What is the history of France?

1. What is the History of France?

2. France, officially the French Republic, is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe, with a number of overseas regions and territories. France is the largest country in Western Europe and the third largest in Europe as a whole, extending from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. Save for Morocco and Spain, it is the only country that has both an Atlantic and Mediterranean coastline. As one of the oldest countries in the world, France has a long and eventful history. Today it stands as one of the world’s major powers, with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world.

3. History of France:  Early History and People Stone tools recovered in the area now known as France suggest that early humans may have inhabited the region at least 1.5 million years ago.  Neanderthals, who inhabited France during the Middle Paleolithic period (90,000-40,000 B.C.), are the first known people to have lived in the region.  These Homo sapiens hunted animals, made crude tools from flake-stone and lived in caves.  In the late 19th century, Neanderthal skeletons were found in caves located at Le Bugue, a French region in the Vezere Valley in Dordogne.

4. Gaul and the Roman Conquest The Gauls, a predominantly Celtic people, moved into the region now known as France between 1500 and 500 B.C., establishing trading links by approximately 600 B.C. with the Greeks, whose colonies included Massilia (Marseille) on the Mediterranean coast.  From a geographic perspective, Gaul, as a region, comprised all lands from the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean coast of modern France to the English Channel and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rhine River and the western Alps.  In short, the Gaul was not a “natural” unit but a Roman construct, the result of a decision to defend Italy from across the Alps.

5. A Look at the Dynasties Around 450 AD, various groups of Franks moved southwards.  The Ripuarian Franks, as they would come to be known, settled near present-day Cologne, in the middle of the Rhine area, and along the lower forks of the Moselle and Meuse rivers.  There were also what would become the Salian Franks, who settled along the Atlantic coast region.  The Salian Franks, along the Atlantic coastline, were divided into many small kingdoms. One of the better-known groups established itself in and around the city of Tournai; its kinglet was Childeric (died c. 481/482), who traditionally is regarded as a close relative in the male line of Merovech, eponymous ancestor of the Merovingian dynasty.

6. Merovingian Dynasty Childeric was succeeded by his son, Clovis (481/482-511), as King of the Merovingian dynasty.  Among other accomplishments, Clovis was responsible for unifying Gaul, with the exception of a few regions in the southeast.  He consolidated the position of the Franks in northern Gaul during the years following his accession.  In 486 he defeated Syagrius, the last Roman ruler in Gaul, and in a series of later campaigns, with strong Gallo-Roman support, he occupied an area situated between the new Frankish kingdoms of Tournai, the Visigothic and Burgundian kingdoms, and the lands occupied by the Ripuarian Franks and the Alemanni, removing it from imperial control once more.

7. The Carolingian Dynasty As power was handed down for generations to the next son in the Merovingian bloodline, the dynasty continued to rule the country until 751, although in the 720s they became mainly puppet authorities, as effective power was increasingly concentrated in the hands of the Pippinids (later the Carolingian Dynasty), who thanks to their valuable landholdings and loyal retainers, maintained a monopoly on the office of mayor of the palace.Because of their family’s disposition for the name Charles and because of the significance of Charlemagne in the family’s history, modern historians have traditionally called the Pippinids the Carolingian Dynasty.

9. The Hundred Years War

10. Renaissance Renaissance

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