France

A Political and Economic Dictionary of Western Europe, First Edition

France is a large state in the centre of Western Europe and includes four overseas territories known as départements d’outre-mer (DOM): Guyane (French Guiana) in South America; Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean Sea; and Reunion in the Indian Ocean. It was first constituted as a republic in 1792. During the Second World War most of France was occupied by Nazi German military forces.

A southern sector was governed by the Vichy regime in 1940–44. After liberation the Fourth Republic was founded in 1946. This was an unstable political system characterized by a large number of polarized political parties and a high turnover of governments, beset, from 1954, by the growing cost of war in Algeria. In 1958, at the height of the Algerian crisis, Gen. Charles de Gaulle agreed to serve as Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic (and, later, as President of the.........

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