France

A nation with a long history in the subjects of art, science, philosophy, war and politics. Despite having the largest, most expensive military in Europe before the invasion, France was occupied by Germany during the Intervention War, a conflict that laid the foundation for the creation of the European Federation.
The Armor Corps Coalition-sponsored college Lacroix was formerly hosted in France, in the southmost region of Provence-alpes-côte d'azur. After France was integrated into the European Federation, the Lacroix Foundation immediately became persona non grata and were allowed to be relocated to Australia. 
==History==
===Pre-War===
A longtime rival world power to Britain, Germany and Spain, France experienced similar decline in power at the beginning of the 20th century. France was a primary belligerent in the First World War and suffered a tremendous loss of 4% of its total population to it. During the Second World War, the failure of the Saar Offensive resulted in France and its allies being outmaneuvered by the Germans, and France quickly capitulated. After the war, France reclaimed its prominent role in international affairs, becoming a charter member of NATO in 1949 and a founding member of the European Communities in 1957, which eventually became the European Union in 1993. In 1966, France withdrew from NATO to pursue a policy of military independence, but remained a close ally of the west during the Cold War. In 2009, France rejoined NATO, by then possessing the largest military in Europe. By 2014, France boasted a military population almost 43.8% larger than Germany and 50.5% larger than the UK.
===Human-Vannai War===
Particularly total losses of key government figures during the Two Week War saw France fall into a state of near total anarchy. Authority was eventually established at the city-level, leading to hundreds of very uncooperative city states claiming to be the legitimate continuation government. Left to their own devices, the situation in France continued to degrade further. By the end of 2015, there were no less than thirteen separate "France"s, and the right to dominate the others as the one true France was earned through trial by combat in an annual gladiator blood sport spectacle that came to be referred to humorously by outsiders as the "Frogoff".
In 2016, Germany, with encouragement from Hanse Behörde, attempted an armed pacification of the self-immolating nation. The arrival of German armor in the Alsatian countryside was met with suspicion by the French; a suspicion which was vindicated when Panzergrenadier Lehr Battalion 92 under command of Oberst Englehardt began opening fire on civilians. The armed pacification quickly developed into an open war between the German Bundeswehr and various French sub-nations that rallied against them. The French Civil War ended, and the Intervention War began, a conflict between the people of France and the pacification forces of the German Bundeswehr. Hanse supported Germany using the abilities of their suits and specialized training to assassinate key leaders of the French opposition, reducing the overwhelming military advantage of France by destroying their chains of command at all but the lowest levels and ensuring a coordinated response from the French military was almost impossible.
===Post-War===
The Intervention War would go on from 2016 and outlast the Human-Vannai War, ending in late 2017 with the defeat and occupation of France. An interim government was installed by the Germans that remained in place throughout 2018 responsible for keeping the country bound together under German occupation. In January 2019, democratic elections were held to determine what form the new government would take. Unfortunately, these elections would be used to help springboard the creation of the European Federation instead, as Anglo-German meddling ensured the election was little more than a sham to install a controlled figurehead that would vote in favor of France becoming a founding member of the Federation less than a month later. 
The French public, already suffering the ignominy of defeat and military occupation and now losing their independence to a supranational state due to dishonest representation, saw right through the Anglo-German perfidy. France to date has been a neverending headache for the Federal Ministry of Justice due to the high number of well-equipped, organized and extremely determined resistance groups operating within the country. The Ministry applies the labels "communist" and "anarchist" to these groups, but rarely do these terms truly apply, and the motivation of groups such as Liberté the Sixth Republic is primarily for the reestablishment of France as a free nation able to determine its own future, and the "reclamation of French dignity". The Sixth Republic is known to operate to some extent out of the Paris Catacombs. Despite the Ministry of Justice's efforts to deny use of the tunnels by sealing up known entrances with concrete, flooding the tunnels with fire and toxic gas, and other extreme methods, the Sixth Republic remains a huge thorn in the side of the regional Federal government there.
==Government==
After the collapse of the French unitary government due to the Two Week War, France fell into a collection of warring city states, the dominance of which was eventually decided by blood sports. After the Intervention War, the Anglo-German Alliance set up an interim government modeled after the political structure of the British Parliamentary Republic. This interim government would become the standard that all provinces of the European Federation would be forcibly reorganized into. Like other provinces of the EuF, this government has effectively no power and its scope of influence is limited in local policies of very little consequence. France as a member of the EuF is still referred to as the “French Fifth Republic”, despite the pre-war French government being destroyed, replaced, and fundamentally changed to what it is today.
==Policies==
===Military===
Possessing the largest military in Europe at the time, France’s state of anarchy immediately following the invasion has often been called into question by those who have wondered how and why martial law wasn’t imposed. Unfortunately, no French military leaders from that time remain alive to explain the reason. Hanse’s contributions to the Intervention War resulted in French military units being split up, surrounded, and annihilated or forced to surrender by the numerically smaller but better coordinated German forces. Many of the resistance movements that have persisted after the creation of the European Federation are former French military units that went underground and continue to fight the war against the Germans as they did before, while French prisons are filled near to capacity with French soldiers that refused to fight under the EuF, some of which eventually find their way into the Strafregiment.
After the Intervention War, France’s military assets were transferred to the European Federal Army.
===Economic===
Before the war, France boasted the second largest economy in the European Union after Germany, though by 2012 it had entered a period of stagnation that lasted up through the invasion. The nation’s premier industries were telecommunications, aerospace and defense, ship building, construction and civil engineering, chemicals, textiles, and automobile production. An overwhelming majority of France’s national electrical power was generated via nuclear plants.
Accounting for about ⅓ of all agricultural land within the European Union, France plays a key role in supporting the rest of Europe. Before the war just under half of its agricultural exports went to other European Union member states. As a result, like with the Iberian Protectorate, agricultural centers are a favorite target of resistance groups looking to harm the Federation directly, even at the cost of their own people. 
===Diplomacy===
As a subject of the European Federation, matters of international policy are handled at the Federal level. 
Internally, few French support the country’s integration into the European Federation, but this tends to be a private opinion. Federal policing is some of the most intense in the entire Federation, with the Ministry of Justice having set up a major headquarters in Paris to aid in keeping order. 
Observers from the American Coalition have given the opinion that France is often treated as the “beaten dog” of the Federation, and that France is actively marginalized within the Federation due to Anglo-Franco-German rivalry.
Category:PACYOA: TE
Category:TE Nations
Category:Europe
Category:European Federation
Category:France