Claim: Most of France's colonies are now independent.

France -LRB- -LSB- fʁɑ̃s -RSB- -RRB- , officially the French Republic -LRB- -LSB- ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz -RSB- -RRB- , is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories . The European , or metropolitan , area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea , and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean . Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic , Pacific and Indian oceans . France spans 643801 km2 and had a total population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017 . It is a unitary semi-presidential republic with the capital in Paris , the country 's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre . Other major urban centres include Marseille , Lyon , Lille , Nice , Toulouse and Bordeaux .   During the Iron Age , what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls , a Celtic people . The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome , which held Gaul until 486 , when the Germanic Franks conquered the region and formed the Kingdom of France . France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages , with its victory in the Hundred Years ' War -LRB- 1337 to 1453 -RRB- strengthening state-building and political centralisation . During the Renaissance , French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established , which by the 20th century would be the second largest in the world . The 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Catholics and Protestants -LRB- Huguenots -RRB- . France became Europe 's dominant cultural , political , and military power under Louis XIV . In the late 18th century , the French Revolution overthrew the absolute monarchy , established one of modern history 's earliest republics , and saw the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen , which expresses the nation 's ideals to this day .   In the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire , whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe . Following the collapse of the Empire , France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870 . France was a major participant in the First World War , from which it emerged victorious , and was one of the Allied Powers in the Second World War , but came under occupation by the Axis Powers in 1940 . Following liberation in 1944 , a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War . The Fifth Republic , led by Charles de Gaulle , was formed in 1958 and remains to this day . Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s and typically retained close economic and military connections with France .   France has long been a global centre of art , science , and philosophy . It hosts Europe 's fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually , the most of any country in the world . France is a developed country with the world 's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity . In terms of aggregate household wealth , it ranks fourth in the world . France performs well in international rankings of education , health care , life expectancy , and human development . France remains a great power in the world , being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state . It is a leading member state of the European Union and the Eurozone . It is also a member of the Group of 7 , North Atlantic Treaty Organization -LRB- NATO -RRB- , Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development -LRB- OECD -RRB- , the World Trade Organization -LRB- WTO -RRB- , and La Francophonie .