonic idea of a Bonapartist emperor, the Republicans favored a parliamentary sovereignty where the President is only a symbol and the government led by Prime Minister is derived its powers from the Chamber of Representatives. During his rule, President Grévy realized this ideal by limiting his own prerogatives and minimizing his constitutional powers on the behalf of the Parliament. By doing so, Grévy made the office of President no more than a symbolic head of state.

Most notable among the moderate Republicans was Jules Ferry, who served as prime minister between 1880–1881 and 1883–1885. He was a major driving force in secularizing the French school system and making public education free, mandatory, and secular in 1881 and 1882, believing the path to a modernized and prosperous France lay in the triumph of reason over religion.

Boulangist emergence (1889–1900)[]

424069

Georges Ernest Boulanger (1837–1917)

In 1889, France saw the rise of Georges Ernest Boulanger. An enormously popular general, he won a series of elections and promoted an aggressive, revanchist nationalism aimed against the German Empire. Together, the Catholics, the Army, and several Opportunist Republicans rallied behind Boulanger who they believed can maintaining the balance between the Right and the Left. Boulangers' supporters were a very diverse camp and only the marshal's personal charisma could unite them. Ernest Granger and Henri Rochefort were among the "left Boulangists", while Arthur Dillon and Paul Déroulède were on the right. Legitimists and Bonapartists supported Boulanger, hoping him to support either of their pretender to be restored, but they remained minorities even within the camp.

Boulanger and his supporters launched a coup to overthrow the cabinet of Charles Floquet after victoriously being elected as a representative for Paris in January 27, 1889, becoming the head of government and forcing President Sadi Carnot to dissolve parliament. Boulanger's supporters had a sweeping victory in the 1890 election, passing a new constitutional law that mandated any sort of royal restoration could only be implemented by the three-quarters of all members of the Senate and the Chamber. Boulanger was offered to serve as a regent until a new monarch could be decided. However, he declined, unless his powers were expanded. The Assembly eventually yielded, declaring him the "President-Regent" (Président-Régent).

French School - The Life of General Georges Ernest Boulanger (1837-91) c1886 - (resized)

A 19th century chromolithograph depicting the life of President-Regent Boulanger.

Technically, Boulanger would be serving in "interim basis" for an indefinite term length until a new monarch could be decided by the Assembly and France would be a republic for "a time being." He was granted prerogatives similar to the French emperors, including the powers to appoint and dismiss governments and to adjourn and dissolve Assembly at his own discretion. Inspired by the "Napoleonic idea", the President-Regent introduced universal male suffrage in 1891 and increasingly consulted the Parliament on cabinet appointments. However, as there was no consensus among his supporters whose pretender should be crowned monarch or whether the monarchy should be restored in the first place, Boulanger had became a sort of constitutional monarch of France in all but name.

In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a military officer with Alsatian Jewish descent, was accused of sending military information to the Germans and convicted to life imprisonment. The case fueled a strong antisemitic reactions among the French society. As the proofs of Dreyfus's innocence came to light, France was divided between two camps: republican and anti-clerical "Dreyfusards" and conservative "anti-Dreyfusards." The writer Émile Zola published an impassioned polemic against the supposed military cover-up of the true nature of the case, titled J'Accuse...! and was himself condemned by the government for libel. At the end, Dreyfus was pardoned in 1906 and re-instated as a major in the French Army.

Vallotton En Famille

A newspaper cartoon illustrating the Dreyfus Affair had lastingly cut France in two, even within families.

The Affair had divided Boulanger's supporters even further. Majority of his supporters, driven by their anti-Semitism, believed Dreyfus guilty, while others, like Déroulède and Paul de Cassagnac, did not. The affair led to de Cassagnac's resignation as Premier in 1898 and had strengthened the electoral gains for anti-clerical, pro-republican parties. Boulanger, who never succumbed into anti-Semitism,[1] showed his impartiality by trusting the judicial process to the case and even issued the pardon for Dreyfus in 1906. Ironically, this deadlock allowed Boulanger to serve uninterrupted until his death. By 1900, all parties had accepted the status quo; the left had recognized Boulanger as a legitimate symbol of national unity, and, in return, he would gradually devolved most of his powers back to the Assembly.

Antebellum France (1900–1914)[]

During the Second Republic era, France had built the second largest colonial empire after the British Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, ruling large portions of Indian subcontinent, Northwest and Central Africa, Indochina and southeast China, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands. The culture and politics of these regions were influenced by France. Many ex-colonies officially speak the French language.

France's neighbors were not at ease with Boulanger's regime. Immediately after the 1889 coup, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had summoned German ambassadors at Paris to Berlin, briefing them about the possible escalation of conflicts. Despite false accusation of Dreyfus for spying at Germany's behalf during the scandal, Bismarck indeed set up an intelligence network across France throughout the late 19th century which sending secret military information on the expansion of the French Army. Spain, which at that time maintained a peaceful foreign policy of Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla, also alarmed about a possible second Napoleonic War. That was not until the French-backed assassination attempt to King Leopoldo I in 1895 Spain re-started the hostilities between German-Spanish alliance and France.

Minor border skirmishes between the Spanish and the French armies escalated into the Pyrenean War in 1900. Despite only occurred for ten days and ended by an armistice in Andorra, the war indeed brought Spain closer to Germany. These conflicts also extended into Africa where both France and Spain showed a strong interest over Morocco and contested for gaining the influence over the country. Spain mobilized reserve army units in Ceuta with Germany's aid in 1903. In 1904, France and Spain agreed to partition the territory of the sultanate, with Spain receiving concessions in the far north and south of Morocco.

World War I (1914–1918)[]

Interbellum period (1918–1934)[]

Rise of Rocqueism (1934–1940)[]

Vichy France and Free France (1940–1947)[]

Third French Republic (1947–present)[]

Notes and references[]

  1. Sternhell, Z. (2011). The Roots of Popular Anti-Semitism in the Third Republic. In Hostages of Modernization: Studies on Modern Antisemitism, 1870-1933/39 (Vol. 2). Berlin, New York: De Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783110855616.464. p. 464. "Admittedly, Boulanger himself was not anti-Semitic. Men such as Barres, Deroulede, and Thiebaud never ceased to reproach him for being a man of the old school. He stood firm against any form of alliance with anti-Semitism and refused to endorse Drumont's candidacy in the legislative elections."

Further readings[]

  • Price, R. (2014). A concise history of France, Third edition. Cambrige, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  • State, P. F. (2011). A brief history of France. New York: Facts On File, Inc.

This article is part of Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum

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